The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Domestic airlines at war with Nigerians

    Domestic airlines at war with Nigerians

    Flying Nigerian Airways either on domestic or international route in the early seventies to early eighties was always with a sense of national pride. We paid in our in local currency, the crews were all Nigerian and so were the food and the music.

    With a fleet of about 33 aircraft in 1979 when General Olusegun Obasanjo was handing over to President Shehu Shagari, Nigerian Airways could be rated a thriving business and a successful brand in the league of British Airways, KLM or Lufthansa. The credit for the healthy status  of Nigerian Airways must go to our 1960 patriotic new inheritors of power and others who had faith in our nation and were on hand to pilot the affairs of the country during  the early years of military misadventure into politics resulting in social dislocation and civil war.

    Read Also: Gunmen kill prominent Islamic scholar in Gombe

    But with the dictatorship of the likes of Babangida and Abacha and their “army of anything is possible” from 1985 to 1998 and with retired Generals and their military-baked new-breed politicians that bred only corruption, in power from 1999, the fate of Nigerian Airways along other public enterprises valued at about $100b but sold off for a paltry $1.5b, was sealed.

    Having a national carrier for those who have faith in their country is something of national pride. For those who understand President Buhari’s commitment to our nation, his endeavour to bequeath a befitting national carrier on the nation before he left office did not come as a surprise. And this perhaps explains why at the close of the Ministers Retreat on October 2022, he confidently directed relevant officials to ensure the proposed national carrier starts operating by December 2022. This was after two earlier derailed take-off dates viz December 19, 2018 and November 2021.

    But the forces of retired Generals and their new breed politicians that killed and replaced Nigerian Airways with their domestic airlines, represented today by Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) was prepared to derail and scuttle his efforts. The secretary general, Aviation Round Table Initiative (ARTI), Capt. John Ojikutu (rtd), had declared “the national carrier is a still-born project that won’t see the light of the day, to talk less of being profitable”.

    And while  appearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation on in October 2022, part of their self-serving criticism were as follows:  the decision of the government to allow Ethiopian Airlines to own 49 per cent of the stake in the company would hurt the local airlines; for Roland Iyayi of AON, “Ethiopian Airlines would do a fare-cutting strategy for market penetration”; For AON vice chairman , Allen Onyema,  “Ethiopian Airlines poses existential threats to the local airline operators.” For Kashim Shettima of Skyjet Aviation: “Nigeria Air will poach the human capital of the domestic airlines”.

    It was all about them and not about us, Nigerians. They refused to be persuaded by the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika’s explanation that the Nigerian government ‘has no funds to invest in the establishment of the airline hence the decision to go into Public Private Partnership’; that five per cent stake is in kind while local investors are going to take the 46 per cent stake and that “We  have also given every single Nigerian the opportunity especially those in the sector to participate in this airline so that we create an airline that is proper, well set up and stands the test of time and dynamics.”

    Their blackmail: government should give them same opportunity as was being given to Ethiopian Airlines.

    But what are the facts of history?

    We remember President Obasanjo sold 51% of the carcass of what was left of Nigerian Airways to Richard Branson and his Virgin Atlantic and 49% to institutional investors to form Nigeria Air. We remember billionaire Jimoh Ibrahim bought Nigeria Air.

     We remember the N300 billion intervention fund which was sequel to the Amos Akpan, then MD of Capital Airline’s 2013 testimony before Senate Committee on Aviation on behalf of 16 domestic airlines to the effect that “the money made by Nigerian airlines was not enough to take care of their operations and service their debts to Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCCA), Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN)”.

    We remember Jimoh Ibrahim’s Nigeria Air received N35.5 billion out of the N300b intervention fund. We also remember the amount like those of other beneficiaries was allegedly diverted.  And because “Air Nigeria did not have the funds for normal maintenance, routine checks and servicing of its fleet of 11 planes, with 10 operational, the airline frequently flew those mass coffins as airworthy aircraft”, according to an estranged former executive of Nigeria Air. But what became apparent was that government later suspended Air Nigeria’s domestic operations on bankruptcy allegation while Ibrahim later shut down operations of Nigeria Air sacking all the staff.

    We also remember that Nigerian airspace became littered with crashes. Under Babalola Aborisade, there were five crashes with about 413 deaths. On June 22, 2012, Kabo Air crashed in Kotoka International Airport Ghana killing many motorists after overrunning the runway.  On June 3, 2012 DANA air crashed killing 163 people. On October 3, 2013, there was also the Associated Airlines crash which killed 13. On October 4, 2013, Saudi Arabia bound airline with 400 passengers crashed in Lagos after losing two tyres

     Instead of addressing corruption, greed and internal mismanagement or come together like some international airlines for economy of scale, the domestic airlines found a scapegoat in foreign airlines. For instance, the Bilateral Air Services Agreement is based on reciprocity. But Nigerian carriers blamed others for their failure to exercise their privileges according to the BASA. Their stakeholders report accused foreign airlines of swindling Nigeria of about N3.7b annually in addition to violation of Nigeria Nigeria’s aviation laws. They similarly ignored market forces and blamed foreign airlines for astronomical prices of tickets.

     Instead of clamping down on ministers, governors and lawmakers who scrambled for few available first class seats in foreign airlines, they specifically accused British Airways of non-competitive fair of $10,070 for first class return ticket to Abuja to London while the same facility cost $4,943 from Accra. Stella Oduah, then minister, wanted parity and gave ultimatum to the foreign airlines. When she was ignored, she undertook a foreign tour in search of foreign investors.

    The outcome was the Chinese N500b loan. Both the CBN and the Bank of Industry said the money was not to re-fleet but the minister through Yakubu Dati, FAAN spokesperson insisted “government had concluded arrangement to purchase 30 brand new aircraft for airlines to boost their operations”. Not much was heard of the N500b Chinese loan or the brand new aircraft beyond recent declaration by an expert that the new terminal building that came out of the loan was dysfunctional because of its location.

    Oduah, before departing office in controversial circumstances however started the quest for a new national carrier ostensibly to be supervised by the same NCAA, NAMA and FAAN that traded Nigeria Airways for domestic airlines.

     But Nigerians love travelling. Punch newspaper in its special report on aviation, only last Monday reported that travellers spent about $4.66bn on foreign air travels in 15 months. This was in spite of the fact they are often short-changed by foreign airlines. Lagos-London fares are for instance 49% higher than Accra-London and 162% higher than Cotonou-London. It is the same experience with other international airlines. But Nigerians are not deterred.

    Those who therefore derailed Buhari’s eight year heroic efforts to give us a national carrier using their mainstream media and social media terrorists as weapons are not fighting President Buhari or former aviation minister they freely slander but Nigerians. The irony is that evil forces that have by their chequered antecedent demonstrated their lack of abiding faith in our nation today swear by their patriotism.

  • When friends become foes

    When friends become foes

    It was a friendship patched together by political interests. Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki and his deputy, Philip Shaibu, stood on one side to fight their political benefactor, Adams Oshiomhole, who did everything to bring them to office some seven years ago. They parted ways when Oshiomhole rose against a second term for Obaseki in 2020. Obaseki eventually had his way after defecting from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with Shaibu.

    Read Also: Gunmen kill prominent Islamic scholar in Gombe

    Their friendship was built on quicksand and not solid ground and as an adage goes a building plastered with saliva will be brought down by dewdrops. It is, therefore, not a surprise that Obaseki and Shaibu are at loggerheads today. What caused the rift between them and Oshiomhole is what is tearing the estranged men apart. Shaibu wants to succeed Obaseki, but the governor prefers another person. How will it all end? Oshiomhole may be watching and laughing at his one-time acolytes from the sidelines now.

  • Death in hospital lift

    Death in hospital lift

    The last thing on her mind that day was death. With just two weeks left for her to complete her housemanship, she would naturally be upbeat, looking forward to the end of the one-year programme. Everything was going on fine for Oghenevwaere Enifome Diaso. At 24, she was already a doctor. The future looked bright. There was nothing to fret about.

    But death was lurking in wait somewhere unknown to her and those looking forward to receiving her back home after her housemanship. The mandatory one-year national service beckoned and then she could decide what next to do with herself. Her life trajectory was well laid out before her, then the unexpected happened on August 1.

    Read Also: Gunmen kill prominent Islamic scholar in Gombe

    Like some of her colleagues, she lived in the doctors’ quarters on the upper floors of the General Hospital at Odan, Lagos Island, where she worked. She had ordered for food, which was brought by a delivery man. On arrival, the man alerted Vwaere, the shortened form of her name, and she took the lift from her 10th floor quarters to meet him on the ground floor. She never made it.

      On the way down, the elevator crashed with its sole occupant. The lift was said to have been bad for four or five years, but the government claimed that it was installed in 2021. Why this discrepancy in date? The deafening noise of the crashed lift, according to a witness, sent the delivery man rushing out of the hospital. A life saver’s life was in danger.

    There was bedlam everywhere, amid efforts to rescue Vwaere. For almost one hour, she hung to life, crying: “I don’t want to die”. Her colleagues and other sympathisers assured her that she would live but she died shortly after the accident.

    What makes it all painful is that Vwaere’s death was avoidable. The accident would not have happened, if the necessary things had been done. Why put a lift into use in a public facility, an hospital for that matter with its high volume of patients daily when it is faulty? Is the management, and by extension, the government, saying that they were not aware that the lift was faulty? Is it true that complaints about the faulty lift were ignored?

    Now, the public is just hearing that a bread seller was killed in the lift sometime ago. How true is this? Apparently, Vwaere got killed too because nothing was done to avert a recurrence. The legendary nonchalance of workers in public establishments caused this tragedy.

    This is why heads must roll in and outside the hospital. It would have cost the management nothing to place a visible ‘out of order’ notice on the walls of the lift to prevent people from using it in order to avoid this kind of tragedy. As usual, the right things are now being done when it is too late in the day – the death of a promising child. How sad.

      My heart goes out to her family for a life cut short in her prime. As her sister, Ese, said at her funeral on Tuesday, Vwaere’s death is a sad story of how the system kills its rising stars. The pain the family is going through “is indescribable”, Ese added. It is a tragedy that no family prays for. May God grant the Diaso family the fortitude to bear this irreplaceable loss. Adieu, Vwaere. May you find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

  • Rescuing poor Africans from dying in the Libyan/Tunisia desert

    Rescuing poor Africans from dying in the Libyan/Tunisia desert

    For almost a month, hundreds of black Africans have been on the verge of starving to death and also dying of dehydration in the border between Libya and Tunisia where the Tunisian authorities have herded these poor  black African  economic migrants on their way to Europe  after the perilous desert crossing from sub Saharan Africa. Initially these people reached Tunisia where they were apparently promised crossing to Italy by smugglers who abandoned them to their fate. When they sought refugee status in Tunisia, the rabidly racist president of the country, Kais Saied came out to accuse blacks of being responsible for increasing crimes in his country forgetting that blacks constitute considerable proportion of the Tunisian population. In spite of a law against discrimination passed in 2018 and reaffirmed in 2022, President Saied’s increasingly unpopular government has singled out the blacks for his vituperative attacks. This is not surprising because it is a perennial problem in Arab countries to discriminate against blacks. Even the great Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat in the 1970s complained about being discriminated against because of his dark Sudanese mother!

    Read Also: Gunmen kill prominent Islamic scholar in Gombe

    The recent parliamentary elections for a third of the members of parliament was boycotted by the critics of President Saied who accused him of  being responsible for the serious economic problems that now make people see the country as a failed state. The president has turned down the stiff conditionalities of the IMF and the World Bank before economic assistance which he sought could be made available to the country thus compounding the country’s problems. It should also be remembered that the “Arab Spring” that swept the authoritarian regimes in the Arab world started in Tunisia in 2010 and not much has changed since then. Events happening in the country remind one that the politicians there have not learned anything nor remembered anything. The poor blacks, both indigenous and alien, merely provide a useful distraction for a beleaguered government.

    The government in Libya which has been in disarray since Muamar Gadhafi was killed has at least recently sent some victuals to the black Africans pushed to their border by Tunisia. This has however not stopped the dying of these “wretched of the earth” (Les damnes de la terre) to put it in the words of Frantz Fanon. The people dying are now pleading with the world to save them from certain death from hunger and dehydration.  Many of the young people in sub Saharan Africa are admittedly impatient believing that the grass is greener in other countries no matter how those of us in positions of knowledge tell them it is better to temporize than take precipitate action of a leap in the dark in search of the so called golden fleece. Sometimes the parents of these young people even sell whatever they have including houses to sponsor these young people on journeys that sometimes become journeys of no return. It is only when something bad happens that the reality would hit  them like a thunderbolt and by then it is sometimes too late. It may be death in the arid desert or perishing in a leaking fishing boat turned into carrying human cargo that has nowhere to go than down the Mediterranean Sea.

    Migration is known to international law and there are protocols guiding what governments should do when migrants turn up in their countries but in the case of the situation in North Africa particularly concerning black migrants, the law seems to be constantly ignored in order to preserve some notion of racial purity. The current situation is now very dire and it calls for immediate international intervention or by the governments of the countries where these people come from.  They now want to be repatriated to their different home countries in sub Saharan Africa. Listening to their sonorous pleas, one can identify substantial numbers of them are from West Africa and from Nigeria specifically. Should ECOWAS and the AU not mobilize their embassies in Libya and Tunisia to go to the border regions to rescue their people and send those willing to return home to their countries of origin? Should we not officially protest these people’s treatment with Tunisia and Libya at the highest level of our governments? This is an issue that should be raised at the UN and its relevant agencies for humanitarian assistance.  Indeed, the UN’s Secretary General has called attention to it without response. If these people were stranded dogs, Europeans and Americans would have been trying to rescue these bedraggled people. Black peoples are people too and they should be treated with all the considerations they deserve.

    African governments should hold their heads in shame. These economic migrants were pushed to the desperate point of in order to survive; they travel through the forbidden Sahara desert subjected to death and murder in the hands of mindless and heartless roving Touaregs and other murderous tribes in the desert who rape and kill these unfortunate people as if they were game animals. The governments of their country remain condemnable and should be condemned for their failure to make provision for their people especially the young people. This is why every fair skinned person all over the world looks down at Africans as inferior. With all the mineral and forest resources on our land, we seem unable to convert them to capital goods necessary for technical  and material development until the so called white, brown  and yellow expatriates come to our country to rip us off. Now the development stage has passed us by and the rest of the world has moved on to a new stage of “green development” when within our life time, our mineral and forest resources may be declared “trusts of civilization “ out of bounds to us in order to save the global  environment! This is the stage we will soon reach and the recurrent military manifestation may be the crying of the youth for help and of course the usual African penchant for opportunities for self-enrichment and corruption.

    But in the meantime, we must do everything to rescue the poor Africans dying in the desert of Libya and Tunisia. If we don’t do something urgently, posterity will not forgive all of us especially those in government and those of us who constitute the critical African intelligentsia.

  • The spectacle of the Nigerian web

    The spectacle of the Nigerian web

    This minute, conscience manifests as a feeble tick on the World Wide Web, eluding creed by a Nigerian  detour. And rancour sheds citizen blood to irrigate its spasms. Like Egyptian Ammit, it burrows deep to harvest hearts from fresh crops of the dead.

    We say the internet is our patriots’ sphere but there, we relive the infernal crud of the Nigerian personae: the political animal, the apolitical pacifist, the hyperbolic ‘influencer,’ and the data-fabulous millennial ‘netizen’ scud to the shore of national consciousness on the world wide web.

    Ultimately they cuddle one insolence and cringe  from the other as their vanities dictate. They would call this the politics of expedience. Thus this minute, cyberspace  becomes a spectacle where citizens clash in defence and furtherance of random bigotries.

    In this public space,  everyone is a wilding  dealing in pseudo-idealism and  rancid    wit with alarming  gusto. They  claim to do this for the culture. The internet has become our monument to pseudo-realities and events. The guts and sinews of every stereotype, theme-park hatred, and  sentimentality are validated by mind-numbing sophistry and sloganeering.

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    A casual visit to Facebook, Twitter (X)  manifests as a pilgrimage of sorts; the esplanades of public discourse pander and unfurl to a sordid, cutout version of anarchic thinking, replete with the affliction of ethnic and religious dogmatism, and the hassle of incomprehensible logic.

    Everyone pontificates on the internet. Folk  mutate from philosopher  to savage pawn and vice versa – oft dealing jazzy and atrocious lingo. Call it our patois of rebuke and immoderate assemblies.

    There, we have encountered Nigerians of vast mental stripes: the BATIFIED, ATIKULATE, AND OBIDIENT. Once you get past the facade of slogans and artifice, it’s mostly the same defiant, virulent passion driving the mob.

    As the bickering persists, we see the savage mutations of Nigerian personae: persons of presumed higher learning,  persons afflicted by poverty, persons of  affluence,  authority,  and high glamour. The lambent complexion turns muddy. The aura vanishes. Integrity is innately borne and espoused as a kernel of character but respect is a gift under no one’s control. It peaks and ebbs as spectator mood at a crunch soccer tie.

    A familiar decline from admiration to disillusion, hope to disenchantment, festers in the citizenry’s public engagement with each other and their elected representatives

    But our greatest undoing would be our inability to douse the flames of bigotries and hatred incited by our utterances and cutthroat politics.

    Now that we have survived the 2023 polls, contrary to doomsday predictions at home and abroad, our politics must be rid of discord. There is no excuse for maligning an individual, group, or social divide for its political choices and preferred candidates.

    Where such mayhem subsists,  everybody gets burnt: the ruling class, opposition parties, the entitled elite, and the rich upper class. At the bottom of the cauldron, however, roasts the incorrigible hordes of the boondocks, or the electorate if you like.

    Through the inferno and chaos, we seek a redefinition of the Nigerian patriot. Strikeout patriot; it’s about time we redefined the political Nigerian in the tenor of his deeds: think of him as a clownish, simple creature, at times even enchanting within its limitations but ultimately foredoomed to fulfill a prophecy of blind folly, ethnic rascality, irrational lust, and inclination to self destruct. 

    Behind this intolerable temperament lurks a postscript, and predictably, regret – that emotive shingle that often succeeds disreputable nature.

    Yet we stand ignorant and proud, like a half-conscious mutter of men, craving the essence of humanity and freedom, only to forsake it for a token or fleeting sentiment at election time.

    This is the tangle of witlessness and resignation that requires us all to become better patriots. If we look carefully inwards, we will find that beneath our toxicity, selective morality and utter cowardice stir gruesome airs and a quest for self-preservation.

    Time and over again, a few critics and self-appointed leaders of thought have decried our ethical fraudulence, cutthroat politics, and lack of guts; such curious kinks of the Nigerian populace unfortunately do exist at a grievous price and must be reckoned with. Yet these shameful twists to our psyches make us even more vulnerable as fair game to the predatory  political class.

    The  latter cannot be wished away or successfully weeded out by violence or  bloodshed even if we tried. Yet the surest way  to deny them  continual access to leadership and power is for us to engage constructively in the ongoing transition process.

    We must shun the urge to emerge as  grisly manifestations of the  ‘Nigerian factor.’  We must quit personifying the monstrosities  standing on our path to humane civilization, progress, and common decency.

    It’s about time the youth, in particular,  shunned toxic politics. Education is the key out of this mental and moral jail cell. A different kind of education borne of our critical faculties and divorced from the high-priced occupational  training by which the modern university turns several youths into mindless certificate-seeking machines.

    While violence and terrorism are often part of revolutions, the fundamental tool of any successful revolt is the non-violent conversion of the forces deployed by the oppressors or the state to hoodwink and enforce dominance, on the side of the rebels. Most successful revolutions are, for this reason, fundamentally non-violent.

    Revolutionary measures, however, fail in Nigeria, because the arrowheads of the movements continually cloak their measures and homilies in hostilities and platitudinous chant. Such hackneyed dialects have become a barrier to national development and  communication.

    It is the same dialect adopted, at election time, by the political and corporate con artists to bait the electorate and reel in their votes, only to hoodwink them afterwards and rig the political process and financial system in the obscure, cryptic language coined by their elite psyops and propaganda labs.

    To attain true stability, unity, and sustainable development, a new class of political leadership must emerge to assert the mental and moral freedom of the citizenry by communicating in a language comprehensible to the common man.

    This was barely achieved in the 2023 elections. The ongoing dispensation, however, offers a good time to restart national communication. We must begin to teach the Nigerian voter: graduate and undergrad, street urchin, trader, commercial transporter, the armed forces, and unemployed, the benefits of patriotism, self-restraint and critical and realistic thinking.

    We need not bury the lessons and the process in obscure or esoteric lingo. Teach them to scorn the public officers cum vote seekers who only visit the electorate to share corn meals and hold town-hall meetings at the dawn of every general election or bye-election.

    Teach them to scorn the presidential aspirant scudding to acclaim on a sea of lies, sophistry, and half-truths. Teach them to scorn the legislative representatives, who commit crumbs of their constituency allowances to empower their constituents with wheelbarrows, machetes, sachet water, and pepper grinding machines, among others.

    Teach them to ask their elected representatives, why they must blindly support the latter’s battles with perceived political detractors or opposition. After all, we are one Nigeria. Teach them to scorn violence, vote-selling, and hooliganism.

    Help  them understand that a loss at the polls should never translate to  bitterness and  withdrawal from the Nigerian enterprise;  political  violence  and hooliganism are never acceptable resorts in nation-building.

    A better tomorrow can only be achieved via humane, visionary politics tailored for the collective good.

  • The coup d’état in Niger: The role of Nigeria

    The coup d’état in Niger: The role of Nigeria

    Again the republic du Niger has come to international attention not for good reasons but for the reason of political instability on top of its perennial poverty despite the presence of gold, uranium and crude petroleum in the country. The country is also traditionally close to Nigeria. During the Nigerian civil war, the country under Hammani Diori was the only Franco-African country that did not follow General Charles de Gaulle’s open hostility to the Federal Government of Nigeria. The country then responded to the pull of consanguinity than follow the colonial historical and economic ties with France.  The Hausa, Kanuri and Fulani ethnic groups constitute about 54% of the population and Hausa is probably more widely spoken by the ordinary people in the country.

    There are historical ties between the Nigerienne people and the major dominant ethnic groups in Northern Nigeria with political sway over the whole of Nigeria. This is epitomised by the fact that the Nigerian government is extending railway to Niger even though with borrowed funds from China. Niger is facing with Nigeria and the Cameroons jihadist insurgency of the Boko haram and ISWAP. Apart from the Boko Haram and ISWAP, Niger faces another insurgency of the desert Touaregs who constitute about 10% of the population of the country mainly in the northern parts of the country. The Songhai group constitute quite a sizable part of the population. As with all African countries, there exist ethnic rivalry and competition for power among the various groups despite the fact that Islam provides unifying cement binding the whole population together. I am trying to put in bold historical and current reliefs the situation in Niger before discussing the coup d’état and the problems it has thrown up.

    The president of the country, Muhammad Bazoum was overthrown by the presidential guards on the night of July 26. Since that time, a government headed by the head of the presidential guard Major General   Omar Tchiani (Tijani) an Hausa man has assumed the headship of the state while the elected president, a Fulani  remains detained in the presidential palace with his family. He has somehow been able to give a wide ranging interview on the Hausa service of the BBC.  He accused the French government of engineering the coup d’état because among other things, he  wanted to exit the CFA franc binding together all the Francophone countries in Africa because he saw it as  perpetuating colonial ties with France. He also accused the French of not paying market price for Uranium mined in Niger which is fundamentally needed for France’s nuclear power on which French electricity depends. He did not say much on French-dominated oil and gold mining but apparently the people are also not happy about it. Bazoum also insinuated that the French were also presumably unhappy on the increasing ties with Nigeria especially during the presidency of Muhammad Buhari and waited until he exited from power before getting the elected President Bazoum out of power. If all these accusations are true, how come the military regime has assumed nationalist posture accusing France of short-changing the country from its mineral resources and allying itself with the anti-French government’s regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea and calling for removal of the 1500 French troops in the country to be presumably replaced by the Russian Wagner group?  To confuse the situation more, the new government has accused the government of President Bazoum of not being totally committed to the war against terrorism.

    Anti-French demonstrations have been staged in the country’s capital Niamey with attempts made to burn down the French Embassy. The whole picture is definitely confused and confusing. The French government has issued a stiff declaration that it shall protect French interests in the country. This may mean securing its embassy and its vast economic interests in the mineral sector. America’s African High command is also alleged to have a “listening station” in Niger manned by American troops to apparently spy on the jihadist movements in the region.

    Read Also; Let their Lordships breathe

    The removal of the democratically elected president who came to power only two years ago has been roundly condemned by the whole world. The United Nations was quick to condemn the new regime and this was followed by the ECOWAS, the AU, the EU and individually by France, Germany and the United States. Economic and military ties and assistance have also been severed with the new regime. But ECOWAS meeting in extraordinary summit in Abuja on Sunday, July 30 issued what appears to be an ultimatum asking the regime to hand over power back to President Bazoum within a week or be compelled to do it by all means necessary. There appears to be some subterranean pressure on Nigeria to use its position as ECOWAS chairman to militarily intervene in Niger with little or no preparation. Such intervention will more or less assume a Niger-Nigerian conflict with consequences for the safety of our northern states already rattled by Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgency.

    We must do everything not to allow ourselves to be dragooned into a land and useless war in Niger which will definitely spill over to northern Nigeria. The possible involvement of the Wagner group on the side of the new military regime in Niamey may possibly bring big power rivalries to our northern borders. We have enough security problems within our borders to compel us to avoid foreign entanglements.

    Secondly any so-called military intervention by ECOWAS may become a burden that would be abandoned to Nigeria as happened during the Babangida/Abacha years of pacification in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1980sand 1990s. Where will the soldiers for this leap in the dark come from? The only countries which historically provided fighting men in any serious conflicts are Senegal, Benin, Mali and Nigeria. In a military scenario in Niger, only Nigeria would provide troops and also money at a time when the country is almost bankrupt. The best option for Nigeria is to seal its borders with Niger so that nothing from Nigeria enters the country or comes from there to our country.  We can stop the sale of Niger’s excess refined petroleum in Nigeria because the country does not have enough market capacity for its refined petroleum. We may also threaten to cut off their power supply coming from the Niger hydroelectricity in Nigeria. This economic embargo if totally enforced is likely to work than any other means. We can also use influential traditional rulers in northern Nigeria as means of communication with the regime in the country. If Muhammad Buhari would accept, he could be used as an ECOWAS emissary instead of asking the Chadian leader or any other African leaders to mediate between ECOWAS and the Nigerienne regime. But while all these are going on, we must realise that Niger is an independent country and we must respect its sovereignty over its own territory.

    Good governance is the anti-dote to military intervention in politics. We must condemn African rulers who extend their terms after serving the constitutionally sanctioned terms of incumbency. If we don’t do this, our moral high ground would be swept off under our feet. In the case of Niger, what we should do is to apply maximum diplomatic and economic pressure and coordinate our efforts with those of friendly countries. We cannot afford to allow any foreign country or organizations to use African troops as cannon fodder. The time may also have come for Africa to be rid of foreign bases and troops and for African peoples to benefit through appropriate pricing of our mineral resources which are our God given patrimony. The rest of the world need to be told that African economic development is in the interest of the whole world and this can only be done when African countries, unlike now, benefit maximally from the global exploitation of their mineral resources. Coup d’état should be seen as manifestations of corruption and underdevelopment to which countries in the developed North have historically been responsible for.

  • Nigerien coup and President Tinubu’s challenges

    Nigerien coup and President Tinubu’s challenges

    Professor Bolaji Akinyemi is always a delight to listen to  whether as a professor of Political Science in our International Relations graduate class in the early eighties, as Director General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) engaged in intellectual debates during seminars and symposia with his colleagues, or as Foreign Affairs Minister explaining his ‘audacious ideas about a strong and resurgent Africa’  and even as public intellectual taking the uninitiated through the labyrinth of diplomatic chess game. He was as usual at his best last Monday on Arise Television programme. And for little distraction by those self-proclaiming patriots who have no regard for Alexander Pope’s admonition that ‘only fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, Prof Akinyemi, our own inimitable Henry Kissinger had a simple advice “Don’t miss ingredients for making pepper soup with that needed for making egusi soup”.

    Prof Akinyemi has never lost faith in Nigeria in spite of his over 40 years efforts to let our ill-trained and badly-recruited leaders understand that strong and vibrant external relations determine how the external world rates our domestic policies. He has in fact always believed Nigerian should play the role of Africa super power. It was for this reason he, among other audacious policies, initiated the Technical Aids Corps scheme that today thrives in other African and Caribbean countries and the concept of medium power to mediate if possible among warring rival super powers. It was during his period that ‘Africa as the centre piece of Nigerian foreign policy’ acquired real meaning as we led the apartheid war against hypocritical Britain and USA.

     It was therefore not a surprise that in the wake of recent Nigerien coup, he insisted Nigeria must take the initiative in the planned battle against the military adventurers whose forceful entry into politics did not seem to be an outcome of the usual manipulation of electoral process by greedy elected West African political leaders. It similarly did not fall into the category of conspiracy theories that often link military coups in Guinea, Sudan, Mali and Chad and elsewhere in the Sahel region to French colonial and post-colonial policies that only impoverish former colonies.

    Akinyemi also believes attempt by AU-led South Africa to give an ultimatum to the coup planners, was an attempt at undermining Tinubu’s leadership as ECOWAS chairman since by convention, it is the responsibility of ECOWAS leadership to first interfere in crisis afflicting the West African sub-region.

    Predictably, he has hailed the decision of ECOWAS under the leadership of Tinubu to give the coup plotters a one-week ultimatum to hand over power to President Mohammed Bazoum  who remains the legitimately elected president and head of state of the Republic of Niger as recognized by ECOWAS, AU and the international community. The body has also threatened to ‘take all measures necessary’ ‘including the use of force’, to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger, in the event the regional body’s demands are not met within one week”. In this regard, ECOWAS has the backing of US and France.

    Professor Akinyemi believes there is always a cost to leadership especially for a country like Nigeria that claims to be the giant of Africa. For him therefore, Nigeria has no choice but to lead the crusade, citing the case of Kenya, small players in the international arena that recently deployed Kenya soldiers to her troubled neighbours and Kenya police to Cuba, currently experiencing civil disorder in far-away South America.

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    President Tinubu however claims he is leading the crusade because of his commitment to democracy and freedom which he says are needed for development.  I want to believe the president understands democracy whether the variant we practice or those in vogue in western societies including America has never led to development. The wealth of Europe and America came from slavery and exploitation of resources of colonized nations. But there is no doubt that crusade for democracy, the new gods the West insists we must worship is imperative. I am sure, Prof Akinyemi is also aware no nation resists the new god without consequences.

    In those days, talk of alternative to democracy and lusting after other world views apart from capitalism often attracted a death sentence. We saw it in Latin America where elected leaders were routinely toppled or assassinated.  In Africa we remembered how Nkrumah lost power. In Nigeria we witnessed how Murtala Muhammed, for declaring that Africa had come of age and should be allowed to take their destinies in their own hands, was brutally assassinated by Dimka. We saw how Buhari, for rejecting IMF loan and its ‘conditionalities’ which included the liberalization of our economy to allow free inflow of labour from western societies, was replaced by Babangida. We were recently told by Museveni of Uganda how six African Heads of state inside an aircraft going to mediate between Gadhafi and the West that was in breach of UN resolutions later bombed Libya where Gadhafi was killed like a criminal, were ordered by NATO to return to their states.

    President Tinubu in his new role must learn how to walk the tight rope. The crusade must be about ridding Africa of its own demons including corrupt civilians autocrats. Coup planners are often aided by the West while those who do not have their backings have been likened by Professor Akinyemi to someone riding in the back of a tiger.

    The West has never seen Africa beyond object of exploitation, From August 8, 1444 when Portugal through Lancarote de Feitas landed the first group of 235 slaves seized from modern day northern Mauritania in Lagos, Lisbon, the British and French and other European powers until 1870, about 426 years later exported slaves from the Gold Coast, Badagry and other parts of West Africa.

    As colonized nations, African countries were repeatedly raped by the metropolitan power in order to resolve social conflicts and dislocations in the metropolitan states. At independence in 1960 after centuries of Belgium’s brutal reign, Congo had only about five graduates and about 600 Roman Catholic priests. Lumumba the elected Prime Minister later murdered by Belgian troops had only six years of schooling  while Mobutu, his successor who aided the West’s exploitation of Congo for another 30 years enlisted in the Congo Army as a cook.

    While 80% of Nigeriens have no access to electricity, one third of electricity in France is said to come from Nigerien uranium. For this reason, many have argued that American and French military bases in Niger were to aid continued exploitation just as many others have also pointed out that ISIS and Al-Qaeda terrorists, purportedly being fought, were unleashed on the Sahel Region following the invasion of Iraq and Libya by the West in breach of international law.

    Under neo-colonialism, which Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah said was the last stage of imperialism, African nations were further short-changed as they had no one to turn to for redress since the multinationals who inherited the new post-colonial states were driven only by profit motives. With globalization, African youths because of hostile environment created by IMF and World Bank are dying in the desert and drowning in the Atlantic Ocean to return to second slavery in Europe. From slavery to globalization therefore, what we have is but a change in paradigm. Nothing has changed.

     This is why President Tinubu’s crusade must  be about the above enduring African challenges and not about democracy, the new god which  different nations including  China, Russia and even some military juntas today claim to worship.

  • Let their Lordships breathe

    Let their Lordships breathe

    It has become the fancy phrase in town. Anywhere you turn to, you hear it: ‘Let the poor breathe’, as if someone, somewhere is trying to choke them. Ironically, many of those mouthing the phrase are not poor. Nor have they ever been known to fight for the hoi polloi. Political exigencies of the time have made them to become emergency activists.

    It is all aimed at getting at one man. The man who beat their candidates in the February 25 presidential poll. Suddenly, it has become an offence to win an election. If it is, President Bola Tinubu should be happy to win elections over and over again. Those shouting ‘Let the people breathe’ are not sincere. Their motive is propelled by the desire to attain power at all costs.

    They are the nouveau riche, who are cashing in on the mood of the nation to make themselves popular. They want to be accepted by the same people they have trampled upon for years. The people on whose back they rode  to wealth without any thought for their welfare. Now they are putting up the attitude of ‘I care’, when they do not. The phrase caught on in the wake of the removal of fuel subsidy following President Tinubu’s assumption of office on May 29.

    The action came with the resultant increase in the pump price of petrol twice within a space of three weeks. Things became hard, with the cost of living soaring, as petrol now sells between N568 and N617 per litre in different parts of the country. Today, the nation is reeling from the undue politicisation, religionalisation and regionalisation of  the President’s actions, with the judiciary suffering collateral damage.

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    As the third arm of government, the judiciary has a huge role to play in election matters. It is the last stage of the electoral process. Many election disputes are before the tribunals brought by those dissatisfied with the outcome of the February 25 presidential and March 18 governorship polls.

    As a nation, the focus is understandably on the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), which on Tuesday reserved judgment in the presidential poll disputes between Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and President Tinubu, of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC). The judiciary has come under unwarranted attacks apparently because of this case.

    Those in the camps of Atiku and Obi seem not to have faith in the judiciary. They refer to the institution derisively whenever they talk. ‘After they rig elections, they will say go to court. Which court?’ To them, nothing good can come out of the judiciary. This is why they are hell-bent on dragging the institution in the mud. The person in the line of their fire is the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Kayode Ariwoola, who has been carricatured, labelled and tarred with all kinds of brush.

    Prior to the beginning of proceedings at the PEPC, he was said to have gone to Lindon to meet with Tinubu, who had then not assumed office. A picture of the CJN on a wheelchair at an airport went viral. He was said to be disguised but his features were clear for all right-thinking members of society to see. The picture was posted by a lawyer and one-time aide to a National Assembly chieftain and head of a government agency.

    It turned out to be false. Till today, the lawyer has not deemed it fit to apologise to the CJN and Nigerians for his infantile action. Rather than bury his head in shame, he still goes about pontificating on national issues. What has Ariwoola not seen? Some weeks ago, the social media was again agog, following claims that he spoke with the President on telephone. What for? Many asked. The insinuation was, however, not lost on them.

    They could deduce what the purveyors of that fake story were saying: the President is reaching out to the CJN over the election petition. The fake news has since been denied. Why will the President call the CJN? Why are some people so desperate to give the judiciary a bad name in order to hang it? Have they not stated their case? Is it that they are not sure of their case?

    Every litigant rises or falls with his case. If he has a good case, he has nothing to fear, but if it is bad, he has everything to lose. Is it the judiciary’s fault when a litigant’s case is bad? I am not saying this is so in this case, I am just calling for caution in the way the judiciary is being pummelled, even by those who should know better and rise in its defence, at a time like this.

    Whether the judiciary is called names or not, that will not stop it from doing justice  in this case. Of this, I am sure. It is just a matter of time for the nation to know how the case will end. As the countdown to the judgment day begins, the public waits with bated breath on the PEPC. Has any of its members ‘resigned under pressure’ as claimed in the social media?

    This fake news has since been denied too, but His Lordship’s signature on the court’s verdict whenever it is delivered will expose these rabblerousers for truly who they are. Why do they want to asphyxiate the judiciary when they are shouting from rooftops: ‘Let the poor breathe’? Surely, justice will be done in this case, and heavens will not fall because truth always prevails. Justice is blind (see illustration) and it does not discriminate between the rich and the poor nor the powerful and the weak.

  • Beyond siege mentality

    Beyond siege mentality

    How does one love or hate this country? To this, every likely answer may spiral into a fog or eclipse in a vapour of hanging participles. The ripostes may spatter and splay like a treacherous sandstorm but it’s about time we braved its tumult.

    It’s about time we addressed our innate demons. Call it our therapy of healing or stratagem of entitlement to our national trauma.

    Too many Nigerians drift through each day with a siege mentality – each individual treating the nation as a savage space, where ferocity is fostered and spuriously condoned.

    From the northeast’s terror cells, bandit groves of the northwest, unknown gunmen of the southeast to the teen gangs and kidnappers of the southwest, Nigeria unfurls as scorched, bloodied earth. 

    Lest we forget the Shylock fuel marketers and fuel station managers, landlords, transporters, civil servants, landlords, and traders seizing on the removal of the fuel subsidy and its resultant economic haemorrhage to escalate inflation and inflict hardships on their fellow citizens.

    Our killing fields are infinitely diverse and horrific. They are ever-changing: whether it’s the corridor or patio of the soulless public officer and the shop of the neighbourhood grocer. It gets grislier on the bloodied rice fields of Zabarmari, the war-torn villages of Doron Baga and Sambisa in Nigeria’s northeast; the gory abattoirs of the southeast; the bandit-scourged villages of the northwest, or the haunted highways and farmlands of the southwest, Nigeria unfurls as a sprawling temenos and flourishing precinct of the proverbial grim reaper.

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    Against the backdrop of these horrors, a new monstrosity festers in the rage of the breadlines. A total curfew was imposed on Sunday, July 5, in the northeastern state of Adamawa, where hundreds of residents engaged in massive looting of shops and public warehouses where food was stored.

    Homeless teenagers aka street urchins, reportedly started the looting, but were soon joined by hundreds of residents and together they looted private stores and government facilities where food was stored.

    The looters also carted away expensive items like electricity generators, mattresses, and other home appliances allegedly looted from stores owned by private individuals.

    The Adamawa State Governor, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, promptly issued a 24-hour curfew with immediate effect to forestall further breakdown of law and order. Security personnel were promptly deployed to enforce the curfew and prevent an aggravation of the crisis.

    There was no movement statewide until two days ago when the state government relaxed the curfew.

    For the past two months, inflation has skyrocketed in the country following measures taken by President Bola Tinubu to revive long-term investments and steer the country on the path of regrowth.

    Last month, the president ended fuel subsidies with a significant impact on household wallets; the cost of fuel tripled increasing from N185 to N617 in some parts of the country. This caused food prices to jump and in mid-July, Tinubu announced a “State of emergency on food security,” promising massive investments in agriculture, and money transfers to the poorest.

    Riding on the wave of dissent triggered by the crisis, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) declared a one-week strike to protest what it termed anti-people policies and escalating cost of living in the country.

    The partisan labour leadership, that flagrantly endorsed Labour Party candidates in the 2023 polls,  advised the citizenry to stock their homes with food and other essentials threatening that the strike would cripple the country. Despite the government’s efforts to prevent the strike, the NLC, on Wednesday, August 2, marched on the streets in some parts of the country.

    A few chapters of the union led the protest in their respective states: Leading the protest in Kaduna, the state chairman of the NLC, Ayuba Suleiman, called on the federal government to increase the minimum wage to ¦ 200,000 and also revert the price of fuel to ¦ 185 per litre.

    Ayuba said, “What we are looking for is a salary ‘upper’ like that of Osun and the minimum wage we can bear with is ¦ 200,000…what we are demanding is not too much. We also have other demands but the number one is that we want the fuel price to be reverted to ¦ 185 per litre,” he said.

    In Imo, the Acting Chairman of the NLC, George Ogoegbu, appealed to the federal government to rescind its recent economic policies, fix refineries, pay university workers their owed eight months’ salary arrears, reduce VAT and reduce school fees for unity colleges and tertiary institutions.

    In Lagos, the labour union demanded a N30,000 subsidy palliative from the state government to alleviate the hardship imposed by the fuel subsidy removal. The Chairman of Lagos NLC, Funmi Sessi, said: “Many people are dying, and hungry. We know the state government is trying, but they still need to do more. We need a subsidy palliative of N30,000 each for workers, for the next six months.

    “We know the government has slashed BRT fares, but we want to be able to put food on our table. Some of us have cars, we need to buy fuel. We want health care to be affordable. Agencies and parastatals should get buses to transmit workers to and fro.

    “We want a stakeholders’ dialogue with the state government. We also need food banks, we want stomach infrastructure; it is very important.”

    In Abuja, the protest, however, turned awry when protesters pulled down the gate of the National Assembly; numbering over 5,000, and led by NLC, leader, Joe Ajaero, and Festus Osifo of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the workers told security men stationed at the Assembly complex to open the gates so they can talk to the lawmakers but their request was declined. This infuriated them and the angry protesters pulled down the gates to gain entrance into the legislative building.

    The Senate Chief Whip, Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South), asked the labour leaders and protesters to call off the nationwide protest and give the Senate one week to address the demands brought before it.

    President Tinubu has certainly got his work cut out for him. The ongoing protests offer, however trying the circumstances and bitter the tenor of the agitation calls for his urgent intervention.

    The nature of his response would be crucial to the resolution of the crisis. But while pressure mounts on the government to respond humanely to the citizenry’s demands, the latter must avoid being used to sabotage the appreciable measures of regrowth initiated by the new administration.

    The workers must take great care to avoid being misguided by selfish elements seeking to hijack the protest and quicken its degeneration into more sinister forms.

    Nigerians couldn’t have forgotten so easily the #EndSARS 2020 protest, and how youths marched onto the streets purportedly to protest bad policing and leadership failure.

    We must remember #EndSARS for what it’s worth: its elegiac stanzas, propitious rage, and inauspicious demise. The tragedy caused by the protest is instructive; it bristles even as you read, with consequences of leadership insensibility and imprudence of youths cut to size—no thanks to hubris.

    “For all its symbolism and contrived grandeur, Nigerians must look beneath the blankets of rage to see the true nature of dissent of the NLC’s partisan leadership, its toxic traceries of thought, action, and reaction.

    Notwithstanding, President Tinubu must respond humanely, with utmost caution and resolve, lest the pallid yarns of the labour leadership corrupt citizenship and endanger the country.”

  • Time to call DSS to order

    Time to call DSS to order

    What happened on the Federal High Court premises in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Tuesday should not have occurred. It was a shameful display by two agencies of government charged with the security and safety of the nation and the public. It was all about which of them should take custody of the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele.

      As at the time of the brawl between the Directorate of State Service (DSS) and the Nigerian Correctional Services, hereinafter called Prisons Service for ease of reference, the secret police no longer had any control over Emefiele by virtue of a court order. Justice Nicolas Oweibo in whose court Emefiele was arraigned earlier on a two-count charge of arm and ammunition possession had granted him a N20 million bail.

       He was also orderded to produce a surety in the like sum who must own a landed property in Lagos. In line with age-long practice, he was to be held in prison custody until he perfected his bail. This means that until Emefiele met the bail conditions, he will be held in Ikoyi Prison, which is a stone’s throw from the court. The order was clear, unambiguous and written in English. The DSS agents who brought Emefiele to court heard the judge loud and clear.

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      What is more. They understood the implications of the order. First, they could no longer go back with Emefiele, no matter the prior instructions they might have been given, and second, they and their principal risked being charged with contempt of court, if they flouted the order. Rather than allow reason to prevail, they threw caution to the wind in their desperate bid to ensure that Emefiele did not slip away.

      Watching the ensuing drama on television for many Nigerians was a hark back to the military era where lawlessness, arbitrariness and impunity were the orders of the day. It was a depressing scene which portrayed the DSS and Prisons Service in bad light, more so the former, which was the aggressor. Having learnt of the court order, DSS agents outside the courtroom positioned themselves ready to ensure that Emefiele was not taken away by any other person except them.

      In full public glare, they cocked their guns ready to do battle with anybody that tried to stop them from going back with Emefiele to wherever they brought him from. It wss an unnecessary show of power before a crowd of onlookers who immediately brought out their phones to record the shameful act. Lawyers, reporters and passersby stood at a distance either watching or recording the bedlam. Some of Emefiele’s lawyers rushed back into the courtroom to seek the judge’s protection, thinking that his intervention would save the day.

       It did not. The leader of the DSS team, upon invitation, told His Lordship that he had “orders from above” to come back with Emefiele. Despite being told that Emefiele had been granted bail and that the matter was now in court, the man did not budge. Attempts by officials of the Prisons to take custody of Emefiele were rebuffed by the DSS. Their leader was beaten and his uniform torn. Many of the onlokers were aghast that the DSS, which should know better, had a hand in destroying a Prisons official’s uniform that was bought with tax payers money.

      DSS had its way, as it drove away with Emefiele to God knows where. Why did DSS descend so low in public? The DSS has been in the news lately for the wrong reasons. Very early in the life of this administration, it fell out with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the ownership of an office in Ikoyi. It was directed by the President to vacate the property immediately. Since it arrested Emefiele on June 9, it seems to have been footdragging on its investigation of the man.

      It has been over 45 days since Emefiele was arrested and the question many are asking is what is DSS investigating him for that it is finding difficult to conclude? The so-called investigation did not start today. It began last year and Emefiele took the agency to court and won because of the seemingly slow pace of the investigation. How can you arrest a man and seek to keep him in custody until you complete your investigation?

      The court wondered what kind of step that was and directed that Emefiele be released. Despite this subsisting order, DSS arrested him on June 9, trying to hide under the coming of a new administration to settle whatever score it has with Emefiele which it could do nothing about under the immediate past government. DSS should not be allowed to use this administration to have its way. It told the whole world that Emefiele was involved in sponsoring terrorism and economic crimes. Where is the proof?

      Between last December, when its tangle with Emefiele started, and now, the DSS should have gathered enough evidence to try him. If its investigation is taking this long, how long will the prosecution of the suspect, if it ever comes to that, take? I am not a fan of Emefiele and my articles on him in recent times clearly reflected my stand. His hasty implementation of the naira redesign policy which ended in fiasco and his flagrant disobedience of the Supreme Court’s order to extend the time for the exercise pitted him against the public,

      But this should not make any rational person to keep quiet if Emefiele is now being mistreated by agents of the same institutions that were at his beck and call not too long ago. It serves him right, though! But, keeping quiet over his travail is not the answer. To do so will be dangerous because nobody knows what may happen to any of us tomorrow. DSS should know that we are in the era of rule of law. The days of military diktat are gone and gone for good.

      DSS’ resort to the rule of force to hijack Emefiele from the court and take him back to custody has no place in a democratic dispensation. It should not give the present administration a bad name through this kind of imperious act. The administration already has a lot on its plate to contend with in the short time it came to office.