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Category: Thursday

Akande: Of politicians’ occupational hazard

It is not just that politicians are the most distrusted group of professionals in the world, being a politician in itself is a nightmare as it carries a stigma of being an unprincipled, corruptible double-dealer. And as if to justify this, their zero-sum struggle for power is often anchored on the belief that ‘the end justifies the means’ or as John Lylys puts it in his novel Euphus: The Anatomy of Wits, ‘All, is fair in love as in war’.

Ironically, we need politicians more than they need us. We owe our survival as organized society to their brinkmanship and skilful exploitation of our infirmities. In a world where it is the survival of the fittest, politicians are the only people who are capable of reconciling private affluence with public squalor. It is they alone that can make us dream dreams and convert such dreams to reality.

It is this paradoxical nature of politics that is responsible for the dearth of politician statesmen. Committed politicians dedicated to the service of humanity often face what many regard as ‘politician occupational hazards.’ Nearer home, Awolowo in an effort to create a more egalitarian society for his people and the rest of the country, was framed up and jailed for 10 years by those, who because they did not share his world view, accused him of trying ‘to topple her majesty’s government’ citing as evidence, entries in his diary to the effect that he dreamt he became the Prime Minister of Nigeria. Adekunle Ajasin, Bisi Onabanjo, Bola Ige and Prof. Ambrose Alli whose only earthly possession was an empty plot of land at death, were jailed for a total of 400 years for creatively raising funds from state contractors to prosecute free education, free health and setting up of universities in their different states. Bisi Akande, Ige’s deputy was jailed 44 years.

For standing up against his fellow politicians who wanted to loot the resources of Osun State, Governor Akande was rigged out of office as governor of Osun State in the fourth republic. Long after some of those who fraudulently took over power have been found to be men with feet of clay, Akande was described by Buhari, his former persecutor, as “a man of inflexible integrity”.

If there is anyone who truly understands occupational hazards of committed politicians in Nigeria, Bisi Akande fits the bill. With Ambrose Alli going blind in Buhari’s gulag and his colleagues’ untimely deaths as a result of their inhuman treatment in detention, Pa Akande is in best position to raise an alarm about the danger of allowing fraudsters posing as anti-corruption crusaders take over power in the country.

It is from this context we must understand his last week’s timely warning about the danger that lies ahead with the prospect of take-over of power by those he described as “the new brand of vagabonds’, the drug barons, crude oil thieves,” who he claims “are among you; are richer than you; are calling you corrupt and hiding behind the cloak that they are not corrupt, but they are more corrupt and they will fight you.” For him the danger is real because “we are in a Nigeria now where everybody is struggling to be corrupt and the mind-set of everybody is corruption, and they don’t point the fingers to themselves; they are pointing it at you, politicians.”

Successive administrations in Nigeria according Chief Akande, have failed to defeat corruption due to the mind-set of Nigerians. According to him, “In a country where everybody is corrupt like Nigeria, The mind-set is corrupt. The man who wants prosperity by miracle is corrupt. You want to own a car, or house by miracle. Such a community can never be prosperous except of course “Nigerians have a change of mind-set and embrace the virtues of dedication and hard work”.

Akande has been around long enough to also understand Nigerian miracle seekers have short memories. He also knows how vulnerable we are as a people, especially with the advent of social media and some unprincipled main stream media who after changing all the rules of journalism, pretend to be driven by national interest.

Two events during the 2023 election exposed their hypocrisy. Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi were leading light of PDP, a party that raped the country for 16 years. Atiku Abubakar, as Obasanjo’s VP presided over the mismanaged privatization programme and was accordingly indicted by a National Assembly report. Peter Obi, who moved from PDP to Labour on the eve of the 2023 election was mentioned by the PANDORA Papers as one of the rich people in the world “who clandestinely set up businesses operated overseas, including in notorious tax and secrecy havens in ways that breached Nigerian laws” Curiously, the duo were presented as anti-corruption crusaders trying to save the nation from Bola Tinubu who had never held public office or engaged in federal government contract.

There was also the case of Godwin Emefiele who as sitting CBN governor, wanted to contest for the presidency of Nigeria on the platform of APC. He was ably promoted and supported by segment of the media. However as soon as his ambition was truncated by the judiciary, he donned the toga of an anti-corruption crusader. In October 2022, he embarked on a political redesign of N200, N100 and N1,000 bills. He ordered depositors to take their savings to the banks. He claimed his target were some presidential candidates and governors he accused of stashing funds to buy votes. His media promoters were less restrained. They made it clear the target was Bola Tinubu who they alleged shipped monies in bullion vans to his residence on the eve of Buhari’s 2019 contest against Atiku Abubakar.

It turned out that enough new notes were not printed. The result was that banks and bank staff were attacked by angry depositors who could not access their deposits when needed. A number of people died on the queues while trying to make withdrawal. Intervention by the Supreme Court declaring the old note legal tender was ignored by anti-corruption crusading Emefiele. Even as Nigerians groaned, he was egged on by the social media and his mainstream media sponsors.

Now out of office, the full report of the Special Investigator on Management of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), under anti-corruption crusading Emefiele, has revealed that the redesigned Naira is

“illegal and should be withdrawn from circulation with immediate effect while Emefiele and his group should be made to face criminal charges for an aberration that led to the loss of lives of many Nigerians, the closure of businesses and joblessness.”

That “The sum of N1,727,500,000, according to the Obazee report “was also spent on questionable legal fees on 19 cases that are directly traceable to the Naira Redesign and reconfiguration agenda”;

That in the UK alone, the Special Investigator said his probe led him to 543.4 million pounds kept by Emefiele in fixed deposit accounts. The report claims Emefiele manipulated the Naira exchange rate and perpetrated fraud in the e-Naira project of the CBN.

The investigator also discovered a “fraudulent cash withdrawal of $6.23 million” – about N2.9 billion at the then official exchange rate of N461 to a dollar.

With the above revelations, Nigeria would have been doomed under Emefiele and his promoters. Having experienced first-hand, the betrayal of corrupt elements in borrowed anti-corruption cloak, I suspect Pa Akande is trying to remind us of the danger ahead if we allow ‘a brand of vagabonds, powerful drug barons, crude oil thieves who share the same worldview with Godwin Emefiele, the fake anti-corruption crusader, to take over power.

January 25, 2024
The Plateau palaver

The Supreme Court’s judgment came at a wrong time for them. If only the judgment had been delivered before their own cases had been heard and determined by the Court of Apeal, the sacked lawmakers from Plateau State would today still be in their respective hallowed chambers at the stae and national levels.

They are no longer ‘honourable’ members of the National and Plateau State House of Assembly because of what the apex court called ‘perverse’ judgment in the case of Governor Caleb Mutfwang and Nentanwe Goshwe of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The cases of Mutfwang and the lawmakers, who are of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were ‘on all fours’, as lawyers will say. But, the lawmakers’ cases, as similar as they were with Mutfwang’s, did not get to the Supreme Court, where the governor got the judgment which reinstated him

Appeals in the lawmakers’ cases end at the Court of Appeal, where their fates were sealed following the court’s decision that they won elections on the platform of a party without structures. According to the appeal court, their party, PDP, disobeyed the order of the Plateau State High Court to hold fresh ward, local government and state congresses to fill executive posts. The apex court found otherwise. That was the governor’s saving grace.

The apex court’s hands were, however, tied in respect of the lawmakers’ issue. The matter never came before it and coud never have gone there because of the provisions of the law on disputes over legislative elections. The disputes end at the Court of Appeal. This was also the case with governorship election disputes until the law was amended to allow the cases to get to the Supreme Court.

In deciding the Mutfwang case, the Supreme Court nevertheless noted the harm the Court of Appeal did in respect of cases similar to the matter that never came before it. It was a mere observation, which could not and should not be taken as a pronouncement on the lawmakers’ cases. As members of the society who see what goes on around them too, judges are free to comment on vexed issues, which though not before them they cannot pretend to be unaware of.

There was no way their Lordships would have dispensed with Mutfwang’s appeal, without making a passing remark on the lawmakers’ cases. The import of their remarks was in the message for their constituency to be more thorough in the adjudication of cases to avoid becoming “irrelevant” to society. The import was not in not making a pronouncement on a case not before them. The Supreme Court will never do that. Give an order in a case in which it has no jurisdiction!

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The Supreme Court will not be Supreme Court if it does that. The lawmakers’ agitation to benefit from the verdict is understandable. Of course, grave injustice was done them by that Court of Appeal’s decision, which the apex court in Mutfwang’s appeal described as “perverse”. From the reading of that, it means justice was also perverted in the lawmakers’ cases which stood ‘on all fours’ with Mutfwang’s. But can they benefit from the judgment when their cases ended long before the verdict came?

Can the verdict be, so to say, retroactively enforced to accommodate their cases? As it were, it is unfortunate that they cannot rely on the verdict in order to regain their seats. On what basis can they do that when their rights of appeal do not extend to the apex court? If only the verdict had come before the disposal of their cases, the appeal court would have had no choice than to abide by it as a binding precedent.

The coming of the Supreme Court’s verdict after their own cases is a major blow to the lawmakers and this is perhaps why Justice John Okoro, who presided over the Mutfwang case, said in his concurring opinion: “A lot of people have suffered because of the judgments of the Court of Appeal”. The remedy does not lie in the lawmakers and their supporters laying siege to the House of Assembly as they did on Tuesday.

That will not serve any useful purpose. It will only exacerbate matters. The lawmakers should return to court and see what can be done. From my layman’s perspective, it is a long shot though. But it is better than resorting to self-help by taking the law into their hands. They should remember that they are lawmakers and not law breakers.

January 25, 2024
Rush to judgement: The Ibadan blasts

There was a huge blast caused by some kind of explosion in the evening of Tuesday, January 16 which shook some areas of Ibadan to their very foundations. The epicentre was the highbrow Bodija Estate built in 1958 by the Obafemi Awolowo government of that era. I take particular interest in this incident because the then supervising minister of lands and housing at that time was a young minister by the name Oduola Osuntokun with whom I share consanguinity. Ibadan also happens to be the second home of many Yoruba people and whatever affects the huge city has reverberating effect on many people. I had part of my secondary school education at the famous Ibadan Grammar School and my undergraduate education at the University of Ibadan of which I am proud to be an alumnus.

There is a story about Bodija that I must tell my readers. Sometimes in 1985 or 1986, I wanted to acquire a plot of land in the same Bodija. I applied for land and the chairman of the Housing Corporation, Dr Omololu Olunloyo who later became the governor of Oyo State briefly invited me for an interview. When I got there, he summoned the permanent secretary of the corporation to bring him my file and introduced me to him. He said this young man’s brother founded this estate. Please find him a plot in Bodija. After some fruitless search, he came back and he said he located a plot in a watery part of the estate. Olunloyo told him a university teacher could not build in such a place because of cost. He then said he will allocate a plot of land to me somewhere near an estate under development. I thanked him profusely. The watery soggy place is near the epicentre of the current blast. Imagine if I had built a house near the epicentre of the blast. I may have been blown to pieces or may have had a heart attack because of sudden shock as happened to some home owners. This is the uncertainty of life.

I know people in their late years who would have said to themselves that as far as shelter is concerned, they have nothing to worry about. Yet people slept and woke up and found themselves homeless or people went to work or to visit friends and on coming back to find their life property destroyed. I just narrated the story of my struggle to build a house in Bodija to show the dedication of those who served the country previously without any reward because Dr Omololu complimented my brother for not allocating plots of land to himself, children and siblings!

We can therefore thank the Almighty that the epicentre of the blast was in the corner of the estate and not in the centre. In spite of the epicentre centre of the blast, it affected many parts of Ibadan including the government secretariat and the university where windows were smashed. Many commercial and worship centres were also affected. Many houses and hotels were irreparably damaged. I live quite a bit further away, almost four kilometres away and yet parts of my home was damaged. Many people lost their homes and this included elderly people who may not be able to rebuild them. The same goes for people with housing investment and hotel. People have now had to move to live with friends and to stay in hotels just to temporarily catch their breath. There are reports of people who had heart attacks as a result of the sudden noise and tremor occasioned by the blast. There is no doubt that this blast is a major disaster especially occurring at a time of economic hardship and financial scarcity and difficulties.

In the olden times, Bodija was home to the men of influence in government and academia. Unfortunately, most of them have passed on and the importance of Bodija has virtually died with their original owners of property. But at least for history of Ibadan, the estate still carries some weight and importance. Many of the houses have been sold by their inheritors either because of hard times or because the children have relocated abroad or because the houses have become incommodious or old and out of fashion. When I pass through Bodija these days, I become nostalgic about the place and remember what some of us experienced there when we were young.

When the blast happened, I was lucky to have left for Lagos a day earlier, forced by divine providence because I was not scheduled to have left. I just decided to leave because of the inefficiency of public electricity company and I needed some respite in a place where I would not worry about lack of electricity just after I had just had a medical intervention in one of my ears. I was out of Ibadan just by a day when the blast occurred. On Wednesday morning, I started receiving telephone calls very early from former students of the Redeemer’s University. It was from them I heard about the incident. They were very specific about the cause of the blast and they were united in telling me it was caused by “Mali illegal miners living in rented houses in Bodija”. I asked them where they got the news and they all claimed that it was what the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde said. I must have received not less than 50 calls from former students and academic colleagues worried about my safety. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart and I felt I must have made some impression on these young people calling me.

Read Also: Ribadu leads Ibadan blast probe

When everything seemed to have settled down, I began to interrogate the events of the day and to wonder how we came to quick resolution of the complex question of bombing that led to much destruction and fatalities. In other climes, this will require proper clinical investigation. People began to react and questions were asked about the alleged dynamite or any other chemical used in the explosion. One must concede to the fact that being an engineer and also someone in possession of almost instant intelligence, the governor would know the probable cause of the explosion. But if he knew instantly, why was the whole thing not aborted by interdictory action? There was also a statement by a retired military officer who knew about ordnance who doubted the government’s assessment as to what caused the explosion. People then began to say it may not have been caused by what the governor said caused the action. The federal government promptly set up an enquiry with the National Security Adviser as chairman. I hope there will be a timeline within which he must report back to the president before the rumour mill begins to work overtime and lending authenticity to rumours. This is important in view of the gathering storm of kidnapping, ethnic violence in some parts of the country including Abuja, the federal capital.

As the Chinese will say, we live in interesting times and we must nip in the bud whatever may undermine our fragile national security at this time. Perhaps this is the time to fast forward what new security the government plans in this budget year so that the government is ahead of enemies of the state. Concerned citizens have complained about lack security in our country at this critical time. Stopping vehicles at the entry points to our towns is not enough. We have to ensure that only security personnel and accredited people have access to explosives and to agricultural chemicals that can easily, like fertilizers, be converted to incendiary materials. There are markets in Nigeria where incendiary materials can be purchased as fertilizer which can be converted for deadly ends by people who do not wish our country well. A stitch in time saves nine! I do not believe every other Africans affected by revolutionary fervour in their countries and seeking refuge in Nigeria currently should be shut out of Nigeria. But because of our current situation, we have to be more careful about suspicious foreigners who live among us especially those involved in mining because of the past experience about miners in recent times. Our lax attitude has to change this year because of the dangerous climate pervading not just our part of Africa but the entire world.

January 25, 2024
Mefy’s gloom

Inside his jail cell, Godwin Emefiele has a habit of staring into the emptiness, to relieve his life in time of repute. January 2023 is barely a year ago since he presided as the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and scarred the fate of 200 million citizenry including his arch-enemy, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as Nigeria prepared for the 2023 presidential elections.

This writer recalls Emefiele’s premature victory walk; how he sauntered in catty glory along the corridor of the Presidential Villa, in Aso Rock, Abuja, just after he met with former President Muhammadu Buhari and contrived his right to persist with the shady currency redesign and naira swap enforced by his administration as CBN governor.

The resultant naira scarcity – engineered to incite the electorate against Tinubu and cost the APC a large percentage of anticipated votes at the February 25 polls – was manifesting swimmingly, Emefiele bragged and gloated to State House Correspondents.

Mefy didn’t care about the impact of his personalised vendetta against Tinubu on the citizenry: a lecturer died on a lengthy bank queue while trying to withdraw a paltry N5,000 to feed his family; fathers stripped naked and cried in the banking hall, mothers tore off their clothes from their bodies and rolled on the bare floor under the cold gaze of soulless bank workers, all protesting their inability to access their savings and feed their families,

Through the orchestrated starvation and deaths of ordinary citizens, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, hailed Emefiele aka Mefy, for the hardship he had imposed.

They told Nigerians, tongue in cheek, to bear the suffering: the sudden bankruptcies, starvation, riots, robberies, and deaths, were necessary sacrifices that must be made to prevent vote-buying and successfully alienate the electorate from Tinubu and the APC, they said.

More fascinating was the passionate support of the Obidient mob, who hailed and snuggled in the bloom of Mefy’s Dystopia. One fanatic told me, “With what Emefiele has done, Tinubu’s ambition is dead on arrival. Emefiele has finished him. This currency redesign is a masterstroke,” he said.

Indeed, the die seemed cast against Tinubu, until his unanticipated yet emphatic victory at the polls. Fast forward through Tinubu’s inauguration and painstaking probe of Emefiele’s tenure as CBN governor and Nigeria confronts the swollen belly of Mefy’s wiles.

On June 9, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu suspended Emefiele from office immediately amid an investigation of his tenure and controversial reforms in the economy’s financial sector. Yemi Cardoso was appointed as the new substantive head of the apex bank thus signalling an end to Emefiele’s nine-year tenure or thereabouts.

Emefiele’s suspension and subsequent trial have been linked to significant scandals during his tenure.

Jim Obazee, the special investigator appointed to probe the CBN reportedly discovered 593 bank accounts in the United States, United Kingdom and China in which the CBN, under Emefiele, kept Nigerian funds without authorisation by the Board and Investment Committee of the bank.

The investigator also discovered how billions of naira were allegedly stolen by Emefiele and other officials from the CBN’s accounts including a “fraudulent cash withdrawal of $6.23 million” – about N2.9 billion at the then official exchange rate of N461 to a dollar.

Local media reports cite Obazee’s recommendation that the ex-CBN chief and at least 13 others, including his deputy governors, should be prosecuted for alleged gross financial offences.

In the UK alone, the Special Investigator said his probe led him to £543.4 million stashed by Emefiele in fixed deposit accounts. He also said Emefiele manipulated the Naira exchange rate and perpetrated fraud in the e-Naira project of the CBN.

In his report submitted to President Bola Tinubu on December 9, Obazee reportedly identified several “chargeable offences” for which the former CBN governor may be asked to defend himself before a court.

Tinubu had on July 28 appointed Obazee as a Special Investigator to probe the CBN and related entities, charging him to work with relevant security and anti-corruption agencies for the assignment, in consonance with the provisions of Section 15(5) of the Nigerian constitution and furtherance of Nigeria’s anti-corruption campaign.

Obazee, who was the CEO of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) between 2011 and 2017, has also been charged with strengthening and blocking leakages in the CBN and key Government Business Entities (GBEs).

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The revelation of financial misappropriation by the CBN during Emefiele’s tenure underscores the potential for theft, money laundering and other illicit activities within Nigeria’s financial system, casting a shadow on the CBN’s integrity.

At the moment, the nights are the hardest for Emefiele, when he lies in his cot, ruing the whine of silence in his ears. Back when he was CBN governor, his phone buzzed constantly for his attention. These days, its blank screen makes his face look like a ghost in the dark, his eyes sunk into a perpetual side glance at the suddenly idle device.

His mind and the rest of his senses stuck in a perpetual vertical pose, like an antennae scanning for calls and messages that would never come. The infamous Mefy Cabal or Coterie has disappeared into thin air, along with its celebrated infamy.

He shouldn’t even have a phone. An accused public officer standing trial should enjoy no such privileges. Yesterday, Mefy cherry-picked calls and messages to answer to. Today, he scouts for both calls and messages. From anyone, everyone and nobody in particular.

Those who fellated his ego have pleasured him to his doom. Their frantic cheers and fondling of his wiles have wilted in the heat of his prosecution. Nigeria needed Emefiele to uphold professionalism and a moral culture impervious to degeneration and the machinations of politicians, rogue economists and industrial bogeymen, but he failed.

Had he succeeded at his brief, the ricochet of his exploits would have served a greater purpose improving the economy and burnishing him for a more significant leadership role in the future.

As CBN chief, Emefiele failed to evolve an enduring moral code unyielding to any baggage from his past and amenable to higher responsibilities in future.

Agreed, moral codes could be somewhat obstructive, relative and counter-productive, particularly when pitched against a vicious circle of leeches and reprobates in government circuits. Ultimately, moral codes are of inestimable benefits to civilisation.

Without them, we are vulnerable to gluttony, amorality and wanton tyranny of the self-seeking and covetous. It was a lack of moral code and personal ethics that ruined the names and reputation of immediate past genii in Nigeria’s power circuits.

Emefiele now understands perhaps that public service must be humanely carried out as an honour, not cashed in upon or taken advantage of with a haughty smirk and condescending smile.

Let’s hope Mefy now understands that, in the end, he would be judged by how adroitly he scorned or toned to a minimum, the arrogance implicit in leadership and the corruption characteristic of power.

It took the ex-CBN boss an unceremonious exit from office and subsequent detention to understand that whoever dances too close to the balefire of the vanities would get burnt.

Emefiele danced too close and he got burnt, leaving the vivid air soured with his charred aspects.

January 18, 2024
Great expectations in 2024

On December 31, 2023, I went to Accra Ghana for a family occasion. I had not been to Ghana since the coming to power of the incumbent president, the very articulate President Nana Akufo-Addo. Akufo-Addo was not my preferred candidate in his contest with his predecessor John Dramani Mahama who is a friend of Nigeria and a literary artist. The current president of Ghana on coming to office gave a critical lecture at Oxford University, his Alma mater in which he cynically lambasted Nigeria for foolishly wasting its oil money. Even if this was true, I do not believe it is proper for an African president to ridicule another African country in a foreign land. Permit me the digression.

My visit to Ghana lasted a full week during which I experienced many things which I had not experienced in my several visits to Ghana, first as a secondary school student, then as an undergraduate, then as an academic and now as a person with family ties because my youngest child is married to a Ghanaian. My father had lived in the then Gold Coast colony working in the Manganese mines around Nsutta in Central Gold Coast. This was before I was born. He made some money which he brought home to build a rambling house for himself and his two uterine brothers in Okemesi our hometown. I have always wondered why the Gold Coast was where my people went in search of the “Golden Fleece”.

In my youth, sections of my town were inhabited by people who spoke as their second language Fanti which they picked up in the then Gold Coast. This is the second language spoken by most people in Ghana after Twi. The largest number of Yoruba people in Ghana in colonial times were Ogbomosho people and there were also people from such towns as Oyo, Ejigbo and Ede. The only explanation for this migration was probably scarcity of arable land. This was certainly the case in my home town being sandwiched in a valley surrounded by hills and where as a result of history of migration and our wars of liberation, we paid less concern for agriculture than for security. It is a long history which needs not bother us. I don’t know the reason for Ogbomosho people going in droves to the Gold Coast. But it is the same search for trade and profit that drove them to northern Nigeria as well.

Back to my story. I flew to Ghana on new year Eve 2023 on an AIR PEACE plane, manufactured by EMBRAER. S.A of Brazil. Apart from Boeing and Euro Aerospace, this Brazilian company is the third commercial planes manufacturer in the world. This position may change soon when the Chinese commercial airline planes bulldoze their way into the world market, the usual massive Chinese way.

My flight to Ghana was uneventful. In spite of the dusty Harmattan haze, the flight landed as scheduled. The flight was fully booked with a substantial number of the passengers made up of black Americans and Nigerian-Americans and their spouses who came “home” to Africa for Christmas and new year. I learnt it has become fashionable for these compatriots to celebrate Christmas in Lagos or Abuja and then fly to Accra for for elaborate new year celebrations. Tourism is big business in Ghana not just in Accra but in the country as a whole but particularly in the south. Hotels in Accra are absolutely exquisite. The beaches are primed for accommodation in beach hotels. The most remarkable thing is that electricity is regularly available every hour. Even though Accra strangely enough, is hotter than Lagos but air conditioning appears to be effectively available because of the regularity of electricity. Service in the hotels is friendly and efficient and the people are trained to be friendly. Ghanaians are on the whole much more friendly than our people. I am surprised about this because this was not always like this in the Ghana of my youth. At that time Ghanaians were very arrogant and proud. They had reasons to be like that. They beat every country in black Africa apart from the Sudan in the race to political independence. They also used to thrash everyone on the soccer field. Their voice was loudest in the struggle for pan African independence and unity and their president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah – the “ Osagyefo” or “saviour “ was the most well-known African leader and the youth of Africa including most young Nigerians admired him compared with our chaotic political leadership.

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Of course things changed with our petroleum wealth which apparently went to our head and we mismanaged the opportunity. But even up till today, the evidence of our conspicuous consumption is evident in the luxurious cars on our dilapidated roads compared with the small cars on Accra roads.

When I arrived in Accra I noticed the difference. I wanted very badly to ease myself in a toilet. I was under severe pressure and I couldn’t wait for normal immigration or customs procedures so I dashed to a lady in uniform. I told her I urgently needed the use of a toilet. She did not start by directing me to a toilet she actually took me to one! I felt so good as an 81-year old whose bladder was about to explode would feel. When I finally got to the immigration desk and my pictures were to be taken, I was asked to remove my cap and glasses. For comic relief I asked the Ghanaian officer whether a chief’s head can be exposed just like that in Ghana. He apologised and we both laughed. Then the next port of call was the customs department. The officer insisted that I open my box. I asked him why? This time I was serious because he seemed for some strange reasons to have picked me out of the crowd. When he saw I was serious, he backed down and let me go.

What would have been the experience of a Ghanaian if the roles had been reversed? When I returned to Lagos I discovered that touts had infested the new extension of the Murtala Muhammad airport. One of them tried to rip me off pretending he was helping to clear my luggage but I stood my ground. What was most impressive was the airline that was expertly run and the brand new plane safely flown to and fro showing the possibility of a new Nigerian business owner and run by young Nigerians of mixed ethnic background. I saw this with my own eyes in AIR PEACE!

The Murtala Muhammad airport’s new extension shows what is possible. It is newly built and mercifully the air conditioning is working. The seats were clean and so were the toilets. If this can be maintained, then our airports would not be known for their ugliness and filth. How I wish the entire airport in Lagos can be as well maintained as the new extension. All things are possible. We just have to work at it. Small things are important. We cannot be talking about foreign investment if ordinary things like airports are in shambles. There are also too many desks one has to check at presumably because of security, drug trafficking, immigration, customs and so on and these things give room for the usual Nigerian malady of corruption. We just have to be determined to build our country because this is the only country we have.

January 18, 2024
Nabeeha: The tragedy of a nation

She was just another citizen minding her own business until Nigeria, as they say, ‘happened’ to her. When people say Nigeria ‘don happen to you’, they are saying in effect that, that person has become victim of a system that does not work. Indeed, every sector is in dire straits.

Is it the economy? Is it oil and gas? Is it banking? Is it labour, that is talking in terms of employment? Is it manufacturing? Is it security? Ah! Now, that is the real problem. With everything revolving around security, successive administrations’ inability to tame the tiger of insecurity is compounding the nation’s woes. The land is ailing today because of insecurity.

Nobody prays that Nigeria ‘happens’ to them or even their enemies, but when it does, it is the nation and not the victims and their families alone that suffers. We all bear the brunt. This is what is happening today with the unfortunate Nabeeha Al- Kadriyar incident. Nabeeha came to national consciousness after she was killed by her abductors over ransom payment. She was kidnapped with her five sisters and their father on January 3.

The new year had just dawned when they were abducted from their home around the notorious Abuja-Kaduna Road. The road has become a commuter’s nightmare. Whether in the day or at night, the road is unsafe yet there are checkpoints on the highway manned by a combined team of military and policemen. How these abductors operate under the nose of the security men and escape is inexplicable. What is the use of those checkpoints if they cannot come to the aid of residents and commuters when in distress?

Six girls and their dad falling into their hands in one fell swoop, the abductors would have thanked their stars and done a quick arithmetic of what they will

get. Without wasting time, they released the girls’ father, Mansoor Al-Kadriyar, to go and look for a N60 million ransom. Meaning that they are demanding N10 million for each girl. Sixty million naira is not N6 or N60 or N600 or N6000. It is not chicken feed. The ransom is not an amount that Al-Kadriyar could have gone home to pick up and return to the kidnappers to get his girls back.

He needed time, ample time at that, to get the ransom. But, the blockheads, the animals in human skin that the kidnappers are, were not ready ro give the man a chance to save his daughters. They killed Nabeeha on Friday in what to them was a ‘warning signal’ that they meant business. It was a show of cruelty and callousness. That was no bravery, it was bestiality at its height. Why did they kill the girl? Has her death produced money? The kidnappers must have been high on some drugs to carry out that dastardly act.

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The kidnappers might have killed Nabeeha in cold blood to instill fear in her family and the nation. Their callous act is meant to ginger us all into action in getting the ransom over to them pronto! This is a monumental tragedy. By wilfully killing Nabeeha, they were telling the nation to take them serious to avert the killing of her sisters. With the five girls still with them, they hold the four aces. Ransom paying, security experts say, is not the best way to tackle kidnapping. I agree.

But in this instant case, will the girls’ lives not be in jeopardy, if the rule is followed? What matters most now is to ensure the release of the remaining girls, any other consideration can wait until they have safely returned home. For now, nothing should be done to aggravate the agony of the Al-Kadriyars. They have lost a child and five others are within a hair’s breath of death as they are still with the abductors. Rescuing the girls is not going to be a tea party.

It will be a commando-like operation which must be well planned and executed. Time may be too short for such a precision operation. For now, the only option for the immediate release of the girls is the payment of the ransom which the kidnappers have jacked up to N100 million. It is not their fault. We are in this bind today because of the failure of our systems. It is a shame that criminals now rule the roost.

This is the price the nation must pay for unabashedly abandoning its responsibilities to the citizenry. The Al-Kadriyars have lost a child, they must not lose another one for whatever reason. The state must do whatever it takes to rescue the remaining girls from captivity. This is the only way to soothe the family’s pain of losing a promising child.

January 18, 2024
The Ibadan explosion

On Tuesday night, an explosion rocked Ibadan, the largest city in West Africa as we learnt in history in primary school in the late 60s and early 70s. The explosion left death and destruction in its wake. Scores were said to have died. When constituted authority talks like that you know that the casualty figure is so high that it should not be disclosed for security reason.

The wounded are in hospitals. The government has promised to foot their bills. The explosion was a disaster waiting to happen. With such highly inflammable explosives stored in a house in a residential area without any safety measures by illegal miners, something was bound to give when the worst happens. There are conditions under which explosives are stored to guarantee safety. Can they be stored in a building in a densely-populated community considering their volatility?

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What did the government do to stop the illegal miners from their nefarious act? The government is now wiser after the fact after the disaster which has killed many and rendered others homeless in their own homeland. You cannot cry when the head is off.

January 18, 2024
Beyond Friday’s triumph of the judiciary

I sympathise with the Nigerian judiciary. This is because, of all the state institutions, executive, legislative, the judiciary, the press and Civil Society Groups, it is by far the most vulnerable. It has in the last few years gone through great stress and strain as a result of the conspiracy of the executive and the legislative arms of government which with lacuna deceptively left in their laws, tie the hands of the judiciary they both regard as a stumbling block because quite often they are driven by selfish interest as against public interest.

This perhaps explains why the political class and their political parties, according to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola “could not manage their affairs well and ended up having about 600 cases from the party primaries alones in courts” during the last election. Unfortunately, instead of putting their rancorous house in order, the judiciary which is often made to carry the can for the malicious actions of politicians, often become becomes the scapegoat. The fear until last week was therefore whether tarred with the same brush with the political class, the judiciary that is increasingly coming under threat of political sore-losers, their supporters, their sympathetic media and those pretending to be public intellectuals, can as a part of a whole, be holier than the whole.

But the current leadership of Nigeria’s Supreme Court gave an indication of the direction it was headed when on Thursday October 22, 2023, it upheld President Bola Tinubu’s election through a unanimous judgment passed by seven Supreme Court judges, who threw out his challengers’ opposition which did not question the fact that he won the election ‘round and square’ with 37% of the popular votes at the expense of his warring opponents, but based on purely technicalities. It last Friday further consolidated this position when it chastised the justices of the various appeal courts that had attempted to upturn victories of popularly elected governors including Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Alex Otti of Abia, Bala Mohammed of Bauchi, Cross River’s Bassey Otu, Abba Yusuf of Kano, Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau, Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi and Dauda Lawal of Zamfara.

With the Supreme Court’s last Friday judgment, hailed by the opposition as “representing the triumph of democracy…and reaffirming the sanctity of the ballot as the determining factor for democratic legitimacy,” came some relief for the embattled Supreme Court whose credibility had for years been under repeated assault of political gladiators.

Its travail started when the Supreme Court nullified the election of Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as governor of Imo State and declared Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the March 9, 2020 governorship election even when the latter came a distant fourth during the state gubernatorial contest. The Supreme Court was to lose further credibility with the high-profile political cases of Lawan Vs Machina and Godswill Akpabio Vs Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and others, in which the court endorsed Akpabio and Lawan as candidates for the senatorial seats of their constituencies even though they were not available for the primaries of their political parties.

The cases according to a Punch newspaper editorial “have evoked excoriating public criticism and perceived somewhat as perverse… The decisions show that the Supreme Court is slavishly adhering to technical legalisms and formalism at the expense of substantial justice”. And for the same reason, Lasisi Olagunju of the Tribune accused the “the Supreme Court justices of abducting this democracy… and deciding who rules and who does not… They have evolved to become Bashorun Gaa of Old Oyo; they enthrone and dethrone as it pleases them.”(Nigerian Tribune Dec. 18, 2023).

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The credibility of the apex court got further battered with “All eyes on the judiciary’ smear campaign led by sore losers – Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi and their supporters in the February 2023 presidential election. They openly expressed lack of confidence in the ability of the current leadership of the Supreme Court to guarantee justice and went on to claim without proof, that the judiciary under him was the worst in 45 years. Last week they swallowed their words.

But there are others who were genuinely concerned about the fate of our country and that of our young democracy. Among such concerned Nigerian opinion leaders are ex-president Goodluck Jonathan and Femi Falana (SAN), a celebrated human rights lawyer). For President Jonathan “the ballot paper should decide who holds any elective office from the councillorship to the presidency. That is democracy. “I am not saying the judiciary is not doing well. But my point is that our laws should suppress the issue of the judiciary returning candidates… If a candidate is declared winner after a flawed electoral process, what the courts can do is to annul the election and order a fresh one, where a winner will finally emerge through the ballot.”

And for Femi Falana and others, “Judges are not suited to determine the winners of elections…determining winners of election is an exclusive reserve of the Independent National Electoral Commission” (INEC) if things are done properly”.

Last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling must therefore be seen as a tribute to all those who campaigned for the sanctity of elections based on electorate’s votes cast at the polling booths and as much a tribute also to the current leadership of the Supreme Court that chose to listen to the people.

It is on record that similar campaign carried out in the past was ignored by the past leadership of the apex court who was probably convinced that justice was better served by upturning victories of popularly elected candidates on technicalities to demonstrate the judiciary’s zero-tolerance for disobedience of court orders as was the case in Zamfara in 2019 when duly elected officials from governorship to state House of Assembly members lost their positions and in Rivers where candidates and their supporters were disenfranchised.

The current leadership of the apex court on the other hand, whilst not denying that there was disobedience of courts orders in Plateau State, was sensitive enough to protest by voters in both Plateau and Kano to come to terms with Lord Denning’s dictum to the effect that “Justice must be rooted in confidence, and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking: “The judge was biased.”

But the current leadership of the Supreme Court and the NJC and the president must go a step further by ensuring those Appeal court justices chastised for ignoring Supreme Court’s earlier pronouncements and for presiding over cases in which they did not have jurisdiction in Kano and Plateau must be sanctioned. In the corporate world, once there has been an infraction of corporate rules, the opportunity of getting to the apex of one’s profession by the erring officer becomes very slim. The problem with the judiciary is that judicial officers are hardly sanctioned for infractions or incompetence but promoted even when their fitness is in doubt.

As argued by Abiodun Owoniko (SAN) while answering questions on ARISE Morning show last Tuesday, ‘there should be career progress delay’, before they are allowed to move to the next level which is the Supreme Court” because of the danger they pose to the health of the judiciary.

January 18, 2024
Plateau: Playing the ostrich

Bloodbath has come to define four areas of besieged Plateau State since 2001. And for the state’s beleaguered inhabitants, there has been no respite despite various interventions including, the Justice Nikki Tobi Commission report, introduction of vigilante group tagged ‘The rainbow Boys’, the Plateau House of Assembly anti-land grabbing, kidnapping bills, that the people had hoped would return land to their owners while the herdsmen return to where they came from, and “Operation Save Haven” (OPSH) and its successors. Instead of relief, what came in form of dividends to the state denizens as at July 2023, was a harvest of thousands deaths,18,751 displaced persons and annexation of about 102 villages by mostly immigrant Fulani herders. Two Saturdays ago, there was an additional harvest of 200 deaths in the Mangu LGA of the state.

Concerned Nigerians including military commanders involved in efforts at bringing peace between warring tribal Plateau groups and Hausa/Fulani settlers believe the orgy of killing and confiscation of community land has continued precisely because critical stakeholders and governments culturally and constitutionally equipped to mediate have perfected the art of ‘playing the ostrich’. The emirs made up of predominantly Fulani extraction that constitute the northern hegemonic ruling caste, the Northern Governors Forum (NGF), the Northern Elders Forum, (NEF) – an amalgam of Fulani and leaders of minority groups integrated into power through politics, business or marriage and the clerics (Muslim and Christian) seem to think that by ignoring the problem or believing they do not exist, it will disappear.

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The powerful and influential emirs continued to live in denial long after the World Terrorism Index declared Fulani herdsmen as the ‘fourth most violent terrorist group in the world’ and Sheik Gumi has identified those who lay siege on Nigeria as ‘disgruntled marginalized Fulani herdsmen seeking government recognition and compensation’ just as Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano, Aminu Masari of Katsina and Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna who descried them as ‘Fulani immigrants without fathers who should be bombed for unleashing terror on Nigerians’. With the exception of Emir of Muri, Abbas Tafida who broke rank by issuing a 30-day ultimatum directing Fulani herdsmen to vacate his state forest for ‘terrorising residents of the state, kidnapping, killing and raping his subjects’, other powerful emirs including those who owned up to being patrons of Fulani herdsmen continued to live in denial.

Very few stakeholders are prepared to call the herders by their proper name-terrorists. Even the fearless and often outspoken Bishop Mathew Kukah while reacting last week to their latest mindless killings went metaphorical by speaking of ‘the invisible men’, ‘the children of darkness, sons of Satan’; ‘killers and harbinger of sorrow and pain’.

I think Bishop Kukah should be reminded that playing the ostrich or refusal to call a spade a spade was the answer to his questions as to why “the north has become the birthplace of so much bloodletting”; Why killings are seen as tools of negotiation with the Nigerian state by the protectors of ethnic interest and why the north has become ‘the incubator of all that is destructive-Boko Haram, banditry and shades of terrorism”.

And when it comes to playing the ostrich, members of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) are the most pathetic. Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed, a non-Fulani not only defended illegal bearing of arms by immigrant herdsmen; he declared without restraint that all Fulani from any part of Africa have the right to Nigerian citizenship. And it cannot be any less bizarre when even the governors of besieged north-central states of Plateau, Benue, Taraba and Adamawa held a press conference last week where they appealed to the federal government to find out the motive of those who have turned the Middle Belt into a killing field.

With over 61 communities confiscated and renamed by invaders as early as 2010, with the figure today put at 102 while survivors were condemned to IDP camps where they face hunger, diseases and uncertain future, how can these hypocritical governors continue to play the ostrich by pretending not to know the battle for the Middle Belt region by immigrants driven by climate change and drying up of Lake Chad was battle over land? These clueless governors who have no idea of those who live within their states would rather play the ostrich than follow the example of the Southwest that inaugurated the “Amotekun’ security outfit, successfully deployed to check the menace of criminal herdsmen and their local criminal collaborators visiting deaths on the people of southwest.

Because playing the ostrich became an art for the Buhari’s administration, for eight years his government did everything except finding solution to mindless killings in Plateau. It has also now become apparent that little has changed under President Bola Tinubu.

First, experts have recommended institutionalisation of state and community policing as part of resolving social dislocations in Plateau and elsewhere in the Middle Belt region. President Buhari and “his loyal gate keepers” resisted this for eight years. Nigerians don’t think President Tinubu needed a year to start the process.

Recruiting members of the state and community police from among the warring people guarantees a balance of terror which experts believe will discourage warlords from seeking external help in resolving local problem that requires dialogue.

For eight years, the various military strategies including kinetic and non-kinetic adopted by President Buhari failed because he was playing the ostrich instead of addressing the issue of distributive justice. Tinubu cannot adopt the same strategy and expect a different result.

The military as custodians of the nation’s constitution has no reason to look at the body language of temporary office holders to perform its constitutional duty. Its objective should be distributive justice. The challenge in Plateau is that a group of those already identified by credible Fulani voices among us as violent foreign Fulani immigrant herdsmen are waging war on our fellow compatriots. They killed maimed and confiscated communities and condemned survivors to IDP camps.

Distributive justice requires these invaders to be first flushed out by our military, those in IDP camps resettled back in their homes and be provided with security to enable them carry on with struggle for survival.

Anything short of this will not be different from Europe and America arming and encouraging Israel to visit terror on their Palestinian cousins already condemned to refugee camps.

Of course it will also not be distributive justice to dismiss the legitimate struggles for self-determination, control over land resources and chieftaincy affairs by our Muslim Hausa/Fulani compatriots who claimed their forefathers first settled in Plateau around late 18th century but today regarded as “settlers” and “usurpers.”

The politically sophisticated Fulani emirs and leaders have managed peaceful coexistence among disparage groups in the north for close to 200 years by ensuring distributive justice. For them, leadership itself presupposes responsibility. That perhaps explains Uthman dan Fodio’s famous quotation “Conscience is an open wound only truth can heal”.

The enemies today are those who play the ostrich or live in denial at the expense of distributive justice.

January 11, 2024
Not Betta’s best hour

Even before she became a minister of the Federal Republic, Betta Chioma Edu had become a public face. She was all over the place, mingling with the right people in the right political cycle. She came to national life shortly after her tour of duty in Cross River State, where she served as Commissioner for Health.

Those who claimed to know said she got the job on a platter. The wife of former Governor Ben Ayade was said to have influenced her appointment. She was said to have sold Betta to her husband as not only beautiful but also brainy. Talk about beauty, brain and brawn! She is beautuful, no doubt. That is visible. She may also be brainy, but that is not to say she is street smart.

To be brainy is one thing in politics, but how that brain is applied matters. We have seen many brainy people fall by the wayside and this is what is happening to Betta too now. Betta became Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Minister after President Bola Tinubu came to office last May 29. As a trained medical doctor, she would have loved to be health minister, but in politics, you do not always get what you want.

The humanitatian ministry has the same elements as the health portfolio – they are about taking care of the needs and well-being of the people. Her antecedents as a health commissioner was therefore expected to stand her in good stead in her discharge of her ministerial duties. She worked to be in the Federal Executive Council (FEC). As women leader of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), she was in the frontline of the party’s presidential campaign.

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She spoke, sang and danced with the President and others during the campaign. Her reward was the ministerial job which she confessed to her pastor, Bishop David Oyedepo, was her only prayer request at last year’s annual Shiloh programme of the Living Faith Church, popularly known as Winners Chapel. According to reports, on being asked by papa as Winners faithful call Oyedepo, what she wanted from God, she responded: “to be a minister of the Federal Republic”. “It is done”, Oyedepo was said to have prophesied.

Indeed, the prophecy came to pass. But Betta seemed not to have handled her good fortune well. At 37, she is probably the envy of her peers, political associates and many others who may look at her as just another beautiful face who got to where she is through her connections. Knowing where she is coming from, she was expected to tread with caution and apply wisdom in everything she did.

In the slippery environment she found herself, she was even expected to be more careful to avoid tripping. From time immemorial, the civil service has been known as the graveyard of pushful politicians. The civil service operates like a cult. It is a bureaucracy that prides itself in following rules and regulations to the letter. At the same time, the workers breach these rules with impunity. They know the ways and means of cutting corners within the system and to survive, any discerning politician must play along with them.

Any politician who shuns them does so at his own peril. You do not get to a ministry and start strutting all over the place like the lord of the manor (ko ma tele shuashua, as they say in Yoruba). You have to open your ears and eyes to hear and see how things work before you do anything. The civil service was not created to be a problem for public officials but to help them in the running of government. But the tussle for power between career civil servants and public officials have changed all that.

This is why ministers are seen as enemies and not partners in progress for the greater good of the country. As a retired Justice of the Court of Appeal, who is now dead, often said when he was a high court judge in Lagos, “the civil service is a curse to this nation”. His lordship should know because he was in the civil service before he got to the Bench. Betta was not well schooled in the ways of the civil service despite having served as commissioner at a time. The civil service is a complex bureaucracy. It consumes anyone in its way, no matter their status.

Betta might have run into trouble because she did not take time to study the system, especially the civil service financial regulations. Civil servants guard these regulations jealously. They know what documents to raise in support of allocated funds, under which headings the cash should go, who to sign what papers and how to pay the beneficiaries.

Civil servants will never allow anybody, especially those they consider outsiders like politicians to operate these guidelines. Betta’s case should be a lesson to her colleagues. Their survival in office depends on following the civil service rules as stipulated. To avoid the Betta treatment, they must always watch their backs while dealing with civil servants.

Who knows? She may yet survive and return to her job, if she is cleared of any wrongdoing by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). This may be a long shot though. It is just unfortunate that things turned out like this for her. But the President must be commended for doing the right thing by suspending her.

January 11, 2024