The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • These little boys may die young

    These little boys may die young

    It’s sixty-seven days since a boulder hurtled down the ancient Dukku Hills of Kebbi, killing eight underage boys. Muhammad Bawando, Musa Kambaza, Dan-sayyada Kambaza, Abu Takai, Nasir Cheferu, Barmo Babanda, Kalije Bawanda, and Yakubu Aminu – eight almajirai who went to the mountains to dig for clay.

    On Saturday, April 20, 2024, each shovel of dirt brought them closer to their goal; their hands stained with the rich, red earth, they shared dreams of new walls, sturdy roofs, and the warmth of a hut they could call their home.

    But fate had a cruel twist in store. High above, perched precariously on the edge of the quarry, a massive boulder teetered on the brink of disaster. Unseen and unheard, it waited, biding its time until the moment was ripe.

    And then, with a deafening roar, the earth shook as the boulder broke free, hurtling down the steep incline with unstoppable force. The boys barely had time to register the impending doom before the boulder crashed down, trapping them 10 metres beneath its weight.

    Dust and debris filled the air as their screams pierced the silence, desperate cries for help that went unanswered. Surrounded by throttling darkness, their voices faded to whispers, in the darkness of their tomb. Nobody heard their dying cries. Nobody saw them writhe and resign to their final fate. That fateful afternoon, the blazing sun belched irrepressible misery and death as the corpses of the eight pupils of the Malam Dan-Umma Qur’anic School at Bayan Science, Badariya, Birnin Kebbi Local Government Area (LGA) of Kebbi State were exhumed from the rubble.

    Echoes of their grisly demise still reverberate through the arid streets of Kebbi, and northern Nigeria, where many more minors are perishing in silence.

    These children, entrusted to the care of itinerant malams, languish in a world that seems to have forgotten them, their fragile lives hanging by a thread in a society that watches with cold indifference.

    The almajiri system, once a noble endeavor rooted in the quest for knowledge, has been sullied by corruption and neglect. It was intended to be a beacon of learning and spiritual growth, but over time, it has become a grotesque parody of its original purpose. In the alleys and byways of northern Nigeria, the almajiri boys are a living testament to a broken dream, their lives overshadowed by destitution and despair.

    Read Also: Flovale partnership with Nigerian Rugby  excites Are 

    The rich, with their gilded gates and lush gardens, seldom consign their progeny to such a grotesque existence. Instead, they shield their children from the harsh realities of the world, while the poor are left to cling to the tattered remnants of a system that has long ceased to serve their interests.

    For the impoverished, the almajiri system offers a semblance of hope, a chance for their children to receive an education and perhaps a better life. But this hope is often illusory, a cruel mirage that fades with the rising sun.

    The boys, separated from their families, are denied the warmth of parental love and the comfort of a stable home. They wander the streets, begging for alms, their dreams withering in the harsh glare of reality. It is a heart-wrenching sight, indeed; a social crisis unfolding in plain view, yet met with averted eyes and muted indifference.

    The question that looms large is what the governments of Kebbi and other northern states are doing to address this conundrum. The death of those eight boys should have spurred decisive action. Instead, it has become yet another statistic in a long litany of tragedies.

    The Kebbi State government’s Almajiri Integrated Education scheme is not the first feeble initiative addressing the challenges of the almajiri system. In April 2012, former President Goodluck Jonathan launched the Almajiri Integrated Model School (AIMS) initiative through the Universal Basic Education Commission seeking to integrate Qur’anic schools with modern curricula and skill-based education, targeting the 13.2 million out-of-school children in northern Nigeria. It provided stationery, lunch, uniforms and classroom facilities. But despite spending about N15 billion to establish 400 Almajiri model schools and rebuild 36 schools across 19 northern states and Edo, enrollment and attendance rates remained low due to various issues, including the sustained apathy from parents and the students. Additionally, lack of funding from state governments led to many schools falling into disrepair and students returning to street begging.

    Islam prescribes that the primary legal and moral duty of parents is to take care of the welfare of their children, to provide them with food, shelter, security, health, and education. Parents are also instructed to instill morals into their wards, to the best of their abilities.

    Thus, memorising the Qur’an, which is largely what an almajiri does, is a desirable (mustahab) act. It is not compulsory for every Muslim, though it is encouraged, but because of bandwagon following (and of course poverty), most parents would rather trade their compulsory duty (wajib) for a desirable one (mustahab).

    It is a moral imperative for parents, guardians, civil society, and the government to break the cycle of neglect and indifference. To ignore the plight of these boys is to condemn them to a life of unending drudgery and hopelessness. They are not mere statistics; they are children with dreams, aspirations, and the potential to contribute meaningfully to society. To forsake them is to forsake our collective humanity.

    The almajiri system, in its corrupted state, is a glaring symbol of society’s failure to protect our children. It is a festering wound that must be healed, not with palliatives and platitudes, but with genuine, sustained efforts to reform and rehabilitate.

    A recent study, conducted in 137 villages across Kano and Kaduna, revealed that half of the boys who enter the almajiri system die, with 17 percent surviving and 33 percent getting lost, some of whom also die. The research was conducted by a team from four universities: Funom Theophilus Makama (University of Leicester, UK), Esther Funom Makama (University of Maiduguri, Borno State), Peter Maitalata Waziri (Kaduna State University), and Attahiru Dan-Ali Mustapha (Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria). They found that the harsh conditions and forced begging make these boys vulnerable to violence, hunger, infections, and child predators, significantly reducing their chances of reaching adulthood, with many dying before age 16. They concluded that for every six boys enrolled, three die, one survives, and two go missing. Any system causing such high child mortality and loss is intolerable, regardless of its cultural or religious significance.

    Good governance is at the heart of the solution. Several measures including firmer enforcement of anti-trafficking laws protective of minors and bio-data tracking have been suggested to curb the menace. Government must, however, employ diplomacy while enforcing extant laws, and create the necessary environment to foster a reformed and more purposive integrated education system. Parents must also accept to play their part by having only the number of children they can cater for.

    In the wake of the demise of the Kebbi eight, the state governor, Nasir Idris, sent a delegation to condole with the boys’ families, and donated N20 million naira to the bereaved.

    But can N20 million bring back eight promising boys, teeming with life? Is it a worthy consolation to the bereaved families of Muhammad Bawando, Musa Kambaza, Dan-sayyada Kambaza, Abu Takai, Nasir Cheferu, Barmo Babanda, Kalije Bawanda, and Yakubu Aminu?

    Can the money revive their boyish chants, where dreams of home are shaped from earth? Can it reignite their heartfelt quest for warmth and delicate balance atop the shifting sands of fate?

  • Plus ca change plus ca meme chose: Between American and South African politics

    Plus ca change plus ca meme chose: Between American and South African politics

    I have been an avid watcher of American and South African politics since my first year in the university in 1963 and I had thought the promise for the world was the possibility of change in the two countries’ politics which I thought would usher in revolutionary changes in race relations for good in global politics. Recent events in the two countries have raised doubts in my mind about the course of events in global politics.

    Why I thought the two countries offered humanity the opportunity for change either peacefully or otherwise was because I saw similarities in the politics of the countries and the roles of race and the ability of man to rise above the racial demons that seem to dog mankind in the 20th century the most wicked of which climaxed in the Nazi holocaust against the Jews in Europe. The differences between the two countries are of course stark. America is a new country settled by Europeans and Africans after virtually wiping out the indigenous native tribes. The country was built on racial injustice against the natives and the forced labour of African slaves and the skill and genius of the white man. It is a vast country which had the chance and opportunity of satisfying the greed and cupidity of man if some balance could be forged between the acquisitive urge of man and man’s basic humanity of fairness.

    I thought with the right political leadership, this was possible. On the other hand, South Africa is both a white settler country in an old continent inhabited by hardy and tough black people who could not be easily wiped off the map. It presented humanity a fait accompli of a country built on the abundance of black native labour and black land expropriated by settler whites whose genius has brought some development without a sense of sharing and fairness.

    Read Also: South Africa’s xenophobic attacks

    How the two emergent countries were to resolve the contradictions in their countries presented mankind challenges which some of us have watched in the last 60 or so years with interest. Of course, South Africa does not have the resources and power of the United States but it however provides a paradigm, albeit on a smaller scale, on the possible resolution of a difficult human problem.

    In the 1960s, both countries presented a sharp racial divide which at that time seems to be an unbridgeable racial chasm. The South African situation did not present mankind simple political solution but a dire problem which only violence could resolve. The Americans between 1860 and 1865 had fought a civil war causes among which were how a so-called free society should not be a slave holding country. The victory of the North against the South did not resolve the problem because the problem continued in a most wicked form of political and physical segregation of the blacks who were herded to undeveloped parts of the South and when they migrated to the north, the urban ghettos replaced the slave plantations. But in spite of this, and with the right leadership, there were glimmers of hope for change. Violence is as American as apple pie is, so some violence was expected along the way for social and political changes in America.

    The emergence of the new African Congress and particularly the Umkotho we Siswe – “The Spear of the Nation” led by such young people like Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela marked the turning point of politics of liberation in South Africa from agitational demonstration to armed struggle illustrating the aphorism that when peaceful change is made impossible, revolutionary struggle becomes inevitable. This is the evidence of history.

    The 1960s in America and South Africa witnessed revolutionary confrontations between the forces of change and maintaining the status quo. The age was also the age of African independence and liberation agitation and these had impact on the politics of the people out of the power loop in the two countries. The blacks in the USA wanted enfranchisement and economic opportunities. In South Africa, they wanted the same thing and equality with the settlers which means ultimately, transfer of power to the majority black peoples. The whites in America were not faced with this choice whereas this was the choice faced by the settler regime in South Africa and it was a matter of fight to finish, surrender and or perish. Therefore their resistance was bloody and blatant.

    They even became, in the 1970s, a nuclear weapons state ready to bring Armageddon on not only South Africa but on the entire continent. They were aided in their acquisition of this lethal armament by right wing forces in America, Europe and Israel. There was no room for accommodation whereas in the United States, it was found possible to enfranchise the blacks and blunt whatever revolutionary fervour that was driving political agitation and agenda in the country. The result of this in the United States was the election of several black mayors and a few Congress men and women and a sprinkling of one or two senators but hardly any governor. This change certainly blunted the raging urban riots of the 1960s.

    The pressure of young black revolutionary movements and the civil rights movement led by Dr Martin Luther King  culminated in the civil Rights Bill of 1965 which despite its limitations has given black Americans a window of opportunity to be politically equal even if still economically deprived and dependent. No one can deny that progress has been made. The election of Barack Obama is a recognition of the black progress but which unfortunately has raised the banners of reaction, retrogressions and political and social segregation and violence in thought and deed manifested by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.  The America of President Barack Obama now appears so distant in the past and the hope for a peaceful balance of races a forlorn hope.

    Events in South Africa moved rapidly from the country’s precipitously crashing down of the decades before the 1990s to a period which witnessed the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. From prison to the presidential palace, remains an epic story of what is possible as epitomised by the Mandela story in South Africa. The coming to power of the African National Congress and the installation of Nelson Mandela as president in 1994 remains one of the great landmarks in the history of African decolonisation and political change and transfer of power from an entrenched powerful minority to a majority that is economically and technologically unprepared for power. South Africa has therefore struggled on gingerly with the black majority incapacitated by the vagaries of economic reforms that have left the real power in the hands of the white minority thus creating a tale of two societies in one country bifurcated by race in which the haves and have nots have virtually remained the same as it was under the apartheid regime. The radicalism of the African National Congress has not translated into jobs, housing, land and economic empowerment of the black majority in South Africa. The recent loss of power by the  ANC and  its forming a coalition government with the Democratic Alliance, the Inkatha Freedom Party of Buthelezi and other holdouts of the apartheid era, throws us back to where the country was decades ago and it is an acceptance of the fact that the black majority needs the white minority to make progress.

    There may be nothing wrong with accepting this reality but it certainly gives room for thought that despite the sloganeering of the ANC, nothing really has changed and the blacks remain at the bottom of the ladder in South Africa.

    America and South Africa remain racially as divided as they have always been. South Africa from the evidence of the last election in which the most powerful national group, the Zulus voted for tribal Zulu parties, Jacob Zuma’s Umkotho We Siswe and Inkatha Freedom Party of the Zulu tribalism Buthelezi, is moving towards tribal politics which remains the bane of African politics and the cause for African underdevelopment which was why the settlers were able to divide and rule the country for centuries. Incredibly, America of Donald Trump is moving in the same direction of political tribalism in which many of his supporters are even denying that America is a democracy.

    Some argue that they have never been a democracy. This may be true but I have never heard this said by high ranking politicians before. If they are not a democracy then what is America then? Without shame, some say America is a republic others say it is a constitutional republic. Some Republicans including Donald Trump openly say if they lose the 2024 elections, there will be a civil war in the United States because they will not accept their loss. In a situation where the Republican Party is the party of the privileged whites and loudly announcing that America is “white country”, we seem to be back to pre-civil war America of a tale of two cities in the Dickensian terminology. We are all going to hell and we are all going to heaven!

    Nothing really has changed in America and South Africa, one country manifesting dictatorship of the racial majority while the other showing control and influence of an economically dominant minority.

  • Spinning out of control

    Spinning out of control

    In Rivers, it is now one day, multiple challenges. It was bound to get to that; it was just a matter of time. When the rift between Governor Siminilayi Fubara and his predecessor and benefactor, Nyesom Wike, broke out some eight months ago, it was clear that it was going to be a fight to the finish, as both men were far gone in their disagreement. Why did they disagree so early in their political union? Is there something between them that we do not know that is behind all this?

    Fubara was expected to be Wike’s eyes and ears after he came to office on May 29, last year, because of the role the now Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister played in his election as governor. This is not the first time that we will be witnessing a fight between a political godfather and his godson, but the relationship between Wike and Fubara was not expected to go sour so soon. It has not only gone sour, it is threatening the fabric of society.

    From all indications, the governor is ready to go for broke. The way he speaks and conducts himself portrays him as a belligerent. The row over the tenure expiration or otherwise of the 23 local government chairmen in the state was a contrivance aimed at throwing the state deeper into morass. The governor has a hand in it; it is of his making in order to cause crisis in the state. He knew that the local government chairmen’s tenure was going to lapse on June 17. What did Fubara and the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) do to conduct government election before the expiration of the tenure of the council chiefs?

    They deliberately kept quiet on the issue since they knew where they were going. It is worth restating that the local government is not an appendage of the state government, just as the latter is not a branch of the Federal Government. But unlike the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which has been up and doing in conducting elections at the expiration of the tenure of the four-year tenure of the President and governors, the same cannot be said of the state independent electoral commissions. Despite their so-called independence, the SIECs wait on the governors before they act. Without funding by the governors, they cannot discharge their functions.

    Read Also: AVRS to make grand entrance in Rivers state

    So, RSIEC could not conduct local government election as it is mandated to do by the Constitution because it did not have the resources to do so at the time of the expiration of the chairmen’s tenure. The conduct of elections costs money whether at the council, state or federal level. By deliberately starving the RSIEC of funds, Fubara knew that there was nothing the commission could do about the election. What made matters worse was the fact that many of the council chiefs were loyalists of Wike, his estranged political father.

    How then will he fund RSIEC to conduct an election that he was not sure of winning? To conduct the election, he must first have his own people in place and this is what he has done by purportedly appointing those he can trust as caretaker council chairmen. The question is: does he have the power to do so? The answer is NO, constitutionally speaking. But his backers, whether old or young, hate to hear that. Their response to that question has always been there is nothing new in what Fubara is doing. But does that make it right? The answer again is NO.  What is their position, as Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, would ask?

    It is that similar things were done by some governors in the past. We shall never grow as a nation if we did something wrong in the past and still want to stand by it. It is better to learn from that mistake and move forward so that democracy can thrive.

    Fubara’s appointment of caretakers for the councils cannot stand and hopefully, the courts would not mince words in saying so. A governor who delights in stoking controversies and standing by thugs has no place in our democracy. He has shown the kind of person he is. As a governor, Fubara should be thinking of how to find work for the youths who thronged the councils, wielding all kinds of weapons, under the guise of stopping the chairmen from accessing their offices because their tenure has expired. If their tenure has really expired, is it cudgel-brandishing youths that will be deployed in the council secretariats to debar the chairmen from entering their offices?

    Whoever wishes to arrest his supporters, indirectly referring to these unruly youths, Fubara says, will have to pass through him. Does he know the implication of his statement? Is he supporting thuggery and hooliganism, all because he wants to stop his political opponents, at all costs, from gaining the upper hand? I do not blame him. If only the police had acted faster than they did, many of those jobless youths would have been flushed out of the council secretariats long before they wreaked havoc there.

    With the police now in control of the council secretariats, there is law and order. But the nation awaits the Court of Appeal to bring sanity to the state as it today adjudicates on one of the many cases between Fubara and the 27 lawmakers who extended the council chairmen’s tenure by six months, in the first place. To suit his purpose, he is upholding a high court order voiding the extension, as well as complying with the resolutions of the minority three lawmakers who have approved his list of caretaker chairmen.

    He has hurriedly sworn in the caretakers in breach of Section 7 (1) of the Constitution which guarantees a democratically elected local government council, with the government of every state, subject to Section 8, ensuring their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils. No matter what, the courts will yet save the day.    

  • Kara ram market and contestation over citizenship

    Kara ram market and contestation over citizenship

    Last Thursday, I spent two hours between Kara Bridge cattle market and Berger bus stop, a distance of about two kilometres as a result of activities of ram sellers and ram buyers. On Friday, motorists and other road users were stranded in the Kara traffic gridlock for hours with some residents of Isheri North in Lagos State and those of Mowe, Ibafo, and Arepo in Ogun State choosing to put up with friends for the night in Omole Estate. With the traffic build-up stretching as far back as the Third Mainland Bridge from early hours of Saturday, it was a nightmare for motorists and residents who were forced to spend several hours in the gridlock.

    By “Sunday (Eid day), the situation according to Punch newspaper report “became worse with a loaded truck falling to its side on the Otedola Bridge area of the expressway and spilling its contents on the road with a similar incident along the Long Bridge section”. Added to this was the plight of outside-bound travellers and Muslims on last minute rush to buy rams at cheaper rate. Unfortunately, the presence of men of the Rapid Response Squad, (RRS), complemented by men of the Federal Road Safety Commission, (FRSC) brought little relief to Nigerians.

    The Kara ram market tragedy is cyclical as it is re-enacted during every Muslim ‘IIeya’ season. As successive governors of Ogun and Lagos states, neck deep in ‘politics of cow and ram’ writhe their hands in helplessness over the odious comparison as to who between cows and humans should enjoy citizenship status, our politicians especially the over-paid lawmakers in Abuja are playing the ostrich pretending not to know the difference between citizenship rights and privileges and animals right.

     In fact ex-President Buhari’s Attorney General, Abubakar Malami, to drive home his crooked syllogism, tried to equate the rights of Ibo traders in the northern cities to those of marauding cows in the reserved forests of Ondo State, protected by AK-47 wielding immigrant criminal herders. On the same page with Malami was President Buhari’s first Defence Minister, Mansur Mohammed Dan Ali. He once asked a rhetorical question “if you block the old grazing routes for cows, what do you expect” as a reaction to the murder of over 90 farmers by herders in Benue State. Their crooked logic was that cows and human beings have similar citizenship rights in Nigeria.

    Read Also: Public-Private Partnership (PPP): A Catalyst for Transforming Education in Ogun State

    They were not alone.  In the eighth assemblies, some northern lawmakers spoke of consequences of shooting down the laws that would have allowed cows to graze freely on the farmlands of farmers in the federating states. And as late as last week, during the passage for second reading of  “A Bill to Establish a National  Husbandry and Ranches Commission for the Regulation and Control of Ranches  sponsored by Senator Titus Zam, Senate President Godswill Akpabio had to remind Senator Aliero who was opposed to the bill, that “cows are no citizens of Nigeria”.

    But back to Kara ram market where successive Ogun State governors have been playing ‘politics of ram and cow’, apparently to be in the good books of powerful northern politicians. Governor Gbenga Daniel had an opportunity to relocate the Kara ram market some 21 years back during Obasanjo’s presidency. But Daniel chose to serve his own personal interest. He deployed huge resources to sand-fill a portion of the Kara swamp, paved the roads and erected structures he called ‘Journalists Rendezvous’ which collapsed after his tenure. By his admission during his recent interview with Channels TV, he founded his own newspapers to fight Aremo Olusegun Osoba, his predecessor and a veteran journalist believed to have the sympathy of the media following the way he was rigged out of office by Obasanjo and Tony Anenih’s rigging machine that secured for him more votes than the total registered Ogun voters.

    Governor Ibikunle Amosun, with his one-metre long cap was also at Kara ram market for a road show after his election some 13 years back. He was said to have given the ram sellers an ultimatum to relocate to an alternative place, a directive which was ignored all through his eight years in office while cows enjoyed more privileges than his Ogun State citizens. It is also on record that Governor Dapo Abiodun threatened fire and brimstone to uphold the rights of his Ogun State people over cows when he first assumed office in 2019. Five years on, his besieged Ogun State citizens and motorists are still at the mercy of cows and rams at Kara market.

    Many have wondered if self-proclaiming Yoruba politicians whose only claim to “Awoism” is adorning his cap, created time to read some of his books or understudy his economic management blueprint which focused on development of human capital, through free education up to primary school in 1952, extended to secondary school by UPN that in 1979 “ran free education and free health programmes, created industrial and residential estates, and established universities, etc.”?

    And this only calls to question the preparedness of successive Yoruba governors since the beginning of the fourth republic. Their forebears starting with Obafemi Awolowo, the sage, his lieutenants including Bisi Onabanjo, Adekunle Ajasin, Bola Ige, Lateef Jakande and Ambrose Alli, set a pattern to follow with their citizen-centred policies.

    And their legacies ‘were in the areas of education, agriculture and food security, industrialization, employment generation, and massive physical and social infrastructures development’. The ill-advised balkanization of the region led to the ceding of some companies including the Odua Textiles, Okitipupa Oil Palm Limited, etc. to Ondo State, while Western Livestock Company, among other agricultural projects, went to Oyo State with Ogun State inheriting Apoje and Lomiro Oil palms, as well as Ilushin and Ikenne rubber plantations etc.

    But “regrettably”, as observed by a concerned Ogun citizen at a time, “none of the professed ‘Awoists’ that governed the state during the last two decades took any concrete steps to save Apoje, Lomiro, Ilushin and Ikenne plantations from destructive exploitation and progressive deterioration. It is the hope and fervent prayers of the good people of Ogun State that Governor Amosun would take proactive and measurable steps to resuscitate all Awo’s agro-economic legacies”.

    How can new inheritors of power in a region whose economic management revolved around the production of human capital, which found expression in the introduction of “free education up to the primary school level as far back as 1952 and extended to the secondary school level under the Unity Party of Nigeria, that in 1979, introduced education support at tertiary level, introduced free health programmes, created industrial and residential estates, established universities in Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos be playing games with citizenship  in 2024?

    How can the governors defend the fact that a region which once had an elaborate “agriculture infrastructure including the Cooperative Bank (WEMA Bank) that provided credit facilities to farmers during planting seasons through agricultural cooperative societies and the marketing boards that  provided facilities for the sale of produce through marketing cooperatives” depend on rice, beans, millet, yam, tomato, pepper from other regions while consuming 10,000 cows daily without producing one?

    While federating member states are at liberty to confer citizenship on cows in their own areas, I think the current crop of Yoruba governors must re-event themselves. It is hoped their recent joint meeting would go beyond singing of Yoruba item to a more productive endeavour along the paradigm set by their illustrious forebears.

  • Beyond N40b theft of depositors’ money

    Beyond N40b theft of depositors’ money

    Good banking grows dreams, businesses, countries. It nurtures individuals and families. Ultimately, it suckles the future from the tits of the present. But bad banking manifests gruesomely, like a viral disease. Sometimes, it strikes like a pandemic, as was the case with modern Greece.

    Oftentimes, it sprouts as inflamed tumours, much like the infestation of a first-generation bank. It could be an uphill battle stifling the human hankering to spout off and be seen over a grievous crime, like the theft of N40 billion depositors’ money by a management staff of the bank.

    Few days after a close friend and confidant counseled me to send my Curriculum Vitae (CV) and a cover letter for the post of an image maker with one of the big banks, it is safe to say I may be ill-suited for such employ.

    This realisation manifests in the wake of the disclosure of the atrocity committed by the staff of the bank. It’s in my nature to censure not downplay such. Conceited, am I?

    In an era when digital sophistication subsists as the hallmark of any reputable financial institution, the first-generation bank manager brazenly mauled it into a grotesque affliction of modern banking. The recent revelation of a staggering N40 billion alleged theft by one of its own—the erstwhile manager of the electronic products team – is not just a scandal; it’s a damning indictment of the bank’s rotten system.

    The culprit, who handled transfer reversals, allegedly abused his position by diverting funds into a commercial bank account owned by his wife. Over two years, he funneled money through 1,190 accounts, splurging some of it on cryptocurrency.

    This gross misappropriation only came to light when a persistent customer refused to let go of an unresolved reversal. As we speak, the culprit and his accomplice have reportedly vanished, leaving a trail of financial ruin in their wake.

    The irony here is richer than a croissant at a French patisserie. The affected bank, zzwhich prides itself as a legacy institution, and the bedrock of Nigerian banking, failed to notice a colossal fraud happening right under its nose. For a bank whose executives routinely trained at Ivy League institutions at home and abroad, their failure to detect and prevent such a massive fraud borders on criminal negligence and incompetence.

    The N40 billion theft is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger malaise. It’s a stark reminder that banks have become the antithesis of the trust they are supposed to embody. If a supposedly conservative and ethical institution like the bank can be compromised so thoroughly, what hope is there for the rest?

    Read Also: Ex-INEC REC urges CSOs to save democracy in Southeast

    This scandal underscores the harsh reality that entrusting your money to a Nigerian bank today is akin to handing it over to a well-dressed bandit.

    The rot is systemic, and the consequences are dire, particularly for the poor and the struggling middle class. These are the individuals who form the bulk of the banks’ clientele and are the most vulnerable to such financial atrocities. They are the ones whose hard-earned savings are siphoned off to feed the insatiable greed of those who are supposed to safeguard their financial future. The audacity of this crime, committed in the heart of the bank’s operations in Lagos, reveals an organisational failure of epic proportions.

    Moreover, Nigerian banks have perfected the art of robbing poor and struggling depositors to feed the vanities of rich billionaire cronies of bank directors. For individuals and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), getting a bank loan is akin to scaling Mount Everest without oxygen. The process is torturous, the requirements draconian, and the likelihood of approval dismally low.

    Yet, dubious characters with the right connections are plied with unearned and unjustifiable access to outrageous loans. These loans, often running into billions of naira, are the product of underhand dealings and sharp practices between the loan recipients and their cronies in the bank’s boardroom who pocket kickbacks.

    Insiders within the banking sector have revealed a sordid picture: whenever billions of naira are given out as loans, it is almost always a result of shady deals. These loans are rarely repaid and are often written off as bad debts, further enriching the billionaire cronies at the expense of the public. The banks hardly care because when they are on the brink of bankruptcy, they are often bailed out by government facilities. The Nigerian Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC) steps in to repay depositors’ funds, effectively socialising the losses while the profits remain privatised.

    It’s not just the reported N40 billion; one shudders to think of the amount that has been stolen quietly, without a trace. This incident raises uncomfortable questions about the integrity of the entire Nigerian banking system. How many more crooks are lurking in the shadows, exploiting loopholes and circumventing oversight to line their pockets at the expense of the unsuspecting public?

    This crisis further establishes that banking should never be left solely in the hands of bankers, who have repeatedly proven to be nothing more than glorified cheats. Finance, as we have seen, is too important to be left to the financiers. We need a system of checks and balances that includes robust external oversight, transparency, and accountability.

    Reflecting on this, I recall a conversation with a colleague who works in a commercial bank. During one of his grandstanding episodes on media practice, he argued that journalism should never be left to journalists. Instead, he suggested that accountants or administrative gurus should run media houses. This curious character, in his fit of professional elitism, failed to see the irony in his argument. Here he was, a banker, suggesting that journalists cannot manage their own affairs, while his own industry was in the throes of a massive scandal that had yet again highlighted their incompetence and corruption.

    This duplicity is astounding. Bankers, who are supposedly the custodians of our financial security, have no moral high ground to question the competence of other professions. Their inability to run their own operations ethically and efficiently, disqualifies them from casting aspersions on others. The sheer scale of the N40 billion fraud, happening at the heart of one of Nigeria’s oldest and most reputed banks, is a stark reminder of the profound structural issues that plague the industry.

    The bank’s management has exhibited financial recklessness and a lack of fiscal intelligence, much like several other banks’ executive boards. Therefore, urgent attention from the CBN and EFCC is needed to monitor activities in local banks’ boardrooms. They should implement a rigorous vetting process for prospective bank directors, including a mandatory six-month boot camp focused on fiscal responsibility, corporate governance, and ethical behaviour. Licenses should be issued to successful graduates to ensure accountability and should be revocable at their misconduct.

    Despite their supposed intelligence, bankers have caused the bankruptcy of about 52 Nigerian banks while benefiting from government interventions. Such criminal behaviour can no longer be condoned.

    Having an Ivy League education or impressive credentials is no excuse for defrauding depositors and the nation.

    Nigerian banks have a lot of house cleaning to do. The time has come for a revolution in the way we think about banking and financial management.

    The protection of the public’s hard-earned money cannot be left to institutions that have shown time and again that they cannot be trusted. In the final analysis, keeping money in a Nigerian bank today feels less like a prudent financial decision and more like entrusting your livelihood to a cunning bandit.

  • Between ruin and rebirth

    Between ruin and rebirth

    The earth is littered with the bones of potentates who believed they were eternal. History never forgets their renown or ruin. Let this guide every Nigerian in public office. No matter how highly placed or conceited they are, fate eventually halts their pompous strides and yanks the rug from beneath their pretentious ideals.

    Fresh from its commemoration of the democracy day, yesterday, June 12, the country’s leadership must reexamine its commitment to the continuance and survival of the Nigerian project.

    There is no gainsaying the prevailing economic hardships counseled a low-key celebration, with sober recall of the ultimate sacrifice by slain democracy hero, magnate and philanthropist, Late Moshood Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 elections.

    Through Nigeria’s sober recall, it is pertinent to ask if this is the country for which Abiola and other June 12 heroes gave their lives. Is this the country for which our founding fathers shed sweat and blood? From insecurity, economic distress and the baleful shadow of indefinite strike, Nigeria has a lot to contend with.

    The Joe Ajaero-led labour union’s threat to declare indefinite strike, if the federal government rejects its demand for a N250,000 minimum wage, certainly triggered the social space with a plethora of issues.

    Of paramount significance is Nigeria’s troubling expenditure on the remuneration of its public officers. Soon after the 36 state governors rejected the labour union’s demand claiming none of them could afford any minimum wage beyond N60,000, Nigerians have been bashing them in physical and virtual space, insisting that if that be the case, public officers too, must be placed on the N60,000 minimum wage.

    Read Also: NSA, Akpabio, Makinde, other stakeholders harp on citizens’ oversight on police

    Of course, it need be acknowledged that barely 10 states can comfortably afford the current N30,000 minimum wage let alone the N60,000 and N250,000 wage suggestions. Yet the country’s public officers draw outrageous remuneration that constrain the country’s purse.

    In the hallowed chambers of the Nigerian legislature, for instance, a cruel irony unfolds daily as lawmakers luxuriate in opulence while the very populace they serve languish in abject deprivation. This obscene dichotomy between public servants and the citizenry demands immediate and decisive action.

    The federal government and the National Assembly must act in unison to reduce the astronomical cost of governance, for the current profligacy is both unsustainable and morally indefensible.

    The bicameral legislature, a relic of an era that imagined endless bounty, is an anachronism in today’s Nigeria. The maintenance of a Senate and House of Representatives, with their attendant expenses, is no longer a luxury we can afford.

    In 2024 alone, Nigeria is spending about N724 billion on its National Assembly and 36 State Assemblies. This includes N50 billion for salaries and allowances of lawmakers at both federal and state levels, N294.7 billion specifically for the National Assembly and related bodies, and N379.28 billion for the state assemblies.

    This renders futile, the former Senate President, Ahmed Lawan’s previous argument, the monthly salary of a senator is N1.5m, while that of a member of the House of Representatives is N1.3m, stressing that the alleged N13.5m monthly salary was actually their quarterly office running allowance.

    Recent findings revealed that the Nigerian Senate President actually receives N2.48 million as basic salary while other senators receive N2.26m monthly. Even so, the quarterly office allowance (running cost) for a senator amounts to N52m per annum, while the N8m for a member of the House of Representatives amounts to N32m in a year.

    Switching to a unicameral or single-house legislature at the federal level could lead to substantial savings. Let’s assume we keep the House of Representatives, which has more members. By removing the Senate, we could save about N8.67 billion in legislative salaries and allowances. Moreover, the Senate’s operating costs amount to about N49.14 billion. If we cut overlapping functions and streamline operations, we could save around N50 billion more.

    Another way to cut costs is to make lawmakers part-time and pay them only for the days they actually work. This could cut another 30-40% of the remaining costs, because we wouldn’t be paying regular salaries and many allowances. This approach not only saves money but also incentivises productivity, accountability, and efficiency among lawmakers.

    Nigeria could save around N250 billion every year. This money could be redirected towards improving healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

    This is a pragmatic approach to governance reform that aligns with the country’s economic realities and developmental goals.

    It is never enough to funnel palliatives and incentives to mitigate economic distress. Democracy does not naturally spring forth from the soil of free markets. It must be grounded not in personal gain but in self-sacrifice. A healthy democracy must frequently challenge the economic interests of the elites for the benefit of the people. Yet government officials and corporate actors address the economic crisis by funneling funds and resources into the financial sector because they are conditioned to maintain and manage the existing system rather than transform it.

    Saul observes that the initial objectives of the corporatist movements in 1920s Germany, Italy, and France, which later evolved into fascism, were to transfer power directly to economic and social interest groups, to foster entrepreneurial endeavours in domains traditionally governed by public institutions. And to erase the distinction between public and private interests thereby undermining the concept of the common good. The resonance with our current situation is unsettlingly clear.

    Nigeria’s economic unraveling, exacerbated by speculative commercial interests draining the national treasury, has plunged the working class into unprecedented despair. Crime, a natural corollary of economic distress, escalates daily. Yet, it is not the insurgents or bandits who pose the greatest threat; it is the corrupt civil servants and the money-guzzling legislators, alongside complicit ministers and governors, who undermine the state’s stability.

    President Bola Tinubu must recognise the gravity of the economic despair and respond with a governance ethos grounded in transparency and compassion. No matter what his advisers might counsel, dismissing the miseries of the masses with the platitude “the end justifies the means” could seem prejudiced and perilous.

    Every presidential expenditure, regardless of its justifications, must avoid ostentation and disconnect to a populace burdened by stringent economic policies. Even certifiably modest expenditures are susceptible to misinterpretation and will only amplify public discontent.

    The President and his cabinet must exhibit a greater degree of empathy and responsiveness to the people’s plight. His ministers must temper their public statements with restraint and tact, in recognition of the fragile social fabric and potential for incendiary rhetoric to ignite unrest.

    The political class must understand that the rage brewing within the disenfranchised working class forebodes a dangerous backlash. My visits across Nigeria have revealed former manufacturing towns now ghostly remnants of their prosperous past, their residents engulfed in gloom.

    This pervasive hopelessness drives many into the arms of demagogues and charlatans, who peddle utopian fantasies to a desperate populace.

    Unless we swiftly re-enfranchise these workers and provide tangible hope, our democracy teeters on the brink of collapse.

    We cannot continue as a nation of victims, where the citizenry curses their luck and public officers eternally point fingers at predecessors and circumstances.

    It is incumbent upon us to seize control of our destiny, to implement necessary reforms with urgency and conviction. The federal government and the National Assembly must work together to reduce the cost of governance, transitioning to a unicameral legislature and part-time legislative roles. Only through such measures can we hope to restore trust, alleviate the people’s suffering, and stave off the impending crisis that threatens our nation’s very foundation.

  • Attorney general and local government autonomy

    Attorney general and local government autonomy

    Last week, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi dragged the 36 federating states to the Supreme Court. His suit seeks  to “compel the 36 states to grant full autonomy to local governments in their states, prohibits state governors from unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution  of democratically-elected local government leaders for local governments and restrains the governors, their agents  and privies  from spending and tampering with funds released from the federation accounts for the benefits of the LGAs” when no democratically elected local government system is put in place in the states.

    Finally, it seeks “an order stopping governors from constituting caretaker committees to run their affairs of local governments.”

    I think if the essence of law is to serve the end of justice, the respected legal luminary is chasing shadows. In any case, the problem is not legal but political. Again, to understand what is at stake, we must return to the spot where the rain started to beat us.

    Read Also: Murder allegation: Court orders Kano to pay Doguwa N25m damages

    Colonialism and military rule are two sides of a coin. The irony however is that the former seemed to have had more respect for Nigerians than our military adventurers with their messianic mentality. For instance, the latter pretended to know what we wanted without consulting us and went ahead to foist ill-digested policies which some have likened to brain waves on the country. Such policies include Structural Adjustment Programme, (SAP) which unfortunately turned our nation to importer of the labour of other societies, ‘decreed political parties’ that gulped a whopping N531m as take-off grant with N3b party headquarters later taken over by reptiles, ‘new breed’ politicians that bred only corruption and trading our working four region federal structure with unwieldy and unviable 36 states and 774 LGAs created without objective criteria.

    On the other hand, the honest and well-thought out policies of the former, including their constitutional engineering from the 1920s to 1959, were true reflections of our nation as a multi-cultural and heterogeneous society.

    “Our vision for Nigeria”, Oliver Stanley, declared in 1920, was a “national self-government that secures to each separate people, the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality, its own chosen form of government, which had been evolved for it by the wisdom and accumulated experiences of generation of its forbearers.” 

    The British imperial powers remained faithful to their avowed undertaking even if they had to apply the ‘stick and carrot’ approach during the constitutional debate that heralded the nation to independence in 1960. Although local government as a concept of government at grassroots level existed long before their arrival, but with some modifications, they allowed the Northern Region and the Western Region to maintain the system of local government they inherited. For the acephalous Igbo society of the Eastern Region, they found temporary solution in warrant chiefs, an experiment that did not endure.  For them, LGA is the tier of government administration that coordinates the activities of citizens at the local community levels and it was a regional affair.

    Thus while the  1914-1950 Native Authority or Indirect Rule reform, was initiated because the traditional rulers who ‘executed delegated policies of the colonial power ‘had no power to meet the demands of their people’ and the 1950 to 1966, Local Administration system stemmed from 1947 policy thrust of the last colonial Secretary of State, Lord Creech-Jones,  that “the key to resolving the problems of African administration lay in the development of an efficient and democratic local government that is close to the people”, Obasanjo’s Local Government  1976 reform was designed not to create but to share the resources of more resourceful states among less resourceful  states to create uniformity, which in itself is an aberration in federalism.

    Of course, Obasanjo like his fellow military adventurers suffers from messianic complex. Hear him: “When in 1976, we brought in local government reforms, it was meant to be the third tier of the government and not meant to be subjected to the whims and caprices of any other government”.

     He ignored the fact that the states are not appendages of the central government but coordinates, operating on the basis of a constitution which allocates power to both tiers of government. It was because of such display of arrogance that many believe the 1976 LGA reform was designed to buy legitimacy for LGAs while undermining state governments as against vehicles for development of the rural areas as canvassed by the then military government.

    What, if one may ask are the objective criteria for creating 413 councils for the north and 355 to the south? What is the argument in support of (Kano and Jigawa that used to be one state with same population as Lagos having federally-funded 71 Local Government Councils to Lagos’ 20? What is the logic in creating uniformity in minimum wage between some states that collect in one month, an allocation some others will collect in one year?

    In any case, trying to separate the local government from the states is like trying to cut the umbilical cord between a foetus and a pregnant expectant mother. The LGAs are the life-wire of the states. The state exists through its creative management of the resources of the local governments. The state without the local governments is an orphan. Let us for a moment accept we want to run a federal system as against the current unitary system where all the federating states go cap in hand to Abuja to collect monthly allocations, where will the state generate funds from if we say the LGAs are independent of the states?

    It is therefore disingenuous to complain that states after collecting their 26.72 per cent share of the Federation Account and proceed to appropriate LG funds under numerous guises. The states own the funds. The federal government is a parasite.

    The federal government by funding local governments that do not report to it indirectly admits it is as interloper. I guess this was why Chukwuma Soludo as CBN governor complained aloud that “Nigeria is the only known federation in the world where the centre funds the local governments that do not report to it”.

    In deed many have also argued that the fact that each state has a ministry of local government and chieftaincy affairs headed by a commissioner, and an elaborate body of laws to guide the operations, is seen as a tacit endorsement of state control.

     It is also on record that President Tinubu’s ACN took the federal government to court over local government financial autonomy. The party’s argument then was that local government could not have financial autonomy because they are not federating units of the federation.  This position was to be upheld by the 2014 Jonathan’s CONFAB that recommended that the federal government only fund the federating states and not LGAs.

    It is therefore an aberration for President Obasanjo, the Attorney General and other ‘mainstreamers’ to continue to refer to the local government as the third tier of government. Such claim is antithetical to the concept of federal arrangement just as it defies the United Nations concept of LGAs as “a political subdivision of a nation or a state in in a federal system.

    The idea of an independent third tier in a nation of two federating units was a brain wave of those with military mind-set of sharing looted resources of conquered territories. Now with little left to share, we must embrace productivity through fiscal federalism.

  • June 12 and legacy of judicial rascality

    June 12 and legacy of judicial rascality

    What do you remember June 12 for? Many Nigerians remember the date for different reasons. The most memorable thing about it though is the annulment of the presidential election held on that day, 31 years ago.
    It was 1993 and the nation was doubling down for the winding down of the Babangida junta. The regime had time and again tinkered with its transition programme which remains the longest in the nation’s history. The June 12, 1993 presidential poll was to end it all! It was a straight contest between Bashorun M.K.O Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republic Convention (NRC).
    Everything was set for the election and it appeared that no Jupiter could stop it. The nation and its people had become weary of Gen Ibrahim Babangida and could no longer wait for him to go. Years before the election, the media and the people had mounted a campaign, asking him to quit. ‘Go, IBB go’ was the refrain everywhere and some sections of the media paid dearly for their audacity. Yet, the media did not give up. To ensure that IBB did not give another excuse as he did in the past for not going as he promised in 1990, they found a way of managing him until the election was held.
    Unknown to the public, there was yet a booby-trap somewhere. An amorphous group, Association for Better Nigeria (ABN), believed to have his backing was working behind the scenes to stop the election through the instrumentality of the judiciary. The role the judiciary played in the June 12 saga can never be forgotten. If the judiciary had lived up to its billing as the last hope of the common man, perhaps it would have saved the country from IBB’s shenanigans.

    Read Also: Russia denies coercing Nigerians students to fight for visa extensions


    The judiciary failed and threw the nation into a costly political venture from which it has yet to recover. Forget the fact that we are in a democracy which incredibly has been unbroken for 25 years, our longest romance ever with democratic governance. The judiciary allowed itself to be used to kill the June 12 election in defiance of the law that no court can enquire into the poll. This ouster clause was inserted in the law to stop mischievous politicians from using the court to scuttle the transition programme.
    Led by Abimbola Davies, with the maverick Arthur Nzeribe behind him, ABN got a nocturnal interim injunction on the eve of the poll to stop the June 12 election. The order was obtained from the court in a manner that left many Nigerians wondering why on earth a judge, who like Caesar’s wife should be above board, would lend herself to such a dubious enterprise.
    Interim injunctions are not granted as of right. The applicant must show that his right would be injured irreparably if it is not granted. How will the rights of ABN and Davies that were not candidates in the June 12 election be damaged irreparably if the poll was held? Who will suffer more damage, if the election was not held – the applicants or the country? Justice Bassey Ikpeme did not take all these into consideration before granting the applicants’ request, setting the stage for a political crisis of monumental dimension.
    The electoral umpire, Prof Humphrey Nwosu, after consultation with IBB, said the election would hold as scheduled. Politicians too did not sit idly by. In no time, they were getting orders from separate high courts of coordinate jurisdiction. A court in Sokoto will stop the election and another in Ondo will direct that it should go on. The conflicting orders confused things the more. Disorder became the order of the day in an otherwise orderly institution where issuing orders is the norm.
    At a point, the Court of Appeal became part of the mess. This is a court that should correct the wrongs of the lower court. Up till today, conflicting orders by courts of concurrent jurisdiction have painfully become part of our electoral and other legal jurisprudence. Federal and state high courts compete with each other to give conflicting orders, behaving as if all is well. This legacy handed down by the Bassey Ikpemes of this world in 1993 must be destroyed before it damages the judiciary.
    Today, Kano and Rivers states are theaters of judicial somersaults as a result of the conflicting orders emanating from some high courts there. The cases involving the Rivers State House of Assembly and the Governor Siminalayi Fubara-led executive and the Kano Emirate tussle have further exposed the judiciary for what it is and has been since the June 12 debacle. The abuse of interim orders has become an albatross around the neck of high courts despite repeated warnings against the frivolous granting of the injunction.
    Judges have ignored the warnings without suffering any consequences. Why then will they not continue to abuse it? Chief Justice of Nigeria ((CJN) Kayode Ariwoola has a major task to redress the situation before he leaves in August, which is just two months away. Judges of concurrent jurisdiction cannot continue to issue conflicting interim orders as if one injunction will cancel out the other. The judges are equal in rank and so one cannot override the other. This abuse of interim orders must stop, especially where a court does not have the jurisdiction to handle a case.
    Jurisdiction goes to the root of a matter. It is trite that an order granted by a court without jurisdiction is made in vain. The order is null and void ab initio. But it is not the duty of a coordinate court to correct the ‘error’ by issuing the ‘appropriate’ order. The first court can correct itself by vacating the order when the other party comes before it or better still the respondent takes the matter to a higher court. Justice Ariwoola may not have the time for a comprehensive reform of the justice sector as former head of state Gen Sani Abacha did in the wake of the June 12 logjam in 1993.
    But he can ensure that erring judges are properly disciplined to deter others. It is of no use giving them a mere slap on the wrist and asking them to go and sin no more. They will commit more sins because there is no deterrence! As the nation celebrated another June 12 anniversary yesterday, what should be uppermost in the minds of the judiciary is the destruction of this unenviable legacy of judicial rascality. The Presidency too has a role to play in reforming the sector.
    It has started by increasing the pay of judges by over 300 percent. It should go further by cleansing the Augean stable, through the office of the justice minister. Abacha did a good job through the Eso Justice Sector Reform Panel. Unfortunately, the panel’s report never saw the light of day. We need a stronger judiciary for democracy to thrive and a more orderly society. If this can be done, we would have removed a major factor that caused the June 12 crisis, and MKO and other martyrs will smile in their graves.

  • Need for pro-poor development strategy

    Need for pro-poor development strategy

    The Holy Bible says we will always have the poor with us.  In Mark 14:7, our Lord Jesus the Christ, at a meal in Bethany in the home of a certain Simon, a leper when a woman poured precious ointment on him and some of his disciples more or less wondered whether it would not have been better if the Alabaster box of ointment had been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Although Jesus was indicating he would soon finish his mission on earth while the poor will forever be with us, the statement remains eternally true. The Holy Quran in ch.39 :34 advises Muslims to spend for the general welfare of the umma but as far as Islamic scholarship goes, there is no caliphate, sultanate or kingdom that has operated on the abolition of poverty since the 7th century until now except perhaps  from what Muamar Ghadafi tried to do in his Libyan  ja’amarhiyyah.

    Philosophers of different variants have struggled with how to solve the problem of the poor. Even though Karl Marx was a baptised Jew, his scheme of socialism was not based on Christian charity but on the inevitable clash of the rich against the poor- the bourgeoisie against the proletariat which according to him is inevitable. Those who have studied the religious underpinnings of Karl Marxism have seen the Christian idea of utopia copied by Karl Marx in his proletarian utopia in which society will have evolved around a classless society based on each according to one’s need and from each according to one’s ability. Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, his collaborator would deny any association of their ideology with the Christian religion because they were not interested in spiritual things but in historical materialism. They were both atheists but at a time Marxism had as much following as Christianity or Islam.

    I watched a self-serving interview given by the present foreign minister of Mali justifying the emergence of the Association of Sahelian states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in opposition to ECOWAS or what remains of it and saying their new baby was the more authentic African creation than the present ECOWAS, which in his words, is a puppet of London, Paris and Washington. He made the point that the wars in the Sahel are manifestations of the failure, since independence by African countries following a development paradigm dictated by foreigners without the Africans looking inward to find out what was truly in their interest.

    Of course, there is no doubt that the West has stolen huge resources from us whether oil, gold, copper, diamonds and agricultural produce on top of human labour of slaves carried away from Africa since the Portuguese sailors first reached Africa in the 15th century. Our late colleague, Walter Rodney, in his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” created a powerful legacy before he was brutally bombed out of this world in 1980 in Guyana to silence his revolutionary ideas. He had however brought new perspective to the question of development in Africa. 

    The curse of colonialism and neo colonialism is well known and the question which is always asked is what are we going to do about it?

    Before the December 2003 conference of Commonwealth Heads of states and Governments (CHOGM) here in Abuja Nigeria, there was some kind of a small committee set up by the  Commonwealth Secretariat headed by former Indian finance minister and later prime minister, the Oxford University-educated Manmohan Singh which met in London several times to critically look at the crisis of development in the third world part of the commonwealth. I believe this committee of six coming from New Zealand, the West Indies and Canada, I was a member representing Africa. The committee of experts was serviced by the Commonwealth Secretariat. We were charged with producing a report later published as a book entitled “Pro-poor development” to be considered for adoption in the Abuja conference to focus on development in the Commonwealth countries mostly in Africa the Caribbean and the Pacific island members of the commonwealth.

    There was no need to get bogged down with the definition of poverty. Our focus was on the countries’ inability to provide food, shelter, education, health and plan for their future. To be able to plan for the future, one must take care of the present and have a family whose size matches one’s financial resources and responsibilities.

    Read Also: President okays establishment of ICT hub in Ekiti

    I remember the chairman harping on the last issue as being fundamental and asking us to know that even in America where large family size was common in the past was no more the case and that the drastic situation taken by Indira Ghandi by castrating men after the first child which led to her murder was because she knew the only way India would develop was through radically curbing its ballooning population. The idea was then said to have provided veritable examples of that all developing countries following America and India, should embrace to save the whole world, the only known planet humanly habitable from explosion by carrying an overweight of population.

    In order words, pro-poor development includes embracing the doctrine of sustainability which had formed the kernel of Gro Harlem Brundtland report “On our Common Future” of 1987 in which the central theme was the poverty of the South and the conspicuous consumption in the North which was creating an unsustainable global development. This then means that the richer part of the Commonwealth had a moral duty to pull up the less developed parts through ASSISTANCE DEVELOPMENT in the form of grants, providing opportunities for educational training in their countries and also ensuring market accessibility to facilitate more rapid economic development.

    The poor countries were also encouraged to pull up themselves through their own bootstraps and to do something to curb their population growth despite religious and cultural opposition to whatever their governments may want to do. Since then, nothing much has happened except that India though still largely a poor country has left the ranks of the very poor in Asia and Africa. The challenge is for a country like Nigeria is to show the light so that the rest of Africa can follow.

    The strategy Nigeria should adopt is a radical approach to its population growth. The population policy of the government should be based on men and should clearly state that no man should have more than four children rather than asking women to limit the number of children. Of course this would be opposed by Muslim fundamentalists and possibly by other believers of other religions on the grounds that it is God who gives children. This policy change must be strictly enforced by states and preached by leaders of all religions. This will not be easy. No new idea is easy. It should also be backed by financial rewards of economic inducements to families that adopt rational birth control.  As I write, most highly educated Muslims are monogamous with small families because of economic necessity. The health ministries should also be strengthened to make birth control available to all those who want it. Our borders must also be guarded to prevent undocumented aliens flooding our countries from Chad, the Cameroons, Niger and people from Benin and the rest of West Africa as far as Guinea the Gambia, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone. We must build a country that will be a shining star to all Africa just as Japan used to be to the rest of Asia until China came around .This will be hard but we have to crack eggs to make palatable omelette.

    We must also rapidly take control of our natural resources both mineral and agricultural and forest resources which are still being carried away by Europeans, Chinese and Indians and their comprador agents among us. Through state capitalism, we must build up our economic base before embarking on massive mobilisation of current youth population roaming around our cities for development. China was able to leapfrog from poverty to relative wealth within a generation by mobilization of the population.

    If we have the money, we can buy appropriate technology from the rest of the world and we can also rely on attracting considerable numbers of our well-trained and endowed diaspora to assist our development.

    What has become very clear to us from experience and analysis is that we have no other choice to go to avoid national suicide than by focusing on the development of our youth who if not mobilized, trained and employed, will be available for our enemies who are presently funding terrorism, Jihadism and rural and urban banditry.  As a commentator recently said, those untrained hands would be made and trained to carry AK47. The present government must ensure that it is seen to be doing something about this not by appointing token members of the youth into cabinet position, useful as this may be, but it must go further than this to practical employment of idle hands for development. It may appear to be difficult but by doing what that great British economist John Maynard Keynes forced the British government by weight of his arguments to do by embarking on public works to create demands even if in the short run  may have inflationary effects but in future would add value to overall wealth through increased production.

    Why can’t all states and local governments embark on building roads, farms and mobilising all technical departments and engineering faculties in our universities in opening up the country and making the world realise that a new sheriff is in town? If we don’t do something as said by Maynard Keynes “we are all dead”.

  • Angry Joe and his motley mob

    Angry Joe and his motley mob

    Anarchy wears two faces, both creator and destroyer. Joe Ajaero, the current leader of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), embodies both. Through his actions, he topples established norms, creating a canvas of muck and rubble from which he seeks to spirit out Eden – the same way, a magician pulls a rabbit from his hat.

    Amid his professed passion to improve workers’ plight, the means of negotiation is rancorous, and overshadowed by avoidable suffering of the workers he claims to protect.

    Ajaero renders the collective aspiration of Nigerian workers to earn a decent minimum wage, a pitiful hostage to his flawed tactics and personal demons. His desperation to lead the labour union on another industrial strike during wage negotiations with the government severely hampers the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC)’s bid to renegotiate a realistic minimum wage for workers.

    The labour union’s reckless decision to cut off electricity supply, plunged the country into darkness including crucial sectors like aviation and health thus endangering lives. It also affected both big and small business owners, particularly society’s vulnerable divide, like the struggling grocer whose livelihood depends on selling perishable goods.

    More damning are the allegations that the labour union’s monitoring and compliance team swooped on electricity workers, like goons, beating and forcing them to shut down the national grid – a claim Ajaero has since denied.

    Despite his denial, the spectacle of labour leaders wielding canes to beat and chase staff of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) out of their offices undermines the credibility and moral authority of the labour movement. Such thuggery betrays the principles of democratic advocacy, painting Ajaero and his followers as anarchists rather than champions of workers’ rights. Their actions disrupt daily life and erodes the trust and support of the common man.

    If Ajaero orders a resumption of strike action in the coming days, the negative impacts on Nigerians will be severe and far-reaching. The first and most immediate effect would be an intensification of fuel scarcity. This scarcity would disrupt transportation and cripple the operations of businesses and services reliant on fuel for power generation.

    The country, already struggling with intermittent power supply, would be cast into complete darkness. The blackout would affect hospitals, schools, and businesses, further deteriorating the quality of life and stifling economic activity.

    Crime rates would escalate as frustration and desperation grow. In times of severe hardship, individuals who struggle to meet their basic needs are more prone to resorting to criminal activities. The combination of darkness and economic stagnation would create a perfect storm for lawlessness, making it increasingly difficult for security forces to maintain order.

    The impact on the informal economy, which millions of Nigerians depend on for their daily sustenance, would be devastating. Petty traders, whose livelihoods depend on a thriving daily enterprise, would suffer immensely. The informal economy, characterised by commercial transport, neighbourhood grocery sales, and other fringe livelihoods, rely on a steady flow of goods and customers.

    An indefinite strike would disrupt this delicate balance, leading to a significant loss of income for those who are already living hand-to-mouth. Frustration would spread and escalate, creating an atmosphere of widespread discontent and instability.

    This scenario might well be the script the Ajaero-led labour union is acting out. Ajaero’s partisan entanglements with the Labour Party (LP) and fervent support for its candidate, Peter Obi, during the 2023 elections, indicate a deep-seated political bias. His relentless attacks on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and his unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud further expose his partisan agenda.

    His actions during the governorship election in Imo state, where he attempted to instigate a strike on the eve of the election, further illustrate his political machinations.

    Ajaero’s behaviour mirrors that of an actor playing out a script handed to him by vengeful cohorts, still nursing the wounds of their electoral loss. His tactics—strikes, violence, and intimidation—reveal a thuggish approach, more befitting a street-level enforcer than a national labor leader. The narrative he crafts, of a besieged patriot fighting for justice, crumbles under the weight of his own actions.

    The recent demand for a N494,000 minimum wage smacks of childish insolence and a profound disconnect from reality. This exorbitant figure starkly contrasts with the economic capabilities of several Nigerian states, many of which struggle to pay the current N30,000 minimum wage.

    The labour union’s resort to industrial strike, nonetheless, addresses the sad reality of the federal minimum wage. The request for an increase of the minimum wage from N30,000 ($22.4) to N494,000 naira ($369.6) represents a 1,547% increase vis-à-vis the government’s proposed 100% increase to N60,000 ($44.89), which the unions rejected.

    Yet, it’s nothing but sheer grandstanding for the incumbent government to label the labour union’s demands as unrealistic while public officers luxuriate in vulgar opulence. Nigerian lawmakers, who are among the highest paid in the world, earn about N13.5 million monthlies in allowances, excluding their base salary. Governors and their deputies enjoy similarly lavish salaries and pensions, with some states guaranteeing life-long benefits that are nothing short of abominable. The executive also draws substantial salaries and benefits, further draining the public treasury.

    If Ajaero had channeled his energies towards mobilising the labour unions to compel government to slash public officers’ outrageous benefits and curb their egregious looting of public funds, his stance might have been defensible.

    Read Also: Court orders another forfeiture of N11b properties linked to Emefiele

    On his watch, the labour unions could have pushed for legislative work to become a part-time job, where lawmakers receive allowances only for actual sittings, thereby reducing the financial burden on the state. Such measures would resonate with the populace and demonstrate a genuine commitment to fiscal responsibility and governance reform.

    By pushing for strike in the midst of ongoing negotiations, Ajaero undermines the potential for constructive dialogue and resolution. Instead of advocating for sustainable and pragmatic solutions, his tactics risk plunging the country into deeper crisis.

    Contrary to popular belief, Ajaero and other labour leaders do not share the everyday struggles of the people. They are more insulated from the skyrocketing inflation; their pantries are well-stocked, and their bank accounts are brimming with patronage and cash. The ongoing negotiation is merely another meal ticket for its leaders.

    The current crisis, however, should spur public officers to aspire to more humane and patriotic representation of the interests of the masses. It is cruel and self-serving to expect the citizenry to endure hardship fostered by selfish, desperate, and impractical leadership while those in power indulge in lavishness.

    No degree of sophistry or rationalisation by paid courtiers in the media and civil society can justify such cruelty. The stark reality is that millions of Nigerians struggle to access basic necessities like food, water, and shelter, while their elected representatives live in luxury and excess. This glaring disparity in wealth and privilege underscores the need for systemic change and accountability within the government.

    Nigeria faces numerous economic challenges, including the devaluation of its currency to record lows in recent months and a cost-of-living crisis marked by soaring prices for food, transport, and healthcare. With inflation at 33.69%, the highest in nearly three decades, the current wage is atrociously low.

    However, the labour unions’ proposed wage increase would have severe economic consequences, including significantly higher inflation, hyper-inflated food prices, school fees, and unavoidable mass retrenchment by public and private enterprises unable to afford the wage increase.

    While the grievances of the labour unions are valid, the path to resolution must be carefully managed to avoid worsening the very conditions they seek to enhance.