The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Before we say a prayer to rage

    Before we say a prayer to rage

    We must be wary of furnishing the narrative of a Nigerian apocalypse. And while we condemn the duplicity of doomsday troubadours glorying in Nigeria’s economy death watch, we mustn’t glamourise the misery of hitting rock bottom.

    Partisan psychology asserts the fickle benevolence of human emotion. Thus, in our blemished system, the truth logically has no place; the truth is habitually relative. Little wonder Nigeria careens to the shove of dubious truths.

    Doomsday aficionados eagerly project worst-case scenarios of Nigeria’s economic collapse and eventual descent into anarchy. They manically reel out morbid statistics, detailing the gravity of economic distress and suffering of the masses.

    Ultimately, they have no solutions. Their major preoccupation is to spread their gospel of horror and devastation. Their criticism is never constructive but borne of intent to gloat and accuse those who voted for the incumbent administration as the cause of the pervasive economic hardship. Convenient, isn’t it?

    Of course, the time for cuddling President Bola Tinubu is decisively over. Gloves off, we must engage his policies and the much-hyped gospel of ‘Renewed Hope.’ President Tinubu must be aware of the myriad of ways that Nigeria proves fatal to its citizenry.

    To reverse such fatality, Nigeria requires non-predatory leadership. It was in reaction to predatory leadership that Nigerians resorted to virulent criticism and emotional cultism.

    Post-2023 polls, political discourse has become glyptic; it unfurls with an incised edge. The incised edge manifests the steely autograph of the Nigerian core. Intellectuals, artists, revolutionaries, pacifists, economists, and activists, sprout and flower astride the incised edge, like the mystical roses of the mire.

    By their devices, our chaste, walled garden is made unchaste for brutes milking political power, like the plundered bower of the country brothel.

    Read Also; Fed Govt completes Tincan port road

    Amid the crisis, civil society groups romanticise marching in protest against the government’s perceived failures. Yet in the historical arithmetic of the apocalypse, neither organised protests nor anarchy could halt economic decline. Rather, a complete breakdown of law and order will quicken Nigeria’s collapse and impose decades of destitution on the masses. History offers valuable lessons and deterrence in this respect.

    No doubt, skyrocketing inflation and a sustained decline in Nigerians’ spending power becloud any foreseeable economic growth, but we all had a role to play in perpetrating our current situation, we all must join hands to salvage our country.

    Two days, ago, the Federal Government disclosed attempts by certain dark forces, including losers in the 2023 elections, to create anarchy and destabilise the country. Claims like these, if backed by factual evidence, must birth lawful inquisition and prosecution of culprits. In the process, the issuance of punishment to culprits in high places mustn’t be deterred or corrupted by mercenaries of cronyism and the ever-elusive cabal.

    Speaking on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Public Wealth Management Conference organised by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MoFI) in Abuja, Vice President Kashim Shettima said, “We know the consequences of unveiling the masquerade. Forces are hell-bent on plunging this country into a state of anarchy, those that could not get into power through the ballot box. Instead of waiting for 2027, they are so desperate; that this country can fall apart as far as they are concerned. But we are going to visit them.”

    Shettima also revealed that “Just a few nights ago, 45 trucks of maize were caught being transported into a neighbouring country. There are 32 illegal routes in that axis. At the moment when they were intercepted, the price of maize fell by N10,000, from N60,000 to N50,000. So, there are forces that are hell-bent on undermining our nation but this is the time for us to come together.”

    While many would scoff at VP Shettima’s claims, it is necessary to address the evils posed by saboteurs hidden in plain sight. To this end, a joint effort was reportedly launched by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligent Unit (NFIU) to combat economic saboteurs manipulating dollar/naira exchange rate.

    Although VP Shettima stressed the importance of unity during these challenging times, he must understand that the citizenry won’t buy into the vision of the current administration unless it asserts its integrity as pro-citizenry in credible terms.

    Nigerians, on their part, must commit to more realistic expectations; to achieve appreciable recovery in the coming years, we must channel enduring resilience and patience. It’s about time we supported the government’s fight against insecurity. It’s about time we grew and patronised our local industry.

    Nobody is coming to save Nigeria. Not the World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Europeans, Americans, and Asians have their problems to deal with; both Britain and Japan are in a recession while America fights a futile battle to stave off the slump.

    This is the time for Nigeria and Nigerians to cut down on frivolous spending and expectations. Foreign interest in Nigeria, like all parts of Africa, is innately fishy – a matter of dubious humanitarianism, a devastating plague spruced up as aid.

    Only Nigerians may prevent the country’s drift further into the gorge. But even doom has nuances, and in Nigeria, it has a myriad layer of meaning. The periphery of one thing is also the core of something else. Nigeria must recalibrate its centres of vitality and resilience alongside its visions of hope.

    The media has a great role to play. This is not the time to indulge in poverty porn or accentuate a resort to hopelessness. Any klutz with a camera and midget recorder could interview angry market women, hungry housewives and unemployed youths – beyond sensationalising their miseries, shall we also reflect on what could be done to resolve them?

    Now, more than ever, Nigeria is in urgent need of a fearless, critical but patriotic press. This is not to impose a culture of passivity and complacency on journalists but our criticisms must be constructive.

    In certain ways, Nigeria seems headed in the right direction for the first time in decades. But while President Tinubu talks a great deal about fostering gradual, far-reaching and sustainable progress, he must communicate in relatable terms his Nigerian solutions to Nigerian problems and cushion their effects on an impatient populace.

    The country’s inner rhythms of development have been shattered over decades of misgovernance by greedy leadership that persistently toadied to predatory foreign allies and economic institutions.

    President Tinubu must free Nigeria from predatory outside interference. This requires shuffling predatory allies to choose the ones with the least carnivorous designs on Nigeria’s fortunes. It is never possible to cut off ties with the predatory superpowers less they quicken their plots with internal foes to sabotage the Nigerian State.

    President Tinubu’s leadership must replenish the social contract between his government and the governed. The vision and possibilities of his gospel of “Renewed Hope” must be actualised to serve millions of Nigerians who voted for and against his emergence into public office.

    Beyond taking hard policy decisions, his administration must be seen to cut down on profligate spending and the cronyism that, over the years, became the bane of public governance in Nigeria.

    Only then can he get Nigerians to stop believing that their survival and sanity depend on how they succeed in thwarting or outmanoeuvring the state.

  • Frank Akinola (1954-2024)

    Frank Akinola (1954-2024)

    The Daily Times of old was a citadel of learning. No matter how educated you were, you still had to learn even from those not as educated as yourself. Respect was also key. It was a place where line editors treated reporters at arm’s length, except if you were good at your job. One of the star reporters then was Frank Akintayo Akinola, who died on January 24. He was 69. Frank was an affable, jolly fellow.

    Though diminutive, he was packed full of energy. He joined the Daily Times in 1980 and had become City Editor by 1993 when he was leaving to serve as press secretary to Maj Gen John Shagaya, then ECOMOG Field Commander in Liberia. ECOMOG Soldier as I used to call him wrote a book: The ECOMOG Story: Dynamics of African politics and international conspiracy in African wars, on his experience in Liberia. A chapter, titled: The last assignment of Krees Imodibie and Tayo Awotunsin, is a gripping account of how those two journalists were killed.

    Read Also: Too early to expect perfection from Tinubu – Gowon

    After life’s endless battles, Frank has gone home to rest. A service of songs  will be held for him today at the Foursquare Gospel Church, Abesan Gate, Ipaja, Lagos. The funeral service comes up at the same church tomorrow. Frank was a frank fellow, who said it as it was. There was no cant about him. He was fearless and outspoken, but always in high spirits and full of bonhomie.

    Born on December 1, 1954, Frank grew up in Accra, Ghana. He returned home with his parents in 1970, following the introduction of the Aliens Compliance Order by the Ghanaian government. He was among others, Defence, Crime and Dodan Barracks Correspondent before becoming City Editor, presiding over editorial affairs at the Kakawa, Lagos office of the Daily Times. He was also the author of: Ota Awori Kingdom: Synopsis and biography of Oba T.T. Dada, Olota of Ota (1954-1992).

    Frank is survived by his widow, Lydia, a retired director in the Lagos State Ministry of Education, children and grandchildren.

  • Pros and cons of state police

    Pros and cons of state police

    The hottest topic in the land today is security. The reason for this is well known. Our country has been under the siege of criminals in the past 15 years, beginning with the invasion of parts of Borno State by some insurgents operating under the aegis of Boko Haram (western education is a sin).

    Contrary to Islamic tenets, the sect argued that western education is meant  to indoctrinate Muslims to become and think like Whites and I am not being racist here, but merely trying to situate things in their context. Matters came to a head when Muhammad Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader, was killed in police custody.

    Since then, the insecurity net has widened from insurgency to banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping, herdsmen/farmers skirmishes and other related crimes. The police and other security arms now have their hands full trying to restore law and order. Truth be told, they are stretched because the rate at which crimes are committed daily has overwhelmed the police, civil defence, secret police, and the military, among others.

    But securing the country is still a police job. It will be an understatement to say that the police are finding it difficult to handle this problematic child, despite all the help from related agencies. Crimes being local, criminologists say, are best tackled locally, hence the renewed clamour for state police. I have never been a fan of state police, but if that is the way to go to address this protracted security challenge, so be it.

    State police has its good sides, though. But its abuses in the past, especially in the First Republic, have made many to lose faith in such a force. Certain things must be done before state police can be created. The first is to amend the 1999 Constitution, which provides for a centralised police service and invests the President with the enormous power of control and management of the institution.

    The process of amending the Constitution has begun and the bill passed second reading at the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Amending the Constitution is one thing, making state police to work after its creation is another. If the governors who will run state police do not do what is right and decide to go the way of their precursors in the First Republic, no amount of Constitution amendment will do the trick.

    Read Also; Fed Govt completes Tincan port road

    The public is clamouring for state police now because the present police appear far removed from the people. They are usually not on the scenes when needed and only appear long after a crime had been committed. Even when they get to the scenes in time, they go after the innocent and not the suspects who it is believed they know. The planned decentralisation of the police is to ensure that crimes are reduced to the barest minimum and not used to hunt down political opponents as witnessed in the First Report.

      We have seen what security outfits can do in a society determined to stem the tide of crimes, especially kidnapping, banditry and insurgency. Amotekun in the Southwest, Eastern Security Network in the Southeast and Civilian-Joint Task Force in the Northeast, among others, have been helping the police in their respective regions to fight crimes. Turning these outfits to state police will  have consequences because the equation changes once they become constitutionally recognised.

      Temptations will set in as the governors, some of who have even been using the present police to harass their perceived enemies, may become larger than life with a full force under their control. The Houses of Assembly which should naturally act as a buffer in such situations are unfortunately already in the governors’ pockets. The character of the head of the police force also matters. Will he be an officer beholden to his appointor or will he be true to his calling and serve diligently?

      State police may be an idea which time has come in the prevailing security situation we find ourselves as a nation, but things should be set right in creating it to avoid its being used to settle scores in the heat of a political acrimony that could burst out at any time by those expected to protect the law, people and society at large at all times.

  • The plight of Nigerian universities

    The plight of Nigerian universities

    I have written and agonised over the plight of Nigerian universities many times in the past at public lectures and in the newspapers not because I am an incorrigible critic of governments’ handling of these institutions but because like Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu said about Biafra – “I was involved” and I cannot be unconcerned about the plight of the universities.

    I cannot tell my story about my life as an adult without saying something about Nigerian universities. First as from 1963 when I entered the University of Ibadan, I had been involved in the growth, development and problems and prospects of the Nigerian universities. After earning a PhD in 1970 in one of Canada’s oldest universities – Dalhousie University in 1970, I came back to join the University of Ibadan in 1972 at its Jos Campus in what without my knowing it then, establishment of universities in Nigeria was to become a political instrument in trying to resolve some of the knotty political and socio-economic problems of Nigeria. The University College of Ibadan in Jos then constituted an opening first salvo in the federal government’s approach to make higher education available to people in the minority areas of Nigeria.

    When the then young and brilliant Dr Jibril Aminu was appointed Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission in 1975 by General Gowon, he came with an agenda of broadening the admission opportunities for young Nigerians into tertiary educational institutions apart from the universities of Ibadan, Lagos, Ile-Ife, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the University of Benin and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Apart from the universities of Ibadan and Lagos, all the other universities belonged to the then regional governments of the West, East, the North and the Midwest. From the onset, the universities were regionally concentrated in the south because of the demand and university education was not the priority in the north where there were very few secondary schools to feed the only university then established in the north.

    Read Also: Too early to expect perfection from Tinubu – Gowon

    There may have been a government directive to Aminu to begin the expansion of university education nationally. The government had just come comfortably and confidently out of the civil war between 1967 and 1970 and the country was awash with petro-dollars after the doubling of the price of crude oil following the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 in which the Arabs tried to use the price of petrol against the West. The period also fell into the period of the “3Rs” Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Reconciliation which was the post-civil war policy of the triumphant Gowon government. Thus the politics of location of the new universities was quickly settled. The new universities were to be located in Jos to take over the facilities of the Jos campus of Ibadan in the city. Others were to be established in Maiduguri to use the facilities of the then existing northeast government’s College of Advanced Studies preparing students for higher education. Others were to be located in the oil-producing areas of the south in Port Harcourt, Calabar. The University of Benin belonging to the Midwest government was to be taken over by the federal government and universities of Sokoto and that of Kano inheriting the existing Abdullahi Bayero College of Ahmadu Bello were established.

    Special role of agriculture and technology were emphasised in the establishment of the special universities in Makurdi, Abeokuta, Bauchi Yola, and Akure which not only reflected the agricultural and technological needs of the country and along with the universities in Kano, Maiduguri and Sokoto, reflected the power equation in the Murtala Muhammad/Obasanjo government of 1975 and post-General Muhammad’s assassination in 1976.

    All I can say is that the establishment of these universities brought tremendous opposition by the old guard in the Nigerian universities community who reasonably argued that standards would be lowered in admission and academic promotion following scarcity of qualified students and staff. The establishment of these universities became intertwined with the usual North/South arguments about the lopsided development of the country and the unequal power distribution and economic contribution of different parts of the country and the interminable ethnic conflicts in the country which in the past and the present have retarded the progress of the country. The universities have many times become victims of these conflicts  leading to exodus of great university teachers and students and with many universities established and all drawing from the federal exchequer, the individual funding has gone down and with the duplication of departments, facilities, programs and the struggle for good teachers the quality of education has gone down but not as down as the old professors feared and Professor Jibril whose determination in executing the policy of expansion would presumably go down in history as one of those who democratised higher institution in Nigeria.

    In solving the problem of quality control, he expanded the NUC from a normal Federal Grants Aid Commission into a powerful educational and politico-economic organ of educational development. He was most pilloried for his effort but I think history will be fair to him. The approach to the expansion was Cartesian with careful analysis and planning including opening of Nigerian universities’ offices in Cairo, Washington, Ottawa, Canada and unifying the old universities offices in London under one rubric. They were charged with aggressively pursuing staff training, staff recruitment, library and equipment sourcing as determined by the new universities in Nigeria including the old ones. 

    Of course the former vice chancellors whose universities had offices in London previously did not like the new system but had to live with them and I and others who manned these offices bore the angst and opposition to the new dispensation. On the whole, the new system worked unlike now when it is announcements of new universities either as part of after-dinner speeches or through casual announcements by the NUC without serious planning of sources of funding and staff. The result is that states, individuals, sectarian religious bodies, joined by the federal government, are struggling to beat themselves in the establishment of universities that has resulted into our country having a cumulative 262 number of universities comprising 147 private universities, 63 state universities and 52 federal universities of different hues and characters. Some of these universities are universities in name only and water will soon find its level.

    Some of the private universities will die natural death of lack of financial breath because of lack of patronage. Some of those running the universities do not have proper appreciation of the university idea. Why will some of the management of these universities be flogging their students as a way of discipline? This outrageous incident happened in a state university where students were lined up and made to kneel down and whipped mercilessly by tough guards specially recruited to teach the young students lessons they would never forget. One hopes this idea of physical punishment will not be our contribution to higher education in the 21st century.

    We have been reduced to the laughing stock of the whole world. The present government should rise to its responsibility and stop the present nonsense of establishment of new universities and put in force efforts to consolidate the existing institutions.

  • A nation held down by criminals

    A nation held down by criminals

    President Goodluck Jonathan in his independent message to Nigerians on the occasion of the nation’s 51st independence anniversary had on behalf of Nigerians thanked our founding fathers who “brought joy and hope to the hearts of our people  after six decades of colonial rule  by working together to  restore dignity and honour  to a multicultural and multilingual nation of diverse people with more than 250 distinct languages and ethnic groups”. This was achieved in spite of the initial lack of consensus on the national question with Nnamdi Azikiwe and his group canvassing for unitary system, Obafemi Awolowo and his Yoruba group insisting on federalism while Abubakar Tafawa Balewa  who believed  “Nigerian unity is a British invention” and Ahmadu Bello who expressed grief over  “the mistake of 1914” settled for confederacy.  But at the end, realizing their responsibility to those that look up to them for direction, these illustrious Nigerian pathfinders settled for a federal arrangement that allowed groups to develop at their own pace without interference from federating members.

    Then came in January 1966, a bunch of criminals who like those “the gods want to destroy, they first made mad”, visited violence on themselves killing their best officers and their wives on their beds before descending on politicians – their benefactors who besides sending them for military training abroad set up military institutions for them at home. Forgetting that being the custodian of the nation’s constitution was a responsibility, they defied the constitutional provisions, imposed themselves as rulers and in a moment of madness turned a multicultural and multi-ethnic state into a unitary state. Six months later, a more vicious criminal group embarked on vengeance killing that eventually led to 33 months of civil war.

    Most of those that have ruled our nation ever since have always behaved like outlaws. But General Ibrahim Babangida, the evil genius, who after a palace coup against his boss, hilariously called himself president stood out as the one that carried reign of brigandage to other institutions of society notably, the judiciary, the economy, the intellectual and the press on whose back he rode to power. It was Babangida’s Aso rock professor who fraudulently claimed political parties could be decreed. And it was they that undermined the nation’s political socialization process by assuring him he could ban old political parties which was like cutting the umbilical cord between a mother and his baby.

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    His economic wizards include Olu Falae and Kalu Idika Kalu who in spite of Nigerians’ round rejection of IMF loan and its conditionalities insisted there was no “alternative to Structural Adjustment Programme”, (SAP) which opened our nation to imported goods from any part of the world.

    Driven by greed, unpatriotic Nigerians who secured import licences decided to flood the country with substandard goods and fake drugs that killed local manufacturing companies including, electronics, car accessories, textile, ceramics, pharmaceuticals etc. While thousands of Nigerians lost their jobs, criminals were buying land at N1billion per plot in Banana Island and other choice locations in Nigeria.

    For the nation, it was double jeopardy. Under Babangida’s dubious commercialization policies, the federal military government divested government holdings in many otherwise thriving government enterprises. State Military Administrators were equally directed to sell off state-owned public enterprises. Thus, Ikeja Cocoa Industry (CIL) owned by the ODUA Group was sold by Yoruba military administrators for an amount less than the cost of land on which the thriving industry with all its equipment was built.

    New set of criminals emerged in 1999 in form of military-baked ‘new breed’ politicians that followed in the footsteps of their creator who like military invaders, often loot conquered territories. It therefore did not come as a surprise that about 17 of 22 governors elected under PDP and ANPP between 1999 and 2007 were dragged to court by EFCC for financial malfeasance against the states they governed. National Assembly probe of Obasanjo’s ill-implemented privatization policy also confirmed Nigeria’s total investment of about $100b put together between 1959 and 1988 was sold to PDP stalwarts and their cronies for a paltry $1.5b.

    Babangida’s economic wizards found parallel in Obasanjo’s Chukwuma Soludo and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The banking crisis had its origins in the Soludo’s forced consolidation of the sector in 2005-2006. Like Olu Falae and Kalu Idika Kalu, Soludo, foreclosing a place for small banks in society went on with his program of consolidation and recapitalization which reduced the number of banks from about 90 in 2005 to 24 by 2006 and with 20 of them by end–2011, controlling ₦18.2 trillion assets and ₦12.5 trillion in deposit. The CBN also went on to inject ₦620 billion (about US$4.1 billion) of liquidity into the banking sector.

     By September 2011, the recapitalization of the intervened banks was completed with AMCON purchasing all the Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) of the intervened banks while the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) paid N16.18 billion for depositors in the 20 banks.

    It soon became obvious the banking sector had been taken over by a new set of actors. The chief executives of the capitalized banks became too powerful and with too much money at their disposal, compromised everyone while those below also embarked on massive stealing including the alleged 2015 CBN collusion with officials of commercial banks to defraud the country of N8 billion through recirculation of defaced and mutilated currencies (Premium Times of May 31 2015.)

    Of those fingered by Sanusi for tampering with depositors’ funds, it was only Cecelia Ibru who apart from forfeiting assets of N191.4 billion including 94 choice properties around the world, was jailed in October 8 2010 by Justice Dan Abutu for 18 months. Other accused criminals were never brought to justice.

    With incompetent President Buhari, and compromised CBN Governor Emefiele who was recently indicted by a special investigator’s probe report for allocating more forex than applicant’s request, allocating forex to those who never even applied and of fraudulent cash withdrawal of about $2.9billion, it became obvious that the stars of the leading commercial banks that engaged forex round-tripping that allowed them to declare profit in trillions were men with feet of clay.

    Criminals including those who committed treason, economic vampires, intellectual frauds, compromised journalists and sponsors of terrorists and bandits are well known to us but remain untouchable. Their response to the president’s appeal to their humanity in the interest of our beautiful country has yielded no fruit.

    If the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, is trying to attribute the “twin challenges of poverty, insecurity and “the untold hardship” arising from unemployment and hunger” in the northern region” to the painful but necessary decision of Tinubu’s eight months administration while ignoring the over 200 years feudal system that today fuels war of resistance between marginalized Hausa farmers and their Fulani overlords; if importers of second hand clothes, substandard products including fake drugs that contributed to the collapse of local industries continue to sabotage government forex policies out of self-preservation, the president should be reminded that what he needs as an elected sovereign, is not moral  suasion but to borrow a leaf from Niccolo Machiavelli, (Italian statesman,1469-1572) the ‘arch apostle’ of naked force, who believes  for a state to “fulfil its function of promoting the common good and preserving justice”, morality has no place. If in line with Machiavelli, his Yoruba forbears spoke of ‘Afobaje l’Oba npa’, the fate of opponents of his policies is sealed.

    Tinubu asked for the job. His hands are on the straw.  As an elected sovereign, there should be is no looking back.

  • Shall we tell the President?

    Shall we tell the President?

    Governance is serious business. It is not a tea-party and it is both an act and art. These are not things taught in school, yet they are elements that a leader must possess to govern well. If a leader knows how to govern, he must also have the ability to relate with the governed and come down to their level.

    There are levels in every society. Created by man, people are ranked according to their wealth, position, connection and influence. In other words, society broke itself into classes, using the standing of an individual as metric. Thus, the rich court the rich, the poor mingle with the poor. But, a leader cannot afford to deal with the people on that basis. A leader must treat all equally, irrespective of their status. 

    A father can afford to have favourites among his children, but a leader cannot be caught engaging in such fancy. A leader is the father of the nation. He is father to the wealthy and the poor, those who voted for him and those who did not, members of his party and the opposition. It may be hard as a person to discharge this fatherly role of a leader, but it is an issue in which the leader has no choice. He cannot afford to be caught on the wrong foot in his dealings with the people.

    It is a constitutional mandate for the leader to have the people’s interests at heart. According to the Constitution, these interests are two – security and welfare – but they have wide implications. Security is about the safety and preservation of the people; their protection in the face of internal and external aggressions as well as job security, economic and social justice, et al.

    Welfare is about meeting their needs and catering to them. The leader must, therefore, ensure the comfort and wellbeing of the people. Meeting their basic needs of shelter, food and clothing becomes  imperative. Power supply must be regular and affordable and the environment conducive for life and living. The 1999 Constitution (as amended) puts it in this simple but meaningful way in two of the four provisions in  Section 14 (1) and (2) (b):

    •The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice

    •It is hereby, accordingly, declared that –

    the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.

    Things have been tough and rough for the people in the past eight months. They took the turn for the worse following the removal of petrol subsidy on May 29, last year, and the subsequent floating of the naira. These are sound economic decisions, no doubt, but it seemed, the inherent consequences of the actions were overlooked. What, for instance, did the government put in place to cushion their effect?

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    With the benefit of hindsight, nothing. It was just taking for granted that, with time, things will fall in place on their own. Government is not run like that.There must be a plan in place for the fall-out of any policy. It is a well known fact that the removal of subsidy will result in a concomitant increase in fuel price and also have a multiplier effect on other things. Without a working refinery and no other substitute readily available, this is what eventually happened.

    What the country is going through now was, so to say, inflicted on the people. What then is the way out? The foundation for the prevailing economic and security challenges may have been laid long ago, however, it is today the duty of President Bola Tinubu to resolve them without any excuses.

    Mercifully, the President knows the enormity of the task before him. Nobody, whether in or out of government, friend or foe should compound things by playing to the gallery or by giving him unsolicited advice, which tends to put the blame elsewhere. The President may not be responsible for the nation’s woes, but it is his responsibility to take us out of this mess.

    Helping rural farmers in getting their produce to the urban centres and securing farmlands in the north from terrorists and bandits will go a long way to enhance food supply and bring down the rising prices. The President must also charge the security agencies to do more. It is unthinkable that criminals have become more stronger than security operatives. Many of our security men do not enjoy the people’s confidence because of their proclivity to corruption.

    They would rather be on the roads extorting money from motorists than go after the hardened criminals that are making life difficult for the people. This attitude must change, otherwise the man on the street will continue to see that as a reflection of what the Presidency stands for and continue to call it names and throw barbs at it: Ebi pa wa (we are hungry). Indeed, there is hunger in the land and the people are angry. The President has the will to change the narrative. He should use it now.

  • President Tinubu and the vultures

    President Tinubu and the vultures

    If I were to choose between the governed and its government, I will choose the latter. This is because it has been established that the former are fortune hunters who in a world of ‘survival of the fittest’, seize every available opportunity to inflict hardship on their fellow compatriots while the latter is saddled with the onerous task of keeping man who is often insane under control.  Nothing brings this home more vividly than the ongoing war of attrition being waged not just by the political and economic elite, but by ordinary Nigerians against Nigerians.

    We have all become vultures feeding on the blood of the most vulnerable. From fuel subsidy scammers, foreign exchange speculators to the Kano food distributors who short-changed farmers but locked up food items in warehouses while people starve, the egg and bread hawker on the streets of Lagos who attributed high cost of their wares to dollar exchange rate, the first instinct is always how to exploit the vulnerable.

     I discovered from a nearby grocery store last Sunday that the price of a loaf of bread had gone up to N1, 300. It used to be N1, 000. Since there was no value added, I decided to drive to another store where I thought I could get ‘coconut bread’ for N1,200. There also, I discovered the price had gone up to N1,600. After wondering when we started importing flour and coconut, I was forced to buy the bread. The story was not different from my neighbour who supplies us fresh eggs from his farm at N2,400 per crate. The price has gone up to N3,500, per crate. He attributed the difference to high cost of drugs needed to treat his birds.

    High cost of living has led to demonstration against government in a number of Nigerian cities. Last Thursday, it was the turn of Kano State. The city’s residents took to the streets calling on President Tinubu to come to their rescue as they could not “eat three square meals even the one square meal is now becoming difficult, as a bag of rice which used to go for N25,000 now attracts N70,000. And “Sugar which was sold for N8,000 now goes for N75,000”.

     But as if to confirm we are all vultures, three days later, on Sunday February 11, the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission confiscated 10 warehouses with hoarded assorted foodstuffs in Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area of the state. According to Muhyl Magaji, the commission’s chairman, “The owners have been issued notice to report to the commission preparatory to facing charges before the court of law for their illegal activities”.

    Perhaps we need a journey through memory to remind ourselves how greed by a few fortune-hunters led to the removal of fuel subsidy by government and the floating of the national currency resulting in current massive depreciation and escalating cost of living.

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     Fuel subsidy scam started at the onset of the fourth republic when PDP stalwarts and their sibling defrauded the nation to the tune of N1.7trillion by “forging papers without importing a pint of fuel,” in the words of Audu Ogbe the then PDP national chairman.  A probe by the National Assembly indicted a number of fuel marketers. (Otedola masterminded a DSS sting operation to nail Lawan Farouk for receiving bribe in order redmove his name from the list.)

    Then a forensic probe of Sanusi’s (CBN Governor) allegation that $49.8b was not transferred to the federation account by NNPC confirmed $10.8billion was never reconciled. Andrew Yakubu, NNPC group MD later said $8.76B of the amount was used for subsidy. (An Abuja High Court presided over by judge Ahmed Mohammed who ordered EFCC and CBN to transfer $9.8 million and 74,000 pounds recovered from Andrew Yakubu to an account under the control of the Chief Registrar of the court in March 2022, discharged and acquitted him of all charges).

    Sanusi however insisted such expenditure without appropriation was unconstitutional especially since subsidy on kerosene had been cancelled by Yar’Adua since June 15, 2009 when it was discovered that ‘if anyone was benefitting, it must be marketers and government officials. Sadly, about N500 billion was purportedly spent on kerosene subsidy in four years when the product was hardly available at filling stations or sold for N150 as against consolidated N50 controlled price. President Jonathan knew about the scam but shielded his friends in PDP, NNPC and the petroleum ministry.

    Buhari similarly failed the nation. Isa Yuguda, former governor of Bauchi State and chairman of the committee on subsidy in 2009 told Channels television “I am sad to let Nigerians know what I saw. We came across situations where subsidy was claimed on pipeline that never existed…. Those that claim to pump the product and those that are in the subsidy scam, they just fill papers, invoices and they claim subsidy on it”.

    Yuguda was sure Buhari as president who doubled as oil minister for eight years, was aware of the scam. Buhari lacked the political will to act. He chose instead to leave the poisoned apple for his successor by refusing to budget for fuel subsidy beyond June 2023.

    But no sooner President Tinubu declared during his inauguration that ‘fuel subsidy was gone’, than the vultures in the guise of marketers swung into action. Within an hour of the statement fuel disappeared from filling stations across Nigeria or sold for about N700 per litre where available.

    President Tinubu also admitted inheriting ‘a rotten’ financial system. The Jim Obazee-led special investigation of Emefiele’s tenure as CBN governor was to later unearth a damning report of monumental mismanagement, fraud and arbitrariness, looting, diversion of funds, forgery and collusion against Emefiele and about 15 others.  Specifically, the was an investment of billions of dollars in over 500 banks IN USA, UK and China without approval of CBN board. There was £543,482,213 in fixed deposit in one of the banks in UK.

    From alleged manipulation of the forex markets by banks, First Bank, UBA, Zenith, Access and GTB reported a combined N1.38trillion in forex revaluation in the first half of 2023.

    As at July 2023, there was also N26.627 trillion in ‘ways and means’, whose “management was dogged by a lot of arbitrariness with funds taken out of the national treasury without necessary authorization”.

    Government’s efforts at stabilizing the exchange rate through the unification of the official and parallel market exchange rates “hailed by economists and other stakeholders” have continued to be sabotaged by “some commercial banks who hold long-term foreign exchange positions to enable them profit from the volatile movements of exchange rate”.

    In a move to reduce the pressure on the naira, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has raised a 7,000-man special task force across its 14 zonal commands to clamp down on dollar racketeers.

    For President Tinubu, the subsidy removal and the floating of the national currency were fait accompli. Unlike President Jonathan and Buhari, there was no escape route. There was just no money to run the government. With 97% of our resources going into servicing debts, borrowing was not an option.

    To reduce the burden of Nigerians, President Tinubu must recover our monies from all indicted oil marketers. The banks and some others owe AMCON close to N6trillion. These taxpayers’ monies must be retrieved from the banks and other debtors who are today serving senators or live like princes.

    And as an elected sovereign, the president must be reminded he is free to take ‘protective measures including invasion of personal privacy and assault on group culture’ to safeguard the interest of the state.  

  • Not to speak ill of the dead

    Not to speak ill of the dead

    Once upon a time, a billionaire patriarch got starved to death. Starvation plagued him through dusk and dawn, writing his epitaph with his gasps and sighs for food bought with his money yet denied to his belly.

     His wife, who became a billionaire running his business empire, dreaded him soiling the precious bedsheets that she bought with his money. Thus, she denied him food. She padlocked the fridge, pantry and kitchen cabinet. Then she instructed the maid and his caregiver never to buy him food from their own purse.

    The only food he was allowed to eat was the cereal she rationed to him very early before she left for work every morning. A rare boardroom titan she was, who had time to inspect the clothesline to see if the helps washed and changed her husband’s bedsheets – to establish if they fed him in her absence. His anal incontinence made him soil the sheets every time he ate and for this, she starved and flogged him in creative ways that left no welt on his tender skin.

    One Tuesday morning, around 10 a.m. to be precise, the billionaire’s sister came visiting and found her brother crying for food like a baby. Weeping profusely, she rushed to the kitchen and found the fridge and food shelves padlocked. Angrily, she broke the locks and made her brother food.

    She vowed to beat up her brother’s wife but her elders promptly reminded her of the severe traditional penalties she would incur – which included buying a ram to appease the gods and a heartfelt apology to her sister-in-law. She also dreaded being hunted by the culprit’s friends in high places. Thus, the matter got swept under the carpet by a family divided within itself.

    No thanks to the lure and devices of filthy lucre that got them split in disparate camps; one camp groveling before their patriarch’s affluent, power-drunk wife, while the other camp banded into a defiant but disunited collective ruing the precarious circumstance of their hitherto powerful patriarch.

    This is hardly about their shenanigans but about the sad fate of their billionaire patriarch who personified opulence in his youth but was eventually battered to death by hunger pangs and associated ailments. This is about other billionaires, still alive, ignorant of what fate awaits them in their twilight.

    Predictably, the death of Access Holdings Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Herbert Wigwe, with his wife and son, in a chopper crash, en route to the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas, United States, has birthed a flurry of posthumous disclosures on his doings while alive.

    While some are fawning and patronising, some are damning and malevolent. In the end, both pro-Wigwe and anti-Wigwe homilies ignite introspection about mortality and the transience of life within and outside billionaire circuits.

    No matter how rich and powerful you become, your whole life and worth eventually reduces to a final moment and fate as a venerated billionaire, or a bedridden, starved, flogged, forsaken, vilified and embittered old man.

    This is sadly the lot of several men in their twilight. It doesn’t matter if they were good to their dependents: wives and children, friends and employees may eventually desert you once they exhaust their love for you or if you outlive your usefulness.

    No motivational theory or exaggerated psychobabble could dull this fact. A wealthy patriarch knows when relatives hang around and feign love for him in order to inherit his wealth.

    While money offers no protection against the ravage of unforgiving karma, the beaming brightness of good that each man had done may, serve as his buffer or protective shield against the whims of a vindictive wife, ungrateful children, churlish relatives and pitiless karma. Even where you enjoy the spirited love and devotion of loved ones, your citizenship of humanity may excite gory recompense.

    For instance, a public administrator or bank chief who is good to his family but monstrous to employees, the masses and others whose destinies entwine with his whim may suffer a gruesome end.

    No matter how rich or affluent a man is, he can never determine his final fate. No magnitude of wealth could enable a man reclaim his youth and undo his past mistakes.

    In “The Two April Mornings” and its companion poem, “The Fountain,” a 72-year-old schoolmaster recalls his youth as an energetic man, Wordsworth recalls. Virility is canonised only when lost.

    It is documented as distant narrative removes, nostalgia within memory: the first poem ends with Wordsworth recalling the schoolmaster’s memories. Masculinity is contemplated through the bleared lens of age, notes Paglia.

    In “The Last of the Flock,” we meet a full-grown, healthy man. But he is weeping in the road. Once rich, he has sold his fifty sheep to buy food for his children. Wordsworth turns the flock’s diminishing into a litany of dwindling manhood: fifty, ten, five, three, two, one, none.

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    The poet’s arithmetic charts the shrinking of patriarchal domain and masculinity’s supple patch. As his property shrivels to the borders of his body, the protagonist, like fabled Odysseus or Lear, diminishes to nobody.

    Are we prepared for that dreaded epoch when we may become nobodies? Are we prepared for that period when our shiny glories in time of youth may command only a perfunctory nod or the crisp tribute of a grudging hand clap?

    How does a man welcome that frightening reality, when the unforgiving measure of his deeds as a public officer or private citizen, determines the drift of his twilight?

    The Wordsworthian male decline, like Sango’s domestication by Oya and Kleist’s male mastectomy in Penthesilea, is a surgical reduction of self that counsels reflection among Nigeria’s privileged folk.

    William Wordsworth empathised with the virile male of “The Last of the Flock” over his suffering and fast diminishing masculinity. Yet for Wordsworth, a man may become greater as he becomes less.

    As a man, do you attain greatness as you become less? Have you made any sacrifice worth canonisation by the cult of posterity and human nature? Would your name enliven high society and suburban poetry long after you return to dust?

    What quality of manhood do you pose to your dependants, neighbourhood and the Nigerian state? What calibre of men steer the ship of the Nigerian state? What is our collective value beyond the elevated treatises, political, economic, and sociological theories hazarded to define us?

    Who are we, stripped of the veneers of material wealth, randomly professed spirituality, feminism, chauvinism, masculinity, masochism, intellectualism, and every other ism and schism that serve and afflict us?

    Alive, we seek our aspirations as rites of pagan worship in our bejeweled social and political space. In death, they resound like comical jaunts borne of a pedestrian taste of the splattering kind.

    Any blockhead or egghead may enjoy wealth and power through crookedness or honest endeavour, until karma strikes.

    Man’s karma travels with him, like his shadow. The universe’s agent of cause and effect, deterrence and retributive justice, can neither be owned nor placed on a leash.

    It becomes our temenos or ritual precinct of reward and comeuppance. In this divine, marked-off terrain, the moral code of the universe operates at its darkest and most mechanical – there are no emotive shingles of pardon or persuasion, just causes and effects, actions and consequences.

  • What a cruel life!

    What a cruel life!

    When death strikes a home and takes away a younger person, leaving the elderly, the grief is unspeakable. When such happens, we find solace in God, the giver and taker of life. The death in a plane crash of Access Holding Company chieftain Herbert Wigwe, his wife and son, as well as a family friend Abimbola Ogunbanjo, on Friday has left people wondering about the ways of the Almighty. Why take the younger Wigwe when his octogenarian parents, Pa Shyngle and Mama Stella, are still alive and well? We cannot question God, as the scriptures say.

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    There is nothing more heartbreaking than to break the news of a dead child to his aged parents. I know because I have walked that road before. Tears welled up in my eyes as I beheld the pictures of Wigwe’s friends and associates who visted his parents on Monday to condole with them. The photos were at once moving, touching and heartrending. No parent should predecease his child. This is our wish as humans.

    But, at times, God’s plan as we have seen in this case, may be different. My heart goes out to Papa and Mama Wigwe. May their eyes never behold this kind of tragedy again. May their son and others find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

  • AFCON aftermath: Between hope and disappointment

    AFCON aftermath: Between hope and disappointment

    • By Samuel Akinnuga

    So much happens every day in Nigeria, but last weekend was a loaded one. In less than one week, the reactions to two developments have been so intense such that whether you choose to reflect on the tragic incident or the enlivening sports fiesta, you would still be lost for words in capturing what should not have happened and what could have been. Truth be told, it appears to be more of a compulsion than a choice seeing that these developments remain two of the biggest subjects in Nigeria at the moment.

    Had the outcome of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) final match between Nigeria and Ivory Coast been different, the mood across the country would have been markedly triumphal. And this would have been in spite of the buffetings on virtually all fronts which the country grapples with. If we had won, nothing else would have mattered as much as having the ‘mouth’ to prove that we are ‘Giants of Africa’. We would still be conscious of the value of the Naira and the associated issues, but we would have been happier to let that concern take the backseat, even if for a few days. I can already imagine that our Ghanaian and South African friends would not have heard the last of it. The banter that went back and forth on some action added some spice to action on the pitch of play. I must admit some comments went overboard, but we love ourselves, regardless. These things happen.

    Everyone would admit that for as long as the AFCON lasted, it provided a respite that we direly needed to make our distress more sufferable. We needed some distraction strong enough to arrest our attention from our sobering realities. It took the game of football being played away in Ivory Coast for us to forget the challenges back at home. Through the one month of fierce competition, the thrills and surprises definitely made this edition of the AFCON one of the best in history. The fact that some of the ‘big boys’ were sent home before the knockout stage was quite something to watch. We are grateful to God and the Super Eagles for the brilliant outing at the AFCON. They gave us bragging rights, but they gave us much more: they gave a reason to be happy being Nigerian.

    At the peak of our dominance during the competition (and this was the day after our victory over South Africa), my very good friend who is Ghanaian texted: ‘I’m super jealous of what your team is doing at AFCON. But I have no option other than to support you because I have a Nigerian family (with a laughing emoji).’ I happily replied: “We wholly welcome your support (with a wink emoji).” I was filled with great pride. That semi-final match against South Africa was by far the most breath-taking of all the matches we played. The tension in the game caused me to take a break from watching at some point. I couldn’t take it. Overall, we did well and can be proud of our high points at the competition. 

    In my reckoning, there is one major truth that the AFCON reinforced: As a country, agreeing on issues is a rarity but when it comes to football, we are mostly on the same page. We love the game. We are energised and united by the spirit. We leave our cares and worries momentarily for the thrill of winning. The way I see it, football for us is just different when the national team is playing. More than anything, we love the fact that it brings out the Nigerian in us. None of us is ever anything but Nigerian when the Super Eagles play. All you need to do to confirm this is to check out the attitude of viewers the Super Eagles score or win. I’ve never seen two men attempting to confirm their ethnicities before deciding for a brotherly handshake or a spirited hug when we do well. Even when we don’t, the solidarity is evident. We love ourselves like that. In those moments, there are no guards up; no tribal consciousness, just pour love for the country.

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    When the Super Eagles play, it’s over 200 million on the pitch. When the Super Eagles win, it’s a shared victory. Of course, we don’t like to lose but football has its ways: you win some, you lose some.

    The AFCON has come and gone, but we are left with some major lessons. By far the most important for me is the fact of winning when it mattered most. We did not win when it mattered most. We had a tremendous run up to the final: didn’t lose a game and conceded only one goal in open play. We became better with each game from the group stage up to the final. For some reason, we switched off in the final game. I can’t possibly know what happened but it didn’t appear that we came to the game hungry enough to win it. Interestingly, our opponents were a familiar foe. We had defeated them in the group stage, and it was clear then that the Super Eagles was a much better team. What then happened!

    I’m not saying this as a football expert but as a passionate Nigerian who thinks we could have clearly done better when it mattered most. The Elephants of Ivory Coast came from being one of the best losers at the group stage to winning the trophy on their own turf. The hosts went home with the trophy. That is quite a story. Congratulations to them! Congratulations to us too for the great run. I’m sure we will do better in subsequent editions. The Super Eagles made us proud and we will always be rooting for them. Go Super Eagles! Viva Nigeria!

     I chose to end this piece on a rather sober note.

     Words would not be enough to describe how heartbroken I’ve felt since hearing the news of Dr. Herbert Wigwe’s passing last Saturday. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that his wife, son and Otunba Abimbola Ogunbanjo were victims of the same ill-fated incident. I have still not gotten over the pain and deep sense of loss that I felt when I came across the news.

    I did not know Dr. Wigwe personally and I did not need to in order to appreciate the scale of his impact and contributions to our country, and indeed, our continent. The imprints are everywhere. The powerhouse that is now Access Holdings is a pride of the continent. He and his associate built that from Nigeria – a poster achievement of the possibilities here. I have no doubts that his achievements would offer great inspiration to current and succeeding generations of entrepreneurs and business leaders across the world. His loss is a terrible national tragedy. My thoughts are with the Wigwe and Ogunbanjo families. May the souls of the departed rest in peace.