The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Democrats without democratic ethos

    Democrats without democratic ethos

    In spite of our crisis of nation-building, the people of Nigeria, a nation of over 400 multi ethnic nationalities have been described at different times as  ‘the happiest people on earth’. The scourge of our nation however remains the political elite notably from the dominant ethnic nationalities whose zero-sum struggle for power has kept us in a state of war since independence. Nigeria lost her innocence in the run up to independence as leaders of ethnic nationalities struggled to build a nation of their own within the greater Nigerian nation.

    The battle became more intense after the 1959 election in which NCNC came first, AG second with the NPC a distant third. With the willing bride, the AG and his leaders anxiously waiting in Asaba to seal a pact with her NCNC suitor while the latter and its leaders were perfecting a pact with Ahmadu Bello and his NPC in Kaduna, an irreparable damage was done to trust, an important badge of honour in a democracy.

    The intrigue and the battle were no less vicious with the misadventure of the military into politics in January 1966. After the elimination of their civilian benefactors, the misguided soldiers descended on themselves, killing the most talented of their men. Again, Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi, the commander-in-chief and Nwafor Orizu, the Senate President betrayed Nigeria by ceding power to the military as against swearing in the most senior surviving minister as acting prime minister as enshrined in the 1963 republican constitution.

    It only got worse after the July 1966 vengeance coup accompanied by mindless, selective killing of military officers. With the swearing in of Gowon as military head of state in breach of its own rule while Brigadier Ogundipe, the most senior military officer fled to Britain following the refusal of northern foot soldiers to take order from him, Esprit de corps in the military was also destroyed.

    In 1979, Obasanjo admitted betraying the nation when he self-conceitedly confessed favouring Shehu Shagari in that year’s presidential election. This was followed in 1993 by Babangida’s fraudulent ‘eight years of transition without end’ which resulted in the annulment of the 1993 election regarded as the most credible election in our nation’s history.  MKO Abiola, the winner died in detention, defending his mandate.

    It only got worse in 1999 with state capture by anti-democratic forces as represented by Generals Obasanjo, David Mark, Useni, Dongoyaro etc. and their new breed politicians, the nation had fought and defeated.

    The outcome of the 2007 presidential election supervised by Obasanjo was no less bizarre with President Yar’Adua, the beneficiary of the massively rigged 2007 election, not only denouncing the exercise but also setting up the Uwais Electoral Review Commission.

    Nigerians had in 2015 massively voted for Muhammadu Buhari, the anti-corruption crusader believing he was the messiah Nigerians were waiting for. Tragically Nigeria had to go through eight years of Buhari’s misrule, incompetence and provincialism to realize they were swindled by Buhari’s promoters.

    The frustration experienced by Nigerians probably accounted for the vicious attack on candidate Tinubu, the man who carried Buhari on his back across Nigeria despite his well-known anti-democratic credentials. Desperate major players thereafter freely deployed everything, including religion, ethnicity, political intrigue and outright lies as weapon of war. Institutions such as INEC and the Supreme Court, critical to the survival of our democratization process came under severe threat by desperate politicians who freely called for a military takeover of government.

    The 2023 losers who have not behaved like democrats but like those driven by greed for power are today trying to change the narrative as the 2027 battle for the soul of Nigeria draws nearer.

    During last week two-day conference themed, ‘Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity,’ organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, etc., in continuation of the battle, Kaduna’s ex-governor, Nasir El-Rufai, former VP Atiku Abubakar and former Rivers State governor and former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi called for a coalition to remove President Tinubu in the 2027 general election.

    This was followed by another close door meeting by El-Rufai and Atiku allies, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, Abacha’s man Friday in the dark period of Nigerian history  and Otunba Segun Showunmi, Atiku’s former spokesman  with SDP to “review the state of opposition democratic engagement in Nigeria”, last Tuesday  in Abuja.

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    But Uba Sani, the governor of Kaduna State, has taken a swipe at the trio of former Vice President Abubakar Atiku, his predecessor, Nasir El-Rufai, and former Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi,  accusing them of  scheming to reclaim power not because they have the interests of Nigerians at heart, given their bad records while in government.

    Of course, there is nothing anti-democratic in the opposition scheming to take over power in 2027. Our own problem however as indicated above is that our own political elite since independence have practiced democracy without democratic ethos which often finds expression in character and loyalty.

    As Uba Sani observed, “Most of these politicians that came out and say they are coming as a coalition, “What did they do when they were in government? They were only fighting for power, not because they could do anything better”.

    And since it will also appear most of us tend to suffer from collective amnesia, interrogating the past records of these new democratic crusaders while in office as suggested by Uba becomes imperative.

    Let us start with Rotimi Amaechi. While applying to be president, Amaechi had said: “Fellow Nigerians, I stand before you today to declare my intention and submit my application to serve as your next president.  I have been in the political arena for 23 years. Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly (1999 to 2007), Governor of Rivers State, (2007 to 2015) and Minister of Transportation of Nigeria (2015 to 2022) I have served at every level of government – local, state, and federal. I have served both as a political appointee and an elected official.”

    During the APC presidential primary election held in June 2022, Amaechi polled second position behind eventual winner, President Bola Tinubu with 316 delegate votes against Tinubu’s 1,271 votes. From then on, democracy-crusading Amaechi started his anti-party activities. He neither congratulated Tinubu over his resounding victory at the end of the primaries nor over his triumph in the presidential election. Amaechi, the sore loser did not publicly endorse his party’s flag bearer who despite his open hostility went on to win Rivers with the help of Governor Nyesom Wike.

    The question then is, at what stage did Amaechi who is only out of government for two years and has now joined opposition PDP and El-Rufai to work towards removal of President Tinubu from government in 2027 discover  his fellow politicians ‘kill steal and maim’ to hold on to power? Was he speaking from experience since he was in government for over 23 years?

    Loyalty and character, as indicated above, is democracy greatest badge of honour. Unfortunately Atiku is loyal to neither party leaders nor his party’s constitution. At the slightest sign of tempest, he abandons his party, moving from PDP to AC, through ACN to APC and back to PDP. His breach of his party’s rotation clause was responsible for the party’s loss in the 2023 election and the crisis currently rocking the party.

    The testimonial by former President Obasanjo on former VP Atiku Abubakar is all that is needed to confirm if Atiku Abubakar has character deficit. Obasanjo went as far as saying God would punish him if ever he endorses Atiku Abubakar for presidency on the account of all he knows about him.

    And as for El-Rufai, the National Assembly’s report on The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) which .was very critical of El-Rufai’s handling of the affairs of the organization places question mark on El Rufai’s character,

    Obi, an opportunist, is Atiku Abubakar’s alter ego. Besides being tagged a ‘container economists’ on account of being importer of foreign manufactured goods all his life, Obi doesn’t appear to believe in anything. He is not even in control of his supporters, the ‘Obidients’, a euphemism for an unthinking mob.

    Obi like Atiku is an opportunist. He had moved from APGA, the party that gave him its platform to serve as governor for eight years to PDP where he rose rapidly to become the party’s VP candidate for the 2019 election. Following Atiku Abubakar’s disruption of PDP constitution that favoured Obi’s emergence as PDP presidential candidate in 2023, Obi did not hesitate before pulling down PDP edifice to join Labour Party to contest the 2023 election. With the crisis currently rocking Labour Party and Obi’s endorsement of El-Rufai and Atiku Abubakar’s conspiracy to pull down Tinubu in 2027, many believe Obi is on his way back to PDP.

    Our new warriors for democracy are democrats without democratic ethos.

  • Sunny’s lyric

    Sunny’s lyric

    Sunny Ajose happened twice upon this world. First, as a gamete, ruffling deep inside his mother’s womb. At his second dawning, he slipped through the birth canal into the beautiful lights of Sunday, February 10, 1946, thus unsettling the chaste universe of Hodonu Oluwafemi Ajose and his wife, Victoria Oladoyinbo (Nee Ojo).

    Sunny was born when the grim bangle of life ornamented fallen cities, oceans and blades of grass. On his birthday, Marshall Islands Military Governor Commodore Ben Wyatt announced the forced relocation of Bikini Atoll’s 167 residents to allow atomic bomb testing on their homeland. He assured the unsuspecting villagers that their sacrifice was “for the good of mankind and to end all wars.” In reality, they were exiled into a harsh struggle for survival, scavenging for food across four islands.

    A day earlier, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had delivered his infamous Bolshoi Theatre speech, widely seen as the Cold War’s catalyst, where he subtly declared war on the United States. A month later, in March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, introduced the term “iron curtain” while calling for a global alliance between Europe and the U.S.

    Thus, it could be said that Ajose was birthed into a storm of intrigues. He was born at the dawn of the Cold War, and into a world politically divided by an ‘Iron Curtain.’

    Against the backdrop of these disruptions, Ajose arrived as a bit of calm into his parents’ lives. Unlike the proverbial Ajantala whose impatient bulk pried his mother’s wearied uterus apart till he burst out carved like a demon in a cherub, Ajose invoked no tempest to rock his parents’ world. Rather he arrived to enrich his parents’ vestal lives.

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    And so, it may be said that Ajose, who hailed from Wadon Compound of Boekoh Quarters in Badagry, Lagos, grew up to get his piece of the Nigerian dream by selective pitching of his social and intellectual roots in public service. A quintessential technocrat, Ajose believed that public service is far too precious and fundamental to be left to the whims of feckless characters, and preached constructive patriotism and altruism as a counteraction to the selfishness and greed that has overtime become the norm in some government circuits. Virtue, according to Ajose, should guide human conduct in governance, the economic, social and political circuits, rather than the exception. In and out of the public’s eye,  Ajose endeavoured to do good. But his deeds were neither done as an apology nor extenuation of his fortune and privileges in the world. Ajose did not propagate virtue as a penance for the perceived failings of the political class or the world’s privileged divide; he did not preach selective ethics or morality as a function of artifice, rather he propagated virtuousness as an intrinsic part of public service and humanity.

    The true magic of this broken world, writes Michael Chabon, lies in the ability of the things it contains to vanish, to become so utterly lost that they might never have existed in the first place. It took the untimely death of  Ajose for his family, friends and political associates to discern the hidden essence of these words perhaps. By experiencing the loss of the elder statesman, our understanding of the transience of life deepens in real time.

    There are no ordinary moments. Thus every moment spent with Ajose was pleasurable. You only have to ask any or all of his acquaintances. Talking about him in his biography penned by me, “The Sunny Side of Ajose,” Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, likened the experience of knowing him to opening a whole book of knowledge.

    Governor Sanwo-Olu hailed Ajose as a perfect gentleman—hardworking, dedicated, and deeply passionate about Lagos. As a public servant, particularly as Head of Service, Ajose made invaluable contributions to the state’s development, earning well-deserved accolades. For former Lagos Governor and ex-Minister of Works Babatunde Raji Fashola, pinpointing Ajose’s most remarkable trait was no easy task.

    Since their first meeting on August 16, 2002—the day Fashola assumed office as Chief of Staff to then-Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu—Ajose had profoundly shaped his understanding of the civil service. Fashola recalled his early days in office, overwhelmed by incoming files and correspondence, until Ajose meticulously guided him through ministry acronyms, department structures, and official procedures, marking the start of his civil service education.

    In the foreword of Ajose’s biography, Fashola lauded his strong work ethic, calm demeanor, and exceptional leadership. He admired Ajose’s wisdom in both professional and personal matters, as well as his ability to manage people effectively. He fondly recalled how, late at night, the scent of suya from Ajose’s office served as a morale booster for his team, keeping them energized despite their fatigue.

    Countless testimonials from former colleagues, subordinates, friends, associates, and mentees highlight Chief Sunny Ajose’s commendable work ethic and compassionate leadership. Olabisi Onala, an administrator in the Governor’s Office kitchen department, considers him a father figure, mentor, and guardian. She recalled how he had a way of turning tears into smiles and personally supported her education, funding her Master’s degree while emphasizing that financial constraints should never hinder one’s dreams.

    If you could liken Ajose’s evolution to poetry, it would read like a lyric poem. It would be a stirring verse tacked within the notes of a radiant lyre. It would be a timeless lesson incised in the psyche, and replete with anecdotes worthy of sacred spaces in the bedroom, boardroom and classroom walls.

    Think of it as a timeless tribute to an effervescent life force. Imagine it as a free verse brimming with history even as its stanzas beam with light and gradually evolve like a looking glass into the soul of the precocious child, that, grew into the triumphant man widely revered as Mr Circular.

    Indeed, Ajose’s growth is circular. As his reflection evolves to attain completeness or fullness of form, each stanza of his life cradles different narratives. His  journey unfolds in rhythmic cycles, a story related in looping prosodies of growth. Each phase cradles a distinct essence, yet together they form a seamless whole. The prologue unveils his captivating persona, the foundation upon which he is remembered. Amidst intense lyricism, dazzling hues, and ornate lore gleams enthralling aspects of his southwestern heritage; ancient wisdom meets modern mores as the verse lines interchange morals and values, passed down from his great forbears.

    The cadence deepens, pulsing with dialogues and discourses.

    that excite and fulfil his hankering for knowledge and exceptional wisdom. Everything ranging from philosophy of education to public service and the strategic precepts of ancient and modern governance, crowd these chapters. The latter connotes the blooming of his rational mind, his perceptiveness and strong leadership skills.  Challenges trigger the proverbial moments of rupture—a jarring awakening that arrives, first with the loss of his father, sending shockwaves of grief through him. Yet, from this fracture, clarity is born.

    Beneath his narrative are footnotes explaining the building plots of his masculinity and statesmanship; you would also find in this section his profound thesis on the ethics of public service as well as his superior logic on social re-engineering.

    Though his journey may seem interrupted, it is far from incomplete. In his wake, his deeds continue to shape the world he left behind, etching his legacy in bold relief—his essence whole, his imprint indelible.

  • Medical education by control and command

    Medical education by control and command

    Since 2024, medical schools in Nigeria have been under the pressure of state and federal authorities to double their enrolment with little said about doubling their capacity to meet these commands by governments. When some of the governments are too much in a hurry as in the case of Ondo, Lagos and federal governments, they establish so-called medical universities as if these schools can exist in isolation of the biological and physical sciences and give them mandates to “produce” doctors as if doctors could be manufactured just like that!

    The ostensible reason for the urgency in medical training is the fact that young and old Nigerian doctors are going by the droves abroad or to other African countries for better opportunities and salaries and emoluments. It seems as if when medically trained people are in government, they also forget their training and they apply the same solution to an old problem. It never occurs to them that they could retain the services of their doctors by vastly improving the conditions of service of Nigerian doctors. I will never forget an experience of two doctor friends of mine, husband and wife, who could not afford to pay a rent of N100,000 a month for a one bed room apartment in Ibadan some years ago. This is after going through the rigour of medical education in Nigeria where doctors have sometimes to be jack of all trades doing the work of laboratory technologists along with their own. I have sympathy for doctors because of the terrible and sometimes filthy environment in which they practice and live and because I do make use of medical services as an elderly patient.

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    Politicians seem to have a mechanical view of doctors. When they hear that doctors have resigned and left for greener pastures, their knee jerk reactions is to “produce” instantly many more replacements as if doctors are pieces of manufactured goods that can just be turned out of medical factories. There is no thought about quality but quantity. Lagos State government simply established a medical university and gave it a command to “produce” 150 of them per year! We were not told whether the college of medicine of LASU would automatically become the new medical university. Where will the teachers to “produce” these doctors come from?

    Already, the existing teachers in the medical schools around have been poached and poached and the old and aging teachers can hardly cope. Unfortunately because Nigerian academics are so poorly paid, they always jump at administrative positions of being vice chancellors of medical universities or regular universities, instead of telling the people in government to keep their impossible missions to those hungry enough to jump at them. Any opportunity to be vice chancellors of some medical universities in an awkward and remote place will attract takers even though they know they cannot make a success of the mission.

    Doubling the intake of medical schools should normally lead to doubling the physical capacity of laboratories, medical libraries, numerical increase in numbers of staff, equipment, hospital beds and so on. It is sad that patients admitted into our so-called teaching hospitals have to provide their own buckets of water. The lifts don’t work and hefty men have to be hired by relatives of patients to carry patients up the higher floors in some of the teaching hospitals. Some of these hospitals operate in total darkness! When one sees some of our doctors struggle through life, one is frightened to surrender one’s lives into their hands. When some us go to medical clinics, we secretly enquire where the doctors attending to us are trained. If a doctor is poorly trained, it will show in the mastery of his or her art.

    I am told that the Nigerian trained doctors are highly prized abroad. Let us keep their quality high so that we don’t spoil one of the few professions in which we have distinguished ourselves. There is no need to spoil the market by producing inferior doctors because we want to meet a local need in a hurry. If the situation demands it, we can begin to train medical auxiliaries as they do in Cuba to fill the yawning gaps left by our fleeing doctors. In any case, nurses and pharmacists are already filling the gaps. We should be very careful about displaying our ignorance about medical education.

    There were times when Indian doctors were discriminated against worldwide because of the poor training in some Indian medical schools. India learnt a hard lesson and we don’t want to go through the Indian experience. I call on the Nigerian Medical and Dental Council to be alive to its responsibility and it should never allow politicians to force it to approve any poorly staffed and equipped medical school to operate. This is a solemn responsibility which it must take very seriously. Some people glibly say doctors should be bonded for some years because they are trained at public expense. I think we are still a democratic country and everyone should enjoy fundamental human rights which includes freedom of movement and choice of where to live and work. If we are to stop doctors from leaving the country, what are we going to do to lawyers, engineers, nurses, pharmacists, pilots and other well trained people but poorly remunerated?

    What I have said about emergency medical schools goes for the mushroom universities springing up all over Nigeria. Many of them are only universities in name only. We now have universities where laboratory equipment and books are borrowed from neighbouring universities whenever they are to be accredited. Many of them are staffed by roving associate lecturers and professors teaching in some cases in as many as four universities to beat the economic privations caused by poor salaries. The permanent staffs in some of the universities are also sometimes not fit for purpose despite all the efforts of the National Universities Commission to impose standards. Some of the vice chancellors are not even professors of long standing if they are standing at all! These are terrible things for one who has been in the system for many years to say.

    I blame the academics themselves for not standing for quality in their institutions because of the fear of losing their jobs.  People in government, whether state or federal, also share substantial share in bringing down the standards of education in the country. The public primary and secondary schools have for a long time collapsed because the people responsible for their standards have removed their children from these schools and taken them to private paying schools. The schools the public attend are patronized by the vast majority of our people who have no alternative. Incredibly as it may sound, poor people are also leaving the public schools for private schools that they can barely afford. Private school education is a big business in Nigeria.  There are a few good schools at the secondary level where alumni are involved in their running and funding. Some of these alumni-aided schools are justifiably run as if they are private schools because students have to pay fees. Our country is a capitalist economy and he who pays the piper dictates the tune.

    The collapse of the education sector is gradually moving upward into the university level and governments are establishing universities without first finding out whether they have the resources and staff and even the students from the poorly run secondary schools. Private universities have become bragging rights and many of them are universities in name only! Establishment of universities have become part of the so-called democratic dividends!  The announcements of them have been part of after dinner speeches by our political overlords.

  • Casino journalism: Another view

    Casino journalism: Another view

    IT IS NOT for nothing that journalism is described as history in a hurry. It is so described because of the frenetic pace at which journalists work. News breaks and all hands must be on deck to cover all the angles, leaving out nothing.

    The stories are written to beat the 24-hour daily deadline of producing a paper, without compromising facts and figures. The most important factor is to get the story out fast, which translates to getting the paper out first and every other thing shall follow. The journalist does his job with an eye on posterity, the ultimate judge of everything that we do today.

    Journalists do not operate in a vacuum. They are members of the society, but privileged to know or are informed about  goings-on in hidden and open places. The journalist’s job comes with a burden. The burden of truth and trust. Is he truthful?  Can he be trusted? These ultimately define who the journalist is and how others relate with him.

    Unfortunately, journalism practice is being hindered these days by the economy, which has made things difficult for practitioners. The cost of production is so high that newsprint, a major component in the printing of newspaper, is sky high. And it is still rising. The survival of journalism and the journalist is at risk today because of this and other sociopolitical factors.

    It is for the cause of survival that journalists have resorted to some creative means of remaining in business. Gone are the days when sales and the traditional means of generating adverts were the bulwark for newspaper houses. Things are no longer so because of the ever rising cost of production which cannot always be reflected in the cover price of newspapers. For those who do not know, newspapers sell at a loss today even at the cover price of N300 or a little above, which many Nigerians cannot afford.

    To survive, newspapers have become ingenious in order to remain in business. Even at that, they are not on the newsstand. Circulation continues to dwindle as they now cut their cloth, according to their size. Their print run is commensurate to their economic power and advert intake. We may call it Casino Journalism, as Prof Ismail Ibraheem did in his thought-provoking inaugural lecture entitled: Casino Journalism: The Ending of History, but that is the reality staring every media organisation in the face.

    As a concept, Casino Journalism may sound good, but the truth is how can the media survive in the circumstance it finds itself today without being creative and start thinking out-of-the-box? The media has not put profit before its work of informing, educating and entertaining, and most importantly, holding the government accountable to the people. The truth is like every other segment of society, it is economically shackled and must find ways of staying afloat.

    What then comes first is its continued operation as a going-concern in order to meet its obligations to its publics, not discounting its workers and investors, too. I agree that, at times, too much emphasis is placed on money making at the expense of other things, but again as I noted earlier, reality dictates that such measure be taken for the good of the business. The risk of not doing this will be too enormous for the media and its workforce.

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    There is no story that the media can do that will bring in the kind of money it requires to survive on the long run and there is no businessman that will come to its aid when the chips are down. No matter what the media does for a businessman today, go to him for help tomorrow and you will be hit with the statement: “I am in business to make money”.  Translation: Journalism too is business.

    But for too long, it has been run as charity. The media must ensure a balance between its business side of profit making and its journalism work of public service. Public service does not mean that journalists and allied workers should earn peanuts or the investor should not make profit. How do you pay well or make profit when the business is floundering? Media houses cannot depend on their foundations because they are separate (or are they not?) entities.

    The foundation is not to fund the newspaper, otherwise the funders will cut the source of funding. It is to fund the work of the foundation that is media related. The way out remains Casino Journalism, not in the spiteful sense of the word casino, where gambling and related things go on, but to ensure that in playing casino, journalism and its practitioners stick to the Canons of the profession of accuracy, fairness, objectivity and balance.

    By upholding these tenets, journalism will remain a buffer for its practitioners. There will be no room for hit-and-run stories, that is breaking a story and not following up on it, as the Prof noted, thereby ending the story just like that, for the next big report, and the cycle goes on and on. I concur that, that is Casino Journalism. Why not pursue a story to its logical end, giving readers all the perspectives to satisfy their curiosity before jumping to another one?

    By the way, can the issue of ownership ever be divorced from media operation? All over the world, practitioners do their publishers’ bidding. After all, as the saying goes, he who pays the piper calls the tune. However, in doing his publisher’s bidding, a journalist must not go overboard, as his own reputation is at stake. Nobody remembers the publisher, they all know the journalist, both by name and reputation.

    But then the publisher’s interest must be protected, at all times and for the purpose he set up the publication. Though, this must not be at the expense of the public which has the right to know. It is a delicate balance, but the media can walk the tightrope without playing too much casino.

  • Of journalists’ unethical awards and odious comparisons

    Of journalists’ unethical awards and odious comparisons

    Journalists by training and orientation suffer two major disabilities.  Insufficient grounding in sociological theories, the foundation of society, and avoiding core economic and business/accounting  courses  at school which lay them open to manipulation by vicious business men at in later years as practicing professionals. Unfortunately, humility is not often a virtue in display among highly qualified professional journalists. As students of society that routinely dine and wine with owners of society, they sometimes forget their place on the social ladder. They often put their hope and aspirations in the hands of vicious businessmen who see restless journalists as the only obstacle to turning society into an empire of slaves.

    Stanley Macebuh, The Guardian pioneer managing director and editor-in-chief who promised to publish one of the best three newspapers in English-speaking Africa south of Sahara, and achieved the goal through unflawed exploitation of talents of first class young brains from our universities and those of the best young educated professionals from the then existing media houses to ensure the flagship was read ‘sooner than later’ was unarguably the man behind the success of The Guardian.

    But Stanley knew very little about business and business’ dirty wars. He was a civilized man with a touch of human kindness. His goal was making the world a decent place for all. He did not think anyone would be opposed to this noble pursuit. But he was wrong because he never really understood that the economic status of a man determines a man’s position in society.

    I walked up to his office around 6pm sometime in 1983 to report a crime. One of the new pool car drivers took his colleague’s car out without permission. When he returned 40 minutes later, he had replaced the car’s new engine with an old engine. When Stanley finally raised his head up from the script he was reading, he asked with sadness boldly written over his face: “How much do we really pay those poor boys?” as if all of us were not victims of capitalism, a euphemism for slavery. I also started to feel sorry for the criminal. But for Mr. Alimi, the experienced transport manager who had by 8am the following morning prepared the young man’s sack letter ready for collection, left to my humane MD/Editor-in-chief, the boy would have retained his job. Stanley Macebuh could afford not being ruthless precisely because it is not he but the much derided vicious businessman  that went to the bank to borrow money, cut deals and must be prepared to fight dirty publicly as most businessmen do.

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    Maiden Ibru, the current chief executive of The Guardian is not much different. Also a trained media practitioner with bias towards public relations, by orientation, she also cannot be vicious.

    Just like Stanley who treated me like his graduate student from the Daily Times days all through his stay at The Guardian, I think I also know Mrs. Ibru fairly well.

    As the Executive Consultant (Editorial and Advertising), the de facto chief operating officer of The Guardian from 2003 to 2008, Mrs. Ibru, the chief executive of The Guardian snubbed the tastefully furnished expansive chief executive office on the first floor preferring to spend the period in my scantily furnished and noisy office downstairs. After our daily round of meetings ranging from directors’ meeting, editorial content review meeting or editorial board meeting, she would return to my office where she ate the lunch procured for her from our cafeteria by Biola my secretary.  That was at a time lunch could have been ferried down from the Federal Palace or Sheraton, owned by her husband. Maiden is humble, kind and stands for the building of a more humane, just and compassionate society.

    Mrs. Ibru  is the chief executive  who on her way to the office would stop by an accident scene,  ferry victims to hospital where she would pay for their care before returning to the office, of course with her day totally ruined.  Like Stanley she just wants to serve humanity in her own little way. Accepting Nduka Obaigbena’s award despite her well-articulated position on the contradiction between an arm of state institution giving award to other state institutions it is constitutionally empowered to keep on their toes is no doubt part of Maiden Ibru’s efforts to please others.

    Maiden like many other decent and accomplished journalists is very vulnerable. That Obaigbena, a ruthless businessman and a veteran of many boardroom dirty wars including the ongoing one with his friend, Femi Otedola and First Bank, easily outwitted Maiden Ibru was not a surprise.

    The way fiercely competitive and ruthless businessman Obaigbena outwitted Mrs Ibru is the same way businessman, Alex Ibru who held no hostages when alive, outwitted Stanley Macebuh and effortlessly eased him out of The Guardian. It is not different from the strategy adopted by the late Chief Aboderin to ease out of The Punch Sam Amuka (Sad Sam) who had to start the Vanguard at his garage in Anthony Village Lagos. Who would have thought Ray Ekpu and Malam Haruna Mohammed, after building the Newswatch brand for over 20 years would allow Jimoh Ibrahim, a controversial ruthless businessman to effortlessly take their well-nurtured baby away from them? Unfortunately, journalists with all the influence they wield, they are no match for calculating ruthless businessmen, unrestrained by any form of moral appeal when they choose to fight dirty.

    As for the contest for superiority between The Guardian and Thisday, I think comparison can be odious especially when it is all about comparing apples and oranges.

    A newspaper, we are told, operates at three different levels of society (Lade Bonuola).  The one operating above the level of society tries to set agenda for society to follow. That is the task The Guardian has set for itself since 1982 when it first set out “to produce the best and most authoritative newspaper Nigeria had ever seen, that would be committed to the principle of individual freedom where citizens have duties as well as rights, which will, at all times uphold the need for justice, probity in public life and guarantees equal access to the nation’s resources and equal protection under the law of Nigerian for all citizens”.  And the paper resolved to achieve the above through “factual reporting, and well-reasoned and mature opinion and editorials arrived at after an exhaustive and painstaking examination of issues” – (Dr Patrick Dele Cole in his preface to ‘Selected Editorials of The Guardian 1983-2003’ edited by Reuben Abati). The Guardian has remained committed to this creed.

    The second type of newspaper operates at the level of society and merely reflects society and its idiosyncrasies for all intent and purposes. ThisDay is a newspaper that operates at the level of society and mirrors society through celebration of human vanity; it pioneered this from the birth of the fourth republic. As it has turned out, all those whose vanity were promoted in government and the banking sector from 1999 have all turned to be men and women with feet of clay.

    And if further empirical evidence is needed to prove how Thisday smiles to the bank by celebrating vanity of Nigerians, the outing of Nigeria political economic and military elite in their flowing agbada and Babaringa wanting to be recognized for doing their job as governors, bankers and other professionals is all we need. ThisDay has continued to do what it does best-mirroring society through celebration of human vanity.

    It is therefore apparent that there can be no basis for comparing The Guardian with ThisDay. Each from the onset clearly defined the nature of its service and commitment to society. And their past speaks for them.

  • Beyond fantasy

    Beyond fantasy

    Fantasy is escapist and that is its grandeur. The fantasist sees reality as his captor thus his desire to escape. But the paths to freedom unspool like a hypnotic daydream, in the end.

    Yet Nigerians live their fantasies. Wrapped in their carnal shells, some wield their imagination like a shield; some swing it like a sword—all fencing off a universe of realities.

    Fantasy has uses beyond viewing life through the wrong end of a telescope; it enables you to laugh at reality, argues Seuss. In Nigeria, fantasy is the hovel many scurry into, to escape reality’s tedious pangs. Perhaps because we ultimately covet distractions. Life is hard thus many would retreat to a world of magic and lies, the type celebrated on breakfast TV, political and pornographic reality shows.

    We live for illusions and covet the spectacle of shadows cast on the walls of our minds, like the cave dwellers of Plato’s Republic. In The Republic, Socrates explains that the cave represents the world revealed to us only through the sense of sight. The ascent out of the cave is the journey of the soul into the region of the intelligible, and it requires that the enlightened mind endures four stages of transformation.

    The first involves his imprisonment in the cave; that is our fascination with materialism and our world of illusions. The second involves his release from chains; that is, our contact with the real, sensual world.  Third, he makes his ascent out of the cave; that is, our flirtation with knowledge and the world of ideas. Fourth, he finds his way back into the cave to help his fellows while wrapped in a beam of light.

    But what if the supposedly enlightened mind could only deign his fellow cave dwellers shiny, grey beams resonant of darkness? What if, like the sullied press, the shady revolutionary and corrupt oligarch, he comes shining in brilliant spokes of ambiguity?

    The process of progressing out of the cave is about getting educated and it is a difficult process requiring assistance and sometimes, force. This encapsulates the struggle involved in acquiring beneficial education or ridding a country of dark tyranny. The allegory of the cave intones our struggle to see the truth and to be critical thinkers.

    Millions of Nigerians would resist corruption if they weren’t enslaved to tokens. The struggle for freedom and integrity is often a painful experience. Dreams die and lives get lost, for instance, as Nigeria flounders to insecurity and misgovernance. Against this backdrop, the person leaving the cave may question his beliefs whereas the people in the cave simply accept what they are shown. They rarely question the reality doctored to them.

    The allegory of the cave shows us the relationship between education and truth, bondage and freedom. The battle for freedom and its sustenance is, however, best prosecuted by men and women of catholicity of will, higher learning, and culture. I speak of true patriots and statesmen, ambassadors of Nigerianness and native intelligence. Have we such patriots? Have we such men and women of deep culture?

    The most pernicious aspect of our plight is the disintegration of our cultural and moral complex. A land without both is dead to healing; it becomes prone to rape and colonisation by cultural sovereigns.

    The history of the world pulses with subtle and bodacious seizures of sovereignty by global superpowers, who dominate the ‘third world’ through cultural and political imperialism. The latter often succeeds the former, where they aren’t launched from the twin barrels of an imperialist shotgun.

    While it is fool-hardy to categorise the world into first, second, and third worlds, such specious and flawed taxonomy of nations – oft perpetuated by the media, INGOs, and the academia – facilitates easier recolonisation of poorly governed, impoverished nations of Africa and the Middle East.

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    Yet nations of the so-called ‘First World’ are nothing but varnished tombs of the imperial greatness they hitherto symbolised; scared by their imminent collapse, they craftily recolonise Africa, in particular – plundering her bowels to sustain their fading economies and social systems.

    Having reclassified Africa as the ‘third world,’ they lay siege to the continent, plundering her resources; it’s a familiar plot in which Africans’ greed and ignorance lay the continent open to pillage and trans-generational slavery.

    Nigeria’s lack of a humane, visionary leadership, for so long, rendered her an unbidden offering on an altar of imperialist vultures. This is why Nigeria’s three-tiered leadership must take purposive steps to liberate the country from predatory ‘superpowers’ and their conspirators among INGOs and international lenders. Nigeria must rejig her cultural foundations and moral complex. She must rise from her knees, and quit sucking the rusted end of the wrong spigot.

    The result of such an endeavour would excite a social re-engineering built on character mending and economic restoration in consonance with our peculiar strengths and weaknesses. Restoring cultural dominance would facilitate easier salvage of our society while oiling the engine wheels of our industrial complex. For instance, China, Japan, Germany, Indonesia, and Sweden attained progress by founding nationhood and industry on a cultural experience indigenous to them.

    Nigeria, however, encounters her nemesis in materialism – the vain pursuit of status. A large percentage of the business and political elite live on ill-gotten wealth. Their lives are funded by stolen money and beastly monopolies facilitated by heinous social and political contracts. The middle and the working classes, however, contract as they struggle to maintain membership in the informal social castes imposed upon them by a raptorial ruling class.

    The general run of the masses supposedly dissent but many do so without real awareness of the actuality of forms that define their existence. Plato’s allegory of the cave was meant to explain this. In the allegory, he likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. Plato’s allegory speaks to our individual and collective fate as a nation.

    For Socrates, all virtues were forms of knowledge thus to train someone to manage a business account for PWC, for instance, is to educate him or her in skill. To train them to debate the ethics of a business venture is to educate them on values and morals. A culture that disregards the vital interplay between morality and power writes Hedges, condemns itself to death.

    Such existential truths are scorned by the modern fortune hunter. This disconnect subsists across professions, government, and academia. Nigerian economists, for instance, chant elaborate theoretical models yet know little of how their fancy, soulless economics impact rural poetry and suburban lives.

    Our education and social systems must quit churning out such products of a cultural void, casualties of a system that produces graduates to serve the corrupted system – individuals who have been taught to cheat the system and applaud theft as a shrewd corporate strategy. The true purpose of education must be to make minds, not social cannibals. It must be divorced from a system that bullies the populace to pacify and please authority.

     En route to the 2023 elections, we hoped the process would furnish us with patriots capable of leading Nigeria’s charge back to rebirth. We hoped to elect the aspirants who had proved their mettle in private and public service.

    By 2027, we would know if we chose the ones whose antecedents excite the fervent tribute of a cheer, or those whose past and present incite the passing tribute of a sigh.

  • The second coming of President Trump

    The second coming of President Trump

    Donald John Trump was sworn in as president of the United States of America to succeed Joseph Biden the Democratic Party incumbent after a bitterly fought campaign against Kamala Harris on January 20. Former president, Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris did everything to the letter to make the transition perfect and in order, starting from the certification of Trump’s election by the Congress headed by Kamala Harris, and the actual swearing in on January 20.

    I am not sure President Trump got the message because, in January 2021, Trump was not at the swearing in of Biden as president because he said he was robbed of the presidency by rigging while in the previous December, he had wanted his own Vice President Mike Pence hanged by the Trump inspired mob. What a world! And this happened in the so-called home of modern democracy as often claimed by the United States.

    Now Trump is president and the whole world is watching. The first thing he did on the first day of his second coming was the signing of about a hundred executive orders that carried the weight of law while bypassing the Congress and affecting virtually everything his government was going to do with the exception of the financial appropriations to run his entire government. This would have been a bridge too far. But he has signed executive orders freezing all foreign assistance, removing illegal immigrants from the United States soil, firing civil servants and asking Elon Musk to cut the fat out of the unnecessary bureaucracy and trim the federal departments. He is banning automatic citizenship of children born in the States by illegal immigrants, stating that there are only two genders recognized by law – male and female and presumably all others would be illegal; withdrawing the USA from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and stopping the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) from communication with the WHO. He has also withdrawn from the UNESCO, and from the Climate Change Convention. He has mercifully not withdrawn yet from the UN and its specialized organizations and NATO.

    He has maintained threatening postures to Canada and Mexico and renamed, unilaterally, the Gulf of Mexico the gulf of America. Some of his orders are actionable and a judge in Washington State has declared ultra vires his order of denying citizenship to children born in the USA by illegal immigrants. There will be several court actions against his orders. Some American hemispheric countries to which immigrants are being dumped have protested that his agents brought back their nationals in chains but he has threatened them with tariffs if they refuse to take back their nationals who have illegally entered the USA. These actions of President Trump are hugely popular with his Republican base and with white Americans who, over the years, have feared that the flood of immigrants may make them a minority in their own country.

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    Whatever the reasons for the overwhelming victory of Trump  last November, his promise to radically change things was one of them and immigration and inflation were at the top of the whole table of restructuring promised by Trump. He has not started tackling the issue of inflation yet but he has given orders to members of his cabinet that they will have to fight inflation which is hydra-headed wherever it rears up its ugly head. Well; talk is cheap. Everyone is waiting for Trump’s action on inflation now that his controversial cabinet has virtually been stream-rolled through Congress. The most controversial being Pete Hegseth who narrowly passed Senate confirmation only when the also controversial Vice President  James David (JD) Vance  cast a tie breaking vote for him in a Senate dominated by the Republican majority. This fact indicates that the Republican majority may yet be a restraining instrument for the rather wild and unstable president. 

    The big things he promised would have to go to Congress. Such issues as medical care and tax reduction for the rich, reform of the Pentagon and his plan for infrastructure would have to be tabled before Congress where his party does not have the kind of overwhelming support given to him country-wide in the last election.

    His choice of ambassador to the UN is already raising eyebrows because he said there is no such people as Palestinians and his ambassador designate to Israel says the Lord Almighty gave the land of Israel to the Israeli people and there is nothing like West Bank of the River Jordan but Samaria. Now these are the people who will be trying to conduct United States’ diplomacy in the Middle East, the  gun powder tinder box  of the world where the three monotheistic religions of Judaism,  Christianity and Islam are dangerously existing in close proximity and therefore needing expert hand to prevent ever ready explosion.

    Trump himself on the day people are remembering the liberation by Soviet troops in 1945 of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where over a million Jews were incarcerated and incinerated, carelessly said Gaza Strip, home to over two million Palestinians may need to be cleared of the Palestinians. While he was pandering to Jewish conservative politicians including Netanyahu who may want to annex the West Bank and Gaza, his policy super czar, Elon Musk was attending the Alternative for Germany (Alernatif Fur Deutschland) party regardless of it being branded a neo-Nazi party and even giving a NAZI salute and asking Germans not to feel guilty about the sins of their ancestors.

    The contradictions surrounding Trump gives one a lot of worry and many right thinking Americans are beginning to worry. One of such people is the Independent Senator from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders who rightly claims that the American government has been captured by oligarchs just like that of Russia and that Elon Musk alone virtually outspent the Democratic Party and used the influence of money to buy the presidency in which he now is going to play a prominent part in which he may even eclipse old man Donald Trump!

    Donald Trump’s policies when they finally materialize may disrupt the system as he himself has said he wants to do. He will upset many leaders of countries in the world beginning from the Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty  Organization which has been asked to spend five percent of their budgets on defence when many of them are still struggling to meet the two or three percent which was previously the benchmark.

    Certainly most of the European countries like Germany and France would not be able to meet this target on ideological grounds and in peace time. Is Trump going to exit NATO as he has done to other international organizations? Is he also going to militarily annex Greenland from Denmark a fellow NATO ally? Is he going to attack Panama in order to seize the Panama Canal?

    I was in Canada last summer and the province of Ontario patriotically shows visitors how they fought the British and even their Southern neighbours the USA in the 19th century and if push comes to shove they probably will fight again. Trump should not take Canadians for granted because they are justifiably proud of their country. Yes, Canada benefits from trade with the USA but so does the USA benefit from trade with Canada. The same can be said for Mexico that Trump with little sense of history has been threatening and insulting.  It is not necessary to make enemies of the amigos!

    The same goes for the Chinese and the members of the EU that the American president has been threatening with high tariffs. No country is an island. We live in a symbiotic world and the world is interdependent. It is true that the USA is the linchpin of the world economy but China is the workshop of the world making goods from consumer to industrial and sophisticated goods like chips without which the USA Silicon Valley will not thrive. Yes it is true Chinese prosperity has been largely due to her access to American market but this has been on bilateral basis and Chinese interests hold trillions of American bonds. The point I am making is that the economy of the two superpowers have become intertwined that sudden separation will not be without serious consequences.

    The so-called third world including us in Africa, the proverbial wretched of the earth, are not totally useless in this struggle for survival.  Some of our countries out of desperation for fairness in an unkind world have joined the BRICS group apparently as a threat to dollar imperialism. We have got also the market as small as it may be; we also have the natural resources, forests and land. Mr Trump had better be careful not to burn down the bridge and destroy the tremendous goodwill which previous American administrations had built over the years.

  • Blessed are the peacemakers

    Blessed are the peacemakers

    Lawyer Dele Farotimi virtually saw hell towards the end of 2024. He brought whatever he went through upon himself anyway. His book: Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System was at the root of his problem. He made weighty allegations in the book which became hot cake after he was whisked away from his Lagos home to Ado Ekiti by the police.

    Farotimi and his supporters claimed that he was abducted and not arrested. “People are not arrested that way; they are arrested upon being showed a valid warrant stating reasons for such an action or their offences”, they claimed. For all the police cared, that was academic. They have arrested and taken Farotimi to the Ekiti State capital and were not interested in any debate whatsoever. Next stop was the court where Farotimi was arraigned some days later.

    Farotimi’s arrest followed the complaint of renowned lawyer and educationist, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN). Babalola claimed that Farotimi defamed him in the aforementioned book. He was not suing his “learned” junior for libel, but wanted him tried for criminal defamation. Only a few knew that criminal defamation is still part of our laws. People thought that with the promotion of free speech, criminalising defamation was no longer necessary.

    Why make defamation a crime when the aggrieved can file a civil suit for libel and seek millions, even billions, in naira for damages – that is if he has an unimpeachable integrity, which can stand the test of trial, if put to the strictest proof. There may be no need for all of that now, following the peace initiative of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and some other leading monarchs in Yorubaland.

    The traditional rulers were at Babalola’s expansive Ado-Ekiti home on Sunday to plead with him to forgive his son, Dele. “As a father, you have tough sons”, Ooni told Babalola. “Dele Farotimi is your tough son”. It was a disarming statement and it had profound effect on the accomplished lawyer. Besides, the status of Ooni was also an issue to consider. As the foremost traditional ruler in Yorubaland, Ooni is the father of the race.

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    Babalola alluded to this fact when he accepted the monarchs’ plea to let go. Babalola for those who know him does not play with his honour. To him, integrity is everything. He cherishes his name and he is ever ready to fight anyone who drags it in the mud the way Farotimi did in the book. The author made sweeping allegations about corruption in the judiciary and Babalola’s purported role in it.

    As a lawyer, he knows that such statements can only be made based on facts. The legal maxim is: “he who alleges must prove”. Allegations made without proof cannot stand anywhere. What were Dele Farotimi’s facts before arriving at his conclusions of corruption in the judiciary and against those he mentioned in his self-published book which many publishers ran away from because of those wild allegations?

    He based some allegations on the correction of the error made by the Supreme Court in its judgment on the number of acres of land in the Ojomu case. Others, he said, were “in the public domain”. Things shall always be in the public domain. There can never be a time that matters shall not be in the public domain. It is the meaning that many people, especially the younger generation (Gen-Z), have given to it that makes it look as if anything that is in public domain is a fact. It is not.

    In the public domain can only be correct and factual as long as the issue, individual or institution being spoken about is real. For instance, it is a fact that books by eminent authors and scholars like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, John Pepper-Clark, Charles Dickens, Cyprian Ekwensi, Kole Omotosho, Thomas Hardy, and James Hardly Chase are in the public domain. It will also be correct to say that some decisions of the Supreme Court are in the public domain. This is so because we can lay hands on these books and  judgements when we go in search of them.

    But how can you tag an individual or institution as corrupt or a thief and when asked for proof, you say it is in public domain? What is the sense in this response? Can you call the public domain as your witness if you are sued for defamation? Farotimi should know better than those of us who are laymen in law that ‘public domain’ cannot avail you as defence in a libel suit. Public domain is nebulous, vague and invincible. How can you then rely on such an inanimate object as your defence for maligning a person?

    It is the sign of the age that we live in. The age of laziness, recklessness and of anything goes. People hear damaging things about others and without verifying, post them in social media, warts and all. When called upon for proof, they say it is “in public domain”. Public domain has become the euphemism for outlandish,  unsubstantiated and destructive allegations made popular by the Obi-dient crowd during the 2023 presidential election.

    As a nation, we have yet to recover from its hangover. It has remained to haunt us some two years after the election. The crowd may yet do the same thing during the 2027 election. With his acceptance of the monarchs’ plea to forgive Farotimi, Babalola now has a huge role to play to call the Obi-dients to order before the 2027 election, that is if he would still be for Obi then.

    He has displayed a huge heart by forgiving Farotimi despite rejecting earlier pleas by Obi himself, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Reverend Matthew Kukah and several others to do so. Now, the ball is in Farotimi’s court. Will he reciprocate Babalola’s gesture? Or will he, as he did in the Peter Obi case, say he did not send anybody on such a peace mission? He has a chance to prove that he acted without malice, and also disclaim the spurious allegations in his book.

  • Ganduje and constitution of new boards

    Ganduje and constitution of new boards

    Government periodic appointments into boards of parastatals and other federal organisations to manage the affairs of over 500 small governments needed to implement its policies is critical to the survival of the democratization process.  Unfortunately this process has in recent years become a veritable source political party patronage often secured through intense politicking and lobbying by party members.

    When Buhari’s list – with 209 board chairmen and 1,258 board members – came in December 2019 after over two years of haggling and indecision, he admitted not knowing over half of those on the list including a number of names of individuals long declared dead.

    Last week, following almost two years of delay as a result of bargaining and horse trading by politicians, President Tinubu, according to Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, last Monday approved the appointment of board chairpersons for 42 federal organisations out of over 500 small governments the president needs to faithfully implement his party manifesto. We were also told the president directed the board chairpersons not to interfere with the management of the organisations, emphasising that their positions are non-executive.

    Much as we have no reason to doubt the capacity and the integrity of most of those currently appointed by President Tinubu, what the nation has often experienced after government’s four year periodic ritual especially since 1999, has been an assemblage of deadwood and failed politicians who just wanted to continue to be relevant by continuous’ sucking of government and its resources.

    The president appeared determined to change the narrative this time around. Without prejudice to his party’s periodic ritual of politicking and lobbying, he seemed to have deliberately gone out of his way for those he believes could add value to his administration.

    For instance Professor Bolaji Akinyemi is our nation’s ‘Sun’. A resourceful intellectual, an outstanding diplomat who played a key role as our external affairs minister to end Chad, Libyan and Mali, Burkina Faso wars, Professor Akinyemi was the brain behind the highly successful Technical Aids Corps Scheme, the concept of the Concert of Medium Powers to mediate within the international system. He was a member of the Uwais panel and deputy chairman of Jonathan’s constitutional conference. He was on the side of Nigeria during the NADECO confrontation with Sani Abacha when the likes of Tom Ikimi and Babagana Kingibe sold their conscience by trading Nigeria for a pot of porridge. To bring him on board, the president had to present Akinyemi as Lagos State candidate as against his Osun State where warring politicians like Rauf  Aregbesola and Gboyega Oyetola  had destroyed the APC over their ego battle for its soul before trading it for PDP, a fact confirmed by Governor Adeleke. 

    Of course, the president’s deliberate efforts did not preclude the emergence on the list of some other self-proclaiming patriots including the likes of Abdullahi Ganduje.  In fact it will not be out place to assume that Ganduje, a man with history of endless political wars, mischiefs and intrigues and for whom there is never a dull moment, nominated himself as chairman of the Governing Board of Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). This becomes a force majeure when it reached the president’s table. In any case, when it comes to party patronage, the buck stops at the desk of the national Chairman of APC.

    The only charitable conclusion is that Ganduje outwitted the president.

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    After all, Ganduje from 1984-1994 occupied various positions within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja. In 1994 he was Kano State Commissioner for Works. From there he in 2007 moved on to become the Executive Secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission in Ndjamena. Although a full time job, workaholic Ganduje could not resist combining the job with that of the chairmanship of the Governing Council of Federal Polytechnic Ado Ekiti. A workhorse, he was so dedicated that for his board meetings in Ado-Ekiti, he would first fly from Ndjamena to Kano and from Kano to Abuja from where the vehicle sent from Ado-Ekiti would ferry him down to Ado Ekiti for a board meeting which may not take off until 7pm.

    At close to 77, Ganduje, the national chairman of APC and the recently appointed chairman of the Governing Council of FAAN, has pledged to continue his selfless service to the nation.

    I wish to align myself with Ganduje. With his past record of service to the nation, I have no reason to doubt his competence and ability to do more than one thing at a time. And contrary to his envious detractors from his native Kano, I cannot see any contradiction between presiding over the affairs of the FAAN and meeting the demands of his office as chairman of APC which involve strategies for recruitment of party membership, retaining those so recruitment  and periodic fundraising and internal party governance. For even his political foes, the outstanding performance of his party in Edo and Ondo in recent times was evidence enough Ganduje was on top of his games.

    But for those who hate Ganduje with a passion, I think it is the case of a prophet without honour in his own country. His detractors seem to come more from his own Kano State, where he and his good friend Rabiu Kwankwaso have been consumed by politics of ‘deposition and imposition’ of Emirs, demolition and reallocation of supporters’ physical properties in Kano in the last eight years. Since the duo did not tell us the source of their bitterness and endless war, outsiders think it must have been over the control over Kano resources, a common weakness among our greedy and selfish political elite. Many also consider Ganduje and his warring rivals’ political failures for their inability to exploit their past relationship in the age of innocence before their exposure to great wealth to liberate the people of Kano from pangs of sorrow and pains of hunger

    There was recently a trending picture of Ganduje and Kwankwaso moving around on a Vespa motorcycle on the streets on Kano in the early seventies; many thought that was a relationship both could have exploited to change the fortune of Kano.

    Lagos State Security Trust Fund which changed the face and character of Lagos was first launched in 2007.  Many outside Kano believe that if beyond primitive accumulation, the duo came together to exploit their past friendship to launch Kano Almajiri fund, such could have in three years cleaned up Kano.

    Meanwhile, all hail Abdullahi Ganduje, the nemesis of political foes, un-fearing Emirs and political benefactors who, at close to 77 has continued to ride against the tide.

  • The Sunny side of Ajose: A tribute

    The Sunny side of Ajose: A tribute

    Some ballads bloom where they are birthed but only a handful thrive on the scenic coast of Badagry where Sunny Ajose spent part of his childhood. His narrative purrs like a ballad of the coastline; the boy who would grow up to become the most accomplished administrator of Lagos State public service was born on a speckled coast shadowed by the southern sun.

    His family house stood rebelliously against nature’s elements; bordered by a restive beach, the steep rake of its tiled roof held courageously against the whipping of the sun and torrential rain. Watching the roof take a beating from the sun and the rain furnished his first imagery of perseverance against life’s punishing elements.

    Years later, the lesson was reprised in his loss of a parent. That was his first brush with misery as a young adult. Ajose came to grips with the sad unpredictability of life: one minute you are busy, living, and the next, you are gone. That was a learning curve. Going forward, he rarely expected life to be magical. Unlike the frantic fantasist, he didn’t live for the illusionist’s promise that a garment shredded to bits may be mended without a seam, or that carnations consumed by fire may be tended to bloom atop the cinders.

    Born February 10, 1946, his untimely demise on Thursday, January 16, 2025, served as a sorrowful punctuation in the annals of the Lagos State public service. Ultimately because his was a life plain-woven with purpose, one that embodied service, integrity, and unfaltering commitment to the ideals of humane governance.

    To have known Hon. Dr. Akinsanya Sunny Ajose (OON) was to have walked through the passageway of wisdom; to have conversed with a man whose breadth of experience spanned decades of institutional reform and dedication to statecraft.

    In 2023, during one of our numerous conversations, he justified his deep yearning to have his biography written—a testament to his legacy. His words were laced with a sense of urgency, not out of vanity but duty. He wanted younger generations of Lagos civil servants to drink from the wellspring of his wisdom, to understand that public service, when done right, is a sacred trust.

    It was a sentiment reinforced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who constantly urged him to document his experiences for posterity. Tinubu, an architect of modern Lagos, understood that Ajose’s insights were invaluable blueprints for the future of governance in the state. And so, we embarked on this literary pilgrimage together—a journey that has now, painfully, outlived its subject.

    Spending time with Pa Ajose was akin to stepping into a grand, unfolding maw of Lagos’s evolution. His words were never hurried; they were measured, deliberate, and laced with depth. He did not simply recount history, he animated it. Every recollection, every anecdote, was a lesson in resilience and public morality.

    His ascension in the Lagos State Civil Service was not without its challenges. Appointed Head of Service in 2004 under Governor Tinubu’s administration, he inherited a civil service marred by fiscal constraints, infrastructural decay, and an entrenched culture of bureaucratic lethargy. Lagos was a colossus in motion, yet weighed down by inefficiencies that threatened its future.

    The Lagos he spoke of was one grappling with a revenue intake of N600 million, a figure paltry in contrast to the metropolis’s ever-expanding needs. Slums sprawled across the cityscape, infrastructure was collapsing under the weight of neglect, and the civil service, the engine of governance, was in dire need of recalibration. Ajose did not flinch. He understood that reforming an institution as vast as Lagos’s civil service required both the scalpel and the sledgehammer—subtlety in some places, forceful restructuring in others. His leadership was marked by a meticulous dismantling of corrupt enclaves within the service. He spoke passionately of the motor vehicle registration department, a cesspool of fraud, which he determinedly sought to sanitize despite intense political pressure.

    His commitment to due process wasn’t an abstract ideal, it was his guiding creed. Public service, he often said, was not a transactional endeavour but a transformational one. He preached selflessness, of the need to strip governance of selfish ambition and replace it with altruistic zeal. And Pa Ajose lived his theories. He was not merely a bureaucrat; he was a servant-leader, one who saw beyond the fleeting allure of power and embraced the enduring call of duty.

    What struck me most during our sessions was the confluence of his brilliance and his humanity. Ajose was a man of many parts. He was a technocrat who understood the pulse of the people; an administrator who never lost sight of the human stories behind policy decisions. His interactions with junior colleagues, family, and political contemporaries bore the hallmark of a man who carried power with humility. He was a bridge between generations, a statesman whose counsel was sought after because it was rooted in sapience, not self-interest.

    The lessons he imparted were clear: humility, passion, empathy, integrity, hope, and humaneness. These were not mere virtues to him; they were the scaffolding upon which he built his life. To Ajose, governance was an art, one that required a delicate balance of firmness and compassion. He was not merely interested in policies; he was invested in people. He understood that governance, at its core, was about elevating the human condition.

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    His life’s work was to etch this philosophy into the soul of a flourishing civil service. Eventually, our numerous conversations and deep dives into his experiences, culminated in a biography: The Sunny Side of Ajose – Triumphs and Legacies of Hon. Dr. Akinsanya Sunny Ajose (OON). A title befitting a man whose life radiated warmth, wisdom, and inspiring devotion. It was meant to be unveiled on his 79th birthday, February 10, 2025. But the Almighty God, the Best of Planners, had a different plan. Though he did not live to witness its unveiling, the book remains a luminous guide, a parting gift to the civil servants of Lagos State, a lighthouse that will illuminate their paths long after Pa Ajose had taken his final bow.

    Beyond his administrative acumen, Ajose was also a towering figure in Lagos politics. A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and a member of the Governance Advisory Council (GAC), he was the apex leader of the Badagry division. His political sagacity, tempered by years of public service, made him a unifying force within the Lagos APC. His dedication to the development of Badagry and Lagos at large earned him the respect of stakeholders across the state and beyond.

    As we bid him farewell, my heart goes out to his venerable widow, Madam Arin Ajose, a woman of equivalent grace and fortitude. Theirs was a partnership marked by mutual respect and unswerving support, a bond that reflected the very essence and character of their wedlock. Her loss is profound, but so too is her legacy as the wife of a man whose impact will echo through generations.

    Pa Ajose was no ordinary man; he was an institution. His life was a masterclass in leadership, a chronicle of service, and a reminder that the highest calling is not power, but purpose. His departure leaves a void, but his legacy fills his wake. And so, we mourn, but we also celebrate. For in the annals of Lagos State, in the ethos of its civil service, and the pages of literature, Ajose lives on.