The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Don’t japa, yet

    Don’t japa, yet

    By Samuel Akinnuga

    If there is any one quote I have thought about the most this year, it is this one by V.S Naipaul: “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

    In a sense, I can say it’s my favourite of this year because of the profundity in the message. I often think of my country and what it has become whenever the quote comes into my head. We find ourselves in a situation no one could have accurately predicted some 20 years ago considering the sheer level of promise this country held. It has taken almost everything from the average Nigerian to find the strength to continue.  One often wonders how Nigerians manage to survive. The youth, who are supposed to be future leaders of Nigeria, are determined to avoid it. They have devised ways to make themselves happy and hopeful (not in the country, but of their chances of survival and maybe success), sane and savvy, in spite of all the frustrations they have to contend with on a daily basis.

    For most of our young, the idea of a fatherland means next to nothing. You only need to get into a conversation with a Nigerian to realise that the ‘future leaders’ are so uninterested in the Nigerian project. And this is no cold-hearted exaggeration. It is the hard truth. For the majority of Nigerians – young and old – the realities are harsher. Millions of us don’t know where the next food will come from. Millions of us are living with our dignities at a distance. Sad.

    In the midst of our deep-seated failings, one matter that has become quite distressing is what has now been popularised as ‘japa syndrome’. Simply put, to japa is to leave Nigeria without the plans of ever returning. The japa phenomenon has become the most appealing promise to many young and middle-aged Nigerians. It is more so for the working class professionals who see no future here. To my mind, it has assumed the status of a pandemic, but it appears we don’t realise it, yet. You only need to see the queues at the offices of the International Organisation for Migration or the international airport on a daily basis to get the message it is not a fluke. The wave is real. Some people, including ranking government officials, have tried to dismiss the wave of Nigerians leaving to pursue opportunities on the basis that they are an insignificant percentage of the Nigerian population. These people miss the point. Who are the people leaving: are they loafers or people who don’t have jobs? Are they mostly unskilled people who cannot be gainfully engaged in any enterprise? The profiles of a significant number are people who can ideally lead decent lives here. Many of them have well-paying jobs.  The doctors are leaving, nurses are leaving, engineers are leaving; IT experts are leaving; professionals in a wide range of disciplines are leaving. Leaving in droves! And what is better proof of the level of immediate impact than the complaints by employees who are losing talent on a basis so rapid that they can’t keep up with the pace?

    As it is, almost everyone knows someone who has left, is planning to leave, or would leave if the opportunity shows up. For those who don’t share their japa plans, there is the constant suspicion that they are up to something until it is proven. Before the end of the year, it is likely that many more would leave. The pattern is also likely to continue into the new year. You could literally be discussing with a friend or colleague one second and the next, you are told that they have left the country. Of course, you know what that means. They have bolted, many with their families, and the idea of returning is not even up for consideration. A majority keep their japa plans so close to their chest that you find out that they have left just like others in your circle – via a post on social media, or a text informing you of the new development. This has strained many relationships.

    With all the uncertainties, one can understand why anyone would choose not to share. But these things have ripple effects. Many relationships have been strained. Many employers no longer have the motivation to train for the long term out of fear that every employee is a potential japa candidate. The other day, a friend shared with me how a colleague resigned from work with “immediate effect” via a text message. He was at the airport at the time. The line was tried several times unsuccessfully. The gentleman had bolted, but ensured all company property in his possession was returned. I have heard other stories, but none is any pleasant.

    In recent times, the opportunity for postgraduate studies in many countries in Europe, North America and elsewhere has become the pathway to ‘escape’ with the most guarantees. Again, some argue that this situation presents ample opportunities for those who choose to stay. This is partly true, if the assumption is that those who left did so only in the pursuit of better opportunities. In that case, that would only be normal. Alas, that is not the case for most. They’re not just off in pursuit of better opportunities abroad. Rather, they are leaving because they look to the future and they see nothing. This is what should worry any right-thinking, passionate Nigerian.

    We are in a fix: a situation where the ‘future leaders’ of our country are more than willing to take a leap to begin life in another country (or continent) so far away from what used to be home for them. They don’t mind the discomfort of adjusting to a new environment, the pain of being away from loved ones, or likely incidents of racism. They would put up with almost anything just to be away from here. They are willing to bear the burden because they believe, deep down, that being there is far better than being here. They are willing to stake everything in the promise of a place that would, at least, cater for their basic needs while they focus on making the place their new home. They chose to leave because as Warsan Shire aptly put it, home “won’t let them stay.”

    This is not exactly an appeal not to leave, for those who have chosen to do so, as the title may suggest. I did not intend it to be. In any case, there is almost no appeal strong enough to convince anyone whose mind is made up to leave, to reconsider. Their mind is even further steeled by the evidence of the dismal socio-political realities. It is true that not all of us can leave. And it is also true that not everyone would leave even if given the opportunity. But the questions are: what kind of Nigeria would we be living in? And what kind of Nigeria would we be living with? Time will tell.

    Our country is in need of some soul-searching and a conversation with itself. And as I think of Naipaul’s words and the inherent message, it is clear to my mind that Nigeria doesn’t have as many lifelines anymore.  This country has got to mean something to its young, and we need to address this with a spirited sense of urgency. If we lose the best of them, then we would have lost our place in the world. There is no coming back from that.

  • Fashola and highways contractors

    Fashola and highways contractors

    Babatude Fashola, an admired former Lagos State governor shares the same fate with former President Obasanjo and President Buhari who entered into government with overwhelming goodwill of Nigerians but frittered away everything towards the end of their tenure.  In recognition of Fashola’s resourcefulness after his sterling performance as Lagos governor, President Buhari saddled him with three important ministries in 2015. Even when one of the ministries were taken away, leaving Fashola with Ministry of Works and Housing during Buhari’s second term, his image still loomed larger than life.  If there was anything that finally demystified Raji Fashola’s invincibility, it was the jinxed Lagos-Ibadan expressway that had defied Obasanjo and his PDP for 16 years and now possibly Buhari’s eight years reign.

    Last week after so many broken promises by Minister Fashola and the two contractors handling the road,  as well as the House of Representatives deadline to the contractors to complete the project which includes road and bridges by May, the handover date was again shifted to February 2023.

    Sadly, Nigerians and their government manned by Nigerians are the scourge of the nation. Lagos Ibadan Expressway in spite of various budgetary allocations allegedly diverted to fighting elections during 16 years reign of Obasanjo and his PDP remained a decayed infrastructure. Jonathan on the eve of 2015 election embarked on what Dr Doyin Okupe, one-time Obasanjo attack dog, later Jonathan attack ‘lion’ and currently Peter Obi’s presidential campaign director, described as answer to Jonathan government’s marginalization of Yoruba but which this column back then dismissed as Jonathan “Sagamu road show”. As it turned out, it remained just that until Jonathan was voted out of office.

    Other politicians who should be condemned for their role in prolonging the nightmare of Lagos-Ibadan expressway road users include ex- Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara, leaders without abiding faith in any political party. They were accused by Minister Fashola and Vice President Osinbajo of diverting funds for the road to the controversial legislators’ constituency projects in which some of them personally benefitted.  In place of contrition for their unpatriotic act, they intimidated Fashola and threatened to impeach the vice president.

    Unfortunately, Fashola also makes the list of those who have contributed to the nightmare of Lagos-Ibadan expressway road users.  How about his celebration of  the over 8,352km of roads he claimed government has done since 2016,  the 500 rural roads he and Lai Mohammed claimed government completed in 2021, the rehabilitated 12 major roads totalling some 896.187 kilometres, the  N309.9bn  in tax credit for  274.9 kilometres  contract awarded to Dangote industries, the NNPC take-over of the reconstruction of 21 federal roads nationwide, totalling 1,804.6 kilometres.”

    It is not just that people are asking –where are the roads; such claims, even if true, have no effect on users of Lagos-Ibadan expressway who hold Fashola responsible for their continued nightmare on the road.

    His aggrieved Yoruba compatriots have a say to the effect that when you ask a eunuch resident in Lagos about his wife, he is most likely going to say she in Sokoto. Why can’t Fashola identify one federal road completed in the southwest? Ikorodu/Imota/Ijebu Ode road which wrecked my car between 2017 and 2020 is a federal road. Ikorodu-Sagamu road is a federal road. Abeokuta/Otta/Lagos is a federal road. So is Lagos/Badagry/Republic of Benin international road. Had some of these federal roads been mended, they would have taken the pressure off Lagos-Ibadan expressway, many have reasoned.

    Fashola instead of a riot act has been finding excuses for the two contractors. Anyone who has been passing through the Ibadan end of the expressway since March this year will acknowledge that with the slow pace of work noticeable in that axis, it will take a miracle to complete that portion of the road in the next one year. For Fashola, the slow pace of work was attributed to Oyo State government attempt at building a drainage channel across the expressway. Fashola was too young to remember that in the Awo’s fifties, before the arrival of Israeli firm, Sonel Bonel, the likes of Oni and Sons, the major road contractor of the era whose tool was only a shade better than cutlass and hoes, did not take nine months to bore a hole through a road and fix rings to take away drains. Perhaps Fashola should be reminded that Sir James Robertson, the last British Colonial Governor General of Nigeria commended Chief Tony Enahoro for delivering in 1959, the first television in Africa in three months. We also remember the Cocoa House – the tallest building in Nigeria and West Africa completed in 1965 took less than five years.

    Fashola also spoke of the three overhead bridges located at Makun, MFM and Lotto (Mowe) areas on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. These three overhead bridges unfortunately led to nowhere. They only spanned across the eight lane-express road. None of dancing Nyeson Wike’s many overhead bridges in Port Harcourt and across Rivers State took more than one and half years according to the governor. As someone who has regularly plied that road since 2020, I can confirm each of those three bridges took more than two years to complete. And it was not just the length of time but the frustration and helplessness of motorists who, with traffic gridlock sometimes stretching for three kilometres, are often forced to struggle with trailers and petroleum product-laden tankers sometimes for hours.

    On the last six kilometres into Lagos on the Lagos axis which Fashola said was slated to be treated last because of high population density, there can be no excuse for the slow pace of work which has brought untold hardship for residents of Arepo and the Journalists’ Village whose only sin for having to wake up at 4am and spend sometimes over five hours in traffic was having to traverse that portion of the road to their offices.  In an age when China constructed a multi-storey building in less than three weeks, how does one explain that Julius Berger has had to spend the last five months on the Lagos bound portion of the road between OPIC gate and Kara ram market, a distance of less than two kilometres?

    It is hard for anyone who has not experienced the nightmare of motorists between Punch office and Kara to understand the frustration of commuters on this road in the last five months. But I think some newspaper howling headlines such as “Travellers’ Nightmare Continues On Lagos-Ibadan Expressway”; Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) deployed 125 personnel to ease traffic on Lagos–Ibadan express way;  “Lagos/Ibadan Expressway: Julius Berger Killing People, Businesses, Stakeholders Cry Out” and  “The ongoing construction  on…the long bridge, Kara, Berger axis, has made life unbearable for commuters plying the ever-busy road,” captured more vividly the frustrations  of victims of Julius Berger’s total disrespect for Nigerians.

    Funds cannot also be said to be responsible for Julius Berger Nigeria and Reynolds Construction Company’s slow pace of work.  Besides the fund coming from recovered Abacha loot, Abubakar Kabir the House Works Committee’s chairman told us the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was one of the projects funded through the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).

    Fashola’s continued appeal to traumatized Nigerians to endure the shabby treatment of these two contractors, therefore could only have stemmed from the fact that Nigerians are never regarded as citizens or participatory member of our political community.

  • On the world stage

    On the world stage

    HIS action was a perfect response to claims that he was running away from public engagements. No presidential hopeful will ever do that. Especially not one like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The public is the engine that a candidate requires to propel himself to office. Without the support and most importantly, the vote of the public, a candidate is as good as nothing.

    Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress(APC) presidential candidate, is certainly not in the race for the fun of it. He is running becauae he has something to offer. His manifesto: Renewed Hope 2023 is a well thought-out document touching all aspects of life. The working document tells his plans for the country. It contains his thoughts on the economy, security, power, poverty alleviation and education, women and youth development, among others.

    Tinubu knows what the country is passing through and has a template for tackling these challenges. Those who believe in Tinubu know what he can do. They know his capacity and capability; they know him as a reformer and a realist and not an idealist, without anything to offer.

    The Tinubu they know is the kind of president Nigeria needs. A president with ideas on where Nigeria should be in the comity of nations. A Nigeria that should be at the table when other serious nations are conferring. A Nigeria that cannot be pushed aside for whatever reasons.

    Must Tinubu be a debater to do this? The answer is capital NO. It is good to be an orator but that is not all that is required to be a good leader. How many leaders in history are orators? They can be counted off the fingertips. Leadership is not about ‘blowing grammar’, that is eloquence; it is about having the ability to  manage men and materials and the will to see things through.

    A leader who knows how to deploy his assets is already on the way to success. Tinubu displayed this attribute on December 5 when he spoke at the Chatham House in London. His appearance on a world stage at the renowned Royal Institute of International Affairs was a fitting reply to those that have tried all tricks in the book back home to get him to appear at a so-called town hall meeting of presidential candidates.

    Without doubt, newspapers, radio and television stations can organise presidential debates, but they cannot use blackmail or subterfuge to get any candidate to attend. Every news medium must be seen to be objective and fair in whatever it does. It should not employ unethical means to have its way in order to get an individual to appear on its programme. In one word, it should play by the rules.

    Can Arise News, a private television station, be said to have done so in its indecent pursuit of Tinubu to appear at its town hall meeting on December 4 at all costs? Even the station itself knew that it played dirty by dubiously citing a section of the Constitution, which has no relevance to Tinubu or any of the presidential candidate for that matter to falsely give legal backing to its action. Discerning members of the public know better.

    Its claim that it derived the power to invite the standard-bearers for the debate on the strength of that provision which talks about the media holding public office holders accountable is simply laughable. Is Tinubu a public office holder? What public office is he occupying? Can his presidential aspiration be equated to holding a public office?

    Despite Tinubu’s statement that he would not be attending the debate, the medium continued to link him with it in an advert on its station. It claimed that he had been “respectfully invited”. It said the three other candidates, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP) and Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) had been “graciously confirmed”. It signed off the advert like this: “There will be no representations”. It was an apparent dig at Tinubu, who had already said he would not be available.

    Tinubu answered them and others loud and clear in his Chatham House presentation. In his treatise: “Nigeria’s 2023 election: Security, economy and foreign policy imperatives”, he outlined the ills plaguing the nation and set out his solutions to them. He did not spare those who have been querying his identity, birth date and academic qualifications. He said he was a Tinubu through and through who was born 70 years ago. Will his response satisfy them? I doubt it; they may yet come up with other cooked stories.

    Tinubu should not be surprised when they do so. He should just continue to ensure that, as he said, they do not use him to enrich themselves. “I see myself as a marketable individual. They want to use me to make money and I say no”.

    To solve the power problem, he said: “we have privatised power distribution in Nigeria and generation to a certain degree. What we need to do going forward is to improve the enabling environment and further reform the legal and regulatory framework to attract more private investments to the sector as we have experienced in the telecommunications industry”.

    Why is the economy still in the doldrums and how can it be salvaged? According to him, “the fundamental flaws with the basic design of our national economy imperil the private sector from playing the role it ought to and adding the value it is capable of. In this instance, the government must act as catalyst. We shall do this on all fronts. We will address the conflict between monetary and fiscal policies”.

    Tinubu pledged to promote democracy in Africa, with Nigeria taking the lead in free and fair elections to set example for other countries on the continent. You may hate Tinubu’s guts, but his ideas, if not wished away may bring about the much-desired prosperity to Nigeria and remove millions from the pangs of multidimensional poverty. If only the muckrakers could see this quality in him, it would be better for the country and its people.

  • Northeast bazaar

    Northeast bazaar

    By Olatunji Ololade

    (Nigeria’s humanitarian crisis as a meal ticket to foreign NGOs)

    It was a simple question deserving of a simple answer: Has there been any improvement in Nigeria’s fight against terrorism? I asked, but the “humanitarians” parried. Brian Laguardia, the head, civil-military coordinator, OCHA, did his bit shielding the body of “aid agencies” from harmless scrutiny.

    He stated that none of the foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) present would respond to questions at the forum. They were collaborating senior military officers and with the Nigerian government to bring succour to the victims, he said condescendingly.

    “What is your exit plan?” I asked, “When would the crisis be deemed abated? Are we going to sit here and still talk about this in the next 10 years? Should Nigeria be wary of any plot to incite in the country a social humanitarian crisis like NATO and foreign NGOs did in Afghanistan?”

    You could hear a pin drop in the conference room of the Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Hadin Kai, in Maiduguri, Borno State as the “aid workers” squirmed in their seats.

    Laguardia spiritedly stone-walled, deploying tepid diplomacy. It was the best he could do given the circumstances. But even as a trained military operative, he was tactful and polite, compared to the deputy head of OCHA, Esty Sutyoko, a diminutive but odd character who attempted to halt the introduction of participants at the meeting, describing it as “unnecessary.”

    Sutyoko frantically avoided the podium and tried to appropriate a desk microphone far from her seat but she later scurried to the dais to redirect the forum from the main issues.

    It was amusing to see her chant her organisation’s characteristically grim and doctored statistics about gender-based violence while she announced an ongoing 16-day gender activism, saying it was imperative for journalists to participate actively.

    The forum wisely ignored her theatrics and focused on the main issues. By the time I was through with my submission, officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO) darted out of the room, apparently demystified. Laguardia lamented that they all felt “ambushed.”

    If they felt ambushed, how do they think Nigeria feels amid the protracted “humanitarian” racket and seeming ill-will meted to the country in the guise of international aid?

    I asked a simple question deserving a simple answer. Has there been an improvement in the situation in the northeast? But they cringed. The demeanour of the aid workers implied a deliberate bid to scuttle a realistic assessment of the anti-terror war in the northeast.

    Perhaps they know something we don’t; like another direful sitrep or hyperbolic “investigation” contrived with one or two of their sponsored foreign media – with a bid to justify their eternal residence of Nigeria’s northeast.

    Their deportment suggested an agenda to aggravate the crisis rather than resolve it. Of course, many a Nigerian get confused and misled by the NGOs’ cultured tokenism: a plumpy sup diet here and there for malnourished minors; an empowerment scheme targeted at women alone; and a flurry of sexed-up situation reports (sitreps) often misleads many to believe that but for the foreign NGOs, Nigeria would have imploded to the crisis in the northeast.

    Nigeria’s anti-terror campaign isn’t perfect. It is, of course, fraught with challenges, but it wouldn’t hurt the foreign NGOs to acknowledge success in local intervention irrespective of their plots to attract donations.

    The push by the Nigerian Armed Forces to end insurgency in northeast Nigeria, for instance, has led to the surrender of 82,237 fighters and their families since July 2021.

    The bulk of the surrendered fighters of Boko Haram and Islamic States West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorist groups, were women and children of the fighters and others rescued by the military.

    And there is no gainsaying the crisis has abated in Borno; the insurgents have been dislodged from 23 local governments under their control and chased into the fringes of Sambisa and Nigeria’s borders with her francophone neighbours.

    Read Also: Flood: Rivers IDPs bemoan plight

    Commerce has picked up in the northeast region as thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives in their war-torn communities and resettlement camps.

    It’d be abominable perhaps for Nigeria’s supposed NGO partners to acknowledge such milestones. They would rather harp on established shortcomings of the anti-terror campaign.

    The plot gets intense by the minute. Thus the persistently dark nature of foreign media reports about Nigeria’s anti-terrorism war. In about a decade of covering the conflict, I have discovered that international NGOs are wary of seeing the crisis end very soon.

    Their dilemma is understandable if Nigeria should successfully end terrorism, NGOs are done in the country. They would have no more reasons to stay.

    At the moment, the number of international NGOs or humanitarian actors has skyrocketed to about 243 in the northeast alone – most of them in Borno – many of them performing duplicate roles. It’s quite disconcerting and shady.

    It is in the NGOs’ best interests if the crisis escalates. And as a measure of their weird wishes for Nigeria, they make conscious efforts to reassert their stake in the crisis.

    It has become the norm to see an NGO take a five to 10-year lease on a private home or hotel in Borno. In fact, the staff of the NGO channel pride in how many modish homes and hotels they have acquired via such suspicious lease arrangements.

    Friends in NGOs carelessly brag about living in relatively posh apartments in Borno’s Government Reservation Area (GRA) and hotels. “The crisis won’t end in the next ten years,” an aid worker and friend from a neighbouring African country told me three years ago in a state of exultation.

    The hundreds of staff members of the NGOs are equally psyched to operate in Borno given the attendant perks of the hazard allowances (aka Danger Pay) among others frequently doled out to them as compensation for working in a conflict zone.

    More worrisome is the case of local NGOs run by Nigerians. Due to their dependence on funding and other resource support from their international partners, they continually submit as willing muscles and pawns in the designs of their international benefactors.

    The antics of the “aid workers” on Monday night at the headquarters of JTF, Operation Hadin Kai, in Maiduguri, insinuates dangerous plots in intervention efforts in the northeast.

    It’s about time the Nigerian government considered national interest in its desperation to look good before self-serving elements and tools of imperialism of the so-called first world.

    Nigeria must begin to pay better attention to the operations of foreign NGOs including their ‘partnerships’ with local affiliates. Who is monitoring the pathways of donor funds? Why do we have about 243 NGOs working in the northeast alone? What is the depth and direction of their operations vis-a-vis the actual intervention needs of the northeast? Is there sabotage?

    While we hold the Nigerian government and military to unimpeachable standards of conduct, let us accord the same treatment to foreign NGOs. They aren’t above our laws.

    Nigeria must learn from the Afghan aid disaster. Nobody could love our country more than we do. No foreign NGO or media would ever aspire to utmost humaneness and social responsibility in reporting Nigeria.

    Journalists and civil societies must equally avoid being used as pawns in validating their incendiary sitreps and reports. The lust for NGO patronage should never incite Nigerians to mortgage national interest for hard currency – whatever the slant of their greed and their sponsors’ professed intent.

  • Let there be petrol

    Let there be petrol

    Since the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s metamorphosis into a limited liability company (LLC) in July, nothing has really changed in the oil sector than the firm’s name. The company became NNPCL from its hitherto known acronym, NNPC, in a time of petrol scarcity six months ago, and is still in the throes of these birth pangs.

    The problem may not go away anytime soon. What is more, NNPCL seems not to have an answer to the challenge. If it has, the crisis would not linger. For over three weeks, the nation has been reeling under a scarcity which ordinarily should not have arisen. NNPC’s commercialisation was expected to be an harbinger of good things for the industry.

    Its chief executive officer, Mele Kyari, said as much at its inauguration on July 19 by President Muhammadu Buhari. NNPCL is not a child of circumstance, its birth was well planned for. For years, the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which gives the firm legal teeth to operate was in the works. The making of the law took years because stakeholders wanted a legislation that would protect NNPCL and give it powers to operate without let or hindrance. So far, NNPCL has been a huge disappointment.

    In the few months of its operation so far, it has shown that the issue is not about commercialisation or state-ownership. To some, seven months may be too short to assess the firm and conclude that it is not working, but the reality on the ground leaves one with no other conclusion. The firm knew what it was getting into after the PIA was passed. Kyari and some other key officers of NNPC, as it then was, even made it look like after the coming of the law, the public will see a new oil firm where everything it touches will turn gold.

    An NNPCL where petrol is refined locally and where it is done outside, as is presently the case, the product will be made available at little or no hiccup to people. The people have not seen this Midas touch. Instead, it is now more stressful gettig petrol than it was before the change in NNPC’s name. The people did not bargain for just a name change, what they were looking out for was a commercialised enterprise with the will to run its own show, without minding whose ox is gored. We are still in Square One; it is not a matter of returning there. The status quo has not changed.

    Read Also; Fuel crisis: Open letter to PMB

    It may not change with the way things are going. The current scarcity is informed by the same reasons as those of the past. Since the four refineries are not working at optimal capacities, the country has been taken crude abroad to refine at an exhorbitant cost. Ironically, it also imports petrol to meet domestic shortfall when it should be exporting to earn more revenue and enhance gross national product (GNP).

    The refined product is shipped back, also at an expensive rate. On getting to the shores of the country, it is also delivered at a high cost. The discharge of the product from the mother to the daughter vessel is so costly that before it gets to private depots or tank farms, the price is already hitting the roof, without even reaching the retail outlets yet.

    The process is cumbersome. With such an awkward way of producing, refining, storing and delivering petrol, the price cannot but be high since retailers must add their own mark-up, the margin at which to make profit, so as to remain in business. Why then are we talking of subsidy where there is no cushion whatsoever for end-users? Who is collecting the subsidy? Those importing petrol on behalf of NNPCL? Is the payment open and transparent? So many things are wrong with subsidy payment and there is no way that they can be corrected by simply making NNPC a commercial venture.

    There are many state oil firms doing well in the world. There is Aramco of Saudi Arabia, Petrobas of Brazil and Rosneft of Russia. These are models that Nigeria can copy from to get things right in the oil industry. If these countries can run their oil firms and make profit, Nigeria can do the same, if corruption is eliminated from the system. Systemic corruption is the bane of not only the oil industry, but also other sectors of the economy. Until corruption is curbed, things will continue to go wrong in the oil sector.

    What will happen if subsidy is removed and petrol is regularly available and sells, at say, N300 per litre? Will motorists buy? To answer these questions, it must be noted that owning a car is not a luxury, but a necessity to serve certain needs. That being the case, motorists will buy because they have need for the petrol. They are buying it now at that rate and more in the midst of scarcity.

    Despite all the hue and cry over the high cost of diesel and kerosine, which has been dubbed as ‘poor man specific’, people still buy the products. Kerosine has been selling for about N400 to N500 per litre for years, while the price of diesel has been hovering between N700 and N800 in the last few months.

    Something must give for the country to arrive at an appropriate pricing of petrol to end its incessant scarcity. We cannot live behind a river and be washing our hands with spittle. For now, NNPCL has no solution to the problem. This is why it has not come out with its usual statement that there is enough stock to last till  Christmas and the new year. The people will be happy if the country is ‘wet with petrol’, to borrow NNPCL’s technical lingo. So, ‘all we are saying: give us petrol’.

    The public should not celebrate Christmas and the new year, which are just a few days away, with long queues of vehicles at filling stations across the country. This will be a sad way to end 2022.

  • COP27 and global effort at reversing climate change

    COP27 and global effort at reversing climate change

    The Conference of the Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held at Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt from November 2 – 19  but had to be extended for a few days  because of deadlock and acrimony in moving forward in the progress on COP 26 held in  Glasgow Scotland last year and to chart the way forward  to reversing the heating of the global environment as a result of carbon and methane emissions caused primarily by human activities otherwise known as anthropogenic climate change.

    The issue of the rise in global temperature first came to the fore when Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development and issued its report in 1987 known popularly as (OUR COMMON FUTURE) and suggested that if the world was to survive, it must embrace sustainable development paradigm by which it was pointed out that the old system of carbon fuelled industrialisation must be mitigated by among other things, preservation of the world’s forest, developing appropriate technologies to drastically reduce carbon emissions, and taking measures to preserve natural diversity of plants and animals and stopping pollution of the oceans which were carbon sinks but were rapidly reaching a level of saturation.

    Since the Rio de Janeiro conference known as the EARTH’S SUMMIT of June 1992, there have been several conferences on the same issue in 1995, 1997, 2003, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2021, to mention the most notable ones before the one in Paris leading to virtually all countries in the world signing the Paris Protocol of 2015 after COP 21. The Paris Protocol signed by 196 countries including our country Nigeria, committed to a binding agreement to reverse emissions of greenhouse gases to manageable levels and ensure that global temperature does not exceed more than1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial level which was an agreement already enshrined in the Kyoto protocol of 1997 which entered into force in 2005 because of the complex nature of signing on to it by parties to the protocol. It committed signatories to substantial and radical reduction of carbon dioxide, methane, Nitrous oxide, Hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur-hexafluoride.

    In simple terms, the Kyoto protocol committed industrialised countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce greenhouse gasses emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets. The reduction of these greenhouses gases was left in in the hands of individual countries without any form of international enforcement. It was also said that the cost of the Kyoto protocol outweighed its advantages. These issues were then supposedly tackled in the Paris agreement. But the big industrial nations of the European Union, the United States, China and countries like Australia and India were still reluctant to make wholehearted commitment to measures necessary to enhance the global environment and abate climate change. The Glasgow COP26 reaffirmed the commitment of the Paris protocol and most countries committed themselves to adopting clean, presumably, green energy latest by year 2050.

    Read Also; Nigeria’s focus at COP27

    To most climate activists, this did not demonstrate that the leaders of the world know the enormity and seriousness of the problem. Reactionary forces in the West particularly in the United States continued to challenge the scientificity of climate change and to pin climate change on self-correcting cycles. When President Donald J. Trump became president of the United States in 2016, he withdrew from the Paris Accord arguing that the cost to the United States was unfair. With his action, the action to save the global environment became hostage to internal politics in the most polluting countries like the USA, China, Australia, India, the European Union and Brazil. Many of the developing countries began to argue that since they did not contribute to the  emissions of greenhouse gases due to industrialisation, they should be spared the cost of reversing the damage and began to suggest a “polluter pays principle” which has now metamorphosed into “loss and damage”  principle during the COP27 discussion in Egypt.

    In the final document of COP 27, a Loss and Damage Fund is to be set up to assist countries that are threatened by climate change. The problem is how much will the rich world contribute to this fund and the mechanism of appropriation is yet to be worked out. What contributions will be made by non-governmental bodies such as industrial corporations will be critical to how the world moves on from now.

    The problem of how rapidly green energy to replace the dirty hydrocarbons will be developed is still left to industrial bodies. In the meantime, countries are still going to continue to burn hydrocarbons to generate much needed energy in the industries and homes of the temperate climatic environment of the world to avoid people freezing in winter. Those countries in the warmer part of the world and even those who need air conditioning in summer depending on hydrofluorocarbons in their freezers and air conditioning system will continue with the old practice until replacements are found for these environmental pollutants.

    In the meantime, the damage continues and according to the Secretary General of the United Nations, we may be reaching a tipping point of climatic irredeemability. The Putin war on Ukraine has also slowed down global efforts to save the world’s climate because well laid down plans of energy use have now been disrupted by sanctions on Russian gas and oil and the war has damaged nuclear power stations in Ukraine which provided cleaner energy than hydrocarbons.

    The COP 27 was not an outright failure. It seems there was an agreement to, among other things, develop the next generation of innovative clean energy and climate solutions. There was also an agreement to focus on the development needs of the Global South and support those on the front lines of climate change. There was a consensus to move from ambition to action, accountability and implementation. This should be the next issue in the next COP 28.

    It was also agreed to reduce carbon emissions and Methane emissions simultaneously. If the major countries of the world particularly the USA, China, India, Japan and the European Union key into the action to reverse the abuse of the environment and change their industrial processes, the world may still reach its goal of reducing global warming to 1.5  degree Celsius but certainly not more than 2 degrees Celsius. The good thing is that the unreasonably high temperatures all over the world, the bush fires in the Americas particularly north and South America including “the lungs of the earth “in the Amazon basin, the flooding all over the world, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes and heavy and early precipitation of snow are more than enough to convince doubters that global warming and climate change is real.  The problem really is how to harmonise development and living standards of people with sustainable climate health. If the world cannot answer this question then the world is doomed.

    Serious abatement measures will not be taken until these problems pose existential problems to mankind and one hopes it may not be too late by them. The problem is really the eternal question of absence of a “world government “since the United Nations has been reduced to a mere talking shop.

    For us in Nigeria and as a party to the UNFCCC, we have to take local actions about stopping of felling of what is left of our tropical forests. We have to build more hydroelectric power stations and possibly nuclear power stations and move away from gas and diesel and coal fired turbines. We must discourage firewood burning to cook our meals and rely more on gas.

    It should be clear to everybody that the excitement over the new petroleum discovery in Bauchi is not worth celebration because the world is moving away from hydrocarbons and if we don’t join the world in saving the environment, we may be forced to do so. We must impose the attachment of catalytic converters to all vehicles on our roads and retire all gas belching vehicles polluting our environment. We may have to reduce the heads of cattle we have to reduce their emissions of methane into the air. Our government has its task cut out for it if it must remain a responsible member of the global community aware of the common existential threat to humanity.

  • Ekiti lawmakers’ macabre dance

    Ekiti lawmakers’ macabre dance

    It is not difficult to see why concerned Ekitis will readily identify with the righteous indignation of respected Ekiti SANs led by our revered Pa Afe Babalola over the macabre dance in Ekiti House of Assembly where members crowned, uncrowned and re-crowned different speakers in a space of six days. The proud and peace-loving people of Ekiti have watched helplessly since Obasanjo unleashed his vindictive war on Yorubaland  and by extension his imposition of Ayo Fayose whose only qualification was being a graduate of Lamidi Adedibu School of “amala’ Politics, a euphemism for ‘stomach infrastructure’ on Ekiti in 2003.

    Nothing has ever been the same. Those who, like their role model, pretended to be driven by a passion to serve Ekiti people, have continued to behave like prostitutes with five husbands.

    Today it is difficult to know the ideological or philosophical underpinnings of Ekiti political actors. It is even more difficult to know who belong to which political party. The only thing that is apparent is that these political actors who are all friends and  belonging to the same social or professional groups, at every run-up to election, throw Ekiti into a turmoil of warring groups with hostilities only ceasing after the emergence of a victor, followed by a  renewed friendship of yesterday’s sworn enemies.

    In spite of all the bloodletting, Fayose is not Fayemi’s enemy. He has at some critical period even short-changed his own party to pave way for Fayemi’s victory.  Engineer Segun Oni is no enemy of both, as he dances his way through AD, ACN, PDP and APC back to PDP, Labour, and lately SDP. Ayo Arise parted ways temporarily with Fayemi, and Opeyemi Bamidele when Obasanjo rigged a senate seat for him. After serving as one of the highest paid senators in the world, he is today reunited with his friends.  Fayemi and Bamidele have always been close friends, but when the later wanted the position of the former, they turned our land of honour to a land of horror. No power in Ekiti land or elsewhere in Yoruba land could stop Opeyemi from trading off his friend’s re-election bid for Fayose’s victory. No one ever told us the price of betrayal as the three quietly resumed their friendship after the battle. Femi Ojudu mobilized and even kept night vigils so that Fayemi could return to power. Today, they are not on speaking terms. As their senior professional colleague, when I sought the help of a respected Ekiti elder for the purpose of reconciling the two estranged friends, I was advised to save my saliva as both, according to him, knew “what they are doing”.

    As for Fayemi, since he was humbled by Fayose and the federal might, it is difficult to know which god he worships. He is at home with conservatives, progressives and even reactionaries depending on his interest. Two of those who contributed to his downfall during his first outing and later served Fayose for four years worked directly with him in his office.

    But if you want to understand the depth of chicanery and perfidy of Ekiti political actors, just evaluate Senator Biodun Olujimi’s 2015 argument to justify Saraki’s treachery against his party. For her, APC cannot make demand on their senate president because it was PDP that gave him 42 of the 53 votes with which he traded off the victory of his party while his other APC elected senators were having a meeting with the president.

    Read Also; Intrigues, power tussle tear Ekiti Assembly apart

    But while their macabre dance goes on, hunger strikes one on the face in any village as you enter in Ekiti. Today, the roads in Ekiti are, according to Pa Afe Babablola, worse than our unpaved and un-tarred roads of the fifties. Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort collapsed under Fayose.  And while the southwest consumes 10,000 of cows daily, all the cows imported into the ranch set up by late Pa Adekunle Ajasin died or were eaten by Oni and Fayemi’s foot soldiers during their four years battle for Ekiti government house. And but for Obasanjo vindictive war against Fayose, his godson, we would not have known that the N14b poultry farm Fayose traded for Ekiti State Teaching Hospital, was a sham.

    Pa Afe Babalola and his group of SANs must be applauded because Ekiti people need protection from their self-serving political actors. The problem however is that, by picking on political parties, instead of their wayward children, the SANs started on a wrong footing. This is because a political party as ‘a free association of persons, who hope to participate in the management of public affairs and whose essential role according to  European Court of Human Rights is “in ensuring pluralism and the proper functioning of democracy” is often controlled by a democratic oligarchy of stakeholders.

    It is like a cult.  There is no place for anti-party activities and your personal ambition takes the back stage. As the Ekiti embattled lawmakers rightly reminded the SANs, “This same Aribisogan was equally suspended by the fifth assembly during the tenure of Governor Fayose by PDP for alleged anti-party activities”. Heavens did not fall then. It will not fall now. The SANs may get him a judicial reprieve. But it will be nothing but a pyrrhic victory.

    The respected SANs also suffer from crisis of credibility. Legislative rascality has been a feature of Ekiti State House of Assembly since 2003. This was why the House is asking that if impeachment of Aribisogun by 17 members of the house   ‘demonstrated a penchant for political rascality, impunity, brazenness and recklessness of no mean measure,” why was it that there was no convergence of legal luminaries to condemn series of infraction of the constitution including that which impeached the then speaker, Adewale Omirin by seven members during Fayose PDP administration? Other infractions ignored by the SANs at the period include Fayose’s assault of a judge who was presiding over the case of his eligibility along with some thugs in his court room. Fayose also chased out of town, majority of elected members of Ekiti State House of Assembly with the help of thugs and prevented them from returning to the state to campaign for re-election. There was no whimper from our respected SANs.

    The embattled house members have also said they “feel a sense of injustice by the one-sided opinion and biased intervention of the legal luminaries, who are also elder statesmen”. Of course, it is an open secret that Pa Afe Babalola is a close friend and an ally of ex-President Obasanjo who has by his action demonstrated his contempt for the Ekitis. It is also difficult to dismiss insinuations that some of the Ekiti concerned SANs have been known to openly canvass or campaign for support for candidate of some political parties.

    However, since we have established that the lines between political parties in Ekiti are not only blurred, indeed, what we have in place of political parties are pig-headed, irreverent politicians without principles. With the foisting of Fayose as alternative to gentleman Adeniyi Adebayo in 2003, most of the current politicians think they need to descend to Fayose’s level to be successful. This perhaps explains why nearly all Ekiti politicians since 2007 including those who wear Awo’s cap like St Christopher’s cross, have not behaved differently from Fayose .

    But the challenge before the SANs is very clear. To change the narrative, the SANs who have done so much to save Nigeria should pay some attention to their home by periodic intervention as they have just done if only to give hope and assure our youths that there is alternative to the ongoing politics without principle.

  • The many casualties of Wike’s challenge

    The many casualties of Wike’s challenge

    Greed is thy name, Nigerian educated political elite. Obafemi Awolowo, a Nigerian patriot who lived ahead of his time arrived at this conclusion long before independence in 1960. He has been proven right as only a few members of our educated political elite  have demonstrated they are driven by noble objectives including celebrating the values of our interconnectedness, asking for what they can do to make Nigeria better for Nigerians or “becoming the change they want to see in others” as Mahatma Ghandi put it.

    Sadly a great number of members of our political elite have turned out to be unprincipled   megalomaniacs, driven only by self- interest. For them, it has always been “what is on it for us”? His thesis has since been validated by various events in our chequered history.

    First, Chief S.L Akintola, his trusted ally was removed from office as premier for maladministration and anti-party activities by executive organ of Action Group on May 19, 1962. But driven by greed for power, rather than vacate office despite London Privy Council’s ruling that sanctioned his removal as premier, he refused to resign. (Akintola taku). He chose to invite leaders of the ruling coalition partners, Ahmadu Bello and Nnamdi Azikiwe who with false testimonies of Chief E A Okunowo, Chief Ayo Rosiji, Chief Abiodun Akerele, also driven by greed for contract, succeeded in sending Awolowo to prison.

    Akintola’s enablers who unconstitutionally interfered in the affairs of Western Region in 1962 couldn’t have been motivated by any noble objective beyond a desire to run Nigeria according to their worldview and without an opposition leader.  From hindsight, we now also know the civil war was driven by greed for power by northern and eastern political elite. The short-lived troubled marriage of NPP and NPN in the second republic, the annulment of 1993 MKO Abiola’s pan-Nigerian mandate, the imposition of Obasanjo, rejected by his people as president, his dancing on the tomb of MKO Abiola for eight years just as Ernest Shonekan did before him for three months and foisting of ailing Yar’Adua and later ill-prepared Goodluck Jonathan as presidents  by Obasanjo could never have been driven by noble objectives. It was all about Obasanjo, the celebrated “father of PDP.

    As it was yesterday, so it is today.  The ongoing dance of death between PDP’s five governors ,(the Integrity Group) and the leadership of their party, patterned after  similar 2014  Atiku-led five PDP governors’ revolt that wrecked PDP in 2015,  has very little to do with protection of institutional democracy or the travails of  Nigerians. It is driven in the main by self-interest of the warlords.

    Whether it is about Nyesom Wike’s lamentation over breach of PDP constitution which produced Atiku Ababakar as PDP 2023 presidential candidate while short-changing southern political office seekers,  or the alleged pocketing of N1billion party convention proceeds by Iyorchia Ayu the PDP chairman or Wike’s last week last challenge to his fellow South-south governors to account for proceeds of 13% derivation funds they took from Buhari, it is all about them and their  greed.

    Of course PDP itself was a product of greed.  Described by John Campbell, former US ambassador to Nigeria, during his March 19, 2010 lecture titled: Nigeria In Turmoil as  “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”, what defined  PDP’s 16 years reign was greed.

    Driven by greed, PDP’s first major policy thrust was the 2001 PPPRA Act which   allowed them to increase the number of fuel importers from 10 in 2007 to 140 by 2011.  But it was greed over sharing that led to PDP’s deadly family quarrel with Bukola Saraki emerging an unexpected whistle-blower in a fuel subsidy scam that was to consume everyone.  A National Assembly probe was to later confirm that while PPPRA put the figure of imports at 59 million litres of fuel per day, only 35 million litres were consumed in the country. The probe also revealed that PDP stalwarts and their siblings defrauded Nigeria to the tune of N1.7trillion by forging documents without importing a pint of fuel.

    Their next major policy thrust was the privatization programme. In 2010, a National Assembly probe revealed that what Obasanjo and Atiku did in the name of privatization between 1999 and 2003 was to literarily share Nigeria among their PDP members who had access to state money. Nigerian total investment of over $100b between 1960 and 1999 was sold for a paltry $1.5b.

    The party’s monetization policy was not different. It was equally driven by greed. The self-serving policy allowed PDP members and their fronts to confiscate physical assets dating back to the colonial era. It is on record that David Mark as Senate President, Dimeji Bankole as Speaker of the Lower House as well as Chukwuma Soludo as CBN Governor bought their official residences after government renovation at fractions of their real costs.

    For PDP, implosion has always come from within. Those PDP leaders, including Ayu who referred to Nyesom Wike,  a witness to his party’s baleful legacies, as a small boy, now know they are doing so at their own peril.  Wike, a self-confessed committed PDP member with PDP DNA has been an ardent student of PDP leaders including Obasanjo, Saraki and Atiku who have in the pursuits of their different selfish interests at different times in the past brought PDP to grief. Beyond words, theatrics and dancing, Wike has proved that he has come of age in the game of mischief and party intrigue. Today “the child is the father of Man.”(William Wordsworth, 1802).

    Greed is a perfected weapon of PDP and its leaders.  Just as Hitler used democracy to bring down democrats of his time, Wike is relying on greed to bring down PDP. Greed has therefore become the springboard for their fight of death with their party. He and his Integrity Group insisted Abubakar Atiku breached PDP constitution because of greed for power. They then went after Ayu, the party chairman accusing him of greed for allegedly cornering N1b accruing to the party from their party convention.  And for his South-south governors, Wike went for their underbelly. Having demonstrated to Nigerians what he is doing with 13% derivation funds paid by President Buhari, he wants his colleagues from a geopolitical zone notorious for serving as Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) to successive presidential candidates from Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Buhari to account for their own Buhari windfalls.

    Wike seems to have been well prepared for this battle. For two years he has been showcasing the results of his huge investments in infrastructural development in Rivers including inter-state and intra state roads, Cancer centre and the N17 b Nigerian Law School and even stomach infrastructure in form of employment of 20,000 special assistants as election observers.

    Finally, I think another casualty of Wike’s challenge is our hypocritical electronic and press media, a big chunk of which is owned by indigenes of that geo-political zone. For Wike, Nigerians would never have known about the payments PDP government never made even in the days of abundance.  While they dance to the banks with millions made from news commercialization, promoting unverifiable projects purportedly executed by governors who “cannot meet up with pensions or boast of schools in top shape” while piling up loans despite “raking in over N300 billion from the Buhari government”, Wike is treated as a clown because of his throaty songs, diction, and dancing steps.  Now the joke is on them.

  • Agenda destroyers

    Agenda destroyers

    THE agenda setting theory allows the media to collate socio-economic and political issues, determine the most important and run them as news items. The principle treats the media as agenda setter because it has the wherewithal to undertake the grand exercise of identifying issues of the day and playing them up for the general good.

    The theory empowers the media to determine what the issues are without taking into consideration that the media could be biased. This cannot be treated as a flaw though, but as a failure on the part of the media (or better still, a section of it) to discharge this onerous responsibility without descending into the arena.

    This was not the basis on which McCombs and Shaw propounded the theory. They saw the media more as an institution and not as a group of individuals that could be easily influenced in their judgements and/or reasonings. Between 1972, when the duo came up with the theory and now, the media has really evolved, with the coming of the social media. The social media is mainly driven by Citizen Journalists (an euphemism for untrained journalists), who set agenda based on their personal convictions.

    The social media cannot be blamed for its shallow way of thinking as the mainstream or traditional media is not different. The latter which should know better do worse things than the former under the guise of agenda setting. The ongoing campaigns for the 2023 elections have shown how the media through a section of it can destroy rather than set the agenda to guide the people in their electoral choices. They leave the issues to attack the person, just like social media, without hearing from their subject.

    The campaigns have shown how low the media has sunk. The media’s job is to hold people, especially those in power accountable for their actions. To do this well, the media must first be accountable to itself. In other words, to see the speck in others’ eyes, the media must first remove the log in its own eyes. Unfortunately, the media has not been able to do that and this is a big shame.

    At the rate it is going now, the media can get away with murder! It has taken liberty for licence as it goes out of its way to run people down without giving them a chance to state their own case. This practice is against all known journalism rules, but mediums such as Arise News, a television station, and This Day, its precursor in the print industry, do not give a hoot. All they are after is the man, that is All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and not any truth whatsoever concerning him. To them, the juicier the lie, the better.

    In the eyes of Arise and This Day, Tinubu will always be wrong. This is why, in negation of the agenda setting principle, they will go for him and not his views. This is why they will always slant the news to paint him as a villain before the public. According to McCombs and Shaw, when the media reflects on the views of a candidate during a campaign, it is also shaping and determining the issues of importance. Arise and This Day are not interested in Tinubu’s views, they are only interested in bringing him down.

    For sometime now, the station has resorted to armtwisting tactics in order to get Tinubu to appear in its studio. It went on air on several occasions to tell the world that it has been inviting him for interview and was literally begging viewers to prevail on him to honour the invitation. Haba! A man has the right to choose whose invitation to honour and vice versa and that right cannot be taking away from him because he is a presidential candidate. Until the station comes with clean hands, Tinubu will continue to keep it at arms length.

    Look at the forged letter they claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) issued about investigating some so-called allegations against Tinubu! Look at their fake news on the death of Mueez Akande, who they have been trying to link with Tinubu over an alleged forfeiture case!! They were fined N2 million by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for the forged INEC letter, but they were not remorseful. They still came up with the hoax report on Mueez Akande’s death.

    This Day goofed big time! Instead of admitting its gaffe, it tried to justify it in the caption of its front page picture on Monday, featuring Tinubu and Mrs Lola Akande whose husband Dr Kolapo Akande actually died. It is how not to write a photo caption. It shows the desperation of This Day to truncate  Tinubu’s presidential ambition at all costs. It is left for media experts to judge whether it was appropriate to caption the picture thus:

    Tinubu’s condolence visit to the Akandes… APC Presidential Candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, during a condolence visit to Lola Akande, wife of late Dr Kolapo Akande (not Mueez as erroneously reported in some parts of our story last week. Other parts correctly reflected Kolapo’s death. Dr Kolapo Akande is brother to Mueez who was mentioned in the forfeiture of $460,000 in the Chicago Court documents), at Kolapo’s residence in Magodo, Lagos…yesterday. Was that a correction or what?

    Sadly, there is no regulator to call This Day to order as NBC did to its television wing, Arise. My concerns are that ultimately, journalism is the loser! Honestly,  the Nigeria Press Organisation (NPO) cannot be talking of self- or co-regulation when some of those leading the campaign are not practicing what they are preaching. However, this is not to say that government regulation is the way to go.

    As professionals, we need to get our acts right. I will not be surprised if they come after me, asking: what do you expect him to write? Do you not know his medium? These questions are beside the point. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, as  Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike will say.

     

    David v Goliath

    IT was a match that fans all over the world expected Argentina to win by a huge margin. But that was not the case. Against all (betting) odds, Saudi Arabia demolished Lionel Messi’s Argentina 2-1, to record the first major upset in the ongoing World Cup in Qatar. ‘Messi messed’, an editor said on Tuesday on learning of the outcome of the match. More upsets will surely come as the competition progresses.

    Today, Messi’s greatest rival, Cristiano Ronaldo, will lead Portugal out against Ghana in their own group game. Will it be another David defeats Goliath story? In football, anything can happen as we saw in the Argentina, Saudi Arabia match. Ronaldo has not been in the best of forms this season, but he is a player that cannot be written off, just like that. He may yet spring a surprise and return to his goal-scoring ways at this fiesta.

    With him now without a club, following his exit from Manchester United over his explosive interview with Piers Morgan of the Good Morning Britain fame in which he tore the club to shreds, Ronaldo knows that this is his only chance to tell the world that he is not finished and get clubs come running for his signature again. It will be interesting to see how he performs and how the match goes.

  • Putin’s war on Ukraine: Threat of Armageddon

    Putin’s war on Ukraine: Threat of Armageddon

    On Tuesday  November 15, while the G-20 meeting of the most economically developed countries in the world consisting of countries making up the G-7 namely, the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, and the second most economically and militarily powerful country , second to the United States, China, and other important countries like Indonesia, India, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, South Korea, Mexico, Turkey and the European Union were meeting in Bali  Indonesia, a missile hit a village in Poland on the border of Ukraine. The president of Ukraine with little evidence concluded that this was a Russian attack on Poland, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO}. He had apparently expected this to trigger Article 5 of NATO that an attack on one is an attack on all. This would have meant that the United States, Canada and the western alliance in Europe would have been immediately at war with Russia. This would have changed the military equation on the ground and Russian territory from the Urals to Vladivostok would have been targets of attack.  The Russian population that has been virtually insulated from the horrors of the war would have been given a taste of what they have been dishing to Ukraine since 2014. Without resort to nuclear weapons, Russia would conceivably have been destroyed or defeated. What China would have done in this scenario is not clear but China would not have been a mere observer if war was going on at its borders with Russia in Asia. There is some kind of treaty of friendship between China and Russia although it is not clear how much importance China attaches to it even though Vladimir Putin says it is an “eternal treaty of friendship”.  The fear that if it was true that Russia was deliberately targeting Poland, then the war was assuming a new dimension. This was what led President Joe Biden to quickly dampen the excitement in Ukraine that the United States was studying the situation and that what seemed to have happened was that an Ukrainian missile intercepted an oncoming Russian cruise missile and the fragments of the Ukrainian missile fell on the border of Ukraine with Poland unfortunately killing two polish villagers. This was also quickly confirmed by the polish prime minister who has in recent times come under withering campaign in Russia of being afflicted by anti-Russian virus. The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, knowing fully well that a war between NATO and Russia was unwinnable quickly called a press conference to calm things down.

    Yet the Ukrainian president to the embarrassment of Biden and the NATO alliance stuck to his gun that the missile that hit Poland came from a Russian cruise missile. He was pacified by members of the western alliance blaming Russia for the incident because if Russia had not subjected Ukraine to a barrage of missiles, there would have been no need to intercept one of them. Of course this is not the same as an attack by Russia on a NATO member. If the West were to attack Russia, rather than for Russia to surrender, it would unleash its nuclear arsenal on the West and since the Americans and possibly the French and the British have second strike capability, they would respond in the same measure as the Russians. This would then have been a war to end all wars and as Albert Einstein whose theory of relativity facilitated the development of the nuclear bomb by J Robbertt Oppenheimer said, human civilization would not survive a nuclear holocaust and that if there was a 4th World war, it would be fought with sticks and stones because man would have returned to the Stone Age if he survived the direct impact of nuclear war and the collateral damage of radioactive fallout. This would confirm JF. Kennedy’s dictum that in the event of a nuclear war, the living would envy the dead! This was what president Joe Biden must have realised while the Ukrainian president Volodymyr  Zelenskyy could only think of the military advantages that would facilitate the victory of Ukraine  over Russia and presumably the end of this cruel war unleashed on a small country justly struggling to be free.

    The desperation of the Ukrainian president was due among other reasons to the fear that there may be some form of ennui and tiredness in the Western alliance because of rising economic and political problems at home. Britain, one of the countries that had supported Ukraine by training thousands of its troops was haemorrhaging under economic and political problems with high inflation and shrinking economy. France and Germany and  the European Union as a whole are also having serious problems about energy supplies while even the Almighty United States is reeling under high inflation and high energy cost. The recent mid-term elections in the USA were expected to have led to virtual wiping out of the Democrats with a wave of Republican Red. This did not happen and the whole world can breathe a sigh of relief. The former President Donald J. Trump has been weakened by the fact that most of the crazy people who could precipitate a civil war in the United States and that he supported and sponsored were rejected by the American electorate. Even though Donald Trump has thrown his cap into the ring of electoral politics against 2024 presidential election, he would probably fail again if the Democratic Party is smart enough to retire the doddering old Joe Biden who is foolishly threatening to contest in 2024 when he will be 82. It seems there was some kind of calculation in the Kremlin that the Democrats and President Biden would be so weakened that the United States would back off from supporting Ukraine. But as events have turned out the western support for Ukraine at least for now remains unwavering and Putin’s expectations of Republican Congressional gains have not materialised so we are basically back to square one.

    Whatever the situation on the battle field may be, whether Ukraine is winning in critical areas and rolling the Russian army back to Russia, the war on the whole is not sustainable. While losing on the battle ground, Russia is now waging a cruel war against civilian infrastructures and thereby paralysing the electricity grid of Ukraine and putting the lives of over 10 million people in wintry jeopardy. Russia is such a vast country with unlimited resources and manpower compared with Ukraine.  The history of Napoleon’s and Hitler’s defeat by “General Winter” in the vast area of Russia should be a lesson on anybody who wants to fight a drawn out war with Russia.

    The days of David defeating Goliath belongs in the Bible. Ukraine just has to be realistic and find a modus vivendi in its relation with Russia. It is not likely that the United States will risk everything to support Ukraine against a nuclear weapons state like Russia. Ukraine is now in a better position militarily to negotiate and sign a peace treaty with Russia without losing much face. Ukraine is not likely to get all its territories back, certainly not Crimea. Ukraine should be supported to maintain its borders with Russia with small adjustments in the Donbas region to allow those ethnic Russians who want to go to Russia to do so and Ukraine should also foreswear its ambition to join NATO, the fear of which drove Russia into this ruinous war and hopefully Russia in the name of good neighbourliness can be persuaded to join the European Union and the United States and Canada in the rebuilding and reconstruction of war-damaged Ukraine. There is not likely to be a winner in this war; the whole of mankind has lost in the Russian pursuit of an unjust war against a small neighbour whose unrealistic dream of total independence in an interdependent world was egged on by the West.