The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Nigeria, behold thy new messiahs

    Nigeria, behold thy new messiahs

    Our tragedy is that those who have brought the nation to its knee always think Nigeria suffers from collective amnesia. And with history not being taught in our schools, many Nigerian youths below 32 years of age have no idea of how some of the  military-baked new-breed politicians, who last week assembled  in Abuja in the name of coalition, were driven only by a desire to continue sharing our resources just as soldiers do of conquered territories.

    No one puts this better than Dino Melaye, a man who without any evidence of work before joining President Obasanjo as special assistant on youths, later a senator but today adorned his tastily furnished Abuja house with expensive state-of-the-art cars. When asked for his reason for going into government some years back, he said without reflection that he was in power to ensure Nigerian youths get their own fair share of national resources. Melaye never heard of American president, John F. Kennedy who admonished American youth never to ask what America can do for them but what they can do for America.

    The stars of the gathering of the aggrieved include 78 years old Atiku Abubakar, 77 years old David Mark, 68 years old Rauf Aregbesola and 63 years old Peter Obi, driven by a resolve to get a man who stopped their milking of Nigeria out of the way. It is times like this we miss Ken Saro Wiwa, master of sardonic humour who often succeeded in making us laugh when he in fact had expected us to cry.

    Atiku has been trying to rule Nigeria since 1992. His big break though however came in 1998 when Obasanjo, relying on the Yar’Adua factor picked him as his vice presidential candidate. But Atiku Abubakar, driven only by self-interest, in less than four years started scheming to deprive his principal an opportunity for a second term by aligning with James Ibori as the coordinator of south-south governors at war with federal government over resource control.

    Regretting his choice of Atiku as his VP later, Obasanjo in his book, Under my Watch said this of his deputy: “His propensity to corruption, his tendency to disloyalty, his inability to say and stick to the truth all the time, a propensity for poor judgment, his belief and reliance on marabouts, his lack of transparency, his trust in money to buy his way out on all issues and his readiness to sacrifice morality, integrity, propriety, truth and national interest for self and selfish interest”. This forced Atiku, in 2007 as a sitting PDP VP, to seek rehabilitation under Tinubu’s ACN. In 2013, he waited long enough to pull down PDP along with Bukola Saraki, Aminu Tambuwal and his clique, driven by only self-interest, with his loss to Buhari in the APC presidential primary, forced him back to PDP where he paired up with another roller-coaster, Peter Obi, who had just finished his second term as governor of Anambra as APGA candidate.

     Atiku’s attempt to foist himself as PDP candidate in 2023 in breach of PDP rotational constitutional provision, thereby depriving the Southeast, the back bone of PDP, forced Peter Obi to pull down the whole PDP edifice and returned to his aggrieved Igbo people who gave him between 95 and 97% of their vote. In 2025, resistance by Bode George and the likes of Nyesom Wike, who funded and remained the only symbol of opposition while Abubakar, Obi, Tambuwal, Rotimi Amaechi and Nasir El Rufai and Dino Melaye were behaving like a woman with five husbands, is the source of last week Abuja coalition driven not by their alternative to Tinubu’s policies or humbled by what they had failed to do while in power for 16 years.

    One of our other old wine in new bottle is 77 years old David Mark who has been in government since he was first appointed chairman of abandoned properties in Port Harcourt at 38. He became governor of Niger State in 1984 as commissioner for communication during Babangida regime he was largely remembered for declaring that telephone is not for poor people.

    He was said to have led soldiers of fortune opposed to actualization of MKO Abiola’s June 12 mandate, allegedly volunteering to personally shoot Abiola if he was ever sworn in. Mark served the interest of the rich. Forbes publication for instance claimed number of private jets jumped from 20 to  150 while Bombardier, the Canadian aircraft manufacturer claimed Nigeria ranks behind the United States,  United Kingdom and China among those that top their order for the supply of their aircraft type.  

    For all his years as Senate president, there was no motorable road between Abuja and Otukpo, since Mark, as number three man, as Nyesom Wike put it last week, had a helicopter to ferry him from Abuja to Otukpo. The road abandoned by Mark for 16 years is now under construction by Tinubu’s government he and his frustrated group is trying to uproot. Perhaps the true test of his relevance in his Benue State is to interrogate how after 16 years, his daughter contested an election under another platform and won.

    The truth be told, for all his years in power, David Mark was never on ground for his besieged people. Like the typical Middle Belt soldiers of fortune traditionally  known as hired mercenaries for  fighting Fulani wars, his concern is self-preservation as his people were being slaughtered in their hundreds by herdsmen,  while successive Benue governors were chased from  pillar to posts by armed bandits. David Mark only worked for David Mark. How else does one explain David Mark who has been in government for over 40 years, pre-empting EFCC by dragging a body that had accused him of confiscating the senate president mansion, a national monument, without paying the economic rate to court?

    Rauf Aregbesola betrayed those who helped him to power. With no deep root in Osun politics, he was foisted on Osun with the help of the likes of Pa Bisi Akande. Even after winning the election, Olagunsoye Oyinlola declared a fatwa banning him from Osun. And when he tested the resolve of Oyinlola, he only managed to escape with his life as bullets freely rained on his car. He eventually retrieved his mandate through the judiciary. When he fell out with his benefactor, he joined the opposition PDP to frustrate the ambition of his APC candidate. He did not stop there; he publicly stood against the presidential ambition of his benefactor. And when that failed, he joined a group bent on removing his benefactor from power last week. He has forgotten how he was locked up like a criminal ostensibly for forging a police report. Those who see him as an asset forget if there is anything Yoruba detest; it is a man without character.

    Rotimi Amaechi betrayed Goodluck Jonathan to bargain for position in Buhari government in which billions of Rivers State money went into bringing about. He was speaker of Rivers State for eight years, governor for eight years before emerging as Buhari’s super Minister of Transportation for another eight years, during which time he was pursuing various degree programmes across the world. By diverting most of his ministry projects to Katsina State, he had thought that was all needed to become president of Nigeria.

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    His loss to Tinubu in APC primary tuned him into a sore loser, refusing to campaign for his party’s candidate.

    Amaechi had earlier told us he is hungry because he depends on the good will of his wife, who he said is an industrialist. Wike, a man who should know better, as his former chief of staff, pleaded with the president to release the suppressed NDDC report which allegedly revealed the humongous amount of money Amaechi’ wife allegedly cornered from NDDC, every month ostensibly to train Niger Delta women.  Amaechi also admitted owning a Rolls Royce which he said was a gift. Wike who also admitted to owning one last week revealed that Amachi’s was a gift from Rivers State government contractor. We are waiting for Amaechi to come clean of these serious allegations.

    Another star of the group is Dino Melaye who  was on hand to ensure that the leadership of the eighth senate was secured through display of audacious bravery, deploying self-help strategies of areas boys or what legendary Fela would describe as “igboju pass power’ (reckless bravery) often managed through bully and blackmail.  Melaye did not deny that senate rules were forged, his argument was simple: “If the senate rules were forged, it meant the confirmation of the AGF, service chiefs and the passage of the budget stands invalidated”. He and his group threatened to impeach the president if the case was not dropped. He was also known for demonstrating his audacious bravery by mobilizing 80 like minds senators to accompany Saraki’s wife to honour EFCC invitation to intimidate the judge of Code conduct Tribunal (CCT)

    Dear compatriots, herein are the baleful legacies of our new messiahs.

  • Benue killings: Those Nigeria must appease

    Benue killings: Those Nigeria must appease

    The Inspector General Of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, during last Tuesday press briefing at the Force Headquarters in Abuja confirmed the arrest of 26 suspects for  their alleged involvement in the massacre at Yelewata community, Benue State during which over 200 people including women, children were mindlessly killed inside their torched houses or shot as they tried to escape. The arrest came barely a week after President Tinubu’s condolence visit during which he had asked “How come no one has been arrested for committing this heinous crime in Yelewata. Inspector General of Police, where are the arrests?

    Although the Director General of NOA, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, celebrated the swift action taken by the police and other security agencies after the president’s directive which he claimed has “brought a sense of relief to the affected communities and the nation at large”, I am however not sure many will agree with him that “the arrest was a testament to the commitment of the security agencies to protecting the lives and property of Nigerians”. If anything, it has only brought back bad memories of the Obasanjo and Buhari years when the impression was given that those visiting violence on Nigerians were invincible ghosts.

    It is on record that the police and the military maintained their narrative even after a particular governor of Niger State repatriated some herdsmen and their cattle back to Kaduna State in buses. The tale was the same even after the then governors Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Aminu Masari of Katsina and Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna who at different times negotiated and in fact paid the criminals some ransom to stop their assault on Nigerians had confirmed that the criminals laying siege on the middle belt were immigrant Fulani herdsmen. Sadly few arrests were ever made.

    But that changed following the visit of Sheikh Gumi to the killer herdsmen’s den where he took photographs with them and returned with his controversial recommendation that those he described as disgruntled herdsmen be compensated, rehabilitated and integrated into the security forces. Curiously, government accepted the recommendation and in no time thousands of repentant criminals emerged from the bush and were rehabilitated in government houses while their victims remain condemned to IDP camps.

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    Indeed, last week police action after the president’s marching order has raised two fundamental issues. First, it confirmed the fears of Nigerians that there are powerful forces backing and sponsoring herdsmen insurgency in Nigeria whose toes the security forces dare not step on.  And second, the theme of ethnic cleansing and land grabbing which echoed during the Tor Tiv’s speech to welcome the president was a sad reminder that the endless killing in Benue is about land grabbing.

    Indeed, if there are those who doubt the claim that the battle is over Plateau’s and luxuriant Benue Basin trough, the gathering of about 93 members of the Fulani communities of Jos North, Jos South, Riyom and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas of Plateau State at Crest Hotel in Jos on May 19, 2013 to dialogue together and map a way forward will lay that to rest.

    The meeting was facilitated by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre with Afuzere, Anaguta, Beron and Hausa to dialogue about incessant crisis that have engulfed the area and the way forward;

    The gathering rejected the labels of ‘strangers and settlers’ in Plateau State by the Berom; disputed the Berom ownership of “Jos North, Jos south by the Riyom and Barkin Ladi LGAs” insisting that ownership of land has for long been taken away by the Land Use Act and the same vested on states government.  Finally, they claim that “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”.

    Unfortunately, this deliberate misinformation has been used to embolden criminal herders who believe they are fighting a just war. And it was of little relief that our past leaders did not have the political will to challenge those they believe are more equal than others before the law. And this is why I will not advise the president, in spite of his Dutch courage and penchant for taking risks, to confront the representatives of owners of Nigeria.

    My unsolicited advice to the president with a deep Yoruba culture will be to start the appeasement with Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II. Here is an Emir who at different times in the past, dared Presidents Jonathan, Buhari and in recent months, President Tinubu whose government’s directive that he should have a low key Sallah celebration because of volatile situation in Kano, he flouted. A letter inviting him to Abuja by the police was quickly withdrawn with an apology.

    It is on record that reaction to Sanusi’s ‘fatwa’ on Benue started with an attack on Governor Ortom who narrowly missed death when he was chased by heavily armed herders from his farm. Ever since, there has been no relief for people of the middle belt.

    The orgy of killing which started with the killing of 86 became intensified with Buhari declaring  on April 12, 2022,that there would be no mercy for those behind the killings of more than a hundred in a series of attack on the middle belt region. In 2018, following the killing of about 200 in Gashish district in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, about 1,116 children and 1,821 women were crammed together inside the hall of Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society used as IDP camp in Anguldi-Zawan in Jos South LGA.

    Julie Bala, Director of Plateau State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) on  July 8, 2018 confirmed  38, 051 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were taking refuge in 31 camps in the state following June 23-4 suspected herdsmen attack on  villagers in Barkin Ladi, Riyom, Mangu, Bokkos and Jos South local government areas.

    On April 12, 2022, President Buhari who had by this time been rechristened ‘mourner in chief’ was in Ganga Village in the Kanam Local Government Area of Plateau following the burning down of houses that sent 4800 people to IDP camps. Many believe if Muhammadu Sanusi II lifts his ‘fatwa’, Benue and the whole of the Middle Belt will know peace.

    Another powerful Nigerian that needed to be appeased is Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State. First as governor, he is a Leviathan who operates above the law. It is on record that he once lionized the killer herdsmen on a live TV by defending their right to carry AK-47. We can only speculate about the source of the AK-47 assault guns the police seized from some of those arrested for last week massacre of about 200 in Benue.

    Bala did not stop there; he also said immigrant Fulani in any part of Nigeria from any part of Africa is a Nigerian. Again, we can see where the crooked logic that the Land Use Act has taken away the right of land ownership from indigenes was coming from.

    Although, Bala is not Fulani, he needs endorsement of the hegemonic power in the north to fulfil his presidential ambition even if it means being in office while others wield power as was the case with his kinsmen, the assassinated Tafawa Balewa, our first Prime Minister.

    Of course we also have Abubakar Malami, Buhari’s attorney general. It is on record he tried to equate Igbo traders engaged in legitimate business of trading in the north with armed herdsmen who secretly took over reserved forest in the south to commit heinous crimes. Many senior lawyers faulted his fraudulent attempt to equate constitutional provision for free movement of Nigerians in their country with marauding cattle indiscriminately destroying subsistence farmers’ farms across the country. Unfortunately, his odious comparison is what herdsmen are using to visit violence on subsistence farmers across the country.

    Finally, others that need appeasement  include Salisu Ahmadu, national president and Umar Shehu , national secretary, of Fulani Nationality Movement, (FUNAM), who once jointly signed a joint statement where  they literarily took responsibility for the killing of 86 in Benue during the Ortom administration  when they attributed it to a revenge attack over the killings of Fulani in Nasarawa State, adding that because the federal government was incapable of protecting the interest of Fulani in Nigeria, the Fulani in West Africa have been invited to raise funds and prepare for war. 

    President Tinubu must positively deploy his celebrated tact to persuade those who are unarguably above the law to understand that distributive justice, even when alternatives including coercion and monopoly of violence on members of your federating states are available, is the best safeguard for peace, stability and shared prosperity in multicultural deeply divided societies.

  • Villains of democracy

    Villains of democracy

    Sycophancy, which sadly, has become part of our political DNA, as many will argue, is anyone’s game in a democracy. It is not many seasons ago that Tinubu’s fought a nasty battle for the Nigerian presidency. The battle was against children of anger, social media terrorists, failed politicians and journalists whose major tool of engagement was sycophancy. Today in power, if anything has changed, it is that for his party, the APC and other opposition parties, sycophancy remains a compelling weapon for subliminal battle for the minds of Nigerians.

    In recent times, the APC has assaulted the sensibilities of Nigerians by turning the president’s midterm review of his presidency, a period for sober reflection in view of punishing effects of the president’s unavoidable economic policies, to a jamboree. Favour seeking party members, defectors without ideological orientations who the president said must be welcomed to avoid ‘political malpractices’, ministers trying to cover up their inadequacies and even  hardworking and goal-setting ministers have found flattering the president to high heavens, an irresistible distraction.

    Nyesom Wike, who the president publicly described as an asset, you will think, does not need to flatter the president to high heavens. But not even the president’s expression of the nation’s deep appreciation while “thanking him for bringing Abuja to a level that compares favourably with great cities of the world”, could in a season of sycophancy, restrain him from re-naming his newly refurbished Abuja Conference Centre after the president.

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    I am sure the president cannot but feel scandalized by having to be hit on the face every day  by Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre , And unfortunately, it is not of any relief that both his Yoruba culture or his Islamic faith frown at deification of living beings.

    The amateurish intervention of Senator Abdul-Aziz Yari, former governor of Zamfara State must have no doubt further irritated a president who hails from an area where people read meanings to ordinary greetings. Doing great damage to the president’s recent visit to grieving Benue where over 200 people had been mindlessly killed, Yari had clumsily said: “His decision to suspend everything he was doing is worthy of note”; adding as if he had ever been president that “If we understood the responsibilities associated with the office of the president, we would see the empathy in his decision to personally visit Benue. He could have delegated a high-powered team to visit and stand in for him but he decided to show leadership and identify with the people”.

    Yari should focus on his many EFCC and ICPC cases instead of adopting diversionary tactics including organizing prayers for the president. The truth however, is that sycophancy has always been the scourge of successive Nigerian’s administrations. As Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the former governor of the Central Bank (CBN), put it during the 2013 public presentation of  Mallam Nasir el-Rufai’s controversial book, The Accidental Public Servant, “corruption is not the bane of Nigeria … but sycophancy.”

    Again, we can take a journey through memory.

    Ahmadu Bello, despite espousing high morality and intellectual virtues through his political career started to unconsciously arrogate to himself the status of a super-human being, fuelled by the usual loyalty of serfs to feudal lords. He started to regard his contemporaries – Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Prime Minster Tafawa Balewa as subordinates.

    With a gift of a horse to Zik and a copy of the Holy Quran to Balewa after independence, he gleefully declared that he had divided Nigeria between his two loyal lieutenants.  After Zik fell out with him following the 1964 constitutional crisis, Zik was effortlessly replaced with Chief S.L Akintola who received a gift of the sword. Awo, who he had sworn would pay for forcing him to campaign for votes among his subjects during the 1959 election, had been jailed for 10 years.

    He probably now saw himself as the new Uthman dan Fodio. In fact the story was told of how he was one evening walking with one of his trusted civil servants with some grazing cows retreating following their approach, he could not resist telling his subordinate that “even cows recognize my presence”.

    He had ignored Brigadier Ademulegun’s warning of the impending coup just as he did of Chief SL Akintola’s who chattered an aircraft on the January 14, 1966 to Kaduna warning the revered premier that “they might be coming to kill all of us tonight”.

    Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa seemed to have added to Ahmadu Bello’s air of invincibility when with dead bodies littering major streets of Western Region, he ignored University of Ibadan students plea that a state of emergency be declared. He chose to wait for the arrival of Ahmadu Bello from the hajj with the crisis eventually consuming both of them along with the best of our trained soldiers.

    Ironsi was also a victim of sycophants. Following the January 1966 coups, Ironsi was told by self-serving Igbo politicians that he alone could save Nigeria. He in turn told the rump of assembled ministers that “since he could not persuade Dr Nwafor Orizu, the acting president to make an appointment, he must assume supreme control of administration. He was later stampeded to turn Nigeria, a federal state, into a unitary state and centralization of regional bureaucracies.

    Realising the move as an attack on Ahmadu Bello controversial northernisation policies that saw to the exit of thousands of Igbo and British expatriates from northern bureaucracy by northerners, an ABU students’ led riot eventually ended Ironsi’s regime and life.

    The irony was that, sycophants who drove him to his untimely death following January 1966 Igbo pyric victory were behind Ojukwu’s Aburi demand for return of regionalism.  Gowon, speaking with Charles Aniagolu of Arise Television last week insisted the cause of the civil war was Ojukwu’s insistence not just on regionalism but regionalism of the military to be controlled by regional governors.

    General Gowon with his post-civil war mantra of “No victor no vanquished” and solemn undertaking to cede power to civilian administration was on track until sycophants within his cabinet led by the Pa Edwin Clark manipulated him to breach the promised hand-over date to civilian rule. That was all Murtala Muhammed needed to oust him out of power.

    Ibrahim Babangida took Nigeria through eight years of ‘transition without end” with the help of sycophants made up of politicians, Aso rock professors, journalists including Chidi Amuta who after writing IBB’s biography, Prince of the Niger declared that his “earlier plan to hand over power was a betrayal of the masses”. Others include traditional rulers from whom he acquired more traditional titles than any living or dead Nigerian leader.

    His greatest hour was the Fellowship of Nigerian Economic Society (NES), the most authoritative body of scholars on Nigerian economy. The award they said was for being “visionary in the management of the national economy”, just after Financial Times had accused him of frittering away $5b Gulf war oil windfall and IMF, World Bank and Paris Club had accused IBB of “fiscal indiscipline”.

    Sani Abacha was humoured to death by his decreed five parties dismissed as “five fingers of a leprous hand “by late Bola Ige; Daniel Kanu and his “Two-million youths earnestly ask for Abacha”, the loyalty medal- wearing generals including Jeremiah Useni, the Bamaiyi brothers, Aziza, Akhigbe, Abubakar etc. who for three years could not prevail on Abacha to call the meeting of Provisional Ruling Council.

    His other zealot worshippers who presented falsehood as unquestioning truth, include Ebenezer Babatope who told us “ Abacha regime was the best to happen to Nigeria”, Wole Oyelese, Dr Walter Ofonagoro and Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Abacha’s envoy to Europe to de-market President-elect MKO Abiola.

    Obasanjo was equally tamed by sycophants who made sure none of his legacy projects except the telephone revolution succeeded.  He swallowed the lie that Nigeria will cease to exist with his exit from power. Obasanjo, who assumed power in 1999 with goodwill of Nigerians, frittered away everything with his own hands following his third-term fiasco.

    President Buhari had within his government, sycophants who pretended to share his pan-Nigeria agenda while working for other tendencies including the promotion of Fulani agenda. There was Nasir El Rufai who would always kneel down to greet him while he allegedly encouraged a regime of ethnic cleansing in southern Zaria, Ababakar Malami who, while pretending to promote freedom, justice and equity for all Nigerians, was encouraging illegal occupation of government reserved forest in the West by armed Fulani criminals. Malami and his group succeeded in reducing Buhari, a leader with a pan-Nigeria outlook into a Fulani irredentist.

    But it is not all doom. Those close to President Tinubu insist that unlike our past leaders, he is clear-headed and cannot be distracted by sycophants falsely swearing by his name. And it is of little relief to flatterers that because of his tact and good breeding, he will not publicly or even privately shut flatterers down.

  • Villains of democracy

    Villains of democracy

    President Tinubu last Thursday bestowed national honours on heroes and heroines of June 12, 1993 struggle. Leading the pack was MKO Abiola, the winner of what has come to be regarded as the freest and the most credible election in the nation’s history and who had to pay the supreme sacrifice for winning a pan-Nigerian mandate. Others honoured by the president include activists, journalists, scholars and Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni nine who were executed by Abacha’s junta in 1995 following their protest against Shell’s activities in the region.

    But as a nation that often shields its youths from knowing the painful past and treacherous role of its political elite, I think beyond honouring our martyrs of democracy for their heroic struggle, this is also an opportunity to identify some of the villains responsible for undermining our democratization process.

    Ibrahim Babangida on whose desk the buck stops as self-appointed president who took Nigerians through eight years of ‘transition without end’ only to annul the result of the fairest and most credible election in the nation’s history, won by his friend, MKO Abiola has been fingered as the one responsible for Nigeria’s nightmare despite his attempt to blame others including, his generals, northern establishment and the judiciary.

    Yet with characteristic conceit of Shaka the Zulu, his hero, Babangida started his game of deceit by first setting up a political bureau, decreeing two political parties, NRC and SDP for a nation that had since 1923 managed political parties, and setting up Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS) where his State House professors swore they could teach democracy and democratic ethos. And against wise counsel, he went ahead to fritter away N3billion on building political party headquarters, later taken over by reptiles as well as allocating another N531b for the take off their two decreed parties.

    To protect his decreed political parties reserved only for military groomed new-breed politicians, he had on October 7, 1989 ordered the dissolution of  the then existing  13 political associations,  disqualified 12 aspirants on the eve of gubernatorial election for their role in October 19,1991 primaries and banned 12 national assembly members as well as  all the powerful 23 presidential candidates.

    If however you ask me for the villain of June 12, 1993 debacle, despite Babangida’s “eight years of transition without end”, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo is the one who in my view fits the bill. Without Obasanjo playing god in 1979, we would not have had Buhari in 1984, Babangida in 1985 and of course, Abacha in 1993.

     Obasanjo, it was who in 1979 declared the best candidate in that year’s election didn’t need to win. He was to later confess he aided Shehu Shagari, who was only interested in going to the senate to win the 1979 election.

    Olu Falae, who joined the Babangida regime a few weeks after adopting the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) while appearing on Channels TV programme last week, reminded us that it was Shehu Shagari who, through indiscriminate and uncontrolled issuance of import licences, ruined Nigerian economy in four years of importation of foreign manufactured goods including NPN chairman Akinloye’s branded wine.

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     We owed international creditors and without paying our debt, Olu falae insisted that there was no way to trade with the international community. This according to him was what drove Babangida to embrace SAP, which reduced our country to an importer of the labour of other societies while with the collapse of our budding industries, with our unemployed youths moving to foreign lands in search of greener pasture.

    And if there those who want to hold brief for Obasanjo for undermining our democratization process in 1979 and in the process used his hands to destroy the legacy he left behind in 1979, all that is needed is to interrogate his treacherous role in the annulment of MKO Abiola’s June 12, 1993 victory and imposition of Interim National Government, declared illegal few months later by the court.

    Obasanjo, who was widely acclaimed as a pillar of democracy in Africa for voluntarily handing over power to a civilian government in 1979 in addition to his virulent criticism of Nigeria military whose leadership he claimed was “deficit in so many fundamental attributes”, Nigerians and the international community had expected Obasanjo to call Babangida, his protégé to order.

    But Obasanjo, who often suffers from messianic complex, was to tell Nigerians that MKO Abiola who had just secured a pan Nigerian mandate was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for. And to supplant Abiola’s victory, a spineless Ernest Shonekan, Abiola’s fellow Egba man was installed head of illegal interim national government.

    And if there are those still in doubt as to who constituted the greatest threat to Nigeria’s democratization process in the fourth republic, events that followed the sudden death of General Abacha, the maximum ruler finally laid that to rest.

    Obasanjo was the military and northern establishment PDP candidate for the 1999 presidential election to assuage the raw feelings of aggrieved Yoruba that had, along with other Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups, fought five years strategic battle with the military. Many including Olu Falae, his opponent, believed the election was rigged in his favour. By 2003, Obasanjo and PDP had rigged the six southwest governors except Lagos out of office. In the 2007 election denounced even by Umaru Yar’Adua, the winner, Obasanjo and PDP with the help of Tony Anenih, “Mr. Fix it”, took control of 28 of the nation’s 36 states.

    Obasanjo for eight years danced on the grave of MKO Abiola without acknowledging his supreme sacrifice.  Instead, in an effort to consign June 12 to history, Obasanjo went on to cynically adopt May 29, the day the military was humiliated out of power as democracy day.

     Ironically, it took Buhari, a man with a large heart, whose removal from office in 1985 through Babangida’s palace coup was widely believed to have been sponsored by Abiola, to right an historic wrong. Buhari conferred on Abiola the nation’s highest national honour and declared June 12 1993 as Nigeria Democracy Day.

    Now that we have established that Obasanjo emboldened Babangida and Abacha to hold Nigeria hostage while a fertile ground for hungry politicians to exploit the ethnic and religion vaults in our nation for personal gains between 1985 and 1999 brewed, we can again interrogate those often regarded as villains of democracy stating with Arthur Nzeribe, the arrow head of those opposed to inauguration of Abiola as president.

    This was a man who once admitted beating up his Irish principal in secondary school, an international business man described by BBC as the “largest arms dealer in Africa, who wanted extension of IBB tenure by three years “to eradicate poverty, corruption and rights the wrong of political inequality”. Despite placing a full page advertorial in newspapers claiming the Igbo opposed Abiola’s presidency, there was no evidence Nzeribe spoke for the Igbo nation. Nzeribe was no doubt working for his stomach.

    Uche Chukwumerije,  the secretary of Information whose brief period witnessed the proscription of no less than five different newspapers and newsmagazines, who “ succeeded in reducing Abiola’s pan Nigeria mandate to a Yoruba mandate, government critics to Lagos sectional press, many believed was out to demonstrate he was a propaganda genius.  Chidi Amuta, who authored Babangida’s biography, Prince of the Niger, Eric Agume Opia, Walter Ofonagoro,  Bassey Ikpeme, Dr Atkin, Abimbola Davis, Ebenezer Babatope, Minister of Transport and Aviation who later became chieftain of PDP, Lateef Jakande, General Haliru Akilu – Director General of National Intelligence Agency, Chief Clement Apamgbo – Attorney General, Babagana Kingibe who abandoned his mandate to become Abacha’s internal affairs minister, Justice Bassey Ikpeme who gave a midnight judgment to scuttle the election, Justice Dahiru Saleh, who passed the judgment stopping further announcement of result, were driven more by self-preservation than by desire to derail the democratization process.

    I am not sure others labelled as villains of democracy including the likes of Arisekola Alao, the Aare Musulumi of Yoruba, a military contractor and Lamidi Adedibu, the strong man of Ibadan politics, notorious for his variant of politics of stomach infrastructure, Jerry Gana, a man who doesn’t believe in anything and has freely deployed his awesome talent into the services of every government in power since 1979, Akanni Aluko of The Third Eye, really cared about democracy.

    I similarly don’t think that other zealot Babangida worshippers like Duro Onabule who staked his honour to defend his boss even after his principal’s admission that “the government interfered to save the judiciary from ridicule or Augustus Aikhomu’s assertion that they “are trying to save the neck of Abiola” was driven by a desire to truncate the democratization process. 

    The tragedy today is that the very villains of democracy are the same people putting themselves forward as solution to our crisis of democracy.

  • Bode George: The last PDP man standing

    Bode George: The last PDP man standing

    Bode George has an abiding faith in PDP. And using the humongous amount of Rivers State funds frittered away on some ungrateful “chop and clean mouth” PDP politicians as index of measurement, the only other person close to Bode George in this regard is Nyesom Wike, his estranged godson, with whom he is currently engaged in brickbats over the soul of their beloved PDP.

    Not many of those who once swore by PDP’s name want to identify with it today. Many are in a mad rush to abandon a sinking PDP ship. The South-south geo-political zone once regarded as the bedrock of PDP, we now know, was because the now tattered PDP umbrella provided cover for massive mismanagement of state funds in a zone where leaders claim stealing state funds is not corruption but ‘misapplication of funds’. (Augustus Aikhomu and Goodluck Jonathan).

    While PDP stalwarts who once ate with their 10 fingers in the 16 years of the locust are today falling over each other to escape PDP sinking ship, what we hear from the likes of Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, David Mark, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, etc., the oligarchy that changed PDP from its founding fathers’ dream to a garrison-commanded by self-serving leaders, is a foreboding silence.

    Bode George however remains not only passionate about PDP, but its very embodiment as conceived by its founding fathers. When Obasanjo asked him to choose a role he would like to play after being foisted on the Yoruba nation and Nigeria as PDP candidate in 1998 by the military and the interest they serve, Bode George’s choice without hesitation was a PDP apparatchik. And even when offered the position of Sole Administrator of NPA by Abiye Sekibo, after the government had been inaugurated, his response was “My Honourable, thank you for the honour. I have more important job to do in the party than go and be any sole administrator.”

    Even now as the oligarchy and other PDP stakeholders pretend not to hear the tolling of the death knell of their party, Bode George’s vociferous voice is the only one ‘jarring our earlobes’. Nigerians can still hear the ringing echo of his voice as he squared up with Arise TV’s Charles Aniagolu last week, insisting:

    “PDP is like Iroko tree. Or the Oak tree found in Saudi Arabia”; “PDP is the only party in Nigeria”; “Our party is not like APC owned by individual”; PDP party as packaged by our founding fathers has the capacity to solve Nigeria problems”, etc.

    More intriguing is that George is not exhibiting any evidence he is ready to give up on PDP despite his political son’s last week call on him to go and ‘read newspapers’  if he had nothing doing. And that was after challenging him to identify one politician PDP made from Lagos or one PDP elected politician he successfully supported despite his 25 years of misguided war against Tinubu. AD senators Wahab Dosumu, Adeseye Ogunlewe and Musiliu Obanikoro that he and Obasanjo lured into PDP in 2002 was regarded as ‘mandate theft’ while the 2003 governorship mandate theft in Edo, Ondo, Osun, George took credit for, were reversed by the courts.

    Long before Wike’s advice, one of his other disrupting political son, Ayo Fayose had, back in 2020, asked him to retire to give room to younger ones. In his words “it’s high time Bode George retires. Let him be a support stand for the younger ones in the party …all those stories of how we formed this party in 1998, eight of us sat in my sitting room to form the party, is no longer important because the young too must be allowed to grow. (African Examiner September 30, 2020).

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    Indeed, the joke was on George himself when in an attempt to admonish Wike who is insisting “he is Mr PDP’ resorted to his favourite Shakespeare quote “Life is like a walking shadow… It is like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and after that you are heard no more”.

    Consumed by his love for PDP, Bode George is yet to come to terms that there is indeed ‘time for everything’.

    But is Bode George’s passion enough to save PDP? I don’t think so. It will appear it is too late to change the tide. It is also of little relief that not many members of his embattled party share his optimism.

     For the PDP governors who are not ready to take chances, because they are seeking re-election: “if the taste of the wine changes, drinking habit must change” or “if you must fly to Abuja and your private jet is grounded, it will be foolhardy not to join another plane that guarantees a safe flight”. And to PDP former governors like Gabriel Suswan and PDP stalwarts like Segun Sowunmi, Atiku’s former spokesman, PDP is ‘in intensive care’. 

    And neither can anyone fault APC, the irresistible bride that “we are in a democracy and democracy allows freedom of association”.

    Unfortunately for Bode George, the pervading gloominess gives no assurance of light at the end of the tunnel. By the verdict of students of political party system including John Campbell, former US envoy to Nigeria, PDP, unlike parties that serve as recruitment centres for political office holders and as modernization agents, is in fact not a political party. It is an association of ‘wheelers and dealers he dismissed during a debate on Nigeria in British House of Commons as “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria that came together essentially as a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”.

    Much as PDP card-carrying members in borrowed toga of journalists may want to change the narrative, not all Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia. Nigerians remember it was PDP stalwarts that created artificial fuel scarcity at the onset of Obasanjo’s government to stampede him to set up the Petroleum Pricing Product Regulatory Authority (PPPRA) under which PDP leaders and their siblings defrauded Nigeria of about N1.6trillion through fuel subsidy scam. Only last week, the son of retired Brigadier Ahmadu Ali, former PDP chairman and PPPRA chairman, was jailed for 13 years for the same offence.

    Nigerians remember Atiku Abubakar supervised the ill-implemented privatisation programme, through which Nigeria’s total investments of about $100billion acquired between 1957 and 1997 were sold to PDP stalwarts and their fronts for a paltry $1.5billion.

    We remember the monetization policy was another scam through which PDP stalwarts including ex-Senate President David Mark, ex- House speaker Dimeji Bankole and ex CBN governor Chukwuma Soludo bought their mansions at giveaway prices while other government officials and civil servants converted to personal use properties kept in their temporary care for our children at prices determined by them.

    Of course, there was the unbundling of PHCN during which government injected between $8billion and $16billion, taxpayers money only to have the electricity distribution companies sold to stalwarts of PDP some of whom shamelessly donated as much as N5b to President Jonathan’s 2015 re-election bid.

    Bode George’s passion for PDP will most likely not erase the memory of how Sambo Dasuki, President Jonathan’s National Security Adviser (NSA) became an ATM without password with leading PDP men and women sharing US$2.1billion loan meant for our fighting soldiers’ hardware and welfare.

    We remember very clearly the years of the locusts when for 16 years, PDP stalwarts without self-discipline, ate with their 10 fingers and boasted they would rule for an uninterrupted 60 years.

    Without excusing Buhari’s eight years of gross incompetence and Emefiele’s mismanagement of foreign exchange market through forex ‘round tripping’ or even the toll of current President Tinubu’s two years economic policies on Nigerians, we remember Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Nigerians that Jonathan government was borrowing money to pay salaries. And more foreboding, both she and Chukwuma Soludo predicted that whoever or whatever party took over in 2015 would have an uphill task trying to reverse the damage of 16 years of economic recklessness.

    Unfortunately for George, Atiku Abubakar who presided over the sales of our budding industries and Peter Obi, the ‘container economist,’ who as importer of foreign labour, are jointly responsible for our nation’s current nightmare. Driven by greed for power, both have serially betrayed PDP, their party as they did Nigeria.

    The tragedy is that they are today jostling for power not on the basis of a new vision to redress the tragedy they brought on a nation where my total estacode as a young journalist going for holiday in London in 1982 was N500, an amount that cannot buy a loaf of bread today, but on the basis of current temporary hardship, the result of their repeated rape on Nigeria.

  • The unending local government crisis

    The unending local government crisis

    The local government crisis, like our other self-inflicted problems, remains intractable because our leaders often prefer playing the ostrich instead of confronting our own demons. 

    Let us start with the issue of the national question. When Oliver Stanley, for instance, in 1920, declared, “Our vision for Nigeria was a national self-government that secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality, its own chosen form of government, which had been evolved for it by the wisdom and accumulated experiences of generation of its forbearers,” he spoke from experience.

    The federal arrangement as a social system that guarantees unity in diversity was what ended centuries of tribal wars in Europe. Events after that speech confirmed that the golden age of our nation was between 1946 and 1966 when we practiced federalism.

    But we cannot also pretend not to know the enemies of the federal arrangement that needed appeasement, especially after playing the leading role in the collapse of the First Republic and plunging the nation into an avoidable civil war.

    Those who have continued to wage war against federalism are Fulani hegemonic rulers of the north who want to preserve Nigeria as home to stateless Fulani herders across West Africa, and their Igbo rival with identical worldview, who insist everywhere in Nigeria, except their Igbo nation, is home.

    For those who have faith in our country, the cheapest way forward is returning to where the rain started to beat us. Unfortunately, for close to 60 years we have done everything, including the fruitless search for unity through social engineering efforts such as NYSC, quota system of admission into tertiary institutions and civil service and, of course, Obasanjo’s confiscation of regional financial, media and educational institutions, except digging ourselves out of the hole.

    Now let us return to the crisis in the local councils. “Federalist practice is that local governments are creatures and subordinates of state governments and exist at their pleasure.” (Richard Sclar) And the United Nations concept of LGAs is “a political subdivision of a nation or a state in a federal system.”

    Obasanjo and his military adventurers, aping the old imperial powers, institutionalised the local government as the third tier of government in 1976. He was to later declare with remorse, “When in 1976, we brought in Local Government Reforms, it was meant to be the third tier of the Government, and not meant to be subjected to the whims and caprices of any other government.”

    They ignored the fact that the states are not supposed to be appendages of the central government but coordinates, operating on the basis of a constitution which allocates power to both tiers of government.

    Not much thought went into Obasanjo’s decision. Out of self- deceit, we even refused to learn from the experience of India, one of the multicultural societies where the idea of local government as third tier of government flourished since 1992 when they started operating two very distinct forms: Urban localities, covered in the 74th amendment to the Constitution, established Municipalities that derive their powers from the individual state governments; and the other where the powers of rural localities have been formalised under the panchayati raj system, under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution.

    While the 1950 and the 1966 Local Administration system inherited by our military adventurers stemmed from the 1947 policy thrust of the last colonial Secretary of State, Lord Creech-Jones, which stated that “the key to resolving the problems of African administration lay in the development of an efficient and democratic local government that is close to the people,” Obasanjo’s third tier of government was built on nothing.

    This was why most people believe Obasanjo’s 1966 Local Government reform was designed not for grassroots development but to share the resources of more resourceful states among less resourceful states to support what many have described as Obasanjo’s ‘fake nationalism,’ which finds expression in forcing Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities at different levels of cultural development to operate at the same level, which in itself is an aberration in federalism.

    Obasanjo’s political opponents believe he was not an independent arbiter in 1976 as evidence abounds to show he was anxious to please the north that allowed him to be in power following the assassination of Murtala Mohammed.

    For instance, during the 1957 constitutional review, there were 12 provinces in the north and 12 in the south (or 15 if you add Oyo, divided into two in 1934, and the two southern Cameroon provinces which later joined Cameroon after a referendum.

     Obasanjo was part of Gowon’s administration that created a 12-state structure ‘without ‘rhythm or rhyme,’ second-in-command to Murtala Mohammed that turned the country into a 19-state structure, just as he had influence on Babangida that took the states to thirty. Obasanjo is perhaps the only one who can explain why we today have 19 states for the north and 17 for the south.

    Similarly, in 1979, there were 301 LGAs in the country; but in the never discussed 1999 constitution, which became operational under Obasanjo, there were 774 LGAs named, with 413 councils for the north and 355 for the south.

    Obasanjo started the transfer of state residual functions to the central government by amending Decree 13 of 1970 and Decree 9 of 1971, and this was to lead to other decrees that finally increased the legislative list from 45 in 1960 to 68 in the 1999 constitution.

    Those Obasanjo used to foist the American variant of federalism, with a strong centre just to promote his fake nationalism, Chief Rotimi Williams and Professor Nwabueze, regretted and apologised for shortchanging Nigerians before their death. And coming under the aegis of ‘the Patriots,’ they vigorously campaigned for the reduction of the unwieldy and unviable 36 states into six geopolitical zones.

    President Tinubu, who understands our crisis of nation building, perhaps more than any of his predecessors, has started by making the six geopolitical zones economic development areas. But the ultimate goal will be to convert them to political administrative centres with the support of the National Assembly, if they are to meet the challenges of immigrant killer herdsmen, banditry, out-of-school children and ravaging poverty.

    With increased revenue accruing to states and LGAs from the federation account following the fuel subsidy removal, President Tinubu is, no doubt, anxious to ensure his Renewed Hope Agenda reflects positively on the lives of the people in the rural areas. This perhaps explains why he went to secure the Supreme Court judgment to “compel the 36 states to grant full autonomy to local governments in their states, prohibits state governors from unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders for local governments, and restrains the governors from spending and tampering with funds released from the federation accounts for the benefits of the LGAs when no democratically elected local government system is put in place in the states.”

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    Nigerians have identified with the president’s judicial victory. But I am sure he understands it was a pyrrhic victory. That was why on Jan 2, 2025, while receiving members of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) at his Ikoyi residence, he admitted the Federal Government cannot take local government away from state governments and called for stronger collaboration between the federal and state governments to address pressing challenges, including local government autonomy, agricultural productivity, and currency stability

    I am sure the president remembers he took the Obasanjo government to court where he secured judgment declaring that local governments could not have financial autonomy because they are not federating units of the federation.

    But in the end, the president, no doubt, understands that the issue of local governments is political. He should work through the National Assembly to see how to cede the current unviable arbitrarily created LGAs to the states who will decide what to do with them. With 68 items on the exclusive list, the federal government has more than enough to chew.

    Instead of replicating state Leviathans at the local level through financial autonomy, whatever is meant for the third tier of government, which in any case belongs to the states, should be channeled through the states that are better positioned to appreciate their immediate needs.

    Events in the last one year have proved that the local government is an integral part of the state; and attempting to separate them from each other will be like trying to cut off the umbilical cord of a foetus from the mother.

    Finally, much as we may demonise the governors, we have no reason to believe that dysfunctional Abuja that mismanaged the nation’s resources through massive stealing in the years of abundance (1999-2015), and brought the nation to its knees between 2015 and 2023 as a result of incompetence, is the messiah the LGAs need.

  • Crusading for Emefiele

    Crusading for Emefiele

    Godwin Ifeanyi Emefiele (CFR), Nsukka, Harvard and Stanford University-trained economist turned banker, who served as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from 4 June 2014 until he was suspended by President Bola Tinubu, on 9 June 2023, will probably go down in history as the most criminally minded and the worst Nigerian CBN governor.

    Undoubtedly, Emefiele was a master of his game. A PDP sympathiser brought in to supplant Sanusi Lamido, believed to be sympathetic to APC on account of his relentless criticism of massive corruption going on in Jonathan’s administration, effortlessly manipulated an untrusting Buhari who just watched him as he broke all rules, including attempting to succeed his principal even as a sitting CBN governor.

    As a leader with the mindset of a feudal lord, Emefiele gave Buhari all feudal lords’ want – unalloyed loyalty.  Buhari overlooked Emefiele’s criminal tendencies, which were apparent from his handling of $2.1b released to the former National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (retd), which was shared as election largesse to reappoint him for a second term.

    But how was Emefiele able to cover up his criminal enterprise for eight years, whether in terms of foreign exchange manipulation, where his friends who did not bid secured allocation freely deployed for round tripping, printing of over N30 trillion through ways and means, half of which was suspected to have been stolen, and various multibillion CBN intervention programmes that produced only fake rice pyramids?

    Emefiele had a useful ally in a section of the media that opted to trade its constitutional role of holding other institutions of state accountable and serving as agents of socialisation, for crusading for crooks, a very rewarding endeavour when they are executed on behalf of influential bank owners who converted depositors funds to private use, governors who desperately need the judiciary to retain their opponents’ stolen mandates, and, of course, those who stole the country blind by confiscating national patrimony in the name of privatisation and monetisation self- serving policies.

    Emefiele was a toast of ARISE TV and her Thisday platform, especially since his reappointment for a second term by President Buhari. They had waged war after war against anyone who dared to raise questions about Emefiele’s character, including the House of Representatives and its speaker, vice president Osinbajo, candidate Tinubu in the 2023 election and some APC governors that went to court to compel Emefiele to obey the Supreme Court judgment.

    It is on record that Emefiele held the nation hostage during his politically motivated currency re-colouring exercise, as angry and hungry Nigerians, denied access to their money, laid siege to banks and ATM centres. The House of Representatives tried to persuade an unfeeling and arrogant Emefiele to consider the suffering of Nigerians.

    Thisday immediately embarked on a crusade on behalf of Emefiele, with a front-page January 28, 2023 story titled “In battle against independent monetary policy, House threatens Emefiele.” The crusaders dismissed the House invitation of the CBN governor to appear before its banking committee over the lingering currency crisis, in line with its statutory oversight function, as a plot to “erode” CBN’s independence.

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    After his repeated failure to  honour House committee summons,  the then House Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, had threatened to invoke relevant sections of the law to effect Emefiele’s arrest by the police for undermining the efforts of the House to carry out its oversight functions. Thisday and its self-proclaiming patriots accused the speaker of pursuing personal interest, claiming the invitation was “against the provisions of the law.”

    Vice President Osinbajo was not spared by ARISE, self –proclaimed patriots. When, in November 2021, he criticised the Central Bank governor for what he called an “artificially low” exchange rate, claiming he was convinced that the demand management strategy adopted by the CBN needed a rethink, it was from far-away Paris, during Nigeria International Partnership Forum, that Nigerians were told, through ARISE Correspondent, Adefemi Akinsanya, that the Vice President missed the point. He debunked the VP’s accusations of poor collaboration between Nigeria’s fiscal and monetary authorities. Emefiele also spoke of pumping close to N3trillion loans to manufacturers at a single digit rate and more monies to Buhari’s policy of creating 100 million jobs in four years.

    Candidate Bola Tinubu in the 2023 election was similarly viciously attacked by ARISE’ self-proclaimed patriots in the service of Emefiele. He had publicly criticised the government claiming the CBN policy was targeted at him to scuttle his presidential campaign. His APC supporters threw their weight behind his remarks.  ARISE, of course, took sides with Emefiele, and the president, who they claimed were acting in the public interest. They spoke of a bullion van found in his house during the 2019 election in which he was not a participant.

    For ARISE, Emefiele could do no wrong. In February 2023, Governors Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Yahaya Bello (Kogi) and Bello Matawalle (Zamfara) dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court, complaining of the time frame for the exchange of the re-designed naira. According to them, “the majority of their state indigenes have been unable to exchange or deposit their old naira notes as there are no banks in the rural areas where the majority of the population of the states reside.” What they got from Emefiele was his insistence that the February 10 deadline remained unchanged.

    But the battle cry from ARISE that claimed, without proof, that the governors were driven by a desire to buy votes was “fact check me, it is all about the governors’ shenanigans.” They even went farcical, questioning the right of the governors to appeal to the Supreme Court when they did not go to court over the abduction of Shaibu five years earlier

    In May 2022, Emefiele expressed his desire to succeed President Buhari by filing a lawsuit at the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking an order directing INEC and the Office of the Attorney General not to stop him from contesting the presidency. While Nigerians demanded the removal of the CBN governor and accused him of violating multiple provisions of the Central Bank Act, Emefiele’s media enablers found nothing.

    After being dressed in borrowed robes for eight years, what Nigerians can deduce from various recent judicial pronouncements is that Emefiele engaged in corrupt practices.

    For instance, Justice Bogoro, in his judgement, held that the following funds and properties are proceeds of unlawful activities, which are bound to be forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria: $4.7m, N830m, and multiple properties linked to Emefiele by the Federal High Court in Lagos.

    The funds, forfeited to the Federal Government, were held in First Bank, Titan Bank, and Zenith Bank accounts managed by individuals and entities including Omoile Anita Joy, Deep Blue Energy Services Limited, Exact Quote Bureau De Change Ltd, Lipam Investment Services Limited, Tatler Services Limited, Rosajul Global Resources Ltd, and TIL Communication Nigeria Ltd.

    The properties affected include 94 units of an 11-floor building under construction at 2 Otunba Elegushi 2nd Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos; AM Plaza, 11-floor office space on Otunba Adedoyin Crescent, Lekki Peninsula Scheme 1, Lagos; Imore Industrial Park 1 on Esa Street, Imoore Land, Amuwo Odofin LGA, Lagos; Mitrewood and Tatler Warehouse (Furniture Plant at Bogije) near Elemoro, Owolomi Village, Ibeju-Lekki LGA, Lagos; and two properties purchased from Chevron Nigeria, located in Lakes Estate, Lekki, Lagos.

    Others are a plot at Lekki Foreshore Estate Scheme, Foreshore Estate, Eti-Osa, LGA; an estate at 100 Cottonwood Coppell Texas Drive, Coppell, Texas, owned by Lipam Investment Services; land at 1 Bunmi Owulude Street, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos; and a property at 8 Bayo Kuku Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.

    Similarly, on 22 June 2024, in another related case, a Federal High Court granted the final forfeiture of properties worth over N12.18 billion to the Federal Government. EFCC Chairman Olukoyede described the seizure and forfeiture as “one of the most significant in the nation’s history.”

    The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, sitting in Apo, presided over by Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie, also struck out an application filed Godwin Emefiele, seeking to reclaim the 753 duplexes and apartments located at Plot 109, Cadastral Zone CO9, Lokogoma District, Abuja, and measuring 150,462.84 square metres, which had already been forfeited to the government.

    Now who is going to save us as the new normal today is for corrupt people to go to court to defend the disproportional share of our resources they illegally cornered while those crusading for them daily assault our sensibilities mouthing patriotism, even when it is not lost on us that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

  • Dead rotational presidency bill diversionary

    Dead rotational presidency bill diversionary

    Of all Nigerian political elite, our current military-baked ‘new-breed’ politicians have come to be regarded by most Nigerians as the most cynical.  Twenty-six years into the Fourth Republic, Nigerians remember with nostalgia that not even the departing colonial British administrators were this contemptuous.

    Unlike our founding fathers that put their differences and individual ambition aside to foist a working federal constitution which defined how we were to live together in peace and justice, as brothers even though tribes and tongue may differ, our current leaders, driven more by greed for power and its dividends, have continued to take Nigerians for a ride. Thinking they could decree unity or wish away tribes, forgetting that tribes are the building blocks of African society, they have wasted billions of taxpayers’ money tinkering with our current unworkable ‘unitary’ constitution. They have done everything except revisiting the national question, which is about the challenges of living together in justice and respect as civilised human beings as was the case until January1966.

    Of course, we have had different administrations, including that of President Obasanjo, who probably genuinely believed attainment of economic justice, equitable allocation of resources, and effective and sustainable production and distribution of appropriate goods and services is the ultimate solution to the national question. But we have seen how this was marred by massive looting of the nation’s resources under Obasanjo and Jonathan, especially by those who saw undermining the nation’s economy as an answer to distributive injustice arising from non-resolution of the national question.

    We have also seen the effort of the current administration of Tinubu, who believes promoting efficiency within the existing structure will usher in all-round prosperity and life abundant for people of Nigeria, leading to equitable and peaceful cohabitation of the various communities in Nigeria. Even while the jury is out, there is already a basic misconception that leaders of ethnic nationalities in Nigeria who are at different levels of cultural development want life more abundant for their citizens.

    It is just as well that the House of Representatives, last Tuesday, rejected a constitutional amendment bill seeking to rotate the office of the president and vice president among the six geopolitical zones of the country. Deputy Minority Leader Aliyu Madaki led the opposition to the bill, saying that issues the bill intends to cure have been addressed by the Federal Character Commission, warning that the issue of rotation should not be included in the constitution, but allowed to remain the way it is.

    The dead proposed bill was at best diversionary. The truth is that rotation of the presidency, like past social engineering efforts of the military, including NYSC, quota system of admission into tertiary institutions and bureaucracy, and other government brainwaves turned into government policies in a desperate attempt to ignore the national question, would have failed.

     Zero sum struggles for power at the centre is a symptom of our unresolved national question, just as it is a phenomenon associated with our new-breed politicians.

    With our independence constitution, which indeed addressed the national question, the centre was not as attractive. Ahmadu Bello did not think twice before ceding it to Tafawa Balewa, a minority from southern Bauchi, where the Fulani were only being tolerated. Zik had a chance to be prime minister at the centre, but conceded it to Tafawa Balewa, according to him, to promote the unity of the country. The only national leader that seriously aspired to go to the centre, ostensibly to replicate his miracle in the west, was Obafemi Awolowo. And having lost the 1959 election, he offered to serve as Finance Minister under Zik.

    That the north has since 1954 dominated the centre was not an accident. At the 1950 Ibadan constitutional debate, the North’s demand for control of fifty percent of members of the House of Representatives, which was not informed by the population factor, as a condition for remaining a part of Nigerian federation, was acceptable to all stakeholders, including the outgoing colonial government, which was ready to do anything to accommodate their preferred successors.

    The northern leaders, who never hid their desire to belong only to Nigeria they could control, got what they wanted. The Yoruba, being federalist by nature, wanted a federal constitution or regionalism where the centre will not interfere in how they manage their own affairs The Igbo, a landlocked nation with hostile neighbours, canvassed for a unitary system for a multicultural and heterogeneous society. But in the end, they succumbed to the superior argument of the British umpires, including Oliver Stanley, who reminded them that Nigeria is a multicultural and multilingual society where ethnic nationalities were at different levels of cultural development.

    That the age of ‘divine right of Kings’ ended around 1600 did not stop northern leaders from developing a mindset of being born to rule. There was, therefore, continued insistence by the northern hegemonic class including Ahmadu Bello, who according to Clark, swore he would never support southern leaders with real executive power. There was also the late elder statesman, Maitama Sule, Nigeria former permanent representative to the United Nations, who said,” Everyone has a gift from God. The Northerners are endowed by God with leadership qualities. The Yoruba man knows how to earn a living and has diplomatic qualities. The Igbo are gifted in commerce, trade and technology.”  Similarly, not too long ago, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El Rufai, tried to justify the northern monopoly of power on the grounds that the north has the population, especially if we accept that democracy is a game of numbers.

    Except for the new-breed politicians of the Fourth Republic that breed nothing but corruption, I am not sure old politicians from the east and the west envied the north for its monopoly of power that has brought nothing but misery to the northern masses.

    As for the east, despite being out of power but serving only as ever- willing bride to the northern hegemonic group to satisfy the demand of politics of participation and identification, the east was adjudged the fastest growing economy in the world in the early sixties. The west, which accepted its role as that of opposition, was ahead of the two other regions, paying higher minimum wage than even the federal government and sending more western region youths on foreign scholarship than the colonial master ever did for the whole of Nigeria in three years.

    What made all the difference was the independence constitution, which not only provided an answer to the national question by defining how we live as human beings in control of different culture, language and the education of their children, but also allowed groups/regions to develop at their own pace without interference from others.

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    But the coalition partners made up of the hegemonic ruling cast in the north and their ever-willing bride were envious of the independence and giant strides of the western region. They, in breach of the constitution, interfered in the affairs of the west. In 1962, Chief SL Akintola, the premier of the west, was removed from power by 82 votes to 29 for anti-party offences. Chief Adegbenro was constitutionally sworn in as replacement. Premiers Ahmadu Bello and Okpara refused to recognise him as stipulated by the constitution, despite the Privy Council judicial pronouncement that upheld the action of the governor of western region.  A subsequent attempt to pass a vote of confidence in Adegbenro at the western house was resisted by a few NCNC members who started throwing chairs. This was all the coalition partners who did not declare a state of emergency in the north or in the east, where there had been Tiv popular uprising and Isaac Boro insurrection suppressed by the military, needed to declare a state of emergency in the west.

    With the declaration of a state of emergency, Awo was detained in mosquito-infested Lekki while Akintola was installed premier of the west without an election. While in detention, Awo was charged with treasonable felony – attempt to overthrow her majesty’s government and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The military finally intervened in January 19666 to end the First Republic while the ‘living’ constitution was thrown into the dustbin.

    While our current new-breed leaders play the ostrich, concerned Nigerians stakeholders are saying if we don’t know where we are going after 59 years in the wilderness, it makes sense to return to where the rain started to beat us.  It is for this reason many Nigerians believe we had more freedom and attracted more respect from the colonial masters than our new-breed politicians that have since the beginning of the Fourth Republic swindled Nigerians of billions of naira on self-serving periodic constitutional review without addressing the fundamental issue of the national question.

    We all know that our current crisis of nation building, including the Boko Hara insurgency, immigrant Fulani herdsmen criminals, bandits, kidnapping for ransom, massive corruption, are all but symptoms of the unresolved national question.

  • Utomi’s search for vision of good society

    Utomi’s search for vision of good society

    Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, born in Kaduna but of Delta state extraction, is passionate about Nigeria. Perhaps the only other Nigerian whose passion for Nigeria rivals that of Utomi was another Kaduna-born Delta Nigerian nationalist, Chukwuma Nzeogwu, whose effort to rid Nigeria of “ten percenters and others that make us ashamed of being called Nigerians” was betrayed by some of his military colleagues including Ifeajuna, Ironsi and Ojukwu who sabotaged Nzeogwu’s revolution in Lagos, Enugu and Kano.

    Prof. Pat Utomi, like Nzeogwu, has a vision of good society which became more elusive the closer they came towards it despite deploying all his talents and energy towards securing a better Nigeria for Nigerians since he started his crusade in the early eighties.

    He first bewitched the Shehu Shagari administration with his in-depth newspaper analysis of the state of the economy, an endeavour that earned him a place in Shagari’s cabinet. Even after the collapse of the administration, he was given a chance to put into practice all his theoretical postulations at V/ Wagon Nigeria Limited which, under his control, suffered the same fate as other assembly plants of the period.

    Utomi, a resourceful professor of political economy, is perhaps the face of Nigeria’s public intellectual home and abroad. He belongs to many professional bodies, including the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, (NIPR), Institute of Directors (IOD), Nigeria Economic Summit Group and Nigeria Economic Society. He has served in various private-sector associations, including the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), the National Council of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, and the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA).

    He has carried the crusade for a better Nigeria through intellectual debate beyond the shores of Nigeria, especially at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, and Chatham House in the UK.

    He has to his credit several books and journal articles on economic underdevelopment, including, ‘Nigeria as an Economic Power House,’ ‘Crafting the New Nigeria – Confronting the Challenges,’ Nigeria ‘Changes as Prospects,’ ‘Values and Economic Stagnation in Africa: A Paradox of Poverty in Nigeria,’ ‘Managing Uncertainty: Competition and Strategy in Emerging Economies,’ ‘Critical Perspectives in Political Economy and Management’ etc.

    The labour of Utomi has not gone unacknowledged.  For his pains, it has been honours without end.  Numerous awards. He has been nominated and voted for by the public as one of Nigeria’s top ten Living Legends in the Vanguard/Silverbird Television Awards, Great Nigeria Lives of the 20th Century and Who is who in Africa.

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    Unfortunately, Utomi’s theories have not reflected positively on the state of our economy.

    The record of his intervention in politics has, however, not been any less dismal. But this has not diminished his enthusiasm for a vision of a better society. Thus, he last week once again came up with his “Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government,” over which he declared himself ‘Leader of Opposition.’ The initiative, which is to serve as critique of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration, was, according to him, dictated by his desire to save Nigeria’s democracy following his inability to stop the gale of defections from Labour and PDP, where membership of his new coalition was selected.

    The task before the group would be to regularly scrutinise government actions, identify policy failures, and propose alternative solutions in key areas- economy, education, healthcare, infrastructure, law and order, and constitutional reforms of the present government.

    These are no doubt noble objectives except that the Information Minister, Mohammed Idris, has said, the idea of a so-called ‘shadow government’ is an aberration as “Nigeria is not a parliamentary system where such a system is practiced.” Many seem to agree with the minister that “Our bicameral legislature amply features members of the opposition, and it should be the right place to contest meaningful ideas for nation-building.”

    Besides government opposition, Utomi’s current search for a vision of good society seems threatened by the choice of his crusading team drawn from opposition PDP democrats without democratic ethos and the ‘obidients,’ an unthinking mob Obi, as the falconer, cannot control.

    For instance, Dele Farotimi, who will lead the Ombudsman and Good Governance portfolio, is a man many of his critics believe talks more than he thinks in order to prove his valour. Not too long ago, he was ready to publicly disrobe Chief Afe Babalola, an elder statesman, over unproven allegations, just as he, on account of some bad eggs, didn’t mind pulling down his own noble profession without which we all return to a state of nature where life is ’nasty, brutish, and short.’ And this was a self-confessed ‘obidient’ who, in search of ‘Obi’s imaginary ‘stolen mandate,’ recklessly declared without proof before his American audience, “in a few days’ time a convicted drug baron will be sworn in as the president of my country.”

    Before Prof. Utomi’s latest gamble, most of his past efforts at building a coalition in pursuit of a new vision of good society failed. He contested the 2007 presidential election on the platform of the obscure African Democratic Party and failed. Following his initial setback, he formed another party, the Social Democratic Mega Party, on which platform he tried to contest the 2011 presidential elections before withdrawing at the last minute.

    But in 2012, he joined the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) “because the progressive opposition in Nigeria has been unable to bring itself under one umbrella while the enemies of the progressive struggle are disciplined enough to coalesce under the conservative/retrogressive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).”

    Utomi is a rolling stone. His attempt at contesting a senatorial seat in Delta under PDP failed. I have heard him declare publicly that the APC manifesto was drafted on the dining table in his house. Indeed, Utomi was declared as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress for the 2019 general election in Delta State by a faction of the party until it was overturned by the national working committee of the party.

    In January 2018, Utomi floated the Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM), with former Cross River State governor, Donald Duke, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Charles Soludo, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba, Tafawa Balewa, former Education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, former Information minister, Frank Nweke Jnr, Col. Abubakar Umar (retd), Ayo Obe, Rabiu Ishyaku Rabiu, former presidential adviser, Akin Osuntokun as members.

    The group described itself as a pro-democracy movement and pressure group of like-minded Nigerians, “Concerned that left to their schemes and antics, a class of entrenched leaders will lead Nigeria into a state of indescribable human misery, characterised by death, hunger, disease, illiteracy and manipulation.” They decided to create a third political force, a platform to mobilise all citizens of goodwill and conscience towards engendering a new political system and culture in Nigeria. The intervention movement brought no relief to Nigerians.

    Restless Utomi in 2020 and Naaba formed a group to lead mass action against corruption and insecurity in Nigeria. They wanted Nigerians to rise up and put an end to the situation where the president was being caged and his office being run by some unelected proxies and power

    traders operating without any form of mandate from the Nigerian people. Chasing out that clique of ruinous political cartels ravaging our commonwealth enabled by their self- serving capture of our Government and State. The result was not different.

    Then ahead of the 2023 general elections, Utomi was among prominent Nigerians that established a third force, Rescue Nigeria Project (RNP), ostensibly to give Nigerians an alternative platform, other than the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic

    Party (PDP). Other founding members of RNP included former governor of Kwara State, Ahmed Abdulfatai, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, Senator Lee Maeba, Usman Bugaje, Prof. Attahiru Jega, Amb. Nkoyo Toyo, Yomi Awoniyi, Dr. Rose Idi Danladi, Dr. Sadiq Gombe, among others. They set out to fight “the high level of nepotism and lack of inclusiveness” which had given rise to agitations by different ethnic groups.

    “We want to salvage this country and see how we can fix the mess. We want to set a template and key criteria leaders must have before they can attain any political position.” Abdulfatai had hardly finished delivering this keynote address when Utomi was discovered to be gunning for the presidential ticket of the Labour Party, which he later ceded to Peter Obi.

    While the closer we came towards Utomi’s vision of a good society, the more elusive it became, it has not been all doom for Nigeria’s foremost professor of political economy and management at a personal level. He is the chairman of close to two dozen Nigerian companies and a shareholder in many others.

  • In defence of Okowa

    In defence of Okowa

    I sympathise with former governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State who has suddenly become the poster child for PDP’s self-inflicted afflictions. He is today going through great stress and strain for hearkening to the call of his people for a change of direction after 26 years of faithful marriage to PDP.

    The April 23 divorce train was led by Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, his predecessor and PDP’s 2023 vice presidential candidate Ifeanyi Okowa, his deputy, the elected national and state house of assembly members as well as elected local council officials.

    The justification for the mass defection was well articulated by various stakeholders. First was the Delta State Commissioner for Works (Rural Roads) and Public Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, who explained that the decision to jilt the PDP was born out of “the need to align with a political platform that would better serve the development goals of the state and the interests of Deltans.”

    There was also the pioneer PDP Chairman in the state, Senator James Manager, who reminded critics that “when a ship is sinking, you don’t stay onboard out of sentiment,” adding, “we had extensive consultations, and today marks the climax of those discussions, what we have now is a collective and unanimous decision to chart a new course.”

    And for OKowa , the one receiving various diatribes from PDP members who rather than put out the raging inferno in their own house engaged in a two-year game of intrigue over sharing of political offices, the defection to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was “a bold and strategic move to change their path for the common good of the people; it was not about the governor, but the fact that there is the need for us to connect to Abuja… that resource of which Delta State is a large contributor, there was a need to connect to it.”

    And perhaps no one explained the defection better than Governor Sheriff Oborevwori himself. “Ten years was too long a time to be in opposition,” he bellowed to an excited crowd of defectors. He was right. Peoples of Niger Delta have always been mainstreamers since the run up to independence in 1960. We will come to that shortly.

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    Okowa shouted himself hoarse explaining it was not about him but about his people. But there has been no respite from his disconsolate PDP former family members who shouted in anger: “You too Brutus”? They have accused him of betraying the body that has given him everything to become relevant in Nigerian politics. As a former secretary to government, a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and a two-term governor of oil rich Delta, where leaders spend money like water, and finally as vice presidential candidate of PDP that had after its truncated 16 years in power hoped to reign for another 60 years, what else does Okowa want, they asked with uninhibited contempt.

    At war with Okowa is a formidable group of his former PDP members who are unfortunately tarred with the same brush.  Former Senate President Saraki who in the guise of “some people” first accused his former APC party of disingenuously designing “A one-party state which will not augur well for a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multicultural, multi-religious… society like ours,” went on to tell Okowa that “it is unbecoming and shocking for the running mate to the standard bearer of a leading party to abandon ship to join the ruling party.”

    Senator Abba Moro, the minority leader of the senate, has said picking Okowa who could not deliver his state in the 2023 election, despite having lobbied for the slot, was “a political miscalculation.”

    But Okowa, drawing his conclusion from Atiku’s statement, insisted the VP slot was foisted on him, without first seeking his consent, by PDP oligarchy at the centre. But as it turned out, Atiku who said Okowa’s choice was based on PDP’s recommendation was also being economical with the truth. Evidence now in the public domain showed that, of the 17 PDP stalwarts that participated in the VP selection process, 14 voted for Wike. Atiku’s calculation for picking Okowa was probably informed by the expectation that the governor of an oil-rich Delta, who earned in one month what some states earn in a year, would be able to bankroll his (Atiku) campaign expenses the same way Ibori was said to have done for Yar’adua in 2007.

    And this unfortunately was the reason Okowa’s travails started long before the current toxic divorce of Delta PDP from its suitor of 26 years. Indeed, long before the 2023 election, Pa Clark, the leader of Pan Niger Delta Forum, (PANDEF) and Southern and Middle-Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF), had in a letter dated February 2, 2023, accused Okowa of betrayal for reneging on southern governors’ resolutions that no politician from the South should accept to be running mate to a northerner.

    Pa Clark alleged Okowa was using Delta State money to fund Atiku’s campaign. But since it was Pa Clark who also told us that Ibori funded Yar’adua’s election, why was it difficult for Pa Clark to understand that poor OKowa was merely following a tradition? And if, indeed, Okowa actually used part of the 13 percent derivation to build a university in his village the same way Ibori deployed the same facility to build a university in Oghara village, I don’t think Okowa owed Pa Clark any apology.

    And finally, Pa Clark, in June 2023, alleged that Okowa as governor of Delta misappropriated the state’s derivation fund amounting to N1.760trillion.

    But If I have to make a choice between Okowa and Pa Clark, I will settle for the former. First, until EFCC proves its case against Okowa, he remains innocent. Secondly, Pa Clark is not an impartial arbiter among his errant children some of whom in the guise of struggle for distributive justice engage in criminal activities against the state.

    In any case, Pa Clark, while alive, knew the word corruption did not exist in the Niger Delta lexicon. It is not on record that he contradicted Augustus Aikhomu, Babangida’s deputy, when he declared that “diversion of resources meant for development was not corruption but “misapplication of funds.” We similarly don’t have any evidence that Pa Clark, as self-appointed “father of the President,” ever faulted President Jonathan’s assertion that “stealing government funds was not corruption.”

    For Deltans, allegations against or even indictments of leaders who swear by their names for financial malfeasance only endear them to their leaders. If there were people complaining, they were not short-changed Deltans but must be meddlesome interlopers.

    Obasanjo and Murtala Mohammed seized some ill-acquired properties of Diete Spiff, who became governor of Rivers at 25. He is today a leading traditional ruler in Bayelsa. Obasanjo chased Diepreye Alamieyeseigha around the world, haunted Odili until he was saved by the judiciary, and after failing to secure the conviction of Ibori by Nigerian courts, took the battle to London where he ensured his conviction for 10 years by the British judiciary.

    Unfortunately, his impoverished Deltans were not amused. All those desperate efforts did not stop those whose battle Obasanjo was waging from worshipping Ibori, their hero.

    In fact, Ibori was welcomed back to Nigeria after serving his jail term by a tumultuous crowd of his enthusiastic people. There were close to a dozen Bishops in the jam-packed Otefe-Ogara village church during the thanksgiving service for his safe return from prison.

    And now let us return to Delta pre-independence resolve to remain ‘mainstreamers.’  Rather than persecution, Okowa deserves only accolades for resurrecting the dreams and aspirations of his people The truth is that Delta has since 1963 never been in opposition.

    Having experienced persecution and marginalisation from their more aggressive and more diplomatic Igbo and Yoruba neighbours, they opted to become ‘mainstreamers,’ aligning themselves with the dominant ruling NPC party from the north.

    While the Binis and Itshekiris, because of their cultural affinity with the Yoruba, found more accommodation with Awo’s AG, with the NCNC victory after the 1952 regional election and its takeover of Midwest after its creation, the Urhobos, the Ijaws, Isokos etc. found themselves “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” With the advice of minority rights agitators like Pa Clark, they chose to cast their lot with the ruling majority.

    Critics must, therefore, understand that Delta’s marriage to PDP between 1999 and 2023 was not out of altruism. It was because PDP provided a fertile ground for their cultural demand and even their licentiousness. What Oborevwori and Okowa are today saying is that Deltans are not obliged to make further sacrifices.