The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tunji Adegboyega

  • Voice of the voiceless

    Voice of the voiceless

    • FCCPC’s intervention in meter replacement is good for power consumers

    Nigeria’s power consumers must have been asking if they heard right when Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) on October 11, asked its customers using the Unistar brand of prepaid meters to replace them latest by November 14, if they wanted to continue to vend and enjoy electricity supply. About two days later, Ikeja Electric (IE) issued a similar ultimatum to its own customers too. The customers were to visit the respective websites of the DisCos for replacement of the meters, a way of telling the customers that they were to bear the cost of replacement.

    This decision by the DisCos would

    perhaps qualify as the latest example of the blue murder that some entities, public or private, commit in Nigeria. Why should power consumers pay for the replacement of meters that allegedly are not upgradeable?

    To start with, meters should be the property of the DisCos. They should ordinarily be in the package that the DisCos should provide for their customers as part of their contract with them from the onset. It is because of the peculiar mess that some of our leaders put us that made electricity consumers to be buying meters for DisCos.

     The DisCos would not be behaving like over-pampered children as they are today if they had been compelled to do the right thing from the onset.

    Unfortunately, successive governments kept treating them like eggs that must not break, preferring instead to make their customers the beasts of burden.

    It was clear, ab initio, that the DisCos never wanted to meter any consumer, preferring instead, to be giving them estimated bills which give them the latitude of arbitrary allocation of figures as electricity bills. And they did everything to frustrate metering.

    When it seemed they could not have their way on the matter, they reluctantly started issuing meters to consumers. Even then, some of their officials would hoard the meters and only give to consumers that were ready to play ball.

     When the government saw that the metering process was slow, it decided to intervene with a million meters that were, again, unfortunately given to consumers simultaneously with those being sold by the DisCos. That was a terribly big mistake on the part of the government, especially in a country where corruption is rampant and where, especially, the institutions involved belong to a sector that had severally been rated as one of the most corrupt. I have a feeling most of the meters would have been sold one way or the other, both those belonging to the government that should be free, and the DisCos’ that were for sale to people who were eager to quit the estimated billing conundrum. Sadly, the present government seems to be following in that tradition.

    Just as the government acquiesced on metering by assisting supposedly private companies in more ways than one, so it seems to have done with regard to tariffs.

    I don’t know if there is anybody that can tell for sure if the tariff we are paying through our nose today is right or inflated. In Nigeria, as I have always said, government property is like a mad man’s leg that anybody desirous of a piece of the action can just go and get his or hers from.

    Read Also: Five years of giving voices to voiceless women

    Many Nigerians did not  bother about how much they were being charged per kilowatt of electricity because, until early this year, it was the government that was subsidising electricity. Nigerians are now bothered because government has stopped the subsidy and that skyrocketed electricity tariffs by more than 200 per cent. Thus, N20,000 which hitherto entitled the consumer to about 297.7 units of electricity would now fetch a paltry 88.8 units, that is for those in ‘Band A’. To bring the picture vividly home, a power consumer that consumed an average of 240 units of electricity per month would pay less than N20,000, compared to about N54,000 for the same quantum of energy that he would cough up, post-subsidy withdrawal in the same ‘Band A’.

    The point I am making is that the same amount that was paid when government was subsidising (which I am not sure much work was done to ascertain its fairness, since it was government that would pick the bill) is what was transferred to consumers. Nigerians are about the easiest to cheat in most contests, whether between them and government, or between them and government agencies or even private concerns. When the government weighs the options, it eventually boils down to the people carrying the can.

    We necessarily need to travel down this memory lane to understand how we got to this sorry pass of DisCos threatening consumers that their meters would stop functioning on November 14, if they did not get them replaced at the consumers’ expense. These were meters that the DisCos themselves approved for their operations. So, if they have outlived their lifespan, how is the customer to blame for that? Where else is that possible, except Nigeria, where the maxim, ”the customer is king” has lost its essence. Here, the DisCos are kings.  When they sneeze, Nigerians catch cold, instead of the other way round.

    The truth of the matter is that the DisCos don’t want to make any investment if they had regulators to connive with. Customers have had to replace several transformers for them, they have had to buy electricity poles for the DisCos, of course that of prepaid meters has now become the norm for the reason I mentioned earlier, among several unjust expenses imposed on the hapless power consumers. Where they don’t play ball, they are left in darkness.

     If you go to the websites of the DisCos, they tell you specific period you would get prepaid meters after making payment. This is observed in the breach. So are several other obligations clearly specifying deadlines for them. But they don’t tolerate such laxity from their customers who must pay, even for services not rendered.

    We are now talking about replacement of Unistar meters apparently because of the huge number of consumers involved. There are several people whose prepaid meters have had to be replaced for one reason or the other. The DisCo officials simply come to inspect and give verdict: meter to be replaced at customer’s expense. Just like that! No proof beyond showing you the burnt part of the meter. Whereas the meter could have got burnt due to no fault of the customer. The problem could have been power surge or whatever. The meter is then promptly retrieved while the customer is returned to the ‘Egypt’ that estimated billing connotes.

    It is against this backdrop that I welcome the intervention of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) in the meter

    replacement process. The ordinary Nigerian needs protection from Shylocks all over the place, waiting, like hungry lions, for people to devoir. I know price control is out of it but we must guard against price gouging. A lot of the latter exists. Even in a place like the Redemption Camp where one would think people there should be heavenly conscious, I was told the pathetic story of a woman selling soft drinks and water that got harassed into submission for selling at a cheaper price than her colleagues in the place. It is that bad.

    A statement by FCCPC’s director, special duties and strategic communication, Ondaje Ijagwu, said “In line with its mandate to protect consumers and promote fairness in the Nigerian marketplace, the FCCPC is actively engaging key stakeholders, including the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA), and the eleven (11) DisCos. The goal is to make the metering process transparent and accountable while protecting consumer interests.”

    The point was made abundantly clear by the commission that the DisCos are to bear the cost of replacement of the Unistar meters that the DisCos want to phase out. This is the kind of thing Nigerians want to see and hear.

    Even before the FCCPC’s intervention, the sector’s regulator, NERC, had echoed a similar opinion. Without doubt, NERC too is trying but I guess it is overwhelmed. In terms of rules and regulations, they are mostly there. Just that, as I said earlier, they are largely observed in the breach by the DisCos.

    We also have the NERC Forum set up by the commission to entertain appeals from decisions of Customer Complaints Unit (CCU) of the DisCos. But NERC Forum can only work in a sane country where institutions have the purest of intentions to do the rightful, not in our kind of clime where many institutions are desperate to milk consumers dry by getting paid even for services they never rendered. I once benefitted from NERC’s ruling against my DisCo a few years ago but it took about three months for justice to come.

    NERC definitely needs a helping hand in this kind of situation and it is good that FCCPC is taking up the challenge. FCCPC can’t regulate the sector but its mandate is essentially safeguarding consumers’ interests.

    The DisCos must be coming from Jupiter or Mars to ask Nigerians who are yet to recover from the high electricity bills imposed on them, to cough up about N150,000 for single phase meters in a time like this. They did not even deem it fit to inform their regulator before taking such a decision with overarching ramifications.

    Meanwhile, the manufacturers of Unistar prepaid meters have said their meters are upgradeable. According to Niyi Adewoye, Head of Communications at Unistar Hi-Tech Systems Ltd: “Our meters are upgradeable.” Apparently, something is fishy somewhere. But that, for now, is not our headache. Our concern for now is to ensure that DisCos do not ride roughshod over voiceless Nigerians.

    The FCCPC’s intervention should somehow douse anxiety of consumers that this time, the government appears serious about not making the Nigerian electricity consumers the beast of

    burden that must, willy-nilly, carry whatever load the DisCos want to put on their heads.

    Here, we can count on the renewed activism of the FCCPC, especially since the assumption of office of Tunji Bello as its Executive Vice Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer, in July. It has been organising town hall meetings with the view to making Nigerians realise the essence of the commission and the need to bring sanity to bear in pricing so that cartels and hoarders do not continue to take undue advantage of hapless Nigerians.

    That is the least the government owes Nigerians in the country where  consumerism awareness is low or non-existent.

  • From Oyingbo to Agbado

    From Oyingbo to Agbado

    • Sanwo-Olu’s commissioning of Red Line Rail is another promise fulfilled

    October 15 was yet another historic day for Lagosians, with the inauguration of the Lagos Red Line Rail by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The Red Line would move passengers from Platform 2 in Oyingbo Station to Agbado, a suburb at Lagos boundary line. It has stations in Yaba, Mushin, Oshodi, Ikeja, Agege and Iju. Governor Sanwo-Olu signalled the beginning of commercial operations of the service at exactly 5.20 p.m. The governor, who personally made the boarding announcement and announced the approach to each station was accompanied by two members of the state executive council —Oluwaseun Osiyemi and Gbenga Omotoso — commissioners for transportation, and information and strategy, respectively; lawmakers, including chairman of transportation committee of the state house of assembly, Temitope Adewale; corporate executives, journalists and some Nollywood stars, led by Jide Kosoko. Yomi Fash Lanso, Segun Remi (Kanran), Olu Omolade, and Femi Davies also witnessed the inauguration alongside many members of the public who were equally excited by the inauguration of the facility.

    Sanwo-Olu said at the occasion: “The train is slow and steady and we are happy that all sectors of the society are here with us, including the Guild of Actors.

    “With the commencement of this train service, tomorrow (today) we shall flag off this service in full. LAMATA has released their schedule of the train service.”

    Coming seven months after the rail infrastructure was completed and commissioned, and 13 months after the commissioning of the Blue Line Rail running between Mile 2 and Marina, the Red Line was another promise kept by the state government. 

    It is instructive that the same Muhammadu Buhari, who, as military head of state stalled the metro line project that was initiated by the Lateef Jakande administration in the 1980s was the same person that commissioned the Blue Rail Line and other projects in the state last year, as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. May be that was why he did not make any speech at the commissioning of the project. But it is to Buhari’s credit that he granted the state permission to go ahead with the project even at a time when rail transportation was still in the Exclusive Legislative List, meaning only the Federal Government could embark on rail projects in the country. It was a good opportunity for him to redeem his image which was badly affected by the cancellation of the metro line, with heavy cost to the country. And he did, at least in that regard.

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    Advantages of the Red Line, just like the Blue Line are virtually the same. Four minutes after take-off at Oyingbo, the train arrived Yaba Station. It thereafter stopped at Mushin before proceeding to Ikeja, where the governor and his entourage disembarked approximately 34 minutes after leaving Oyingbo. This was a feat, so to speak. There is no way anyone could have commuted from Oyingbo to Yaba in four minutes by road. The governor put it more succinctly: From Oyingbo to Agbado normally, you will spend about two hours and thirty minutes by road but ”on our train, you will spend just about one hour.” So, this is a major advantage of the rail system.

    Sanwo-Olu described his experience at Ikeja where he disembarked with his aides as “smooth and outstanding”, noting this significant reduction in travel time. “This is an experience that we believe will not only help in solving issues around public transportation in Lagos, but will also improve connectivity and reduce the journey time for commuters in traversing the city. From here in Ikeja, the train proceeds to Agege before finally halting in Agbado.

    “The general public can now feel what we have done in mass transportation. We have fulfilled our promises, especially on the Red Line, just as we did on the Blue Line. From this evening, there will be regular scheduled train services from Agbado to Oyingbo and back.”

    Another advantage is in the area of transport fare. A trip from Oyingbo to Agbado costs N1,200 while from Oyingbo to Ikeja or Agege is N500. This is something to cheer because it is costlier than that by road now, especially with recent increases in the price of fuel.

    Then the convenience, the safety and even security are things we cannot quantify in monetary terms. The stress of having to run after a moving bus is also eliminated. Also, there are no policemen or other road safety agencies asking the driver for particulars, thereby wasting valuable time in the process.

    Another major advantage is the capacity of mass movement of passengers. With a population of over 22 million, Lagos sure cannot be served by road transportation only. How many passengers can even the BRT buses carry at a time, not to talk of ‘Danfo’, ‘Korope’ or ‘Keke Marwa’? There is need for intermodal modes of transportation; a thing the state government realised as far back as the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu era as governor (1999-2007) and went to the drawing board to fashion out a blueprint on how to go about meeting the transportation needs of ever-increasing Lagosians.

    Prior to the Red Line inauguration, Sanwo-Olu, in successive months, commissioned five separate T-shaped bridges built by the state government along the rail corridor to limit vehicular interference on the tracks.

    Specifically, he commissioned the Mushin Flyover, the last of the five overpasses built along the Red Line Rail corridor on October 12, barely three days to the inauguration of the Red Line. The project was undertaken by Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA).

     The governor had earlier opened four other bridges in Yaba, Oyingbo, Ikeja and Agege, to create new connectivities along the Lagos Rail Mass Transit Red Line, which spans 37 kilometres from Agbado to Oyingbo.

    One government agency that has played significant roles in this transformation in the public transportation sector in the state is LAMATA. The agency is an example of government agency that works. As I said in my piece on Ish’aq Oloyede, the registrar/chief executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in a tribute on his 70th birthday, government, last week, Oloyede’s management has proved that government agency can work where round peg is put in round hole. It is instructive that LAMATA has been playing a great role in this transportation revolution that has been transforming Lagos, especially with projects like the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) that it started years ago.

    As I always say when talking about developmental strides in Lagos, it is better for other states to emulate some of these developmental projects so that we have an even spread rather than having their people congest Lagos in search of opportunities. I know there are some cities in several parts of the world that play the kind of role Lagos is playing in the country; but it is still better not to abandon everything to Lagos as if it is its responsibility to cater to the needs of all Nigerians.

    Some people talk of money that Lagos is, in their view, literally awash with. Apart from this being fallacy considering the load the state is carrying; many other states can do far better than they are doing with committed and responsible leaders. So much money is being wasted on frivolities in many states. Unfortunately, instead of their people holding their governors accountable, they simply pack their bag and baggage and come down to Lagos where they begin to demand rights and privileges they failed to demand from their state governments. It would have been a different ballgame if many of these people remember to support Lagos’ clamour for more revenue from the federal pool to take care of the overstretched infrastructure. Many of them ask for the basis, forgetting that there is hardly a family that does not have a representative in Lagos from all over the country.  

     I must however say that the state government has to do a lot more about older infrastructure or facilities. This is important because the facilities like the rail lines that we are celebrating today would become somewhat old in the future and the initiators would not be happy if such facilities are abandoned or neglected for whatever reason.

    Here, I am talking about the many street lights that are dead in Lagos metropolis. For example, the ones on Fatai Atere Way where this newspaper is situated worked last in the early part of the Akinwunmi Ambode years. That was five years before. I can count many others in that category that are in the central parts of the metropolis. Many of the megacities that we adore today are so loved because of their beautiful scenery at night. And lighting contributes a lot to this beauty. And if we are not going to put street lights for purposes of aesthetics, they should be functional at least for security purposes. I know this would cost the government a lot of money but there must be a way out so that the street lights would not just be there for decoration as they are in many places in the city today. When we keep on constructing monumental infrastructure like these rail lines and their accompanying facilities without proper lighting, it is like someone who lit a candle and put it under the table.  

    The same applies to some of the major roads in the metropolis. Mercifully, local governments have now got their financial autonomy; and some of these roads fall under their jurisdiction. It is hoped that we would see improvements in this aspect because the local governments are closer to the roads and the people and they know where attention is sorely needed.

    All said, I once again congratulate Governor Sanwo-Olu for successfully seeing through the second intra-city rail project in the state. This is certainly the Lord’s doing; and it is marvelous in our eyes. Since the reward for hard work is more work, I, on behalf of the over 22 million Lagosians urge the government not to rest on its oars yet. We look forward to the Purple, Orange and Yellow lines, hoping these transformation would come according to schedule.

  • Toast to Oloyede At 70

    Toast to Oloyede At 70

    Love or hate Prof. Ish’aq Olanrewaju Oloyede, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, and incumbent Registrar/Chief Executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), there is something you cannot deny him of: credit for his sterling performance in his present calling.  But, unknown to many, Oloyede had been doing well long before his present assignment. And we cannot get a good grasp of the present achievements of this man that many have come to regard as a rare Nigerian public servant if we do not travel down the memory lane to see where he was coming from and how indeed he fared there.

    It would be uncharitable to dismiss his achievements at the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, where he was vice-chancellor from 2007 to 2012) as one of average performance. Most of what have come to popularise his activities at JAMB were started from the University of Ilorin. He initiated and indeed pioneered the Computer-Based Test (CBT), for example, for post-JAMB screening of candidates for admission into the university, as well as for internal large class examinations there. Then, he was heavily criticised for introducing something that many people thought were just not possible or sustainable. Today, not only is CBT adopted for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), many tertiary institutions as well as public and private establishments have embraced the idea in the conduct of examinations and for employment purposes.

    We can only imagine what life would have been like if UTME candidates were still to be writing the examinations the old way.

    Oloyede also began weekly publication of the report of the university’s financial transactions in the university’s bulletin. This is a rarity in our kind of country where even websites of some major public institutions are left without being updated for years.  Oloyede has maintained this tradition at JAMB. The board’s weekly record of income and expenditure are in the domain for anyone who might be interested in having a look at them. This is accountability and transparency at work.

    In a sense, his experience at the University of Ilorin somewhat prepared him for the role he was later to play at JAMB. For instance, on CBT, it was only a question of expanding the scope nationwide instead of its being localised to the university campus in Ilorin.

    Read Also: Oloyede as living expression of positive force 

    Oloyede, as vice-chancellor turned the fortunes of the university around from an unranked institution to one of repute in Africa and the university of first choice in the country. Kunle Akogun, the director, corporate affairs of the university has this to say in this regard: “Professor Oloyede was the first alumnus of the University of Ilorin to become its vice -chancellor…Among the crucial areas in which he made his marks, which, in turn made the University of Ilorin to become the talk-of-the-town and the toast of admission seekers, were his uncompromising attention to time management, keen focus on technological development, relentless attention to staff training and retraining, commitment to clean and green environment, massive infrastructural development, unprecedented commitment to staff and students’ welfare, strict enforcement of discipline, as well as unwavering attention to innovation”, Akogun said.

    He added that Oloyede ” also instilled academic integrity, financial prudence and general fiduciary transparency in running the affairs of the university. Professor Oloyede also placed the University of Ilorin on the technological super highway with his deliberate policy of putting Information and Communication Technology on the front burner.”

    So, for Oloyede, charity truly begins at home. Most of what he is doing at JAMB today he already started at his alma mater. JAMB only provided the larger platform to announce his capabilities, thus elevating him to global relevance from the local champion that he might have remained perpetually if he had not got the opportunity to serve as chief executive of the board.

    The Professor of Islamic Studies came into JAMB in August 2016, at a time when everybody knew that all was not well with the board. Its primary assignment of organising the annual UTME was characterised by chaos. Virtually everyone knew that the examination was holding whenever it was slated to hold because of the commotion that attended it. Candidates would be running helter-skelter in search of their centres. When they eventually found them, they had many other hurdles to cross, due mainly to the preponderance of human interface in the examinations.

    But Oloyede came and changed the narrative. Unlike some others who would request for eternity to make impact, Oloyede’s transformation began with the very first UTME he conducted. It was a marked improvement compared with previous experiences. By the time he conducted the second exercise, most of what seemed to be intractable problems had become history and stakeholders began to heave a sigh of relief that, at last, Nigeria has found someone who truly understands the system and is ready to turn things around. Every other UTME has been a marked improvement compared with the other because of the unrelenting efforts of Oloyede, leveraging largely on technology.

    He introduced the Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) that automates the admission process; E-Ticketing for complaints, Integrated Brochure and Syllabus System (IBASS) for prompt delivery of admission requirements as well as the use of biometric authentication to confirm validity of registration. His other innovations include expansion of the capacities of CBT centres for standardisation purposes as well as ensuring that they all have CCTV for monitoring of the examination online, real time.  He also introduced E-slip printing; the introduction of management dashboard to monitor registration and admission exercise real time, and instituted the Equal Opportunity Group for the conduct of UTME to make life easier for blind candidates, etc.

    Another major area where Oloyede has stunned many is in the management of resources. Despite reducing examination fees, he has succeeded in turning in billions annually to the Federal Government’s coffers since he took over. This is unprecedented in the history of JAMB. As a matter of fact, when he remitted the first billions barely a year after assuming office, the then Minister of Finance wondered whether there was no mix-up somewhere. He has continued along that line. As at last year, the board, under Oloyede, had remitted about N55 billion.

    Perhaps it is for this reason of being easy for some of us to forget where we are coming from that many Nigerians were piqued that the House of Representatives’ Public Accounts Committee had to order JAMB to remit N3.6 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF), following a complaint by the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) that the board had failed to respond to letters demanding the remittance of operating surplus. There had been argument back and forth about what percentage the board should pay to the (FRC), but the committee, in the end, found JAMB culpable and ordered it to pay N3,602,605,277 as demanded by the commission. The committee may be doing its job, but what actually piqued many of us is whether the House could have ordered the board to refund a dime in the years of the locusts that the board was in 38 years of its existence before Oloyede took over. I am here talking about the time when JAMB laid no eggs and hatched none.

    Where were both the FRC and the House committee? But that is life for you. To whom nothing is given, much is expected!

    Oloyede also in 2018 instituted an annual award tagged the National Tertiary Admissions Performance Merit Award (NATAP-M) Award for deserving institutions to encourage compliance with the admission guidelines and healthy competition. Huge prizes had been won by some of the institutions, with the emphasis however on the first position which carries the chunk of the prize. This, according to Oloyede, is to ensure that the award has an impact on any institution that comes first.

    He has also improved on welfare packages for members of the staff of JAMB because he realised that without boosting their morale, he cannot go far. 

    In all, Oloyede has been able to transform JAMB beyond expectations, beginning, as I said earlier, with his core mandate of organising the UTME. Just like Nigerians no longer need ‘bench for siddon’ in our banking halls; UTME candidates no longer need scratch cards. They no longer need pencil as the exam is now computer-based.  Today, we hear of concepts like the CBT, IBASS, E-Ticketing, biometrics, etc.

    Even his critics would by now have admitted that Oloyede’s appointment as registrar/chief executive of JAMB was ”divine appointment” as he himself said back then in August 2016. Only the mischievous would see an elephant and say it seems he just saw something. When we see an elephant, we should say so. (Ajanaku koja mo ri nkan firi; ti a ba ri erin, ka so). Oloyede is an elephant of sort in his chosen career.  Considering the good job he has been doing in JAMB, it is evident, as this newspaper noted in its editorial on him on Friday, that President Muhammadu Buhari who appointed him in that capacity obviously took his eyes to the market when shopping for someone to head the board.

    Oloyede was born on October 10, 1954 in Abeokuta, Ogun State. He graduated in 1981 with a First Class Honours from the University of Ilorin where he also bagged his Master’s and Ph.D degrees in 1985 and 1991, respectively. He became a Professor of Islamic Jurisprudence in 1995.

    As a matter of fact, I have always wondered how an expert in Islamic Studies could be as conversant with technology as Oloyede has been. I doubt if today he would not floor some people who did computer in the university because virtually everything he does has a tinge of the computer technology.

    In all, what Oloyede’s appointment tells us is that there are many qualified and competent Nigerians out there. All that is required is for the country’s leaders to take their eyes along when shopping for heads for public institutions. It amazes me when top government functionaries parrot, albeit with glee, the jaded expression that government cannot run business profitably. That being the case, why do we waste so much money to keep people who we already know cannot deliver simply because they are doing it for government? Why not outsource most government functions?

    Even as the nation ponders this question, I join millions of Nigerians in wishing this distinguished Nigerian a happy 70th birthday and pray that God would continue to guard and guide him in the service of the fatherland.

  • Food silos

    Food silos

    We cannot make any headway in agric without expanding our storage capacities

    Hardly is there any of Nigeria’s public official, whether at the federal, state or local government level that did Economics up till the secondary school that would not have come across the problems militating against agricultural development in the country. For this, we owe a lot to people like the late Owa Obokun of Ijeshaland, Oba Gabriel Adekunle Aromolaran and O. A. Lawal, two of the then most prominent Economics authors in those days. What is sad about the Nigerian story is that agriculture, just like any other thing in the country, remains at the crude or subsistence level that it was more than four decades after the Aromolarans and the Lawals gave us the basic insight into how to tackle these challenges.

    Government after government has continued to parrot the need to take agriculture to the next level. Yet, it’s all noise and little action. All motion; no movement. That is why this is still how far we have come on this critical area of human existence. We cannot feed ourselves. Even the uneducated should know that a nation that cannot feed itself is doomed.

    Now, it has taken another expert from an international agency, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), to remind us about a well-known problem that is making it impossible for us to feed ourselves affordably.  Ibrahim Ishaka, a Food System/Nutrition Specialist at FAO told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Yola, Adamawa State, that Nigeria loses about 50 per cent of its agricultural products along the food supply chain. Ishaka, who spoke on the lines of a training programme organised by FAO said that food wastage poses a significant challenge to Nigeria’s agricultural sector, with serious impact on food security, economic growth and environmental sustainability. The training was part of the “Emergency Agriculture-Based Livelihoods Sustenance for Improved Food Security” programme, targeting Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

    Of course, Ishaka also listed other factors militating against agricultural development in the country. “Some of these challenges include technological barriers, inefficient harvesting techniques, pest infestations, and lack of access to modern farming tools, all of which contribute to losses during harvest, largely influenced by consumer behaviour,” he said.

    According to Ishaka, other factors contributing to post-harvest losses are inadequate storage facilities, poor handling practices and poor transportation infrastructure. “These factors result in significant losses, especially for perishable goods such as fruits and vegetables.” He also listed inefficient food processing methods, improper packaging, inadequate storage, and unhealthy consumption habits as further exacerbating food waste.

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    Much as we should be grateful to Ishaka for reminding us, once again, of the need to pay more serious attention to agriculture, particularly storage, he told us nothing new. That is why I for one would hardly support any initiative today that would involve workshop or symposium on most issues in Nigeria. In terms of talk shops, I doubt if there is any country that does that as much as we do, on any issue under the sun. What do you expect in a country where talk is cheap? We have the best of papers presented on those occasions gathering dust in government establishments, that is, where the public officials who spent a fortune assembling the participants and getting the papers out have not traded them by barter with the nearest groundnut seller. We have since found out that most of these talk shops are organised not necessarily for any public good but to enable some ‘evil servants’ do what they know how to do best: pilfer our common patrimony. One of our ministers recently had cause to lambast some of the people in her ministry who organised one such talk shop without the minister’s permission. This tells us how desperate they can be when it comes to diverting public funds through such activities.

    So, rather than organise talk shops, governments across board should encourage their officials to fish out the papers presented on related issues in the past, with a view to seeing which of them can be implemented as is, and which can be implemented after a review. It is only in extreme cases where there is a dearth of knowledge materials on any issue that talk shops should be approved. I know our ‘evil servants’ (they are the corrupted elements of the civil servants, some of who still exist in many ministries and parastatals even today) would still find a way of circumventing this, but nothing stops us from trying, and with certain safety valves.

    Be that as it may, it is pertinent to say that before the advent of crude oil in the country, agriculture was the mainstay of our economy, with each of the then regions specialising in areas where it had comparative advantage. Thus, we had the groundnut pyramids and cotton plantations in the north, palm oil cultivation in the east, cocoa and rubber plantations in the west and the southern part of Nigeria. Generally, each region was pulling its weight and cutting its coat according to its size. It was from agricultural proceeds that the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo did some of the wonders that he did in the then Western Region, many of them first of their kind, either in Nigeria or even in Africa.

    Wikipedia has this to say on Awo’s achievements: ”Controversially, and at considerable expense, he introduced free primary education for all and free health care for children in the Western Region, established the first television service in Africa in 1959, and the Oduduwa Group”. We are here also talking about Cocoa House, completed in July 1964 and commissioned in July 1965. At a height of 105 metres, it was the first skyscraper in West Africa and was, from 1965 to 1979, the tallest building in Nigeria ”all of which were financed from the highly lucrative cocoa industry which was the mainstay of the regional economy” (emphasis mine).

    Many of our older citizens would readily recall with nostalgia how Malaysia came to take away our palm oil seed to cultivate and now that country is doing far better than us in palm oil production globally.

    There are no two ways to it: we must return to the farm. This is a reality that many of us, including governments, seem to have realised. That is why we are talking about farming and agriculture from all the corners of the country. Interestingly, the northern part of the country had been doing well in this regard until the coming of Boko Haram and other terrorists who have made the farms in the region in particular, and the entire north east and North West in particular, danger zones. With farmers now living in the fears of terrorist attacks, many have abandoned their farms; many had been killed, many others abducted. The lucky ones among the farmers pay tax to the terrorists and bandits before they are allowed to farm. Erosion has, of late, come to add to the woes of farmers in the north. So, we have by far one of the most food security complications in recent times.

    But, as I said earlier, it is heartwarming that many organisations and individuals seem to have risen to the challenge of raising awareness on the need to go back to the farm, with many actually taking the leap of faith. Here, it is significant to mention the cooperation of the governors in the south west who have decided to return the region to the glory of old in agriculture. Before their June meeting in Lagos, some of us in the region had been warning that the Yoruba race risks food slavery unless something was done urgently in the region to revive agriculture. At the last count, I am impressed by the news report on their activities in this regard. There are also initiatives like the Young Farmers Club, an initiative of the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, which is designed to catch them young, among several others across the country. 

    It must be acknowledged that in terms of farming, some efforts had been made and continue to be made toward food self-sufficiency. We have had programmes like Green Revolution by the Shagari regime, Operation Feed the Nation in the military era. We may say these were not far-reaching enough. Even then, they served as constant reminders of the pride of place that agriculture should represent in our minds and lives.

    But one core area that has often been downplayed in the agricultural food supply chain is storage. This is where Ishaka’s observation comes handy. Even despite the activities of bandits in the north, we seem to still have problem with storage of agricultural products. Most of what our farmers produce rot away due to inadequate or lack of storage facilities. The result is that we cannot have reasonable supply of food products all-year round, irrespective of whether we are in the rainy or dry season. Thus, we have seasonal price fluctuations. This is not good enough. It is a disincentive to farmers, apart from the wastage involved.

    We seem to be making the same mistakes of the past; that is, focusing on production without having adequate consideration for where to store the excess for the rainy day. Anyone travelling into the country’s hinterland would see how much of farm produce decay by the roadside; yet, we are crying of hunger. This has to be corrected; otherwise, we would be having plenty at some time, and nothing or so little at other times.

    This is something that is clearly avoidable because we have the good soil to grow much of what constitute our staple food items. A country with an annual budget of N28 trillion cannot afford to be spending N2 trillion of this on food imports. Not when we have the wherewithal to do better.  As Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, observed, “It is a shame that a country of over 200 million people with so much arable land, reputed as the largest producers and cultivators of food items, spend so much money importing food.” It is inadequate storage that is making us release food items from the strategic reserves without having much impact on supply. At any rate, when last did we expand the capacity of our food silos? When last did we build new ones?

    We made the same mistake in the electricity sector where we keep expanding generation whereas transmission and distribution networks are too fragile to carry what is generated.

    It is important we heed Ishaka’s advice and follow through the pieces of advice by other experts if we are truly desirous of getting out of the food palaver. When we get the food equation right, we not only succeed in food security, we also curb unemployment and foster socio-economic stability. 

  • Ikeja Electric, ‘I wan port, but…’

    Ikeja Electric, ‘I wan port, but…’

    I saw it coming. I knew it was going to happen when, suddenly, we started experiencing a phenomenal and seemingly sustained power supply increase in my area a few weeks back. But I did not know that the improved power supply was a function of our forced migration from ‘Band B’ to ‘Band A’. This was apparently because I still had a lot of credit units in my meter. I told my people that Ikeja Electric was rehearsing how to take us to their second premium (I guess I am right) band. I was still empathising with those who were reporting their own experiences concerning the forced migration when mine came. That was on September 13. I paid N20,000 into my meter account, expecting to be credited with the usual 297 units. But I had only 88 units. That was when it dawned on me that I had been migrated from ‘Band B’ to the elite ‘Band A’. Unsolicited!

    If only I had known, I would have vended (the electricity distribution companies’ (DisCos) terminology for recharging) about N100,000 the last time, even if it meant obtaining a loan to pay for it. I know you would say but that too would finish someday. Yes. But it would have lasted beyond the period that the last payment did. By now, I still would have been enjoying the benefit of being on ‘Band B’.

    This piece ought to have come out on September 15 but I could not be talking about electricity ‘banding’ when that was the date Nigeria was to make history with the commencement of sale of petrol by Dangote Refinery. Also, for reasons beyond my control, I could not write last week. But my writing today has turned out to be a blessing in disguise somehow; with my personal experience of Tuesday, September 24.

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    That would seem to have provided what I can now call a litmus test for the migration to this second upper echelon of power consumers. Last Tuesday, power supply was interrupted in my area. By the time it returned, we did not have electricity in my apartment. I contacted Ikeja Electric. The next day, they came but their official who came told me that my meter was burnt and that must have happened due to overload. For me, only one of the two cables that take electricity to the meter was burnt at the top but the meter was still working; it was at least still reading; just that it was not supplying power. I said where would the overload have come from? None of the air conditioners in my apartment was installed; they are all still in their compartments. Second, as a rule, my wife would never allow anyone use both microwave oven and freezer at the same time; her own way of cutting cost. On my part, I do not even like using the microwave oven often because of fears of cancer that some people say comes with it. So, it was a thing we sparingly use. We iron clothes once in a while, yes. We don’t even use electric kettle as we have been used to using gas for that purpose ever since the days when electricity was scarce commodity in my area. That was quite some time now, though. So, where did the overload come from?

    Anyway, it was after the Ikeja Electric official had left that I got in touch with someone who should know who told me the cable to the meter could also get burnt due to partial contact arising from the failure of the person who installed it to tighten it properly, and that that was what could have happened because he is fairly used to my place. He has an idea of the electrical appliances that we use.

    The Ikeja Electric official said he would connect me directly and that they would have to take the meter away for a new one which I have to pay for. Grudgingly, I accepted direct connection but opposed the idea of making me pay for the replacement of the meter because, one, I was not even sure it was that serious, and two, even if it was, how do you prove overload in view of what I am cock sure I have on the meter that cannot in any way constitute overload, unless the meter is substandard or fake? He said it was neither. Anyway, I reluctantly agreed to direct connection because I know the tug of war that Ikeja Electric and I had in the days when they were still doing estimated billing in our area. I fought the company for one year and was without power supply for the period because I was convinced of the strength of my case. We went to NERC Forum and they were asked to connect me immediately when I told the forum that I had been yanked off the national grid for certain number of months then. We eventually settled the matter and my so-called debt then was substantially reduced, a thing that I settled not because I was convinced I owed but just to let sleeping dogs lie. That is why I don’t want any estimated billing again.

    Anyway, since I have not had power supply up till now since Tuesday, I guess I may not have it until, tomorrow earliest, if not Wednesday, since Tuesday is public holiday. That would make it at least six consecutive days of darkness. I do not think this is right. Premium tariff deserves premium service. That is one of the problems I have with policies in the country. There should be timelines for some of these things. The point is; I am paying for a certain number of hours of power supply daily, a thing that the company, in fairness to it, has kept faith with in the past few months. But now that there is an issue, I do not think the customer should be left in darkness for this long; forget the fact that my meter is, after all, not reading. I want it to be reading so I can get light.

    If electricity workers are regarded as people on essential services, I do not think they should have anything like public holidays or weekends. There should be internal arrangements as to how they organise themselves to give optimum service to their customers, especially now that they are making them pay higher tariffs.

    In the lighter mood, however, which was supposed to be the mode of this write-up before the occurrence of September 24, I have always known that one can only enjoy the White man to the extent of one’s pocket (bi owo ba se mo ni eniyan se maa gbadun Oyinbo mo)! Ikeja Electric should have been patient and let me mature before imposing ‘Band A’ on me. But for my faith, I would have rejected it outright and in fact led a protest of those of us whose fundamental human right to freely choose the power band that we like has been eroded.

    I would have loved to ‘port’ to another DisCo, but I can’t. Like telecommunications, it should be possible. But it is not, at least not yet. Even if it is, I know the difference would not be clear.

    Meanwhile sha, I have claimed ‘Band A’ in Jesus’s name; but I still look forward to tariff reduction! I have always believed our people waste electricity a lot because it is cheap. But this tariff regime is also particularly killing.

  • Petrol: The buck stops here!

    Petrol: The buck stops here!

    Long before Dangote Refinery came on stream, Nigerians were hopeful that once the refinery takes off, the era of petrol importation would be over and that we would enjoy cheaper fuel prices. Both appear to be becoming a mirage, going by the developments since the refinery started selling petrol on September 15. This should not be so. At least we should be sure of steady supply of petrol now if we cannot guarantee rock-bottom pump price for various reasons.

    Whenever I think of the rigmarole about pricing and availability of the product, I keep asking the question: how come things that give other people joy elsewhere end up giving us melancholy in Nigeria.

    I started entertaining fears the moment the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Ltd (NNPCL) got involved in the matter. This is an entity with four refineries and none has worked for years. Yet, it is not bothered that the country is paying workers in those refineries. One would be wondering if those managing the NNPCL would have been paying workers who are not working for years if they were to pay from their own purse.

    I doubt if people running our petroleum sector can ever know of any price or production template for locally produced fuel. They have been so used to importation; they know the various components of imported fuel pricing.

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    The truth of the matter is that there can never be an end to the kind of crisis that we are having as to why Dangote Refinery’s coming on stream is not having the desired impact on Nigerians unless we replace people with such mindset. It does not seem to me that they ever wanted local refinery of fuel to work, and, to that extent, they cannot be happy that we now have a private company that has come to provide an alternative to what they have been giving the impression was not possible.

    I have said it before; and it bears restating that if Dangote Refinery’s coming on stream would save the country about 35 to 40 per cent of forex, then, it is not a thing we should joke with, irrespective of whatever misgivings anybody may have about the man, Aliko Dangote.

    Although hope has now shifted to October 1 when NNPCL would begin sale of crude to Dangote and other local refineries in Naira, but, if care is not taken, we still would not get any reprieve. Nigeria is like the typical person in whose mouth bean cake has become bone because he has lost his teeth (akara denu akayin, o di egun).

    How can a country be host to one of the world’s largest refineries and its people would still be suffering for fuel as we are now? Something must be fundamentally wrong with us. 

    But the buck ends on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s desk. He was the one Nigerians voted for. If the impact of Dangote Refinery is still not being felt as it should, he is the one that Nigerians would keep asking why.

    The president should resolve the logjam in Nigeria’s interest.

  • At last, Dangote petrol

    At last, Dangote petrol

    • A new dawn that Nigeria must celebrate, whatever happens

    Until yesterday, I was not quite upbeat about Dangote Refinery’s (DR) resumption of supply of petrol for local consumption in the country today, as promised about two weeks ago. Ours is not like other countries where the leader’s word is like that of an oracle – final.

    There are all manner of conflicting signals and interests — from reports about the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) and DR not agreeing on the ‘modus operandi’ of the sale of petrol produced by the refinery, to the allegation by the refinery that only about three per cent of the marketers are ready to purchase their product despite the fact that it is cheaper. They never told us the price, though.

    But in Nigeria, any or all of these should cause apprehension.

    It was therefore prayer answered when this newspaper reported on its front page yesterday that: “Dangote Refinery begins distribution of PMS tomorrow (today) –Edun’. Coming from Olawale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, made the report somewhat credible.

    Edun, who spoke through the Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Dr Zacch Adedeji, at  a news conference in Abuja, said that all agreements had been “completed and loading of the first batch of PMS from the Dangote Refinery will commence on Sunday, Sept. 15.”

    He added: “From October 1, NNPC Ltd. will commence the supply of about 385kbpd of crude oil to the Dangote Refinery, to be paid for in Naira. In return, the Dangote Refinery will supply PMS and diesel of equivalent value to the domestic market, to be paid in Naira.

    “Diesel will be sold in Naira by the Dangote Refinery to any interested off-taker. PMS will only be sold to NNPC, NNPC will then sell to various marketers for now,” he said.

    This, however, is my worry. I am sure millions of Nigerians must also be wary of this role assigned this company whose incompetence should qualify it for a space in the ‘Guinness World Records’. A company that tells you good morning when in actual fact it should be good night. A company that says it has sufficient stock of petrol to last for ages even when fuel queues have blocked all major roads in the country! NNPCL! Ha!

    How the company would be happy that a private concern succeeded in doing what it could not do in decades — ensure its refineries produce fuel for Nigerians, and then cooperate with that private concern — is yet to be seen. And, even if NNPCL must be involved, why under the same incompetent management? People who had spent billions of dollars turning around refineries that have refused to turn around? People who should ensure we refine petroleum products as a major crude producer but have found the job of importing the products more lucrative?

    I said it several times in the Muhammadu Buhari era that most of his cabinet ministers got the original of whatever spell they used on their principal that made him retain them and their incompetence until the very end when they all fumbled and wobbled out of government.

    If there is any such spell that Melee Kyari, the group managing director/chief executive officer of NNPCL and his team are using on the present government, I destroy it with Holy Ghost fire!

    For me, Kyari has outlived his usefulness in that capacity and ought to have left that seat as early as yesterday. The Bola Tinubu government should do Nigerians the noble service of asking Kyari and his team to go home and rest.

    Dangote said something about his refinery which should make those managing our oil industry to be ashamed of themselves. He said DR has the capacity to monitor trucks that load their products. For the over six decades that Nigeria has been into oil exploration, neither the NNPCL nor its precursor, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can boast such vital tool. We do not even have an idea of the amount of petrol we consume daily. Nothing other than corruption could have accounted for this. With such a tool, we would’ve had a fair estimate of our daily fuel consumption, thus triggering alarm when the figures rise beyond reasonable limits. We would then be able to check subsidy thieves and smuggling to neighbouring countries, a very weak reason that successive administrations had always blown out of proportion to raise fuel prices.

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    A friend of mine usually tells us that somebody who eats stockfish and does not pick his teeth would never pay his debt. Something must be wrong with our oil industry managers, as exemplified by Kyari and the others, who don’t feel ashamed in the midst of their peers at international oil fora, that they are importing refined petroleum products despite being a major crude producer. With men like these, who feel comfortable in such company, we cannot make progress in that vital sector.

    I congratulate Dangote for seeing this project through, in spite of very intimidating challenges from within and without. It was the late Bashorun M K.O. Abiola who said that publishing is sweet, but oil is sweeter, when he had an opportunity to join the league of the privileged Nigerians to seep from the oil wells. If Dangote had thought Dangote Sugar was sweet, he too would soon find out that petrol is sweeter!

    But it was not an easy task. And, as Femi Otedola recalled: “You have not just built a refinery; you have liberated us from the chains of economic dependence that have held this nation back for far too long. The days of bowing to foreign powers for our fuel needs are over, thanks to your vision and determination.” It takes guts to start a project like this and complete it.

    Indeed, DR has not only liberated us from the shackles of foreign powers, it has also broken the backbone of their local equivalents and or collaborators. Again, hear Otedola. “You have dealt a death blow to the so-called local cabals who have fattened themselves for years, feeding off our nation’s economic slavery. These cabals, who have grown rich by keeping Nigeria in a perpetual state of dependence, must now face the reality that their era of easy gains is coming to an end….. “

    The only sad part of this aspect of the story is that these subsidy thieves are all over the place flaunting their ill-gotten wealth. We had the record of how much each of them allegedly stole, yet we lack the political will to pursue their matter to a logical conclusion. Rather, it is innocent Nigerians that are now vomiting what they ate.

    But, the fact today is; love or hate

    Dangote, he holds the aces. He is the man of the moment. If Nigeria decides not to cooperate with him for whatever reason at this point, it would be like the case of the man who wears his cap on his navel because he is quarrelling with his head.

    This is why I am happy that President Tinubu was able to see through the

    labyrinth of high wire politics and intrigues to get us to the point where Edun announced that Nigerians would start getting petrol from DR from today. The depot owners, as Otedola rightly said, should hurry to sell them before they become scraps.

    It is for all these reasons that we should situate why many interest groups tried to stop DR from getting crude even when it was clear they had lost the battle as the refinery has already seen the light of day.

    It is unfortunate that it is the same cabals that made importation of fuel our lot that are the ones fighting the man who provided an alternative. If they had run our refineries well, Dangote wouldn’t have been this crucial in the equation.

    Indeed, left to many of those pretending to be fighting in the national interest (just because they know that the illegal honeymoon they have been having at the expense of ordinary Nigerians for decades was about to come to an inglorious and unceremonious end), they would have loved the stalemate that had made resolution of whatever grey areas in the agreement between DR and the government to linger. They do not care about Nigerians suffering on fuel queues while that lasted.

    Please nothing I have said should be misconstrued as saying Dangote is a saint. There is no saint anywhere. Dangote has been accused of

    oligopolistic tendencies. I won’t confirm or deny that. It is difficult for anyone like him to have come this far without having some favour here and there. The man, as at the last time I checked, has never been in government. Yet, he had enjoyed favour from presidents in the country, including those not from his geo-political zone. I don’t know any of those accusing him of oligopolistic tendencies who would not want to dominate their environment, especially in a country where that is possible. If there are no laws forbidding that, how do you now blame an investor of Dangote’s stature for oligopolistic tendencies?

    Politicians who we know that have stolen huge sums of public funds and their collaborators in public offices stash the money abroad and are the very ones accusing someone who established industries where hundreds of thousands of people are working, of unethical practices. Who among the two is more useful to the society?

    I know many Nigerians must have been disappointed that Dangote petrol is not coming cheap as anticipated. But, given the dynamics of the economy, it could not have come cheap. The value of the Naira is partly a reason. Mind you, crude oil would still be sold to Dangote and other local refineries at the prevailing foreign exchange rate, even if they are paying in Naira.

    Second, the local refineries have other bills to pick, which are also denominated in forex.

    So, where lies the excitement about Dangote petrol? Good question. If Dangote Refinery and other local refiners are able to meet our local petrol need, it means we would stop importation of the product, saving a whopping 35-40 per cent of the forex we would otherwise have spent importing the product. If we are able to make such saving and it still

    does not impact positively on our exchange rate and the economy at large, then, we would need deliverance from the cankerworm and caterpillars that are feasting on our collective patrimony from the pit of hell.

    This, for me, is the significance of Dangote petrol.

    So, we still have something to cheer despite things not turning out exactly the way we had anticipated. Ultimately, though, I expect the price of petrol to get better if the government handles the forex savings well.

    Nigeria must be the only crude producer where the government and the people would never be on the same page while the regime of fuel import lasted. When the government would be praying for increase in crude prices at the international market, Nigerians would be praying for low crude prices because they know they will pay less for fuel. Mercifully, that divided interest should end now that we seem set for local refining of petroleum products.

  • Not for babies

    Not for babies

    If WASC is required for admission purposes, then those sitting for it must be mature

    Barely six weeks after stakeholders discussed the issue of minimum age for admission into tertiary institutions in the country at this year’s Policy Meeting of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), on July 18, in Abuja, another debate has come up on a related matter, this time about what age students can sit for the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) and the National Examinations Council (NECO).

    Whereas the government was looking in the direction of 18 years minimum for admission into our tertiary institutions, and to take effect this year, the stakeholders, comprising virtually the who is who in the institutions – vice chancellors, rectors, provosts, registrars, the civil society, computer centre owners, the media, etc., felt it would be unfair to begin implementation of the policy from this year. Why? Because those that would be affected who sat for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) earlier in the year were not aware of this when they wrote the examination. Hence, it would be unfair to allow the policy take retroactive effect, as it were. It was based on this argument that the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, agreed that the policy be allowed to take effect from next year.

    But, barely six weeks after, Prof Mamman’s announcement on Channels Television’s ‘Sunday Politics’ that the Federal Government has instituted 18 years as the minimum age requirement for candidates intending to write the secondary school leaving certificate examinations is, quite expectedly, generating another controversy.

    We seem to love controversy a lot in Nigeria. If anything, and, as the minister and some other observers have said, there is nothing new in the policy. It has always been there. It is just that it is now that the government wants to implement it.

    “For the avoidance of doubt, this is not a new policy; this is a policy that has been there for a long time.

    “Even basically, if you compute the number of years pupils, and learners are supposed to be in school, the number you will end up with is 17 and a half – from early child care to primary school to junior secondary school and then senior secondary school. You will end up with 17 and a half by the time they are ready for admission”, the minister said. However, those with better suggestions on how or when to implement the policy can continue to press. But for now, that is the position of the government.

    So, why the hullabaloo?

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    The summary of the argument of critics of the policy is that age is only a matter of numbers; and that it has nothing to do with academic pursuit.

    But the National President of the Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria (PTA), Haruna Danjuma, disagrees. “I expressed my support for the education policy…When students sit for WASSCE or NECO at 18 years old, they have reached an age of maturity. Such exams are not for immature students or under 18. You shouldn’t expect underage students in universities or sitting WASSCE and NECO.”

    He added that “If they are old enough, they will be fully prepared and mature enough to face the challenges that come with attending a higher institution.”

    One person whose opinion I really craved to see was the National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, for obvious reasons. Although, like the Secretary-General, Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, Prof. Yakubu Ochefu, who said that vice-chancellors would meet this month to take a stand on the policy, but personally supported it, Osodeke too is in full support of it. Indeed, he questioned the rush to enter university: “Why are we focusing on university at such a young age? How many years do you spend in the university? For most courses, it’s four years; for Medicine, it’s five. We can’t reduce these durations.

    “They should allow the system to function as intended and give their children time to rest. Adulthood begins at 18, so why force a child to go to the university or rent an apartment at 15? We need to consider the well-being of these children,” Osodeke added.

    Perhaps of all the critics of the policy, only the Secretary-General of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Dr Mike Ene, at least partially gave what I regard as the authentic reason why many critics do not see anything good in the policy. Even then, his too was a veiled reference to the reason, buried under other secondary reasons. He told The PUNCH in an interview that “However, things have changed. Nowadays, due to economic pressures, parents enroll their children in crèches early, which means both parents have to work.” Every other thing that he said like “Teachers at these crèches begin to educate the children, and they start learning quickly. You can’t stop them from learning because the brain is structured to keep developing—once learning stops, the brain stagnates,” seems to me ancillary matters. Why must the children ‘learn quickly’? Where are they rushing to?

    We thus have in our hands a situation where people whose parents backed for years are so busy they cannot even wait to wean their own babies off breast milk before pushing them to day care centres, then nursery school, etc. They leave the home before their children wake up and return long after they had slept. All in the name of economic pursuit. They leave their children with house helps, with all the attendant risks and we end up blaming the government that things are not okay with us as a country.

    A related factor is the penchant of the elite among us to boast that their children graduated at 16, or even less!

    The other leg of the critics’ argument is that age is not the most fundamental problem with our educational institutions or the education sector. Well, may be they are right. But challenges are in categories. There are small, medium and big challenges facing education, like any other sector. But, as a Yoruba proverb says, ‘ti igi ba re lu igi, ti ori e la koko gbe’ (if trees fall on themselves, we start by taking off the ones on top). It is not for fun that we have short, medium and long-term plans. There are some challenges that can easily be tackled. Some others are not. There is nothing wrong with addressing the age question now as it does not require any especially elaborate plan beyond the announcement.

    Anyone who believes that children can start school even from the womb is entitled to their opinion. But I disagree, without fear or favour, and without fear of contradiction.

    I have no problem when people criticise government’s programmes or policies. This is a part of human existence. But, I have problem with people who criticise for the fun of it.

    It is preposterous for anyone to suggest that those implementing this policy did not think it through. Whether we want to talk of the minister or the JAMB registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, both men are eminently qualified to take informed decision on this matter. Prof Mamman is a former vice-chancellor of Baze University, Abuja and former director-general of the Nigerian Law School, from 2005 to 2013, among others.

    Oloyede, on the same hand also parades intimidating credentials that make him eminently qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject-matter. A former vice chancellor of the University of Ilorin, he had also been Chairman, Committee of Directors of Academic Planning in Nigerian Universities; President, Association of African Universities (AAU); he had served on the Board of Association of Commonwealth Universities and International Association of Universities (IAU); an International Advisory Board Member of International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA) as well as a former Board Member of Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC). He had also been chairman, Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities as well as the Committee of Vice-Chancellors, among others.

    In their respective capacities therefore, both men have had cause to deal mainly with youths who are products of this age issue that we are talking about.

    Indeed, I had to run through what obtain in other climes to see if they are significantly different from the 18 years that we are talking about here for WASCE. To my surprise, they are not. In the United States, for instance, children begin formal education at age five or six. Their students normally attend 12 grades of study over 12 calendar years of primary/elementary and secondary education before graduating and earning a diploma that makes them eligible for higher education. This would also be about 18 years to get an equivalent of West African School Certificate (WASC).

    It is not significantly different in the United Kingdom too where students normally enter higher school as undergraduates from age 18 upwards.

    Even in Canada where age requirement into primary school seems somewhat relaxed, international students below 18 can be admitted into the university. But it comes with a proviso that such students must be accompanied by a custodian who must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. Those 18 and above do not need this requirement. There must be a reason for such waiver. If such a policy obtained in Nigeria, some people would still want to find out the basis for that. Even when told, they would still shop for reason to discredit the policy.

    What these examples tell us is that those who are now seeking to enforce a policy that has been abandoned for years in Nigeria are not doing anything wrong.

    It is true that Nigeria has been bedevilled by so many bad policies (a reason I may sympathise with critics with genuine fears), this, obviously is not one of such policies.

    Although the many vices, like cultism, in most of our tertiary institutions, may not be attributed to the age factor alone, age plays a crucial role. It is easier to lure too-young-to-go-to-university students into cultism and other vices than it is to bring them on board when they fully understand the import of the satanic invitations.

    Finally, I leave you with the thoughts of Prof. Ochefu, regarding the issue of exceptionally gifted children that some people are using to nail the policy. Before then, however, let me ask the question of how many people we are talking about here. If they are many or too many, then they no longer qualify for exceptional children. They are few, worldwide. Now, hear Prof Ochefu: ”Yes, there are exceptional children, but they can be enrolled in schools for gifted children once they demonstrate such abilities.”

    Even in the U.S., U.K., Canada, etc., special provisions are only made for such geniuses without disrupting the system. We can only provide for our geniuses, we cannot make policies in their image. Unless we want to witness once again a situation where undergraduates were bedwetting like some of them did years ago when admitting under-aged children was the vogue in one of our first generation universities.

  • God of miracles

    God of miracles

    That was what I experienced on August 13

    But for the fact that Tuesday, August 13, 2024 was the day set aside for the presentation of an internet connectivity equipment to the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos by my set, the Class of 1984, to mark 40 years of our graduation from the department, the day would have started and probably ended like any other day.

    But it was not.

     On that day, I faced the University of Lagos venue of the presentation of the internet facility to the department rather than the office on Fatai Atere Way in the Matori area of Lagos State for the regular Tuesday Management Meeting that I had taken permission to be excused from.

     Within two and a half hours or so, we were through with the presentation, which was only the first leg of the activities for the day.

    The second leg was a dinner at the prestigious De Riggs, Elsie Femi-Pearse Street, Off Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, later in the day.

    In order to be able to arrive the venue from the university campus on time, I drove straight to the office, which is closer to Lagos Island, than return home. In less than two hours, I was done with all I had to do in the office and then drove to the island for the dinner.

    Everything went well at the dinner. We had fun. It was a reunion indeed as some of us that never met, probably since our graduation, were able to connect again.

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    Then, at about 9.00 p.m., I put Google Maps to work to navigate my way back home. It pointed in the way of Third Mainland Bridge and I decided to obey it. This was something I usually avoid, even in daytime. I have always expressed my preference for my old, reliable Eko Bridge. But somehow, I missed where I was to turn towards Third Mainland Bridge on my way back by some 20 to 30 meters before I realised this. Many drivers were driving at the speed of light for security reason; so reversing was not an option. Somehow something just told me to drive on, that probably it was divine intervention that made me miss where I should have turned towards Third Mainland Bridge. That singular decision was my saving grace.

    Miracle number One.

    Shortly before I got to Ojuelegba Bus Stop on Western Avenue, I noticed my car started to jerk. Then the engine went off. I waited a few minutes and started the ignition again, it responded. I was happy, only for it to start misbehaving as I climbed the bridge at Ojuelegba. At that point, something told me it was better to reverse and try to talk to people at the Fire Brigade station just at the foot of the bridge to allow me park the car with them until the following morning.

    As I was trying to reverse on the still busy road, people started telling me that fuel was leaking from the bottom of my car. I perceived the odour too and I was really scared. This was fuel (as in petrol; not diesel, not engine oil) leaking from the engine of a car that had travelled several kilometers from Lagos Island and most parts of the engine were already hot, I mean very hot.

    Miracle Number Two.

    An ‘area boy’ then requested to help me push the car to the Fire Brigade station or at least to a place where it would not pose a risk to other road users. He also volunteered to help me get a mechanic or rewire to check what was wrong with the car. I never liked the idea of roadside mechanics experimenting with my car, but, I had no choice at that point.

    Anyway, before the man returned, God had raised a genuine mechanic who also offered to help. I told him what was wrong. After checking the fuel pump, he said there was no problem with that and made straight for the engine. It was then we saw that the hose taking fuel to the engine had given way. He asked for plier and I gave him. In no time, he had cut off the bad portion and fixed the hose firmly again. At this point, the ‘area boy’ who had gone to look for a rewire or mechanic returned and said he did not see the fellow. I thanked him and gave him some money. I could see he was not particularly happy that help had come while he was away. They don’t like solution coming at such critical moments, preferring instead, a situation where stranded motorists would be at their mercy and they would be calling the shots, especially as it was night.

    Anyway, having thanked and paid him off, I offered to drive the mechanic who eventually fixed the problem to Maryland Bus Stop from where I would branch off to Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way, en route Agege. He said he preferred to drop at Onipanu Bus Stop. He entered and we drove off. I thought the worst was over.

    After dropping him at Onipanu, the car began to misbehave again. Somehow, I had my eyes on a popular church at Obanikoro that I would park the car there overnight. About 100 or 120 metres to that church, the car suddenly stopped again.

    As if they had been expecting something like that, two ‘area boys’ again surfaced. It was getting to 10.30 p.m. and everywhere was dark. They asked what the problem was and I told them. I suggested that they help me push the car into the nearby church premises. As they were pushing the car, they suddenly stopped and came to me to ask for what I intended to give them before they laboured far. I said they should rest assured that I would compensate them reasonably. They didn’t seem to understand what that meant and named their price: N15,000! I said if they turned me inside out, they couldn’t get anything near that. I didn’t know where the confidence came from because I was alone with them in the dark. They grumbled and after a while resumed pushing the car. This time, they suggested I should park it on the street nearby instead of the church. Before I knew what was happening, they had pushed the car pass the church gate towards the street they suggested. When I suddenly realised this, I asked them to push it back towards the church and somewhat reluctantly, they did until we got to the church gate.

    Miracle Number Three.

    At that point, another of their type came and they started an argument. I didn’t know whether it was because they didn’t want to share whatever I wanted to give them with the fellow or they were just pretending not to know him. But I told the fellow that I was okay with the two people but he insisted on staying put. No problem. At least I knew those I gave a job to do.

    The security man at the church gate then opened the gate to see those knocking. I moved closer to him and narrated my plight. He said he would not be able to help me because the church authorities wouldn’t like such. We talked and he then agreed, called his colleagues and that was how I paid off the two ‘area boys’. I knew I should not go out alone that night because those guys would hide somewhere and surface as soon as I get out to get a vehicle to take me away from there. The security men advised that I call Uber or Bolt. None was available. It was getting to 11.00p.m. They then suggested that the three of them would join me to stop a bus in front of the church and they did. Eventually, I got one bus to take me to Maryland. Somehow, something was telling me it was not the right bus. Only two men were inside with the driver; one sitting at the extreme back and another in the left corner of the middle row. The seat beside the driver was vacant and I opted for that. Somehow, we got to Maryland safely and I jumped out, even though they were proceeding towards Ikeja that I was going.

    I joined another bus from Maryland and, mercifully, it was the same bus that took me to Agege because I felt some peace inside it. No fear of ‘one chance’ as in the previous bus.

    I called my decision to continue on Eko Bridge route instead of Third Mainland Bridge that Google Maps initially planned for me Miracle Number One because the vehicle would have stopped in the middle of nowhere if what happened had taken place on Third Mainland Bridge, considering that it took me to as far as near Ojuelegba Bus Stop or so before breaking down. Unlike Western Avenue where there were still people who were willing to help, there would not have been anything like that on Third Mainland Bridge. The least trauma I would have suffered would have been to lose my phone, my wristwatch, money, and may be, be forced to transfer whatever was left in my account to the hoodlums on the Third Mainland Bridge, who would always surface at such critical moments. It would be a miracle for one to escape from them with physical injuries alone; that is when they were not just inspired to throw one into the lagoon.

    That the car did not catch fire was Miracle Number Two. Given the distance I had travelled before realising that petrol was leaking underneath, only God could have given petrol such patience.

    Then, the ‘area boys’ whose fangs God had rendered ineffective as I was talking to them, indeed commanding them and they were obeying when, in actual fact, I would have been mincemeat should they decide to attack me, was Mistake Number Three. I was all alone with them and anything could have happened.

    Definitely some other miracles would have happened that I didn’t mention or reckon with. I give God Almighty all the adoration for not making a good day turn to a bad one for me.

    I also thank God that we did not hear any bad news from the other people that attended the presentation and the dinner. Mine that would have been was averted by divine mercy.

    Only the God of miracles could have given such safety and security cover.

  • Hunger & Co.

    Hunger & Co.

    • Endbadgovernance protests as products of multidimensional frustrations

    Anyone with a clear understanding of the depth of the hunger in the land would know that nothing could have prevented the #Endbadgovernance protests that took off in several parts of the country on August 1. But, that it happened under an administration that is barely one year old, and one that has, within so short a time, rolled out a lot of revolutionary policy measures is regrettable but yet a pointer to the fact that something is wrong somewhere.

    I said it on this page on June 2, in a piece titled “Food infrastructure”, that the government should prioritise food security. That was two clear months before August 1. Permit me to quote, albeit extensively, from the write-up since I cannot repeat the entire piece because I have to accommodate fresh developments.

    The cause/s of the protests we all know.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu himself admitted that he has heard Nigerians loud and clear that things ‘is’ hard (apologies to Sonala Olumhense).

    For me, that should be the spirit. I nonetheless don’t have problems with people who might want the president to go after foes, real or perceived, who allegedly fuelled or sponsored the protests.

    But the government would be naive to ever think that there would not be foes that would work assiduously towards its failure. It has always been like that with us. Indeed, I had repeatedly pointed that out on this page.

    Back to my “Food infrastructure”. Here I go: “Food prices are just astronomical. Unfortunately, food has no alternative. Human beings must eat. If any other thing can wait; not food. Even if one is on marathon fasting; like litigation, there must be an end to it.”

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    I also alluded to the giant strides that the Tinubu administration has recorded: “…in fairness to the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, it has done a lot in one year…

    “But all of these and many more seem to have paled into insignificance simply because food is still expensive. Pure and simple. This is the singular veil that is blurring other achievements of the government and understandably so.”

    Still on my quotable quotes: “Even in local Yoruba parlance, they say ‘ebi ki wonu, ki oro mi wo’, or t’ebi ba ti kuro ninu ise, ise buse’, both literally translated to mean if hunger is out of the poverty question, then the rest is easy to address.”

    I also said Nigerians are not interested in figures of the tonnes and tonnes of grains the government claims it has released from its strategic reserves. What they are interested in is the result on food prices.

    Moreover, no pun was intended when, in that same piece, I said the Minister of Agriculture “is the minister that the president must keep in touch with per second 24×7 because his ministry is the most important at this point in our national life”.

    I also remember quoting an aspect of Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s statement that “if love is blind, marriage would open it”. “…If politics or tribe or religion is blind, hunger would open it. That is what is playing out in the country.”

    But, in the midst of this hunger, we have a political class that is living like oil sheikhs, with their belts ever widening and their bellies ever protruding underneath well-starched ‘babarigas’ that seem their exclusive preserve. Nigerians cannot understand this sharp contrast.

    Moreover, there are several government expenditures that they also cannot see to be in tune with the economic crisis that the government claims the country is going through. Some examples would suffice.

    We started with the depressing news of our National Assembly members who insisted on getting exotic imported jeeps of about N160m each! Even in the prosperous countries, their lawmakers do not enjoy such luxury. It is only in Nigeria that people have not only turned part-time job into full time; they are also bleeding the citizens to sustain their extravagant lifestyle.

    There are several other public expenditures that are out of tune with the economic picture that the government is painting.

    Again, Nigerians are also sad that those who brought the country to where it is are still walking free. I wonder why the government is not opening up on some of the issues that it should have opened up on. 

    For instance, we have always known that our crude had been sold upfront by some of the previous regimes. But many of us do not know to what extent. I think it has got to the stage where everyone has to answer his father’s name. President Tinubu might have succeeded a fellow All Progressives Congress (APC) president, and one that he played an active part in enthroning for that matter. But what was the extent of the Buhari government’s crude sale?

    Giving full disclosure on this would

    rather help to put the record straight, and, more important, enable us ask questions concerning how they not only ate up the country’s present in their time, but also why they had to dip their hands into the pies of the future. In a nutshell, what did they do with the proceeds?

    An energy expert, Mr Olabode Sowunmi, made the startling revelation on Channels Television that some of the upfront sale of crude are for as long as 15 to 30 years! According to him, even the present government has had to travel that route.

    In truth, there may not be much wrong with this type of arrangement if the money is spent for regenerative purposes. At least we will always recoup the money and our unborn children would not have to pay only to satisfy the lustful appetite of elders who are not contented with eating up their present but are also eager to eat up our children’s future.

    One has to dwell much on this because it is part of the reasons why the Naira is crawling in the forex market. A significant amount of forex that should naturally be coming into government’s coffers is not available due to these upfront consumption because crude oil accounts for about 75 percent of our national revenue.

    The prognosis is really frightening.

    Given the scenario painted by Sowunmi, we just have to be cautious about our optimism on energy security. After meeting Joint Venture Agreements, and honouring our upfront crude sales obligations, what is left is not going to go round Dangote and other private local refineries, not to talk of when the government-owned refineries also become operational. Meaning we would have to be importing crude to meet aspects of local production, if we would not be importing petrol. So, where does that leave us?

    But if Nigerians must continue to bear this burden, then they are entitled to full disclosures on all of these deals. Where corruption is detected, they want those involved prosecuted. We know the gargantuan level of corruption in the era that some of these deals were sealed. Nigerians do not want to be vomiting what they never swallowed.

    What I am saying in essence is that the #Endbadgovernance protest was a product of several frustrations; hunger just happened to be the immediate trigger. So, President Tinubu has to return to the drawing board. It may be painful that we have to start from the basics; that is the reality. It is not only babies that learn how to walk. There are times when even adults do after having their legs fractured. They start learning to walk with crutches. There is nothing shameful in that.

    It is possible that some of the president’s overzealous aides, military and civilian, would want to show him that they are working by inviting him to come witness how they are administering ‘koboko’ lashes on the bumbum of the alleged sponsors of the protests arrested, after ensuring they have removed their pants. But the president should merely encourage them to do their work in accordance with the law and due process. His eyes must be on food security. And delivery of other democratic dividend to Nigerians, in that order.

    Hunger was the sponsor-in-chief of the protests; pure and simple. The others were mere co-sponsors. They merely exploited the hunger in the land which provided them ready recruits to achieve their aim. Take away the hunger and they would have been left helpless.

    Therefore, as the government is picking on alleged protest sponsors, it should also look inward and see what it is doing that is contrary to what it is telling Nigerians is the state of the economy. Both should go in pari passu.

    For instance, where the president sees financial recklessness in, say, the legislature, he should not take his eyes away from it. This is not the time to talk of independence of the different arms of government. Nigerians have come to realise that it is where matters of perks are concerned that independence of the arms of the government are overstressed by the lawmakers. The two arms have always cooperated on several other matters. The point the president has to understand is that the buck stops at his desk. Nigerians would be solidly behind him if he insists on certain maximum standards where certain expenditures are concerned.

    But The Presidency too must lead by example. Many of us were living witnesses to the military era when soldiers that we did not elect insisted that public officials would only use made-in-Nigeria cars. That was even when our currency was strong. How then can the people that said we elected them dictate to us that it is imported jeeps that tore into our skins to procure that they wanted? Anyone who cannot abide by the prescribed general standard should stay away from public office.

    Permit me to end this piece with what Emmanuel Olusegun Stover said in the abstract to his book, ‘Stomach Infrastructure: Lessons for Democracy and Good Governance’: “But, to sum it up, stomach infrastructure is first and foremost about the people’s survival. It is a living, stress-free man that can enjoy the benefit of a modern city or world-class physical infrastructures. Thus, … building stomach infrastructure is about understanding the bottom-top gradual approaches in developmental strides.”

    And, lest I forget, as I said last week, the government has to think creatively out of the box on how to address the issue of palliatives. Many governors have not been helpful in this regard. They simply don’t care. Yet, they should.