The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Federal bailout of insolvent states

    Federal bailout of insolvent states

    Last week, President Muhammadu Buhari handed the insolvent state governments a financial bailout of N713.7b. The financial package was reported as consisting of accruals from the LNG (N413.7b), a special CBN intervention fund of between N250b andN300b, and the rescheduling with federal assistance of the states’ outstanding bank loans.

    In addition, the sum of $1.7b from the ECA was shared among the three tiers of government. But it was stated that this was not a part of the bailout package offered the insolvent states by the Federal Government. Some 24 or more state governments owing their workers salary arrears of seven months or more will share this federal largesse. This generous financial bailout is almost unprecedented in the annals of public finance in Nigeria. It should be regarded as exceptional. It would be wrong of the states to draw the conclusion from this bailout that such measures can be repeated in future. Even if this was possible, it negates the constitutional principle of federalism in which all states, including the federal, are coordinates. It reinforces the existing tendency of the states becoming increasingly dependent financially on the centre. This is bad for federalism.

    The financial relief measures provided the insolvent states with an immediate lifeline and temporary relief. They were widely welcomed in informed financial circles all over the country as necessary and timely. The finances of the insolvent states had collapsed once the oil revenue started falling. Even the few relatively solvent states stood in danger of being dragged down by the insolvent states. The package will immediately help the insolvent states to meet their wage and other financial obligations to their workers. The finances of the Federal Government too were so bad that it too needed a bailout. Before leaving office in May, the previous PDP Federal Government had borrowed over N400 billion from the CBN to meet its immediate financial obligations to its workers. This is half of what it needs to borrow from the CBN in this fiscal year. In some cases federal workers and pensioners had not been paid for upwards of four months, leading President Buhari to complain bitterly that his new government met an empty treasury. Certainly, federal finances were just as bad as those of the insolvent state governments. Many vital federal projects have had to be put on hold as a result of the poor state of federal finances.

    Now public finances in Nigeria have generally not been handled with the transparency, prudence and diligence that are needed to ensure financial stability in the country. At all levels, governments have spent public funds recklessly on unproductive ventures. All governments like to spend money, including unearned income. This is what accounts for Nigeria’s woeful record of financial recklessness and corruption. Its record of budget deficits is uninspiring. It is estimated that the debt stock of the state governments is now over N600 billion, while that of the Federal Government is in the trillions of naira. All these domestic as well as external debts, now increasing steadily, will have to be paid off someday.

    Governments may need to borrow occasionally to executive projects that contribute to economic growth. But this is not the case at all in Nigeria. Very often the public sector borrows money for projects that it does not really intend to implement, or that contribute little or nothing to economic growth in the country. For instance, many of the insolvent states are building local air ports, hotels, stadia, and funding other similarly unproductive projects, such as the Tinapa tourist resort that are inherently wasteful. But the banks are only too willing to lend money to the financially imprudent states because they know that, no matter what happens, they will get their money back through federal guarantees and deductions at revenue source. They prefer lending to the state governments to lending to the private sector which is better placed to use borrowed funds more judiciously and create more jobs. Quite often, public sector borrowing crowds out the private sector from access to vital bank loans.

    What is to be done to restore Nigerian public finances to stability? The solution is clear and has been well articulated for years by leading financial experts. First, budgetary deficits have to be drastically reduced to contain inflationary pressures and more public borrowing. The deficits can easily be reduced if identified leakages in revenue collection are plugged. What has been going on in the NNPC where a lot of revenues are not remitted to the Federal Government is simply scandalous and should be brought to an end. In fact, Nigeria will lose nothing financially by scrapping the NNPC totally. It has become a financial drain pipe that the country can no longer afford. Secondly, and in this context, it is time to end the so-called oil subsidy which has become the source of financial scam in the country. It is the oil importers and their agents in the NNPC who benefit from the subsidy, not the poor. The public is tired of the long queues at petrol stations for fuel. Where it is available it is being sold for over N150 per litre. So, where is the subsidy? We should no longer put up with the supply blackmail by the oil importers. Savings from the withdrawal of the oil subsidy can be better utilised by building more oil refineries. Thirdly, all the governments of the federation have to increase their internally generated revenue as Lagos State has succeeded in doing over the years. It is estimated that it generates internally about 70 per cent of its annual budget. Where it has borrowed, it has the capacity to repay the loan without much strain. Fourthly, the Federal Government should be more cautious in offering borrowing states bank guarantees. Such federal guarantees should only be extended to states that have a credible record of financial management, not those who continue to borrow recklessly.

    In all these cases of financial profligacy, it is the people, particularly the poor, who suffer the consequences of this financial recklessness. Salaries are unpaid, families and children suffer and projects that are of direct benefit to the public in the health and education sectors are simply put on hold, as is the case now. Just as there is no free lunch, there are no free funds. All borrowed money has to be paid soon or later. And the burden of repayment is always on the poor. The poor people of Greece are now facing the excessive borrowing of their governments in the past. They now have to bite the financial bullet. Those who took the decision to borrow and spend such borrowed money recklessly hardly ever suffer any consequences, as they would have stashed enough money away to ensure their future comfort and that of their family. Already, several governors are being interrogated and prosecuted by the EFFC for the vast sums of money they have stashed away. It is still possible for them to be let off the hook for lack of diligent prosecution by the EFCC. But who will bailout the poor from this huge financial burden when it is pay back time?

  • Nigeria will be finished

    We belabour the ‘Nigerian dream.’ We abuse the idea that life will get better, that progress is assured if we keep faith, obey the rules and work hard, that prosperity is guaranteed if we continue to tread the slow, steady path to progress and a prosperous future. And in pursuit of these lofty ideals, we pervert the steady, measured, impartial course of the universe; hacking pliant paths to our dreams, from the crossroads where gluttony fosters depravity.

    Eventually, we awaken to a cold, bitter truth: We are being sacrificed. The Nigerian dream we are sold isn’t worth our sacrifice. And the individual dreams we pursue, aren’t worth a smidgen of what we make them out to be. By the time we all struggle to achieve our dreams; Nigeria will be finished. Enter Boko Haram and the resurgent dreams of Biafra.Given that each tribe may finally achieve its dreams of nationhood via secession, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw to mention a few may establish their new nations.

    When we do, the swollen belly of our idiocy and pride shall become clearly visible to us. When it does, it shall suddenly dawn on us that, all along, we had been blindly acting to a script prepared by career predators from Western nations of Europe, America and our ruling class.

    The truth shall become clearer to us in intensity and impact and we shall hopelessly realize that we are being sacrificed. We will all be sacrificed; some of us much quicker than others. As it is now, so shall it be in our new nations, the Biafran youth, Ijaw youth, Oodua youth and Arewa youth to mention a few, shall become disposable indices in the scheme of things.

    But until then, we will continue to have today and squander it on the altar of racism and greed. Today, it’s impossible to see any offspring of our ruling class engage or become embroiled in the familiar tragedies that mar our lives. It’s always the children from the breadlines, struggling middle class and backwaters that are involved. We are the youth divide traditionally expected and required to function and serve as unquestioning muscles and ordinary cannon fodder in the ruling class’ blueprint of pillage and destruction.

    The decline of Nigeria is a story of gross injustices by the ruling class to the citizenry. But that is only an aspect of it, the greatest injustice is that meted out by individual citizen to self – the youth particularly. And this predominant malaise often plays out in our corruptibility and disinclination to foster a more humane leadership and society.

    Today, we suffer declining standards of living, stagnant and falling wages that are hardly paid at due time; we suffer curtailment and absolute denial of our basic wages, long-term unemployment, slave labour, escalating crime wave, among other ills.

    Together, we perpetuate gruesome realities of the weakest being crushed decisively and maniacally by the affluent and strong. Together, we perpetuate a story of unbridled sectarian, ethnic and corporate power that has taken our government hostage, overseen the dismantling of our cultural heritage, societal and entrepreneurial values.

    But if the ruling class, in connivance with predatory nations and institutions from the so-called ‘first world’ is responsible for plundering our natural resources and bankrupting the nation, we, the youth, are responsible for even worse atrocities.

    We serve as the tools by which the ruling class and its cohorts overseas plunder and destroy our nation. The virus of political corruption, the perverted belief that only political and material profit matters, has spread to distort our thoughts and understanding of right and wrong. Today, it manifests in endemic proportions plaguing our communities with religious and political terrorism, economic and cyber-terrorism to mention a few.

    Today, the Nigerian society dies a gruesome death basically because we lay to waste, our youths and we, the latter, by our suicidal actions and thoughts, submit ourselves as hopeless prey to the Nigerian ruling class and their cohorts overseas.

    Everyday encounters with gluttonous gangs of struggling youth reveals among other things, that many of us are the same social products as our peer from the aristocratic divide. Conditioned by life’s harshest vicissitudes to survive at all cost, we lay in wait, striving and bidding our time until we are ably positioned and strong enough to serve or rob the rich whose life we earnestly covet and decry.

    A visit to any night club, party, religious organization or office still attests to this fact. Ambitious and upwardly mobile youth from the breadlines or struggling working class families engage in a variety of excesses to the applause of mates yearning to be in their shoes. Either as advance fee fraudsters, bankers, journalists, accountants, secretaries, factory hands or ordinary clerks, youths from the breadlines daily engages in a bitter, desperate struggle to chance on the shortest possible cut to sudden and stupendous wealth.

    We seem beset by a greater and unexplainable fear beyond the fear of poverty amongst other harsh realities of their lives. Fear plays a greater part than hope: we are infinitely buoyed and obsessed with thoughts of the money that we could make or the possessions that might be taken from us or elude us, than of the joy and value that we might add to our own lives and to the future of our fatherland.

    Most of us, like our more privileged peer crave the best of everything without actually sweating for it. And when we do sweat for it, our industry is tainted by vigorous dashes of impatience and duplicity. In our work, we are haunted by jealousy of competitors, and a fleeting interest in the actual work that has to be done. We spend greater time and passion defending unjust privileges that we are desperate to enjoy.

    Such appalling youth constitute a greater segment of the human element expected to salvage Nigeria from eternal ruin and bloodbath. Consequently, our society becomes more rudderless and unstable and vulnerable, on our watch. Now that Nigeria as our fathers, ‘the wasted generation’ made it, and we the youth, aggravate it, have begun to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and instead choose to exploit the infinite possibilities in our fragility and predicted collapse.

    It’s about time the Nigerian youth started postponing immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices spurred by conviction that the future can be better than the past. Beyond the politics and inanities of our existing ruling class and political parties, we face far more difficult questions at our moment in history: How do we reconcile reality with promises that have been made to us? How do we make the best of our circumstances at the backdrop of indefensible leadership failure and disillusionment of the citizenry?  How do we evolve and nurture to fruition, a new vision to help us deal with our gruesome realities, even as we chart a promising story of the future? How do we divorce ourselves from the pains and disappointments of the past – particularly those that many of amongst us had no stake in but yet internalize and perpetuate unexplainable miseries thereby?

    How do we redefine “Peace, Unity and Progress” with our lust for “Life, Liberty and Happiness?”  How do we become more human than we are now?

  • Terrorism: A historical perspective – 5

    The Boko Haram at its inception was more of a religious movement founded by Muhammad Yusuf apparently of Kanuri extraction and with some level of western education. Because of the grinding poverty and unemployment of the youth, he attracted some followership to himself and it seems in the competition for power by politicians his services were sought but after electoral victory, he and his movement were discarded and security forces were unleashed on him before he was killed in police custody. His death was a signal for widespread revolt which is now led by certain Abubakar Sekau who may be in the pay of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and with possible link with the Somali Al-Shabab.

    What is significant now is the apparent foreign involvement in what is going on. Compared with the Islamic revolutions of the Western and Eastern Sudan, Boko Haram and Maitasine movement can hardly be said to be Islamic movements. Boko Haram seems now to be rooted in local grievances against constituted authority and its followership is the army of the unemployed and uneducated and those with smattering knowledge of the Holy Quran and with the possible sponsorship of aggrieved politicians and the enemies of Nigeria both inside and outside the country.

    What is common to all these ‘Sudanese’ Islamic movements is their roots in economic grievances and political oppression by the rulers. They seem to begin during the dry season when food and water are in short supply and when the hard times prevailing lead people to expect the coming of the Mahdi sent divinely to bring liberation and succour to the oppressed. Boko Haram with its murderous campaign of killing Muslim and non-Muslim men and women including children can hardly qualify as an Islamic movement.

    Finally, in the long history of Kanem Borno dating back around 800AD when Sayf Bin Dhi Yazan founded the Sawfawa dynasty, the area has witnessed political eruptions necessitating transfer of its capitals from Njimi during the 12th century and to N’gazar Gamu in the 15th century. Borno also witnessed the invasion of the kingdom by the Fulani jihadists which precipitated a change of dynasty from the Sayfawa to that of Muhammad el-Kanemi in 1810. Borno again was invaded by an Arab conquistador named Rabih Fadl Allah who occupied the place between 1894 and 1897 before he was driven out by the French and the British imperialists in the area.

    Chad itself had never from colonial times till now been a stable country and has never been under civil administration. The French referred to it as territoire militaire du Chad and it has continued to be governed by soldiers after independence from France with consequent instability necessitating Nigeria’s military intervention in the country in the 1980s. In other words, what is happening now in the area is history of political instability repeating itself.

    The joint military operation by Niger, Cameroons, Chad and Nigeria whose territories are now threatened by the terrorist regime of Boko Haram has become a necessity because Nigeria alone can no longer protect its borders. In 1983, General Muhammadu Buhari as GOC (General Officer Commanding) of the Third Armoured Division of the Nigerian army had to send the 23rd armoured brigade under Colonel Joshua Dogonyaro to drive away Chadian rebels invading Baga, a city that witnessed the killing of 2000 of its citizens by Boko Haram terrorists recently.

    It is hoped that the 7500 African troops presumably coming from the neighbouring states to Nigeria would be able to drive out the Boko Haram and destroy all their fortifications. It is unbelievable that a movement that started from local grievances has now snowballed into a major threat to Nigeria’s sovereignty. The lesson in all these is the appreciation of the nexus between domestic and foreign policies and the need for military preparedness knowing that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

    On the whole, terrorism globally cannot be easily wiped out. This is because the root of it is deeply rooted in the inequality and uneven development in the world. Furthermore the relationship of the under developed world with the West has been like the partnership between the horse and its rider for centuries and the effect cannot be easily wiped out. Furthermore religion and faith are not subject to rational thinking and since religious differences exist they will continue to be exploited by unscrupulous leaders to advance whatever causes they espouse.

    Racism is also an ingrained problem and it is sometimes the basis of the arrogance of one race against the others. Racially inspired violence and acts of terrorism has found the black man most of the time at the receiving end. Terrorism will continue to be a problem, until through education and determined political action the world decides to attempt to remove the root of the problem.

    Since terrorism cannot be stamped out, it is obvious that what is needed is containment. This is because the deep seated prejudice of one group against the other cannot be legislated out of existence. In any case there is no world government with effective sanctions to call to order any group, nation and non- state actors that may go out of line with what is globally acceptable. One can only hope that the futility of terrorism will eventually dawn on its advocates and with time terrorism may go out of fashion.

    Whatever the case may be, force is not the most efficacious way to put an end to terrorism because a lone wolf terrorist who is determined to die and take others with him or her is beyond the watch of whatever military force that may be marshalled against him or her. At the end of the day liberal education, global commitment to fairness, poverty eradication, racial equality and religious and cultural tolerance and accommodation seem to be the way out.

    • Concluded.

  • Worthy of his hire

    WORKERS in the country are an endangered specie. They work themselves to the bones only for a few people to reap from their sweat. They work like elephants but eat like ants. The lot of the worker is nothing to write home about. Virtually all employers treat workers with disdain. They pay them peanuts and in most cases, this pay is delayed. Where it is not delayed, the workers are owed for months. At times, the salary arrears may be in years.

    Though they work for the good of their organisations, workers do not know good times. Things are always tough for them. They anxiously look forward to  the end of the month, but when it comes, there is nothing to take home. The take home pay, which cannot take them home, is simply not there for their collection, yet it is month end. Workers are  the butt of jokes at home and in many other circles. People look at them and take pity on them –  a hardworking man, which has been rendered redundant by the system.

    The system is not helping matters; it is also guilty of the offence that it should do something about. In the past, it was unheard of for government to owe workers. This was why many scrambled for job in the civil service. They knew that once they are employed, their future is guaranteed. No matter what, they are assured of their salary and promptly too. And they had job security. Again, chances of rising to the top were also there. We have heard of messengers rising to the directorate cadre and even becoming permanent secretary after obtaining the requisite qualification. That was the beauty then of working in the civil service.

    Painfully, this beauty has been replaced with ashes. Today, some workers are cursing the day they joined the civil service. They are wondering whether it is the same service they joined years ago where they were paid promptly and had all the facilities to discharge their duty. In their subconscious minds, they compare what things were then with what they are now. They yearn for the good old days; but will the old order return? The emerging new order of owing workers’ salary should not be encouraged at all because of its inherent dangers.

    As the citadel of bureaucracy, the civil service should be employer of example. It should be the compass for other employers to find their way. But if it owes salary as is the case in some states today, it will have no moral justification to talk if those in the private and other sectors do not pay their workers as when due. Or maltreat their workers as some Chinese, Lebanese and Indian firms do. These employers can so behave because those who should call them to order are no better. Can a governor who has failed in his obligations to civil servants summon an Indian or Chinese or a Lebanese firm’s chief executive for maltreating his Nigerian worker? The answer is no.

    These Indian, Lebanese and Chinese firms are killing our compatriots in installment and the government does not give a care in the world. The workers are mostly categorised as casual – that is they are not permanent staff with rights and privileges. They are only entitled to their meagre salary. The salary cannot meet their own personal expenses not to talk of taking care of family needs. To keep these workers permanently under, these firms put some Nigerians in top positions to do the dirty job of defending the indefensible for them. Whenever things go wrong as they often do in these companies, these Nigerian executives are the ones to clear the mess.

    They do the job without shame. Where the company is at fault, they blame it on the workers, describing them as a bunch of illiterates who ran into problem because they could not interpret simple instructions. To them, their companies are always right even when they are wrong. So, when a worker is electrocuted, he is at fault; when a machine severs his limb, he is to blame; when a heavy object falls on his head and he dies, he is careless and when there is a fire and he suffers first degree burns, he was not vigilant enough. This is the sad story of the worker, who toils, but gets no just reward. He toils for his bosses to be better off.

    Can we blame these foreigners for taking us for granted in our own country, where they are making a killing? But all this wealth does not reflect in their workers’ lives. What is galling is that they dare not do the things they do here in their home countries. They fear the laws of their countries and their leaders. Over there, workers are treated as kings. So, why can’t they replicate that here? They will only start doing that if our leaders change their way by treating workers with respect. You respect a worker when you pay his salary promptly; you respect a worker when you provide a conducive working environment for him. A worker should not only be good enough to bake the cake, he should also be good enough to eat in the cake.

    Thank God that President Muhammadu Buhari has come to the aid of states owing salaries with a N713 million bailout. This portrays him as a caring father. The president does not want the workers, who are his children to suffer through no fault of theirs. The money has come as a respite for the states. We only hope that they will use it strictly for paying workers’ salaries. As the labour movement said on Tuesday ‘’…Mr President should please prevail on the governors to ensure that when they get the money they should not blow it on other things’’.

    To do that will show the governors for who they truly are – callous, inhuman and without feeling for the suffering of others. And they should start thinking of how to generate funds to pay their workers without fail because it is not every time they are in crisis that they will run to the president for a bailout.

  • Nigeria crisis of leadership

    Pastor Sam Adeyemi, a leadership consultant reminded our political leaders without character and their warring colleagues during a Channels Television programme last week that leadership ‘is service, sacrifice and compassion for the people’. Some five decades earlier, Obafemi Awolowo posited that ‘the aim of a leader should be the welfare i.e. the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the people whom he leads.’  But Awo, known for calling the spade by its proper name, also told his desperate colleagues then jostling for power some home truth. ‘Given a choice between the white man, the traditional rulers and the educated elite’, he said, ‘the average Nigerian would choose the white man first because with him he was sure of fairness and justice’. The people’s angst against the traditional rulers, he continued, followed their acquisition of new powers without the attendant checks and balances that existed in the pre-colonial era. As for the new educated elite, the people found it difficult to trust them because of their greed and dishonesty. Incidentally, not even the departing British had faith in the ability our political elite to hold the nation together. Speaking before foreign policy association in New York City on January 19, 1945, Oliver Stanley reminded them that “it is the British presence alone which prevents a disastrous disintegration and British withdrawal today would mean for millions a descent from nascent nationhood into the turmoil of warring sects”.

    That turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. In 1962, less than two years after their departure, the northern and eastern political class decided to impose a leader on the West. They threw the West into a political turmoil with its attendant violence, deaths and loss of properties. According to Trevor Richard, ‘to cut Awo to size’, they created Mid-west out of West while suppressing the self-actualization quest of 11 national groups made up of 3.2 million Efik/Ibibio/Annang, 700,000 strong Ijaws, 220,000 Ogonis and 8.000 Ngenis and others totaling 5.3 millions(1963 census) in the COR areas of the Eastern Region. The new inheritors of power pushed the nation into war over sharing of offices. They annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history. The brought a decline in the quality of leadership manifested in 16 years of PDP reign of impunity and bare-faced stealing. The masses majority of whom live below $2 dollars a day watched in disbelief as the political elite in the name of privatization and monetization shamelessly shared our national patrimony among their members. They stole N1.7 trillion in the name of fuel subsidy. They shared billions earmarked for rural electrification project. They cornered a disproportionate share of the annual budget making themselves the highest paid lawmakers in the world.

    Two weeks ago, without caring about the example they were setting for our children, Bukola Saraki admitted to reporters that while 51 of his elected APC colleagues were waiting at another venue to honour an invitation from President Buhari, he ‘sat inside a small car parked in front of the assembly from 6am until 10am’ from where he walked into the assembly hall where he was adopted senate president by 49 opposition and eight APC senators. Ekweremadu had no qualms narrating how he was helped by PDP stalwarts to hijack the senate vice presidency that by convention belong to the ruling party.

    As if the acts of indecency and lack of character evident in the narrations by our new leaders was not enough assault on our sensibilities, reactions by some of our respected public opinion moulders were no less tragic. What do we make of Olisa Agbakoba’s ‘‘you cannot blame Saraki because he simply capitalised on the situation as an astute politician’; Chekwas Okorie of UPP’s ‘sanctioning Saraki and Dogara will hurt the party more than it would hurt the people involved’ because APC NEC has more northerners” and Abubakar Tsav’s description of protesting outwitted 51 senators as those who ‘are interested only in monetary aspect of position’. Others have even reduced Chief Adebisi Akande’s “Most northern elite, the Nigerian oil and other business cartels, who never like President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption stance, are quickly backing up the rebellion against APC with strong support by fuel subsidy barons”, to fighting for Yoruba interest.

    Undoubtedly, the latest betrayal by our political elite was only symptomatic of the crisis of leadership that has bedeviled the nation since the destruction of regional political parties that served as recruitment and training ground for national leaders in 1966. And I think it affords us another opportunity to look back and see where the rain started beating us. Why was the Sardauna who never had an opportunity of university education faithfully and selflessly served the people of the north, sending northern youths without discrimination to the best universities around the world and others to military institutions? Why was Awo who sold water, fire wood, worked as house boy, road mender and plank seller to train himself at home and supported by his wife to finish up law degree in London at almost 40 years of age able to mobilize Yoruba young elite born with silver spoon such as Bode Thomas, Rotimi Williams and Fani Kayode to reposition the Yoruba race within a decade? Why was Zik able to facilitate the admission of eight Ibos, three Ibibio’s (sponsored by their people) and one Yoruba who worked for his press to his Alma Mata, Lincoln University in 1938? The simple answer is that they all like the Jews took pride in serving their own people.

    Our founding fathers accepted the challenge that we are a nation of many cultures and different world views. Nigeria today is not markedly different from what it was about 70 years ago precisely in 1947 when Awo described her as ‘a geographical expression’ or when in 1948 Balewa described it as ‘a British intention’. The desire of all Nigerian nationalities making up the federation at independence was to have a nation of their own within the greater Nigeria nation. Thus when Action Group was formed in Owo April 25, 1951, the party’s motto was “United through federation, freedom for all, and life more abundant”. And when NPC was inaugurated in Kaduna By Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Dikko, Makama Bida, Abubakar Iman and Yahaya Gusau in September 1951, its manifesto focused on  “regional autonomy within a united Nigeria’ and its slogan was ‘one north, one people, irrespective of region ethnic and religion”. Each group managed its own affairs and sent to the centre those that best represented their world view. The Yoruba sent Bode Thomas, Arthur Prest and S.L Akintola, a rabid Yoruba irredentist who became a thorn on the flesh of the colonial masters and other ethnic groups who called for his substitution by someone with a broader national outlook, a request Awo turned down. The East reached out for their best- Alfred Nwapa, Eni Njoku, and Okoi Arikpo and the north, Balewa Kashim and Muhamadu Ribadu. They all turned out as good representatives of their people and equally as great Nigerians.

    Leadership itself is a function of a people’s culture. Thus to the Yoruba, Awo is a hero, for the same reasons he was to the Igbo a villain.  To the Yoruba where the culture dictates that a defeated General commits suicide, Ojukwu who escaped to Ivory Coast shortly before the end of the war and returned to join NPN and the forces he once fought against was a failed leader. But it was for those same reasons he was canonized a saint by his people. To the Lagos noise makers, Ahmadu Bellow was a feudal lord, a British stooge for asking for the delay of independence, but to the thousands of his uneducated subjects he saved from second colonization by southerners, especially the Igbo that dominated all major institutions before independence on account of western education, he was a saint.

    We have lived in denial for about 50 years. It is time to face our demon. The answer to crises of leadership, like crisis of identity, underdevelopment and others that have bedeviled our federation since 1966 is restructuring. Those who argue otherwise are probably those benefiting from current anarchy. And for those who still underestimate the value of culture, they should take a closer look to find out the magic behind the roaring success of ‘African magic’ from DSTV marketing directors.

  • Bukola Saraki and the Nigerian problem

    Whenever I mention Senator Bukola Saraki, I find myself having to speak from different perspectives. First and foremost, he is one of the highest elected officials in the government of our viciously mismanaged, poor and stumbling country.

    But more closely, in our Yoruba culture, I have to regard Bukola as a son. His father, Dr. Sola Saraki, and I were about the same age – if Sola and I had been born and raised in the same traditional Yoruba town or village, we would have belonged to the same age-grade association or Egbe Ibile, and that is supposed to create a certain peer loyalty.  Moreover, Sola and I considered each other as friends.

    We did not know anything about each other when we first met in the Nigerian Senate of the Second Republic in 1979, he elected from Kwara State and I from Ondo State. For most of the four years 1979-83, each of us was so engrossed in our legislative and party duties (he as Majority Leader from the NPN and I as Secretary of the UPN Parliamentary Caucus) that we didn’t particularly relate to each other. But towards the end, we somehow gradually established some mutual empathy. And by the time we both came out of the Buhari Military Government’s detention in 1984, we had become much closer. Sola invited me to join him when he made his first return home after his release from detention, and I saw a whole night of very fond and tender reception by his Ilorin people.

    I congratulate Bukola for his successes in Nigerian politics – his elections and long tenure as Governor of Kwara State, and now his position as Senator of our Federal Republic. I have met many people who regard him as one of the likely bright lights of Nigeria’s future politics.

    From that hope-filled perspective, I sincerely wish that Bukola had not been part of what has been happening in the Nigerian Senate in the past few weeks. I have read the long statement he made to the media. I admire the way he went all out – open-mindedly canvassing and talking to Senators from every party – in his bid for the position of President of Senate.  That is how the democratic political game should be played.

    I don’t know, however, what one should make of his story that some persons wanted or tried to kidnap him in order to foil his Senate presidential bid, but as a father I would urge him to let go of that story. It sounds too much like a self-serving, self-justifying, fabrication – certainly, the kind of thing that can return to hunt Bukola in his future political career.

    And, more importantly, although he says he was not aware that APC Senators were asked to meet with President Buhari somewhere else, the moment he found that most Senators of his own party were not present in the Senate Chamber, he should not have rushed along to get himself elected as President of Senate in that kind of circumstance. I don’t know whether the laws mandate that the inaugural meeting of the Senate and the election of the officers of the Senate should be done at one and the same first meeting of the Senate. I doubt it though. I remember that on October 1, 1979, the Senate chamber was not ready for us, and we inaugurated the Senate, broke up in minutes, and returned days later (when the chamber renovations were completed) to hold a full meeting and to elect the officers of Senate.

    Since a whole 51 Senators out of the 59 belonging to Saraki’s own party happened to be absent from the Senate on May 9, respect for the orderliness of governance, and for the greatly needed stability of our country, should have dictated that the elections of Senate officers be not rushed through that day – or at least at that very hour. As things have now developed, as things now stand in our country, it is going to be extremely difficult to convince most Nigerians, and most foreign observers, that the Senate proceedings of that day were not deliberately rushed so as to make way for Saraki’s election as President of Senate. And that, believe me, is very far from good – for Saraki, and for our country.

    There is a time for everything, and there are times when some things are not merely inappropriate but downright hurtful. In the condition of Nigeria since the presidential election of last April, the widespread perception of manipulations in the Nigerian National Assembly has been very hurtful indeed. Here is the reason. For decades, crooked manipulations of the processes of governance, and unbridled corruption, have ruled supreme over the affairs of Nigeria. In some Nigerian leaders’ unreasoning push to accumulate power and resources at the federal center for their own ethnic and personal purposes, Nigeria’s federalstructure was essentially destroyed, local and regional development initiatives were ruined, and our people were handed over to oppressive and hopeless poverty.

    In the outcome, our country has been coming progressively closer to collapsing and imploding. In the Muslim parts of our country, some of our brightest youths became attracted to religious fundamentalism and violence. Ultimately, one of their terrorist groups became a very major threat to our country, seizing and controlling large swathes of territory in the North-east, and enjoying freedom to kill, wreck and destroy in most parts of the North and Middle Belt – including even the federal capital city of Abuja. Moreover, poverty and bitterness are breeding various kinds of rejection of Nigeria in virtually all parts of Nigeria.

    At what was beginning to look like the absolute peak of these troubles, one man named Buhari came forward promising to suppress corruption, straighten up Nigeria, restore sanity, and give Nigeria the chance to survive and revive. A leading politician from the South-west, Bola Tinubu, championed Buhari’s cause and provided the energy and means to put him before Nigeria. A lot of Nigerians didn’t like Buhari much, but most finally decided to give Nigeria the chance that he was promising, and they voted to give him the presidency. Across the country, hope seemed to start to revive.

    But then, unhappily, what looked like the same penchant for crooked manipulations, the evil force that has long been battering Nigeria, reared its head in the Nigerian Senate, followed by the House of Representatives. All of a sudden, hope seemed to vanish all over again. Even though we all know that there are other factors in the slowing down of the Buhari take-off, as well as in the growing cracks in the Tinubu-Buhari team, the feeling is likely to be strong  for a long time in the future that the happenings in the National Assembly started it all off.  And the story of the happenings in the National Assembly cannot possibly be told without having Bukola Saraki and his Senate presidential ambition squarely in the centre of it.

    It doesn’t look good at all. There are now growing speculations that influential Northern forces that are opposed to the Buhari agenda of anti-corruption and change, or that want to re-establish the bogey of “Northern Domination”, have been behind the developments in the National Assembly. That makes the picture much worse and much more troubling. The big questions now are: How would the record being made these days affect the future of the National Assembly barons concerned? How indeed would it affect the future of fragile Nigeria itself? In the latter case, we may soon begin to see.

  • Nuts and bolts of leadership

    Nuts and bolts of leadership

    I sympathise with President Muhammadu Buhari. His is a tough job. He is just a few weeks on the job, but the daily buffets of criticisms have made it look as if he has been there for years.

    Harangued for being “slow”, he is expected to clear a 16-year mess in days. I disagree. Isn’t this a marathon and not a speedster’s 100 metres dash?

    But, to be sincere, the President gave room for some of the recriminations. For instance, he is blamed for allowing the National Assembly crisis to fester after claiming rather incredulously that he had no interest in who runs the show. By the time he realised that it was in his interest to show interest in the matter, the renegades had dug in so deep they could not be stopped.

    All Buhari could do was to scream “party supremacy” and tell the recalcitrant lawmakers to “pocket their ambitions”, ambitions that are already too big for their deep pockets. But that, to the small assemblage of draculas, buccaneers and barracudas of National Assembly politics who do not take hostages, is a mere slap on the wrist. In fact, Yakubu Dogara, the House Speaker, in a petulant manner, launched into an academic exertion on the etymology of “party supremacy”, insisting that it is no match for “people’s supremacy”. Insolence? More like it.

    If Buhari really believes in party supremacy, what has he done to enforce it? Or does he believe –this thought I shudder to harbour  – as some people with little or no knowledge of the issues that the revolt in the National Assembly is a mortification of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu? No. Never. It is rather the humiliation of the party –what some pundits have described as a game of party politics versus politics of the party, a foreshadow of the party’s destruction. Will Buhari allow this to happen?

    The President has, in fairness, acknowledged the fact that the battle has been won but the war could be lost. So, when will he move to clear the clouds and avert the threatening deluge?

    The lesson of it all:  a leader must not prevaricate and procrastinate. No ambiguities. Say what you mean, mean what you say and insist on it. Never speak to impress – your subordinates may latch onto this to misbehave. Be swift as an arrow once you are sure of what you want. Be firm and stay firm. This is called principle. Those saying ankali, ankali do not necessarily get it right all the time. Do they?

    Now, those critics – gourmands, I swear – who say Buhari, because of his slim-and-trim diet-frame (they ascribe this to his ascetic culinary taste, as if they are familiar with the intricacies of  presidential meals-preparation) will lack compassion for starving workers are now eating their word. States have N713.7b for workers’ long overdue salaries and there is joy in the land.

    Even before she quit the stage, among her fans governors could not be counted. She was no fan of theirs either. She kept on saying the economy was in fine fettle even as the cash coming from the treasury was in trickles. Pressed to explain why there was always little to share, she blamed it all on oil theft. When the then Central Bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who is now the Emir of Kano, alleged that some $20b oil earnings were not remitted to the treasury by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), he was surreptitiously fired.  She set up a panel that said only $10b was missing and that there was, in fact, no need to worry as a thorough check of the troubled oil giant’s books will clear the air. Accounting experts PriceWaterCoopers couldn’t resolve the matter as it got no co-operation from the officials. It issued a report that raised more questions than it set out to resolve about the NNPC’s integrity.

    As the drama continued, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, two-time Finance minister – she bagged the foreign portfolio in-between – and former Co-ordinating minister for the Economy, pulled another trick that got them all excited. Enter rebasing. She caused deployment of some figures – jumbled, some people mumbled – and announced with the excitement of a royal birth that Nigeria’s economy had become Africa’s number one, ahead of South Africa and the others. Ah! The wonders of figures.

    Many Nigerians couldn’t understand why this could not reflect on their living conditions. Salaries were slow where they came at all, the infrastructure deficit was alarming and poverty remained a monster.

    Okonjo wahala, governors have alleged, once said the Excess Crude Account had over $4b. When they discovered that it had, in fact, as low as $2.1b, the former minister washed her hands of it. “Go ask your commissioners,” she told the governors.

    The commissioners have said they never agreed that the cash should be shared. Madam has said she never told us that the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) agreed to share the money. Now, a panel of governors is probing what happened to the money. I wish them good luck.

    The lesson for leaders: No obfuscation. Be consistent. You must be open, especially when you are dealing with facts and figures. Otherwise, you will be called a liar and, if you do not move fast, you will be called a thief. Gone, remember, are the days of debates on the difference between stealing and corruption. In other words, the elite, the class to which you are fortunate to belong, will call you corrupt. To the blunt man in the street, you are just a thief. No elegance. No euphemism. The truth: neither is good.

    Poor Stephen Okechukwu Keshi. I can bet the former Super Eagles coach never knew it would all end this way. He was fired for alleged disloyalty, among other reasons, which I won’t like to touch because he has taken his case to court. His is a typical hero-to-zero story which, you must note dear reader, is yet to end. Against all odds, he led the Eagles to win the 2013 African Cup of Nations in South Africa. The joy of the feat was great at home and overseas where many Nigerians jumped for joy that the giant of Africa had taken his rightful place.

    Unfortunately, the excitement was short – like Nigeria’s electricity supply. Right there in South Africa, Keshi announced his resignation on a radio programme. Nigerians were shocked. Many said it was all blackmail. Were they right? Debatable. The coach graciously rescinded his decision when Dr Goodluck Jonathan, the former President, stepped in to stop the man of the moment from dumping our dear country after taking it to the apogee of its gains in the round leather game, winning a title that had eluded us for 19 years, despite our army of stars.

    Keshi, the man with the egotistic nickname, “Big Boss”, plodded the hubristic path. He became uncontrollable; his employers were helpless. At a time, he boasted that six countries were scrambling to sign him on.

    Then, fate supervened. The team’s fortune crashed, like the naira in the forex market. The defending champion missed the next edition of the Cup of Nations. The soccer world was perplexed. The Super Eagles were derided as big-for-nothing Super Chickens. The team became the subject of beer parlour jokes, such as this:

    “A judge in a divorce suit asked the child, a little boy, who he would like to stay with. “You want to stay with your dad?” Son: No sir; he always beats me. Judge: Will you then stay with your mum? Son: No sir; she also beats me.

    Judge: Who then will you stay with?” The boy replied: “Super Eagles.”

    Surprised, the judge asked: “Why?” and the boy replied: “They don’t beat anybody.”

    But Keshi, being Keshi, would neither be humbled nor hobbled by it all. He was accused of flirting with Cote d’Ivoire even as the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) was battling to rebuild the team. Unable to take it anymore, the NFF rediscovered itself and became courageous. Keshi got the boot. Fired.

    The lesson: A leader must know when to quit – when the ovation is loudest, they say. Pride, say the age-old adage, goes before a fall. No self-conceit. Humility pays. Loyalty is key; your loyalty must never be questionable. Besides, be patriotic and keep your tongue in check; no loose words.

    President Buhari drew the ire of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when he appointed Mrs Amina Zakari as acting chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The opposition party alleged that Mrs Zakari’s appointment was influenced by “personal relationship with the Presidency and a governor in the Northwest”. PDP spokesman Olisa Metuh should have given more facts to sound convincing. I trust Femi Fani-Kayode, the one who is now known and addressed as Femi Olukayode after he got off the hook in a money laundering case, would have done better.

    Anyway, Prof. Attahiru Jega has left INEC amid praises for a great job. He left us some lessons. Integrity is a must possession ; it is the only foundation upon which a solid tenure can be erected. A leader must have a strong chin for blows. He or she must be cool and calm in the face of clear threats – remember the Elder Godsday Orubebe hysteria? He must be sober as a judge and, above all, a leader must be transparent and be seen to be so.

    Isn’t that the difference between a leader and a boss?

  • The way music dies (2)

    There is something pathetic about Mavin music: Dorobucci, Eminado, Surulere to that recent medley about rumour mongers, the artistes, song writers and their producer seem trapped in a musical dystopia of sort that makes them repeat identical drivel in every song. A lot is seriously wrong with the thinking of the artistes to make them believe that Nigerians are too dense musically to appreciate better music of any kind.

    Music mixes with reality; every era boasts of artistes and a music culture that manifests as a rallying cry against oppression, apartheid, sexual violence, kidnap for ransom among several afflictions plaguing that era. But even as Nigeria grapples with myriad of evils from terrorism, advance fee fraud, unemployment, insensitive leadership to gang violence, artistes at Mavin records can only dwell on the superficial. They tell the same story in every song: “We are making money,” We are big spenders,” “We are the elite pack,” “We are the jocks amid Nigeria’s middling music crowd.”

    Contemporary Nigerian music hardly ventures from such conurbation of raw energy into the much sought hamlet of genius and commercialism which pioneer local musicianship initiated; neither does it enrich the global party or exit it into the uninhabited isolation of experimentalism. The norm is for artiste, music journalist and enthusiast to simply jump on to any trending musical train without knowing what they are getting into or where they are going. Taste has become a big issue in contemporary music; talent too. Then there is the most crucial aspect, which is the dearth of tastemakers: that is, competent music journalists cum critics. Many music writers are casualties of a broken system; pitiful pawns perpetually engaged in disgraceful surrender to the forces that determine the sound of music. They do not put up a good fight anymore thus the lack of discernible Zeitgeist in Nigerian music.

    This emphasises the role of the music journalist and critic. No apologies, but besides Benson Idonije, Victor Akande, Ayo Animashaun, Damola Awoyokun, Femi Akintunde Johnson (FAJ) and a few good intellects here and there, music journalism suffers a dearth of constructive criticism, competent writers and intellectuals. This makes the idea of a progressive, unfettered, cross-fertilization of ideas and opinions manifest like fading vignettes of a utopian wet dream.

    Sadly, the reality of the internet, despite its palpable benefits, presents a malignant tumour of sort to music journalism. No thanks to the social media, we are afflicted with a parade of musically challenged bloggers impatiently hustling to broadcast their ignorance, bigoted ripostes and uninformed judgment to the pleasure and appreciation of equally dim folk.

    Consequently, local music asphyxiates in the sickly babble of bloggers and self-acclaimed music critics tirelessly propagating their middling and formulaic opinions, riddled with errors and inadequate music knowledge. For a lot of these music bloggers, music didn’t start before Remedies, DBanj, P-Square, Inyanya, America’s Rihanna and Beyonce Knowles. So shallow is the trough from which they cull that their much hyped reviews often resonate like the dying shrill of a vanishing storm.

    Many music bloggers are too busy chasing adverts and perpetuating music streaming that they no longer encourage their readers to buy albums. Eventually, the artistes are deprived of due income and in this culture of mediocrity and entitlement that the internet fosters, the listener and music enthusiast loses out on quality, a sense of ownership and loyalty to the artiste.

    An opinion expressed on tweeter possesses less depth, it’s all about pushing sales; but a well written album review or music feature, isn’t just about generating hits, its more about creating that ideal amphitheatre where the impetus of an album chugs away like a locomotive as it constantly gravitates towards a new sound or improve upon a previous one.

    Good old music journalism is all about projecting good music and giving it the care and attention it deserves, while maintaining a spirit of questioning curiosity that constantly explores why a particular album is good, and how artistes can continue to push boundaries. It’s this interchange between artiste, journalist and music lover that gives rise to fertile discourse and creative experimentation, rather than pathetic trend-chasing.

    Nigerian music dies because the music journalist forgets how sacred his relationship with his readers should be; he is too star struck and covetous of the success of confused music stars he helps create; he believes that success subsists in crafting captions for pathetic artistes’ drivel and heavily photo-shopped portraits.

    True; hatchet pieces could be fun to write, but you aren’t spending much time with songs and art as you are conjuring stock phrases and currency-activated analogies. The few discerning readers and music enthusiasts that are still around know this; that is why they skim through contemporary music reviews like distressing poetry. They find that more writers are desperately justifying bad music and getting ‘paid’ rather than examine sonic chemistries or the lack thereof.

    The internet may have expanded our breadth, but little has guided the Nigerian music journalist to piece it all together or put it into some kind of historical or social perspective other than what he has been paid to publicize and our ears can piece together, regretfully.

    The commitment and depth of the music journalist goes a long way in enriching or diminishing the music; a competent music journalist will be well-versed in the minutiae of his most dreaded sound as the eternal harmonies of his preferred “hit.” Wrongly appreciated songs, ill-prescribed genres, and cliché evocations are hardly the stock of music journalism as we would love to read it. And is it not thoughtless that those who judge professionally desperately seek not to be judged in kind? The alternative to such naivety is that bland specialty wherein the music journalist remains wedded to a genre, becomes baffled by outside forces reigning in on such genre, or wrongly accuses all other music aficionados of “trespassing.”

    More disturbing, is the premise that an authentic reaction to music shouldn’t involve our minds—only our hearts and groins; that is ridiculous, isn’t it? Forget Beethoven, Johnny Coltrane, Frank Sinatra, Billy Paul, The Manhattans, Tupac Shakur, Marshall Bruce Mathers III (Eminem), the best of our melodies from Highlife to Apala, Juju, Fuji and Afro Hip hop touches us everywhere at once but hardly anyone gets to really feel it today.

    The best music journalism should set the standards for the industry and regulate it. It should be more than an attempt to wrap writers around the fingers of every artiste, record label and corporate sponsor with a “flava” plan. It uses the language of everyday musicality but too much of Nigerian music journalism lacks such passion and artistry.

    That is why we are inundated by crappy music. That is why Nigeria currently fields no artiste worthy of global acclaim save Bukola Elemide (Asa), Tuface Idibia, late Irikefe Obareki (Kefee), Babatunde Olusegun (Mode 9) and budding, misguided rap whiz, Olamide, to mention a few.

    Every album contains a bit of truth, true lies or fantasy; it is the job of the music journalist to justify the album’s existence and the need to write about it in the first place. It’s not that I, who write this, will succeed in doing a better job but it’s about time we understood that much as we desperately depend on music art, among others, for pleasure, livelihood and escape; we depend on professionals, like the music journalist to guarantee us the transcendence of such pass.

     

     

     

  • A tribute to Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun Alo (1936-2015)

    The death has been announced by her family of Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun-Alo, one of the leading figures in the development of secondary school education in Nigeria. She had been ailing for some time and passed on peacefully in her home at Lekki, Lagos, on Saturday, June 13. She would have been 79 on September 26, 2015. News of her death spread quickly and was received by the Lagos elite and her professional colleagues all over Nigeria as a rude shock, even though it was known to her friends that her health had not been too good in recent years. For decades, after graduating from Cambridge in 1961, she had had been a towering figure in secondary school education in Nigeria, heading several federal government colleges in Nigeria, including the Federal Government College for girls in Abuja. She was widely admired by her friends and colleagues for her personal warmth, charm, professional diligence, and a formidable intellect, one of the best of her distinguished generation of women achievers in Nigeria in diverse fields.

    Mrs. Abisogun-Alo had an excellent pedigree on both sides of her family lineage. According to her memoires, This City Girl, partly an excellent social history of Lagos, and first published in 2011, her father, Mr. Peter Akintunde Abisogun Wright, was a grandson of Chief Akinlaja Abisogun of Isale Eko. In his times, he was one of the leading social figures and personalities in Lagos in the 1930s. After primary school at St. Peter’s, Faji, he went up to the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, for his secondary education where he obtained his school leaving certificate in 1909. Thereafter, he trained as a Chemist and Druggist at the General Hospital in Lagos. He worked there for a while, but left later for the Post and Telegraph Department (P. &T) where he worked as an accounts clerk. He soon gave this up too and ended up being a successful auctioneer and general contractor. He was well known and was prominent in business and social circles in Lagos, where he was highly regarded and respected. In fact, his friends and admirers called him the ‘Lord Mayor’ of Lagos. He made his mark in the respected Lagos Stores, Wright and Co. He was one of the earliest nationalists in Nigeria. In protest against colonial rule in Nigeria, he officially dropped his European and Christian names, Peter and Wright, preferring to be called Akintunde Abisogun instead.

    Equally, Olugbolahan’s mother, Ethel Adeleye, nee Shyngle, was the daughter of Margaret Cole and her husband, the distinguished lawyer, Barrister Egerton Shyngle, whose, older brother, Charles Egerton Shyngle, had read law at St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge. Another brother had also been at Jesus’ College, Oxford, where he real law. The Egerton Shyngle family was famous for producing some of the leading lawyers in colonial Lagos in those days. They had family connections in Bathurst, The Gambia, Freetown, Sierra Leone, Accra, Ghana, and Lagos. Olugbolahan’s mother, Ethel, was educated at the elite CMS Girls’ Seminary at Broad Street, Lagos. After her celebrated marriage to Mr. Abisogun at the Tinubu Methodist Church in December, 1930, she established a successful dress making business in Lagos. Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun–Alo, who was born on December 26, 1936, was the only child of the marriage, but she had siblings from her father’s other children before he married his mother. They waited anxiously for six years for Gbolahan to arrive.

    Her distinguished parents, who settled at Tokunbo Street, moved in the best social circles in Lagos. It could be said of Olugbolahan that she was born with the proverbial silver spoon. She was her mother’s only child and her parents paid a great attention to her subsequent education. From her memoires published a few years ago, it can be seen how her privileged background had a profound effect on her education and public service later. She had a privileged education as well.

    After the Princess School in Lagos, she attended the elite CMS Girls’ Seminary in Lagos which also admitted boys before they were sent off at 7 or 8 to the prep school at the CMS Grammar School, across the school at Broad Street. Among her contemporaries at the School were Chief Ernest Shonekan, and Chief Akin Disu, owner of the Eagle Paints. Then in 1949, she entered the Queen’s College, Lagos, then at Onikan. But a year later, some of the students at Queen’s, including Gbolahan, were transferred to the new school, St. Anne’s School, Ibadan. After a few months at St. Anne’s, Ibadan, she returned to Queen’s College, Lagos. In the process, she lost a year at Queen’s. But her father, who doted on her, could not stand the separation. The Queen’s College, Lagos, was the first girls’ secondary school started by the colonial government in Nigeria, and had established a reputation as the leading girls’ secondary school in Nigeria. In all respects it was a special school, carefully nurtured by the colonial government. Virtually all the teaching staff were British expatriates with an Oxbridge background. At Queen’s, she won the Lady Bourdillon Scholarship for gifted students. Sir Bourdillon was then the colonial governor of Nigeria. In 1955, her final year in school, Olugbolahan was appointed the head girl in recognition of her outstanding contribution, as a student, to the school’s reputation.  Olugbolahan had also acquired some fame as the best athlete ever produced by the school. Her school record in the high jump remained unbroken for many years after.

    She had very good results in the school in 1955, coming out in Grade One, and with many distinctions, in the then Cambridge School Certificate Examinations. For many years after, her impressive academic accomplishments at Queen’s was the talk of the town in Lagos and made her a role model for secondary school girls in Lagos. She was the envy of many parents for whom she became a reference point in the education of their daughters.

    From Queen’s, she entered the King’s College, Lagos, in 1956, after examinations, for her Higher School Certificate (HSC), then equivalent to the GCE advanced level. She read English, History, and Latin there. Among the girls who had preceded her to King’s for the HSC were Miss Ebun Adenubi ( now Prof. Mrs. Elebute), Grace Alele (now  Prof Grace Alele Williams), and Miss Olugbo Lucas, the daughter of the highly respected Ven. Lucas of St. Paul’s Church, Breadfruit, fame (now Mrs. Olugbo Hollist). At King’s, Olugbolahan was equally an outstanding student, obtaining her four HSC subjects in two years.

    After King’s, and on the basis of her 1957 HSC results, she sat for the entrance examinations and was admitted to Girton College, University of Cambridge, in 1958, a rare feat then, for an honour’s degree course in history. At Cambridge, she was the contemporary of the famous and beautiful Princess of Toro, Uganda, Elizabeth Bagaya, who once served as Idi Amin’s Foreign Minister. They became close at Cambridge and good friends after. When I served in Uganda in 1973, as acting High Commissioner, the Princess always asked me about Mrs. Gbolahan Abisogun Alo, with whom I was then barely acquainted. She spoke with nostalgia about their times at Cambridge, the fun they both had there, and the many friends they made at Cambridge.

    Among her Nigerian contemporaries at Cambridge were Hope Harriman, now deceased, Dayo Akinrele, and his younger brother, Tunde. There were also Alaba Akinsete, Olumuyiwa Awe, and Sam Olaitan, all of them research students at Cambridge. As she says in her memoires, social life at Cambridge was a pleasure and a lot of fun. She was a foundation member of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Club of Nigeria and was very active in the Club, participating fully in the preparations for the Annual May Ball, which she attended regularly until recently when she became frail. When I was the President of the Club she encouraged me and gave me her full support, which she also extended to my successors.She was very passionate about the Club.

    On graduating from Cambridge in 1961, she returned home. She had by then met and been engaged to her future husband, Olajide Alo (later Ambassador Alo), a young and promising Foreign Service Officer, then serving in our High Commission in London. They were married at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos, on December 30, 1961, and returned immediately to London where her husband, Jide, was then serving as a second secretary. He was my senior and much admired colleague in the diplomatic service. She had herself wanted to join the diplomatic service as she read history at Cambridge. But this was not possible at the time. So for the first few years after her marriage she did not seek any employment, going abroad with her husband on his different postings from London, to New York, to Cotonou, Geneva, and Brazil. Meanwhile, the children, three of them had started arriving, the first, a boy, Akinola, in London, in 1962, the second, Olatunbosun, a girl, in Cotonou, in 1964, after which they returned to Lagos on posting, and then Segun, a boy, in 1971.

    As Mrs. Abisogun Alo discovered later to her discomfort the life of the wives of Foreign Service Officers was by no means an easy one. For those of them who wished to have a career, like Abisogun, she could not, despite her impressive education. They could not work abroad. They could at home, but this meant staying in Nigeria to pursue their careers, while their husbands went out frequently on posing. My wife and I also found ourselves in this rather difficult situation. For ten years after our marriage, she too could not work despite her excellent qualifications. This situation often created strains in the marriage. Eventually, Olugbolahan and Jide, her diplomat- husband, decided that it was best for her to pursue her career at home and be with the children. By then she had already lost ten years of her career.

    Nonetheless, she subsequently had a distinguished career in the federal ministry of education where she served as principal in several federal government colleges. She was the foundation principal at the federal Government College for girls in Abuja for several years. She also rose to the pinnacle of her professional career as Principal (special Grade), and a National Director of Education.  She was appointed the Pro-Chancellor of both the Universities of Bauchi and Abuja, a member of the Governing Council of Bells University, and a Trustee of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). In 2003 she was honoured with the award of an Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) in recognition of her immense contribution to the development of secondary school education in Nigeria. She was a recipient of many other national and international honours, including an honorary doctorate in education from the Lagos State University.

    Sadly, she was pre-deceased by several decades by her husband, Ambassador Olajide Alo, and her eldest son, Akinola, a geologist, who died in a road accident in Lagos in September, 1995. Left to mourn her are her two remaining and loving children, Olatunbosun, and Segun, her devoted cousin, Mrs. Bimbola Bolodeoku (nee Egerton Shyngle), her former students, and her numerous friends and admirers all over the country and beyond. May her soul rest in perfect peace.

  • A tribute to Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun Alo (1936-2015)

    The death has been announced by her family of Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun-Alo, one of the leading figures in the development of secondary school education in Nigeria. She had been ailing for some time and passed on peacefully in her home at Lekki, Lagos, on Saturday, June 13. She would have been 79 on September 26, 2015. News of her death spread quickly and was received by the Lagos elite and her professional colleagues all over Nigeria as a rude shock, even though it was known to her friends that her health had not been too good in recent years. For decades, after graduating from Cambridge in 1961, she had had been a towering figure in secondary school education in Nigeria, heading several federal government colleges in Nigeria, including the Federal Government College for girls in Abuja. She was widely admired by her friends and colleagues for her personal warmth, charm, professional diligence, and a formidable intellect, one of the best of her distinguished generation of women achievers in Nigeria in diverse fields.

    Mrs. Abisogun-Alo had an excellent pedigree on both sides of her family lineage. According to her memoires, This City Girl, partly an excellent social history of Lagos, and first published in 2011, her father, Mr. Peter Akintunde Abisogun Wright, was a grandson of Chief Akinlaja Abisogun of Isale Eko. In his times, he was one of the leading social figures and personalities in Lagos in the 1930s. After primary school at St. Peter’s, Faji, he went up to the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, for his secondary education where he obtained his school leaving certificate in 1909. Thereafter, he trained as a Chemist and Druggist at the General Hospital in Lagos. He worked there for a while, but left later for the Post and Telegraph Department (P. &T) where he worked as an accounts clerk. He soon gave this up too and ended up being a successful auctioneer and general contractor. He was well known and was prominent in business and social circles in Lagos, where he was highly regarded and respected. In fact, his friends and admirers called him the ‘Lord Mayor’ of Lagos. He made his mark in the respected Lagos Stores, Wright and Co. He was one of the earliest nationalists in Nigeria. In protest against colonial rule in Nigeria, he officially dropped his European and Christian names, Peter and Wright, preferring to be called Akintunde Abisogun instead.

    Equally, Olugbolahan’s mother, Ethel Adeleye, nee Shyngle, was the daughter of Margaret Cole and her husband, the distinguished lawyer, Barrister Egerton Shyngle, whose, older brother, Charles Egerton Shyngle, had read law at St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge. Another brother had also been at Jesus’ College, Oxford, where he real law. The Egerton Shyngle family was famous for producing some of the leading lawyers in colonial Lagos in those days. They had family connections in Bathurst, The Gambia, Freetown, Sierra Leone, Accra, Ghana, and Lagos. Olugbolahan’s mother, Ethel, was educated at the elite CMS Girls’ Seminary at Broad Street, Lagos. After her celebrated marriage to Mr. Abisogun at the Tinubu Methodist Church in December, 1930, she established a successful dress making business in Lagos. Mrs. Olugbolahan Abisogun–Alo, who was born on December 26, 1936, was the only child of the marriage, but she had siblings from her father’s other children before he married his mother. They waited anxiously for six years for Gbolahan to arrive.

    Her distinguished parents, who settled at Tokunbo Street, moved in the best social circles in Lagos. It could be said of Olugbolahan that she was born with the proverbial silver spoon. She was her mother’s only child and her parents paid a great attention to her subsequent education. From her memoires published a few years ago, it can be seen how her privileged background had a profound effect on her education and public service later. She had a privileged education as well.

    After the Princess School in Lagos, she attended the elite CMS Girls’ Seminary in Lagos which also admitted boys before they were sent off at 7 or 8 to the prep school at the CMS Grammar School, across the school at Broad Street. Among her contemporaries at the School were Chief Ernest Shonekan, and Chief Akin Disu, owner of the Eagle Paints. Then in 1949, she entered the Queen’s College, Lagos, then at Onikan. But a year later, some of the students at Queen’s, including Gbolahan, were transferred to the new school, St. Anne’s School, Ibadan. After a few months at St. Anne’s, Ibadan, she returned to Queen’s College, Lagos. In the process, she lost a year at Queen’s. But her father, who doted on her, could not stand the separation. The Queen’s College, Lagos, was the first girls’ secondary school started by the colonial government in Nigeria, and had established a reputation as the leading girls’ secondary school in Nigeria. In all respects it was a special school, carefully nurtured by the colonial government. Virtually all the teaching staff were British expatriates with an Oxbridge background. At Queen’s, she won the Lady Bourdillon Scholarship for gifted students. Sir Bourdillon was then the colonial governor of Nigeria. In 1955, her final year in school, Olugbolahan was appointed the head girl in recognition of her outstanding contribution, as a student, to the school’s reputation.  Olugbolahan had also acquired some fame as the best athlete ever produced by the school. Her school record in the high jump remained unbroken for many years after.

    She had very good results in the school in 1955, coming out in Grade One, and with many distinctions, in the then Cambridge School Certificate Examinations. For many years after, her impressive academic accomplishments at Queen’s was the talk of the town in Lagos and made her a role model for secondary school girls in Lagos. She was the envy of many parents for whom she became a reference point in the education of their daughters.

    From Queen’s, she entered the King’s College, Lagos, in 1956, after examinations, for her Higher School Certificate (HSC), then equivalent to the GCE advanced level. She read English, History, and Latin there. Among the girls who had preceded her to King’s for the HSC were Miss Ebun Adenubi ( now Prof. Mrs. Elebute), Grace Alele (now  Prof Grace Alele Williams), and Miss Olugbo Lucas, the daughter of the highly respected Ven. Lucas of St. Paul’s Church, Breadfruit, fame (now Mrs. Olugbo Hollist). At King’s, Olugbolahan was equally an outstanding student, obtaining her four HSC subjects in two years.

    After King’s, and on the basis of her 1957 HSC results, she sat for the entrance examinations and was admitted to Girton College, University of Cambridge, in 1958, a rare feat then, for an honour’s degree course in history. At Cambridge, she was the contemporary of the famous and beautiful Princess of Toro, Uganda, Elizabeth Bagaya, who once served as Idi Amin’s Foreign Minister. They became close at Cambridge and good friends after. When I served in Uganda in 1973, as acting High Commissioner, the Princess always asked me about Mrs. Gbolahan Abisogun Alo, with whom I was then barely acquainted. She spoke with nostalgia about their times at Cambridge, the fun they both had there, and the many friends they made at Cambridge.

    Among her Nigerian contemporaries at Cambridge were Hope Harriman, now deceased, Dayo Akinrele, and his younger brother, Tunde. There were also Alaba Akinsete, Olumuyiwa Awe, and Sam Olaitan, all of them research students at Cambridge. As she says in her memoires, social life at Cambridge was a pleasure and a lot of fun. She was a foundation member of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Club of Nigeria and was very active in the Club, participating fully in the preparations for the Annual May Ball, which she attended regularly until recently when she became frail. When I was the President of the Club she encouraged me and gave me her full support, which she also extended to my successors.She was very passionate about the Club.

    On graduating from Cambridge in 1961, she returned home. She had by then met and been engaged to her future husband, Olajide Alo (later Ambassador Alo), a young and promising Foreign Service Officer, then serving in our High Commission in London. They were married at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos, on December 30, 1961, and returned immediately to London where her husband, Jide, was then serving as a second secretary. He was my senior and much admired colleague in the diplomatic service. She had herself wanted to join the diplomatic service as she read history at Cambridge. But this was not possible at the time. So for the first few years after her marriage she did not seek any employment, going abroad with her husband on his different postings from London, to New York, to Cotonou, Geneva, and Brazil. Meanwhile, the children, three of them had started arriving, the first, a boy, Akinola, in London, in 1962, the second, Olatunbosun, a girl, in Cotonou, in 1964, after which they returned to Lagos on posting, and then Segun, a boy, in 1971.

    As Mrs. Abisogun Alo discovered later to her discomfort the life of the wives of Foreign Service Officers was by no means an easy one. For those of them who wished to have a career, like Abisogun, she could not, despite her impressive education. They could not work abroad. They could at home, but this meant staying in Nigeria to pursue their careers, while their husbands went out frequently on posing. My wife and I also found ourselves in this rather difficult situation. For ten years after our marriage, she too could not work despite her excellent qualifications. This situation often created strains in the marriage. Eventually, Olugbolahan and Jide, her diplomat- husband, decided that it was best for her to pursue her career at home and be with the children. By then she had already lost ten years of her career.

    Nonetheless, she subsequently had a distinguished career in the federal ministry of education where she served as principal in several federal government colleges. She was the foundation principal at the federal Government College for girls in Abuja for several years. She also rose to the pinnacle of her professional career as Principal (special Grade), and a National Director of Education.  She was appointed the Pro-Chancellor of both the Universities of Bauchi and Abuja, a member of the Governing Council of Bells University, and a Trustee of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). In 2003 she was honoured with the award of an Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) in recognition of her immense contribution to the development of secondary school education in Nigeria. She was a recipient of many other national and international honours, including an honorary doctorate in education from the Lagos State University.

    Sadly, she was pre-deceased by several decades by her husband, Ambassador Olajide Alo, and her eldest son, Akinola, a geologist, who died in a road accident in Lagos in September, 1995. Left to mourn her are her two remaining and loving children, Olatunbosun, and Segun, her devoted cousin, Mrs. Bimbola Bolodeoku (nee Egerton Shyngle), her former students, and her numerous friends and admirers all over the country and beyond. May her soul rest in perfect peace.