The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

Port Harcourt Refinery: Progress or deceptive triumph?

The Port Harcourt Refinery, once a somnolent giant, has roared back to life. Long dormant and consigned to the annals of Nigeria’s unfulfilled industrial ambitions, its engines now hum with life, its pipes pulse with purpose, and its furnaces burn with a promise long awaited by a nation burdened by dependency on imported fuel.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has declared this revival a monumental milestone, celebrating the refinery’s activation as the dawn of energy independence. Yet, amid the applause and optimism, a sobering question lingers: Will this awakening trickle into the lives of Nigerians battered by economic despair, or is it another empty triumph in the theatre of state-run projects?

For decades, the refinery stood as a mute testament to Nigeria’s paradox—a nation rich in crude oil yet impoverished by its inability to refine it. The cost of this paradox has been staggering. Importing refined petroleum drained billions of dollars from the national coffers annually, depleting foreign reserves and exposing the populace to the volatility of global markets. The resurrection of the Port Harcourt Refinery was heralded as a masterstroke in addressing these woes, a monumental achievement akin to reviving a phoenix from its ashes. But as the trucks now rumble out with processed products, questions linger over its potential to transform the lives of ordinary Nigerians.

The nation’s four state-owned refineries—symbols of squandered potential—have faltered, leaving Nigeria to import over 80% of its refined petroleum products at staggering costs exceeding $2 billion annually. This dependency has strained foreign reserves, exacerbated inflation, and amplified the agony of citizens grappling with exorbitant pump prices.

Even with the activation of the Dangote Refinery, a private player with the capacity to process 650,000 barrels of crude daily, fuel costs have remained abominable. Across the federation, pump prices hover at N1,100–N1,300 per litre, with some states reporting higher prices due to transportation costs. This surge, exacerbated by inflationary pressures, has crippled the nation’s economy.

Fuel costs have a cascading effect. Transportation costs have soared, spiralling into higher prices of food, basic provisions and essential commodities. Bread, rice, and garri—staples of the Nigerian diet—have become luxuries for many. Likewise, tomatoes, pepper, and hitherto affordable fruits. Commuters endure skyrocketing fares, market women watch their profit margins erode under-inflated transport costs, and as the prices spiral beyond reach, families struggle to afford a decent meal. For the average citizen, the oil beneath their feet has become a curse, not a blessing.

Inflation, driven by these skyrocketing costs, has eroded purchasing power, leaving citizens clinging to the frayed edges of survival. The once-vibrant middle class, the engine of any thriving economy, is dwindling into insignificance, replaced by an ever-expanding chasm between the wealthy few and the impoverished majority.

For a nation where over 63% of the population lives below the poverty line, such inflation is more than an economic issue—it is a humanitarian crisis. Households ration meals, children drop out of school to save costs, and the dream of a better life recedes further into the horizon. The activation of the Port Harcourt Refinery, while commendable, must not become another mirage in the desert of Nigeria’s industrial efforts. It must deliver tangible benefits to the people it purports to serve.

The revival of the Port Harcourt Refinery has sparked hope that this tide might finally turn. Producing 1.4 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), 900,000 litres of kerosene, and 1.5 million litres of diesel daily, the refinery promises a glimmer of relief. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose administration oversaw the activation – since former President Muhammadu Buhari awarded the contract for its rehabilitation – hailed it as a cornerstone of his vision for energy security and economic prosperity.

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Yet, even at 70% of its installed capacity, the refinery’s outputs are insufficient to meet the huge domestic demand. Moreover, its products must traverse the labyrinth of Nigeria’s distribution network—a system fraught with inefficiencies, middlemen profiteering, and logistical hurdles—before reaching the average citizen. The fear persists that the benefits of this revival may dissipate in the fog of bureaucracy, industry jargon, and operational pitfalls, leaving Nigerians to endure the same hardships cloaked in a veneer of progress.

As the Port Harcourt Refinery chugs to full operations, it is imperative that the Warri and Kaduna refineries, as well as the second Port Harcourt Refinery, be expedited to full operational capacity. Together, these facilities have the potential to significantly reduce Nigeria’s reliance on imports, stabilize domestic fuel supply, and lower pump prices. Their activation would also create jobs, stimulate local economies, and position Nigeria as a net exporter of refined products, rather than an importer enslaved by the volatility of global markets.

The symbiosis between private and public efforts in Nigeria’s refining landscape is both promising and fraught. While the Dangote Refinery exemplifies private-sector innovation and ambition, the Port Harcourt Refinery symbolizes public-sector resilience. Yet, this duality must be harmonized to serve the common good. Modular refineries, with their quicker return on investment and reduced vulnerability to sabotage, offer a path forward. But their economic viability hinges on operational efficiency, competitive pricing, and sustainable policies.

Nigeria must embrace modular refinery technology as a complementary strategy. These smaller, cost-efficient facilities can be established in months, require less feedstock, and are less vulnerable to pipeline sabotage—a menace that has long plagued the oil industry. Modular refineries offer a pathway to regional energy self-sufficiency, enabling states to address local fuel needs independently while contributing to the national grid.

Nigeria’s ability to strike the delicate balance between the cost of crude inputs and the price of refined outputs will determine the success of its refining renaissance. As global oil markets fluctuate, the government and private players must ensure that domestic gains are not eclipsed by external shocks.

The journey towards refining self-sufficiency cannot succeed, however, without addressing systemic inefficiencies. Operational excellence must become the cornerstone of Nigeria’s refinery management. Maintenance, modernization, and innovation are essential to reducing costs and maximizing output. The government must also ensure that the pricing of refined products aligns with the realities of Nigerian households. Subsidy removal, while economically sound, must be balanced with social interventions for vulnerable populations.

In addition, transparency and accountability are non-negotiable. The Port Harcourt Refinery’s activation, though celebrated, must not become a tool for political grandstanding. Citizens deserve regular updates on production levels, distribution, and pricing policies. The refinery must operate as a public asset serving national interests, not as a fiefdom for private gain or political patronage.

As the engines roar back to life, they intone the clamour of a nation’s heartfelt dream—a dream of affordable fuel, a vibrant economy, and a brighter future. Yet, dreams without deliberate action suffer a stillbirth. The refinery’s activation must mark the beginning of a new era, not merely a symbolic gesture of progress.

The Port Harcourt Refinery, reborn from the ashes of neglect, represents a glimmer of hope that must not be extinguished by complacency or mismanagement. For its activation to resonate beyond industrial corridors, it must relieve Nigerians of economic hardships.

This is not merely a story of machines roaring to life but of lives transformed—where a father can answer as a provider, a mother can afford transportation to the market, a child can go to school with a full stomach, and a nation can stand tall, unbowed by the weight of its potential.

November 28, 2024
Obasanjo’s unending crusade for Igbo president

Olusegun Obasanjo, described as “a world statesman and a gift to humanity” who has demonstrated his “selflessness toward causes in Africa as well as global issues” is a prophet without honour in his own Yoruba country where he is regarded by his detractors as an Igbo man. Insisting he is not a Yoruba leader but a Nigerian leader only provided additional ammunition for his political enemies. He has no apologies favouring Shehu Shagari and Alex Ekwueme, in the 1979 at the expense of Obafemi Awolowo regarded a sage by the Yoruba but disparaged by Obasanjo as a failed politician.

Not even MKO Abiola, his fellow Egba who won a pan-Nigeria mandate fared better. For him, Abiola was “not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for”. He therefore did not see anything wrong in joining Babangida in trading Abiola’s mandate for an Interim National Government. Finally, when in 1999 Obasanjo was made president by the owners of Nigeria to assuage the raw feeling of Yoruba that had fought and made the country ungovernable for five years, Obasanjo danced on Abiola’s grave for eight years without acknowledging his supreme sacrifice.

The goodwill he did not enjoy among the Yoruba who refused voting for him in 1999 or his candidates since he left office, he savours among the Igbo who massively supported him against Olu Falae, the Yoruba candidate for the 1999 election. In appreciation, Obasanjo went round the world to recruit into his cabinet the best of Igbo including Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Obiageli Ezekwesili and Chukwuma Soludo. Even the worst of Igbo, including those who smuggled dollars to the US in his presidential jet, or kidnapped and locked up an elected governor like common criminal were not left out.

It is therefore easy to understand why Igbo presidency has become an obsession for Obasanjo since leaving office. During the 2023 election, he carried Peter Obi on his back around the country. And since the election was lost and won, Obasanjo has continued to live in denial claiming Obi was rigged out by INEC and the Supreme Court.

Those who know that Obasanjo has no generosity of heart to forgive anyone that crosses his way would understand while his appearance at Yale University to present a paper in honour of Chinua Achebe, the late Nigeria icon was for him another opportunity to de-market Tinubu’s administration and present Obi as a viable alternative.

His crusade for Igbo presidency also took the centre-stage during last week’s visit by the League of Northern Democrats to his library. He started by trying to mislead Nigerians by drawing a parallel between the collapse of the first republic to regionalism. The problem with Obasanjo however is that when he is not playing the ostrich, he tries to twist historical facts. There is no evidence to support his claim that “people say because the Igbo had carried out secession and so an Igbo man cannot be the President of Nigeria” or link the collapse of the first republic to regionalism.

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In fact, Bode Thomas who introduced regionalism as against his party’s preferred federal arrangement, modelled after linguistic groups as done in India said his objective was to prevent one-eyed king from presiding over the affairs of his Yoruba nation. It was therefore ironic that the assault on regionalism by Igbo unitarists became the harbinger of the reign of blind kings over the country beginning with Ironsi, Murtala Mohammed, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha and Buhari. And precisely because these soldiers were ill-trained in the management of society, they destroyed our political parties, our socialization process, our university and bureaucracy, our budding economy and centralised our institutions, while they unwittingly claimed they were sacrificing their present for our future”.

Obasanjo’s misinterpretation of history during his encounter with League of Northern Democrats has only provided additional incentive to consolidate the position of those who believe Obasanjo is an Igbo man. It is on record that NCNC and Igbo preferred unitary system to regionalism or any other form of federal arrangement. They carried the battle to the London 1957 Independence Constitutional Conference where against Nigerian governors pre-conference agreement on creation of Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers (COR), Midwest, Middle Belt states, “the northern and eastern regions were unyielding and unconditionally opposed to the carving out of new states from their respective jurisdictions”. “The NCNC went a step further to “adopt a more devious approach by demanding that right there in the conference room, the country should be divided into seventeen states” saying the smaller the states, the better for the federal unity of Nigeria”. This of course was rejected by Awolowo who said it “would make nonsense of federalism and indeed would amount to a backdoor reversion to a unitary system”. (The Autobiography of Obafemi Awolowo. (Pgs. 190-191).

Awolowo who predicted what we today have has been vindicated. The unworkable and unwieldy 36 states structure foisted on the nation by Obasanjo and fellow blind men, never trained in the art managing human society, is not markedly different from the demand by the unitarists who many will agree are the greatest beneficiary of the ongoing anarchy where states have no record of those who live within their states or control over their borders.

Igbo adage says ‘it is only your true friend that tells you your mouth is smelling’, If Obasanjo is sincere, he would have started crusade for Igbo presidency by first asking Igbo political elite to change their brand of politics that uses Igbo poor and urban dwellers for political leverage.

Unfortunately, Obasanjo who has never admitted making a mistake, seems to share the same mind-set with Igbo political elite who never take responsibilities for wrong decision but instead feed those that look up to them for direction with falsehood and propaganda. The result is that Igbo youths always end up believing they are victims hated by other tribes especially Hausa Fulani, Yoruba and Edo.

Let us take a journey through memory to see how Igbo elite often blame others instead of taking responsibility for their error of judgment.

The January 1966 coup was masterminded by Igbo NCNC political leaders who lost out following the collapse of NPC/NCNC coalition where Igbo controlled over 70% of political offices. Ironsi was, according to Richard Akinjide who was present at the meeting of surviving ministers, encouraged to take over power by the Igbo acting Senate President who refused to swear in the most senior surviving minister. Nwabueze drafted Decree 34 that turned the country into a unitary state. Unfortunately Ironsi was too handicapped to know the implications of his actions. Students of ABU who knew the implication of centralization of the bureaucracy started the rioting. Sadly, today Igbo youths blame not their leaders but outsiders for that avoidable tragic phase of our history.

Driven more by passion than reason, Igbo leaders railroaded Ojukwu who later admitted Biafra had 16 riffles to declare independence for Biafra. The response to the wise counsel of Awolowo and Prof Aluko was the battle cry of “no power in Africa can defeat us” or that ‘the grass in Igbo land will rise and fight”. Not even Gowon’s creation of COR state for eastern minorities on the eve of the declaration called for reflection. Awolowo who however said starvation is a weapon of war after three years of war, the failure of leadership, alone carried the blame. This was despite the fact that many Igbo writers including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie admitted soldiers and members of the elite class were hijacking relief materials meant for starving children.

Between 1999 and 2015, Igbo southeast constituted a solid PDP block. In 2013, Peter Obi moved from APGA to PDP where he rose rapidly to become VP candidate in 2015. In 2023, fearing Atiku Abubakar the recurrent PDP presidential candidate was going to deny him the PDP ticket stabbed PDP in the back by joining Labour with Igbo PDP block. Then, Obasanjo and Igbo leaders who were eating with their 10 fingers while Tinubu remained in opposition for close to 20 years building alliance, wanted him to step down “to allow for an Igbo presidency in the interest of justice and equity”.

Tinubu, for dismissing Obi as “container economist” and his promoters as opportunists who needed some lessons on consensus-building became a target of Obi’s Obidient mobs while elder statesman and ex-Governor Ezeife publicly swore that Tinubu, after winning the election round and square would not be sworn in. Today as his government battle crisis of legitimacy arising from lack of recognition by aggrieved Igbo leaders, there is no evidence any of them have apologized for exhibiting herd mentality in and out of PDP. It was perhaps only Obasanjo and Igbo leaders who believed Obi could win the 2023 election.

And finally, since a part of a whole cannot be holier than the whole, Obasanjo in spite of his theatrics cannot be part of the solution to lack of strategic planning by Igbo political elite that often behave like prostitutes with five husbands (apology to TOS Benson).

November 26, 2024
American elections and aftermath

All predictions of close presidential election in the USA have been proven to be wrong. I was so shocked that I could not eat after the initial results were declared. Although in September I had written in this paper that Donald J. Trump would win the election stating that the dice was loaded against Kamala Harris. I had argued that the time to make herself known to the American electorate was too short. Biden only withdrew in July leaving the poor lady just about three months to campaign while Donald Trump had four years to run Biden out of town so to say.

I further said America was not ready for a female president especially a non-white woman after rejecting Hilary Clinton in 2016. The Democratic Party was very weak on issues of inflation and immigration which proved to be the Achilles heels of Harris. The war in Ukraine was also seen as an unwinnable war draining American resources. This was a proxy war between Russia and the United States in which America had no direct leadership but was largely funding it. The Israeli war against the Arabs in Gaza and Lebanon was infuriating not only to Arab -Americans but the intellectual and the intelligentsia in the whole world and the weakness of Biden in supplying lethal arms to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister but with absolutely no control of the murderous use of them made America look weak in relation to her puny ally Israel.

I also thought that it would have been too difficult for Mrs Harris to detach herself from Biden’s poor image because she was still his vice president. Apart from all these was the deep rooted racism in America where to be non-white was an unbearable burden. All these reasons made me feel that winning the contest was an uphill task for Harris.

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But as the campaign went on and the pollsters bombarded us with polls after polls, I began to feel that Mrs Harris had a fair chance of winning particularly after debate with Trump in which she showed that Trump was a hollow giant with feet of clay. The lady demonstrated tremendous energy during the campaign and went to all the states of America apart from Hawaii. When the voting started, the whole world was given the impression that the results were a toss-up. But it turned out a clean sweep by Trump. This was because the Democratic constituencies in previous elections deserted Harris and the party. The women, the visible minorities of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, the elderly, workers and educated whites did not deliver as they used to do in previous presidential elections.

Trump won in all the so-called blue wall states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina and Wisconsin. It seems what decided the election in Trump’s favour were two issues of immigration and inflation. Even though on paper the American economy is the envy of the whole world, this did not translate to prices in the supermarkets and the shopping malls. The hordes of immigrants billeted to cities all over America brought the issue of poorly managed borders home to everyone. The campaign emphasis of Harris on Trump’s character as a misogynist, rapist, convicted felon, fraudster, tax evader, philanderer, racist and a bad man generally did not gel with many Americans who felt Trump was as American as apple pie. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the defeat of Harris led to losses in the two Houses of the Congress- the Senate and the House of Representatives leading to Republican control of the presidency, the Senate, the House of Representatives and some will say the Supreme Court because unlike most western democracies, the Supreme Court in the USA is very political. What this means is that come next January when Trump is pronounced president, he will be able to carry out the most radical program in the government of the United States since F.D .Roosevelt. Any challenge against his program will easily be thrown out eventually when it gets to the Supreme Court. He has been assembling a cabinet of “disruptors” whose mandate will be to shake up the United States and vicariously the world with it because America remains a global hegemonic power whether one likes it or not.

He is bringing as his Attorney General, a previous member of Congress who was being probed for sleeping with underage children and of using illegal drugs. As Secretary of Defence, the greatest military establishment in the world, he is nominating a defence TV journalist who has never run any small organization before. As Secretary of Health, he is bringing the scion of the Kennedy family who does not believe in inoculation and vaccination and other accepted western medical practice that has become standard practice all over the world. He is bringing in as Communications Secretary someone who believes in the control of the media and possibly cancelling the licences of media houses critical of Trump. He is even threatening the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) He is asking Elon Musk, the richest man in the world to help him trim the bureaucracy and fire any member of it not Republican Party compliant. He has asked the governor of the central bank to be prepared to go even though the gentleman has two more years to go in his tenured appointment.

“America First” would be his watchword in his foreign policy and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATO will be subjected to this test. This means he will be withdrawing hundreds of thousands of American troops from Europe and presumably from Japan and South Korea. The new Trump administration will certainly be interesting for the whole world. Perhaps when in reciprocity the world will also react to his regime of high tariffs, deportation of immigrants and sabre rattling, he may yet settle down and realise that a tree does not make a forest.

November 21, 2024
Sanctimonious OBJ

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is at it again, doing what only him knows how to do best. Running down others, and hailing himself as the best thing that ever happened to mankind. Obasanjo, aka Baba or OBJ, believes solely in Obasanjo. To him, he is the best leader to have ever come out of Nigeria, nay Africa. It is good to believe in oneself, but it should not be at the expense of rubbishing others.

Whether in open letters or public lectures just as the one he recently delivered in Yale, United States of America, Obasanjo speaks well of himself as a leader and ill of others that either came before or after him. He is never short of what to say about them. Was Obasanjo really a fantastic leader as head of state (1976-1979) and president (1999-2007)? Time will tell.

Come to think of it. What legacies did he bequeath to the nation following his exit from office in 2007, after his eight year tenure? He virtually left the nation in chaos following his botched attempt to elongate his tenure to enable him serve a third term, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. Although, he vehemently denied nursing a third term ambition, his protracted battle with his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, because of the latter’s bid to succeed him indicated the extent he was ready to go to remain in office.

The refusal of the National Assembly to play ball nipped his plan in the bud. The failure of the project led to the making of his famous statement that if he actually wanted a third term, all he needed to do was to ask God, who had never refused him anything. Really? So, he is the only one who knows God like that out of the millions of people that populate the country. The thing is Obasanjo is full of himself and believes that he is better than any other person. Leadership is not cut that way.

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Leadership is not about self, but the collective. It is the ability to rally others to get things done. A tree does not make a forest, it can only make a difference which others can key into to make things work for the betterment of the society. Obasanjo is a lucky person. From his military days as head of state to when he became president on the nation’s return to democracy in 1999, fate has always smiled on him. Not many men have such a destiny. Rather than appreciate the place of the providence in his life, he is carrying on as if it is of his own making that things have turned out the way they did for him.

I am not in anyway attacking the messenger and leaving the message, as some may want to say. No. The fact is one cannot look at the Obasanjo message which he delivered at Yale without looking at his person, the messenger. As the Yoruba would say, you first look at the apparel of the person who wishes to give you an attire. What was Obasanjo’s track record in office whether as military or civilian leader to warrant his trenchant criticisms of other leaders, especially his successors since he left office in 2007?

He did not even spare Umoru Yar’Adua who he singlehandedly installed in a flawed presidential election in 2007. Today, this same Obasanjo is pontificating on credible, free, fair and transparent elections conducted by a truly independent electoral umpire. If he knew this, why then did he not lead by example by laying the foundation for such elections and the composition of such an electoral body? Obasanjo appointed two chairmen for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during his tenure, without following the steps he is today outlining for the appointment of those electoral umpires.

The Obasanjo we all know would snub anybody that comes to him to tell him to follow the due process that he is now advocating for the appointment of INEC chairman. He would have told those people: ‘due process my foot’. There is no doubt that the appointment of INEC chiefs could be improved upon for the sake of our elections. But at what stage did Obasanjo know this? Is he now wiser after the fact of what he did while in office? If he had followed the steps he is outlining today in appointing Chief Abel Guobadia and Prof Maurice Iwu as INEC chiefs in 2000 and 2005, respectively, perhaps, people would have listened to him.

They would have commended him for practicing what he is preaching. His do what I say and not what I do approach is not helpful. By the provisions of the Constitution, a sitting President is entrusted with the responsibility of appointing the INEC chairman after briefing the Council of State (CoS), which is just an advisory organ on his intentions. Obasanjo cannot in his own time exercise this constitutional power and now seek to stop his successors from taking the same path in their own time.

His economic policies too were full of holes despite the killing the nation made from oil during his tenure. Of course the high oil price then had a concomitant effect on the economy, with our robust foreign reserves and impressive gross domestic products. But how well did he invest the oil earnings? If he and his economic team had initiated critical investments, the nation will not be where it is today. That he negotiated a debt forgiveness of $15 billion for the country from the London and Paris Club is not an investment. The debt relief came at a cost which the nation is still battling it with today.

The nation is neck-deep in debts again because of the bad planning and negotiations that went into that 2005 debt relief. Obasanjo is not a messenger of truth. Whenever he speaks, he embellishes it in order to create the impression that he has the nation’s love at heart. His fighting the civil war to keep Nigeria one, which he always refers to, does not make him a better Nigerian than any other Nigerian. He is not the only one that fought the civil war. He was just lucky to have collected the instrument of surrender from Biafra’s Philip Effiong.

Obasanjo reaped where he did not sow, as the war had been won and lost before he was posted to take over from Benjamin Adekunle at the Third Marine Commando. Obasanjo has a lot of baggage. He should take it easy so that he is not called out now and again whenever he speaks. He should first remove the beam in his own eyes before he sees the log in others’. If he continues to talk like this, people will always assess him, the messenger, and not his messages, because of his biases.

November 21, 2024
Buck-passing

Banks can never be understood. They beg you to bring your money and at the same time refuse to release the money when the arises. I talk from experience. It is not the first nor the second or even the third. But this experience leaves a sour taste in the mouth. On November 4, I transferred N30,000 from my Sterling Bank to GTbank account. I was immediately credited only for the transaction to be reversed almost at the same time. Till today, the money has not hit my account despite the bank’s claim that I was credited.

I lodged a complaint at Sterling on November 11 and followed up on November 18, only to be told that GTbank had sent a mail to Sterling that I have been credited. I obtained my statement of account from GTbank and saw on it that the transaction was reversed. But the mail sent to Sterling by

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safurat.ojikutu@GTB claimed that I have been credited. It bore the log code: SBP00117222831. The mail and account statement vary. I believe the statement more than the mail.

Why can GTbank not put its house in order? Why will the account statement and the email sent by its staff member be saying different things? What is up? With Sterling insisting that the money is not with them, it was hell on Monday morning as I shuttled between both banks to know the true position of things. For now, the money is hanging somewhere and it is probably with GTbank. When will it look into its books and rectify the problem? I will continue to call both banks out until the issue is addressed.

November 21, 2024
The illusion of imported leadership

It is a cruel jest that a nation in dire need of repair often turns to those who abandoned her at her most fragile hour, entrusting them with the mandate to rebuild.

It is hardly wise to appoint Nigerians who had Japa to man public offices in the country. This is akin to luring the proverbial skunk from the wilderness into our royal chamber, if it doesn’t defile the quilted sheet with its faeces, it will ruin the palace with its stench.

Those who had ‘Japa’ to escape the ‘hell’ Nigeria became should never be allowed to superintend our healing – ultimately because they lack the character and competence, native intelligence and maturity, selflessness and integrity, patience and sense of responsibility required to manage our healing process.

It was disheartening to see a Governor’s recent appointee scoff at his fortune, stressing that he never needed the appointment – even though he barely survived as a canned fruit hawker cum cab driver who squatted with friends in the United Kingdom.

He dismissed his new role as unneeded charity, flaunting his “lucrative businesses” overseas. Such disdain undermines the very dignity of public service. Governance is no playground for fair-weather patriots, who, when the tides turn, abandon ship, leaving chaos in their wake.

Diasporan appointments often ignore a fundamental rule: the right person for a position must have prior experience or demonstrated expertise in that role. If we must invite a Diasporian Nigerian to serve as the country’s Petroleum Minister, one primary requirement should be his previous employment in a similar capacity. The same logic requires that only a seasoned General can become Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS).

That said, it is often ill-advised to appoint an overseas cab driver, who is contemptuous of Nigeria, as a federal minister or director of a public agency. When Nigeria needs cab drivers with international experience, we may recruit such individuals. Our public offices are best reserved for patriots who keep faith in the Nigerian enterprise. It’s about time we stopped appointing leeches into public office. When the going gets tough, they simply pack up and leave. Nigeria’s public office is not a rehabilitation camp for fair-weather patriots.

Yet, the allure of foreign-trained technocrats often blinds decision-makers. We have seen governors appoint internet fraudsters and human traffickers as cabinet commissioners. We have also seen supposedly first-rate technocrats flaunting Ivy-League certificates, sully our public offices with corruption, arrogance and greed. Our public offices demand more than empty credentials; they require stewards who embody resilience, moral integrity, and an unyielding belief in the Nigerian dream.

We have Nigerians doing well back home, despite the odds. They are the type that stay the course when the going gets tough. They do not bend and sway to every favourable draft nor pack up and leave at the onset of a storm. They stay back and withstand its flurry, surviving with tact, perseverance, faith, goodwill and native intelligence. They understand that only by salvaging what we have and who we are, can we achieve our Nigerian dream. These are the ones deserving of public office.

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Still, it’s everyone’s prerogative to either stay or flee from perceived hostility in our homeland. But hostile politics and economies aren’t caused by phantoms or poltergeists. They are the result of our lack of humaneness and frantic avarice. The looters prowling our streets and corridors of power did not fall from outer space. They are the fruits of our mother’s wombs, sired with seeds from our fathers’ loins. They are the monsters we raised in our families.

Modern Nigeria is a product of the joint efforts and inactions of our families, schools, worship houses, the streets and the media.

Japa nomads taking the education or scholarship route, eventually find that their admission into elite schools overseas was purely a business decision by the schools and their host countries. The benefits are ploughed back into their host society.

By the time they graduate, they are superbly conditioned for the drudgery of second or third-rate employment overseas. Some occasionally secure first-rate employment. But the very smart ones among them relocate back home to seek employment with Nigerian or multinational firms who prefer their foreign certificates.

Many return to Nigeria as agents of metacolonialism. Hence the preponderance of journalists, writers, teachers, economists, social workers, engineers, and health workers, to mention a few, who function as glorified stooges of the so-called developed nations of the world.

At the heart of the Japa phenomenon lies a moral corruption not unlike that which fueled the transatlantic slave trade. It is a degeneracy rooted in faithlessness—faithlessness in one’s country, one’s people, and the possibility of collective growth. To combat this, we must dismantle the social mechanisms that enable such disloyalty. And this can only be achieved through education. The Nigerian school must begin to impart more than money-making soundbites and status-conferring skills.

Our schools must equally teach values and history with a didactic bent. If they do not, another transatlantic slave trade is possible; we have seen it happen in Libya, where Europe-bound Nigerian youths were bound and gagged, raped and murdered by African slave drivers cum human traffickers; it happens every day to thousands of Nigerians crossing to Europe through irregular migration routes from Agadez through Tripoli to the Mediterranean bight.

President Bola Tinubu must understand that it is not enough to seek foreign investment and cooperation from abroad; such initiative, while appreciable, could be doomed by a lack of quality personnel and citizenship required to nourish whatever benefits accrue from his nation-building enterprise.

If Nigeria truly seeks sustainable socio-economic growth in the long run, we must groom generations of men and women capable of nourishing and preserving the Greater Nigeria enterprise.

The true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers, and as Deresiewicz writes, only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey or have approached the work of the mind with a pilgrim soul.

Nigeria must furnish an educational system driven by the sweat and exploits of such pilgrim souls. The country’s education curricula must be overhauled to impart a Nigeria-centred educational experience that could resonate with the progressive social re-engineering of the country.

It doesn’t matter what quality of degrees are acquired if the recipients are furnished to operate like mindless robots, praise junkies, fortune hunters and crowd pleasers. William Hazlitt notes how European society violently wrenches and amputates her citizenry thus making them unfit for intercourse with the world, something in the manner that beggars maim and mutilate their children, to prepare them for their future pigeonholes.

This imagery of beggars maiming and mutilating children is discernible in the fate of the Nigerian kids birthed abroad; some are shipped overseas as regular or illegitimate migrants purportedly to grant them access to a better life.

The lure of Japa validates Bulhan’s theory of metacolonism. The syndrome has taken so much from us, including our loyalty, language, history, and the cultural values that bound our community together. All that is left is our sense of attachment and moral responsibility borne of nostalgia. Yet Japa has corrupted even that.

The time has come to redefine patriotism, prioritising those who believe in the Nigerian dream and are ready to make the sacrifices required to achieve it. Anything less is a disservice to the nation and its people.

November 21, 2024
In defence of Wike on Abuja demolitions

We are gradually becoming a nation of lawbreakers. Some have attributed this development to people’s lack of confidence in the elite whose laws are our laws. Many believe they make laws not to serve the overall interests of the public, but to protect the interest of group members.

For instance, it is generally believed that our lawmakers deliberately inserted lacunas in the Abuja Urban and Regional Planning Act which but for Nyesom Wike’s ongoing demolition would have allowed politicians who illegally took over Abuja green belt, and shanties dwellers, who illegally erected structures on land earmarked for public use by government to stay in court for up to 15 years.

Following Minister Wike’s last week’s demolition of Ruga illegal settlement, at Wuye, harbouring more than 10,000 illegal occupants, human right group led by Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as ‘VeryDarkMan’ (VDM), and Deji Adeyanju, a lawyer and activist, led the protest of the displaced people. Adeyanju, celebrated by the media as ‘a foremost human right activist, just about a year after leaving law school but dismissed by Nyesom as “an idle hand who became civil society activist after failing to secure his support for the national publicity secretary of PDP”, demanded the minister’s sack. Rather than deny Wike’s allegation, Barrister Adeyanju, who we now know is a PDP card-carrying member while wearing human right activist cloak, has been slandering and calling Wike names.

And this is despite the fact that Abba Garo, the spokesman for the victims of Ruga demolition whose crusade Adeyanju is leading, has admitted that the displaced occupants could not lay claim to the land which he also noted had been demolished 22 times, with occupants returning to rebuild “because they have no alternative accommodation”.

Nigerians are also aware that despite the heterogeneity, there is no part of Nigeria where outsiders are not welcome with open hands as long as they respect the values and culture of their host communities. It is therefore unimaginable that immigrants will move to Benin, Yola or Sokoto and start erecting structures without approval of the local authorities.

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The only exception is perhaps Abuja where Garo admitted they have continued to break the laws ‘because they have no alternative accommodation’ and Lagos where immigrants destroy the lagoon shorelines with shanties. The promoters and enablers of criminality in the case of Abuja and Lagos are attention-seeking civil society groups and a section of the media that intend to impose their warped view of society on the rest of us. Otherwise, the idea of urban immigrants resorting to self-help is alien to our culture.

The good news about Abuja however is that demolition Minister Wike, whether you like or not, has said no amount of blackmail was going to stop him from pulling down other illegal shanties and structures constructed on Abuja’s green areas. According to him, “If anyone builds on a green area without the necessary approval, then too bad. Those structures will be brought down; certainly, yes, they will be demolished without compensation to those who encroached on public land”.

Femi Falana, (SAN) and a respected human right crusader has however condemned, the minister for his decision to demolish illegal shanties he described as ‘private properties. According to him, the demolitions are not authorized under the Urban and Regional Planning Act applicable in the FCT because “In the FCT, if a house has breached the law, the case must first be taken to the Urban and Regional Planning Board. If the property owner loses, they can appeal to the Urban and Regional Tribunal. If that fails, the case may go to the High Court, where an order for demolition may be issued.”

For him, Wike’s demolition of shanties is ‘alien and primitive’. He is therefore insisting the minister must follow provisions of Abuja municipal laws.

But if the spirit of the law is ‘the search for the spirit of truth’ and the essence of law is that it ‘supports the logic of reason and the interest of common good’, I think Wike’s approach is superior to the Abuja municipal law, crafted by those who don’t really care about public interest And the Abuja Act itself, to use Falana’s words is “alien and primitive’ to the extent that the Abuja Municipal Act Falana wants to follow, is unarguably inferior to our traditional judicial system the colonial master met on ground when they first came in the 17th century when our social organization was considered superior to that of Europe, according to PC Lloyd.

Indeed the Abuja Municipal Act is an assault on Nigerian public by Nigerian elite who have been accused of converting most green area of Abuja land to personal use. And an attempt to link the Act to the British judicial system from where we copied most of our laws is also no less an assault on Nigerian sensibilities. As a product of norms and values, the British judicial system, would never have contemplated a situation whereby a British politician would take over a land set aside for public use or a British citizen and His Majesty’s subject erecting shanties on privately owned land. Such aberrations only occur in Nigeria where jobbers as human right activists and some media platforms routinely canonise villains as saints while the rest of us play the ostrich.

There is a new sheriff in Abuja who although may not popular but no doubt adept at elite game of political party intrigue, interest group pressure, deceit and even violence. (Recall he was the first to tell us how much he got from his then number one political enemy, President Muhammadu Buhari as derivation fund while his Niger Delta colleagues kept their peace). I think Wike is well prepared for the battle against Abuja’s powers and principalities.

But it is however not difficult to know the source of Falana’s angst. From his Freudian slip towards the end of his interview with Seun Okinbaloye of Channels TV when he angrily declared “after all when the elite commit the same offence, they are asked to regularize”, we could deduce Falana’s anger is against his fellow elite members who are getting away with similar crime for which shanties’ illegal dwellers lose their structures without compensation.

And this once again bring the focus on our educated elite, the scourge of the nation who Awolowo predicted would never able to guarantee justice for all Nigerians because of their greed for power and money. As it has turned out, every attempt to come up with a pro-Nigeria constitution by Nigerian elite since the end of the civil war has ended in a debacle.

I can also not resist calling attention to the observation by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, our former External Affairs Minister to the effect that there is no Nigeria billionaire in recent times who did not acquire his fortune through the Nigerian state. From the likes of Aliko Dangote, the government minted oligopolist, the airlines owners who acquire their wealth through foreign exchange round tripping, to the government oil well allotters, trillion naira profit making bankers to the super rich jet flying lawyers specializing in the defence of governors with stolen mandates, all rode to prosperity on the back of the state. And this perhaps explains why they often display their opulence and profligacy without restraint.

Dear esteemed readers, let me end this piece by sharing with you our encounter (The Guardian Newspapers) with shanties illegal dwellers. In the late eighties, Lade Bonuola, Guardian editor-in-chief and managing director had secured some acres of land in OPIC, Isheri for the Guardian. In 2005, we decided to allocate the plots to senior editors and other category of staff that had put in between 15-20 years of service. Ogun State Surveyor General’s office facilitated distribution of Certificate of Occupancy to beneficiaries after payment of necessary charges by OPIC.

The demand for additional payment by (Omo onile), land owners, was met and documented with a recorded video. Today, almost 20 years after, while building of all types have been erected on those plots by shanty dwellers, none of the over 100 legal owners, has had access to his plot.

If ending the above madness that today defines Lagos and Ogun in Abuja is part of the goal of Minister Nyesom Wike who has already said ‘no amount of blackmail, intimidation, and abuses will deter him from “protecting lives and property in the FCT and ensuring that Abuja was one of the best cities in the world’, he has my back in the battle he has already launched against Abuja vultures.

November 19, 2024
Bleeding heart theatre (2)

Shall we call him Ishmael? Each of the 32 boys recently released among the 76 detained in the August #EndBadGovernance protests—emerge as symbolic Ishmaels, castaways in a society indifferent to their plight.

Betrayed by the northern political elite, they wander estranged from the care and ideals that should palm their fate, laying siege to Nigeria’s rural heartlands and suburban sprawl.

There is an apocalyptic drift in the scourge of these minors, mainly underage boys and teenagers. The northern intelligentsia and political class, in particular, perceive them as fractions of the region’s disposable human trash. They believe that there are more pressing political and economic problems to address. This is a mistake. A grievous one.

It is the sort of apathy that seethes, awaiting the right spark to rupture – often at the nudge of shady political elite and criminal masterminds.

These boys are products of Nigeria’s dysfunctional system. Inured to mayhem, they are forbiddingly dangerous. Their personalities, shaved of compassion are sculpted to project strife by their maleficent benefactors.

Brainwashed, they become puppet personae, stunted in growth, and unquestioning of their puppeteers’ malicious intent.

Amid their benefactors’ toxic patronage, they manifest like soulless dummies, casual workers in a Nigerian carnage factory.

As victim and villains, they are both exposed and enclosed, behind their coarse faces and masks.

Each boy is naked yet armoured, premature yet ritually experient. They are impervious to morals because they have become soulless; their defiled innocence screams for urgent help and yet remains closed to redemption.

Their naivete is deceptive – not to be toyed with. Military officers in Nigeria and neighbouring countries claim the minors they face on the battlefielf are fearless. In Cameroon, a local commando unit dispatched helicopters and artillery against waves of Boko Haram’s child insurgents, who appeared to be drugged, some armed with no more than machetes, said Col. Didier Badjeck , a former Cameroonian army spokesman.

During a recent battle between Boko Haram and Cameroonian gendarmes, in northern Cameroon, more than one hundred screaming boys ran towards a fortified position, many of them barefoot and unarmed, said Badjeck to WSJ, and most were swiftly gunned down. Soldiers found in many of their pockets packaging from the opiate, tramadol.

“It’s better to kill a boy than have 1,000 victims,” said Badjeck. “It’s causing us problems with international organizations, but they’re not on the front lines. We are.” This is both sad and scary. No adult should ever have cause to think or say such of a minor.

No government should ever have cause to detain or charge minors as adult felons. Yet, in the aftermath of the August detentions, the swift release of these boys appeared less an act of justice and more an effort to quell public outrage.

The fervent shrieks of a chastising public seemed to browbeat the federal government into a retreat, thus releasing the boys, who returned to their communities as heroic symbols. Some state governors met them with a bizarre pageantry, a peculiar celebration for youth seen just days before as outlaws. The government’s hasty capitulation—a backhanded “victory” for those who condemned the arrests—signals a dangerous precedent, affirming that lawlessness may, at times, be overlooked for the sake of appeasement.

The political elite, especially, raised their voices to align with public sentiment in a bid for relevance. But it is the boys who suffer the most from this theatre of misdirected sympathy, this tacit validation of violence and defiance masquerading as reform.

Ultimately, they reflect a peril that grows with every unaddressed grievance. For they are not a separate people or class but the product of a fractured society that disdains to acknowledge them even as it manipulates their resentment for political purposes.

In the north, the legacy of this abandonment manifests in boy-terrorists, and bandits too young to understand the true scope of their actions yet resolute in their defiance. In the southern cities, Lagos especially, young gangs with names like the One Million Boys and Awawa Boys haunt neighborhoods, their adolescent faces hardened by a violence that stems from necessity. Teenagers wielding machetes and knives, robbing and raping without remorse, are the mirror to our society’s indifference, a warning cloaked in youthful terror.

These young gang members—southern and northern alike—reveal a raw truth about Nigeria’s descent. They are the sons of a failed republic, a generation cast adrift, molded in the rough hands of neglect and raised in the shadows of power.

But to disregard these boys as mere “distractions” is to miss the ominous truth that they are the harbingers of a much greater devastation—one that will not be contained by neglect.

President Bola Tinubu’s leadership stands at a precipice, compelled to confront the specter of youth disillusionment not as an incidental problem but as a national crisis. It is the duty of the ruling class to recognize that the cries of hardship from Nigeria’s marginalized are not tantrums but a plea for survival – to be treated with dignity.

To dismiss the grievances of a suffering populace – the youths in particular – as the complaints of ungrateful citizens is not only unacceptable but tragic. No leadership can expect loyalty or appreciation from those it deems irrelevant, those it ignores with contempt. I hope President Tinubu would commit no such error.

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Our youth—these forgotten Ishmaels—need more than our pity; they need a path to purpose. Their anguish should not be pacified with symbolic gestures or cynical grandstanding. They require a structure that fosters legitimate ambition, a system that offers alternatives to the grim realities that now bind them to violence. Education, mentorship, vocational training—these are not luxuries but necessities, the only means to disarm the fury that threatens to consume our nation.

The establishment of robust, grassroots programs that address not only academic but also emotional and ethical development can begin to mend the broken bridges. The infusion of opportunities for legitimate enterprise, for creative and productive outlets, could allow these youths to redirect their energies towards a brighter future.

Rather than institutionalizing punishment, we could foster community programmes that can rehabilitate former gang members, bandits, and soldiers, providing them with meaningful engagement through work, skill-building, and mentorship.

It’s aout time we held the political elite accountable for their part in the mayhem. They must be held accountable for the violent use of young people as agents of political manipulation. Policies that insulate minors from being co-opted for political gain should be enforced strictly, with transparency in electoral and political processes.

Our society must reckon with its own contradictions. We cannot decry the corruption of our youth while perpetuating the very conditions that breed it. We cannot chastise them for the choices they make while denying them any real options. We must look beyond the symptoms and address the root causes — the grinding poverty, the lack of access to quality education, the systemic corruption that has made a mockery of justice and governance.

For each child we condemn, another will rise, hardened by the same struggles, driven by the same sense of abandonment. It is a cycle that feeds upon itself, a vortex that will one day consume us all if left unchecked.

The path forward must be laid with compassion and reform, not with the fiery words of performative rage. Without it, the condemnation of these boys remains as empty as the promises they once believed in, leaving them stranded in the wastelands they were forced to call home.

November 14, 2024
Pastor Tunde Bakare is 70 years old

The activist and indefatigable man of God and tribune of the Nigerian people Dr Tunde Bakare of the Citadel Global Church is 70. I was glad to have attended the one in a life worship and book presentation of his autobiography on Monday, November 11 followed immediately by a reception in the hall of the church attended by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation representing the president, serving and former governors, ministers, traditional rulers from the southern and northern Nigeria including emir Muhammad Sanusi, the Emir of Kano.

I wrote with much interest, the foreword to Bakare’s autobiography titled “Definitely Not The Least”. The title indicates the fact that Tunde Bakare was the last child of his father, Sanni Bakare, a devout Muslim descended from the grand Imam of Abeokuta, Abdul Sidiq Bakare. In fact the Bakares were the first Muslims in Abeokuta, a town founded circa 1830 after the revolution and mass movement of the Oyo Yoruba into the Egba forests. This was after Fulani incursion into northern Oyo Empire and the Oyo’s consequent southward movement and pressure on their vassals, the Egba and Yewa people in present day Ogun State.

The story of Tunde Bakare began in Abeokuta, a unique city for many reasons in Nigeria. This was the last independent city in Nigeria before its independence was abrogated in August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War. Because of the unique history of Abeokuta, the town witnessed the first attempt at Christian evangelisation and its consequent cultural impact of western education on the town. This followed preceding Islamic cultural influence as a result of the considerable number of Muslims in the town. These two foreign cultures were imposed on the strong African tradition of the Egba people which many of them still held to, despite the two exotic religions of Christianity and Islam. Tunde Bakare is a product of the intermixture of the three religious tendencies prevalent in Abeokuta, then and now.

This autobiography is the story of a boy born into a large Muslim family who fate dealt a terrible blow when at only two years old, his relatively affluent father died leaving him and his mother Eebudola to fend for themselves. The book is a tale of struggle by his mother, who through iron discipline, tried to shape the destiny of her son the way she knew how while the son tried to find freedom as a growing child in what he considered a cruel world of poverty and deprivation. He did what was possible to get educated, selling water, fetching wood to sell and helping his mother to sell whatever stuff she was selling to make ends meet. It was this harsh beginning of being alone in a wicked world that shaped the early life and times of Tunde Bakare. He struggled through primary and secondary schools changing from one school to another, leaving school for some time because of poverty only to continue again thus finding himself in embarrassing position of being behind classmates who were not as good as he was. This kind of humiliation at a young age strengthened his resolve to get on in life by dint of hard work and determination. He was also somehow lucky by the rather cosmopolitan nature of Abeokuta where he could see at a glance, what he found attractive in Islam, Christianity and Western education. Early in life, he wanted to convert to Christianity but was discouraged by the reaction of his mother and his relatives. But he had seen himself becoming a Christian so that when he took the plunge and transition from Islam to Christianity later in life after moving to Lagos, he faced the harsh consequences which came with it because members of his family were not prepared to see a scion of a Muslim family brought up on the Holy Koran jump ship just like that. This denouement was not to take place until after he had had to move from his roots at Abeokuta to Lagos to improve on his rather pedestrian performance in his West African School Certificate examination. Having passed his examination eventually, he began to aim higher by getting a job and asking God to bless the labour of his hands through doing odd jobs like washing and ironing clothes, first for his teachers, and later for those who needed his services and enrolling in evening adult classes for Advanced level examination that would qualify him for university admission.

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It was not until I read this manuscript before writing a foreword to it that I discovered a strange coincidence. He had a serious accident which led him to having to stitch his lower or upper lips and the lady who took him to hospital was a certain Mrs Agbelemoge who happens to be my cousin. Her father and my mother are cousins. It was around the same time that I met Tunde Bakare as one of his teachers who coached him for his Advanced level examination in History and government in the University of Ibadan extramural studies centre in Saint Jude’s Ebute Metta, I believe in 1977. If I am like Tunde Bakare, I will see the divine hands of God in our meeting and my taking keen interest and a liking to a student who I would describe as a precocious young man. It was through my intervention that Tunde entered the University of Lagos. Every step Tunde Bakare took in life has been preceded either by a vision, dream or hearing from God.

He started his Christian journey in the University of Lagos and since laying his hands on the plough, he has never looked back. He used his training as a lawyer to serve humanity thus bringing his profession to bear on his Christian belief. His most difficult convert was his mother, Eebudola Asabi Bakare who he had previously sponsored to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina but who he converted to Christianity, the religion which she embraced with fervour of somebody born into it. This was very important to Tunde to whom his mother was very special as a person who believed in him and saw a vision of his son’s success as not only a religious leader but a secular one well before anyone else. Tunde Bakare cut his pastoral journey through tutelage under the giant leaders of Nigeria’s Pentecostal movement namely, Dr Samuel Odunaike of the Foursquare Church, Dr W.F Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Church and Pastor Adejare Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God who leads the largest Pentecostal church in Nigeria.

Along the way, he interacted with Pastor David Oyedepo of Winners Church and Bishop Mike Okonkwo of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM) – his contemporaries. He had his reasons for finding his independent path from the foremost leaders under whom he had served and associated with. He however found more rewarding his association with two American Pentecostal pastors Dr Morris Cerullo and Dr Lester Sumrall and particularly Dr Sumrall. Sumrall was an American Pentecostal pastor, evangelist, teacher, and missionary. He founded the Lester Sumrall Evangelistic Association and World Global College in his native New Orleans Louisiana. Sumrall was less well known than Cerullo in Africa and of course in Nigeria but Bakare claims he owes most of his spiritual development to him. Bakare’s Church, The Latter Rain Assembly and later on The Citadel, its successor were found very attractive by the young people apparently because of his youth and spiritual leading.

Bakare was ineluctably led by divine inspiration into secular activism which is not strange for a young man who saw Christianity as not just a belief system but a way of life. Pastor Bakare could not restrict himself to preaching alone or embarking on crusades against demonic and evil forces in our society while the mass of humanity suffered a lot. He sees himself as a “messenger” of God to suffering humanity if not in the world at least in Nigeria and Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe) where do nothing governments sat on the necks of their people for very long time. This led him to organising pressure groups and leading demonstrations on the street in Lagos and Abuja against constitutional breaches and against prices of fuel and other commodities. This soon brought him into clashes with people in authority and great admiration of the people who saw him as a tribune of the people and an electoral asset to people in power or in opposition.

This was the situation which brought him into running with Major General Muhammadu Buhari against an incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan who was largely supported by the Christian community in 2011. This decision was taken by Tunde Bakare under divine guidance according to him and not for the love for filthy lucre, glory or fame but in the public interest. When he and his principal lost the election which he considered rigged, he never gave up and was able to persuade Buhari to run again in 2015 but not with him as running mate. Buhari subsequently won the 2015 election with generous support of Bakare. Buhari offered him several positions including High Commissioner to the Court of Saint James’s in London which he declined. The lack of performance for eight years by Muhammadu Buhari must have influenced him to accept the challenge and gauntlet to try to be president himself in the election of 2023 where he was faced with the African reality that leadership is mostly bought not earned.

It remains to be said that when the history of this times is written, the name of Pastor Bakare’s remarkable story of a man who rose from poverty and deprivation to aspiring for the highest position in the land would be one of those to be included among the makers of modern Nigeria. Reading his excellent autobiography and the command of English by the author has been a labour of love and enjoyment. The story of Tunde Bakare is a testament to the love of God and his wife, Layide and the beautiful children she gave Tunde. The book is also a promenade into the intricacy and complexity of recent politics of Nigeria and the mortal dangers faced by an activist like Bakare who of course overcame fear because in all he did he had faith that God was leading him. This book deserves to be read by the critical mass of the Nigerian society.

November 14, 2024
Abiku Grid and the greedy DisCos

Power transmission and distribution remain at its lowest ebb ever in the history of the nation. Since the classification of customers into bands under which they are billed according to the hours of supply they enjoy daily, electricity distribution has not been the same again. Whatever band you may be, supply is at the discretion of the distributors who have prioritised Band A customers.

Generation, we have been told, has been fantastic. The problem is that of transmission and distribution. The government-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) which acts as offtaker to the generation companies (GenCos) has the capacity to transmit but the distribution companies (DisCos) lack the capacity to distribute the entire stock.

These DisCos, which dot the six geo-political regions servicing the states in those places, more often than not decline to take all the transmitted power for distribution, citing various reasons. They claim that they are being owed by many customers and as such do not have the financial muscle to pay for the supply. At times, they ask for credit facility, which they do not extend to customers who they treat with levity. Some people have, however, argued that the issue has to do more with infrastructure than finance.

They may have a point there. Since the privatisation of the power sector by the Jonathan administration in November 2013, there has been no new major investment in the public utility’s infrastructure by the successor-distribution companies which have today become law unto themselves. They are more interested in reaping without sowing in what they acquired.

What value have they added to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), as it was then known, which they acquired under different guises and forms? They quickly mopped up the assets, without doing anything about the decaying infrastructure. The nation is where it is today in its power generation, transmission and distribution drive because the assets of PHCN fell into the wrong hands. The privatisation was not properly done and the nation is paying for it today.

The incessant collapse of the National Grid has shown that we are still a long way from achieving our dreams of regular power supply despite the introduction and classification of consumers under bands, with the assurance that those on the elite Band A will enjoy an uninterrupted 22-hour supply per day, at a heavy price.

Those who can afford it have been paying, but many are complaining that there is a catch somewhere, which they cannot put a finger on. They claim that it is a scam, pointing at the fast rate they say their meter credit burns out despite switching off many appliances to control use. Is there really any need for band classification where there is an efficient and effective power system? The answer is no.

By resorting to band classification, many Nigerians have been deliberately shut out of the power supply chain because they are men of straw. It is only men of means who now enjoy power yala yolo, as some will say, at any given time of the day. Even when the grid collapses, their supply is not affected. Where does that come from? From a grid that is hidden somewhere unknown to the majority of the people.

The frequent incidence of grid collapse has worsened the problem. For the 11th time this year, it happened again last Thursday. It was the second time in 48 hours that we were witnessing such a national embarrassment which followed that of Tuesday. What a way to celebrate the 11th month with the grid collapsing for the 11th time last Thursday. Jokes apart, why this incessant collapse? Is there no way out of it? How many megawatts are we producing that this vast network of transmission lines linking power stations to end-users nationwide cannot cope?

In September, we were celebrating the generation of 5,313 megawatts (MW) of electricity in a country of 232.6 million people. Whereas South Africa and Ghana, with a population of 64.2 million and 34.4 million, generate 58,095MW and 2,837MW. The truth is our Abiku National Grid is no longer fit for purpose. It outlived its usefulness long ago when it started packing up at the slightest hint of trouble, be it of infrastructure or the DisCos’ inability to take all the transmitted power.

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Things cannot continue like this. Otherwise every other thing will collapse as a result of the failure to fix the national grid. It is time to look for an alternative before the grid turns us into a grieving nation. We have been at its mercy for too long. To rub insult upon injury, the DisCos are threatening fire and brimstone over prepaid meters that they claim would become outdated on November 24.

They have rebuffed all entreaties by the Nigerian Electricity and Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to replace the meters at no cost to consumers. They are insisting on customers paying for a replacement. How do you pay for a replaced item? There is nowhere in the world that replaced items are paid for by consumers when such exigencies arise. It is for the service provider to replace an item where the need to do so is not of the consumer’s making.

Ikeja Electric (IE) has been adamant over the matter. Where its counterpart, Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), has shown some understanding through the upgrading of the meters to ensure their continued use, IE is insisting on the replacement of the meters at a cost to the consumer or nothing. This is not business; it is sheer wickedness and exploitation of its poor and suffering customers. It wants to play hard.

But it should be mindful of the consequences of such action. They are usually not good for business, no matter how indispensable the service provider may think it is. Like EKEDC, IE will lose nothing by allowing its customers to upgrade their meters with ease. It should remember the saying: “customer is king”.

November 14, 2024