The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Masterstroke

    Masterstroke

    When the appointments were announced on Monday, the identities of the appointees were shrouded in secrecy. Nothing was known about the military chiefs, mostly, and that should be expected because of the nature of their job. The military brass have held command and not political positions over the years. That their names did not ring a bell with the civilian public should not have been a surprise.

    But it was for mischief makers. They wondered who these officers were. Where did they come from? What and what have they done in their lives? What is their career path? Where did they serve? Since many Nigerians did not know much of military history, it was easy to reach certain conclusions about one or two of the new Service Chiefs, just by going through their names.

    What is in a name anyway? There is a saying that the hood does not make the monk. In the same way, a name does not, in most cases, reflect where the bearer comes from nor his faith. But often times, people are quick to jump to conclusions, especially where politics is involved. As a people, Nigerians like to play politics with everything. Unfortunately, the elite who should know better are most guilty of this.

    Once they are not within the loop of power, they see nothing good in whatever the man in office does. In their eyes, there is no step that the President at that point in time takes that is good. No matter how good the President’s intentions are, they read ethnicity, marginalisation, sectionalism, nepotism, religion and partisanship into them. ‘Oh, he appointed that one as so and so because they are from the same part of the country’, they allege at times.

    Or, they say, ‘don’t you know, that’s his in-law, that’s why he gave him that board appointment’. Many of us journalists have fallen into the same trap. Rather than educate the citizenry, we join in casting aspersions on the leader, just because we do not like him or do not share his political beliefs.     

    Journalism is a facts-based job. Stories, articles, opinions must be factual. Even where we are commenting, which we are free to do, we must not lose track of the basic facts of what we are commenting on. If we do, then we are writing fiction. These days, many engage in fictional writing without giving a hoot about what comes out of such irresponsible journalism. Whatever happened to the credo: “if in doubt, leave out”?

    It seems some take delight in writing negative things about President Bola Tinubu, without first assessing the quality of his actions. It has been three weeks of action since he assumed office. The President has simply dazzled the world with his abilities. Just take a look at the line-up of the Service Chiefs. How can anybody in the right frame of mind fault the thinking behind those appointments? How? Except that person does not believe in the unity of Nigeria.

    Read Also: Wide acclaim greets Service Chiefs’, other appointments

    This is why these wailers, to borrow the word of Femi Adesina, the spokesman of the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, went to town to crucify President Tinubu for not reflecting federal character, as constitutionally required in the selection of the Service Chiefs. This is false. The appointment of the Service Chiefs is a true reflection of Tinubu’s ingenuity.

    It is a masterstroke of an appointment, which has left many of his detractors wondering how he pulled it off. Like the Pharisees did to Jesus, they too are asking no one in particular: ‘Who is this man?’ ‘Is this the same Tinubu?’ ‘The same man that we said was sick of mind and body that is carrying out these actions?’ What led them to the conclusion that Tinubu did  not get things right was just in a name – the name of the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla.

    ‘Ha!’ They rushed to town immediately. ‘We said it; didn’t we? He has done it againl He has left out the Southeast in the appointment of Service Chiefs; given two slots to the Southwest! That was how they jumped to conclusion, even before settling down to painstakingly run through the list. Yet, these are well enlightened people. As Baba will say, ‘enlightened people, my foot’.

    How can they ever think that a President like Tinubu will do that? How can they, as right-thinking members of society, think like that? Again, Tinubu has shown them the stuff of which great political leaders are made. Ogalla is not from the Southwest but the Southeast as his resume shows. His army counterpart, Maj. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja is from the Southwest, while the air force chief, Air Vice Marshal Hassan Abubakar is from the Northwest.

    Since anything Tinubu does must he criticised, some are asking why all the military brass are from the Southwest? But, are they? The critics are talking about the defence intelligence chief and the brigade guards commanders who were appointed along with the Service Chiefs. Can those officers be in the same class with the Service Chiefs, even as important as their positions are? The answer is in the negative, but military experts are in a better position to say.

    For now, what has been done is done. As Omar Khayyam noted in his poem, Rubaiyat, ages ago: “the moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it”. Hearty congratulations to the Service Chiefs and others. May their appointments bode well for the country.

  • June 12 and Walter Ofonagoro

    June 12 and Walter Ofonagoro

    Truths, as the Austrian-born philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, once pointed out, are facts that have no spatial locations”.  That perhaps explains why after 25 years of false narrative, June 12, 1993 came back in 2018 to haunt Babangida, Obasanjo, Abacha, Nzeribe, Uche Chukwumerije and Walter Ofonagoro. The recent celebration of June 12 as ‘Democracy Day”, once again provides an opportunity to reflect on irrational behaviour of some June 1993 actors to see if anything has changed.

    But first, for the sake of our youths who were not born 30 years ago and who have been so far denied an opportunity to learn history, let us take a brief journey through memory.

    Ibrahim Babangida, the self-styled ‘evil genius’, in 1985  toppled Buhari in a palace coup, destroyed our political parties and political socialisation process by proscribing political parties and banning old politicians thereby cutting off the umbilical cord between mother and baby.  Humouring himself by pretending he had something on party formation to offer Nigerians that first formed political party in 1923, he decreed his own two parties, the National Republican Council (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

    After banning and unbanning of old politicians and experimenting with his ‘new breed politicians’ during his eight years transition without end, he fixed June12, 1993 for a presidential election.

    On June 11, Arthur Nzeribe and his proscribed Association for Better Nigeria, (ABN), which had earlier unsuccessfully campaigned for “four more years for Babangida” as military president, secured a 4pm interlocutory injunction from Justice Bassey Ikpeme’s Abuja High Court to stop the election.

    Of course, Humphrey Nwosu, chairman of National Electoral Commission, NEC, backed by Decree 13 of 1993 that established the electoral commission  which stated very clearly in 19 (1) that “no court of law had the power to dictate to NEC as to date or time of election” went ahead with the exercise.

    Babangida promulgated another decree on June 23, annulling the election and fixing August 12 as new date for a new election in which MKO Abiola and his counterpart Bashir Tofa would be free to participate. He then foisted on the country, an illegal contraption called Interim National Government which was dismissed by Abacha on November 19, 1993.

    Following Abiola’s June 11, 1994 Epetedo self-declaration as president-elect, Abacha clamped him into prison, declared war on his supporters, assassinated Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, among many others, and hounded NADECO opposition members into exile.

    But before Babangida was disgraced out of office and Abacha died a miserable death inside Aso Rock seat of power he immorally usurped, one man that fought their battle like a slave was Walter Ofonagoro.

    He was “one of those men who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and was prepared to rewrite history, turn facts on their head and make untruth and propaganda something close to a direct principle of state policy”. Louisa Ayonote: “There was never June 12” (Tell, August19, 1996)

    Intoxicated by power like Abacha his new master, Ofonagoro as Director General Nigerian Television Authority, (NTA), became a terror and a threat to all. “All the media houses under his supervision – NTA, Daily Times, New Nigerian and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria” came to grief while privately-owned media houses with Ofonagoro’s draconian newspaper registration decree were in ruins. He saw nothing wrong with disappearances of journalists from the streets, their persecution and imprisonment.

     For Ofonagoro, “there was never June 12”. If ever there was a June 12, it was just another day in the calendar or “a day the nation held an illegal election”.

    Despite Babangida’s public admission that he annulled the election for reasons ranging from restiveness in the military, to alleged rejection of Abiola by northern hegemonic power, Ofonagoro insisted Babangida annulled only “cases pending in court” because of his concern for the health of our judiciary”.

    To Ofonagoro, Abiola’s outright rejection of Babangida’s proposed new election on the ground that “a man does not re-sit an examination he had already passed”, was an art of ingratitude to a benevolent leader; those sanctioning Nigeria without condemning Abiola’s self-declaration at Epetedo, “are enthroning lawlessness in Nigeria” while NADECO which eventually saw the end of Abacha did not exist because police had issued statement saying ‘that “anything called NADECO, is an illegal body”.

    Read Also: June 12: Radda pushes for strong institutions

    No one escaped Ofonagoro’s caustic tongue. Wole Soyinka, generally regarded as the conscience of the nation, “was being used by Western world who know he is out of his limits beyond his turf.” He took solace in the fact that “Soyinka, by training, is a dramatist and he is doing an excellent job of dramatizing falsehood abroad”.

    For joining NADECO’s struggle against military dictatorship and going abroad to campaign against Abacha’s war against the nation, Chief Enahoro one of the heroes of Nigerian independence struggle, “was at 72 causing trouble for his grandchildren”. Ofonagoro’s consolation however was that “each time he causes trouble here and runs to England, he is often extradited by the white man”. And throwing the final jibe, he declared: “Irresponsible politics is not the hallmark of a statesman”

    Even as Abacha‘s goons killed  protesting youths  on the streets of Lagos and NADECO members in their homes, Ofonagoro dared America and Canada saying: “Nigeria is  a respecter of rule of law” and “in case the western world has forgotten the rule of law, Nigeria was prepared to teach them”.

    Irrational behaviour is often the result of complex social and political issues man has had to cope with. Ofonagoro revealed the demon tormenting him towards the end of the Louisa Ayonote’s interview when he declared he was “not afraid to take a stand and say what we are fighting is tribal hegemonism”.

    This is a demon in man that social theorists from Plato Rousseau and Sigmund Freud have discovered could not be tamed even with education. As if to validate their thesis, Ofonagoro’s “I left Canada in 1966 with BA first class. I am a minister with a Ph.D. I am a former professor from Columbia and a former member of Academic staff of University of Lagos” could not tame his irrational, aggressive and destructive tendencies because they are facts of human relation.

    To tame man’s hegemonic struggle, the western world  realised after two devastating tribal wars, called ‘world wars’, that man’s love is first to his family, his group, society and finally the state. They therefore came up with a federal arrangement where groups that share identical values, cultures and worldview within multi-ethnic societies come together in pursuit of common goal. Empirical studies have shown that while this may not totally eliminate irrational, aggressive and destructive facts of human relations, it has the tendency of promoting national cohesion.

    The Middle Belt region of Nigeria in spite of intra and inter- ethnic rivalries that have come to define the area can become the food basket of Nigeria if the people are allowed to manage their own affairs through local and state policing. Similarly, without the tyranny of the state, the Southeast can become the industrial hub of Nigerian manufacturing.

    From Sigmund Fraud’s ‘Civilization and its discontents”, we now know that subconsciously, we all harbour Ofonagoro’s demon, which finds expression in the struggle for cultural predominance of one group over the other.

    Today, the evidence of Ofonagoro’s absence was the presence of a new set of ethnic irredentists ready to continue from where he stopped 1993.

    I think it is time to stop playing the ostrich and restructure the country if only to liberate groups and individuals from the tyranny of the state.

  • Emefiele’s Cross

    Emefiele’s Cross

    By the time President Bola Tinubu assumed office on May 29, the cup of Godwin Emefiele, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as he then was, was full. Emefiele knew that he was marking time in office after Tinubu’s inauguration. Many Nigerians would have preferred that the President fired him immediately on coming to office.

    Just ask around, they would have given one million and one reasons why that should have been the President’s first action in office. But things do not work that way. As a connoisseur of power, Tinubu is not new to taking hard decisions. He, however, knew that in Emefiele’s case, he must bide his time to avoid allegations of political chicanery.

    Why should politics come into play in a matter like this? Those who do not know some of the things Emefiele did in the run up to the last elections may ask. He virtually abandoned his job for the presidential contest which Tinubu eventually won on February 25. He had his legs in politics and central banking as he stood astride both fields, while implementing harsh monetary policies which gave the citizenry pains.

    Emefiele was unbothered. For all he cared, the people could either take those bitter pills or die. There was no other option. His foreign exchange (forex), money redesign policies and the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP), to mention just a few, were tailored to cause pain and whenever people asked for relief, none came. His stock response was that Nigerians should continue to bear their pains, while he tightened the screws.

    None other than the naira redesign policy showed the poor thinking of the suspended central banker. Introduced on the eve of the last elections, Emefiele believed that it would stop vote-buying. The policy was not thougnt through at all. It was aimed at stalling the ambition of a  particular candidate, who he and his ilk believed would rely on money to buy vote. The gullible public and surprisingly too, a section of the media, were hoodwinked. With the benefit of hindsight, Tinubu was primed to win, with or without money, because of his strategic planning. . How do you redesign a nation’s currency in three months and on the eve of general elections, without considering the globally approved percentage of the proportion of the money in circulation to the gross domestic product (GDP), the economic upheaval it would cause and its effects on the spending power of the people, especially the poor? Emefiele had a good policy, but his planned hasty implementation spoiled eveything.

    Despite experts’ advice,  Emefiele was set in his ways. He had his own agenda, which could only be executed the way he wanted! With immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari on his side, he carried on as if there is no tomorrow. Then came the Pharaoh who does not know Joseph. Yet, he did not change his ways; he carried on as if it is still business as usual. After the President spoke of a uniform foreign exchange rate, Emefiele’s CBN reportedly hastily sold dollar at N631 as against N461.6 at which buyers applied.

    This was what businesses went through under the Emefiele-led CBN for nine years. Then to compound things, he dabbled into politics. That was the last straw which broke the camel’s back. Buyers who insisted on getting forex at the official N461.6 rate waited until, as they say, “thy Kingdom come”.    Many were, therefore, forced to source for forex at the black market and related places at a higher rate to keep their businesses going. Emefiele overreached himself by countermanding the President. Even though the story was denied, the paper insisted on its veracity. So, the suspension of Emefiele on Friday was seen coming by the discerning. The man had bitten more than he could chew.

    Emefiele’s suspension was bound to generate heat.  as it is doing now. There were those who predicted the fate that befell him like renowned writer, Prof Niyi Akinnaso. Two days before Emefiele’s suspension, Akinnaso noted that the aforementioned story “rekindled the call for Emefiele’s resignation or termination as the action recalls his failed cash swap policy, not to speak of his failed bid at running for President against the CBN Act, which emphasises the independence of the Central Bank from partisan politics”

    The comments have been divergent. Of course, we cannot all agree on Emefiele’s suspension and arrest by the Department of State Service (DSS). What we should be talking about now is that the DSS should hasten up its investigation and charge him to court, if necessary. If it needs to work with sister agencies to achieve results, DSS should not hesitate to do so. What it should not do is to keep Emefiele in custody indefinitely. The law frowns at this and lawyers, who have sniffed money, are already hovering around, seeking to have a bite at the juicy brief they can see ahead. For many of them, it is always about money!

    Emefiele may not have been a great CBN governor, but his rights must be protected as the state seeks to get him to answer for his deeds while in office. He has to tell us what informed the multiple foreign exchange rates, naira redesign (or is it cash swap?) and ABP. These are some of his Cross and he must bear them the way he made Nigerians to carry theirs in the face of his excruciating monetary policies. 

  • June 1993 and February 2023 election deniers

    June 1993 and February 2023 election deniers

    On Democracy Day, last Monday June 12, President Tinubu paid glowing tributes to Chief MKO Abiola, a martyr who stood for “principles that are far more valuable than life itself”, and his wife, who had declared from the trenches shortly before her assassination by agents of the state that “June 12 is worth defending with our lives, otherwise, our children will continue to be slaves in their own fatherland”.

     The president also paid tributes to others who “gave their yesterday for the liberty that is ours today,” such as Pa Alfred Rewane, the chief financier of NADECO, assassinated in his Ikeja home and others, including Pa Ajasin, Adesanya, Enahoro, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, Col. Tanko Umar, Balarabe Musa, Lt.-Gen. Alani Akinrinade, Dr. Kayode John Fayemi of ‘Radio Kudirat’ etc.

    For the records, we must also not forget the anti-June 1993 villains. Topping the list is the evil genius himself, Ibrahim Babangida, who annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history. His accomplices include Olusegun Obasanjo, Sani Abacha, Francis Arthur Nzeribe, Clement Akpamgbo – then Attorney-General of the Federation, Justice Bassey Ikpeme, Walter Ofonagoro, Uche Chukwumerije and Odumegwu Ojukwu who served as Abacha’s ambassador to Europe to de-market Abiola.

     President Muhammad Buhari in 2018 became an unexpected hero of democracy when he conferred the nation’s highest honour, Grand Commander of Federal Republic of Nigeria on Abiola and declared June 12 Nigeria’s Democracy Day. This was after Obasanjo, the major beneficiary of Abiola’s sacrifice had for eight years danced on Abiola’s grave without acknowledging Abiola’s heroic sacrifice, 

    Read Also: Accord Party urges Tinubu to declare late MKO Abiola President-elect

    But the late Balarabe Musa, Nigerian elder-statesman and the conscience of the north had wanted Buhari to “complete the task he started by investigating the circumstances that led to annulment of June 12, (fish out) those responsible for the annulment and punish them effectively so that it will not happen again.”  For Balarabe Musa, impunity of those who betrayed Nigeria has only brought the past to pain.

    For instance, in 1999, Obasanjo literally climbed the palm tree from the top by becoming elected president without a political base having being roundly rejected by his Yoruba people only to vindictively rig out all southwest governors except Lagos in the 2003. He went on to inflict more injuries on our nation in 2007 when he presided over the most scandalous election in the nation’s history, denounced by the chief beneficiary of the electoral heist, Umaru Yar’Adua who promptly set up the Uwais electoral Review Commission to ensure such calamity never befalls our nation again.

    Nigerians paid for the perfidy of Obasanjo and his other anti-June 12 1993 elements. First, they confiscated 25% of the national budget, institutionalised the fuel subsidy regime to fleece Nigeria of billions of naira and sold to themselves Nigeria’s total investments of over $100b for a paltry $1.5b through ill-implemented privatization. They had no qualms converting into personal use, properties dating back to the pre-colonial period kept in their custody for future generation, in the name of a dubious commercialisation policy.

    Fast-track to 2023; it will appear the anti-June 12 enemies of democracy have regrouped under Obasanjo. Taking a leaf from their 1993 playbook, Obasanjo and Charles Oputa had planned massive protests against the February 2023 election. Obasanjo followed up with an open letter to Buhari and a press conference calling for the abortion of announcement of the result alleging fraud without proof. Then, the ‘Obidients’ demanded for an Interim National Government or outright military take-over. The only difference: unlike duplicitous Babangida who violated his own electoral decree, Buhari remained faithful to the constitution.

    As it was in 1993, prominent Igbo leaders, including elder-statesman Chukwuemeka Ezeife, threatened to make the country ungovernable if the then president-elect was sworn in. Pat Utomi was on various platforms alleging fraud without proof. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) publicly declared his lack of confidence in the judiciary. The ‘Obi-media’, like 1993 pro-Babangida section of the media, was on hand to manipulate public opinion through misinformation.

    The 2023 election in which stalwarts of the ruling party, including the president, the party chairmen, the presidential candidate and many governors, lost their political strongholds because of APC’s eight years of mismanagement of our crisis of nation-building  was perhaps  the most credible elections after the 1993 as a result of application of technology. But as it was in 1993, for Obasanjo and his fellow 2023 election deniers, their only reality is the picture in their heads.

    Tinubu’s 2023 historic victory was a defeat of Obi’s appeal to regionalism, ethnic particularism, and sectarianism. But just as in 1993 when Igbo elite withdrew support for Abiola, alleging ethnicisation of his struggle by his Yoruba people, todays efforts by Yoruba to prevent the replication of Anambra tragedy in Lagos has been seen as attempt to des-enfranchise Igbos in Lagos.

    In 1999, godfather Sir Emeka Offor, installed Mbadinuju as governor of Anambra State. Dividends on his investments were in form of direct monthly deductions from Anambra federal allocations. The burden soon became too much for Mbadinuju and Anambra that salaries of Anambra civil servants could not be paid while schools in the state had to be closed for a year.

    In 2003, Andy Uba, publicly admitted rigging Chris Ngige into office, following an oath-taking before the Okija shrine. Uba was also said to be responsible for the appointment of all Ngige’s commissioners. Then, Ngige was kidnapped and locked up like a common criminal for refusing to sign a prepared document authorizing direct monthly deduction of N10b for some 89 months. Embattled Ngige said he had only 48 months as governor. Audu Ogbe’s appeal as chairman of PDP to Obasanjo “to act now and bring any and all criminals, even treasonable activities, to a halt” only earned him a sack after sharing a lunch of pounded yam with President Obasanjo, Uba’s godfather.

    Ojukwu installed Peter Obi before moving from APGA to join PDP, following the death of his godfather. Obi also installed Willie Obiano.

    The only legacy of 24 years reign of anti-democracy traders in Anambra is a daily harvest of deaths visited by Igbo on Igbo according to Governor Charles Soludo.

    Lagos on the hand was taken over by Bola Tinubu, one of the heroes of today’s democracy in 1999. He laid the foundation for the rapid transformation of Lagos from one of the dirtiest states to a modern city now rated as the sixth economy in Africa. Fashola the self- proclaiming ‘actualiser’ followed Tinubu’s masterplan. So was Ambode except for a moment of absent-mindedness when he temporarily abandoned the masterplan. Sanwo-Olu has today completed some of the legacy projects including the metro-line, the new Lekki airport and Lekki deep sea.

    It is doubtful if Igbo 2023 election deniers who want to make an Anambra of Lagos by foisting a Rhodes-Vivor with no cognate experience on Lagos see any difference between Anambra and Lagos. They also want us to believe Obi who exploited the sentiments of his people at home and support of Igbo urban immigrants to secure 25% in 16 states below the 25 constitutional thresholds, defeated Tinubu who secured 25%in 30 states scoring as many votes among Christians as among Muslims across the nation.

    2023 like 1993 is an attempt to play the ostrich by those bent on imposing their own world view no matter how depraved on others. President Tinubu may not be able to change the past; he must however understand even from his recent travails, that our problem is not economics but politics. Restructuring, to borrow Bode Thomas phrase, ‘is the only way to prevent being ruled by one-eyed king’.

  • Beyond sagacity

    Beyond sagacity

    It took a great deal of spirit for Bola Tinubu to assert the legend of his sagacity, en route to the presidential polls. Now that he is President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is easy for him to trash it and all of his associated mystique. He probably wouldn’t.

    From the get-go, President Tinubu dared to assert his mettle. By iterating the removal of the fuel subsidy, he drew flak from far and wide; detractors huddled to have a blast at his expense, claiming the resultant hike in fuel price attested to his detachment from the people. But if anything, Tinubu’s initial actions suggest he is driven by an earnest wish to serve the people from the trenches of governance.

    Just two weeks into the job, he has made rousing pirouettes signing the student loan bill into law and promising to review the N30,000 minimum wage to reflect current global realities thus tugging on the people’s heartstrings.

    Pundits aver that he has pulled the right levers by ridding the country of a harmful fuel subsidy, removing a controversial Central Bank administrator, and promising to amalgamate a web of disparate exchange rates.

    Tinubu’s deft handling of the markets has inspired foreign investors and boosted the main equity index to a 15-year high on Tuesday, the first day that stocks traded after he suspended the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, the Bloomberg avers.

    From dousing the threat of industrial action by a partisan and corrupted labour union, suspending the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, to investigate weighty allegations of abuse of office, to his prompt appointments of key State House officers, President Tinubu expresses his eagerness to hit the ground running with the right calibre of staff.

    His opening acts are emphatic of his will. Tinubu wields the decisive lance of audacity like he means to rid Nigeria of the affliction of the parasitic cabal that hitherto misappropriated the fortunes of the oil and finance sectors and Nigeria’s commonwealth.

    Yet passion is never enough to survive the storms outside and within the corridors of power. Tinubu must assert his integrity of intent, unwavering in the face of random and organised animosity. If he intends to be taken seriously, he must shun subtle and barefaced artifice.

    He understands perhaps that no matter how adroitly a leader cartwheels on moral fibre, if he feigns altruism as a necessary rite of perfidy, he would fall splat in the court of posterity. President Tinubu must shun such recreant retreat. If not, he would be forging another bad karma – for Nigeria and himself.

    Man’s karma travels with him, like his shadow. But karma is on nobody’s leash. The universe’s agent of cause and effect, deterrence, and retributive justice can neither be owned nor tethered. Unlike life, it doesn’t suffer the affliction of man’s dubious acquiescence to daunting, baleful bestiality oft summed up by the terse, intense statement: ‘Life’s a bitch.”

    Karma remains our open secret. In Nigeria, it is our sacred, secret space ignored in plain sight. Call it temenos, our ritual precinct of reward and just desserts. In this divine, marked-off terrain, the moral code of the universe operates at its darkest and most mechanical – there are no emotive shingles of pardon or persuasion, just causes, and effects, actions, and consequences.

    In 1932, the great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget found that by the age of six, children begin to believe, that, bad things that happen to them are punishments for bad things they had done. The Nigerian society, however, fights to subvert the karmic laws of cause and effect, and thus insulate individuals from the injurious effects of their vices and poor judgment.

    There is no gainsaying politics is rigged to reward greed, savagery, indolence, illegitimacy, and so on. For instance, en route to the March 2023 polls, Tinubu’s ordeal in the hands of perfidious systems, proteges and lackeys was quite instructive.

    Nigeria’s woes originate from her moral lapses. Endemic poverty, substandard healthcare and education, ethnic and religious bigotry, bribery, and other forms of corruption manifested by the society’s poverty of morals and humane ethics.

    The frightful blooming of Nigerian karma is a brazen incantation of debauchery’s triumph over morals. Desire trumps ethics on the watch of supposedly invincible oligarchs.

    The latter espouse raptorial power in rebuttal of patriot magic. Their awful energy incites the flurry of Medusa’s reptilian hair locks, entangling everyone and everything. From treasury looting, sponsorship of terrorism, to the elevation of random bigotries, the incumbent ruling class manifests as Nigeria’s worst comeuppance.

    Until recently, there was no punishment for the wicked and no deterrence for the corrupt. Nigeria has been pilfered silly. The country has been persistently disrobed and debauched by self-seeking industrialists and cabals.

    There was no good or evil. The cult of moral greyness bloomed through previous dispensations. Thus our reality of chronic indebtedness and bankruptcy.

    In the ensuing moral sepsis, the ruling class treats equality as an ethical baseline even as it establishes prosperity and poverty as fortunate and unfortunate draws in Nigeria’s cosmic lottery. Thus public office metamorphoses into moral insult and government officials make concerted efforts, daily, to subvert progress.

    Enter President Tinubu; Tinubu must commit to building a just and truly progressive order. Until then, Nigerians would assess his administration with a quizzical eye.

    The most prescient portrait of the Nigerian character and our ultimate fate as a nation, clearly, resonates with Hedges’ take on Herman Melville’s allegorical portrayal of the American character in his literary classic, “Moby Dick.”

    Melville makes our murderous obsessions, hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness, and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of a whaling voyage. He is our foremost oracle. He is to us what William Shakespeare was to Elizabethan England or Fyodor Dostoyevsky to czarist Russia, he argues.

    In truth, Nigeria is likeable to the fictional ship, the Pequod. The ship’s crew is a mixture of races and creeds which is reflective of Nigeria’s heterogeneous society. The object of the hunt is a massive white whale, Moby Dick, which, in a previous encounter, maimed the ship’s captain, Ahab, by biting off one of his legs. The self-destructive fury of the quest, much like the Nigerian society’s inordinate scramble for unearned wealth, assures all of the Pequod’s fate.

    While Ahab and his crew eventually gained awareness of their imminent doom, very few Nigerians appreciate from experience that our prevalent culture of acquisition fostered by insatiable greed and based on cutthroat politics, extreme corporate profit, and devastation of farmlands by oil exploration accelerates doom.

    Nigeria, like the Pequod’s crew, rationalises insanity, scorns prudence, and bows slavishly before hedonism and greed. Society yields to the seductive illusion of unbounded luxury, wanton idolatry, limitless power, and acclaim. Thus we unfurl to degenerate forces and systems of death.

    Those who foresee the impending doom lack the fortitude to rebel. Thus moral cowardice makes hostage all.

    The movement towards the illicit, as Camille would say, produces a violent movement outward in desolation. We see the same pattern in the finale of Moby Dick, where Ahab’s attempt to pierce the heart of nature by harpooning the whale ends in tragedy and vast, empty silence.

    Moby Dick eventually rams and sinks the Pequod. The waves swallow up Ahab and all who followed him, except one. Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark.

    May Tinubu steer Nigeria to safer shores.  

  • Does Sanwo-Olu truly care? (2)

    Does Sanwo-Olu truly care? (2)

    In Lagos, death is another story that must not be talked about. The rising spate of commuter deaths along the straggling tract of the Lagos-Abeokuta highway should not be brought to the attention of Governor Babajide Sanwoolu, railed a hyperactive loyalist, last week.

    Clearly, only the ‘hostile’ local and international press are allowed to do that. When they do, Governor Sanwo-Olu and aides would scurry to project their fetching narratives about the achievements of his government via hastily conceived interviews otherwise known as ‘damage control.’

    Apology to Sanwo-Olu but the squalor and deaths afflicting the Lagos-Abeokuta highway are direct consequences of some failure in governance and public agencies; the incessant deaths caused by reckless driving, road rage and the penchant of motorists to ply the wrong way (one-way) while facing oncoming vehicles at full throttle are failures of the government at asserting its authority over lethargic subsidiary agencies.

    Some would argue that the problematic corridor is “a federal road” and thus falls under the purview of responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Works; if that is the case, why does the Lagos State Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit’s task force prowl the highway to arrest traffic offenders?

    It is noteworthy that the task force persistently staged a gung-ho-styled intervention, arresting reckless drivers along the route until a few months before the 2023 elections, then they suddenly withdrew from the route to placate furious commuters cum prospective voters perhaps.

    While it may be argued that the departments in charge of public works and maintenance of traffic law are seriously in need of an overhaul – at the federal and state levels – given their inadequacies at curbing the spate of accidents and deaths prevalent on the highway, the buck stops on Sanwo-Olu’s table being the Number One administrator of the state.

    This minute, calamity and death run the Lagos-Abeokuta highway amok. Last night, while it rained, a mother of four was sandwiched between two trucks whose drivers dragged her menacingly towards a larger truck and a Volkswagen LT Commercial bus bearing down at them at the bloody Meiran junction, not minding that they were plying the wrong way (one way).

    The woman kept screaming “Egbami! Egbami! (Save me! Save me!) while her four children screamed in fear. This happened in the thick of a gridlock that had motorists travelling from Sango-Agbado Kollington jostling for the right of way with reckless drivers plying the wrong way all the way from Ahmadiyya Junction en route to Meiran-Agbado-Kollington.

    Fellow commuters paused in abject fear and consternation at the imminent fate of the mother and her kids. Luckily, the container and Volkswagen bus drivers stepped on their brakes thus allowing rescuers to extricate the bonnet of the woman’s badly mangled Kia Rio from underneath the oncoming truck.

    Like a blood-dimmed tide loosed upon a grassy plane, tragedy splashes about the route, drowning lives and innocence in a passionate, intense swirl of ghastly auto accidents.

    From a distance, the piercing and indiscriminate glare of sunlight and moonshine desecrate the highway, like tombs slipshodly carved along its greying tract, which connects Lagos to Ogun State. Closer, the pedestrians and motorists plying the route take shape like a stream of accidental shadows, their hard fates striking one’s face and making the senses numb with jarring clarity.

    Their noiseless undertones, however, evoke intense feelings of awe and curiosity. Sad desperate glances of the commuters inspire a thirst for buried narratives that they miserably learn to endure as unfeeling jests made by death.

    Should His Excellency continue to neglect the human suffering emblematic of the pale ghost of that troubled part of his coastal “City of Excellence.”

    Read Also: Sanwo-Olu: we must collaborate to end plastic pollution

    Is he unaware of the deaths and squalor prevalent on the highway? At least, he understands the significance and likely benefits of fostering an urgent rehabilitation of the road.

    Would he continue to ignore the decline of the highway, where decay and death spit venom at hapless citizenry, like Siamese cobras every day?

    Cynics would argue that Sanwo-Olu is unmoved to affect a heartfelt response to the Lagos-Abeokuta highway tragedy. Still, I would love to believe that he is making spirited gestures even as you read to rescue imperilled and disillusioned commuters in the area.

    Ignorance is not an excuse for denying the citizenry good governance and their fundamental human rights, like access to good and safe roads. It is never “politically expedient” to neglect a class of the governed just because, by will or circumstance, they inhabit parts of the state the ruling class would rather not lose sleep over, except at the time of election or re-election.

    Governor Sanwo-Olu is spending his second term in office which makes it even more essential for him to consolidate on his achievements during his first term.

    When the All Progressives Congress eventually presents its candidates for public office in 2027, the rehabilitation of the Lagos-Abeokuta highway could be one of its glowing achievements aside from the rehabilitation of major bypasses.

    Both federal and state governments’ intervention is needed by the poor citizenry braving the perils of the Lagos-Abeokuta highway, every day. The route constitutes an eyesore to the Lagos enterprise. Nonetheless, a zealous apologist argued that Sanwo-Olu could not be blamed or involved in goings-on along the road corridor.

    Anthony Storr, a late British writer and psychiatrist would term this one of the many delusions that render the Lagos-Abeokuta highway’s ugly reality justifiable for Sanwo-Olu’s zealots, and as such, jealously defensible against admonishment and reason.

    Save an empty promise made by the  Ogun state governor, Dapo Abiodun, in the early days of his administration, when he claimed that he, and his Lagos State counterpart, Governor Sanwo-Olu, had gotten approval from the federal government to repair the highway and earn a toll from it, nothing has been done to rehabilitate the treacherous stretch.

    Sanwo-Olu must learn from the failure of ex-Ogun governor, Ibikunle Amosun, who neglected the dangerous state of the Lagos-Ibadan highway simply because it was “a federal road.”

    The world would never forget in a hurry, the poor, helpless souls that thrashed out and gave their final gasps in grotesque, bloody accidents on the road on Amosun’s watch. Omolade Ogunnoiki, 17, was a 100 Level History student at Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU). Together with her friend, Funmilayo Pampam, 18, and Olatunji Dairo, a 2014 Physics graduate of OOU,  she was crushed to death. They were casualties of an auto accident involving a truck carrying an unlatched container and their Lagos-bound passenger bus, on the Ilishan- Sagamu highway in Ogun State. The accident claimed nine other undergraduates and the driver of the bus.

    Omolade and Funmilayo probably nursed dreams of greatness. Dairo too. Their parents laboured to educate them,  they wished they would grow to become the pride of their families and their comfort in their twilight. Those dreams lie six feet under red earth, with the crushed teenagers and the Physics graduate. In a bid to avoid bad portions on the road, the driver of the truck reportedly drove against the traffic until its container fell off its hinges, crushing to death the two friends, Dairo and nine other OOU students. At the time of their demise, Ogunnoiki and Pampam were 17 and 18 years old respectively.

    Perhaps Governor Sanwo-Olu would answer as the humane, proactive administrator he is deemed to be and protect commuters on the Lagos-Abeokuta highway from such a gruesome fate.

  • Time to investigate the oil and gas sector

    Time to investigate the oil and gas sector

    The last time Nigerians benefited from their country being an oil producer was during the post-civil war years under General Yakubu Gowon. It was not that there was no corruption then but the head of state was clean of any allegation of corruption. Since that time, every regime has flagrantly soiled its fingers in corruption. It has been the story of one woe and fluctuation of prices after the other until the four major refineries collapsed despite the spending of billions of dollars annually in so called turn around maintenance (TAM). We also saw regimes of oil bloc allocation to all sorts of people including those who had no idea of oil except that it was the fastest way of becoming billionaires without any sweat. Nigeria is the only country that distributes national patrimony to individuals without anybody asking questions. The oil sector became the target of adventurers in power who overthrew governments just to corner the hydrocarbons sector and to distribute its commissions to friends and relatives while the rest of Nigerians were left with the crumbs coming from the table of the emergency billionaires and so-called “oil men”.  It became financially advantageous to know which men and women had access to getting you into the mystery of the hydrocarbons sale and commissions in the oil industry. Things got so bad that the local people of the Delta from where the oil and gas are located took up arms to try to get their own share of the oil booty. The security forces which are supposed to ensure that oil production, the  economic lifeline of the country, went on without disruptions got entangled in the problem of corruption to the extent  that it became expedient for people in power to hire some of the illegal pipeline breakers as protectors at billions of Naira per year since  the formal security forces appeared incapable or unwilling to secure this important national asset.

    In a recent book on ExxonMobil with the title of EXXON MOBIL AND AMERICAN POWER,  a disparaging comment on the Nigerian Navy went thus: “American military officers come in here and they see a navy with  all the trappings, the ranks, the uniforms and so on, and they think it’s a real navy- poor but earnest. But it’s not that at all. It was not obvious what policies the Americans could bring to bear on a sister service that was mainly a criminal enterprise dressed up in epaulettes. It’s hard to get used to the fact Nigerian officials will lie to you straight up. The chief of navy staff told us there has been no incidence of piracy in Nigerian waters between 2006 and 2009. Exxon Mobil itself was struck in some seasons as often as three times per month. Arguably, the effect of American military assistance to the Nigerian Navy had been to abet attacks on the property of America’s largest oil corporation”. The book indicated that the Nigerian Navy was complicit in the theft of oil in the Niger Delta.  This account may be an exaggeration but is no smoke without fire.

    At the height of oil production in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s, the country was producing 2.3 million barrels daily and was a major player in OPEC – the international oil cartel that at one time its oil minister served as president of the organisation and recently the late Mohammad Barkindo served as its Secretary General. Over time, the corruption ruined the oil industry and production went down below one million barrels by the time Muhammadu Buhari became president.  Nigeria indeed was producing below its OPEC allocation. Although in recent times production has gone above one million barrels because oil pipeline vandalism has reduced due to better policing, not by security forces, but by some Niger Delta militants that the government has been compelled to hire to protect pipelines. The situation in which the country now finds itself is that money coming from crude oil sale cannot pay for the inflated cost of importing refined petroleum since the four local refineries are not working even though billions are spent annually in so called “turn around maintenance”. The most galling and sordid part of Nigeria’s oil industry is that while the refineries are down, the “workers” are being paid and promoted and sent abroad for training at humongous cost to government.

    Read Also: Alleged N43.5m fraud: Absence of counsel stalls NOGASA chairman’s trial

    For almost a decade, a regime of subsidies has been put in place to make imported oil cheap, so cheap that it provided an avenue for border communities to become very rich at the expense of Nigeria. Any observer can drive to Marua in northern Cameroons, Cotonou in Benin Republic, Zinder in Niger and Abacha in Chad republic and see how smuggled Nigerian imported petroleum is openly sold.  Col. Hameed Ali who was brought in by Buhari to knock sense into the heads of corrupt Customs officers cried for eight years that the daily consumption of refined imported petroleum put at 60 million litres was a fraud because the previous consumption up to 2015 was half of this figure. If this is true, the figure of $800 million spent on subsidies monthly should have been half of that figure. Curiously, Buhari apparently did not listen to him and 50% of imported petrol found its way out of the country to countries in ECOWAS, the Cameroons, Chad and as far as the CAR in central Africa. This is where we are now. Nigeria is importing refined petroleum virtually for the whole of West Africa using sometimes foreign loans in addition to the income from exports of crude oil and agricultural products since we now earn less than what we spend because of this corrupt subsidies regime.

    The solution seems simple to any lay man: Ban the importation of refined petroleum and free $800 million from this corrupt system for development of education, infrastructure, security and health sectors. This is what the new government is trying to do and must do if our country is not to go under. Eggheads and ideologues may argue from now till kingdom comes but the task of government must be done. It is true that the opacity of the oil sector is so great that no one can come up with figures with mathematical exactitude about how much oil we produce or how much we consume. This is the shame of a country that has been producing oil since 1956 with little or nothing to show for it in terms of development and amelioration of the lives of the poor masses. But a serious government must take the bull by the horns and try to do something. This is what the new government is trying to do.

    Of course the vested interests in this smuggling business and the beneficiaries of the subsidies regime will fight back. They will infiltrate the Labour movement and convince other ordinary people that their government, out of the wickedness of its heart, is deliberately bent on making the lives of everyone worse than it met it. Government must put on its thinking cap and campaign vigorously about its intentions and the reasons why certain actions are necessary to save the country. Government should invite top flight auditing company from outside the country to do a clinical audit of the oil sector over the last 20 or so years and come up with names of people and companies that have ripped off Nigeria. If we are paying billions or is it trillions in judgement debts, we must have facts with which we can sue local and international companies that have defrauded Nigeria over the years. This is going to be a long journey but as the Chinese say the journey of a long distance must begin by taking the first step. This government has taken the first step of abrogation of the subsidy regime and it must be backed by all Nigerians if they know what is the best for their country.

  • Fuel subsidy blues

    Fuel subsidy blues

    The din over the ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ pronouncement by the President on May 29 will take sometime to die down. Many of the reactions are, however, emotional. They chose not to face the stark reality of the matter. Those who should know better are more guilty of this. They know why things are the way they are but their political leaning constrains them from looking at this matter objectively.

    ‘Fuel subsidy is gone’ and from all indications it is gone for good. What should engage people’s attention now is how to ameloriate the sufferings of the common man in the wake of the subsidy removal. President Bola Tinubu is not callous not to know that the going of subsidy will have a multiplier effect on the econony. He has always been an advocate of subsidy removal with a human face.

    This was why in 2012 he made a case for certain conditions-precedent before the Jonathan administration removes subsidy. If he could argue that way then and in support of the masses, is it now that he is in power that he would take an action to hurt the same class of people? Former President Goodluck Jonathan had all the time in the world to lay out plans for subsidy removal before he did so in 2012.

    What did he do? From what we are hearing now, he apparently acted on bad advice and the whole thing came crashing on his head. Some of his aides are  silently praying that the same thing should happen to Tinubu so that they can link it to divine providence. Mercifully, God is not man. 

    By January 1, 2012, Jonathan was already in office for eight months, counting from when he was sworn in on May 29,2011, and that is after completing the remaining one year tenure of the late President Umoru Yar’Adua between May 6, 2010 and May 29, 2011. In all, he had 19 months to do the spade work for subsidy removal. His failure to do the needful led to the bungling of subsidy removal 11 years ago.

    Unlike him, Tinubu is only a few days old in office, and faced with a problematic economy that needs urgent fixing. His off-the-cuff remark that ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ was a reiteration of what he met on the ground and as reflected in the extant budget. It was to prepare the masses’ minds for the challenges ahead, which all Nigerians must face together. Tinubu knows that fuel subsidy cannot be removed fiam, just like that, without putting in place reliefs or palliative or interventions or whatever name it is called for the people.

    The exigency of the time demanded that from Day One he should give the people a sense of the direction of his administration. He did that with the offhanded remark: ‘fuel subsidy is gone’. The President did not stop there. He has initiated moves to increase the minimum wage. Edo State has taken the lead in this regard to raise minimum wage from N30,000 to N40,000. It is a good place to start from. But salary increase is not all that is to address the problem.

    Strike is not also the solution. No matter how long organised labour calls for a strike over the issue, the truth is that, that is not the way to go. Even, labour agrees that subsidy must go, what it and many others are asking for, is the setting up of structures for cushioning the effect of the removal on the poor. This is what is commonly called palliative, a word that became popular in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    As PriceWaterCoopers (PwC) postulated in its recommendations, salary increase and tax holiday for the poor are given in the circumstance. This is not a time for economists to raise the alarm about any impending high inflation rate. We are already buffeted by inflation, which these ‘experts’ have not found solution to, amid the mismanagement of the nation’s  monetary policy by the Godwin Emefiele-led central bank.

    Read Also: How support and sabotage greeted fuel subsidy removal

    The provision of mass transit vehicles should also be of immediate concern to the government. Many of these things must get the buy-in of the 36 states as well as the private and informal sectors, which were at the receiving end of fuel subsidy. The nation has come a long way since 2012 when Jonathan first took the subsidy removal gambit. Tinubu should not only learn from that mistake, but also draw from his own advice then of having in place structures for cushioning the effect of the removal on the poorest of the poor.  

    Those conditions that will make life better for the masses should be emplaced now as subsidy removal has since taken effect. No matter what cynics say, the President has shown that he has the courage of his conviction by his ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ comment. But, he knows too well that until the reliefs are rolled out, his job is only half done. As a man known for his human touch, the palliative that will come will surely have human face.

    10th Assembly: The die is cast

    BY this time next week, the 10th National Assembly would have been inaugurated and its presiding officers known. Who become Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives? Senator Godswill Akpabio is the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Senate President, while Tajudeen Abass is the party’s choice for Speaker. Their nominations have not gone down well with some members-elect of both chambers who are insisting that the party should not interfere in the impending election.

    Will APC’s directive be obeyed or will its aggrieved members openly defy it when both chambers are proclaimed on June 13? President Bola Tinubu has waded in the matter to ensure that the inaugural sessions which are mainly for the election of presiding officers – Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker – do not degenerate to a feud on the floor. His intervention may save the day. Welcome to the 10th National Assembly.

  • NLC, IPMAN and NNPC, behold our saviours

    NLC, IPMAN and NNPC, behold our saviours

    With the torture Nigerians experienced as a result of artificial fuel scarcity and Emefiele’s wicked conspiracy against Nigerians with his politically-motivated currency swap on the eve of an election, 2023 has been a hell on earth for many Nigerians. They could not wait for tired President Muhammadu Buhari to depart Aso rock villa seat of government. Slamming the same Nigerians struggling to survive with an increase of 160% from (N189 to over N500) in fuel pump price due to what President Tinubu described as a force majeure since the immediate past government did not make budgetary provision for subsidy beyond June, must be a bitter pill to swallow by Nigerians.  One can therefore understand NLC’s righteous indignation against government.

    Although removal of fuel subsidy which many Nigerians including President Buhari consider a scam was part of Tinubu’s campaign promises. It is equally true state governors as members of the National Executive Council, had met and agreed before the election that the PMS subsidy was harmful while the National Assembly went a step further to pass a law affirming removal of subsidy. To ensure the decision was irreversible, no budgetary provision was made by the immediate past government. Unfortunately, those facts will not assuage the raw feelings of suffering and impoverished Nigerians.

    But many believe that declaring an indefinite strike three days after inauguration of a new government with students of secondary schools nationwide, writing WAEC exams and university students who have only just resumed after eight months-long ASUU strike seems to have been borrowed from IPOB play book which celebrates biting one’s nose in order to spite one’s face.

    It is just as well that after a marathon meeting between a government team and leaders of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) late on Monday night, the planned indefinite strike over the removal of petrol was put off.  NLC’s hand was further tied by Justice Olufunke Anuwe, who in her ruling, agreed that ‘the proposed strike action is capable of disrupting economic activities, the health and the educational sectors’.

    The tragedy is that, IPMAN, NLC, NNPC have for years waged a vicious war against Nigeria.  For instance, why should President Tinubu’s announcement that the fuel subsidy is gone for good’, which was an affirmation of what has become a force majeure lead to a knee-jerk reaction from IPMAN who despite the fact that their current stock was procured on old rate, created artificial scarcity forcing Nigerians to buy fuel at amount ranging between N500 to N800?

    With the end of fuel subsidy regime, the chickens have finally come home to roost.  NNPC, IPMAN and NLC that have remained the nations scourge are now coming out to show how much they love us.

    First to demonstrate its love for us was the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) that has since 1999 actively participated in prolonging Nigeria’s nightmare.  Its heartache last week was that Tinubu may not get “the N13 trillion saving being bandied around by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), as the amount to be saved from the removal of the subsidy apparently based on its projection of 60 million litres per day. 

    But that was not original to IPMAN. Hameed Ali, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Customs comptroller-general, was the first to query NNPC Ltd’s 60m litres consumption claim during a session with the House of Representatives’ Committee on Finance in September 2022 when he said: “So, how did you get to 60 million litres per day? “If you release 98 million litres in actuality and 60 million litres are used, the balance should be 38 million litres. How many trucks will carry 38 million litres every day? Which road are they following and where are they carrying this thing to?”

    If indeed we have been swindled, it must be with active connivance of IPMAN since with vandalization of federal government fuel dumps across the country, all purported imported fuel ends up in their members’ fuel dumps. It will also appear that NLC that is set to pull down Tinubu’s three-day administration with three days’ notice for an indefinite strike love none but their members. There have been many missed opportunities to demonstrate their love for Nigeria.

    Read Also: Subsidy: Nigeria not consuming 60ml/ day, says IPMAN

    During the Obasanjo administration, the National Assembly increased number of fuel importers from the four multinationals to over a hundred. Under Jonathan administration, with Bukola Saraki serving as whistle-blower, it was discovered through a House probe that children of PDP stalwarts forged documents to defraud Nigeria of about N1.7trillion ‘without importing a pint of fuel” while NLC did nothing.

    NLC members were also active in Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), the custodians of all the records of the ships that purportedly brought in the consignments of fuel; same with the global body of shippers, the Lloyd’s with their register just as the Central Bank of Nigeria has the records of all claims processed for payment.

    President Obasanjo, frustrated by dubious Nigerians after sinking huge amount of funds into turn around maintenance with little relief to Nigerians decided to sell the moribund refineries to Dangote and Otedola. Yar’Adua succumbed to NLC threat to make Nigerian ungovernable if the sales were not reversed.

     As for NNPC, details showed that Kaduna refinery spent N24 billion in direct costs to record zero revenue and an operating loss of N64 billion for 2018. A breakdown of the direct costs and administrative expenses showed that it incurred N447.7 million in training expenses, security expenses of N230 million, communication expenses of N37.3 million, and consultancy fees of N843 million.

    Similarly, a breakdown of the payments made to directors showed that total employee cost was put at N23 billion in 2018. These payments include salaries and wages, death benefit, administrative expenses, etc. The financial statement showed that Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (KRPC) generated no revenue in 2018, but incurred an operating loss of N64.5 billion.

    For the Warri Refining Company, the audited financial statement showed that the company earned N1.98 billion as revenue while it incurred N12.74 billion as cost of sales, resulting in a gross loss of N10.57 billion and an operating loss of N45.39 billion. The Port Harcourt Refining Company recorded total revenue of N1.45 billion in 2018 with expenses of N24.04 billion, resulting in a gross loss of N22.58 billion.

    NLC is tarred with the same brush with IPMAN and NNPC. It is their members that sabotaged the refineries after each turnaround repair; it is they that vandalise federal government depots forcing NNPC to rely on private depots for imported petroleum products. It is their members that ferry tankers across the borders to Benin Republic, Togo, Niger and Sudan. It is they that vandalised the 4,500 kilometres of fuel pipeline put in place by Obasnjo in 1979, to pave the way for some individuals who today boast of as many as ten thousand trucks.

    Between 2013 and 2015, NNPC expended about $396m on Turn-Around Maintenance of refineries in the country. Under Buhari N7.9trn was spent on   petrol subsidy while another N4.15trn went for maintaining and rehabilitating the three refineries since 2015. Altogether, the nation may have spent about $25bn on the refineries in 25 years, according to a report in BusinessDay.

    It is instructive that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and its president, Joe Ajaero, that now threaten to topple a three-day government, harbours some unscrupulous individuals that manipulated the subsidy fraud for their own personal gains, saw nothing, heard nothing and did nothing in the last eight years.

  • Does Sanwo-Olu truly care?

    Does Sanwo-Olu truly care?

    Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is no stranger to power. He was sworn in for the first time as the Executive Governor of Lagos on May 29, 2019. Two months ago, he launched his reelection bid and won. He was duly sworn in for a second term on May 29, 2023.

    It would seem that Sanwo-Olu is no political neophyte. He isn’t. He flaunts an admirable track record in both private and public sectors until he ventured into partisan politics. Thus with his purported experience, its confounding to see him neglect a public malaise that threatens tragic consequences in his domain.

    There is no gainsaying more commuter deaths are imminent on the bloody stretch of the Lagos-Abeokuta expressway. The tragedy of the road corridor still transcends language. Its lurid narrative of bad roads and commuter deaths, ghostly law enforcers and traffic abuse, resonate a tragedy so overpowering it incites a torrent of feelings, still.

    Few weeks ago, I tried to draw the government’s attention to how the calamity found expression in the fate of an unidentified motorist who was killed at 9:30 am, on Thursday, March 9, 2023, by a commercial bus driver speeding against the traffic (plying wrong-way) around Meiran, Lagos.

    The victim, who drove a Honda Civic car, sustained a serious neck injury and died instantly in a pool of blood. Confirming the incident, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), stated that a Volkswagen commercial bus driver with registration no EPE 964XX while driving against the traffic at high speed, collided with a private car, Honda Civic EPE 666 BC around 9:30 am.

    The LASTMA spokesman, Adebayo Taofiq, said the agency’s officials who were first emergency responders, handed over the corpse to his relatives who came out from the estate.

    It is noteworthy that the driver of the commercial bus took to his heels immediately after he killed the motorist. Although his vehicle and that of his victim were handed over to the police, he was never found.

    Such tragic incidents are familiar episodes along the dangerous corridor and bypass connecting Lagos to Ogun State.

    One week before the Meiran incident, a caterer and mother of three were crushed to death by a reckless driver at U-turn bus stop, while she tried to fulfil lunch orders at a bank across the road. Her mangled corpse was delivered to her shop on Adeaga Street a few minutes afterwards. Her widower and three children are yet to recover from the shock of her grisly death.

    Residents and commuters along Abule Egba, Agbado Kollington, Dalemo, Akera, Ijaye-Ojokoro, Meiran, Agbado Kollington, Amje, Ajegunle, and Tollgate, to mention a few, have to deal with such grisly occurrences every day. They continually lament the deplorable state of the Lagos-Abeokuta highway linking their inner dirt roads.

    More worrisome is the complete breakdown of traffic law and order along dangerous routes. Commuters flagrantly flout traffic rules on both sides of the dual carriageway; they ply the wrong way, and face oncoming traffic at full throttle while LASTMA officials turn a blind eye.

    It is disheartening to see LASTMA officials ignore motorists, commercial bus and truck drivers in particular, as they ply the wrong way and speed against the traffic in reckless abandon. This has oftentimes resulted in ghastly accidents and avoidable deaths. Motorists, however, blame the anomaly on bad roads. They accuse the federal government and affected state governments of abandoning them to a gruesome fate.

    The situation is more dire than it reads on this page. There is a cavernous crater at Obadeyi, and from the Ijaiye bus stop to Meiran through CAASO, Agbado Kollington, Alakuko, the road winds into extensive gullies and potholes.

    While the  Adetola bypass linking Ijaiye-road has been repaired, other bypasses spanning Abule-Egba, Ahmadiyya,  Meiran are still  pockmarked  by dangerous potholes.

    At the point where the Lagos dirt corridor meshes with Ogun State, a different kind of ugliness subsists at Amje, Ajegunle, and the Tollgate bordering Ogun State.

    Buses, trucks, cars, three-wheelers and motorcycles have to halt after every three minutes just to adjust to the road breaks and pot-holes all over.

    Against the backdrop of outrage over the deplorable state of Lagos roads, Governor Sanwo-Olu declared a state of emergency on dilapidated highways and carriage roads within the state. He approved massive rehabilitation work on critical roads across the state following his series of meetings with eight multi-national engineering firms in respect of the road rehabilitation initiative.

    He said: “The contractors have been given the mandate to start mobilising to their respective sites without further delay. Their activities must first give our people immediate relief on the affected roads so that there can be free flow of traffic even during the rehabilitation work.”

    To complement the major construction work on the highways, Sanwo-Olu said Lagos State Public Works Corporation (LSPWC) would be carrying out repairs of 116 inner roads across the State, in addition to over 200 roads already rehabilitated by the Corporation.

    Despite these efforts, residents and commuters along the Lagos-Abeokuta corridor seem to have been completely forgotten even as they risk their lives plying the dangerous route every day.

    The daily accumulated estimate for man-hour loss in the area is given as eight hours per day along the road, according to a study conducted by Bako and Agunloye of the Departments of Urban and Regional Planning of the Universities of Ilorin and Lagos respectively. This gives the average daily man-hour loss as 1.6 man-hours for all drivers along this road, subject to peak periods of 7 a.m.– 10 a.m., and 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. daily.

    State authorities must fix bad portions of the road to ensure the free flow of traffic and prevent road rage and avoidable deaths at accident-prone spots along the road corridor. This measure is needed in areas such as Abule-Egba and Toll-gate.

    Strict enforcement of road rules and regulations, which can be done by dispatching traffic managers at hotspots to correct defaulting drivers is also needed.

    The introduction of traffic monitoring personnel from LASTMA has been ineffectual at regulating bus stop usage and proper parking of passenger buses; commercial transporters stop indiscriminately and park in the middle of the road from Oja Oba, Abule Egba through U-turn, Ahmadiyya, Ijaiye, Meiran, to Tollgate.

    The traffic officers from LASTMA simply turn a blind eye and receive bribe from motorists – this is particularly pronounced at every bus stop from Abule Egba to Agbado Kollington and beyond. 

    It’s about time Governor Sanwo-Olu intervened as the state departments tasked with the responsibility of maintaining order on the affected highway have shirked their responsibility. I urge Governor Sanwo-Olu to use his good office to correct the anomaly before Lagos records more devastating accidents and multiple deaths along the problematic highway.

    The 81-kilometre  highway connecting  Lagos and Ogun States is a very important trunk ‘A’ road servicing the Lagos-Abeokuta and Sango Ota-Agbara industrial corridor. The road serves a very crucial role in the conveyance of raw materials and finished products to and fro the two states’ capital cities and industrial hubs.  

    An estimated 300,000 vehicles and over one million people transporting goods running into millions of tons ply the route daily.

    Save an empty promise made by the  Ogun state governor, Dapo Abiodun, in the early days of his administration, when he claimed that he, and his Lagos State counterpart,  Governor Sanwo-Olu, had gotten approval from the federal government to repair the highway and earn a toll from it, nothing has been done to rehabilitate the hazardous corridor.