Category: Thursday

Come May 29, Asiwaju of Lagos, Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be sworn in as president of Nigeria. This will be a remarkable achievement for the man but also a challenge for all of us to ensure that he succeeds in resetting Nigeria for the great task ahead. Elections have come and gone and the challenge of governance begins. He may not be everyone’s choice but as our people are wont to say, he is the man of the moment and short of an undemocratic revolution, he will remain president of this much abused country for the next four years God willing.

Only God knows the end from the beginning but if Tinubu acts as expected, he will assemble one of the best cabinets in recent times to govern this country that is too big and important to fail. We are in a political situation but he must rise above politics and provide exemplary leadership that will be very difficult to fault. His choice of ministers and assistants and his Secretary to the Government of the Federation must not only manifest meritocracy but also reflect a total commitment to national unity and healing of the bruises of a hard won and bitter election. A bold effort must be made to bring in the Southeast to the centre of government without alienating his core supporters in other parts of the country. If we want to build a virile country with a bright future, every part of the country must be on board whether members of the ruling party or the opposition. This has to be done to show to the whole nation and the world that this is the beginning of a new dawn.

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The president must have well-reasoned priorities such as in security, education, infrastructure and electricity generation and distribution. All aspects of our national life should be a priority. But the truth is that the task of government is never finished in one term or even in our own lives. We just have to begin from somewhere. It is better to have an area of concentration rather than diffused energy and activities all over the place. I am a supporter of restructured Nigeria and fiscal federalism but we must be realistic that this can only be a distant goal in the context of the present political reality of Nigeria where there is no consensus. This is why I think we should use the present administrative instruments available to government to press in its policies in the area of priority identified above.

The new government should set up small working committees on education, infrastructure, electricity and security. Without security, the country will not move forward. If we have to enlist the support of friendly countries to achieve this we must not be shy about it. This is not a case of ideology; we must take help from where it is offered. We are in emergency.

On education, we need a total overhaul of our educational system from the collapsed primary and secondary levels to tertiary levels. It is a shame that government primary schools have been abandoned even by the poor in urban areas who now patronise private schools because of the abject malfunction and failure of government primary schools. What exists at the primary level is also found at the secondary level. The university and other tertiary levels are going the same way. We must resuscitate these levels of education without abandoning quality.

If the private sector must participate in education, it must not be the only body offering quality education. The present situation of homogenised university education where all universities offer the same syllabus must be discontinued and universities must reflect regional, environmental and cultural peculiarities without sacrificing uniform standards of intellectual offerings.

This point needs elucidation but here is not the place to go into the nitty-gritty. As for electricity there is need to decentralise generation and distribution of electricity and to be replaced by regional and zonal bodies reflecting available local natural resources of gas, hydro and coal. Without abandoning our commitment to clean energy, we cannot at the present level of urgency neglect any available source of energy including coal. The South-south of our country including some states in the Southeast and Ondo and Ogun states in the southwest should emphasise power from gas and coal while the central part of Nigeria and the northeast should lay emphasis on hydroelectricity while the northwest will be a combination of water and gas.

The point is that it must not be a centralized generating body. Each company or power board will be independent but able to sell power to areas that may not have enough. This is what is done in developed countries where there are no generalised black out as we have in this country. On infrastructure, we must continue with our new railway age which most countries experienced in the 19th century. Thank God zonal railways are now permitted in the constitution. Our roads which currently are the dilapidated mode of moving of goods and people around must be thrown open to public and private participation.  We need to have roads running laterally from Sokoto to Badagry, Kano to Lagos, Maiduguri to Port Harcourt and laterally from Lagos to Port Harcourt, Ibadan to Calabar, Kaduna to Enugu and Kano to Maiduguri. We as users must be ready to pay.

The zonal group of states must be encouraged to pull resources together to build highways connecting them together while the federal government intensify the building of roads that are permanent in nature not subjected to the vagaries of weather. In all this, the people must be made to appreciate government efforts by paying for services rendered whether in the provision of infrastructure, education and electricity.

For the government to be successful, the calibre of people in government must be such as will naturally draw support to government because they will be seen for their selflessness and national commitment. Emphasis must be on competence and meritocracy without abandonment of the principle of geographical and ethnic justice. There is no state in the country that does not have exceptional and excellent people. In any case, one of the best ways of reining in corruption is to ensure that there is no ethnic domination of any ministry or department of government. The plural make-up of departments and ministries would be a break on rampant corruption and the erstwhile looting of national resources.

Where in recent times there has been preponderance of certain ethnic group in a ministry or parastatal, corruption has been the order of the day because people steal because they know their ethnic cohorts will not leak out their looting secrets. The coming government must tighten up the internal security and police system to make sure that governments get value for monetary allocation. The situation where 50 percent or more of the amount allocated for projects are stolen is what is responsible for the sordid level of our underdevelopment. Nigeria is the most underdeveloped of all the countries in OPEC. This is not a good place to be and we must change this narrative if we are to avoid bloody revolution. If we do not succeed and the poor masses revolt, there will be no distinction between people of different parties, ethnic groups and people of different religious affiliations in the face of blind fury of the anger of the hungry and the have-nots. So we are all together in trying to salvage the situation of our country. This is why all hands must be on deck and we cannot say we were not in government. We will all be answerable to the poor when trouble breaks out.

Our situation has gotten to a point when we must all show interest in how our country is governed. We must develop this national consciousness that will not permit state capture by a few that would ruin the future of all of us. If our country is well governed, the sky is wide enough for all the birds to fly without collision. It is poor governance that has generated ethnic tensions in recent times. There are countries with as many ethnic dimensions and disparities as our own that because of their strong economy are not as challenged as we are. India with many languages and civilizations and religions has in recent times embarked on rapid development which has reduced ethnic tensions.

The point I am making is that money and development do not necessarily have ethnic colours and boundaries. If we deal with the problem of underdevelopment, our ethnic problem will become manageable and not a threat to the unity and survival of our country as it is presently.

Jide Osuntokun

It is less than two weeks before new administrations take over the running of the country, all things being equal, at state and federal levels, yet appointments are being made or renewed for terms of four years which are the normal  gubernatorial and presidential terms. Those making the appointments would say that the work of government is continuous and cannot wait. Why this may be true, there is however nothing wrong with acting appointments. Contracts running into billions of Naira are being awarded and contractors are given, in some instances, two or four years to complete the job. Huge loans are being syndicated at home and abroad running into trillions of Naira.

But for the general uproar, there was a plan to conduct national census and contracts running into billions had been awarded and principal staff appointed. What for goodness’ sake is the reason for all this rush at the last minute after being in power for eight years?  Critical decisions such as turning the former prison services to the states without corresponding financial transfer from the federal government are being made almost casually. This looks as if the present government wants to extend itself into the next government. Are we now running rolling governments irrespective of changes in administrations? Even if the incoming governments are taken into confidence, this is still wrong. The hands of the incoming governments are being tied by the current incumbent governments unnecessarily. Even if the incoming governments are from the same party, it is still wrong. A father’s ideas are not necessarily the same as those of his child in the normal run of things not to talk of running the governments of states and the federation. This kind of behaviour makes a mockery of democracy. Why vote if a curious form of continuity is what to expect?

Taking the case of the federal government of Nigeria for instance, the press is constantly inundated with complaints that appointments in the last eight years have not been equitable, fair and reflecting the ethnic and geographical spread of the country. Although apologists of government have disputed this, but a cursory look at many of the appointments to the commanding heights of the economy of the country and critical areas of the current administration have not always reflected the plural nature of the country. Perhaps the federal government had been trying to balance perceived previous lop-sidedness in the administration but rushing this through in the last eight years has not gone down well with certain sections of the country. A situation in which contrived disadvantage becomes an advantage in appointments is just simply illogical.

The situation in the oil industry is a case that people generally point to when complaining about inequity in appointments in the critical areas of the economy like power, oil and gas. What will then happen if a new administration were to hearken to public complaints and begin to remove people from their positions? The whole thing would then take ethnic or religious coloration. What is happening at the federal is also happening at the state levels. It will of course be much easier to deal with it at the state levels where ethnic and religious plurality is not as complicated as the federal level.

We just have to be more sensitive if we are to have a strong, progressive and productive country. This kind of insensitivity is beginning to spread to discussion around principal officers of the coming Senate and House of Representatives. From what is in the press, there does not seem to be genuine desire to satisfy the urgent need to bring the Southeast of the country into prominent political recognition by zoning the presidency of the senate or the speakership to that part of our country. People are saying there is no acceptable ranking senator from there. Then why don’t we bend over backwards and accept the former governor of Ebonyi,  a newly elected senator if  Senator Orji Kalu has some baggage which makes him not fit for purpose? Politics should not be a zero-sum game in which the winner takes all. Politics is about what is possible and practicable and realistic and not necessarily ideal.

We must first have a country before we have politics. This should be the credo of those who find themselves in positions of authority in this country. This has not always been the case but if we are not sensitive we would lose the country because a million soldiers will not be able to keep us together if sufficient numbers of our citizens are unhappy disgruntled and ready to become fifth columnists in times of national emergencies and crisis.

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I do not have empirical data for suggesting, but it is worth investigating, that the rampant corruption we are witnessing in recent times is due to a feeling of ethnic entitlement following key appointees surrounded by their ethnic cohorts while other ethnicities are kept at arm’s length in the same country which should ordinarily be jointly run in such a way that there is no hidden or apparent ethnic or religious domination. We have the opportunity to reset our country and to run new administrations that will be based on merit and openness.

Politicians all over the world are one of a kind and they are not necessarily the best the country can produce. But we must not allow the bureaucracy to be infected by political shenanigans. If the bureaucracy is corrupt, then the country is finished. We are beginning to see instances where accountants-general and auditors-general are either corrupt or compromised,  one wonders who then is going to call the politicians  to order.  There is a recent case of the accountant-general of the federation and his staff embezzling hundreds of billions of Naira in a country where states find it difficult to pay minimum wages of N30,000 per month. 

May I ask: Why are people just being exposed at the dusk a new dawn? Why have we waited this long to  expose that a former minister of power  and his staff have embezzled N23 billion meant for the critical power works at Mambilla Plateau and yet we know that no country can develop without adequate electricity supply? This is at a time when we had the support of Germany prodding Siemens AG to help leapfrog Nigeria from darkness to light as it did in Egypt where within five years it reputedly helped that country to increase its power generation by 50,000 megawatts. The same sordidness has recently been witnessed at a public presentation of a book by the attorney-general of the federation when a senator-to-be and former governor of Zamfara State bought some copies of the book for N250 million. I expected the attorney general to reject the offer. I also expected the EFCC to ask questions and the inland revenue department to find out how much taxes the generous former governor pays annually either in Abuja where he lives having run away from Zamfara, his home state.  Zamfara is one of the poorest states in the federation run over by insurgents. If the security services are looking for reasons for rural revolt by the down and outs of our people, they should not look too far.

To go back to my original observations, the government should stay actions on appointments and renewal of appointments and negotiations about loans whether local or foreign. New contracts should not be awarded and all contracts since the elections should be put in abeyance until the next administrations. This is simple courtesy which the present administration should extend to the incoming one. I also sincerely hope in the interest of national unity peace and concord, that the newly elected senators and members of the House of Representatives should be guided by the desire to ensure that every major ethnic group is satisfied in the distribution of offices bearing in mind that this country stands on an ethnic tripod supported by the various equally important ethnicities.

watched the coronation of King Charles III of England with avid interest, perhaps because I am an historian and also an old person who grew up in colonial Nigeria. I remember going to the community centre in Ado Ekiti in the 1950s as a primary school child to “March past” parades during Empire Day celebrations. We were asked at some point to watch out for the British flag hoisted on a long pole when we reached where it was hoisted. We did not know what we were supposed to watch out for but like all children fearing being flogged if we got out of line or missed our steps, we did what we were asked to do.
We sang in Yoruba “Kolorun d’ oba si, K’Oba ko pe loye,” which is the British national anthem “God save the Queen.” We were not told why we were doing this, and if we were told we would not have understood. But I remember we were feted in school and we all looked forward to celebrating the Queen’s birthday, if possible, every day!
When I entered secondary school, all that stopped, except perhaps in the regional headquarters at Ibadan. By the time I finished secondary school in 1960, I was then quite clear about Nigeria’s place in the British empire. I remember in 1959 writing about the coming of independence as an assignment in my English class, and saying that by 1960 “Nigeria would be free from under the jackboots of British colonialism. “
 Our English teacher, a young man called Allan Reed, whose wife was the first principal of Ekiti Anglican Girls Secondary School, crossed out the whole sentence apparently in annoyance. I later realised that I should have chosen a less offensive expression. I was also trying to show off my command of the English language – thanks to my English teachers who came all the way from England to teach us.
 I was not an ideologue ranting against British imperialism, although my brother, Chief Oduola Osuntokun, who was then a minister in Obafemi Awolowo’s cabinet, was an anti-colonial politician eager to get rid of the British so that we could govern ourselves. I may have grown into a nationalist later, but it was always as a friend of my British benefactors.
This preamble is necessary so that my readers can appreciate my impression of the coronation. I watched the events with interest, recalling the previous coronations in British history I had read about.  I was an exchange student with the School of Oriental and African Studies and Queen Mary’s College, two affiliated colleges of the University of London, during my second year at the University of Ibadan in the 1964-5 session.  I had the privilege of learning English History from the celebrated Professor S.T. Bindoff, the author of “Tudor England,” who taught us as if he had lived the historical experience. I was carried away by British scholarship and university traditions which the University of Ibadan tried very much to copy. I did not see the British as enemies, rather I appreciated their efforts to leave a permanent impression on us on how to run things like our universities, the parliament, political parties, the Anglican Church, yes, the Anglican Church, and the government.
Anyone who grew up in my generation will say we have managed to run all these things down! I was impressed by the clockwork orderliness of the coronation without obtrusive police and military presence. Of course, the intelligence services were there, but they did not make their presence felt. None of the eminent heads of state and crowned heads from all over the world were announced as they took their places, except by the news media.
There is much to admire in the way the British run their affairs, far better and superior to any other country, except perhaps the Japanese. This is not to say that the British have no fault; of course, they do. They benefited tremendously from the triangular slave trade in which our ancestors supplied the market by capturing one another and selling them on a journey of no return.  They abolished the slave trade when it was no longer beneficial to them, and when sugar could be got from India, then under their control, thus rendering the West Indian sugar expendable. The aftermath of the trade in such a sweet commodity, but bringing with it the unkind brutality of plantation slavery, is the enduring racism of white racism against the blacks and browns of which the British are the guiltiest. 
Of course, they are not the only racists.  I can postulate that we are all racists, preferring our own kind to others; but what is odious about the racism of non-blacks is that they all now associate it with black inferiority in relation to all other races.  
The British were the biggest imperialists in human history. They exploited every part of the world for their country’s development. For a long time after flag independence was granted to their colonies, they replaced it with neo-colonial economic relations. They also managed to put in power, on their departure from their colonies, puppet leaders who for long protected British interests.
 In all these the monarchy was a central institution. But we should not blame King Charles III personally, even though he shares part of the historical guilt of association. While I am aware of all these, I still see things to admire in Britain, and in other countries apart from mine.
When I asked if my children enjoyed watching the coronation, my four children were unanimous in saying they had other more important things to do. This is of course in tune with the reaction of young people in Britain itself. My kids said any status based on privilege of birth was unacceptable to them. Even when I said the monarchy provides a seamless headship of state irrespective of politics or when one sovereign passes on and another successor comes to the throne, they were not persuaded. My historical explanation of how the monarchy had provided a rallying point in two World Wars and other times of crisis were unconvincing. 
The economic role of the British crown in bringing tourists to Britain was also downplayed. In short, I couldn’t convince my children, but I held my position that the monarchy has been good to Britain. I am not oblivious of the fact that the accident of birth should not confer undue privileges.
But I will argue that what is ideal is not necessarily real. In our country of perhaps more than two thousand kings, can one really argue against monarchies if it makes the people happy?
 Of course, India removed the powers of the Maharajahs, but left them with their tremendous wealth and palaces. Our own kings are harmless. In fact, politicians find them useful in social and political mobilisation, and they can be helpful in times of crisis. Some of them may be a bit reckless in their amorous escapades, but they provide us with the entertainment and excitement necessary in times of serious local and national problems.
I may not be a royalist, but I see nothing wrong in being one. I am myself descended from royalty, but that is not why I see them as part of our culture. Of course, they exist everywhere under the law, except in some Middle Eastern countries. The British monarchy is a constitutional monarchy, and I would, if I were British, prefer it to a million Donald Trumps, which those in favour of elected presidency may yet get.