The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

  • Toast to Uncle Sam at 90

    Toast to Uncle Sam at 90

    Tomorrow, the father of modern Nigeria journalism, Prince Samuel OruruAmuka Pemu, will be 90. These are nine decades on earth, during which period he has touched and continues to touch lives, not only through journalism, but through other various ways. It is an understatement to describe him as the father of journalism. He is the grandfather, considering the generations of journalists that have passed through him.

    Many top journalists today and several others before them came under his tutelage. He mentored, trained, and nurtured them. A teacher of teachers, a reporter of reporters, the editor of editors, a columnist of columnists and the publisher of publishers, Pa Amuka, (sounds strange, uhm?), is a great asset to the noble profession of journalism. Uncle Sam is the oldest practising newspaperman in Nigeria today. He is papa, a grandpa, and great grandpa, to boot, but we rarely refer to him as such in media circles. To us, his acolytes, he is simply Uncle Sam, an appellation which came off his pseudonym, Sad Sam, under which he wrote his “This Nigeria” column those days in the Sunday Times.

    He is known more by his pseudonym than his real name. The pseudonym which he used in his days at the Daily Times, sold him to the world. At its apogee, the Daily Times was the paper to behold; it was second to none, and it was found in every nook and cranny of the country. Every other paper then was referred to as Daily Times. Give me Daily Times”, readers used to tell vendors, even where they wanted a different paper. That is how popular the paper was.

    It speaks to the then stature of Daily Times, which turned 100 years as a corporate entity on June 6 unsung, that many, including even practitioners, do not often remember that Uncle Sam began his career at the Daily Express under the guidance of renowned poet, the late John Pepper-Clark, years before he joined Daily Times in the 1960s. As a publication, Daily Times will be 100 next June 1. In the Daily Times of yore, the fear of Babatunde Jose, its then chairman/managing director, was the beginning of wisdom. Jose was Daily Times and Daily Times was Jose. He made and unmade editors. You were made an editor instantly, if you performed, and removed on the spot, if you underperformed.

    This was the Daily Times in which Uncle Sam grew and blossomed. So, he was one in whom Jose was well pleased. It was not easy earning Jose’s accolade. Being a journalist himself and an all hands on boss, he demanded the best from his editors and he promoted those who excelled above their superiors to the discomfort of the latter. Jose was not bothered. He identified talents, groomed and rewarded them. In the hierarchy of titles in the Daily Times stable, Spear, a family magazine, was the third to be founded. It was established in 1963, with Uncle Sam as its first indigenous editor.

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    “In fact to launch Spear we brought in an editor from London and it was between the editor and Sam Amuka that the journal was launched after which Sam became the substantive editor”, Jose said in his 1987 memoirs: “Walking a tight rope – Power play in Daily Times”. Uncle Sam was among Jose’s beloved because he knew his onions. He spoke of this atttibute of Uncle Sam and two others during his search for an editor for the Sunday Times of his dreams. “It took me some time, involving changes of editorship to find an editor who would produce the Sunday Times as I conceived it. That is, like the London Sunday Times… Only three editors achieved that standard – Alade Odunewu, Sam Amuka, and Gbolabo Ogunsanwo”.

    Uncle Sam edited the Sunday Times between 1967 and 1971 before going on to co-found Punch newspaper with the late Chief Olu Aboderin.

    He left a few years later to start Vanguard, a paper which he has been running since 1984. It says a lot about his professionalism to have founded two newspapers and managed them successfully. Since 1984 that Vanguard hit the newsstands, the paper has been on the streets without fail, except in 1990 when then Lagos State military governor Raji Rasaki shut it down. Uncle Sam has come a long way from a reporter to editor cum columnist writing either as Sad Sam or Offbeat Sam, to the publisher he is today.

    It has been a life packed full of activities for Uncle Sam. With a history of longevity running  in his family, we may have him around for a long time to come. Happy birthday sir and may you celebrate many more years on earth in good health and sound mind.

  • FT and its high horse

    FT and its high horse

    The Western media treats developing countries condescendingly. It perceives Africa, especially, as backward, and so must be told how to run its affairs. The May 27 editorial of the Financial Times (FT) of London on Nigeria, as fair and objective as it may be, is a case in point. The paper rode the high horse in its attempt to make its point that Nigeria still needs to be spoonfed in leadership matters.

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    Nigeria does not need the FT to give it a tutorial on leadership and how to govern itself. The country may decide to spend on a Presidential Jet, if it wishes so that its leaders do not fly in a coffin. But then, who are we as a country to get a gift of Presidential Jet from Qatar as the American president? If it was the other way round, FT and its ilk would have torn Nigeria and its president apart for receiving such a gift. FT has not deemed it fit to do an editorial on that. You see, what is sauce for them, is taboo for us! “Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense”, as Fela would say.

  • El-Rufai: The evil men do…

    El-Rufai: The evil men do…

    As the governor of Kaduna State between 2015 and 2023, the petite Nasir El-Rufai was larger than life. He rode roughshod over those he governed. He drove some of his political opponents out of the state; others were arrested and detained arbitrarily, while the properties of those who dared to challenge him were demolished for allegedly violating town planning laws. But everything that has a beginning also has an end. His all-conquering power ended when his tenure ended in 2023.

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    Now a privale citizen, El-Rufai is struggling to remain politically relevant after he was chalked off the ministerial list following security report. He is still livid about the matter. Now, a court has cut him down to size for acting as an overlord while in office. Justice Hauwa’u Buhari of the Federal High Court, Kaduna, on May 27 held that El-Rufai in 2019 violated the rights of nine Adara community elders led by Awemi Maisamari, and ordered him to pay them N900 million.

    It is worthy of note that he was found culpable in his personal and not official capacity. The case was filed after he left office when he no longer enjoyed immunity. El-Rufai has the right of appeal. But before he files his appeal, the  point has been made that he acted arbitrarily and should pay for his action. As Shakespeare said: “the evil that men do, lives after them…”

  • Our Mokwa moment

    Our Mokwa moment

    What makes the whole thing painful is that the tragedy should not have happened. It could have been prevented, but as usual, we looked the other way. The ‘we’ are those with authority to do what should have been done to avert the horror that we are seeing right now. Flood water sweeping away people and properties on its path to God knows where. Rain is a seasonal event and it comes at specific times of the year.

    Despite climate change, the fact remains that rain starts around March, falling in bits and pieces to herald its full arrival. At times, it could even be heavy during this early period, with experts attributing the occurence to freaky weather. Freaky weather or climate change or by whatever name we want to call it, the thing is rain can come at anytime of the year because we do not have control over it.

    It is a natural occurence and weather forecasters only try as much as they can to help us prepare for it by telling us ahead of time what to expect. They did their job as best as they could before the Mokwa disastrous flood from which the nation is still counting the cost. It is sad. It is painful, distressing and depressing that the tragedy occurred. A four-hour torrential rain may be much, but it is not something to lose sleep over if the environment is well planned. Mokwa happened because of our selfishness and ill preparedness.

    I am not happy saying this because I am deeply pained by what happened. But the truth must be told in order to avoid a recurrrence somewhere else. It is more painful because the rain is not fully here yet; it is about starting and see what it has caused this early. It is a warning, that is if we will take it, for us to put our house in order and ensure that when we enter the months that the rain is usually heavy, we will not be caught hands down. Information is key to prevent disasters of this nature. This is why the meteorological and hydrological agencies work closely at the beginning of every year, looking at the variables, and advising on steps to take to prevent flood disasters.

    It is a fact that rain cannot be stopped (please, spare me the tale about rain catchers!). So, the next best thing to do is to create a channel for the flood which in some cases follow the rain. Flooding in most instances is as a result of negligence. It is a rare natural occurence caused by dams or rivers breaking or overflowing their banks. In Mokwa, there were no busting dams or overflowing rivers, but there were buildings along the flood plains, which are the channels for the rainwater to flow. Where water is hindered from flowing, it will force its way through, no matter how strong the blockade may be.

    Reason: Water will always find its course. The only way to prevent a flood disaster is to ensure that water channels are not blocked or built upon. Where they are, there must be alternative routes for channelling rain and waste water, otherwise a disaster looms. As it does every year, the Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NiMET) warned days before the Mokwa incident that there would be flooding in 15 of the 36 states, including Niger, where Mowa is, between last Wednesday and Friday. The Mokwa disaster happened on Wednesday. NiMET advised the residents of those areas to relocate and move their assets out of the way.

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    People can easily relocate, though it may be painful. But when it is a matter of life and death, the best thing is to move in order to save your life first. The snag is how do you move a house that is at the mercy of a looming flood which may be disastrous? This is the dilemma faced by many property owners who might have spent all their life savings on putting up those buildings. How did they get approvals to build on the right of way, which whether we like or not, is what a flood plain is? A flood plain, like a pipeline, is expected to remain an untouched setback.

    It cannot be encroached upon and those who do, do so at their own risk. The only way to avoid man-made flood tragedies is to be strict with the enforcement of the law. Obstructions on such plains must go to prevent these incessant flood disasters which result in high casualty figures and destruction of properties. Also, those who give the approvals for such buildings must face the wrath of the law, even after they might have left office, whenever such tragedies occur. But the best way remains to outlaw constructions on flood plains and to demolish buildings found there before tragedy occurs.

    Otherwise, we will be going round in circles, and merely lamenting when tragedies like that of Mokwa happen because we did not do what we should have done to prevent them. My heart goes out to those who lost

    loved ones in Mokwa. How do you compensate them for such heavy loss? And no matter what they get for their lost properties, it cannot be the same. I only hope that we have learnt a lesson from this disaster.

  • Tinubu: Two years on

    Tinubu: Two years on

    Today, the President turns two in office. It has not been a smooth ride since Asiwaju Bola Tinubu got into office on May 29, 2023. The campaigns and his election were tempestuous. There was a determined bid by his own party and its top echelons to stop him, even before the race began. There was no let up during the race itself as the party and the opposition almost coalesced to work against his election.

    The Jagaban of Borgu (Jagaban for short) has not known respite despite being President in the past two years. The opposition is still beating the drums of war, belching out threats of a coalition, the same arrangement that failed in 2023, to stop him in 2027. This is no time to talk about that major event coming up in two years. It is time to look at what President Tinubu has done in the past two years when the kingmaker became king. But then talking about the last two years will lead us to what to expect in two years time, precisely the 2027 elections.

    Tinubu came into office prepared. This is why he often says that he begged for the job and must deliver, and as such there cannot be any excuses for failure. He was determined from Day One to take hard decisions and the first one he took is still rocking the polity.  His ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ remark at his inauguration at the Eagle Square is the stuff of which legends are made. It was a bold and audacious statement not contained in his address but brought in at a moment only known to the President. It was a statement that showed that this President is not going to be one that played by prepared texts only.

    It will be a Presidency that breaks away from the norm, now and again, in order to achieve its objectives. Nigerians have seen that from his way of handling issues in the past 24 months. He is focused, knowledgeable and insightful. He does not play Mr I-Know-IT-ALL, and at the same time, he does not allow himself to be led by the nose. As expected, the ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ remark has come to be what his antagonists use to harangue him. To them, subsidy removal has become the nation’s headache because the price of petrol shot through the roof.

    They accuse the President of implementing the agenda of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which advocated subsidy removal before coming to the country’s economic aid. The truth is only the President can explain why he took that decision on the spur of the moment, so to say. No matter how you look at it, it has turned out to be a wise decision, after the initial protests against it. Though its price is high, petrol is now available all-year round, without the usual queues seen at filling stations at festive seasons. This is the result of the liberalisation (or is it deregulation?) of the downstream sector, which allows market forces to determine price.

    Though some are not comfortable with this principle of market forces, there is no doubt that in this circumstance, it has worked to the extent of ensuring regular availability of the product across the country, something that was strange before Tinubu’s coming. Tinubu’s flotation of the exchange rate almost at the same time with subsidy removal was also considered economically suicidal, with certain experts wondering how both policies could work simultaneously. The President listened to all these complaints, but stuck to his guns. Leaders are not known for allowing themselves to be blown here and there by the wind.

    They are known for their surefootedness and steadfastness. Taking a decsion and standing by it is the hallmark of a leader, but at the same time, he must also be prepared to admit it when he is wrong. But the fear of being wrong should not stop him from having the courage of his conviction. A leader should not be deterred by fear, but propelled by the will to do what is right for the common good. That the economy is bouncing back today is as a result of his keen foresight on what to do. The exchange rate may still be high at over N1500 to the dollar, but Tinubu is not resting on his oars to marry the fiscal and monetary policies to address the imbalance. But it will not happen overnight.

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    The public, according to analysts, are impatient. They want to see things corrected in no time. This is understandable considering what they have gone through. There are no quick fixes to any nation’s problems. These challenges are addressed with time. Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda (RHA) is restoring hope in various facets of life. With infrastructure springing up here and there, the President has in 24 months done what his predecessors could not do, even during their two terms of eight years. Virtually rebuilding an economy from scratch the way he has done since 2023 is not easy. As he says, he is not in it for the blame game, but to turn atound the fortunes of hapless Nigerians.

    This is what his programmes on student loans, conditional cash transfer, power subsidy, youth empowerment, road construction and rehabilitation, healthcare delivery and affordable drugs, widening the tax net to get the rich to pay more in order to subsidise the poor, diversification from oil to non-oil economy and ease of doing business, amomg others, are about. It will take time for some of these policies and programmes that are in their gestation period to germinate. The results of some are already manifesting. For instance, over 500,000 students have benefited from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), helping many students who would have dropped out of school to continue their education, without fear of where the funding would come from.

    As proof that Tinubu is building a resilient economy, the country has paid the $3.4 billion IMF COVID-19 loan, raising its status in the comity of nations and among multilateral institutions. The external reserve is about $40.19 billion, which is over $6 billion higher than what it was in 2023. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) also rose to $6.2 billion last year, reflecting a $1.4 billion increase in two years, while the gross domestic product (GDP) shot up by 4.6% last year, indicating the highest rise in 10 years. All these in the space of two years.

    Without being told, the President knows that it is not Uhuru yet. More still needs to be done, especially in the area of security. Insurgency has resurged in the Northeast, especially in some parts of Borno and Adamawa states. The military must step up the fight against insurgents and bandits who are making life difficult for the people. Whether by symmetric or asymmetric warfare, or whatever other action, the military and its sister agencies cannot and should not allow any part of Nigeria to be in the hands of non-state actors. They should be flushed out, no matter what it takes.

    It is only by so doing that the people can enjoy the dividends of democracy and the President will have the peace of mind to concentrate on their welfare, which is the primary duty of government.

  • Nipco: The FCCPC magic

    Nipco: The FCCPC magic

    It took only one phone call and the dispute was resolved.  The intervention of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) did the magic, following my complaint. Minutes after lodging the complaint, my phone rang and the caller wanted a name of any official of Nipco Gas Station at Arepo, Ogun State, which I accused of not refunding my N20000, following a failed POS (point of sale) transaction for  which I was debited and the firm credited. In no time I was talking with the Nipco man. That was last Thursday. We agreed to meet the next day.

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    We met and the matter was resolved. Just like that! He turned out to be an official with good human relations.  ‘People talked to people and people understood’, as we used to say in the political reporting circuit between 1992 and 1993. I commended the guy’s human touch. No matter how socially irresponsible an organisation may be, having the right man in place can make a world of difference.

  • Jonathan’s jibe

    Jonathan’s jibe

    Few days ago, former President Goodluck Jonathan stylishly took a swipe at the integrity of the present National Assembly. He was speaking at the champions of local content dinner in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. He spoke of how the Local Content Act came into being and the role of the National Assembly in enacting the law. According to him, this happened when the “National Assembly was National Assembly”, a jibe at the present National Assembly. His audience roared in laughter as it knew the butt of his sarcasm. Jonathan signed the law in 2010 as acting president

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    The National Assembly in session then, if my memory serves me right, was led by Senator David Mark. Was that really a National Assembly? What makes Jonathan to be over the moon over it? Politics, simply politics.

  • Oloyede: Beyond the glitch

    Oloyede: Beyond the glitch

    In His almost nine years as registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof Is-haq Oloyede, has scored many firsts. He has discharged and is still discharging his duty diligently. He has done what his predecessors could not do, leaving the public in awe of his feats.

    His record speaks for itself. A record of diligence, truth, excellence, passion, industry, timely delivery on tasks, fairness, equity and justice. For all these attributes to be found in one man is rare, but Oloyede has them and more in abundance. Regrettably, it is this same record which earns public officers plaudits in other places, that is now threatening his own work.

    He is in this bind because of the 2025 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which was written between April 24 and May 5. The results were woeful. This is not new. That has been the pattern for years now. As usual, nobody paid any attention despite JAMB’s regular release of the statistics of performance at the end of the examination each year.

    Who takes responsibility when a student does not do well in an examination, where the examining body is not found wanting? To me, it should be the parents/guardians, teachers and the candidates – in equal measures. The parents for not paying close attention to what their children/wards are doing; the teachers for not monitoring the pupils well and the candidates for not taking their studies seriously.

    Also, what did we do as concerned citizens every year that JAMB sounded the alarm of a fall in education standard after releasing the results? We turned deaf ears. To us, the government must take responsibility for the fall in education standard without the citizenry playing its part.

    We forget that no good parent toys with the education of his child. As I tell my friends, the home is a child’s first school, not the four walls of a classroom or the church. As parents, many of us love to blame others for our failure. This is precisely what we are doing in this instant case. We believe that JAMB must take the fall for the mass failure in the 2025 UTME. Nothing will make many of us happy than to see the back of Oloyede in office.

    It is not all about Oloyede. Yes, he is the head of JAMB and must take responsibility for everything done under his watch. We forget that Oloyede is also human and cannot solely discharge the enormous duty of his office. He has others working with him to ensure the smooth running of JAMB, especially its main task of conducting the UTME. The row over the 2025 exercise broke out not only because of the mass failure, but the technical issues that many candidates in the LAG/Southeast regions encountered.

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    These issues did not crop up in other centres and that says a lot about JAMB’s efficiency. Still, we have to tell ourselves the truth. It is not good enough that there were technical glitches during the examination. I also agree that JAMB should have ensured that everything was in shape before conducting the exam.

    I believe that the mock exam it conducts prior to the main UTME is to test run its system and ensure an hitchfree exercise. But as they say, “things do happen”. I am not holding brief for Oloyede, but I know him to be a thorough person with eyes for details in everything he does. Again, things will go wrong when they are bound to go wrong. This unforeseen factor undid all JAMB’s plans for the 2025 UTME.

    Calling for Oloyede’s head is not the answer. His good work of almost nine years at JAMB should not be undone by this unfortunate incident. His track record speaks for itself. He had no control over what happened, but he has taken responsibility for it. If the situation can be reversed, Oloyede will go beyond the call of duty to ensure a seamless UTME. What has happened has happened. As a way out, the 397,997 affected candidates have resat the exam and their results were released yesterday.

    Oloyede will be turning nine in office in August, meaning he has 14 months left to complete his two-term of 10 years. He completed the first term of five years in 2021 and was reappointed by President Buhari. He cannot afford to, on the eve of the completion of his tenure, allow anything like this incident,  mar his reputation.

    There cannot be any person more pained by the incident than him. It was obvious that he took what happened as a challenge on his integrity when he addressed the media on May 14 in Abuja. In tears, he tendered an unreserved apology to the nation, pleading for the understanding of the candidates, their parents, and schools. Oloyede is not a run-of-the-mill administrator and academic. When it comes to tertiary education and administration, he is no push over.

    So, it would have taken every fibre of his being for him to publicly admit that JAMB’s efforts at conducting a hitchfree 2025 UTME were thwarted by “human and technology errors”. He noted: “ what should have been a moment of joy has changed due to one or two errors… While this was not a case of sabotage, the oversight by one of our two service providers is inexcusable. I apologise. I take full responsibility “.

    The hitches, Oloyede explained, were later traced to a failure in the deployment of updated grading software by the service provider’s officials. His lofty years in JAMB should not be measured by this incident. He has done and is still doing more than enough to uplift the board. It is heartbreaking enough that the incident happened under him and if there is anything that can be done to rectify it, Oloyede will be more than ready to do it. This is why he quickly organised another exam for those affected. This is the kind of person he is.

    He has shown capacity in the discharge of his responsibility. What is more. Oloyede has shown that we still have forthright persons that can hold public office without being influenced by filthy lucre. Rather than persecute him, it is for us as a nation to address the rot in our education system for better results in future UTMEs. For now, the statistics are not cheery.

    They are scary. In 2016, 1.59m candidates (64.24%) scored below 200 out of 400; 2017, 1.72m (73%); 2018, 1.19m (77%); 2019, 1.40m (77%), 2020, 1.54m (79.2%); 2021, 1.14m (87.2%); 2022, 1.33m (77.8%); 2023, 1.17m (76.7%); 2024, 1.40m (76.1%) and 2025, 1.5m (78.5%). The 2025 result is the third worst since 2016.

    The first and second worst results were recorded in 2021 and 2020, and interestingly there were no technical glitches then. So, to what do we blame that, if not failure of parenting, teaching and candidates’ indiscipline? This is not to exonerate JAMB for the lapses that marred the 2025 UTME, though. We should, therefore, direct our energies to treating the disease and not the symptoms.  

  • Nipco: The RRN angle

    Nipco: The RRN angle

    After some back and forth, he blurted out: “all I need is the RRN. With that I can reprint the receipt from my machine and sort this issue out”. RRN is not Greek; it is the Retrieval Reference Number normally found on the receipt of every POS transaction. But many of us do not pay attention to it until there is trouble. I learnt the hard way too.

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    Upon enquiry, he said I could get the RRN from my bank and I did. Despite that, Nipco and its official who asked for the RRN are still playing games with me on refunding the N20000 debited from my account for a failed transaction at their Arepo, Ogun State retail outlet since January 15.

    The battle has just started, and God willing, there will be more on the RRN angle the next time out.

  • Shadow chasing

    Shadow chasing

    It Is Laughable. The suggestion, that is, for a team to shadow the activities of the government. And as the Yoruba wise-saying goes, you laugh over something that is beyond weeping for. Coming from Patrick Utomi, that of the Patito’s Gang fame that used to pontificate on air, who you think should know better, the suggestion, to say the least, is ludicrous.

    A shadow cabinet, government or team or by whatever name or guise he styles it, is the least of the nation’s problems now, with its avalanche of opposition parties. For another, a ‘shadow team’ is alien to a presidential system of government like ours. We run a presidential, and not a semi-presidential, or parliamentary system of government, with all executive powers residing in the President. The system recognises the opposition, but not as a shadow government in the sense that Utomi is proposing.

    Utomi wants his shadow team to be the face of the new opposition in the light of the failure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) to which he once belonged, and others to effectively play that role. The opposition including the Social Democratic Party (SDP) on which platform some people are planning to coalesce to wrest power in 2027 is crumbling like a pack of cards. Having seen the handwriting on the wall, the smooth talking Pat is creeping out of the sinking boat and beating a new path to political relevance.

    He says he is not looking for an appointment, but is embarking on this journey in the national interest. As usual, he regales his audience with how he joined government at an early age to serve in the administration of former President Shehu Shagari in the second republic as a result of his brilliance. The same brilliance that earned him the jobs of chief executive of the moribund Volkswagen of Nigeria and the chair of the liquidated BankPhB which former MD is now marking time in jail for theft and fraud.

    No doubt, Utomi is brilliant. No one becomes a professor, the highest academic honour which can only be earned, without being smart and intellectually sound. This is why many, including some professors like him, are wondering why on earth he is pushing for a shadow team. This is no television debate where he and his gang just threw fanciful arguments on democracy, economy and governance about.

    There is a limit to which theories can be pushed and propounded. We cannot keep on theorising when there is an urgent work to be done. Is his proposed shadow team the answer to whatever he thinks are the ills of the country? Utomi like every Nigerian has the right to hold views and express them the way he likes, but he cannot do so in breach of the Constitution. The 1999 Constitution talks about a presidential lsystem, with the executive, legislature and judiciary as equal partners.

    The executive functions are subject to the scrutiny of the legislature with the judiciary as the arbiter of disputes within the system. This principle of check-and-balance is what makes the system tick. In this system, there is no room for shadow government. It can only be in the imagination of manipulators who think they can use their academic and media reach to upturn what is already constitutionally provided for.

    Nigerians know better. They know when certain people want to manipulate the system for selfish reasons, citing public goodwill. What public goodwill is that when Utomi is coming from a place of bias and partisanship. He stepped down for LP’s Peter Obi for the party’s presidential ticket in the 2023 elections.

    How then can such a tainted figure call for a shadow team and expect to be taking seriously? Beyond his call being unconstitutional, what is the shadow team going to do that he, Obi, Atiku Abubakar, and their co-travellers are not already doing? Have they not been talking and criticising the government? Why then does Utomi require a shadow team to do that? What is the difference between what he is doing now and what the shadow team will do?

    Hear him on this amorphous shadow team: “It will be a group of people that will meet at intervals…say like two weeks. Each shadow team with a watch on an aspect of government will go in there and ferret out information, make it public and seek a second opinion. The Constitution guarantees this. It does not say there will be a shadow government or not. Shadow government is just a nomenclature.”

    “Ferret out” information. What if the ‘shadow teamers’ are caught in the process?’ Does Utomi remember the Watergate scandal under former America’s President Richard Nixon? We are not saying that citizens should not hold the government accountable, what we are saying is that they should do so within the ambit of the law, as guaranteed under Section 22 of the Constitution, which says:

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    The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold… the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.

    Utomi’s proposal is offensive to the Constitution. He wants to, through his proposed shadow team, usurp the oversight functions of the legislature which is empowered to scrutinise the executive. It cannot arrogate that power to any shadow team because in his word: “shadow government is just a nomenclature”. It is not a mere nomenclature. It is the recognised title of the opposition in a parliamentary system like what Britain operates.

    To call shadow government just a nomenclature is Utomi’s way of hiding the illegal act he is trying to perpetrate with a name that is politically and democratically recognised under the parliamentary system. It will not work. Right-thinking Nigerians can see through his gimmick. It is not too late for him to retrace his steps from this shadow chasing shadow cabinet. Or is he thinking of a shadow government under the conspiracy theory of individuals lording it over elected leaders? The professor of political economist should know the consequences of that.