The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Nasir El Rufai and his politics

    Nasir Ahmad El Rufai is a controversial politician whose colleagues, whether in PDP where he cut his political teeth under Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar, the grand masters of political mischief,  APC where he acquired great influence through hero-worshipping of late President Buhari, SDP that found him too hot to keep and now in ADC, the vehicle he and his class of 1999 PDP members want to use to salvage Nigeria, cannot ignore. El Rufai, ever full of fire and fury, is never afraid of war.

    His major shortcoming according to Obasanjo who describes his political son, in his ‘Under my Watch’ as a “malicious liar, a pathological purveyor of untruths and half-truths with little or no regard for integrity”, is his “inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue for long, but only to Nasir El Rufai”.

     Atiku Abubakar his other political godfather and boss at BPE has also spoken of his character defects including his self-love. Following Atiku’s claim that he turned down his godson’s offer of shares in Transcorp, El Rufai wasted no time before savaging his political father’s character by challenging him publicly to talk about “the shenanigans surrounding Ericsson manoeuver and the Abuja water treatment plant contract scandal.”

    And if further evidence is needed to confirm Nasir loves only El Rufai, he provided evidence of that in chapter six of his “Accidental Civil Servant” sub-headed, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’.

    Obasanjo was determined to make him a minister in spite of his character defect, including what Obasanjo describes as his penchant for insulting and disrespecting people, savaging their character in their absence and thinking he alone knows everything.

    To ease his godson’s confirmation process at the senate, Obasanjo directed him to meet Senator Ibrahim Mantu, deputy senate president who told him that on account of how El Rufai treated senators while he was BPE chair where they watched him ‘cornered things to himself’, while avoiding to specifically mention the controversial presidential guest house El Rufai bought, he would have to raise N54m “to give to the more recalcitrant senators to soften the ground”. For Obasanjo who was desperate to make El Rufai, Minister for Federal Capital Territory to return sanity to a new city fast taking after Lagos, he was not going to allow anything including money to derail his plan. He therefore directed his godson to see VP Atiku Abubakar.

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    El Rufai got through the screening and later became minister without bothering about how the bribe demand by the National Assembly was paid. But few months after becoming minister, El Rufai did not think twice before securing the support of Obasanjo who was trying to humiliate his estranged VP, to leak the N50m bribe story to The Guardian on Sunday (August 31, 2003).

    Obasanjo got his own El Rufai’s treatment not long after. Following his disagreement with Obasanjo over privatization of Nigerian Airways, El Rufai joined forces with Atiku to start planning the downfall of Obasanjo on the strength of a prediction by a Cameroon marabout that Obasanjo would not last beyond first term.

    “When I am president, we are going to take charge of this place and fix it … you are one of my best people” to which El Rufai replied “fine, Mr. Vice President, I will hang in there”. While El Rufai daily assured Obasanjo of his loyalty as his minister, he was from  August 2002, engaged in nocturnal meetings with Atiku, Usman Bugaje, Atiku’s political adviser and Nduka Obaigbena, his close friend scheming how to take make the transition smooth. (Nasir El Rufai: Accidental Public Servant pg.131-152)

    Tinubu, the master of the game himself probably took a cue from the El Rufai’s well-documented history of disloyalty and refused to commit political suicide by going the Obasanjo’s 2003 way of allegedly bribing National Assembly with N54m to make El Rufai a minister by all means.

    Tinubu, an uncommon politician always in control of his environment probably had access to the DSS damning report on the El Rufai-led government of Kaduna State over the killing of the sons of the Shiite leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, in Zaria, Kaduna State in 2015 along with about 300 members of his Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), known to be a body of Shiite Muslims in Nigeria.

    The El-Zakzaky case, according to the SSS, was reported to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and is being investigated by the United Nations human rights body.

    Aside from the El-Zakzaky case, the SSS also accused El Rufai of having engaged in arbitrary arrests of political enemies and seizure of properties and wanton demolition of properties of perceived political enemies across Kaduna State.

    It was also apparent the senate was not ready to overlook El Rufai’s alleged abuse of trusts, allegedly involving the use of cronies, allies and family members for corrupt purposes during his time as head of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    Tinubu might have pleaded with El Rufai to be part of is government, but decided to err on the path of caution to stabilize his new government. But El Rufai saw only betrayal. He publicly blamed President Tinubu and not the senate for his loss of the presidential slot.

    This is the source of his bitterness. This is why El Rufai, who hardly forgives is fighting with his two eyes closed. If he pretends to fight for Nigerians, it is because it is convenient for him and his fellow PDP members currently taking refuge in ADC, to blame Tinubu’s two years administration for the fallouts of his economic policies.

    On insecurity, although his failed policy of appeasement and ‘bomb Fulani terrorists out of their hide-out in Kaduna State’, instead of relief, brought more pains to Kaduna during his eight years of highhandedness. But El Rufai finds it convenient to lie by accusing his successor and the federal government of adopting his failed “kiss-the-bandits policy” by giving monthly stipends and food supplies to criminal gangs.

    It was this El Rufai’s attempt to misinform the people that recently forced Uba Sani to present his community-driven ‘Kaduna peace model’ which involved traditional rulers, religious leaders, and other stakeholders to the public. It was according to him, the result of six months study which identified the root causes of insecurity poverty, unemployment, lack of schools, hospitals, and commerce in rural areas, all of which pushed people into crime”.

    Uba Sani said he realised it is not the Inspector General of Police or the National Security Adviser  but he as the one elected by his people to solve their problems that needed to go to Giwa, Birnin Gwari, or the Dansadau forest to reconcile his multi-ethnic and multi-religious, diversified people with over 65 different languages.  That bold initiative is what has become the Kaduna peace model hailed and supported by the international community including Britain and Qatar.

    President Tinubu had also during the recent commissioning of  the first phase of 50 housing units for families displaced as part of the collaborative effort that also includes a school, clinic, and shopping complex as part of a broader 500-housing-unit intervention by the Qatar Charity Foundation, praised Uba Sani’s Kaduna peace model which he said steered Kaduna “from despair to stability, from a hotspot of insecurity to a more stable and hopeful environment”.

    Of course El Rufai who has never been known to fight anyone’s wars is fighting for relevance. Two years out of government, he has exhibited so much bitterness against the president, predicting he will lose the 2027 election probably coming a distant third. His battle cry is that the president be sent back to Lagos.

    El Rufai’s other colleagues including David Mark, Rotimi Amaechi and their group members that have been in control of the commanding heights of our political, economic and social lives in the last 30 years are angry and want to send Tinubu back to Lagos. But even in their selective madness, beyond their resolve to return Tinubu to Lagos, they are yet to provide alternatives to his renewed hope agenda that will make our lives better.

    Listen to them on Channels TV and Arise TV, they rant on and on telling you everything that Tinubu is doing that is wrong except providing alternative blueprint.

  • NBA’s haunted Enugu conference

    NBA’s haunted Enugu conference

    The haunted 2025 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) annual conference during which a group of privileged elites tried to assault our sensibilities ended in Enugu last week. We have all come to terms that law by this privileged few is the law of society. And if as George Orwell said ‘we are equal but some are more equal than others”, it is our sad fate we can never be equal before the law.

    And I guess that was why Plato concluded that human law are like spiders’ web which catches the small flies but the great break through. And nearer home here, no one captures this better than the Sultan of Sokoto who in his keynote address, warned the gathering of our privileged lawyers against “the creeping commercialization of justice in Nigeria”, without forgetting to let those serving themselves while pretending to serve us that  “Today, justice is increasingly becoming a purchasable commodity, and the poor are becoming victims of this kind of justice, while the rich commit all manner of crime and walk the streets scot-free.”

    Lawyers in Nigeria as elsewhere in the world are fortune-seekers. And it is not their fault that they are often assigned the ignoble role of perpetuating injustice. But what often makes the difference as Itse Sagay once pointed out in all societies are the few noble men among those destined by virtue of their profession to perform ignoble role. Fortunately for us here, unlike the current leadership of NBA that behaves like the unthinking ‘obidients’, using the media to intimidate those who pointed out their shameful behaviour, it has not always been like this. Our judiciary which had performed creditably well at home and at the international level was once the envy of our African brothers.

    There was indeed a golden era of the Nigerian judiciary when the judiciary was truly the last hope of the common man. Itse Sagay in a recent lecture reminded us of the era of fearless judges like Kayode Eso,Chukwunweike Idigbe, Chukwudifu Oputa, Mohammed Bello and it is not too long ago we had Rotimi Williams (Timi the Law), Gani Fawehinmi and Bola Ige who would proudly describe himself as akoni ni iwaju adajo (the fearless one before a judge).

    This is why informed Nigerians felt offended when senior lawyers without character who are answerable to none and as representative of the judiciary which unlike the executive and legislature that periodically test their legitimacy, pretend they are working for the interest of Nigerians. Lawyers work for none but themselves. Chief Kehinde Sofola, a second republic attorney-general and one tine vice president of Body of Benchers  told Nigerians a long time ago that “the primary duty of the judiciary is to protect the judiciary”.

    Few Nigerians are therefore impressed when the Nigeria Bar Association, haunted by the huge baggage it carried, finally settled down for their annual conference in Enugu, Anambra State, from August 22 – 29, hiding its head in the sand like an ostrich, thinking no one sees it.

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    What set this year’s event apart from the 2023 conference during which President Tinubu gave an enthralling welcome speech in which he called on members of the legal profession and other Nigerians alike, to commit to “a change of mind, a change of attitude and a change of approach to governance” in order to exploit our great potentials for the benefit of the people, was open partisanship and anti-Tinubu sentiments by ‘Obidients sympathisers including Oby Ezekwesili who didn’t believe the 2023 election had been won and lost.  There was also one of the moderators at the conference, Seun Okinbaloye who inadvertently disclosed where his political sympathy lies when he unprofessionally asked his audience three leading questions as to whether their lives are better today than it was in 2023.

    NBA was haunted by the burden it carried to the Enugu conference. Sim Fubara who in attempt to fight off the malicious influence of his godfather decided to wage war against anyone close to his estranged godfather, Osigwe and his NBA, perhaps because of the un-receipted and unbudgeted N300m  that had changed hands, decided to side with Fubara.

    When Fubara in his blind fury sacked and replaced  Rivers Traditional Rulers Council chairman, Sergeant Awuse, embraced a three-man legislature that vetted his budget and screened his cabinet and local government caretaker chairmen, allegedly masterminded the torching of the state House of Assembly in an effort to avoid impeachment, and disobeyed court pronouncements, Osigwe and his NBA kept their peace. They however woke up following the Supreme Court declaration that there was no government in Rivers and the federal government claiming to avoid possible chaos that could follow Fubara’s impeachment by a vindictive House of Assembly whose salary had been withheld for two years, declared a state of emergency and suspended the warring parties.

    Osigwe without restraint and without telling us in what capacity since he was not a party to the dispute, issued a press statement, declaring that “The constitution does not empower the president to unilaterally remove or replace elected officials—such actions amount to an unconstitutional usurpation of power and a fundamental breach of Nigeria’s federal structure”.

    He similarly did not wait for the National Assembly whose stamp all stakeholders agreed was needed to legitimize the president’s action before holding a press conference.  The NBA president only increased his visit to different media houses to declare that “the purported removal of Governor Fubara, his deputy, and members of the Rivers State House of Assembly is unconstitutional, unlawful, and a dangerous affront to our nation’s democracy”, long after the National Assembly had upheld the position of the president

    In what many saw as lack of tact even while scandalously fighting their unfinished ‘obidient’s battle’ in the name of NBA, Osigwe and his  executive unilaterally moved the venue of the conference from Rivers to Enugu, thereby depriving Rivers the benefits of hosting the conference. Naturally, the administrator of Rivers asked Osigwe and his organizing committee to refund Rivers’ N300m but our men of ‘noble profession’ refused insisting the money was a gift.

    Instead of doing the most honourable thing, the NBA resorted to media war where untrained news anchors of some TV channels were asking ‘what is N300m compared to what it cost NBA to host their conference’?” For asking for Rivers State money, Osigwe and NBA media meddlers descended on the sole administrator, questioning the legality of his appointment, of his actions and labelling him a threat to democracy. Osigwe and his NBA media handlers told us they were driven by patriotism as if we don’t know “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrels”

    The intervention of the president, Public Interest Lawyers League, Abdul Mahmud who issued a press statement saying Osigwe’s decision was “not only disgraceful but speaks to the organisation’s rot” adding that “the NBA cannot claim to be a watchdog of public morality while engaging in conduct so thoroughly devoid of the very standards it seeks to impose on others”, did not bring back  Rivers N300m.

    Sadly, it was this baggage NBA and its leadership carried to their dispirited Enugu conference last week.

    It will appear our senior lawyers who are accountable to only themselves are the bane of Nigeria judiciary. There are no doubt senior lawyers who would deliberately receive N300m from a sub-national government we all criticize for not doing enough for the people and their media enablers whose news anchors unprofessionally intimidate guests are men without character. And men without character according to Aristotle are the greatest threat to democracy.

    I have not heard a word of condemnation from Osigwe’s crusading NBA against Abubakar Malami, a senior lawyer and attorney general who but for the Head of Service would have smuggled an indicted civil servant into the bureaucracy through the back door or but for Justice Salami’s insider probe, sacrificed the career of a very resourceful  former EFCC Chairman.

    Why are men of many words, a euphemism for lying, called upon by virtue of their profession to perform ignoble role including taking N300m, be humble enough to understand that those who accept the law of the rich as the law of the poor to avert anarchy in society are not half-wits?

  • Hausa Day celebration and president’s challenge

    Hausa Day celebration and president’s challenge

    The Hausa language day was celebrated by about 24 countries including Nigeria Tuesday, August 26. Back in Daura Zaria, “the event showcased Hausa heritage through music, dance, traditional attire, and a rich culinary experience that reflects the hospitality for which Katsina people are known.” In spite of this new re-awakening here in Nigeria where the term ‘Hausa/Fulani” was coined by Fulani occupying powers to give a misleading impression of shared cultural and social history, it is a sad reminder of our failure to faithfully address this major cause of social dislocation in the north.

    Hausa as we have seen is beyond language. It has a rich culture and glorious origin. Initially known as the Hausa Bakwai or the true seven Hausa states, it was made up of Biram, Daura, Gobir, Katsina Rano and Zaria (also called Zazzau) who, without centralizing power, formed a thriving trade network in the north from the 11th century.

    It was an attempt to resist the control of the conquering power that jihad imposed after their subjugation between 1804 and 1808 that is responsible for what is today becoming a civil war in the north. Unfortunately leaders who should bring these irreconcilable warring groups into conciliation through sincere recognition of the problem have decided to play the ostrich having become the main beneficiaries of their peoples’ tragedy.

    The Rao Fulani (the town Fulani) control political and economic power in the north. It is widely believed they encouraged and exploited the innermost fears of the Bororo (bush Fulani), who are behind current terrorism against indigenous Hausa farmers they accused of converting the traditional grazing route to farm lands and of rustling their cattle. Here we recall late President Buhari’s minister of defence who, following mindless massacre of scores in Benue told reporters, “When you block the grazing route, what do you expect?”

    The allegation against the town Fulani is not helped by the outburst of Bello Turji Kachalla (now eliminated by our security forces), a notorious Nigerian terrorist and bandit leader who was born in Shinkafi Local Government where he grew up as Fulani cattle herder without education. He was personally held responsible for the death of nearly 200 innocent people, including women and children. He admitted taking to war because he could not get justice over the rustling of his family cows and the murder of his six siblings by “Yan Sakia” government supported group.

    Another Fulani warlord also came out during BBC African Eye documentary not too long ago to attribute their mindless killings of subsistence farmers to closing down of traditional grazing routes and systematic exclusion of Fulani from government jobs and other economic opportunities.

    While those who had the power to change the fortune of these poor and marginalized Fulani continue to exploit their fears to remain politically relevant, there was also the  Hausa farming community vigilantes of Kurfa Dunya who swore during the same interview  that because  200 men, women, and children were killed  by their Fulani ethnic rivals, “If allowed, we will kill every Fulani man, even in the town, because they killed our mothers, our fathers, our children, and dumped their bodies here”.

    And if you are still wondering those behind the Hausa farming community group threatening to kill every Fulani in sight, all you need to do is a critical analysis of Ibrahim Dosara’s (former Zamfara Commissioner for information during  Matawalle’s administration and now his special adviser on information) during his last week appearance on Olajumoke Olatunji’s “TVC Politics Today show”.

    He had nothing good to say about Governor Dauda Lawal despite acknowledgments by some journalists and ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo that the governor has within two years changed the fortune of (“a state of three million population, 23 hospitals with 23 doctors, 300 public primary schools manned by a single teacher each while many others in remote rural have no teachers”.

    The only take away from the politics of Ibrahim Dosara who had as Matawalle’s commissioner of information, traced the origin of banditry in the state’s to the conflict between the Fulani and Hausa communities resulting in 2, 619 deaths, 1,190 abducted and 14,378 livestock rustled with 100,000 people displaced from their ancestral homes between 2011 and 2015, was his insistence that the way forward is for President Tinubu “to read the riot act to the Council of Ulama, the Council of traditional rulers and the warring politicians”.

    We cannot disagree with Dosara who is an insider since even as outsiders we have watched in dismay as governors of besieged northern states openly traded off the hopes of those who look up to them for direction for self-preservation.

    Ahmed Sani Yerima chose to exploit the religion and ethnic differences of the people for a temporary political gain. On October 27, 1999, he introduced Sharia law in breach of the constitution. Some of the northern youths he sent for indoctrination under Osama Ben Laden who was then taking refuge in Sudan were believed to have formed the nucleus of today’s bandits and insurgents in the north.

    Abdulaziz Yari, his godson was dragged to court by Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) where he lost N700m when the court “held he could not prove how he got the funds while or before serving as governor of Zamfara State between May 29, 2011, and May 29, 2019.”

    If Matawalle according to Dosara has been cleared of corruption by the high powered panel headed by the Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, he is still in court to defend his honour over his indictment by a panel of inquiry for allegedly taking about 40 vehicles from office at the end of his tenure.

    Every successive governor of Benue in the last 20 years have after each mindless massacre come out to speak of genocide, persecution of Christians by Muslims, attempt  by invaders to take over rich luxuriant Benue land etc. While saying the obvious, they pretend not to know that the insect that feeds on the vegetable lives inside the vegetable.

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    As for Plateau, there was the May 19, 2013 dialogue facilitated by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue attended   by 93, members of the Fulani communities in Plateau. The gathering rejected the labels of ‘strangers and settlers’ insisting that ownership of land has for long been taken away by the Land Use Act and the same vested on states government. Their final submission: “there is no law in Nigeria that allows any person or groups of persons to identify some persons as strangers or settlers and no law equally allows any persons or group of persons to identify themselves as indigenes of a place”.

    There is no record of any Plateau leader challenging these claims .Yet with periodic harvest of deaths, more displaced people joining IDP camps and even after escaping death by the whiskers following attack on their persons, successive Plateau governors would still pretend not to know those behind the nightmare of their people.

    The story of Benue, Plateau and even Bauchi, where the non-Fulani governors in order to be in good book of Fulani hegemonic ruling class says ‘all Fulani from West Africa can claim citizenship of Nigeria, is the story of all the states in the north. Besides frittering away of billions by Katsina’s Aminu Masari and Kaduna’s Nasir El Rufai to appease they identified  as Fulani terrorists, none of them had the political will to confront the terrorist sponsors, exploiting ethnic and religion for political survival.

    I think Dosara is right to have challenged the president. And I think from his daring moves, bold and tough decisions, in the last two years, President Tinubu who claimed to have spent 20 years preparing for his job, is sufficiently equipped to understand that banditry, kidnapping for ransom and terrorism are symptoms of crisis of nation building, best resolved through elite consensus if the nation is too stop drifting.

    Everyone was shocked when the president on the eve of his visit to condole with the people of Benue following mindless killings by Fulani terrorists directed the governor to go back home and reconcile with his people. With all the rage and condemnation of the terrorists and their sponsors, they, like the terrorized, remain citizens of the besieged northern states. They both don’t have anywhere to go. But with the support of the president, they can reach a compromise which is “the highest badge of honour in a federation”.

  • George and impenitent PDP governors

    George and impenitent PDP governors

    But for its assault in sensibilities of Nigerians, the assemblage of impenitent PDP governors with the likes of Osun’s Ademola Adeleke, the dancing governor and  Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed of  ‘Every West African Fulani is a Nigerian’ in Gusau, Zamfara, last week Saturday where the forum attributed PDP’s unimpressive outing during the August 9 by-election to “intimidation and excessive deployment of security forces”, is a gathering of humour merchants. The forum even added a bit of sardonic humour as one is not sure of what to make of the forum’s expression of “profound gratitude to members and supporters of the PDP nationwide” who did not bother to vote for PDP which secured one seat as against 12 for APC of the 16 contested seats. It is sad that even as leading lights of PDP scramble to escape a sinking ship, which PDP has become, some others have chosen to keep on playing the ostrich perhaps believing that Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia.

    To close observers of Nigerian politics, the tragedy of PDP cannot be separated from the 2013 revolt of ‘Group of Seven’ led by Atiku Abubakar and Senator Bukola Saraki, the 2022 revolt of ‘Group of Five’ otherwise known as the ‘integrity group’ led by Chief Bode George and Nyesom Wike, his estranged godson and of course the current self-serving PDP coalition-seeking migrants led by former senate president, David Mark and irritated Nasir el Rufai.

    Bode George along with other past PDP leaders including Obasanjo and Ahmadu Ali have always treated PDP gang wars as ‘family affair’. But with George’s threat to quit the PDP after, issuing  what many saw as empty threat to PDP southern leaders and Wike following their categorical rejection and dismissal of the Ibadan consultative meeting as  “divisive and unrepresentative”,  the end of such illusion seems near.

    The mistake George has always made was to dress up PDP in a borrowed robe of a political party, a modernization agent ingenious mid-19th century creation of European elites.  The result was that PDP gang wars viciously fought over sharing of our national patrimony remains largely unchecked all through PDP 16 years of the locust.

    The truth is that PDP, birthed by the G13 group headed by the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme in 1998 but quickly hijacked by retired generals and  their military contractors and ran by gangs headed by garrison commanders has never been a political party. 

    This was why former US ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, during his March 19, 2010 lecture titled : Nigeria in Turmoil dismissed PDP as “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”. 

    Except for those playing the ostrich or those below 40 years of age, we can all remember how Nigeria became victim of PDP gang wars. The creation of artificial fuel scarcity by PDP politicians in the early days of Obasanjo’s presidency was used to justify government fuel subsidy policy which was nothing but a scam to loot the nation’s resources. But for their gang war inside the hallowed senate chambers of the National Assembly, Nigerian would not have known how PDP leading lights increased the number of fuel importers from four to over a hundred which did not only help them to defraud Nigeria of billions of naira but also allowed their siblings to steal $1.7b without importing a pint of fuel.

    It is often said that there is honour among thieves. But those who wage war against Nigeria are ready to engage in open fight on the floor of the National Assembly. It was through one of such vicious gang confrontations on the floor of the National Assembly that the nation got to know that the privatization exercise was a scam through which Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b acquired between 1960 and 1998 was sold to PDP stalwarts for a paltry $1.5b.

    They unbundled PHCN. But depending on whose figure you take, that was after expending $10b according to President Yar’Adua, Speaker Dimeji Bankole ($16b), Ndidi Elumelu, chairman house committee on power probe ($13b), Gabriel Suswan of NEC Presidential Review Panel on NIPP ($10.231b). They then sold the unbundled PHCN to PDP stalwarts led by Jerry Gana, supervised by Liyel Imoke, the Power Minister. Unfortunately what the nation got for her pains was darkness.

    It is not therefore difficult to conclude that from even taking a cue from Bode George who served jail term for helping friends with contracts as chairman of Nigerian Ports Authority (he was later acquitted on technical ground after fully serving  his term), the warring gang of seven that sank PDP in 2013, the gang of five also known as  “the Integrity Group” that wrecked PDP in 2023 and the current governors and PDP leading lights who today freely criss-cross  between PDP/APC  and ADC , it has always been about themselves and not about Nigeria.

    The focus remains greed of leading PDP stalwarts fighting over the sharing of resources and office positions. Bode George himself agreed with Wike that Atiku Abubakar in 2023, out of greed  breached the PDP constitutional provision on periodic rotation of offices between the north and south. He admitted that, in the contest for PDP VP slot in 2023, Wike who secured 13 out of 17 votes was short-changed. That Wike fought back with fury against Atiku’s 2023 ambition, was not unexpected.

    Unfortunately, those who refused to anticipate the consequences of sowing the wind are those today exhibiting intense dislike for Wike. Some treat him with revulsion. Others loathe him while some of their media platforms will not accept having a successful outing without an opportunity to pour odium on Wike. He is treated as a clown because of his diction, dancing steps and his throaty songs, “as he dey pain them, he dey sweet us”.

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    Unfortunately for his intra party rivals, he always has the last say. As a heavy investor in PDP, he had asked Iyorchia Ayu, PDP chairman to account for an alleged missing N1b party convention proceeds. And for his south south governors who could not stand his guts, he did nothing wrong by challenging them to account for proceeds of 13% derivation funds they took from Buhari, after showing to Nigeria what he did with his. After all, all is fair in war if politics is war by another name.

    Of course he did not spare those who tried to deny he was generous with River State money. They include those who sought his financial help during their failed PDP youth leadership contest before moving on to set up their own a civil society group, editors of below the line publication trying to join PDP, those whose battle he fought while they sought refuge in Ghana and got to power only to allegedly receive Rolls Royce as gift from contractors and spend billions on a non-existing metroline. Others who got bruised include those who knelt down groveling before him for support for their gubernatorial ambition etc.

    To show his was not just tales, we have had people like Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of the House of representative coming out to corroborate his position by publicly scolding Bala Mohammed, his state governor, for his lack of grace after climbing to power on Wike’s back.

    The 16 years of PDP gang war over the looting of our resources and confiscation of asset kept in their temporary care for the future of our children is well documented. The garrison commanders who saw resources put in their care for building a better future for our people as spoils of war cannot escape the judgment of history.

    The above serious contradictions which threaten the survival of PDP as “an elite cartel for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”. Atonement by PDP past office holders for their baleful past which is partly responsible for the current nation’s nightmare and of course offering policy alternatives are the serious challenges before PDP governors if they are serious about retaking power from ruling APC in 2027 or any time in future. And this is not helped by empty and shallow promises by those who did nothing to turn the fortune of Nigerians around after spending about 20 years in PDP and APC past administrations but now two years out of government, promise to solve Nigerian problem in one year if given another chance.

  • Protecting EFCC from ADC buccaneers

    Protecting EFCC from ADC buccaneers

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established in 2003 as a law enforcement and anti-graft agency that investigates financial crimes and unknown transactions such as advanced fee fraud (419) and money laundering in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF). The EFCC was also set up to fight against corruption and protect the country from economic saboteurs.

    The body which appeared to be saddled with fighting antibiotic resistance disease nurtured and sustained by state policies, has faced as much threat from government as from economic saboteurs.  If you are in doubt, take a short trip back to the period Delta’s James Ibori seized the body as a pay-off for bankrolling  Umaru Yar’Adua’s  presidential election and chased Nuhu Ribadu out of office and town as a way of getting his pound of flesh  because Ribadu rejected his $14 m bribe.

    It is also on record that on July 7, 2020, Ibrahim Magu was suspended as EFCC’s chairman following Abubakar Malami panel’s report that found him guilty “for failing to properly account for N431,000,000 security votes/information fund released to his office. Two weeks later, Buhari’s Justice Ayo Salami’s investigative panel cleared Magu of all charges, accusing Attorney General Malami of involvement in a plot to discredit Magu.

    The body’s current helmsman like Ribadu and Magu before him has been described as one of our best. But he has in the last one week gone through great stress and strain. If an organization managed by our best has continued to experience technical glitches, isn’t it time to look at ourselves in the mirror?

    Those who want to keep us where we are often attribute our problem to weak institutions forgetting that long before the emergence of military adventurers, Western Region had what was regarded as the best bureaucracy in Africa and a disciplined political party that compared with any in Europe.

    The truth of the matter is that we have failed to protect our budding institutions from the caprices of the powerful military-baked new breed politicians that bred nothing but corruption since the end of the civil war.  It is of little relief that each of the leading lights of this wealth-chasing new breed politicians have a reckless medium that seems specifically set up to fight institutions of state  that need protection and nurturing.

    Efforts at  discrediting the EFCC and its current leadership in spite of his ongoing heroic exploits as they did to his trail-blazing predecessors started with the routine invitation of Senator Aminu Tambuwal, former two-term governor of Sokoto State.

    Suddenly, as if we have forgotten that Tambuwal is not different from other  “water has no enemy” politicians, who defied his party to get support of opposition to become speaker of the House of Representatives, sought refuge under the opposition when confronted with unapproved bank loan advance he took to pay lawmakers and now as a way of criticising the ruling party while posing as an angel says “once you join the APC, whatever your sins, they are forgiven.”

    While he was conveniently silent on the fact that he was questioned over alleged fraudulent cash withdrawals to the tune of N189billion which emanated from a probe of his administration by the current Sokoto government, he wants Nigerians to believe his travails stemmed from his decision “to stand by the people against Tinubu’s government”.

    Of course the handling of Tambuwal’s case by EFCC could have been done better. There are those who have argued that since the case probably started long before Tambuwal left office as governor, it ought not to have taken two years for EFCC to bring his case up. Tambuwal has also told us of his encounter with EFCC: “I told them to go back and tell the chairman of the EFCC that I am a former Speaker of the House of Representatives with an unblemished record, a two-term governor of Sokoto State, a serving senator, and a Commander of the Order of the Niger. I should be allowed to go on self-recognition”. I agree with him. He in my view is not likely going to jump bail.

    EFCC’s Ola Olukoyede may be right that “fraud is fraud. Corruption is corruption. There is no sacred cow, protected interest or partisan consideration in the investigation and prosecution of corruption” and that “available records in our courts show several political figures from all divides that are answering charges.”

    Olukoyede must realise that not many Nigerian are familiar with the details of his cases before the court. And with a smart politician like Tambuwal ignoring the log in his own eyes, which is the alleged “fraudulent cash withdrawals to the tune of N189billion” while diverting attention to “a certain former governor who defected to the APC with his state’s entire political machinery, the EFCC’s investigations into his administration have vanished from public view. Not a question has been asked. Not a document leaked. Not a single update. Yet the same EFCC still somehow find means to reopen old cases against opposition leaders …” can easily turn perception to reality.

    But do all this translate to witch hunting? I don’t think so. And to think Nigerians will swallow that type of mischief, Bolaji Abdulahi and Atiku Abubakar must have assumed Nigerians don’t see beyond their noses.

    I think the question that should agitate the minds of Nigerians is whether PDP stalwarts now in ADC robes have outstanding cases with EFCC. Tough talking Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC spokesman, a serial cross-carpeter, has not denied they do. His grouse was that EFCC was “excavating all their files from David Mark’s tenure as Senate President” and questioning, “The pattern of ignoring APC stalwarts with fresher and well-documented cases”.  Unfortunately, such diversionary tactics, I am sure, has left many informed Nigerians wondering if in spite of their new ADC protective armour, migrating PDP stalwarts are not being haunted by their past.

    For instance, the Punch of October 2, 2020 reported Imo governor, Hope Uzodimma of claiming he inherited systematic corruption from his predecessor, the sacked governor, Emeka Ihedioha. According to him, “Coming into office barely nine months ago, we encountered a microcosm of systemic corruption and disruption in the public sector. We met monumental payroll fraud in the system; we met a disoriented and disarticulated civil service and a very sorry state of infrastructural provisions.”

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    It is also from the Punch report of June 26, 2024 we now know that Nasir el Rufai, ex PDP, ex APC stalwart, who is currently taking refuge in ADC after he was thrown out by SDP, has dragged the Kaduna State House of Assembly to court over claims that his administration embezzled N432 billion and left the state with significant debt obligations. He was reacting to the Report of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Investigation of Loans, Financial Transactions, Contractual Liabilities and Other Related Matters of the Government of Kaduna State from 29 May 2015 to 29 May 2023, as ratified by the Kaduna State House of Assembly, which he said “was unconstitutional and violated his right to fair hearing as guaranteed under the constitution.”

    We  also now know that David Mark who has been in government  all his life, first  as chairman of  ‘Abandoned  properties Panel’, River State, Military Administrator of Niger State , senator from 1999 -2025 and senate president 2007 -2015 has been waging a silent battle with EFCC over his alleged  illegal purchase of his senate presidential mansion.

    Mark in April, 2011, purchased the property at a “reserved price” of N673,200,000 as against N748,000,000, the open market value according to the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed.  The government, through Chief Okoi Obono-Obla’s Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, gave the former senate president a 21-day notice to quit the mansion. He had accused him of illegally acquiring the property with the approval of former president, Goodluck Jonathan, despite that such property was excluded from the monetisation policy of the federal government.

    Mark, determined to hold on to the property, filed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1037/2017 through his lawyer, Ken Ikonne, before the Federal High Court in Abuja, insisting that he legally acquired the property.

    And finally, unknown to many, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who accused President Bola Tinubu of “objectifying the fight against corruption as a political tool to coerce opposition leaders into the ruling party” has had a brush with EFCC. On December 21, 2020 Ikoyi High Court was told of how his lawyer, Uyiekpen Giwa Osagie laundered $2m through Atiku’s security guards

    It is apparent from the above that Bolaji Abdullahi and his fellow seasonal migrants who without abiding faith in anything, jump from one party to the other at every election season, understand the need for enduring institutions for a nation. And this is why we cannot afford to give them the pleasure of undermining the EFCC just as James Ibori and Abubakar Malami did before them.

  • Why Nigeria needs the North

    Why Nigeria needs the North

    To observers of Nigerian politics, there was nothing new in Bashir Dalhatu, chairman of the ACF Board of Trustees, accusing the President Bola Tinubu’s government of neglecting the north as he did during the recent two-day citizen engagement forum organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation. The only difference this time around was that Tinubu, who said he is always ahead of his political adversaries, was ready with over 60 prominent northern members of his cabinet to expose the hypocrisy of those who pretend to speak for the north when indeed, it was all about self-preservation. But perhaps more damaging to the case of the hegemonic ruling class is the emergence of young educated and well informed crop of northern professionals and politicians who have now seen the danger of being enslaved by old prejudices especially with yesterday’s abandoned children of the poor who are today challenging the status-quo.

    Leading the battle to save the old order was ACF’s Bashir Dalhatu who called attention to the completion of Lagos-Ibadan express way and the second Niger Bridge, all in the south while the north that gave 64% of its votes to ensure Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 election got nothing. Echoing him was Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). According to him: “No projects are going on—at least they are not visible to the eye, maybe in their imagination, maybe in the spirit—but we don’t see them.”

    For Hakeem Baba Ahmed, Tinubu needed to be blamed for “neglecting the suffering of their people” warning that it’s the “people Tinubu is treating as if they don’t matter who will judge all politicians against their exposure to violence, death, and poverty”.

    Leading Tinubu’s foot soldiers was the Governor of Gombe State and chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum, Inuwa Yahaya, who confidently declared: “Today, we gather not for empty rhetoric but to examine those promises and assess the level of progress so far. What we find is an administration that has delivered meaningful results. He went on to list several federal projects, including the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano expressway, Kano-Katsina-Maradi rail line, the rehabilitation of the Kaduna refinery, the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline, and the continuation of drilling in the Kolmani oilfields”.

    Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani’s task was to remind the current crusaders under whose leadership “insecurity grew, education declined, and poverty deepened “ that the time for playing the ostrich was over because educated young northerners today understand that “insecurity, poverty, and educational backwardness” was the result of these leaders’ “culture of negligence, silence, and inaction”.

    While Tinubu’s northern political appointees were cautious, refusing to frontally confront the hegemonic ruling power in the north, the young unrestrained non-political office holders including Farouq Aliyu, former minority leader of the House of Representatives and Alvan Hassan exhibited no inhibitions.

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    For Farouq Aliyu, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) “is an opposition group and supporters of Atiku Abubakar who cannot speak for the north”. For him ACF members love neither Nigeria nor the north but themselves. They only live for themselves.

    For Alvan Hasan, “instead of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) serving as custodians of northern aspirations, they are openly partisan”. For him, what the north needed is not infrastructure but unity. He strongly believes ACF is using religion to divide the north

    Looking Seun Okinbaloye, his host on ‘Politics Today’ show, directly in the face, he asked “as a Christian from the north, can you aspire to become governor of Kwara?” Adding without waiting for an answer, that a Muslim from Plateau State cannot aspire to become secretary to government of Plateau state just as Christian from Borno State can never aspire to become governor of Borno State.

    Although he stopped short of directly accusing  the self-appointed custodians of values of the north of sponsoring Muslim attack on Christians, the innuendo was unmistakable in his assertion that for self-preservation, those who should unite the north end up sponsoring Muslim attack on Christians while Christians’ attempt at retaliation leaves everyone a loser with even farmers unable to go to their farms.

    Hasan was saying what most Nigerians including our leaders who often play the ostrich know the truth which everyone is afraid to admit. Sheik Gumi in February 2021 admitted on Seun Okinbaloye’s ‘Politics Today’ show, that the Fulani herdsmen were victims. He defined them “as herdsmen fighting ethnic war” and for him, the solution was dialogue and teaching them Islam. If you have seen them you will discover they have nothing like civilization other than the guns they carry”.

    Today everyone seems to have forgotten Lamido Sanusi Lamido’s directive to Fulani herdsmen hosted by Benue State to the effect that they must disobey Benue State anti-open- grazing law duly passed by the state House of Assembly and assented to by the governor. We all pretend not to be aware that, the directive ’found expression in periodic harvest of death of innocent subsistence farmers who are mostly Christians in the alluring Benue trough.

    We have no evidence Usman Bugaje was ever questioned for confessing not too long ago that APC then in opposition, imported some Fulani herdsmen from the Sahel region for the purpose of 2015 election.

    But Hasan was not done. Even if we were to accept infrastructure is the problem of the north, he threw a challenge at the custodians of the values of the north and the author of “the south cannot have whatever that cannot be replicated in the north” which started with the derailment of Dr. Majekodunmi’ attempt at introducing a form of insurance cover for Lagos workers by northern back benchers in the first republic.

    Asking if the south is not part of Nigeria, he wants them to identify the equivalent in the south “of -the ongoing 1000km Sokoto-Badagry High way or Sokoto-Kano-Maiduiguri dualised over 500km expressway.

    As an aside, let me help Hassan. Apart from Lagos-Ibadan 120km expressway that has been under construction since 1999, I know of no 30 kilometres of smooth federal road from the part of Ogun, Oyo and Osun that I take to my small town, Ogotun Ekiti. In 1986, it used to take me two hours 30 minutes from Lagos to Ipetu Ijesha (when I tried it four years ago, it took me five hours). But the story is that from that border town is Awolowo’s 1959 eight kilometre scientific marvel of a narrow, dangerous, undulating road that meanders through valleys and crevices of hill to Ogotun Ekiti. At the period, it was the only road that connected Ekiti with the rest of the Nigeria as both Ilesha Ado and Ado Akure roads were in a state of disrepair.

    Seven years ago, I heard Chief Afe Babalola, the founder of Afe Babalola University complaining of those two federal roads. Last week, I saw Kayode Fayemi, the immediate past governor of Ekiti State lamenting about the state of the two federal highways.

    But let us return to the serious issue at hand. Our northern compatriots need our help and support even if it involves conceding all infrastructural projects to the north.

    First, freedom starts from being conscious of your position on the social structure ladder. Our northern compatriots have today realized that those who did not see them beyond article of political bargaining have for long used tribe and religion to exploit their innermost fears. The rest of the country have also now realised that it is no more in our enlightened self-interest to continue ignoring their plight because of blackmail of those who falsely swear in their name for power bargaining.

    instead of the competitive north of Ahmadu Bello, we have seen the northern ruling hegemonic class inspired social engineering efforts such as JAMB, quota system of admission to tertiary institutions and to our bureaucracy, all designed to slow down the rest of the country, take their toll on our bureaucracy, universities and teaching hospitals that once ranked with the best in the world.

    For a perfect union, the south needs the north more than the north needs the south. Obafemi Awolowo, a foremost nationalist and an unrepentant federalist warned in the run up to independence, that except we first solve the contradiction within the northern society, we will continue to move in circles. For over 75 years, it has been motion without movement.

    This is why I think no sacrifice is too much in the interest of our nation if only to honour our founding fathers including Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahamdu Bello, Obafemi Awolowo and members of their tribe who made personal sacrifices to bequeath onto us a working federal arrangement, tragically truncated by ill-educated military adventurers.

  • Between IPMAN and Dangote

    Between IPMAN and Dangote

    The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) is the umbrella organization for all registered Independent Petroleum Products marketers licensed to lift and operate petrol filling stations in Nigeria. It was a product of Obasanjo‘s 1978 decree to aid local participation in an area then dominated by foreign interest. But sadly many informed Nigerians believe from being asked to come and engage in legitimate profitable business, Nigerians have since 1983 become victims of IPMAN’s greed.

    Its first casualty was Obasanjo’s 4,900 kilometres pipeline commissioned in 1979, to ferry oil products from Lagos to all parts of Nigeria. By the Babangida’s era of commercialisation in 1986, not one kilometre of the pipeline remained functional. Of course the next victim was NNPC tank farms across the nation. They were all vandalized by unknown persons.

    But the general perception of Nigerians was that it was only those who stood to gain from such assault on Nigeria’s economic interest that could have embarked on such dastardly act. That IPMAN and their truck drivers who secured NNPC contract to store NNPC imported products and distribute same across the nation came under serious scrutiny should therefore not surprise anyone.

     It was not long Nigerians started to identify IPMAN as an accomplice in the mismanagement of the oil sector by NNPC, regarded as the cesspool of corruption. IPMAN did not help matters by the fact that just a little over half of trucks loaded with fuel from Lagos got to their destination. The rest found their way to neighbouring countries especially the Sahel region of the north where drivers make over 100% profits at the expense of Nigerian consumers who spend hours at filling stations. From 1999 to 2023, Nigerians were taken hostage as those responsible for their nightmare remained untouchable.

     In 2001, IPMAN was used by PDP stalwarts to create artificial scarcity to enable them blackmail Obasanjo into signing the PPPRA bill into an Act within three months. PPPRA was to become instrument with which PDP stalwarts defrauded Nigerian of billions of naira through the fuel subsidy scam.

    But with a new sheriff in town, something changed dramatically in 2024. Following customs arrest of some of their tankers for illegal diversion of petroleum products, IPMAN shut down all filling stations in Adamawa, claiming that “customs officers are conducting unlawful operations, harassing their members and causing significant financial losses.” In fact IPMAN threatened government by telling the DSS official that intervened in their case that they will shut down the 30,000 stations operated by its members if the federal government fails to pay the N200bn owed to marketers.

    IPMAN’s demands may be legitimate because bridging claims are payments made by the government to oil marketers for transporting petroleum products loaded from Lagos depot to various states across the country. This allows them to sell fuel at the same rate, no matter the logistics cost. The problem however was that IPMAN, like other Nigerians who travel to other parts of Nigeria including the oil producing Niger Delta know you can never get petroleum products at the same rate you get it in Lagos.

    However, IPMAN overreached itself in May 2025, when its national chairman, Abubakar Shettima, burying his head like an ostrich and believing no one sees him, went to the FCT Director of the Department of State Services, Usman Dauda, to threaten the shutdown of the 30,000 stations operated by its members because the Nigerian National Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) paid only N50bn out of the N200bn debt. It was with this type of blackmail Nigerians were swindled for over 50 years.

    Of course IPMAN remains the greatest critic of Aliko Dangote’s business model which they say is antithetical to Nigerian industrialization. They say he is profit driven, that he is government created monopolist and a man who engages in an unfair competition, and a man who does not keep promises.  In a recently celebrated case, Yahaya Bello the former governor of Kogi State claimed that Kogi State government owned the Obajana Cement Company before Dangote Investment Limited showed interest and was welcomed by the then unsuspecting state government. They didn’t however tell us how Dangote eventually secured 100% ownership of the company. Nigerians have to decide who to believe between Yaya Bello and Aliko Dangote.

    David Hundeyin writing for BusisnessDay of March 21, 2021 said “It is no coincidence that many products on Nigeria’s import ban lists are items in which Dangote has major interests. He describes Dangote’s Cement as an example of “a price maker monopoly” a status he secured via President Obasanjo’s executive fiat. This banned cement imports and granted 90-year exclusive limestone mining licenses to Dangote at Nigeria’s richest limestone sites.

    And still quoting from  the U.S. diplomatic cable, he  says  “Nigeria’s wealthiest man is not actually a productive capitalist creating value for the Nigerian economy but at best an economic parasite and at worst a direct brake on Nigeria’s economic growth.”

    Unfortunately, Hundeyin also suffers from credibility deficit from recent newspapers reports. Besides, with President Trump’s multiple indictments for financial malpractices including tax evasion, American capitalism model is at its most brutish form.

    And come to think of it, it is not only Dangote alone that enjoyed support of government. In fact Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, former foreign affairs minister not too long ago declared that there is no Nigerian multi-billionaire that did not make their fortune through the state.

    The current administration recently sanctioned some of our mega banks for exploiting some of the loopholes in the CBN laws to make profit that will make capitalists in the home of capitalism green with envy. In fact they were made to refund some of their un-earned profit back to CBN.

    We also know billionaires who did not inherit industrial complexes from their great grandparents as was often the case in western societies. Their fortune could only have come from government contracts.

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    Dangote also came under vicious IPMAN attack recently when he suggested that “the Nigeria First Policy” announced by President Tinubu should apply to petroleum sector and all other sectors”. He anchored his argument on the fact that America, Canada and European countries are doing it to protect local investors.

    That they are going to source their own dollars only begs the question. Much of our foreign exchange earnings stolen from the Abacha period are in private hands.

    Sanusi Lamido Sanusi before he was booted out as CBN governor by President Jonathan called our attention to missing $20b in NNPC. We could not have suddenly forgotten the case of Andrew Yakubu, former NNPC Group MD in whose farm house in Sabon Tasha in Kaduna State, EFCC on tip off, made a haul of $9.7m (N2.9b) He was later acquitted by the court who agreed with him that EFCC could not prove the money was not a gift from his friends. Just in January, Nigeria and the US signed an agreement to repatriate about $52.88m in assets forfeited by Diezani Alison Madubuike former oil minister.

    In recent weeks, Dangote has also been in the eye of the storm for announcing the delivery of   4,000 brand-new compressed natural gas (CNG) trucks, as part of strategy including establishment of CNG stations across the nation. The move, backed by a N720 billion investment, would see the company absorb an estimated N1.07 trillion yearly in fuel distribution costs, eliminating transportation charges for fuel marketers and large-scale consumers. The presidency has described the initiative as “a major boost to the federal government’s push for gas-powered transportation.”

    If Dangote is a monopolist, he is one with human face. Not too long ago he told some reporters that while many of his employees have personal houses in London, he has no house abroad. Dangote because of his faith in Nigeria ploughed back his fortune in Nigeria. Dangote has been able to cover our shame of having to import what God gave us in abundance.

    If I have to choose between beneficiaries of those who vandalized 4,900 kilometres of pipelines; who destroyed  NNPC tank farms; the enablers of fuel subsidy scam, parasites  and their truck drivers who periodically hold us hostage, and a man who because of his faith in his country invested his fortunes at home  while his fellow billionaires kept theirs abroad, a man who  liberated us from price equalization abusers with N1trn of his money and ensures Nigerians from all the corners of the country benefit from oil God gave them in abundance, I will go for the latter.

  • Between Baba-Ahmed and Usman Bugaje

    Between Baba-Ahmed and Usman Bugaje

    All through the pre-independence and post- independence years, the northern ruling caste effortlessly harvested votes from the region through weaponisation of religion, poverty and tribe. At every critical period of our nation’s history, the ruling caste have never been in short supply of elders statesmen like Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and Dr. Usman Bugaje who equally serve as adequate representative of their people when it comes to waging subliminal battle over the minds of northern voters when their interest clash with other political interest especially from the south. Although both have often been behind most controversial divisive issues in the country, they remain the envy of many informed Nigerians because of their clear-headed analysis of some of these controversial issues.

    Let us start from the run up to independence power struggle among the nationalists. The 1953 Kano riot was sparked by tensions between northern and southern Nigerian political leaders over the pace of Nigeria’s independence. Following Ahmadu Bello and other northern leaders’ particularly members of the ruling caste’s rejection of a motion for self-government by 1956 and the subsequent hostile reception they faced in Lagos, the northern ruling caste, never known for forgiveness,  waited patiently for revenge against their southern tormentors.

    An opportunity soon came with Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s decision to send a chieftain of his party, Chief SL Akintola, to mobilize the youth of Kano for support of Action Group’s (AG) policies including free and compulsory education. Two prominent NPC stalwarts were deployed to Kano. Their task was to mobilize Kano youths against southern infidels attempting to desecrate their Islamic religion and ridicule their leaders. That was all the uninformed, uneducated Kano street urchins without hope or future needed to unleash terror on non-Hausa/Fulani urban immigrants especially Igbo and Yoruba, with harvest of the death of 44 innocent people.

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    Today the tool remains the same – mobilization of brainwashed disruptive and unproductive street urchins often celebrated by the ruling caste as tools for winning elections in Nigeria.

    Not too long ago, Nasir El Rufai boasted that the north because of its numerical strength, will always decide the outcome of any election in Nigeria. He has also in recent times told President Bola Tinubu to await the revenge of the north in 2027. To ensure the voting strength of the north remains unassailable, Dr. Usman Bugaje told Nigerians not too long ago that APC then in opposition, imported some Fulani from the Sahel region for the purpose of 2015 election.

     Hakeem Baba Ahmed is a former spokesman for Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). Accepting Tinubu’s appointment as special adviser to the presidency in 2023, he had said: “This is not the time for fence-sitting or criticism when you can be useful in turning the country around. I am honoured and humbled. Please pray for me and Nigeria. However in his April open letter to the president, he declared “the north is drifting from your leadership under weight of economic hardship, insecurity and alienation”.

    Reminded by Seun Okinbaloye, during last week Politics Today” television show, that these problems predate Tinubu’s two years administration, his quick answer was – “Tinubu’s performance is worse than abysmal”. Egged on by the same reporter who asked if there is anything Tinubu did to warrant mobilization of northern voters by northern political elite against his two years administration, rather than going to convoluted argument, he simply said “the north awaits Tinubu in 2027”.

    Incubation of Almajiris and other northern youths without a future appear to be a deliberate policy of northern ruling caste. Even with the north in control of power for the greater part of our independence years, with the likes of Babangida retiring to build a scandalous mansion among the squalor of his people, and Abacha stealing billions of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings, with Atiku Abubakar, two-term VP allegedly buying off a huge chunk of his state, we have no evidence these powerful northern leaders gave a thought to the plight of millions of northern youths without a future.

    The Arewa Consultative Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed once spoke for, is dominated by rich and accomplished members of northern ruling caste. His younger brother Datti Baba Ahmed, Peter Obi’s running mate in the last election, owned one of the most expensive private universities in Nigeria that attract only people like Rotimi Amaechi, (eight years speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, eight years as governor of the oil-rich state before moving on to serve as super Minister of Transportation, and Dino Melaiye, with a massive Abuja mansion adorned with the state-of-the-art cars without visible means of work.

    We have no evidence that rich members of this forum, many of whom allegedly made fortune, saw millions of impoverished northern youths beyond instrument for winning election.

    But for Baba Ahmed, Tinubu’s two-year old government is the source of nightmare of northern poor thus the ringing echo of his outing on Channels TV last week is Tinubu must resign.

    Like Baba Ahmed, Usman Bugaje, Nigerian elder-statesman was once an APC member. He had moved from PDP to APC and later moved back to PDP. He is today very critical of Tinubu’s administration.

    But let us first locate the god he serves. This became apparent a  few years back when he shocked the oil-producing state when he with clinical precision, argued that Nigeria oil belongs to the north.

    According to him, “One state in the north can take more than two of the spaces of the total southeast. The north has the landmass. What I am saying is that if 78% of that landmass gives you that mileage into the sea where your oil comes from, the 78% of whatever mileage we get into the sea can therefore be claimed because the 78% landmass belongs to the north which is the majority.

    “My point is that there is no oil-producing state. The only oil-producing state is the Nigerian state itself. Derivation is based on the fact that because extraction is being done in a particular state, it comes with the destruction of the environment. Therefore, there is a need to make resources available that would address that destruction to cushion the effects of that particular process. And it is not because it belongs to anybody”.

    Like Hakeem Baba Ahmed, he has been very critical of Tinubu’s administration which he describes as “rudderless”. “They came with a promise of fixing the country and, apparently, they did not do their homework. And we are in a much deeper mess than when he started. In my view, I think they have no ideas. I think he should apologize to Nigerians for deepening their woes”, said Bugaje.

    When asked by Okinbaloye whether it was fair to heap the blame of the crisis of insecurity, economy, forex, power supply, successive Nigerian leaders failed to tackle since 1999 on Tinubu’s two years administration, rather than answer the question, he went into a tirade declaring “I think they have no ideas. I think he should apologize to Nigerians for deepening their woes, they seem to just go about their businesses, enjoying their lives and taking good care of themselves the way they have always done in Lagos irrespective of the suffering of people. What I see that they do is just loot the treasury”.

    Of course the consequences of President Tinubu’s harsh economic policies are still biting. The president while reassuring Nigerians that the worst is over admitted this much. Besides, Bugaje’s call for the president’s resignation is coming at a time when local economic institutions and international economic institutions like IMF and the World Bank, whose reform recommendations Tinubu deviated from, are hailing what they described as “his home reforms”.

    The question then is–why is Bugaje and Baba-Ahmed so desperate for Tinubu to resign after only two years that they are doing everything, including swearing in the name of northern youths, just as they did in the run up to independence, to prevent free education for northern youths who the ruling caste regard as serfs? Of course those in the inner circle of Tinubu are expressing the sentiment that it is because his current economic policies have the potential to end the northern ruling caste’s continuing living on sweat and blood of those they see only as tools for political bargaining?

    What is not in doubt however is that Baba-Ahmed and Bugaje, our respected elder-statesmen have other gods they serve within the Nigerian state. And this is why I think the title of Bugaje latest work – Nigeria in crisis: Where are the statesmen? should read “Northern Nigeria in Turmoil: Where are members of northern ruling caste?

  • Buhari’s place in history

    Buhari’s place in history

    By nature, besides our immediate families, we all belong to two groups- our cultural group and as membership of greater society. That we very often first gravitate towards our cultural group is natural because we are products of that culture. Therefore no one should be ashamed of being Igbo, Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Ijaw Ibibio etc. The true test of leadership however is the capacity to break through this cultural barrier and still be fair to all in a multi-cultural and heterogeneous society. This critical test, many have argued, Buhari failed especially during his first coming as a military leader

     It was as if he had come to continue Uthman Dan Fodio, his great forbearer’s unfinished war against the Yoruba nation. He and Tunde Idiagbon, also Fulani, openly lied against Awolowo’s progressive governors of Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos states claiming they confessed to receiving bribes. What happened was that some contractors made donations to the ruling UPN party. The donations were properly documented. And the proceeds were deployed by the governors to build universities, teaching hospitals and other social infrastructures in Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos for the benefit of all Nigerians. But Buhari and Idiagbon went on to sentence  the old men to jail terms ranging from 100 years to 200 years with some of them becoming blind in prison.

    Wole Soyinka, the conscience of the nation was forced to observe that the Buhari coup was a coup against the opposition. First, the characters responsible for the collapse of the second republic were known. Obasanjo publicly admitted he aided the emergence of Shehu Shagari as president in 1979.  MKO Abiola, his fellow Egba kinsman and a business partner of some military leaders was one of those who wrecked the economy between 1999 and 1983 as a beneficiary of indiscriminate issuance of import license to import communication equipment that were never installed. To many, he was a man without moral compass who publicly admitted getting his American ITT chairman drunk to take over as chairman for Africa after sending his pathetic picture to ITT headquarters. The legendary Fela waxed a record about “ITT, international thief thief.”

    Buhari and his military junta could also not have pretended not to know those who rigged the 1983 election with the help of the likes of Walter Ofonagoro with crooked theory of “land and sea-slide victories’ in opposition strong holds “and those who in four years ran the economy aground despite Awolowo’s repeated warning that ‘the economic ship of state was heading towards the rocks’ and those who engaged in massive rigging of the 1983 election.

    Yet President Shagari on whose desk the buck stops was kept under a house arrest in Sokoto while Alex Ekwueme, his VP was in detention  and NPP and NPN coalition partners, who diverted secured foreign infrastructural loans  to setting up private banks and building new houses got away with a slap on the wrist.

    But in spite of Buhari’s failure in the above department, history will record him as a Nigerian patriot who, unlike his illustrious forebears including the revered Uthman dan Fodio, Ahmadu Bello and his fellow nationalists, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo, chose from age 19 to fight and defend the integrity of Nigerian state and remained faithful until his death at 81 last week. Indeed with the exception of Herbert Macaulay who died in the north mobilising Nigerians against the British, long before independence, there is no record of any other Nigerian leader that set out at dawn to defend the integrity of the nation.

    In this regard, let us take a brief journey through recent history.

    Uthman Dan Fodio never pretended to be a Nigerian. He is remembered more as a revered Islamic scholar who following the murder of his host, King Yunfa of Gobir, employed the services of Benue and Plateau professional mercenaries, to carry out a jihad among the Hausa states between 1804 and 1808. He thereafter shared the spoils of war as emirates among his children and brothers.

    While Buhari enjoyed cult life followership among ordinary poor northerners, Ahmadu Bello was a feudal lord who enjoyed the loyalty of his serfs. He never pretended to be a Nigerian. In fact in 1950, he gave the condition for the north to remain part of Nigeria. Between 1960 and 62, he was involved in controversial northernisation policy which saw to the exit of over 2000 Igbo and British expatriates workers from the northern bureaucracy. He was always referring to the 1914 amalgamation of the north and south as the “mistake of 1914”.

    Awolowo said “in spite of his protestation to the contrary, Azikiwe himself was an Ibo jingoist” who gave the game completely away when he, as president of Ibo State Union formed in 1943 declared “it will appear the God of Africa has specifically created the Ibo nation to lead Africa from bondage of all ages”. But when in 1948, the Yoruba intelligentsia after their 16 years Yoruba war with the launching of Egbe Omo Oduduwa in Lagos (not Onitsha or Enugu), Zik’s West African Pilot declared war  “against the Egbe Omo Oduduwa leaders at home, and abroad, uphill and down dale in the streets of Nigeria and residences of its leaders with Zikist youths in the manner of today’s ‘Obidients’ attacking the persons and properties of leaders like Sir Adeyemo Alakija, Dr Akinola Maja, Sir Kofo Abayomi, Bode Thomas and others.

    Chief Awolowo along with his lieutenants SL Akintola, Bode Thomas, Adekunle Ajasin etc. were foremost Nigerian nationalists and federalists. While their world view is “wanting the best for others as they want for themselves”, they never believed any other culture was superior to their Yoruba culture in Nigeria. It was on account of this they came up with regionalism, which they claimed will prevent the nation from being ruled by one-eyed king.

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    Buhari was the only Nigerian who set out at dawn to protect the unity of Nigeria. At 19, he was indoctrinated to march from Makurdi to Enugu believing he was fighting a war to keep Nigeria united when in fact the war was initially between the Hausa Fulani and Igbo. At 21, his commitment to the Nigerian nation became only consolidated when the Igbo rebels rather than confront their attackers from the northern front, chose to overrun Benin where they appointed an Igbo administrator.

    Then they entered the West through Ore with eyes on Lagos whose administrator, Emeka Ojukwu arrogantly declared he would appoint after its pacification. In fact, Obasanjo was to admit it was the Biafra misadventure that turned the table against the Igbos with Yoruba youths joining the military in droves to meet the shortfall of less than 50 Yoruba foot soldiers on January 16 1966 when Igbo and Hausa Fulani soldiers turned our historic cities of Ibadan, Abeokuta and Lagos to cities of blood and pain.

    During his first coming in 1983, there was no doubt Buhari fell fighting on behalf of Nigeria. His rejection of IMF loan including devaluation of naira, opening of our market to labour of other societies, removal of fuel subsidy and stoppage of importation of wheat and attracted the IBB-CIA sponsored palace coup that led to his incarceration for three years while IBB fulfilled IMF demand that landed us in today’s economic quagmire.

    He tried to return to power in 2003, 2007 and 2011 all ending in heroic failures. He wept publicly for Nigeria he loved dearly. But Tinubu brought him back from political retirement and saw to the actualization of his dream in 2015.

    Before he took over in 2015, former CBN governor, Chukwuma Soludo, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Jonathan finance minister admitted Jonathan administration was borrowing money to pay salaries with both predicting a dire economic future.

    His inability to take hard decisions in order not to hurt his cult-like followership led to the near collapse of the economy with some of his trusted appointees like CBN’s Godwin Emefiele engaged in printing of over N30 trillion in ways and means while he and his friends smiled to the bank through foreign currency round tripping. Unfortunately, his social intervention initiatives, by far the largest in the history of the nation, could not stand against hard economic laws.

    As President Tinubu and many others have said in their tribute, Buhari’s good intentions were never in doubt. Buhari, the author of ‘Nigerians have no other country to call their own’, who selflessly fought for the most vulnerable Nigerians will forever live in the hearts of millions who saw him as incorruptible.

    I am not sure we can say that of many of his contemporaries.

  • Boss Mustapha and the colour of Tinubu loyalists

    Boss Mustapha and the colour of Tinubu loyalists

    Boss Mustapha was appointed the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in Oct 2017; he was a card carrying member of Tinubu’s ACN. Unarguably, he utilized the ACN slot in the APC coalition. But Mustapha appears to be the first notable Tinubu supporter to question his principals Abeokuta 2022 declaration that he was the one responsible for bringing Buhari out of retirement after his three heroic failures of 2003, 2007 and 2011.

    Speaking during the public presentation of a book titled: According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesman’s Experience by Shehu Garba, Buhari’s former senior media assistant, he had argued that Tinubu did not make Buhari president. According to him, Buhari already had an established support base of 12 million votes, and the merger of legacy parties that formed the All Progressives Congress (APC) only added around three million more votes. For him President Buhari’s integrity, national stature and disciplined messaging were central to the breakthrough, not the insignificant three million votes from other merging parties.

    As expected, there have been various reactions to what many consider his attempt to rewrite recent history. First was the close associate and long-time ally of former President Muhammadu Buhari, Farouk Aliyu.  He disagreed with the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha’s claim regarding the role of President Bola Tinubu in Buhari’s 2015 election victory. Aliyu, as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, last Thursday, dismissed Mustapha’s position as inaccurate, insisting that while Buhari’s 12 million votes were consistent, they had never been enough to secure a presidential victory until the 2015 alliance with Tinubu.

    Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Public Affairs described Boss Mustapha’s comment as a “disservice to our recent history”. “General Buhari would not have won the APC primary election at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos, in 2014 without President Tinubu, who mobilised the APC governors of the Southwest and the delegates to move Buhari’s way.” This was a primary in which some of Buhari’s northwest candidates did not vote for him.

    For  Osita Okechukwu, the immediate past Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), and a founding member of Buhari’s CPC: …” Tinubu’s contributions were pivotal, describing them as the “premium golden victory votes”( Truly, without Asiwaju’s premium supplementary votes, there would have been no two-thirds spread and no victory,” adding  “.….My friend, Boss Mustapha, should be excused because he wasn’t with us in 2003 when Buhari began his presidential journey. He was in the ACN and wasn’t privy to the realpolitik that defined the alliance

    For Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, “Tinubu ensured that Buhari clinched the APC presidential ticket by overcoming strong challengers like Atiku Abubakar and Rabiu Kwankwaso.” Onanuga stated: “But more critically, he gave Buhari what he had always lacked — geographical spread and additional votes from the Southwest.”

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    The above testimonies by insiders with deep knowledge of what transpired behind the scene should have ordinarily lain to rest Mustapha’s attempt at revisionism.

    But beyond this, I think we should try to interrogate Tinubu’s choice of Mustapha, a man with drifting loyalty as his eyes and ear in the presidency instead of any of other so-called trusted allies he had invested heavily on.

    The choice of Mustapha was also curious because we know Tinubu is not a one dimensional thinker like most of us who often based our decisions on logic without taking into consideration the character of man, who God himself claim was the worst of his creation? And in any case, it is not as if Mustapha had not demonstrated he is a man of drifting loyalty.

    A few years to the 2023 election, Lagos took the federal government to court over control of waterways. Mustapha, an ACN card-carrying member working for federal government was on hand to defend his paymaster. They advanced all forms of arguments  but, without finding a theory  to support continued federal usurpation of powers of constituent units which had gone close to 70% when the likes of misguided Obasanjo started their misadventure that has brought our nation to its kneel.

    Then Boss Mustapha reached for the killer argument: he told Nigerians on a national television that “Lagos cannot take control of her waterways because most of the rivers flowing to the Atlantic Ocean did not take their source from Lagos”. This was in line with some bizarre argument of northern ethnic irredentist that claim all the oil deposit in the Niger Delta belong to the north because it was from there they flowed to the coast.

    For Tinubu, such sycophancy did little to tilt the choice towards his so-called trusted allies.

    That Tinubu spent billions to wage Kayode Fayemi and Rauf Aregbesola’s electoral and judicial battles; that he helped Ibikunle Amosun, an ANPP man to take over APC structure in Ogun; that Yemi Osinbajo confirmed he was the one mandated by Asiwaju to recruit 50,000 fingerprint experts from Britain who worked for six months in Nigeria to ensure Fayemi’s stolen mandate in Ekiti was retrieved; same with Aregbesola’s stolen victory in Osun, Oshiomhole stolen mandate in Edo and Mimiko’s stolen mandate in Ondo. That all of them were retrieved remains part of the nation’s documented history

    As it turned out, it was not long after Tinubu had carried Buhari on his back across the country to secure his second term victory that forces, who also thought they could be president in 2023, led by Tinubu’s ‘faithful’ boys –  Fayemi, Amosun, Aregbesola, joined  Tinubu sworn political foes including  Owelle  Rochas Okorocha,  Rotimi Ameachi, Nasir El Rufai and others to illegally remove Oshiomhole as APC chairman. They then handed the APC structure to their friend, Mai Mala Buni. Between 2020 and 2022, they tried to cast the APC in their own image in order to serve their interest in 2023.

    With their principal effectively shut out and their control of APC, Fayemi and Amosun set up their individual presidential committees in the various state governors’ offices from where they frittered away billions of state funds mobilizing support for their ambition across the nation.

    The Buhari mafia,  they cheaply sold their principal, started to speak of ‘a consensus candidate’ on the eve of a primary election and while some hawkish members insisted that Tinubu, regarded as front runner should be punished for saying Buhari lost elections three times after which he wept.

    If Tinubu had found favour in anyone in the two years he was pushed out of the structure he jointly built with others, by his own people, it was from Boss Mustapha, the politician with drifting loyalty. It was only from SGF office activities of those scheming to run a joint ticket with Nasir El Rufai, those shopping for delegates with their state funds and those who believed they have sealed the fate of their principal could be monitored and probably relayed back to the game master himself.

    Tinubu’s choice of Boss Mustapha as his eyes at the presidency therefore appeared strategic. The game master who boasted he is always ahead of his political foes was waiting for them in Abuja on the APC convention night-a night of many knives. It was here they discovered too late that they had all been swindled or to use Dino Melaye words “owo ti wo mi”. Monies paid in respect of promised delegate went into the water!

    When those consumed by blind ambition discovered there was no way to match Tinubu’s projected lead of over 2000, they started to step down one after the other with their tails behind their back. But everyone saw through their chicanery.

    Perhaps Tinubu’s secret to success is that he never holds political hostages. Everyone is his friend. While he understands all men are fortune seekers and all politicians are men of many words, he also knows that “there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face”, as Shakespeare puts it in Macbeth.