The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • The politics of Lagos – Calabar coastal highway

    The politics of Lagos – Calabar coastal highway

    The idea for a major coastal federal road in Nigeria was said to have been first conceptualized in 1955 by the then Federal Commissioner of Finance, late Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh.  It remained just a concept until the fourth republic when President Olusegun Obasanjo started the Warri- Calabar portion of it which is best described as the jinxed East-West road. President Goodluck Jonathan through NDDC was also said to have awarded the Koko-Ogheye-Epe road to Levant Construction Ltd in 2010. Because close to 70% of road construction under Buhari was in the north, the coastal road project received little attention. Tinubu however made it a campaign issue following Ayade’s pleading during his campaign tour of Cross River in the run up to the 2023 election. Perhaps this was why he decided the time for procrastination was over.

    The long gestation period before the take-off of the project may not be unconnected with the politics of infrastructure distribution which was one of divisive issues that contributed to the collapse of the first republic in 1966. It is on record that the north has always kicked against any project that could not be replicated in the north. In 1962, despite the closeness of Dr Majekodunmi to Tafawa Balewa, his proposal for some form of health insurance for Lagos workers was killed by northern back benchers. For the same reason the completion of the third mainland bridge by Ibrahim Babangida came many years after it was initially stopped by President Shehu Shagari.  Lateef Jakande also held Shehu Shagari responsible for the derailment of Lagos Metroline later cancelled by Buhari’s military regime in 1983.  That opposition to the ongoing Lagos – Calabar Coastal Highway was led by former Vice President Atiku, who played on the fears of northern ethnic group during last February election did not come as a surprise to observers of Nigerian politics.

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     There has been  no disagreement on the heuristic value of Lagos – Calabar coastal highway which experts believe  will generate, both directly and indirectly, thousands of jobs from ‘toll management, road maintenance to springing up of new industries, filling stations, CNG stations, auto-mechanic workshops, shopping malls, hotels’ etc. Minister David Umahi, as minister of works says the coastal road “will have two spurs that will link up with Northern Nigeria to further integrate the north and south in terms of movement of people, goods and services”.

    For Lagos State, economic analysts have revealed that the completion of the first phase of the project alone could increase the size of the state economy by 50% because of the connection to Lekki Deep Seaport and the Lekki economic corridor where Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Complex is situated alongside other multinational industries.

    For the people of Cross River State, whose former governor, Ben Ayade secured an undertaking from President Tinubu during his presidential campaign, the “coastal highway is going to be a game changer for the socio-economic status of Cross River as it is bound to add value to our rich agricultural produce and boost tourism traffic to our unique tourism sites.”

    And to current governor, Bassey Otu, “Nothing is more gratifying at the moment than the cheering news of the commencement of the highway which is bound to ensure our rapid transformation in all facets of economic development by driving traffic of investors and tourists.”

    For Ben Murray-Bruce, the founder of the Silverbird Group, who is also a former federal lawmaker from Bayelsa State, the project which he describes as “another proof of the transformative power of visionary leadership by President Bola Tinubu”, is a “game changer for investors, entrepreneurs and travellers and a “symbol of hope for a brighter future.”  

    Indeed governors of Bayelsa, Rivers, Cross River, Edo, and Delta states during their 12th gathering in Yenogoa on April 31 lauded President Bola Tinubu for initiating the construction of the coastal highway.

    The enthusiasm of those who will benefit from the project has however not stopped stiff opposition coming from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 election. While the latter wanted to know “what is so important about the coastal highway that it is priority over security and the attendant food scarcity”,  the former  seems to be more interested in questioning the integrity of the president as a continuation of their last  year electoral duel.

    First, Atiku Abubakar accused the president of putting his personal interest ahead of the Nigerian people by awarding the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road contract to Gilbert Chagoury which he said is akin to awarding it to Bola Tinubu, as both are business partners.  His other grouse was government’s alleged demolition of Onwuanibe’s Landmark iconic tourism facilities especially at a period the environmental impact assessment report was not even completed.

     Umahi, the minister has however tried to put the records straight. He confirmed there was indeed a preliminary approval by Ministry of Environment. He also said the signing of the contract went through due process; that government made some payment as part of its obligation for counterpart funding; that ‘the owner of Landmark was playing politics with politicians since none of Landmark’s infrastructure is impacted by the coastal development and that the shoreline on which some caravans were destroyed did not belong to Landmark but to the federal government’.

    “I’ve asked him to bring his documents and I challenge him and his co-politicians to bring the documents”, the minister dared Landmark owner who unfortunately could not provide title to the shoreline he illegally sublet out during his subsequent meeting with the minster.

    Unfortunately, a section of the media  often see government as enemy while crusading without restraint for rich paymasters (apology to Seun, Fela Anikulapo’s son ) and sponsors who play the victims at the expense of Nigerians.

    In spite of being in total control of his ministry and demonstrating his mastery of the issues at stake during the press briefing, this segment of the media continues to demonise  Minister Umahi, unarguably one of the most competent and dedicated public servants  in this administration. He has been dishonestly described as “imperial, impervious,  a garrulous fellow who makes his day listening to his own voice, and takes pride in elevating his participation in lawlessness” and a minister “who is unable to explain anything about the Coastal Highway beyond defending what does not make any sense”.

    Journalists who only listen to their own truth want to teach Umahi quantity surveying and engineering. They dismiss report from the minister of environment with a wave of hand while an advice by Terseer Ugbo of the House of Representatives Committee on Environment to the effect that national interest as defined by the executive overrides individual private interest was equally rejected.

    The irony is that suddenly because of politics of infrastructure, those who invested state funds in private business or cornered mouth-watering Nigerian Ports Authority contracts wile in government want us to believe those in government today are evil men. And as if we all suffer from collective amnesia, their media promoters who only yesterday swore by the name of Godwin Emefiele, today, want Nigerians to accept them as pathfinders.

  • In defence of Yahaya Bello

    In defence of Yahaya Bello

    Nigeria is a nation of many nationalities who although are at different levels of cultural development but none the less share so many parallels. Among her three dominant groups who always ensure no one else gets what any of them cannot get, mischief is a common trait. Speaking of his Yoruba people, the late Herbert Ogunde, a foremost Nigerian performing artist, describes them as a people who would invite a thief to come and steal and also invite the owner of the farm to catch him. (Yoruba pe ole ko wa ja, o tun pe oloko ko wa mu) With Igbira of Kogi, their distant cousins, it is worse. From the travails of Yaya Bello this past one week, we can see how easy it is for yesterday’s saint to become today’s Satan.  In just one week, Yahaya Bello, the white lion of Kogi, who secured the governorship seat on a platter of gold transited from   an angel to a haunted evil spirit.

    Yahaya Bello was a resourceful and successful business man with a lot of drive. In him the people of Kogi found no flaw. It was on account of all this, that Nigeria ruling hegemonic class that decides who rules and  who does not rule in Nigeria in collaboration with leading light of Kogi foisted him as a governor.

    It is on record that it was the joint ticket of Abubakar Audu and James Faleke that won the 2015 election. Audu however died mysteriously before he could be crowned, while James Faleke declared himself governor-elect. Many observers of Kogi politics had expected Faleke to step into Audu’s shoes, but Kogi kingmakers settled for Yahaya Bello, an outsider who was literarily dragged from his ‘kata kara”(buying and selling business) to the governor’s seat of power after the battle had been fought and won.

    As a governor, Yahaya Bello was true to himself. He did what he knew how to do best – trading.  This is why I think Bello does not owe detractors today accusing him of trading with Kogi State’s money instead of paying workers’ salaries or addressing infrastructural decay in Kogi State apologies. Those who had expected Bello to give what he did not have only lived in fool’s paradise. It is said that a man cannot suddenly become a left handed man at the middle age. If you ask me, I will say Yahaya Bello was a victim of those who had dressed him in borrowed robes to spite James Faleke, the rejected corner stone.

    Now, what are the charges against Yahaya Bello by EFCC and his other detractors?

    EFCC chief Ola Olukoyede, who vowed to prosecute Bello or resign, alleged that the embattled ex-governor withdrew $720,000 from the state’s accounts to pay his children school fees in advance just before he left office on January 27, 2024. But as it turned out, the sum of $845,852 said to have been paid to American International School, Abuja (AISA) between September 2021 and October 2022 as advanced school fees for Yahaya Bello’s five children was not paid by Yayaha Bello but by Alli Bello, his generous nephew.

    Intimidated by EFCC, the American International School, Abuja, was forced to pay the sum of $760,910 to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as refund for an advanced school fees paid to the school. But upset by the development, Yahaya Bello’s generous nephew took American International School Abuja to court for breach of contract and he won. His victory was all Yahaya Bello’s supporters needed to support the claim their principal is being unfairly persecuted because he has a generous nephew.

    But Yahaya Bello’s traducers have done more to allow Yahaya Bello’s sympathisers consolidate their otherwise unassailable position. They have continued to slander him. They are even now claiming albeit without proof that Alli Bello, his generous nephew, was a son he fathered while in secondary school and raised by his sister. They tried to link Yaya Bello to the arraignment of Alli Bello on 18 count charges of money laundering and misappropriation of $3b by EFCC, claiming again without proof that it was Yahaya Bello who paid N550m to secure the release Alli Bello from EFCC’s incarceration. And as if Usman Dodo, the new sheriff in town did not have a mind of his own, they have also alleged, Yahaya Bello, influenced the emergence of Alli Bello as his chief of staff.

    But if one may ask, when has it become a crime for a generous nephew to pay the school fees for his uncle’s children or for an uncle to use his position to secure appointment for his generous nephew?

    Indeed, if you ask me, I will say Yahaya Bello who as a Muslim is entitled to four wives but chose to settle for only three with just five children for now, is a very modest man. We have witnessed lawmakers who came to the National Assembly floor to show off their four wives and twenty children. We have seen other politicians celebrated the graduation of their wards from foreign universities on the social media. I am not aware anyone has asked how much governors, lawmakers and other politicians who celebrated the graduation of their children from foreign universities on the pages of newspapers spent on their children.

    Other mischief makers have wondered why the close to $1m dollar Yahaya Bello’s nephew paid to AISA as school fees for  his uncle’s children was not deployed towards building a similar school for the children of the poor in Kogi State. Again, I am not aware of any governor including those who earn from the federation account in one month what Kogi state earns in a year that has built such a legacy school for the children of the poor in their states.

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    Perhaps mischief makers and Bello traducers needed to be reminded that our current military-baked new-breed politicians are different from the likes of Obafemi Awolowo, then premier of western Nigeria, whose daughter, Tokunbo Awolowo was seen on the queue along with the children of ordinary Nigerians including Hausa children from Sabon Gari quarters of Ibadan marching to their classes under Awolowo free and compulsory primary school in the 1950s.

    My advice to Yahaya Bello, however is to ignore his detractors, those taunting him on the pages of newspapers and those who weep louder than the bereaved including some People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain who linked his current political travails and that  of Nasir El-Rufai the former Governor of Kaduna State, to President Tinubu. He should  hearken to the immediate-past governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom’s call, to come out of his hiding and answer the N80 billion money laundering case the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission filed against him.

    He will survive his current travails like many of his predecessors including Ayo Fayose, Alamieyeseigha who was chased from France to London where he had ‘accumulated properties, bank accounts, investments and cash exceeding £10m in value’, Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Jolly Nyame (Taraba), Joshua Dariye (Plateau), Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), Saminu Turaki (Jigawa), the late Audu Abubakar (Kogi), Timipreye Sylva (Bayelsa), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Adebayo  Alao-Akala (Oyo), Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo), Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu), Gbenga Daniel (Ogun), Aliyu Akwe Doma (Nasarawa), Attahiru Bafarawa (Sokoto), Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa).

    Just as the white lion of Kogi has vowed not to be intimidated by any amount of blackmail, one basic fact is that in an empire of maggots, (apologies to Nuru Ribadu) a part cannot claim to be holier than the whole.

  • Falae and our crisis of nation building

    Falae and our crisis of nation building

    “What we mean by restructuring is going back to the Independence Constitution which our leaders negotiated with the British between 1957 and 1959. It was on that basis that the three regions agreed to go to Independence as one united country. When the military came in 1966 and threw away the constitution, they did not only throw away the constitution but a political consensus negotiated and agreed by our leaders of the three regions. The regions used to be federating units, but in today’s Nigeria, they would now be called federal regions because states have been created in the regions. So, we are saying let us go back to that arrangement which all of us agreed at independence and not what Abacha imposed on us, which is very partial, unfair and one-sided. That is the meaning of restructuring; it is to restructure unfairness and give semi-autonomy to the federating units.”

    That was Chief Olu Falae, a former Secretary to Babangida’s military government, giving historical context to our current crisis of nation building during a last week Arise TV programme in order to educate our uninformed youths and elders described by Senator Adams Oshiomhole as “mischief makers who are trying to twist, manipulate and politicize a patriotic request borne out of altruistic motivation” by pretending not to know the meaning of restructuring.

    But Chief Olu Falae is not alone. For his fellow crusading patriots, the answer to our unresolved national question is a return to our 1954 structure, negotiated by our founding fathers ‘to promote the unity of Nigeria and protect the interest of diverse elements that make up the country’. Some of these credible voices include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who has called for ‘less centralized, less suffocating and less dictatorial’ central government; the late Alhaji Balarabe Musa, former governor of Kaduna State who had called for ‘a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states they can cater for, which would certainly reduce injustice and inequality among the people;’ and Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary-General who has also renewed his call for ‘a return to the regional structure practiced in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming the federating units.’ And for Gen. Alani Akinrinade, “anyone that wishes Nigeria well and wants our states to develop will join in the growing agitation to restructure the country;” while for Wole Soyinka, regarded by many as the conscience of the nation, “the basis of our association needed to be renegotiated if we are to prevent a disastrous disintegration.”

    Our founding fathers, confronted with the challenges of a multinational Nigeria state, described by Obafemi Awolowo in 1947 as ‘a geographical expression’ and as ‘a British intension’ by Tafawa Balewa in 1948, resolved to make Nigeria home to every nationality within the greater Nigerian nation. Thus, when Action Group was formed in Owo April 25, 1951, the party’s motto was “United through federation, freedom for all, and life more abundant;” while the manifesto of NPC, inaugurated in Kaduna by Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and others in September 1951, focused on “regional autonomy within a united Nigeria ‘with “one north, one people, irrespective of region ethnic and religion”, as its slogan. Each dominant ethnic group managed its own affairs

    They knew they didn’t have to invent the wheel since it had long been established that crisis of nation building in most multi-ethnic nations of the world is best addressed through a federal arrangement. Europe itself had after two devastating world wars resolved their crisis of nationhood by embracing federalism. And working in our founding fathers’ favour was the fact that despite the 1914 amalgamation designed for ease of administration, the long-term policy thrust of Britain was a Nigerian nation with a federal system where every group can develop at its own pace without interference from others.

    The colonial powers challenged those who live in denial, claiming that “our cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule,” to look at themselves in the mirror to confirm if there were parallels “between the Hausa of Zaria and the Bantus people of the Benue Valley,’ the 200,000 Ogonis who escaped the tyranny of South African Chaka the Zulu, ‘the cannibals of the mama hill, the unsocial Mumuyes of Muri Province and of naked warriors of the inner eastern tropics,” all of who were at different levels of cultural development.

    To underscore Britain’s commitment to her policy thrust, Hugh Clifford, the then Governor General of Nigeria in an address to the Nigerian Council on December 29 1920, asserted that the British policy was to support ‘the local tribal institutions and the indigenous forms of government based on the ‘social institutions which have been evolved for it by wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generations of its forbearers,’ adding that “if suddenly the impossible were feasible’, that those separated by difference of history, traditions, social, political and religious barriers were indeed capable of being welded into a single homogenous nation’, it would be a disservice to the concept of national government which secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality.”

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    But rather than prove Oliver Stanley  who  while speaking before foreign policy association in New York City on January 19, 1945 had said that “it is the British presence alone which prevents a disastrous disintegration and British withdrawal today would mean for millions a descent from nascent nationhood into the turmoil of warring sects” wrong,  the new inheritors of power confirmed his fears when they threw the West into a political turmoil with its attendant violence, deaths and loss of properties” following their imposition of  a leader on the west in breach of the constitution in 1962.  And ‘to cut Awolowo to size’, according to Trevor Richard, they created Mid-west out of West while suppressing the self-actualization quest of 11 national groups made up of 3.2 million Efik/Ibibio/Annang, 700,000 strong Ijaws, 220,000 Ogonis and 8.000 Ngenis and others totaling 5.3 million (1963 census) in the COR areas of the Eastern Region.

    Ironically, Nigerians got better deal from the colonial masters than the successive military regimes who have since 1966 done everything including plunging the nation into an avoidable civil war except addressing the core issue of crisis of nationhood- which is about how our multiethnic, multi-cultural and multi religious society can live together in harmony. Their efforts like those of their ‘new breed’ politicians to resolve the national question through constitutional negotiations like statesmen turned out to have been driven by greed and intrigue.

    General Ironsi’s 21st Feb 1966 Study Group on Constitutional Review was sabotaged by his own unitary Decree 34 of 24th May 1966, just as Gowon’s Ad-hoc Group to work on Constitutional Proposal was overtaken by outbreak of riot in the north. Murtala Muhammed’s Constitution Drafting Committee’s report (CDC) of 18th October, 1975 into which Obasanjo added 17 different items, was according to Rotimi Williams and Nwabueze, who regretted their role in building a federal “leviathan” inferred they merely did the bidding of the military.

    The 1999 constitution known as Abdulsalami Abubakar’s ‘Decree 24’, never debated by anyone was the sum total of Babangida’s 1989 and the largely boycotted Abacha’s 1995 constitutional conference. While Obasanjo’s own National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) of February 2005 was marred ‘tenure-elongation’ concerns, Jonathan’s 2014 CONFAB was thought to be an after-thought to seek support of Southwest, the region that was in the forefront of the struggle for restructuring.

    For Olu Falae and other concerned Nigerian stakeholders, our journey to nationhood must start with enthronement of justice, which is best assured with restructuring of the country in line with the dreams of our founding fathers and the 1920 British stated policy thrust.

  • Between Matawalle and Northern Elders Forum

    Between Matawalle and Northern Elders Forum

    Minister of State for Defence, Bello Mohammed Matawalle, is at war with the Northern Elders Forum, a group he last week dismissed as “people seeking political relevance to overburden the system and create political disunity among Nigerians.”

    The cause of Matawalle’s righteous indignation was Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, the forum’s spokesman, who had in an interview said “the North regretted voting President Bola Tinubu.” That, to him amounts to the forum dressing itself in borrowed robes as Tinubu was never the forum’s candidate.

    Atiku Abubakar who had appealed to the North to vote for one of their own was. Matawalle was therefore miffed because Northern Elders Forum “is seeking to erode other people’s rights to be recognised or made relevant in the scheme of things despite the failure of their sponsored candidates in the 2023 general elections.”

    Playing on the ethnic and religion fears of the masses of northern poor was a weapon the northern ruling hegemonic class used very effectively in the run up to independence.

    Labelling a political opponent as a threat to the culture and religion of the masses of the North as was done when Akintola’s attempt to mobilise support of Kano voters for his AG party in 1953 which led to the massacre of about 43 southerners was enough to create social dislocation.

    However, exploiting innermost fears of voters to win election has become less potent because of 25 percent of two-third of all the states constitutional requirement for a candidate to emerge president.

    This was what aided the emergence of Buhari in 2015 after three heroic failures despite scoring over 12 million votes in the North, and Tinubu in 2023 despite securing a little over 8m votes as against about 14m of his three opponents – none of who met the twelve two-third threshold.

    But it must be admitted that besides the Northern Elders Forum, other ethnic nationality groups including Afenifere, Ohaneze, Middle Belt Forum and the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) have lost their iron cast control over the masses on whose back they once rode to power.

    Leadership in Yoruba is often earned. Until desecration of Yoruba tradition by misguided governors, Obas were never imposed. They often emerged as the choice of the people through Ifa. Obas in Yoruba land were therefore answerable to their subjects. And Yoruba never had leaders they could not handle, not even the fearful tyrannical Sango, Samuel Akintola, alias “Akintola Taku” (Akintola refuses to step down) or Bola Ige, the well-beloved Yoruba leader who in a moment of anger joined Obasanjo to spite his fellow Afenifere members. All the above powerful leaders literarily committed suicide.

    Afenifere foisted Obasanjo on Yoruba in 2003. Obasanjo went on to rig out all Afenifere’s six AD progressive governors except Lagos State’s Ahmed Tinubu who abandoned Pa Ayo Adebanjo to form Afenifere Renewal Group with the likes of Wale Oshun and Pa Akande. If Ayo Adebanjo did not realise that he was dancing alone when his ‘vote Jonathan’ order was rejected in 2015 just as it was in 2019 when he tried to impose Atiku Abubakr on Yoruba, he must have realised he was dancing alone and naked in 2023 when his attempt to impose Peter Obi on Yoruba was roundly rejected.

    One of the major objectives of Ohanaeze, which claims to speak for Ibo in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi. Enugu, Imo Rivers and Delta, “is to foster unity among its members in order to more effectively represent the political interest of the Igbo in Nigeria.” Unfortunately, IPOB that has held the East hostage since the loss of President Jonathan in 2015 seems to be more influential among the people of the East. Perhaps for fear of IPOB, Ohanaeze seems to share the former’s anti-Nigerian sentiments, according to Lauretta Onochie who has also dismissed “the current Ohanaeze as a trading organisation that sells hatred, religious bigotry and ethnic bias…”

    The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) coordinated by Chief Edwin Clark was formed to enable various Niger Delta groups negotiate with one voice with the Federal Government. PANDEF unfortunately has not behaved differently from other splinter groups. Edwin Clark as President Jonathan’s godfather, instead of delivering prosperity to the people of the Niger Delta, cornered it for himself. As Chief Osita

    Okechukwu, the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, put it, “Chief Clark started building a university, married a new wife and was enjoying himself without showing seriousness in matters affecting the region (Niger Delta) and its people.”

    The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) is a regional socio-political group in Nigeria that promotes the interests of the people of the Middle Belt region. The forum, a successor to the United Middle Belt Congress led by Joseph Tarka, serves as a voice for minority groups of the Middle Belt.

    But after Tarka, prominent leaders of the area from Generals Gowon to Danjuma, Abdullahi Shelleng and David Mark, blinded by their personal ambition, allowed themselves to be humored by their enslavers as “patriotic, supportive and selfless Nigerians who have sacrificed much more than the people of other regions in holding this country together.”

    Now back to Matawalle’s war. While it may be convenient to accuse him of fighting his principal’s war like a slave, I think there is merit in interrogating some of his sweeping claims such as “The NEF is more of a political burden to Northerners” and that “in spite of their overbearing attitude on issues that affect political unity and cohesion, they cannot offer any positive idea or thought about the future of Northern Nigeria or, indeed, of Nigeria and its unity and togetherness.”

    If indeed NEF cares about the North and Nigeria, the body would have “deemed it fit to seek an audience with Mr. President to discuss issues affecting the Northern region despite the numerous challenges facing the North as rightly highlighted by the President and being addressed by him” or “visit any of the ministers dealing with issues of security, agriculture, water resources, police affairs, education, health, budget, foreign affairs, or any head of security agencies in the country for first-hand knowledge of government programs and actions.”

    For him, NEF’s failure to do any of the above is but a confirmation that “the North, until now has been teleguided by Northern Elders Forum who had fed fat in the past on the North’s resources and opportunities which had retarded development in the region and nation due to their selfishness.”

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    Why for instance did the same northern elite that ignored Awolowo’s warning of consequences of not sending children of the poor to school send their own children to the best schools in the world?

    Was it not apparent that Boko Haram terrorists’ 2013 declaration of Islamic caliphate and opposition to western-style modern education in Borno State where less than 33 percent of youths go to school was taken out of the play book of northern elders that have always opposed the education of children of the poor?

    Was it not mum from northern elders when on the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 female Chibok students which according to Amnesty International 2015 estimate, “are only a small percentage of the total number at least 2,000 women and girls that had been abducted by the group” were kidnapped?

    Except Lamido Sanusi who appealed to northern privileged individuals to build schools, especially for girls instead of mosques, which member of NEF criticised the obnoxious ‘quota system’ that killed meritocracy and frustrated youths outside the North?

    While desperate efforts were made by Buhari’s loyal gate keepers to export terrorist to reserved forests in the south in the guise of open grazing, why did NEF members feign ignorance about ungoverned Konduga area of the Sambisa Forest, a former nature reserve covering 60,000 km?

    Now that the battle line is drawn, I think the only thing that will satisfy Matawalle will be NEF’s answers to the above questions

  • Emefiele and company

    Emefiele and company

    Nigerians are said to be very forgiving of their leaders no matter the level of betrayal. Many however believe this is the effect of illiteracy in some parts of the country where governors openly celebrate the betrayal of their people who they claim don’t read newspapers. Others attribute this to the fact that a great many Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia. But one betrayal Nigerians are not likely going to forget in a hurry was the avoidable agony they were subjected to by Godwin Emefiele and his principal, President Buhari in the run up to the 2023 election.

    That the anger and anguish of many Nigerians are yet to be assuaged was experienced by yours truly in a supermarket a few days back. A woman following a seamless transaction with her ATM card triumphantly declared: “It is just as well Godwin Emefiele is in prison”. An intervention by the cashier to the effect that Emefiele was not in prison attracted a despondent “he should be taken back to prison where he should be left to rot away”. As she walked out of the supermarket, she spoke of the agony her family went through when Emefiele confiscated their life savings in 2023.

    Except that power sometimes leads to self-delusion, it was hard to imagine how Emefiele thought he could ignore constitutional provisions to contest the presidency of Nigeria as a sitting CBN governor.  But intoxicated by sycophants’ eulogies and deceived by a segment of the media, he went to court to defend the indefensible. When he became sober, opportunistic Emefiele, who initially secured his job because of his sympathy for PDP decided to go down with APC.

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    Emefiele on the eve of an all-important general election confiscated people’s life savings in the name of currency swapping. He then ordered the destruction of the old currencies even when he knew many locations in the country were yet to be saturated with the new notes. Unable to stand the sufferings of their people, some governors sought and secured relief from the Supreme Court. Emefiele ignored the Supreme Court ruling. All he wanted was anarchy and social dislocation that would hurt the ruling APC in the 2023 election

    The problem with Emefiele was that he was a round peg in a square hole. He was ill-equipped but President Jonathan unable to stand Sanusi Lamido’s criticism of monumental corruption going on in PDP, replaced him with a more pliable Emefiele. In fact, Emefiele was described by Kingsley Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, as “the worst CBN Governor” in the nation’s history”. He is without debate the worst and most damaging central bank governor in Nigeria’s history – incompetent and ill-prepared for the role and from all available information from his actions, doubtlessly severely integrity-challenged.

    Emefiele’s case is not helped by the report of Jim Obazee on the infractions that took place under his watch as CBN governor.  One of the 17 allegations by the Obazee’s report was that Emefiele employed surrogates to obtain shares in a new-generation bank. Other grave allegations as contained in the report submitted to President Tinubu on December 20 last year include Emefiele’s alleged unauthorised funding of 593 offshore bank accounts, fraudulent cash withdrawals from the CBN vault, gross financial misconduct involving the former governor and his deputy governors, and substantial fixed deposit holdings amounting to £543.4 million. It was on account of the above grave allegations Emefiele was arraigned at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Maitama, Abuja, in January on a 20 count-charge bordering on corruption and forgery.

    Last Friday, April 8, Emefiele was once again dragged to Lagos High Court by EFCC with the following charges: “That Mr. Emefiele directed to be done in abuse of the authority of your office, as the governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, an arbitrary act, to wit: allocating foreign exchange in the aggregate sum of $2,136,391,737.33 without bids, which act is prejudicial to the rights of Nigerians.”

    Count two, also of abuse of office, alleged that “Godwin Emefiele between 2020 and 2021, in Lagos, “directed to be done in abuse of the authority of your office, as the governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, an arbitrary, act to wit: allocating foreign exchange in the aggregate sum of $291,945,785.59, without bids, which act is prejudicial to the rights of Nigerians”.

    In the third count, Mr Emefiele was alleged to have, in 2021, in Lagos, “directed to be done in abuse of the authority of your office, as the governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, an arbitrary act, to wit: special allocation of foreign exchange in the aggregate sum of $1,769,254,793.16, which act is prejudicial to the rights of Nigerians.”

    In count four, the sum involved was $370,872,893.01. Emefiele’s co-defendant, Mr Omoile was accused of “about the 17th of November, 2020, whilst acting as an agent, accepted from Raja Punjab through Monday Osazuwa, the total sum of $110,000, for Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele, gifts as reward for allocating foreign exchange by the Central Bank in favour of Raja Punjab’s employer.”

    Although the buck stops at Emefiele’s desk, but the special investigation report indicated Emefiele, he did not work or act alone. He and the four deputy governors worked hand in glove. And this cannot be otherwise because deputy governors’ duties include “sustainability; foreign reserve adequacy; improving the transmission mechanism of monetary policy; achieving depth, safety and soundness in the financial sector; and managing capital flow and ensuring that key economic and financial policy reforms are focused on fiscal and debt”. This is why Nigerians expect the four CBN deputy governors to have their own dates in court.

    It is also on record that in 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari constituted an Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to replace his administration’s Economic Management Team. It was headed by Professor Doyin Salami, a doctoral degree holder of Queen Mary College, University of London who had earlier served as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria and had been a member of the Federal Government’s Economic Management Team.

     There was Bismarck J. Rewane, a chartered member of the Institute of Bankers of England and Wales and a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Bankers with over 30 years of experience as an economist, banker & financial analyst. There was also Chukwuma Soludo, a former CBN governor. He earned a first-class degree in Economics, backed up with a with a PhD and post-doctoral training in some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; University of Cambridge, UK, University of Oxford among others. 

    Professor Shehu Yahaya, another member was a macroeconomics lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Sussex, UK. He was a former Executive Director at the African Development Bank. There was also Professor Ode Ojowu, former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s adviser who had held positions at the International Monetary Bank and the World Bank.  Mohammed Sagagi with a PhD (Economics) from University of Warwick was another member. Salisu Mohammed BSc (First Class Hons) in Economics from University of Maiduguri and went on to bag PhD in Economics from Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

     Iyabo Masha has worked with the International Monetary Fund since 2003 in Washington D.C. Metro Area Assignment has taken her to more than 10 emerging markets (Asian and African countries). She worked at Central Bank of Nigeria’s Research Department and was also the immediate past IMF Representative for Sierra Leone).

    That these accomplished stars could not sound the alarm when things began to go critically wrong cannot but leave Nigerians in wonder.

  • Triumph of Air Peace

    Triumph of Air Peace

    Air Peace, the Nigeria’s flag carrier commenced Lagos-London flight services last Saturday March 30 after seven years of test of endurance. Allen Onyema, the airline chief executive officer (CEO) deserves accolades for a hard-won victory which has also been hailed by many as victory for Nigeria and Nigerian air travellers.

    And to discerning Nigerians, it cannot be anything less.  To those who are passionate about our country, it is a victory over swindling of Nigeria of about N3.7 billion annually by foreign airlines including British Airways that was by 2014 charging non-competitive fare of $10,070 for a First Class return seat from Abuja to London while the same facility through Accra costs $4, 943. It is also a relief for Nigerians relieved of the burden of having to travel to Ghana, South Africa or Morocco in search of cheap foreign airline tickets. It is also hoped this victory will bring into a closure ex-minister, Stella Oduah’s battle against deliberate violation of Nigeria’s aviation laws by foreign airlines.

    And for those who have faith in our country, it is also a victory over local powers and principalities who cannot stand the success of their fellow compatriots but will rather cooperate with outsiders to kill their own “sun’ (apologies to Saro Wiwa) whether he be Chinua Achebe’s Okonkwo, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Congo’s Patrice Lumumba or Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo.

    The betrayal by Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), as narrated by Onyema during his ARISE TV interview was despicable.  And no less repulsive was the complicity of corrupt bureaucrats in the  avoidable  frittering away of N200m by Air Peace to secure the services of consultancy firms from IATA just as  the action of unpatriotic government officials  who deliberately derailed the commencement of services operations long after the Nigerian flag carrier had  “actually procured their three-triple seven because of this route’,  because they wanted to give it the blow that it deserved at that time” cannot be anything but loathsome.

    Onyema also did not forget to remind us of the international aero-politics which he admitted while speaking with ARISE Television on Monday, can be very dirty. He must  have been referring to having to clear his name over U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Georgia’s  November 22, 2019 press release alleging fraud and money laundering for moving more than $20 million from Nigeria through United States bank accounts out of which ‘over $3 million of the funds used to purchase the aircraft allegedly came from bank accounts for Foundation for Ethnic Harmony, International Centre for Non-Violence and Peace Development, All-Time Peace Media Communications Limited, and Every Child Limited.’. Added to this international conspiracy was the Gatwick authorities’ unusual demand of non-refundable 20 million pounds deposit, before Air Peace could start operation”.

    Last Saturday victory lap was anchored by Onyema who took a leading position in the private airline operators’ battle against government’s proposed national carrier they argued was detrimental to the survival of airline local operators.

    Buhari had in 2014 disclosed that President Jonathan fleet of about 11 aircrafts would form the nucleus of his planned national carrier.  It was not until July 18, 2018, that “the name, logo, colour scheme, structure, and types of airplanes of Nigeria’s national carrier were unveiled at Farnborough International Public Air show in London”. There we were informed about $308.8m had been set aside to cover aircraft acquisition and running costs for the airline’s take-off, with five of the projected 30 aircraft needed expected in Nigeria by December 19 2014. The new national carrier, we were told would operate 40 domestic, regional and sub-regional and 41 international routes. And that it would be a private sector driven ‘Nigeria Air’ in which government would own only 5% with Nigerians owing 46 per cent equity, while 49 per cent shares were reserved for strategic foreign investors.

    Unfortunately, Buhari had credibility deficit especially with Hadi Sirika last minute stampeding of Air Ethiopia as favoured strategic partners on terms the current minister whose official report is yet to be released said was unfavourable to Nigeria,

    Nigerians derived little joy from government past interference in the activities of the airlines especially the Stella Oduah’s ‘N330b Aviation Intervention Fund meant to address the financial challenges faced by airlines in the country” with N232.6b of it paid to 21 participating banks.  But records as at 2015, when Jonathan left government, showed that domestic airlines like Arik, Aero and Air Nigeria whose managing director led the crusade and got N35.5 billion government bail-out were owing AMCON over $700m debt

    The mishandling of Nigerian Airways, Virgin Nigeria, Nigerian National Shipping Line, the four public refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna, of Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Company, Nigeria Railways Corporation” NEPA PHCN, banks oil companies, insurance, hospitality industry only increased Nigerians apprehensiveness about involvement of government in setting up of a national carrier or involvement of government in any business for that matter.

     And counting in favour of anti-national carrier, domestic airline operators and Air Peace this time around is the fact that they are not asking for government bailout. Their battle cry is that past government interference had been a disaster.

    But while we celebrate the success of Air Piece and the triumph of domestic airline operators, it is important to remind Nigerians youths who lack a sense of history and the rest of Nigerians, who often suffer from collective amnesia, that there is nothing wrong with public enterprises. The problem was with our ill trained military men and their thieving new breed politicians

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    Our founding fathers following in the footsteps of Europe adopted the Keynesian macroeconomic model which supports government intervention for the purpose of national development instead of depending on market economy to liberate our people from poverty.  And this paid off as most of the public enterprises established by our founding fathers brought rapid development until after the civil war.  For that season, public enterprises formed the backbone of our economy. In fact, it was the golden era of Nigeria when the naira was as strong as pound sterling and stronger than the dollar with Nigeria giving interest free loans to some African and European nations. Up to 1983, estacode for those visiting Britain who by the way needed no visa, was N500 (five hundred naira).

    Our nightmare started with Babangida’s ill-advised commercialization and Structural Adjustment Programme which saw many thriving federal and state-owned public enterprises sold to retired military personnel and their fronts who were never equipped to run such enterprises. Obasanjo and his military baked new breed politicians completed this betrayal when from 1999, they sold Nigeria’s total investment of about $100 billion acquired between 1959 and 1999 for a paltry $1.5 billion.

    From then on, public enterprises became the scape goat to cover up the greed of politicians. It was used as an excuse by politicians without vision to justify underfunding of public universities to allow those who have access to state funds set up their own private universities, sabotage public water supply, the mainstay of our urban centres in the 60s and 70s to pave the  way for a regime of private water merchants  and to destroy Nigerian Airways to justify the setting up of Albarka, Okada, Oriental, Concord, Harka, EAS, Triad, Harco, Savannah, Bellview, ADC airlines their today’s reincarnations.

    Onyema, like Dangote and other members of their tribe might be good corporate citizens, always aiding Nigerians in distress, celebrating Falcons, after victory and flying our national colours. But at the end, he is profit-driven business man running aviation business, perhaps one of the most sophisticated businesses in the world. He has to recoup costs of all the aircrafts he claims to own while the aircrafts must be certified globally.

    Onyema is not into charity. He is in business to make money. And making money under market economy means taking advantage of the less privileged that our abandoned public enterprises were designed to protect.

  • How northern leaders betrayed Ahmadu Bello and the nation

    How northern leaders betrayed Ahmadu Bello and the nation

    Fortuitously, we now have some discordant voices coming from northern political elite, once united only by their opposition to our independence article of faith – “that each federating unit develops at its own pace without interference from others”. This is however coming after over 50 years of our nation’s nightmare, 15 years of Boko Haram’s mindless killings and devastation, nine years of terrorism by immigrant herdsmen and 10 years of banditry by subsistence farmers and cattle herders. 

    For other federating nationalities held down by the conspiracy of the dominant, this was nothing but a betrayal of the ideals of visionary Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the first Premier of Northern Nigeria who was assassinated in 1966 by misguided young soldiers.

    First was the hypocrisy of Ango Abdulahi’s Northern Elders Forum who, after serially betraying the aspirations of the northern masses that look up to them for direction, like the proverbial Ostrich that hides its head in the sand, now turns around to find whipping dog in President Tinubu and his less than one year old administration. Speaking on the abduction and release of the Kuriga school children, it declared: “The Northern Elders Forum firmly declares that enough is enough… Unfortunately, just months into the Tinubu administration, there have already been clear signs of failure in providing the vital aspects of security of life and property to citizens.”

    Of course no one should hold brief for President Tinubu. The buck stops at his table. But it is sad that the northern leaders continue to live in denial. Except northern leaders, every discerning person cannot but see the linkage between the self-inflicted crisis in the north and their feudal system which is ideologically opposed to any form of egalitarianism including sending children of the poor that are today on rampage to school.

     But it was just as well that there was the dissenting voice of Dr Shehu Mahdi, President Buhari’s former controversial executive Secretary of NHIS, who chose not to be economical with the truth. For him, northern leaders are the scourge of the north and they alone can find peace for their people. For him, “With northern vice president, northern Speaker, northern head of the military, northern NSC, Northern Secretary etc, it is time for northern leaders to lock themselves up in a room, look at themselves in the mirror and admit they have failed their people and resolve on how to bring peace to our lives”.

    But sadly, it has not always been like this. Ahmadu Bello, the great grandson of Sultan Muhammad Bello, the second Sultan of Sokoto after Usmanu Dan Fodio, was proud of his ancestry. Some even described him as arrogant for referring to the Bantus of Benue trough as his great grandfather’s slaves. But he was a decent and selfless leader. His controversial northernisation policy was designed to protect his people. And it “reflects the cotemporary desires for modernization, struggle over who would direct and benefit from such changes and concern over the cultural and moral scaffolding of independence Nigeria”. (Douglas Anthony, Decolonization, Race and Region in Nigeria, Northernisation revisited (International Journal of African historical studies Vop.51, No.1 (2018)

    Ahmadu Bello’s policies were never designed to impede the development of Nigeria but to make the north more competitive in an emerging Nigerian state where most of the ethnic nationalities wanted their own nation within the greater Nigerian nation state. If Ahmadu Bello and his northern pathfinders had insisted on 50% of membership of the national assembly in 1950, it was a survival strategy in an emerging Nigeria where the less educated north unlike other nationalities did not have their first doctors and lawyers until mid-fifties. 

    He and his group copied what was good from other regions and strived to build a formidable northern bureaucracy and academic institution. We have no evidence that ABU that produced a world-acclaimed intellectual such as the late Professor Ayodele Awojobi, alias ‘the Akoka Giant’, whose PhD thesis from UK University was said to be responsible for off-shore oil mining on the high seas, and the famous architect, Fola Alade, the designer of abandoned Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi could not be said to be inferior to the nation’s other institutions.

     Ahmadu Bello, a man of great vision,  will today be probably troubled in his grave  to discover that beneficiaries of his visionary leadership have become ethnic irredentists collaborating with less endowed military soldiers of fortune who joined the military in order to climb the social ladder (many initial recruits were picked from motor parks in Kaduna while Buhari attested to the magnanimity of Ahmadu Bello who picked him up from his Daura village saving him from remaining a herdsman) to foist disruptive and self-serving policies such as quota system that kills meritocracy and creation of  more LGAs for the north without objective criteria beyond cornering resources of more productive members of the union.

     That the north at the beginning was not as economically endowed as the south, the major incentive for the 1914 British amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates was a settled issue. But there is no evidence that Ahmadu Bello and his northern political elite opposed revenue allocation based on derivation all through the constitutional debate leading to independence. Instead, he went on to supervise the groundnut pyramids, the sources of revenue for building the biggest business conglomerate in Africa as well as other infrastructures including roads, Ahmadu Bello Stadium and Ahmadu Bello University and was still able to provide security for the whole of the north.

    The rain started to beat us after the civil war with the emergence of northern soldiers of fortune and self-serving northern politicians who found Bello’s shoe too big. Murtala Muhammed destroyed the academia and bureaucracy without which a nation decays; Shehu Shagari smoked while his NPN wrecked the economic ship of state despite Awo’s warning it was heading for the rocks. Babangida destroyed our budding industries by opening our nation to importation of goods from Europe and its satellite nations. He manipulated the religion sensibilities of the north by illegally taking the country into OIC. Abacha who according to Alli Mazrui was too unintelligent to know fears, stole the country blind while he waged a five-year war against Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups. Abdulsalami Abubakar authored the 1999 constitution derisively referred re to as ‘Decree 24’ by Nigerians. Finally, Buhari, caged by Fulani ethnic irredentists left the country more divided than he met it.

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    But it is not getting better with only 33% of Boko Haram infested Bornu in school, 70% of Nigerian out-of-school children from the north and with a large expanse of ungoverned territories spanning over 200 kilometres from Kaduna to Zamfara.

    The question those who care about our country are asking is whether the northern leaders including NEF, Gowon, Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, herders’ patron such as Lamido Sanusi Lamido, are aware of these ungoverned territories. And if they are, why did they not rein in Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders’ Association before they carried out their threat to make Nigeria ungovernable unless they were given license for open grazing in places like Rivers, Ekiti, Ondo and Oyo?

    Why would they not persuade those who killed and confiscated their victims’ land to relocate to Kano following ex-governor, Abdullahi Ganduje’s undertaking to rehabilitate all herdsmen in Kano?  There was similarly not a whimper from northern elders as the battle line over attempt to export armed killer herdsmen from north’s ungoverned territories to Ondo’s reserved forest over which daggers were drawn between President Buhari’s ‘loyal gate keepers’ and the late Governor Akeredolu of Ondo.

    Northern leaders not only betrayed Ahmadu Bello, their illustrious forbearer, they remain the nation’s cancer.

  • Of children abduction and soldiers killing

    Of children abduction and soldiers killing

    The initial lull in the activities of terrorists, bandits and militants visiting pain and death on Nigerians was probably to test if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s approach would be different from those of his predecessors. Sadly, the nightmare of haunted Nigerians has returned and now in full swing. Over 280 schoolchildren and some teachers abducted from Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, by bandits on Thursday, March 7, are currently marooned in the forest with their captors.   A fresh attack on the same Dogon-Noma community, Kajuru Local Government Area in the early hours of Saturday, barely three days after left one dead and eight women kidnapped.  A renewed attack on Sunday resulted in the harvesting of an additional 87 captives.

    The nation’s nightmare continued with Sunday’s mindless killing of 17 gallant soldiers of the 181 Amphibious Battalion, Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State by irate youths while on a peace mission to Okuoma community over land dispute.

     Once again, as tragic as the above incidents are, the two different events are mere symptoms of our unresolved national question. We cannot continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different result. A people that refuse to learn from history will be punished by history. Our leaders enjoy playing the ostrich instead of helping us to confront our own demons.

    For instance, where will bandits get ungoverned forest to hide 285 children in a strong northwest region, with state police, community police and forest guards heavily armed to secure communities and their forests? And what will be the business of highly trained military personnel with local land dispute in a Bomadi LGA, not created and funded from Abuja but created, funded and run by the natives?

    President Tinubu however must take full responsibility for the continued nightmare of Nigerians. The buck stops at his table. He asked for the job and had 20 years to prepare for it. Kuriga was preventable because the president was familiar with the April 14, 2014 abduction of 214 Chibok schoolgirls and fruitless search by Babagana Monguno’s (the National Security Adviser (NSA) 100 jet fighters. President Tinubu could not have suddenly forgotten that the February 19, 2018 carting away of 110 students of Government Girls’ Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, in 11 trucks by suspected Boko Haram terrorists in military fatigues was blamed by the international community on absence of governance.

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    President Tinubu understands the nature of our crisis of nation-building and the solutions canvassed by Nigerian stakeholders since 1970. Some two months back, Wole Soyinka, regarded as the conscience of the nation, was with him in Abuja to remind him of the imperative of restructuring.  Just last week, Akinwunmi Adesina, an internationally acknowledged Nigerian star during his presentation of the Awo Foundation lecture, spoke of the possibility of “a united states of Nigeria”. And just this last Monday, Emeka Anyaoku, another recognized Nigerian star who spoke at the gathering of ‘The Patriot’, a group initiated by late Professor Ben Nwabueze and Rotimi Williams both of whom regretted foisting a unitary constitution on the country in 1979, where he reminded us that like most multi-ethnic societies, the federal option is the only way of liberating individual and groups from the tyranny of the state.

    These three and a handful of their tribe spread across the country and in the diaspora are the only few members of the Nigerian tribe we know. Others who publicly swear by their “Nigerian-ness’ only do so because such offers an opportunity to secure political office, oil block, or fraudulently take control of the commanding heights of the nation’s economy. Majority of us are Hausa Fulani, Zango Kataf, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Edo, Tiv, etc. citizens.

    The implication of this is that if the police as a vital state institution is defined by society, we don’t in the real sense of it have federal police but police that wear the colours of ethnic nationalities. And this is why the police is not answerable to the state but to ethnic groups, powerful individuals and the highest bidder including criminals. We could not have suddenly forgotten how President Buhari’s IGP Ibrahim Idris told Nigerians that terrorists who killed, maimed and confiscated the community land of victim condemned to IDP camps were ghosts.

    A structure that sustains an IGP’s arrogance in selectively determining which states laws to implement cannot effectively address states’ security challenges.  This is why it has been tales after tales from one IGP to the other even as killings by terrorists and kidnapping by bandits continue in many of the states.

    President Tinubu understands where the rain started to beat us and has not got the luxury of playing the ostrich.

    Our founding fathers bequeathed onto us a working federal constitution. Military adventurers in search of a vision of better society they were ill-equipped to understand starting with Aguiyi Ironsi came up with the 1966 Unification Decree 34.

    Eleven of Gowon military messiahs were found to be men with feet of clay. Murtala Muhammed destroyed academia and bureaucracy, the two institutions without which society decays.

    Fast forward to the Babangida regime in 1985. While he was busy turning the nation to net importer of labour of other societies by ceding the commanding heights of the economy to mostly dubious and ill-equipped members of the governing elite interested only in asset stripping, he was christened “Prince of the Lower Niger’’ by grovelling intellectuals and received the National Economic Society of Nigeria’s (NES) highest honour for his handling of the economy.

     Obasanjo started massive centralization of states institutions. As an elected president, he sold our patrimony in the name of privatization. And without understanding that no modern state has ever developed since the 18th century without the central role of political parties, he destroyed PDP, AD and ANPP in the name of “mainstreaming”. Out of office, perhaps as an admission of failure, he in 2018 inaugurated a short-lived movement he claimed “will mobilise our population for unity, cooperation, development, rule of law, employment, law and order, justice, integration, peace, security, stability, welfare and well-being”.

    If only on account of the humongous amount stolen under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, those who claimed he was the answer to the national question served none but themselves.

    We have seen how Muhammadu Buhari frittered away goodwill of Nigerians for eight years while being held hostage by terrorists visiting death on Nigerians.

    Well prepared Tinubu, unlike his ill-prepared predecessors who instead of learning how other multi-ethnic societies face their own demons played the ostrich while self-serving members of the governing elite demonstrated their lack of faith in the country by stealing the country blind, has an edge.  From his experience from the trenches and strategic studies, he understands very clearly that lack of faith in one’s country arises from social discontent, marginalisation, injustice and denial of quest for self-actualisation, all of which find expression in social strife, sabotage of economic activities, rebellion, militancy and sometimes civil war.

    Our nation has experienced these manifestations since the military misadventure into politics in 1966. If his predecessors did everything except addressing the causes of these malcontents, President Tinubu has his work cut out for him.

  • Buhari’s missed opportunity

    Buhari’s missed opportunity

    Of all our past leaders, Muhammadu Buhari, by his anti-imperialist and pro-Nigerian policies during his short stay in power between 1984 and 1985 was perhaps the most pro-Nigerian.  The author of ‘Nigerians have no other place they can call their own’ was regarded as an honourable man ‘who cannot be unfair’ (Maitama Sule). The only ware Buhari had to sell in the run up to the 2015 election was his righteousness which he carried around like Saint Christopher’s badge of honour.

    Buhari had played his politics well by rejecting IMF loan to prevent the destruction of our budding industries with the flooding of our market with foreign manufactured goods and challenging Nigerians to produce their own wheat or starve.  Nigerians produced not only what they would eat but more than enough wheat that storage facilities became a challenge.  Within the period, our refineries worked with Nigerian exporting refined petroleum products to earn foreign exchange while domestic consumption of PMS was secured through swapping of crude oil with Brazil.

    It was widely believed that Babangida’s palace coup was masterminded by CIA in response to Buhari’s anti-imperialist crusade. This was to earn him the sympathy of Yoruba voters in 2015 despite jailing their leaders for between 100-300 years for taxing contractors to raise money to build universities in Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos while treating Shagari who presided over massive corruption that led to the collapse of the economy and his NPN/NPP governors that took foreign loans to marry new wives and set up private banks with kid gloves.

    Unfortunately, Buhari, by his mishandling of our crisis of nation-building during his two-term presidency marred by incompetence, cronyism and delegation by abdication, deprived himself of an opportunity to become a statesman.

    His first test of integrity after acquiring power was his apparent sympathy for herdsmen terrorists rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world, coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab. As if to confirm the fears of those who alleged his government had been hijacked by ethnic irredentists even before its inauguration, Alhaji Sale Bayeri issued a threat claiming that “the Boko Haram insurgency would be a child’s play if herdsmen and farmers’ conflicts are not resolved in a way that is acceptable to all sides”, while pointing out that what would appease the rampaging herdsmen was contained in a 70-page letter he had sent to President Buhari before his inauguration. Their demand was for an unhindered grazing access in areas he identified as ‘trouble spots’ spread across 75 local government areas across 21 states including “Oye Local Government in the northern part of Ekiti, Shaki in Oyo State, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Bauchi, Gombe, Yola”. To support their claim that “Benue anti-grazing law cannot work”, mindless massacre of 72 people was carried out in the night. Buhari ignored warnings by Nigerian stakeholders including Wole Soyinka who advised the Fulani insurgents should not be treated with kid gloves, until the whole of the middle belt states was overrun.

    Buhari’s management of the oil sector which accounts for over 80% of foreign earnings was no less disappointing.  Nigerians had hoped he would improve on his record as oil minister in 1977 and as Head of State in 1984. Curiously, none of Nigerian four refineries worked while his party’s promised modular, for eight years remained a promise.  And while the nation could not meet its OPEC quota of crude oil export due to massive crude oil theft, over N700 billion was being stolen daily under the fuel subsidy scam.

    And despite Oronsaye recommendation, Buhari retained the instrument through which politicians and oil marketers commit this crime. For instance, the PPPRA, an outfit with a staff strength of 249, supervised by an unwieldy 22-man strong board, gobbling scandalously whopping salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion per annum, whose mandate include ending long queues at filling stations by making petroleum products  available at reasonable prices”, was retained even when its functions only duplicated those of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, (PPMC) set up in 1988 to “profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.”

    Buhari’s management of the economy was no less disastrous. Perhaps scared by IMF that accused him of being stubborn, he went on a borrowing binge with Nigeria debt rising to $40b currently being serviced by about 95% of our national earnings. We can add to that the illegal printing of N23trillion through ways and means by CBN and one-year advance collection of crude oil sales revenue.

    His anti-corruption crusade was a sham. He was silent on the frittering away of N7billion on rural electrification project, the $50 billion independent foreign experts claimed was spent on the energy sector by Obasanjo and President Jonathan’s own $8b that pushed the power capacity to 4,517MW in December 2012 before nose-diving to estimated 2800MW.

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    Nigerians had expected a probe of how Babangida’s Technical Committee on Privatization and Commercialization’s (TCPC) disposed of the following national assets: Assurance Bank, African Petroleum, Unipetrol, National Oil and Chemical Co. Plc, West African Portland Cement, Ashaka Cement, Northern Nigeria Cement, Nigeria Cement company, FESTAC 1977 Hotel, Nigerdock, Niger Insurance, Nigeria Re-insurance, Savannah Sugar, National Trucks Manufacturing, Electricity Meter Company, Zaria, Hamdala Hotel and Federal Palace hotel among many others. They had expected the same on the following national assets sold by Obasanjo’s 1999 Public Enterprises Privatization and Commercialization Act: Delta Steel Company valued at $1.5 billion but sold for $30m; NICON Insurance worth N6billion but allegedly bought with fake MoU and fake cheques, Ajaokuta Steel Company valued at $1.5 billion but sold for $30 million, ALSCON valued at $3.2b but sold for $130m, Nigeria Re-Insurance Corp. worth N50b but sold for N1.5b (see Adamu Adamu: “BPE: Behind Closed doors”(Daily Trust, August 12, 2011). There was also Abuja Sheraton Hotel and Towers built at a whopping $300m in 1986 but sold for a paltry $34m” and “Sofitel Hotel (NICON Luxury Hotels) built with a German loan of $139m in 1990 later sold off for $50m. (The Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Probe (This Day, April 23 2008).

    Buhari whose campaign promises included restructuring was to feign ignorance as to its meaning after the election. He was however schooled by the following Nigerian stakeholders who first reminded him that our “1954 structure, negotiated by our founding fathers ‘to promote the unity of Nigeria and protect the interest of diverse elements that make up the country’ was destroyed by our military adventurers.

    For Atiku, restructuring means ‘less centralized, less suffocating and less dictatorial’ central government to satisfy agitation by some restive groups for self-actualization. For Alhaji Balarabe Musa, the former governor of Kaduna State, it is ‘a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states, they can cater for, would certainly reduce injustice and inequality among the people’. For Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary, it is ‘a return to the regional structure practiced in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming the federating units. For Wole Soyinka it means “the basis of our association needed to be renegotiated if we are to prevent a disastrous disintegration”.

    But Buhari would rather listen to Ango Abdullahi, the spokesman for Northern Elders Forum, who after tracing it to post-independence power rivalry between the Igbo and the Hausa Fulani, advised him to refer it the National Assembly, a product of injustice, by design and by composition” whose control by northern majority has made any change, including ordinary local policing impossible. And of course, Buhari’s  other trusted confidant is elder-statesman Tanko Yakassai who blamed the Yoruba for supporting self-actualization struggle by restive groups like the Tivs, Beroms, Katafs  of the Middle Belt and the Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers states of the Southeast since 1953.

    • Buhari loves Nigeria but loves his fellow Fulani ethnic irredentists more.
  • Food security and Southwest governors

    Food security and Southwest governors

    Insecurity, lack of forex and low domestic production are said to have pushed prices of food up across the country leading to protests by youths and workers. Some state governors have been reported to have stormed Abuja headquarters of Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to push for increased crop production to ensure food security in Nigeria. Those governors especially those from the southwest have failed their people. They have a template set for them since the First Republic. But rather than do the hard work, they seem to be more interested in building bridges over land in their state capitals or airports even when there are no roads to the airports. This piece below first published on September 6, 2017 captures the embarrassing position of governors of the Yoruba nation.

    Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be servant of all” – Jesus Christ (Mark 10:43)

    Last week, tomatoes and vegetables disappeared from Lagos markets. This was attributed to disruption in the regular flow of some food items from the north to the south by the Sallah holiday. Our inability to feed ourselves 17 years into the fourth republic is perhaps a clear manifestation of deficit of Christ’s defined attributes of servant-leadership among some of our clowning Southwest ‘activists’, the ‘constituted authority and ‘Oshokomole – Ebora tin je jollof’ governors who behave and act as if they are beyond reproach or that leadership is about being hailed by sycophants, thugs and Okada commercial motorcyclists.

    But it has not always been like this. We were once blessed with selfless leaders and role models with templates for developmental strategies that did not only guarantee self-sufficiency in food production but promises of a more just, egalitarian society. We remember with nostalgia the selfless services of leaders like Obafemi Awolowo, S. L. Akintola, Anthony Enahoro, Oduola Osuntokun Abraham Adesanya, and their other colleagues who left a lasting legacy in education, health, housing and agriculture with judicious management of the little resources available to them. Their second republic successors such as Olabisi Victor Onabanjo, Lateef Jakande, Bola Ige, Ambrose Alli and Adekunle Ajasin who as governor, refused to spend N50, 000 to fix a leaking government house claiming Ondo State could not afford the luxury at the time, followed the footsteps of their illustrious predecessors by providing quality service to their people. The fourth republic threw up Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Niyi Adebayo, Segun Osoba and Pa Bisi Akande who, like Jakande used his personal car as official car until the state forced him to abandon it. Like their predecessors, they selflessly served the people and we today remember them with melancholy.

    The crisis of leadership in the West started in 2003 when Obasanjo under his dubious mainstreaming policy decided to impose leaders on the West. He was to become a godfather to the likes of Lucky Igbinedion, Segun Agagu, Ayo Fayose, Segun Oni, Gbenga Daniel and Olagunsoye Oyinlola as well as other ambitious individuals such as journalists, academics and other professionals who, following their losses in the primary elections of their parties, were seduced by Obasanjo federal government’s offer of funds, security and vehicles to destabilize southwest.

    Obasanjo’s hand-picked leaders as it turned out, unlike their predecessors, served none but themselves. Igbinedion left Benin City after eight years in office like a war-torn city. Fayose traded a College of Medicine for a fraudulent poultry farm during his first coming; Oni took Ekiti through three years of nightmare while fighting to keep a mandate the courts finally ruled he never won. His major legacy includes foisting three universities, including the one sited in his village on Ekiti that had no resources to effectively run one. Olagunsoye Oyinlola who admitted to a judicial commission of inquiry of awarding and paying in advance contractors to build stadia around some towns in Osun State and Gbenga Daniel who went around Ogun State with ex-President Jonathan commissioning uncompleted and yet to take off projects.

    With Obasanjo’s humiliating defeat by Tinubu, some of the immediate and current leadership which represents the mainstream southwest political orientation were expected to have taken after their first and second and republic forbearers. Unfortunately they seem to have found their shoes too big.

    Let us start with Ekiti, the land of honour. Fayemi no doubt made some impact in education and social welfare. But with Ekiti State as the 35th out of 36th on the nation’s revenue ladder, diverting N2.7b of the N25 billion bond his administration secured from the capital market to build a grandiose government house because the then ‘Osuntokun Lodge lacked many facilities befitting of the residence of a governor and therefore very inferior’ to other government houses in the country was indefensible when his government could have rehabilitated the run-down Ikun Dairy farm established by Ajasin in the second republic as part of solution to a geographical region that depends on other geographical zones for the 10,000 heads of cow it consumes daily.

    Rauf Aregbesola, after retrieving his stolen mandate through the courts had enjoyed tremendous support and goodwill of the people, all of which he seems to have frittered away because of his leadership style. Although he swears by Awo’s name, he appears to be his own role model. His rather insensitive comment about the state of mind of Ademola Adeleke who recently defeated his APC candidate in the Osun South Senatorial District by-election after rightly reminding Ede people that the senatorial seat was not hereditary seem to confirm the fears of those who argue Aregbesola has been wearing a shoe bigger than his leg.

    Abiola Ajimobi during his first term, keyed into Buhari’s green alternative initiative which focuses on commercial agriculture development programme, by allocating tractors, planters and harvesters to each of the 33 local government areas. Most of those equipment are however said to have either been sold off or mismanaged by past caretaker chairmen while he as ‘the constituted authority’ battles those who put him in power especially students of Oyo State tertiary institutions who have been out of schools for the greater part of the year and their civil servants and pensioners parents who have not been paid for several months.

    Read Also: Time has preserved Awo’s principles, legacies – Tinubu

    Ajimobi who started well is also today enmeshed in Ibadan traditional chieftaincy controversy as he apes ill-informed military men who unilaterally made kings out of ‘Baales’ as he creates, by fiat, kings with crowns and sceptres without kingdoms.

    While Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State on his part is striving to turn his state to number one industrial hub in Nigeria with plans to build airport before 2019, two years to the end of his second four years term, his plan towards agriculture that will lead to industrialisation remains a plan. In any case, since people have to eat before the transformation of agriculture from commercialization to industrialization, keying into the Buhari agriculture initiatives designed to achieve food security, alleviate rural poverty and end hunger ought to be the starting point.

    If leadership, as Sun Tzu, (Chinese General, and 544–496BC) has said “is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and discipline”, a well-focused Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos who operates as a servant rather than a ‘constituted authority’ better appropriates the virtues of his forbearers. After insisting “there is no alternative to achieving food security other than tilling the land and embrace best practices that will improve efficiency in the agricultural value chain”, he has in practical terms sealed a landmark partnership with Kebbi State government for the development of agricultural commodities such as rice, wheat, groundnut, onion, maize and beef value chain. His government has also acquired 500 hectares of farm land for rice cultivation in Eggua, Ogun State, 84.7 hectares at Okinni in Osogbo for oil palm processing