The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • NNPCL and marketers conspiracy

    NNPCL and marketers conspiracy

    There is hunger and anger in the land. This is because of high cost of food items and transportation, the fall-out of removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the nation’s currency, measures government says will free us from economic slavery we were thrown into by short-sighted leaders who embarked on massive foreign borrowing, crude oil swapping and local borrowing through ‘ways and means.

    No one can blame President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for having the courage to try to change the narrative before the nation’s descent to Venezuela’s status. But equally, no one can blame angry and hungry Nigerians who, as victims of elite conspiracy embarked on protest which was sadly hijacked by sore losers who will not mind truncating the democratization process that brave Nigerians fought and died for while they hobnobbed with the military dictators.

    I think what hungry and angry Nigerians are saying is that since government policies are made for the people and not the other way round, they must have human face if they are to meet the aspirations of the people they are designed to serve. I don’t think this is too much to ask for.

    If you therefore ask me, I will say the enemies of President Tinubu and by extension of Nigerians, are not those who believe government policies should have human face, many of who by the way, voted for President Tinubu in 2023, but are today united with Tinubu’s erstwhile political foes since hunger, high transport fair and spending hours queuing for fuel know no discrimination.

    I think those the president should fear are those in government whose needs are met by the state and therefore totally cut off from reality.  They are all victims of cultural imperialism who believe market forces is the only way forward  forgetting comparison can be odious. In the home of capitalism, few individuals owned their society while the rest serve as serfs living just to sustain the system in which they cannot afford to send their children to universities or build houses on their own without further enslavement by the state. Here we have no capitalists. As Professor Bolaji Akinyemi once pointed out, most Nigerian billionaires made their monies through the state.

    Those who are therefore hawking the comparative costs of a litre of fuel in Britain, US, China, South Africa are missing the point. President Tinubu signed a social contract with millions of self-employed Nigerians. This distinction is important for those who could not understand the policy thrust of colonial masters who as birds of passage lived in reservation areas, provided with furnished residential houses and like a conquering army lived on spoils of war. This is why our politicians whose needs are met by the state are today cut off from reality of majority of Nigerians.

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    Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is perhaps the next most dangerous enemy of President Tinubu and by extension, Nigeria. It was set up for the purpose of is harnessing Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves for sustainable national development. It was also to profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products in the domestic market and ensuring products supply efficiency either from domestic refining or from importation.

    Unfortunately NNPC not only failed, it has remained a cesspool of corruption outwitting successive Nigerian leaders over the years.

    Incidentally  Olusegun Obasanjo while serving as military head of state in 1977, had set up a tribunal to investigate the operations of the Nigerian National Oil Company (NNOC), which metamorphosed into NNPC). Perhaps, based on his experience, he, as elected president (1999-2007), decided to run NNPC as a sole administrator.

    Under his watch, millions of dollars budgeted for the refurbishment of our four refineries was frittered away. With no work done, NNPC created artificial fuel scarcity, a ploy that led to the creation of an all-purpose body through which party stalwarts and their siblings with the active connivance of some NNPC officials defrauded the nation of trillions of naira through fuel subsidy scam without importing a pint of fuel. He sold the refineries before his exit from power in 2007, a decision his successor Umaru Yar’Adua reversed.

    President Goodluck Jonathan told Nigerians he was in possession of the names of those sabotaging Nigerian economy through NNPC. While the list never saw the light of the day, NNPC became a source of massive fraud by Diezani Alison-Madueke, Jonathan’s petroleum minister (2010-2015). She has been charged with bribery offences in the UK, with the US Department of Justice recovering from her assets totalling $53.1m.

    President Muhammadu Buhari was not unfamiliar with monumental corruption in NNPC. During his tenure as Federal Commissioner of Petroleum and Natural Resources, he was falsely linked by Ibrahim Babangida who toppled his government with, US$2.8 billion which allegedly went missing from the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. He was however found innocent by the Crude Oil Sales Tribunal of Inquiry headed by Justice Ayo Irikefe.  

    This experience might have influenced his decision to appoint himself Minister of Petroleum while serving as elected president between 2015 and 2023. This however brought little relief as NNPC remained a cesspool of corruption.

    Toeing the line of his predecessors, President Tinubu also took over the petroleum ministry. Tinubu unarguably was not into the game of popularity contest in view of the biting effect of his economic policies, what he however did not bargain for was to be portrayed as an unfeeling and uncaring leader that deliberately visited hardship on his people.

    He had directed that crude oil be sold in naira to Dangote Refinery. Dangote had thanked him for his support and faith in local manufacturers and predicted era of relief for Nigerians who spend hours on queues at filling stations. Dangote’s message of hope was coming amidst artificial fuel scarcity created by NNPC that claimed to owe $6b to international fuel suppliers a few weeks after declaring a whopping profit of about N3 trillion.

    On September 3, 48 hours after Dangote’s promise of a new dawn in oil supply to Nigerians, NNPC that had for months denied payment of subsidy by government, jacked up price petrol pump prices from N585 to N897 per litre.  And then by strange coincidence, fuel supply to the filling stations suddenly eased without telling Nigerians the source of their new supply.  

    I am sure President Tinubu, a seasoned politician by all accounts, understands that he is the target. Imagine; the NNPC, the regulator – the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NIMDPRA) that had a week earlier tried to question the quality of products from Dangote refinery which they claimed had excess sulphur, even when they did not have standard testing laboratories.

    Of course, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), took time off from its civil war to do its job as an opposition party for once by describing fuel price increase by the NNPC “as a brutal assault on the sensibility and wellbeing of Nigerians by the insensitive and arrogant All Progressives Congress (APC) administration. It accused the APC government of being indifferent and unresponsive to the struggles of millions of Nigerians who can no longer afford their daily necessities”. Unfortunately this is a message that resonates with most Nigerians going through this difficult period

    The picture of the president painted was very damaging because until it was confirmed last Sunday morning  that  the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has deployed over 100 trucks to the Dangote Refinery in preparation for the commencement of fuel loading on Sunday, with the seven major oil marketers, dealers under the aegis of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association and the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria  claiming their readiness to start lifting and distribution of refined petroleum products, it was widely believed by Nigerians that government that refused to denounce NNPC as it embarked on its game along with marketers was party to their conspiracy against Dangote and Nigerians.

  • The tribal war in Northwest

    The tribal war in Northwest

    Those who live in denial according to Yoruba aphorism often focus on treatment of rashes while ignoring the more deadly and life- threatening leprosy affliction. Unfortunately, as a nation, it is in our character to expend energy in addressing symptoms instead of facing our demons. 

    For instance, whereas our visionary forbears bequeathed on to us a federal system, celebrated by over two-third of the nations of the world for its ability to guarantee ‘unity in diversity’ in a multi-ethnic society, we traded it for a unitary state.

    But when the aggrieved deprived and marginalized individuals and groups fought back against the state that took over the control of their lives, their resources, the right to impact their values and culture in the education of their children, the roads they pass through and even the water they drink, instead of addressing the fundamental problem which requires simple political solution, we decided to focus on symptoms which find expression in crisis of legitimacy, massive corruption, economic sabotage, terrorism and banditry, kidnapping for ransom, weaponisaton of religion etc. by those who have lost faith in the state’s capacity to protect them.

    Unfortunately, the state has failed the north-western states with a total population of 24,244,722 (1991 Census) in their ongoing tribal war. But just as the northern parasitic elite misadvised Muhammadu Buhari to focus on the symptoms in 2016, they last week once again misled President Bola Tinubu to believe that “the deployment of necessary military assets and manpower would ensure that these criminal elements were flushed out and the peace restored back to our communities.”

    Since we passed through this same path not too many seasons ago, those who are  today hailing the relocation of military chiefs along with the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, who has promised  to be “on the ground in the Northwest with the CDS and other military chiefs, leading our brave men and women in uniform… to liberate the people of Sokoto, Katsina, Zamfara and Kebbi states and the entire Northwest region” either have short memories or are suffering from selective amnesia.

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    What is going on in the northwest is a tribal war. And solution is political bargaining and compromise. And if there are still misgivings as to the nature of social dislocation that led to tribal war between the ruling Fulani hegemonic class and conquered Hausa tribe that came to the open shortly after inauguration of Buhari as president in 2015,  the July 25, 2022 BBC  airing of “Bandit warlords of Zamfara”  erased such doubts. The broadcast also traced the sources of the social dislocation in the affected states to ethnic rivalry over control of political and economic fortunes of their different communities.

    The major protagonists did not weigh words as to the causes of their intense hatred for each other. One attributed source of their anguish, to ‘the closing down of traditional grazing routes and systematic exclusion of Fulani from government businesses. They therefore have no regret in the mindless killings of their arch enemies, the subsistence farmers. And for their grief, the Hausa farming community vigilantes of Kurfa Dunya swore: “If allowed, we will kill every Fulani man, even in the town, because they killed our mothers, our fathers, our children, and dumped their bodies here”.

    In fact, Ibrahim Dosara, one time Zamfara State Commissioner of Information did not only identify the genesis of the rivalry between the two tribes that had co-existed for centuries, but proffered possible solution. According to him, the “genesis of rural banditry in Zamfara as elsewhere in the northwest started with a conflict between the Fulani and Hausa communities in the state leading to 2,619 deaths, 1,190 abducted and 14,378 livestock rustled with 100,000 people  displaced from their ancestral homes between 2011 and 2019.”  And for him, the cheapest and most cost-effective way to reduce hostility was institutionalisation of community policing especially since “Zamfara lacks enough security forces from the federal government to secure the lives and properties of the people in the state”.

    But Buhari’s government which conceitedly arrogated to itself the power to know what the people wanted without asking them continued to live in denial. In fact, it gave  the impression that  aggressors that confiscated villages sending victims to IDP camps, were ghosts  until ex governors Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Aminu Masari of Katsina and Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna confirmed the terrorists were indeed Fulani herdsmen mostly from outside the country.  Sheik Gumi went a step further by going into the bandits’ den to obtain their demands which include amnesty and re-integration into our security services and larger society.

    And as if to confirm that the Fulani believe in their just cause, Aliyu Marafa the Emir of Yantoro (dethroned and later reinstated) turbaned Ado Aileru, a notorious Fulani gang leader who was on the run after leading a massacre in the village of Kadisau in June 2020 and for terrorizing residents and motorists elsewhere in the northwest, as the Sarkin Fulanin.

    Community policing as suggested by Ibrahim Dosara would have produced a balance of terror especially with recruits drawn from the warring Fulani and indigenous Hausa people compelled to jointly confront their demons. But President Buhari and his defence minister, Bashir Salihi Magashi, opposed state and community policing not controlled from Abuja.

    For them to “rout-out, arrest and prosecute armed bandits, vicious kidnappers for ransom and cattle rustling gangs operating in Zamfara State”, what Zamfara needed were a full battalion of special forces; “Operation Maximum Safety with 510 police personnel and 40 patrol vehicles”, “Joint Intervention Team of about 1000 police personnel, counter terrorism unit (CTU), federal special anti-robbery squad (FSARS), anti-bomb (EOD) squad, and conventional policemen” and Air Force’s indiscriminate bombing from the air.

    Ten years down the line, little has changed except that hostility has spread across the whole of the north-western states.

    President Tinubu who admitted preparing hard for this job in the run up to the election rightly identified community and state policing as one of the ways to address insecurity among local communities. One is therefore not sure of the new information at his disposal compelling him to align with the position of self-serving winners-take-all northern leaders who have always opposed compromise and political bargaining in resolving crisis of nation building.

    Tribal war is a factor of most multi-ethnic societies where dominant ethnic group try to lord it over smaller ethnic nationalities.  Europe for centuries fought tribal wars over the rights of groups to protect their values and culture. There was temporary cessation of hostilities after the 1648 Westphalia Agreement. It was not until after the two so called world wars which were in fact tribal wars, that Europe swore “never again”, with institutionalisation of federal system that protects groups and individuals from the tyranny of the state.

    Since distributive justice or concern for fair allocation of resources among members of the community is at the core of the tribal war between warring Hausa and their Fulani compatriots, what is required is compromised bargaining  especially as we have discovered that any other option will only prolong their nightmare.

    President Tinubu who won last year election by securing northern elite consensus is uniquely positioned to serve as an independent arbiter. He cannot afford to miss this historic opportunity to right the wrongs of the past especially where the northern establishment has roundly rejected policies that guarantees a measure of egalitarianism in the north.

    For Tinubu therefore, addressing symptoms cannot be an option. With tribal war amidst ravaging poverty and about 10m of out of school children in the northwest, with Niger Delta political leaders unable to end crude oil theft in their backyard and with political elite elsewhere in the country busy importing the labour of other societies in the name of commerce, his much cherished economic crusade will be doomed.

  • Patriots and President’s Hobbesian choice

    Patriots and President’s Hobbesian choice

    The Patriots led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku recently visited President Tinubu. The group declaring that “what we have now does not make for effective internal security measures,   does not make for rapid economic development and does not make for satisfactory social development, say, in education and health” made two demands on the president. First is “The convening of a National Constituent Assembly of directly elected individuals, on a non-political basis, from the 36 states of the federation, possibly three individuals per state, and one from the FCT with the mandate to produce a draft people’s democratic constitution”.  And “The draft constitution produced by the Constituent Assembly, to be put to a national referendum and if approved, should then be signed by the president as the genuine Nigerian people’s constitution.” 

    The president while assuring them of “listening to their two major requests on the path to referendum which should lead to constitutional measures that will fit our diversity and governance so that we avoid conflicts and break-ups”, however added that he is “currently preoccupied with economic reform, his first priority after which he would look at other options, including constitutional review as recommended along other options, as soon as possible”. Having emerged from the trenches, President Tinubu understands the yearnings of Nigerians and the imperative of identifying with those aspirations.

    Before the current intervention by the Patriots, there had been calls for constitutional reform by other concerned groups including the late Enahoro’s ‘Movement for National Reformation’ (MNR), Pro-national Conference Organisation (PRONACO),  National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), foremost socio-cultural  ethnic groups such as Afenifere, Ohanaze, Pan-Niger Deltal Forum (PANDEF) and Middle Belt Forum, (MDF) for whom periodic agitation for restructuring of the country is a crusade. Other leading lights and stakeholders in the Nigerian project across the country have also actively supported the crusade for a return to the federal arrangement, the basis for the coming together of the country’s different multi-ethnic nationalities at independence.

    Most of the above groups also believe resolving our crisis of nation building should be a crusade that must necessarily precede the quest for economic prosperity. In fact, many believe the failure to first resolve our political problem is responsible for all other socio-economic problems including massive corruption, crisis of legitimacy, participation and penetration, sabotage of the economy by groups fighting for distributive justice in the Niger Delta as well as those unpatriotic groups undermining the economy of the country through importation of the labour of other societies.

    As proof of failure of successive leaders to address our political problems, they also pointed out the zero-sum struggle for power by leaders of ethnic nationalities, election rigging and electoral violence as well as massive corruption. All these they added found expression in the collapse of government economic initiatives including Obasanjo’s ‘Operation Feed the Nation’ the various ‘River Basin Authorities’ projects, Shehu  Shagari’s “ Green revolution” (Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua’s 7-Point Agenda where he identified seven sectors of the economy as the engine room to the transformation of the entire economy, and Goodluck Jonathan  “Transformation Agenda” including  unbundling of PHCN and its sales to incompetent political stalwarts.

    President Tinubu who said no one should sympathize with him because he asked for the job is no doubt aware of the effects of putting the cart before the horse or attempting to sweep the political crisis under the carpet. This is why he today has a Hobbesian choice to make.

    But he is a risk taker who attained power thorough grit and wit. He challenged his APC party’s oligarchs including President Buhari, VP Osinbajo, Abdullahi Adamu, his former party chairman who tried to outwit him by imposing a consensus candidate on the eve of the primary and his ever disloyal Southwest governors, with bravery and tenacity. And that turned out  a rehearsal for his final battle which he fought with great perseverance and unyielding determination against warring PDP and its surrogate, the Labour Party, crowded by crude, rude, unthinking mob called ‘obidients’ whose only commodity is intimidation of rivals.

    And also working in his favour was the fact that as the only 2023 presidential candidate that emerged without the endorsement of the ‘owners of Nigeria’, the powers and principalities, he could afford taking risks.

    In his Yoruba base, where electorate are often described as discriminatory voters, he lost two of the six states, Osun and Lagos where he had reigned supreme for over 20 years. He lost all the southeast states, won two in South-south and shared the northern states with Atiku Abubakar.

    If with his frightful experience while navigating the mine-invested route to the Nigerian presidency, threat to a possible second term bid because of punishing effects of his harsh economic policies on Nigerians who believe they are being punished for the sins of untouchable parasitic elites that stole the country blind, he stubbornly insists on first solving economic problem before addressing the political problems he admits threaten our very survival, we can see in President Tinubu a politician who promises hope while praying for a miracle. And that is what separates the real politician from a venal man of many words.

    And this is why  President Tinubu alone knows how he intends to win the war on an economy under daily  assault of crude oil thieves, importers of fake products and where manufacturing firms like Nestle and PZ are declaring loses of between N262.5b and  N76 billion while some parasitic banks are targeting  N1 trilion pre-tax profit for a year.

    I guess Tinubu is not afraid of failure because unlike his errant predecessors, he sees himself as providing selfless service to a country that has been serially  betrayed by self-serving overbearing leaders interested only in exploiting, for political gains, the innermost fears of the poor electorate that look up to them for leadership.

    For instance, the health of Nigeria could never have been the concern of Aguiyi Ironsi who whimsically promulgated his Decree 34 of 1966 that turned the country from a federal state to a unitary state or the succeeding military adventurers that splintered the country to 36 states and 774 local government areas to consolidate Ironsi’s initiative.

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    Babangida could not have been serving anyone but self by foisting Structural Adjustment programme (SAP) on Nigeria despite its wide rejection by Nigerians and his imposition of an interim contraption on the country after Nigerians had expressed their preference for MKO Abiola’s presidency by giving him a landslide victory in the 1993 election. A leader who sets out to truly serve Nigeria wouldn’t have waged five years’ war against Nigerians as Abacha did. And only Obasanjo’s political children who crowned him ‘the father of New Nigeria’ after presiding over the sale of Nigerian total government investment of $100 billion for a paltry $1.5 billion and sharing of Nigeria physical properties including national monuments among political cronies and civil servants are deceived  and not Nigerians.

    Buhari couldn’t have been serving Nigeria by presiding over the total collapse of the nation’s economy and the pacification of the North including his Katsina State by bandits and herdsmen.

    I am sure Tinubu the politician knows his survival and credibility is anchored on finding accommodation for the demands of the Patriots and the faithful implementation of his “three-year economic revival plan targeted at addressing Nigeria’s socioeconomic challenges, prevailing adversity, unemployment, insecurity, and poverty whose highlights, are food security; poverty eradication; growth, job creation; access to capital; inclusion; rule of law; and fighting corruption.”

     And if he is voted out in 2027 by the electorate for either not turning the fortune of Nigerians around or for failing to instituionalise a federal system that liberates individuals and groups from the tyranny of the state, he will return home a fulfilled man having tried his best.

  • Oby Ezekwesili’s desperate search for bandits

    Oby Ezekwesili’s desperate search for bandits

    Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, is one of those special Nigerians, Saro Wiwa would regard as ‘Nigerian sun’, as a result of her activism, string of achievements and awards. As a co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, two times minister, first as Minister of Solid Mineral and Minister of Education at different periods, celebrated as the architect of the Bureau for Public Procurement and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) legislations, and as a woman who once contested for the office of the president on the platform of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Oby remains a trailblazer.

    And as a founding director of Transparency International and  a former vice president of the World Bank (Africa region), Oby unarguably remains a pacesetter and the best example of what educated African woman can become as against ‘feminization of poverty’ (UN) by those African societies that refuse to educate their womenfolk. Above all, Oby is passionate about the Nigerian project and often speaks with passion on issues that are connected to our crisis of nation-building.

    But like many of us, her vision is sometimes blurred by her political prejudices. Ezekwesili sees only the things she wants to see. ““If you are a Nigerian, you should be vexed at this government. All we have seen from this government since it came into office is fiscal profligacy”. Although many of the economic policies designed to set our nation on the path of modernization and sustainable growth are yet to start yielding dividends, not many of those familiar with Nigeria’s years of the locusts when ill-equipped leaders declare unabashedly that ‘money was not Nigeria problem but how to spend it’ and when in recent years, weak leaders turned themselves to ATM without password, will agree with Ezekwesili.

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    But we understand where Ezekwesili, an unapologetic supporter of candidate Peter Obi, and a silent admirer of the ‘obidients’, is coming from. For her, Peter Obi, a sell-confessed importer of wine among other items that killed our budding industries thereby forcing our youths out in search for greener pasture elsewhere in the world,  is the best hope for turning the Nigeria economy around.  She has a mind-set that both Atiku and Tinubu, the eventual winner of the election, are no match for Obi.

    And her crooked syllogism was that youths who make up 60 per cent of the voting population along with women which make up about 51 per cent of the voting population are more inclined towards the presidency of Peter Obi. And based on two premises that may be invalid, Oby on  December 10, 2022  told Channels TV’s Hard Copy “So after I have done my rating, there is absolutely no way I would leave a Peter Obi and vote for any of the other two candidates”.

     Now trapped in Obi’s illusory presidency, she still describes the 2023 election as  “not an election, but snatch it grab it and run away with it” while discrediting both the INEC and the Supreme Court, praised by many for the share profundity of its judgment. She dismisses both the executive and legislature as ‘bandits’ and ‘rascals’. All she wants by accusing those in power of starting class war is the collapse of the government.

    But if one may ask, what are the causes of Oby’s current emotional anguish?

    First, beyond removal of fuel subsidy, she wants total deregulation, where market forces will reign supreme. No one expects anything different from former director of the Harvard-Nigeria Economic project. The problem however is that no one has told us where in the world market forces only has brought prosperity to the people beyond making the poor  live to support the system while the rich get richer.

    At least we already have a template in Nigeria. Okpara’s ‘Pragmatic Socialism’, where public enterprises played a leading role repositioned the old Eastern Region as the fastest growing economy in the world in the sixties. In the West, Awolowo’s home grown capitalism where public enterprises joined forces with the private sector to create a more egalitarian society, was the reason the old Western Region became ‘the most educated part of Africa’. Of course Ahmadu Bello built the biggest business conglomerate in Africa in the sixties without consulting Oby’s World Bank.

    Ezekwesili also considers government’s acquisition of aircraft –Airbus A330 to replace the 19-year old Boeing, economic recklessness. While uninformed victims of the president’s economic policies could be incensed, the same reaction from opinion leaders who understand need for safety and the fact that old aircrafts have been put on sale to offset the cost of the new one could only have been designed to whip up public sentiments against the government.

    As for Oby’s grief over N20b to build the vice president’s house, she was being economical with the truth. FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, disclosed the contract for the building was first awarded in 2010, at a cost of N7 billion. It became one of the abandoned projects until leadership of the FCT in January 2024 sought for and obtained approval for a review of the contract to the sum of N22 billion, leading to its completion 14 years after commencement. The president praised Wike for his ‘dynamic and focused leadership’ saying it was the 9th in the series of (mostly abandoned projects) Wike had completed.  Oby would have preferred the property already taken over by reptiles to continue to rot away like the abandoned National Assembly whose contract was awarded in March 11, 2006 to Reynolds Construction Company, (RCC), to the tune of N8.5 billion naira.

    Unlike the National Mosque and the Ecumenical Centre started the same time but completed by those who think God can be deceived, it was abandoned and today TETFUND is projecting a cost of N200b. Meanwhile, Ezekwesili has not called those who abandoned the projects only to raise N7billion from serving governors and government contractors to build their own personal presidential library bandits.

     As for Oby’s other heartache, the National Assembly’s decision to buy toys or what she described as ‘funny looking cars’, even while the governed should be naturally  such  insensitive decision, Oby understands that the  National Assembly runs its own budget independent of the executive arm of government.  She knows it was this reason, neither Obasanjo, her political father, who has at various times described the assembly members as ‘pen thieves’, Jonathan who according to Okonjo-Iweala had to part with about N15b bribe to have his budget passed nor Buhari who for eight years complained about the padding of his budget by the legislature, could not rein in the National Assembly members.

    Oby also knows that this was part of the reasons Nigerian stakeholders have since 1999 called for the review of the 1999 constitution. But as against joining this crusade, what we have on record is Ezekwesili’s pursuits of her Igbo ethnic group agenda-citizenship of Nigerians wherever they stay without obligations of settlers to host communities, ignoring the sociological reality of Nigeria, which unlike America, is a federation of ethnic nationalities.

    I am not sure many Nigerians have an axe to grind with Oby’s characterization of many Nigerian politicians as bandits. She is best placed to confirm this fact.  I think they just believe charity must start from the home. She was part of PDP when Obasanjo  and Atiku in the guise of privatization sold Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b for  a paltry $1.5b to party stalwarts, when in the name of monetization policy they shared physical structures dating back to the pre-colonial period, kept in their temporary care for our children among themselves with David Mark, as Senate President and Dimeji Bankole as House Speaker,  buying their official residences at give-away prices among other government  buildings including the  NITEL building in Ikoyi.

    She was there when in 1999 when lawmakers who claimed to have sold house to fight election set up an instrument which according to a National Assembly probe report, they deployed to steal billions. She cannot also deny the claim by Audu Ogbe, one time PDP chairman, corroborated by National Assembly report, that siblings of PDP stalwarts forged papers under the nose of Okonjo-Iweala, as Minister for Finance, to defraud the nation to the tune of NI.6 trillion under the dubious subsidy regime, “without importing a pint of fuel”.

    Finally, Oby is a former vice president of the World Bank whose policies she wants to force down our throats. But we do know the World Bank is the greatest bandit the world has ever known. It is the instrument Europe effectively deployed to defraud and impoverish Africa nations from where over $58b is siphoned from annually. What other name besides ’bandit’ do we have for a continent  that has nothing but depends on our  priceless resources including silver, gold, crude oil among others, and declare without shame that a unit of their coloured papers, must exchange for between 1,500  and 5,000 units of the currency of African nations that own their resources?

  • Crude oil theft as response to state tyranny

    Crude oil theft as response to state tyranny

    “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God” – John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address January 20, 1961.

    Leaders must resist playing God as President Olusegun Obasanjo tried to do by dismissing the anger and anguish of impoverished people of Niger Delta in 2001. Crude oil theft, illegal refineries, vandalisation of oil pipelines and violence against foreign oil operators are but natural responses to disdain for ‘distributive justice”, equitable allocation of assets in society or as Aristotle puts it, ‘treating equals equally”.

    Conceptually, ‘fuel theft’ in the Niger Delta is a misnomer. For the leading lights and the warring militants of the ‘scorched land’ Niger Delta, whose region has been reduced to by crude oil merchants, it is a euphemism for resource control.

    And their reasoning is unassailable. The majority of the people of the region are extremely poor without access to basic necessities of life. Their air is polluted, their rivers poisoned and their land abused. Their youths including “General Loaf” in the words of Pa Edwin Clark, ‘have no education and are unemployable’. Adults can neither fish nor farm. Children with brownish hair are a sad reminder of acute malnutrition. 

    And it is not of any relief that they alone carry the burden and hazards of their environment while a few reap its benefits.  While they have no bridges over their rivers, those enjoying the environmental benefits of their land built ‘bridges over land’ in state capitals across the nation including Abeokuta, a city built on the rock and Kano on the edge of the Sahara desert.

     Oil theft in the Niger Delta can therefore be seen as a protest against the tyranny of the state especially when President Obasanjo, a personification of the state, contemptuously breached section 162 (2) of the 1989 constitution which declares that “the principle of derivation shall be constantly reflected in any approved formula as being not less than 13 percent of the revenue accruing to the Federation Account”

    Crude oil theft in the Niger Delta is therefore beyond finger pointing as Tony Elumelu, a representative of Nigerian elite who always try to play the ostrich instead of calling a spade by its name tried to do in his interview with Financial Times some two weeks back. It is not enough to demonise the federal government when both the federal and Niger Delta leaders are tarred with the same brush.

    For instance, just as Elumelu was pointing fingers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) was also speaking  of 63 illegal refineries discovered and confiscated in one week in  Bayelsa, Rivers, Abia, Imo and Delta states,  177 incidents of oil theft  recorded between August 3 and 9 by different incident sources and 17 vehicular arrests  made in communities in Mosogar, Oleh, and Amooe in Delta State, Imiringi in Bayelsa State, Korokoro and Akwa Odogwa in Rivers State, and in Akwa Ibom State. The 15 wooden boats conveying stolen crude that were confiscated, in Rivers and Bayelsa states and 19 illegal pipeline connections recovered, during which some underwent repairs across several locations in Bayelsa and River states.

    The fact that all the Niger Delta governors, their state assembly lawmakers, LGA chairmen, councillors  and National Assembly legislators live within the above identified crime scenes only validate the thesis that the parasitic bug that feeds on the vegetable lives within the vegetable.

    But perhaps to underscore how critical crude oil theft symbolizes symptoms of our crisis of nation-building, requiring urgent political solution, we need to take a journey through memory to remind ourselves where the rain started to beat us.

    The Nigerian elite (political, economic, intellectual and the military), the scourge of Nigeria, lured the military into politics. And because the military was ill-equipped and ill-trained to manage a multi-cultural and a heterogeneous society, they soon plunged the country in to a civil war. Desperate to generate revenue to prosecute the war, they embarked on promulgation of decrees including that on-shore and off-shore dichotomy and those that set aside revenue allocation based on derivation, a critical element in our founding fathers’ decision to form a federation of Nigerian ethnic nationalities.

    The confiscation and centralization of resources of the regions that aided their victory during the war was retained by successive military regimes. In the 1979 constitution, Ben Nwabueze and Rotimi Williams whether driven by their ideological beliefs in strong centre or doing the bidding of a military, retained the military era revenue allocation structure.

     The 1999 constitution, often dismissed as Abdulsalami Decree 24, with all its imperfections reluctantly allocated 13% derivation to the oil producing states despite stiff opposition from northern politicians.

     Obasanjo in 1999, perhaps to please the opponents of the 13% derivation who were mainly northern politicians that imposed him on the west and went on to put him power, instead of paying the 13% approved by the constitution, opted to dispatch Bola Ige, his Attorney General and Minister of Justice to seek the interpretation of totally unrelated on-shore and off-shore dichotomy at the Supreme Court in February 2001. Obasanjo’s victory at the apex court on April 5, 2002 reduced the 13% constitutional provision by as much as 7.5%.

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    People of Niger Delta felt betrayed by their president with  the Ijaw National Congress (INC) declaring Obasanjo’s action as “a declaration of war against the defenceless people of Niger Delta”(Vanguard, April 20, 2002) and the Niger Delta Youth Congress (NDYC)  threatening “to renegotiate their membership or otherwise withdraw from a Nigerian federation which has its laws and constitution significantly skewed in favour of an unnecessarily large, powerful and domineering central government”.(Punch, April 20 2002)

    Renewed attack on oil facilities and kidnapping of oil executives soon began. Obasanjo’s side-lined VP Atiku Abubakar, joined forces with James Ibori and other Niger Delta states governors to threaten Obasanjo’s second term ambition.  This threat forced Obasanjo to send a bill to the National Assembly to abrogate the onshore and offshore dichotomy. But it was too late. The militants had realized their potential to wreck Nigerian economy.

    Yar’Adua presidency was forced to set up the Amnesty Programme and deploy Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to go and appeal to the conscience of his constituency in the creeks. There were new undertakings including the establishment of a new free trade zone in Ogidigben, Delta State, with world-class petrochemical and fertilizer plants and creation of over five million jobs across the value chain. The Amnesty Programme and Jonathan interaction with his people helped to increase oil production from pre-amnesty level of 700,000 to about 2,500,000 barrels per day.

    Despite the Amnesty Programme, the silent war against the federal government continued. As late as 2013, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,  from her far away World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meeting in New York, admitted to the federal government’s loss of  about 300,000 barrels daily, or $1billion (N155 billion) revenue monthly. According to her  “a great deal of loss in production is also closely linked to illegal bunkering, and oil theft  which  were getting more evasive as the criminals were going beyond the outer pipelines and moving into more sensitive pipes.’ (The Premium Times April 18, 2013).

    The 2015 presidential election that pitched President Jonathan, a Niger Delta candidate against Buhari, a Fulani man was turned to an indirect battle for resource control.  Niger Delta politicians led by Nyesom Wike appealed to the sentiments of their people by painting Buhari as an outsider coming to take control of the resources of Niger Delta.  The Niger Delta militants saw Jonathan’s loss as a licence to continue sabotaging the economy of the country. The effect was that crude oil export never moved beyond 50% of what obtained during Jonathan presidency.

    Not much has changed under Tinubu presidency. In fact the sabotage of the oil sector and the economy started with Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor and Niger Delta indigene who was an aggrieved aspiring APC candidate in the election. Graduates of the Amnesty Programme that received technical professional training abroad are today believed to be fronting for their leaders, their collaborators outside the state and international criminal gangs to resist the tyranny of the state by taking what they believe rightly belong to them.

    With over 600,000 barrels of crude oil stolen daily, with over a thousand of unresolved cases of crude oil theft pending in the courts with a hundred new daily discovery by an overwhelmed and poorly paid security personnel that many believe may not be able to refuse inducement, it has become apparent that solution to crude oil theft is not judiciary but politics. The country will be better off by adopting fiscal federalism that allows the oil producing areas retain 50% of generated revenue as was the case in the first republic.

    And the cheapest way to go about it according to Chief Olu Falae, “is going back to the Independence Constitution which our leaders negotiated with the British between 1957 and 1959. It was on that basis that the three regions agreed to go to independence as one united country”.

  • Tinubu, learning from the past to build the future

    Tinubu, learning from the past to build the future

    With high prices of food items even as the purchasing power of Nigerians continues to diminish in response to what is believed to be IMF-inspired fuel subsidy removal and floating of our local currency, not many will deny there is hunger in the land. That ‘we are hungry’ was the  battle cry of protesting  “Endbadgovernace’ youths across the federation before it was hijacked by ‘Almajiris’ and ‘regime change’ campaigners did not therefore come as a surprise. The irony however was that the president’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ was designed to “unleash our country’s full economic potentials by focusing on job creation …the rule of law and the fight against hunger, poverty and corruption”.

    It will therefore be uncharitable to assume President Tinubu who had long prepared for his current job, was short of ideas upon assumption of office. One clear evidence of this was the humongous amount he raked in from the removal of fuel subsidy and from taxation, the major source of government revenue.

    The problem however is that neither the minister of power nor finance has tried to rationalize the arbitrary increase in electricity tariff nor give reasons for the unprecedented increase in ports charges. They allowed hungry and angry Nigerians to get away with the wrong impression government was out to deliberately inflict sufferings on the people through over taxation.

    Based on our past historical experiences, President Tinubu must understand he cannot take the loyalty of his ministers, fellow political elite members as well our economic, intellectual and military elite who have at different times in the past betrayed our nation, for granted.

    Driven by greed and not living by their creed is often the source of credibility deficit of our educated elite. And it was for this reason Obafemi Awolowo who lived ahead of his time, once observed that “given a choice between Nigerian educated elite, traditional leaders and the colonial masters, Nigerians will choose in reverse order”. For our educated elite, greed for power or living in denial is the name of the game.

    Let us start with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the most influential figure in the nationalist struggle after Herbert Macaulay. As an outstanding student of political philosophy, he was the most equipped to know that the federal system is the most appropriate for a multi-ethnic and a heterogeneous society like ours.  Curiously, Zik and his NCNC vigorously campaigned for a unitary system until 1959, labelling proponents of federalism, tribalists. As his political foes later pointed out, the only plausible explanation for Zik’s decision to live in denial was a desire to sustain the strangle-hold of his Igbo dominant group on the minority groups in the east, notably Ibibio, Efiks, Ijaw Anang Kalabaris etc.

    In the west, we had SLA Akintola and Fani-Kayode. The latter was the leader of AG violent youths group which nicknamed itself ‘the mosquitoes”, the former was Awo’s instrument of terror and intimidation against the colonial administration as well as Balewa’s government. All that was needed to prove they had no abiding faith in neither in democracy nor in their leader were Fani-Kayode’s loss of two consecutive elections in Ife and SLA Akintola’s constitutional removal from office. Both, driven by greed for power did not hesitate before going ahead to destroy the giant strides the West made between 1952 and 1962.

    There was similarly little relief from the intellectual elite from whom much was expected.   Dr. Ben Nwabueze, the foremost Nigerian constitutional lawyer betrayed the country by drafting Aguiyi Ironsi’s Unification Decree 34 of 1966 that ended Nigeria’s first experiment in federalism. Before his death, he expressed regret for working along with Chief Rotimi Williams to remove 50% of the items on the concurrent list to the exclusive list thereby reducing the states to parasites. In his own words:  “Then, what did we do to achieve our misguided objective? We took away 50 per cent of the items on the concurrent list and gave it to the centre, much of the money also went to the centre and so by action, we destroyed what is called fiscal federalism.”

    We can also not easily forget the duo of dyed-in-the-wool advocates of market forces driven economy model- Chief  Olu Falae and  Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, who along with Babangida, their principal foisted Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on Nigerians. Both at the period insisted ‘there was no alternative to SAP’. Several years later, they sang a different song. Kalu Idika Kalu, former Minister of Finance and Economic  Planning  who also headed a 22-member of National Refineries Special Task Force told Zebulon Agomuo, deputy editor of Businessday, that SAP was neither put together the way he conceived it nor implemented accordingly’. ( Businessday 15, June 2014).

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    For Olu Falae, the scapegoat was the exchange rate. “We had allowed the naira to be overvalued. We were also importing too much non-essentials”, he recently told a reporter. Today the nation continues to suffer the consequences of Kalu Idika Kalu and Olu Falae’s arrogance and total disregard for public opinion.

    There was also Professor Omo Omoruyi who assured Babangida that political parties could be decreed. Babangida later went on to allocate billions to his two decreed political parties, towards building of political party headquarters that were later taken over by reptiles across the nation. He also misled his principal to believe democracy could be taught in classroom leading to establishment of their short-lived university of democracy in Abuja.

    Of course the military elite instead of the promised “vision of a good society”, they brought nothing but pain to Nigeria. For instance, Awo had canvassed for a federal arrangement with about 12 of the major ethnic groups as building block as against an unwieldy multiplicity of states that will make the state so week and betray the essence of federalism. With the exit of Gowon who had surrounded himself with Nigerian visionary leaders from power in 1975, Murtala Mohammed and Obasanjo found themselves in the saddle in 1976. What Awo feared was about to happen with their foisting of a 19-state structure on the country. It was to get worse with Babangida’s creation of two states (Akwa Ibom State and Katsina) on 23 September 1987, nine states: ( Abia, Enugu, Delta, Jigawa, Kebbi, Osun, Kogi, Taraba and Yobe) on 27 August 1991 and Abacha’s Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Gombe and Ekiti in 1976.

    Again as in politics, so it is in economics. We have refused to retrace our way back to where the rain started to beat us. Obasanjo took off from where Babangda and Abacha left us. He sought and secured debt forgiveness only to start piling up new debt before he left office.  Privatisation was what IMF said would secure 700 jobs for Nigerian youths and end our economic woes.

     Ignoring the fact that the golden period of our nation was the time we adopted public enterprises model, Obasanjo sold off Nigeria’s total investments of over $100b put together between 1959 and 1988 for a paltry $1.5b to incompetent, politically exposed Nigerians who ran most of the industries they bought aground.

     President Jonathan continued with privatization programme selling PHCN after injection more of payers’ money to party stalwarts. He also continued with Obasanjo’s monetization policy through which properties inherited from the colonial era, kept in their custody for our grandchildren, were sold at give-away prices to civil servants.  Buhari and Emefiele’s variant of market forces driven economy was an outright disaster.

    With President Tinubu, not much has changed. We subscribe to various institutions including the WTO designed to impoverish those who have nothing to offer the rest of the world. This is why I think it is time to borrow a leave from China by also closing ourselves up and resurfacing only when we  have something to offer the world.

    Opening our huge market to importation of the labour of other societies as directed by IMF since 1986 has brought only grief. It cannot be any worse closing ourselves, giving incentive to local manufacturers and companies who will find our huge market irresistible if reassured there will be no unfair completion from importers of fake and substandard goods.

    The problem is that we as students of social sciences are all victims of cultural imperialism, a reality Claude Ake once called our attention to. We see everything from the western perspective. Tragically, for most Africans, market forces-driven economy is nothing but slavery. In fact it was through slavery Africans were first integrated into the so-called world economy. And the difference between slavery, capitalism and globalization, the new god they insisted we must worship is in paradigm.

    One clear evidence that globalization is in fact the worst form of slavery by those who sold the theory of comparative advantage to us is that  the total annual revenue of Ivory Coast, the world’s highest producer of cocoa is less than 10% of the annual profit of just one chocolate manufacturer in the United States.

  • Between government, the governed and people’s heroes

    Between government, the governed and people’s heroes

    If I were to choose between self-proclaiming peoples’ heroes- (journalists, human right lawyers and civil society groups), the governed and government, I will without hesitation settle for government that is today under vicious attack from which it cannot adequately defend itself.

    I cannot see any evidence that peoples’ heroes currently fuelling the fire of EndBadGovernanceinNigeria, Tinubu must go campaign took some pains to understand the nature and character of Nigerian society. It is also of little relief that  the  public faces of the nationwide EndBadGovernanceinNigeria, campaign which include Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) Deji Adeyanju and Demilade Adenola, from their outbursts are perhaps the most uninformed when it comes to the sociology of our nation.

    First, they tried to draw an absurd parallel between western developed democracies and our society that harbours millions of out of school hungry and angry children who never knew love, thousands of orphaned victims of insurgents in IDP camps and thousands more that could not read and write as a result of ‘bad governance’ in the respective states that unleashed them on Lagos. They then self-conceitedly dismissed fear expressed by government and our security apparatus that the planned protest could be hijacked by criminals. The trending videos of bare-footed underage children vandalising public property or invading private property confirmed government fears. The governor of Borno State also admitted most of those involved in violent demonstration in Borno State were under-aged.

    The governed, who in the main are insane, are in a world of ‘the survival of the fittest’, fortune seekers. And surreptitiously leading the governed in its current confrontation with government, are those who after taking more than their proportionate share of our natural resources, now seek freedom to preside over an empire of slaves.

    For the informed, it is difficult not to sympathise with the government which is saddled with the onerous challenge of keeping man who as we pointed out, is insane, under control. Besides its primary responsibility of protecting lives and properties of its citizens, government also has the misfortune of having to protect the wicked, the evil doers and others sworn to pulling it down either through reasoned argument by heroes of society and if that fails, through rioting and social dislocation in the guise of protest over hunger and hardship occasioned by government’s harsh economic policies

    But to the governed, government is a Leviathan- a huge fearful sea monster responsible for all their woes including the hungry, the jobless,  husband seekers,  philandering husbands and warring wives, the deprived and depraved. We also have those who want to live questionable lives, enjoy freedom without responsibility with rights to questioning government’s exercise of power and authority.

    But this is not to say that government as an institution run by a few ‘ordinary’ people does not sometimes shoot itself in the leg because of the ephemeral nature of power and the paradoxical nature of politics which may change a leader from a saint to Satan overnight, the reason why we have very few politician-statesmen.

     For instance, while there is a consensus that many of the rampaging mobs involved in looting of houses and shops in Kaduna and Borno last week and their sponsors do not understand the nature of our crisis of nation-building, it is difficult to fault their demand for the resettlement of those condemned to IDP camps across the country by Boko Haram insurgents and herdsmen terrorists. For many Nigerians, that would have been the cheapest and shortest route to justice, fairness and equity for those violently uprooted from their ancestral homes. Unfortunately that was the route President Buhari refused to traverse all through his eight years in office.

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    If for eight years, Buhari played the ostrich while pandering to the threat of Miyetti Allah’ (patron of cattle farmers) to make the country ungovernable unless their demand for open grazing across federating states in Nigeria was allowed, most Nigerians had thought President Tinubu would not have such constraints. But that the president had to be reminded of the imperative of justice for those condemned to IDP camps by demonstrating youths last week was evidence enough that the president has also become hostage to northern politicians who were behind his 2023 presidential victory.

    But in spite of some evil men in government and the imperfection of ‘little men’ that run it as an institution, none including our self-proclaiming peoples’ heroes who never provide rational argument to back up their demand for government protection, the governed who is incapable of making a fundamental distinction between rights and obligation of citizens while questioning governments power and authority, can do without government.

     Between Sanwo-Olu and Igbo Caucus of the NASS

     Governor Sanwo-Olu on Sunday acknowledged a post by Lagospedia that called on the Igbo to vacate Lagos and Southwest of Nigeria and brace up for a massive hashtag #Igbomustgo protest from 20th to 30th August. The governor however has distanced government and good people of Lagos from ‘the reckless, divisive and dangerous rhetoric’ while assuring everyone that ‘Lagos remains home to every Nigerian citizen regardless of their ethnic nationality’.

    Finally, “Governor Sanwo-Olu dismissed the reckless and divisive post as an attempt to sow a seed of discord between the Yoruba in the Southwest and other tribes, especially those who have made Lagos their permanent place of abode.”

    The governor was right. It is not in the character of the Yoruba to be hostile to strangers in their midst. That was why sociologists describe their culture as ‘social’. I am not sure if it is because of Igbo votes, but I deeply feel Sanwo-Olu missed an opportunity to advise our Igbo brothers to respect the values and cultures of their host communities.

    I grew up in the village, knowing only Uncle Uncle Sunday who handled the oil palm inside my father’s cocoa plantation. At home, his room was opposite my father’s. He participated in all our social and cultural activities. When he eventually left us, it was as if we were all bereaved.

    Similarly, today our Ekiti Southwest LGA is made up of three major towns. The biggest shops in each of the three towns are owned by Igbo. There has never been any problem between them and their host communities.

     If the people of Ikorodu or Lagos Island want to invoke Oro (spirit) to avert impending doom in their communities, I don’t think the Igbo in these communities have anything to fear. As the saying goes, “When in Rome, behave like the Romans”. No one should also begrudge Igbo for observing their culture. The other day, fearing Yoruba could go to war over the annulled June 12 1993, Igbo in Lagos trooped back to the East ostensibly to celebrate New Yam festival. A quote in Chinua Achebe’s “No Longer at Ease” ‘where he said “we are strangers in this land. When calamities befall the owner of the land, we return home leaving behind the owners of the land who know how to appease their own gods” captures this aspect of Igbo culture.

    While some Igbo youths organised One million March in Abuja singing ‘Abacha today, Abacha tomorrow Abacha forever”, the Yoruba relied on her culture to wage a five year war of attrition against Abacha.

    National Assembly’s Southeast Caucus had earlier raised concern about what it described as “dangerous ethnic profiling of Igbos”.  The statement concluded by asserting that :“ It was such profiling that led to the millions of deaths in Nigeria from the 1950’s to the unfortunate civil war in 1967 to 1970”.

    I think the caucus should emulate the deputy speaker of the Lower House who had advised Igbo “to exhibit weakness” for a change especially in a stranger’s land.  Excessive display of Igbo in strangers land has been the bane of Igbo urban dwellers..

    With Sowore’s call for ‘revolution and day of rage” statements by Ebun Adegboruwa, Deji Adeyanju, Adenola, it was obvious the protest in Lagos was organized by Yoruba professional agitators, who the British pre-colonial administration referred to as “Lagos noise makers”. But is it not a paradox that most of those interviewed or captured by the camera arguing with the police were Igbo protesters?  The target of the 1953 northern elite sponsored Kano attack was SLA Akintola and his AG supporters. But because it was Igbo that exhibited strength in other peoples land, the 33 people killed were Igbo. And contrary to the caucus claim, the unfortunate massacre of Igbo in the north in the sixties was not as a result of ethnic profiling but because of Igbo’s exhibition of courage which found expression in unrestrained celebration of the 1966 assassination of Ahmadu Bello by Chukwuma Nzeogwu on the streets of northern cities.

  • In defence of Bayo Onanuga

    In defence of Bayo Onanuga

    Bayo Onanuga, the much maligned president’s spokesman, is a Nigerian patriot. He secured his place in Nigerian history with his 1992 heroic deployment of journalism as a weapon of warfare against military dictatorship.  He was to later fight side by side with NADECO and other Nigerians, to secure the freedom that children of anger and social media terrorists who go by the name ‘Obidients’, a euphemism for unquestioning  mob, today take for granted.  Of course those who hobnobbed with the military for a port of porridge or organize ‘one million march for Abacha’ in Abuja, singing ‘Abacha today, Abacha tomorrow Abacha forever” cannot appreciate the value of freedom they never fought for.

    Speaking for government can sometimes be a nightmare especially when rising expectations of the governed are not being met or during social dislocations.  However the   ongoing smear campaign against the person of Bayo Onanuga is for daring to accuse  Peter Obi, a serial cross-carpet politician  and  Pat Utomi, a serial seducer (with his insightful diagnoses of Nigerian political economy) of successive Nigerian leaders, of sponsoring faceless groups planning to overthrow Tinubu’s one year old administration.

     Both have not only denied Onanuga’s accusation; they have also threatened to sue him for an amount ranging between N5b and N500b. “I am not afraid of any legal action” Onanuga has declared, promising to meet his political foes in court.

    Onanuga, contrary to his attackers has not asked hungry and angry Nigerians at the receiving end of President Bola Tinubu’s harsh economic policies not to complain or protest peacefully. He has only said the position of President Tinubu as an elected sovereign for four years cannot be threatened by sore losers. And within those four years, he could even breach the constitution as long as his action is aimed at protecting and safeguarding the interest of Nigerians who may not know what is in their best interest. And if he survives impeachment threat from the National Assembly, sore losers will have to wait for four years. Therefore any attempt to remove him before 2007 by force is treason.

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    And Onanuga advanced reasons he believed   Obi and Utomi should be questioned by security forces over their alleged plot to unseat President Bola Tinubu under the guise of protests.

    Those he described as malcontents planning to stage nationwide protests, according to him are supporters of Peter Obi. The Obidients; who long after the election have continued to behave like an unthinking mob “are the people spreading the hashtags ‘EndBadGovernance’, ‘Tinubu Must Go’, and ‘Revolution2024’.

    Attacks on Tinubu have continued with Aisha Yusuf describing his government as ‘illegitimate’ during a Channels TV programme only last Saturday. That Obi has not denounced the activities of his reckless mob is an admission that he sanctions their assault on his political opponents including the Nigeria president. I think Wole Soyinka who also came under vicious attack of ‘children of anger’ spoke of Obi’s failure to rein in his unthinking mob.

    But in a bizarre development, even amidst ‘Obidients’ mob vicious attack on Onanuga, Ohaneze has gone ahead to label his action against two Igbo prominent sons as ‘Igbophobia’

    It is also on record that Onanuga also came under severe criticism for the nature of his advice to Igbo after the 2023 Lagos governorship election. “Let 2023 be the last time Igbo interference in Lagos politics. Let there be no repeat in 2007; Lagos is like Anambra, Imo. Any Nigerian state. It is NOT NO MAN’S LAND, not federal Capital Territory. It is Yoruba land. Mind your business.”

    This was interpreted by Igbo elite as Igbophobia without critical analysis of the circumstance that led to Onanuga’s outburst.

    Onanuga, like many informed Nigerians understands Igbo political elite have always used their people as instruments of political bargaining. Unlike the Yoruba who Awo said would not vote for you because you are Yoruba if you don’t have policies that would impact positively on his life, ethnic sentiments define Igbo politics. In the 50s and early 60s, NCNC and its Igbo candidates were recording as high as 80% returns in most elections held in the East. But it is also instructive that Zik was recording victories in Lagos and in other Yoruba urban centres at the expense of Yoruba candidates. The only exception was the 1951/52 regional election which he lost because his Igbo supporters insisted he must become the Premier of the West instead of nominating a prominent Yoruba NCNC member such as TOS Benson or Olu Akinfosile as premier of the West.

    Not much has changed. In the 2023 election, while Peter Obi recorded between 85% and 95% in all the five eastern states, Tinubu scored just over 50% in only three of the six states of the old Western Region. He lost Lagos, Osun and Edo.

    With the defeat of Tinubu by Peter Obi in Lagos through exploitation of religion and ethnic sentiments, Igbo urban immigrants could not contain themselves. They were haunted by the usual Igbo affliction-empty boasting, the type that led to mass killing of Igbo in northern cities in 1966 following their insensitive celebration of Ahmadu Bello’s assassination.

    Trending videos of meeting held in one of the Igbo states in faraway east, presided over by a senator with participants boasting of their strategy of taking over Lagos soon emerged.  This was followed by trending video of Igbo rallies in Ikeja with empty boasting about ‘building and feeding Lagos’,  a wild claim they said justified their demand that Lagos State’s future governors must come from Delta and Anambra.

    Lagosians became apprehensive. Yoruba in and outside Lagos panicked. Of the 50 major companies contributing about N54billion to Lagos’ Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), 39 are documented as being owned by Yoruba while five are owned by Igbo just as 70% of residential houses in Lagos are owned by Yoruba with the rest shared between Igbo and other Nigerian tribes.

    Besides, Lagos is not just a Yoruba star state and the fifth economy in Africa, but in terms of ‘competitive federalism’, it is the first state of choice for Nigerians. This was just as the five Igbo states whose Lagos immigrants claim to build Lagos continues to increasingly look like a war-ravaged area where IPOB, the de facto government in all the five Igbo states routinely declare holidays and visit violence on security personnel and its innocent citizens. Just last Monday, three policemen and a POS operator were reportedly killed by gun men. Successful Igbo business men and politicians, for fear of insecurity, hardly visit home except those with armoured vehicles.

    With the above picture, the Yoruba resolved to save their star state. There was heavy mobilization for the governorship election to prevent Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor, deficit in corporate experience, in spoken Yoruba, and regarded as Peter Obi’s choice just because the mother is of Igbo extraction, from turning Lagos into a waste land. 

    As a result of the tension that attended the conduct of the election, some Igbo voters were reportedly disfranchised by Yoruba thugs in Lekki area of Lagos. This was not in the character of Yoruba whose culture the colonial masters had described as ‘social’ at a period others were being described as “anti-social’ or naked warriors of the forest’.

    Agonised by this development, Onanuga advised Igbo to stay clear of Lagos politics. Although Onanuga spoke as a patriot, he was labelled an Igbo enemy by Igbo political elite. He was slandered and his name sent to the UN as one of those destabilizing Nigeria.

    Except for those who always want to play the victim game, I could not see Igbophobia in Onanuga’s warning to Igbos not to impose their values on Yoruba or his current face-off with two Igbo prominent sons who in any case have opted to seek redress in court.

    The problem, I think is that we sometimes forget we run a federal system which is designed to protect the rights of groups and individuals besides the UN charter which also protects the rights and privileges of indigenous people anywhere in the world.

  • Dare at 80: Ode to a mentor

    Dare at 80: Ode to a mentor

    Olatunji Dare, unarguably, the most celebrated Nigerian public intellectual, is an exceptional Nigerian journalist, journalism teacher and scholar. The 70th birthday of this acknowledged columnist and editorialist was in 2014 marked with a Public lecture- ‘On Memories of Censorship: Struggling for Press Freedom in Africa’, Chaired by Theophilus Danjuma and delivered by a media scholar, Kwame Karikari of the University of Ghana, Legon. There was also a book launch by his constituency- Journalism and Media Industry entitled: Public Intellectuals, the Public Sphere & the Public Spirit – Essays in Honour of Olatunji Dare, edited by Prof. Wale Adebanwi.  His 80th birthday celebration last week was similarly commemorated with a lecture: “Same craft, changing times- the columnist as societal conscience”, where leading light of the media industry paid glowing tributes to a ‘man of style, biting satire and rib-cracking humour and wit’.

    Prof. Olatunji Dare has been equally celebrated as a shining star by all the institutions he attended or worked for, starting with the University of Lagos where he was the first to make a first class in Mass Communication, Columbia University, New York, where he earned his Master’s in Journalism: and Indiana University, Bloomington, where earned a doctorate in communication research. We can add The Guardian, where he served as chairman of the Editorial Board and Director of Corporate Affairs, The Nation newspaper where he is currently, a columnist and Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, United States, where he is now an Emeritus professor.

    From his native land where he is regarded as a Nigerian ‘sun’, have also come accolades by Nigerians and Nigerian stakeholders including President Bola Tinubu who last week commended him for his “unwavering commitment to journalistic integrity and ethics, even in the face of adversity during the military era as well as continued engagement in quality journalism and mentorship of younger professionals to build a stronger Nigeria”.

    But Dare’s humility like his humanity defines his very essence in spite these tributes and many awards which include The Robert A. Curry Prize in Editorial Writing from Columbia University, The Nieman Foundation’s Louis M. Lyons Prize for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism, and the Faculty Achievement Award in Teaching Excellence from the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts at Bradley.

    We can safely conclude from the testimonies of many of his former students that Prof Olatunji Dare’s most enduring legacy will be his mentees. And having been publicly acknowledged for his ‘continued engagement in quality journalism and mentorship of younger professionals to build a stronger Nigeria’ by no less a person than President Bola Tinubu, I think what is left for me, beyond exploring the personal bond between us from The Guardian days in this tribute, is to also acknowledge my own intellectual debt to a committed mentor ‘driven by a rigorous conscience”.

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    My personal relationship with ‘Oga’ Dare at The Guardian started with my going to his office every evening to ask questions, a habit I started at the onset of the Flagship with Professor Femi Osofisan. The reasoning behind Prof Dare’s article even with all the humour is always unassailable. But after each debate, I always asked: “Oga, is it possible that we could also all be wrong? Olatunji Dare’s special way of reassuring his mentees is -a gentle smile with almost inaudible “let us wait and see”.

     And he was always right. And when you add this to his flawless editorial and feature writing, it is tempting to conclude that a celebrated star in total control of his art is infallible. I guess this is the sense in which one of his former University of Lagos students said in his own tribute that if he ‘were not a Christian, he would worship Professor Dare’.

    Perhaps my greatest indebtedness to Olatunji Dare as a mentee was in the area of intellectual pursuit. I had abandoned my PhD write-up as a result of joining The Guardian as a pioneer staff in 1982. With ‘Oga’s encouragement and continued prodding, I picked up the challenge in 1988. He took pains to read all the chapters and made constructive and valuable suggestions. I remember his ringing warning to build my confidence as I set out for my examination a year later before Professors Leo Dare, the late Ogunade and late Remi Anifowose. “Don’t forget ‘you are the expert lecturing the examiners on ‘the press and national integration in Africa”.  My exam took less than one hour. The credit goes to ‘Oga’ Dare.

    Of course, afterwards, the relationship between my intellectual mentor who fondly calls his mentee ‘omowe’ only grew stronger. We debated everything from serious issues of state to mundane issue of how long one should use a razor blade to shave.

    Prof. Dare was always looking at the larger picture. Even when I thought I was vindicated by MKO Abiola’s death, it turned out to be a pyric victory. The larger picture he saw in Abiola’s self-sacrifice was Abiola as a martyr  of democracy while the evil Babangida, Abacha, Shonekan, Obasanjo, Nzeribe  Uche Chukumerije and Walter Ofonagoro did, will continue to live after them. Abiola’s achievement in death would have been a bridge too far to cross even if he had lived for 100 years.

    Because you never leave empty handed after an encounter, Prof Olatunji Dare has a way of arresting his mentees with his presence. He once visited me at home to congratulate his mentee and his wife on their little baby boy. No sooner had he settled down on a chair than we embarked on one of our long debate on “Babangida’s Transition without End” (apology to Oye Oyediran). It went on for such a long time that when I eventually remembered the object of the visit and called on my wife to come and serve my ‘oga’, I received no answer. My furious knocking at the door to the room only produced an embarrassing silence.  After another twenty minutes, oga noticing my discomfiture, took his leave with his reassuring ‘I understand smile’.

    My wife did not break the ice until almost 25 years later as we set out for Dare’s 70th birthday ceremony at the Museum Centre.  She accused me of not just trading her for my Oga back in 1989 but how I also named our baby after him without her consent. I apologized. It was fruitless trying to convince her that it was my brother as the head of family in Lagos that gave a name to our new baby.

    The secret, for those who may not know, including envious spouses of mentees, of Dare’s ability to keep a harvest of his arrested mentees very close is that, he in spite of his enviable achievements, remains humble, dependable, civilized, compassionate and caring.

     These virtues, I think also account for his fidelity to friends including those who have proved themselves unworthy of his friendship. When he spoke to me in the US shortly after being named Executive Consultant (Editorial & Advert) the de-facto Head of the Guardian, about his unceremonious departure from The Guardian despite his acknowledged contributions, it was without bitterness. For the health of The Guardian, he advised we change its status from that of a firm where ‘gratuity was gratuitous’.’ And that was exactly what we did 2005.

    I have also seen Oga Dare display his “water has no enemy’ world outlook as a response to Obasanjo’s betrayal. Obasanjo often like to tap from intellectuals. Dr. Dare after Dr PD Cole and Dr Macebuh literarily became Obasanjo’s speech writer, intellectual sparring partner and diplomatic “handbag”. For his pains, people thought his name would feature prominently in Obasanjo’s cabinet’s list.

     Obasanjo’s Greek gift however was the Daily Times, destroyed beyond repair by Uche Chukwumerije under Shonekan and Walter Ofonagoro under killer Abacha, an offer Dare politely rejected. Ironically, long after ‘Aso rock intellectuals’ and ‘government pikin’ journalists had abandoned Obasanjo, Dare remained the only one defending him.

    Of course I confronted Oga Dare but all I got was the same ‘all will be well’ reassuring smile.  As a civilized man, Dr Dare would rather hurt himself than displease others.

  • Supreme Court ruling on LGs

    Supreme Court ruling on LGs

    Our predilection as a nation is often the refusal to confront our own demon.  Our founding fathers embraced federalism because it is a social system that guarantees unity in diversity. But because of some social dislocations normally associated with crisis of nation-building, our military adventurers truncated the first republic and imposed a unitary system on a multicultural society. But instead of confronting our demon through politics, we have for 60 years engaged on social engineering efforts that have left the country more fragmented than it was before independence.

    At independence, we operated a federal system where the federating regions/states and the centre were equal and co-ordinates. Confronted with crisis of underdevelopment, the military as custodian of the nation’s constitution developed a messianic complex. They embarked on whimsical creation of states and local governments without logic or rhyme.  They foisted on the country what they decreed a ‘third tier of government’ to be funded with funds which constitutionally belong to the second tier of government. Unfortunately the media and the intellectuals, who should know what is required for such an aberration is a political solution, have continued to talk about ‘local government autonomy’ and high-handedness of governors who are in fact victims of an overbearing centre.

     But I sympathise with the Supreme Court that has been called upon to apply a judicial solution a political problem. Its duty is to interpret the constitution. It did exactly that last week when it ruled that “governors’ retention of local government funds was a violation of the 1999 constitution”. According to Justice Emmanuel Agim: “Demands of justice require a progressive interpretation of the law… since paying them through states has not worked, justice of this case demands that LGA allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the LGAs.” The Supreme Court cannot give what it has not got. The nation remains haunted just as our leaders continue to play the ostrich.

    But I sympathise more with President Bola Tinubu.  Since it is said one does not become a left-handed at middle age, one is at a loss as to whether the president for political expediency would want to become a dictator after all his previous battles for true federalism. It is on record that he,                                                                                                               as Lagos State governor some 20 years ago, dared Obasanjo by creating 37 additional LGAs and won his case at the Supreme Court that failed to annul elections to the 37 LGAs on the strength of his argument that by virtue of section 162 of the 1999 constitution, it is the state’s House of Assembly that are empowered to create LGAs.

    Although nothing has changed, but the president who has been under intense pressure since his inauguration last year while reacting to last week Supreme Court judgment said: “By virtue of this judgment, our people – especially the poor – will be able to hold their local leaders to account for their actions and inactions…what is sent to local government accounts will be known, and services must now be provided without excuses.” 

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    Many are now wondering whether in an effort to ensure the grassroots people feel the impact of his Renewed Hope Agenda, he is prepared to trade his life-long struggle for true federalism, the only thing that sets him apart from his fellow politicians, for such opportunism.

    But let us return to our untamed demon. First, the whole idea of federally-created and funded LGAs or third tier of government defies logic. When you say LGAs are independent of states, then what else is left for the states to do if they cannot interfere in the affairs of LGAs that constitutionally report to them?

    It cannot be an accident that Section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution gave the power for the establishment of democratically elected local governments, their structure and composition, finance and functions to the state Houses of Assembly.  These powers given to the states were independent of those enjoyed by the national government.

    Since the genesis of local government administration in Nigeria dating back to pre-colonial period, there has never been one uniform local government in Nigeria. The Emirate systems of Sokoto and Borno caliphates were different from the local government system in Ibadan, Egba, Ekiti and Oyo empires just as both were different from smaller districts, villages and wards that were subject to the kingdom and emirate government.

    And since the modernisation of local government whether as a tool for promoting democracy and participation at the grassroots level, offering the local people the opportunity to manage their affairs or performing the role of efficient delivery of services, such as local roads, distribution of water supply, housing for low income groups, health services, agriculture, the regions or states have always performed the supervisory role for the LGAs.

    Many therefore see the whole idea of a third tier of government independent of states they constitutionally report to as part of ‘military command and control strategy’ to undermine the states just as the whole idea of sharing among such arbitrarily created states funds that constitutionally belong to the states was born out of military age-long practice of sharing spoils of war of conquered territories.

    It is for instance on record that it was  Professor Chukwuma Soludo who, as CBN governor, first pointed out that Nigeria was the only know federal state where the centre funds LGAs that do not report to it.

    And this is exactly what many believe to be the source of massive corruption and lack of productivity in the local government. It is a well-known fact that even with the supervision of state governments, councillors have been known to erect mansions within one year in office. 

    As observed by Ayo Fayose, former governor of Ekiti, “Go to the council meeting on Wednesday or Friday, you will not find 10 per cent of the staff of the local government in the office. They don’t come to work. When you make moves to bring them to book, they will be telling you, we will not vote for you. At the local government, everybody comes to collect money, even people who have left some states. They live somewhere else and money just hit their accounts”. One can only imagine what will happen now that we have been told the LGAs are no more answerable to the states.

    For Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, the problem is neither local government autonomy nor of local government financial autonomy, all of which he dismissed as distractions. For him the problem is lack of productivity”.  As far as he is concerned, “the judgment of the Supreme Court, about local government autonomy, financial autonomy, and all of that, is just a distraction…The issue is that we are not producing enough”.

    But beyond corruption and lack of productivity by the LGs, what is at stake for informed Nigerian stakeholders is the re-enactment of the fundamental principles of true federalism as agreed by our founding fathers. And this is political rather than judicial.

    For instance what else can we advance as he the reason why Kano before it was carved into Kano and Jigawa with 71 LGAs had the same population and the same 20 LGAs as Lagos, other than politics?