Category: Gabriel Amalu

Today, Nigeria’s political landscape will quake from the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s political tremor. If the political acolytes of the great political tactician of the Fourth Republic have their way, Asiwaju’s 70th birthday celebration would be the pre-inauguration ball for the nation’s president come 2023. About this time last year, in a piece titled, ‘Asiwaju as Potentate’, I highlighted the trajectory of Asiwaju to political stardom, following the speculation that he might run for the office of president.

But with Asiwaju declaring his interest to seek his party’s nomination to contest for the office of president in 2023, he has become a fair game for political pundits, hence this part two. No doubt, the hurdle to the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) would have been a walkover for Asiwaju, were politicians to be gentlemanly in their trade. After all, in 2015 President Muhammadu Buhari, relied substantially on the political sagaciousness of Asiwaju to win the party’s nomination and the presidency, and ordinarily as an act of reciprocity, he should be among those canvassing for Tinubu’s presidency.

Indeed, prior to 2015, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had boasted that the party will rule Nigeria for 60 years. And before Asiwaju’s sagacious intervention, candidate Buhari, a retired military general had publicly surrendered his presidential ambition, because he felt it was unachievable. It took the political skills of Asiwaju to alter Buhari’s political destiny. While no doubt there were equally strong helpmates at that hour of need, history records Asiwaju as the champion of the political merger that resuscitated Buhari’s presidential ambition.

So, if politicians are gentlemen, Asiwaju would be rewarded for his hard work at the last two general elections with untrammelled support from the president and his close associates to secure the party’s ticket. Indeed, in 2019, when many of the wayfarers who joined APC in 2015 and helped Buhari win the presidency left the party, for one reason or the other, Tinubu stood like the rock of Gibraltar, and helped the president to win a second term.

But politicians are not gentlemen, and would not easily reciprocate kind gestures just for the sake of it. Perhaps, they have other determinants for their action, way beyond the contemplation of the ordinary people. So, regardless of Tinubu’s contributions to the success of President Buhari in 2015 and 2019, he cannot take the president’s reciprocal support for granted. Indeed, many of Tinubu’s detractors are already urging President Buhari to disappoint Asiwaju, peddling such prejudicial arguments that you cannot do a political deal with a person like President Buhari.

Of course, this column does not suffer prejudices and biases and believes that President Buhari is a gentleman, and would give as much support as he received from Asiwaju towards the latter’s ambition. But, since the fact that Asiwaju helped Buhari to become president is not insurance for reciprocity, and that such support would guarantee success at the polls, it is germane to examine the critical factors that Nigeria urgently needs in a president, at this critical juncture, and the leave the public to judge to what extent Asiwaju fits the bill.

The country needs above every other skill, a psychological healer, a sagacious political tactician who would be able to re-establish the broken socio-cultural bridges, which the present regime has perhaps inadvertently burnt in the past seven years, across the country. Clearly apart from the hooligans, who are engaged in criminal activities, in many parts of the country, there are many Nigerians who feel alienated by the policies of the present federal government which disproportionately favour the president’s ethnic stock.

These aggrieved groups, which cuts across every other ethnic group, needs to be urgently reintegrated into the Nigerian project. This column believes that such psychological healing would affect many of the other challenges facing the country. One such direct impact would be the debilitating security challenge facing the country. Furthermore, the next president must be someone with a brilliant mind-set to segregate the immediate and remote causes of the insecurity plaguing the country.

Nigeria needs such a brilliant mind, which will be able to isolate the economic, sociological, psychological, religious, and other factors fuelling the insecurity and offer immediate, medium and long term solutions to the problems. Of course, as part of the solutions, the country needs an economic wizard, a wealth creator and a monumental visionary leader who would lay the difficult but important economic foundation of a new Nigeria. The country badly needs a leader who would take a holistic look at the energy crisis facing the country, and offer solutions that would create work and wealth.

Our country needs a modern day sociological behemoth, who understands that religion is a private affair of the practitioner, and as such would not drag the nation into the cesspool of religious corruption, as if it is the answer to the myriads of challenges facing the nation. A leader who would offer scientific or other empirical solutions to the challenges facing our country instead of using the name of God in vain, to explain the inadequacies of governance.

Nigeria needs a leader who understands the social contract embedded in political governance. One who would not equate the surrender of the commonwealth to his care, as an opportunity to enrich himself or his lieutenants. One whose humanity has been tested, and as such will govern humanely, but also firmly when the need arises. A leader of leaders who will allow the percolation of ideas, and who has the capacity to assemble brilliant minds to mend our broken country.

As Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu marks his 70th birthday, there is a multitude forsworn that he is the best candidate for the job. They will readily sight the cross pollination of his curriculum vitae. With a background in finance and management position in an international oil company, he is a tested technocratic. Having served as a senator, governor and political godfather, he is a political juggernaut. With footprints across the social and religious divide, he fits the sociological bill.

For Asiwaju’s detractors, they claim that at 70 years Asiwaju cannot carry the burden of governing Nigeria. They claim that he is too steeped in prebendalism that has eaten the bone marrow of Nigeria. They claim his emergence will be unfair to the southeast, even as some of the protagonists support a northern candidate. One of his leading opponents has even forsworn to trek to Ghana if he wins the presidency.

But despite the distractions, the Tinubu political train is gathering momentum, and the days ahead would surely be interesting. As an admirer of Asiwaju’s political sagacity, this column wishes the Jagaban Borgu a most memorable 70th birthday.

This column recently advised President Muhammadu Buhari to watch out for his close aides whose actions bring disrepute to his regime especially in its dying days. In furtherance of that advice, this column urges the president to watch the antics of the chairman of his party’s Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Mai Mala Buni, and his cohorts, whose short-sightedness almost landed the party into a state of hopelessness.

While the legitimacy of Governor Buni holding another executive position in contravention of section 183 of the 1999 constitution should worry the party leaders, it appears that Buni and company were working to foist a debacle on the party at the last minute. Recall that a minority judgment of the Supreme Court in Jegede vs Akeredolu held that the Buni-led CECPC is illegitimate, though the majority upheld the election of Akeredolu on the ground that relevant parties were not joined in the suit.

It should therefore worry President Buhari that despite being considered a contraption by a judgment of the apex court, the Buni-led CECPC continues to engage in shenanigans. But for the disagreement within Buni’s duplicitous camp, the political marauders had connived to hide an interim injunction by Justice Bello Kawu, of Abuja High Court restraining the party from organising the party convention. I hope the party has asked Buni to explain why he concealed the pending suit from the party.

That anti-party activity by Governor Buni shows his utter contempt for the integrity of President Buhari, who put him in that position, and should not be swept under the carpet. When this column warned President Buhari to be wary of enemies within, some observers thought it was an exaggeration. But the fact that Buni and company could be playing ping-pong with the life of the party despite the president’s directive, shows beyond doubt that Buni is one such closet enemy.

If the president is okay with hibernating with enemies in his closet, and there are still party influencers outside the coterie of president and CECPC hawks, such leaders must put on their telescope to scrutinise every action of the Buni-led CECPC towards the convention. To show that Buni is not repentant, he has flooded the most significant committees of the upcoming convention with his colleagues who care more about securing the party’s primary ticket for their second term, than organising a fair democratic contest amongst the party members.

For the sake of history, it will be a shame if after working hard to cobble a party to win the presidential election in 2015, the president and his inner caucus cause the party to disintegrate, after his second term. Such fears is not far-fetched, for if the upcoming convention is manipulated in the same manner that Buni had deployed Buhari’s support to make mincemeat of internal party democracy since he was foisted on the party, then the party may well be on its way to the morgue.

As should now be obvious to the president, even some members of his inner caucus are beginning to resist the dubious agenda of those who deceive him. So now that President Buhari has returned to the country, he should put Buni on the hot burner to allow a free and fair convention. The president should publicly declare his neutrality in the contest for party chairmanship position, and provide the enabling environment for a free and fair election. If the president wanted a consensus candidate, he should have done that earlier than now.

So, instead of spending his energy promoting a candidate, the president should concentrate on returning normalcy to the electricity and energy sectors of the nation’s economy. It is a shame that the same time that the nation has been in darkness because of the breakdown of the nation’s power grid, is the same time that scarcity of fuel for cars, machines and airplanes have become the new normal.

Concern for such debilitating factors that could return the nation’s economy to another recession should be the priority of the president, instead of campaigning for a chairmanship candidate being surreptitiously foisted on him by dubious members of his inner circle. If the president wants to know the truth about the economic impacts of his polices, he should ask for the price of rice, few weeks after the show of rice pyramids in Abuja. As I have maintained, the worst enemies of the president are those operating within, and he has many of them.

Gloriously, in that state of hopelessness buffeting the nation’s economic and political space, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, was inaugurated as governor of Anambra State. If the morning shows the day, then as promoted by this column, there is something refreshing coming from the eastern horizon. In a clear departure from the debauchery of political transitions that is common in our clime, Soludo chose a sane transition programme. He chose not to waste the scarce resources of the state, and has promised to rely on goods manufactured in the state for his private and official use.

To walk his talk, he unveiled his official car, an SUV manufactured by Innoson Motor Company. He adorned his Akwete cloth, and entertained his guest with a fraction of the huge budget, earmarked for the occasion. A mere N20 million, instead of a humongous N600 million, originally budgeted. He went to work on the day of inauguration, and probably spent the promised eight hours, which is a day’s work. He spoke passionately to his people, urging them to partner with him for a new Anambra.

He called ndi Anambra to return home, for the work of reformation. He called stealing by its name, and banned state authorized stealing in the motor parks. He invited the aggrieved members of the state, who have taken up arms to fight their cause to have a rethink, and come forward for dialogue. He raised the hope of ndi Anambra, the southeast and Nigerians. But he also noted that the challenges are many, particularly the structural challenge posed by a peculiar unitary-federalism, we practice.

As this column noted when Soludo survived the armed attack at his home country during the campaign, ndi Anambra are a lucky lot, that he survived the attack. They are even luckier he won the election, and is now their governor. They should support him, for the good of their state and ala Igbo. There is no doubt that governance in Nigeria would gain a heft from the fecund mind of Chuwkuma Soludo.

The Soludo Solution, predicted by this columnist, with his friend Emeka Agbayi, nearly 15 years ago, has berthed in Anambra. If Nigeria is lucky, Soludo could become a beacon of hope in the midst of hopelessness, pervading the national landscape.

As the 2023 general elections draw near, many states are boiling over as political gladiators plot the rise or fall of their opponents. Enugu State is no different, except that the temperature somehow simmers near the boiling point. But it has not always been peaceful in the eastern front, especially at the beginning of the present republic. We recall that it was while Senator Chimaroke Nnamani from Enugu East senatorial zone held sway as state governor that the political alliance was forged in blood, tears and sorrow.

Perhaps, it was the usual business of a maternity ward that was at play? Despite the misgivings of many, the Ebeano family has survived several political transitions, even if regicide remains its ascension policy. When Governor Nnamani ascended the throne, the rules of the family were carved. The high points were that the state governor should deal ruthlessly with any opposition, hound any putative godfather into political exile, and reign as the czar of the political family, apologies to Russian Vladimir Putin, the butcher of Ukrainians.

So it was that Chief Jim Nwobodo, who championed the election of Governor Nnamani, while he took the senate seat as his redoubt, sooner than later became a persona non grata in the state. Hounded by his political children, he was retired after only a term in the senate. With Nwobodo out of the way, Nnamani reigned as the supreme commander of the new political family he forged. He allowed no opposition, and the consequences of defiance were too steep.

At the end of his eight-year tenure as governor, Chimaroke installed Sullivan Chime from Enugu West senatorial zone, his erstwhile commissioner for justice, and moved over to the senate, which road he had paved in advance, by tactically upstaging Senator Nwobodo after only one tenure. The godfather and his followers believed that all will be calm in the eastern front. But as soon as Governor Chime consolidated as governor, Senator Nnamani faced the fate of his own political godfather.

Governor Chime unceremoniously retired Chimaroke from the senate, and became the reigning czar. It was in this political environment that Senator Ike Ekweremadu was chiselled and forged. As the campaign manager of Governor Nnamani in 1999, he was there at the beginning. And he has seen the rise and fall of political gladiators in the state at the behest of the state governors. But perhaps he has not taken note that Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi from Enugu north senatorial zone is a different kind of czar. Ugwuanyi has not only rehabilitated former Governors Nnamani and Nwobodo, his immediate predecessor Governor Chime, is enjoying his new political life unhindered.

But before I delve into what may have changed in the Ebeano political family, with the emergence of Governor Ugwuanyi, let me attempt a deconstruction of the Ekweremadu political persona. Perhaps, having closely witnessed the treatment meted out to others, the five-time senator has learnt the survival instinct better than any other person in the political family. Arguably, within the Ebeano political family, Ekweremadu has fared better politically than any other member. Following the triumph of Nnamani, in 1999, he started off as secretary to the state government.

In 2003, as part of his consolidation effort, Governor Nnamanni apparently sent Ekweremadu to the senate as his forbearer to the national political scene. I recall that Governor Nnamani with his nation-wide lectures was assiduously positioning himself as a national intellectual and a potential presidential candidate in 2007, before the Obasanjo’s third-term political tsunami sent everyone scampering for safety. Before the tsunami, with the hope of going to the centre, Nnamani had sent the young political Turk, Ekweremadu, to help prepare the way.

Unfortunately, not only that Nnamani’s presidential dream suffered a still birth, his underbelly was thoroughly exposed by the EFCC probe, and Senator Ekweremadu joined the winning team, led by the reigning Governor Chime, to decapitate his former boss politically. Ekweremadu also succeeded in taking the price of the deputy senate president, and so became de jure and de facto superior to his former boss, who was a rookie in the senate.

By the time Chime had done two terms as governor, and perhaps feeling that the two-term deputy senate president Ekweremadu was morphing into an uncontrollable political behemoth, he decided to retire the senator. Again in fairness to Governor Sullivan, strong political interests in Enugu west senatorial zone were clamouring for rotation of the seat to another cultural zone, with the retiring governor who is from the same senatorial zone touted as a potential replacement.

But Ekweremadu had become a primed survivalist. Instead of begging for the senate seat, he went for the political jugular of PDP in the state. Again, instead of joining the breakaway PDP at the centre co-led by the then senate president Bukola Saraki, to join APC, Ekweremadu stayed in PDP, and with cunning and federal support, organised the recognised 2015 state party primary election. With that manoeuvre, the political hold of godfather Governor Sullivan Chime became traumatised, and a political compromise was reached, with Senator Ekweremadu taking his prize of returning to the senate, unhindered.

Arguably, with the privileges as deputy senate president, Ekweremadu has substantially raised an army of followers in his senatorial zone and beyond. So in 2019, instead of begging for his senatorial seat from the governor, as is the custom in the state and across the country, he had the opportunity to nominate and sponsor some of his own followers for political offices. But that opportunity is also because Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, with a staggering peaceful political persona, was the governor in 2019 that Ekweremadu did not need to fight to return to the senate.

No doubt, Governor Ugwuanyi, popularly called Gburugburu, has brought a different panache to the leadership of the political family in the state. The result has been tranquillity in the political arena, and this column as an interested party urges all sides to emulate the governor, in the interest of the state. While Ekweremadu is entitled to contest the governorship of the state, as he has vowed recently, it will be disingenuous for him to claim that there is no agreement to rotate governorship position in the state. While the political gladiators may not have signed off on it as he claimed recently, they have been practising it in the state, since 1999.

If Ekweremadu wants to torpedo the delicate political arrangement in the state, which has served him and his political family well in the past, he should not blame it on the absence of an agreement. The clamour for rotation of power is associated with prebendalism, and Senator Ekweremadu has fared well with his famed accumulation of staggering wealth.

The Russian President Vladimir Putin is a bully, and as Chinua Achebe said, a bully gets excited each time he sees someone he can throw in a fight. Putin sees the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenksy, as a person he can beat in a fight. He says President Zelenksy is stubborn, because he is unamenable to his fancies as a modern day czar. As such he wants to dethrone Zelensky by all means, including inviting the Ukranian military to overthrow their president.

But Putin is not only a bully; he is also a dumb fellow, to the extent that he played into the hands of the USA and her western allies by being an aggressor against a peaceful Ukraine in the eyes of the world. Some have argued that he attacked to stop Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), but this columnist thinks he could have achieved the same objective without engaging in an unwinnable war. With the attack, the dominant world media is effectively ringing the world against Russia.

As the Igbo adage would say, when a man cooks for the community, they will eat the meal, but when the community cooks for one person, the person will not be able to consume the feast. The real enemies of Russia, the USA and her western European allies would be excited that Russia has foolishly entered into a trap. They will go ahead to portray Russia as a bandit nation, and help her deplete the resources its resurgent economy has amassed in recent decades.

The USA and Britain which may have been apprehensive of the increasing economic interdependence between Russia, Germany, France and other mainland European countries, because of their increasing dependence on the enormous gas resources of Russia, would be happy in their closet that Russia has ended it with Putin’s misjudgment. So while Russia can defeat Ukraine in the battle, it would likely lose the emerging economic interdependence with her neighbours.

Of course, unless Russia attacks a NATO country, thereby triggering NATO to defend her member, only Ukraine would be sacrificed to turn Russia into a rogue nation with all its consequences. Unless Putin immediately pulls the break, the huge resources he has amassed for his country, would be expended fighting off the economic strangulation that is coming, while the continuation of war will further extend the life span of the international economic imbalance created after the Second World War.

A long occupation of Ukraine by Russia would cost an isolated Russia dearly such that by the time a full détente is reached, Russia would be as economically dissipated as the USA, which until recently saw itself as the policeman of the world. Perhaps, Russia, under the firm grip of a bullish Putin, did not learn from the misadventures of the USA as international policeman, most recently in Afghanistan. With the USA’s economy running on huge deficits over decades, her political leaders have learnt the limits of roguish benevolence.

Of course, with the economic resurgence of Asian tigers, and a few other former third world economies, the exploitation of other nations to remain at the top of world economic ladder is becoming increasingly difficult for the West. Amongst the new prosperous nations are Russia, Brazil, India and China, and they are increasingly seeking a reordering of the existing world economic order. But with the foolish attack on Ukraine, the USA and her European allies will try to isolate Russia and finish her off, while continuing to contain the rest.

With Russia considered a rogue nation, many countries will join the USA and her European allies in that venture. Again, the nations whose citizens have been badly affected by the folly of President Putin, as their nationals are stranded at the boarders of Ukraine with her neighbours, will hold it against Russia. Tragically for some countries like Nigeria, there is the lack of capacity to ensure the safe passage and repatriation of their nationals. Should harm befall the citizens of those countries held at the Ukraine borders, Russia bears blame.

Putin did not also factor resistance from the Ukrainians, which may prolong the war. Unlike when Adolf Hitler tried to forcefully redraw the world map in favour of Germany, the world has significantly changed. The social media for one has made it possible for Ukrainians to collaborate in their defence strategies, and that has buoyed up the determination amongst ordinary citizens to confront the enemy. With many citizens learning how to make bombs, Russian soldiers may find it difficult when they get their boots on ground.

Another fallout of the foolishness of Putin is that a pacifist Germany has decided to re-join the arms race, and the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has committed to spend over $100 billion to increase German’s defence capabilities, and such huge spending will become an annual ritual. Of course, with Russia losing over a million citizens to defend Stalingrad from the Nazi Germany during the Second World War, a militarily resurgent Germany is a greater threat to Russia than Ukraine.

Save for Russia’s nuclear armament, which Putin has boasted is now on high alert, but he dare not use them, NATO would have used her superior military powers to deal with Russia once and for all. Since the huge armament amassed by NATO over the decades cannot be deployed to turn Russia’s cities to rubbles, for her to start all over again, the only way to deal with Russia is to turn her currency the Ruble to rubbles. So, the USA and her allies are using international trading instruments to tighten the grip on the Russian economy.

If Russia is completely isolated economically, her citizens would turn the pressure on President Putin. The Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club, is the best known example of the economic folly of Putin. Sensing danger from the United Kingdom’s parliament, Abramovich quickly transferred control of Chelsea to a Trustee, before the parliamentarians force their Prime Minister to nationalise the ownership of the club. The USA is also contemplating cutting Russia of the international banking swift, and that will effectively kill Russia’s international trade.

The odds are against Russia, and so while Putin can win the battle against Ukraine, he will neither be able to recreate the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), nor redraw the world economic map, to truly turn his country into a world power. If the war prolongs and the West succeeds in ruining the Russian economy, Putin may be the one to be booted out of power, instead of the Ukrainian President Zelensky. For an economically castrated Russia may be as good as a Russia bombed back to Stone Age.

The disastrous attempt to recruit police constables by the office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Police Service Commission (PSC) shows the tragedy of the present police structure in Nigeria. While the quarrel between the duo over who has power to recruit policemen is a distraction the country can ill-afford, the report that 90% of the applicants failed to secure up to 30% in the recruitment test says a lot about the quality of persons wishing to join the Nigeria police.

Perhaps, but for the controversy which aroused public interest in the recruitment process, the applicants would have been recruited without much ado. Most of the applicants, some say, paid their way to be on the list, and of course, the mass failure is a reflection of the quality of those who usually get recruited into the police. Is it not likely that the quality of present applicants is not different from those who succeeded in the previous recruitment exercises?

Most likely. For many commentators, it is such recruitment process that threw up the once celebrated super cop, DCP Abba Kyari and his likes that are now facing sundry criminal allegations. As the saying goes, if gold can rust, how much more iron. DCP Kyari, despite the strong allegations of strong-arm tactics and professional misconduct that trailed his career, was promoted and given rare honours by the political elites who of course were beyond the repercussions of his acts of professional misconducts.

Spurred by such ill-conceived recognitions, DCP Kyari saw himself as untouchable regardless of his actions. While facing a criminal indictment and potential extradition to the United States of America, over aiding and abetting international fraudsters, he according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) continued his aiding and abetting trait in the narcotics underworld. Remorseless as it were, Kyari’s inherent trait of using his office to promote crime in the country has manifested in several dimensions.

Some have argued that if a random test of traits of criminality is conducted on the entire police force, the result would be as disastrous as that of the recent recruitment exercise. The argument being that many members of the police force aid and abet criminality as part of their work schedule. While such potential huge number of criminality in the force is arguable, there is no doubt that the quality of policing across the country, is a manifestation of the poor recruitment process.

As data analysts would put it, garbage in, garbage out. In essence, it is the quality of recruits into the force that has manifested in the kind of police officers and men we have. Of course, the police structure we run, allows persons who are completely alienated from the outcome of the recruitment exercises, to recruit the police men, under a centralised police force, legalised by a so-called federal constitution. It is this warped system that attracts mainly the poorly educated to apply to join the police.

It is instructive that many states could not fill their quota in the recruitment exercise, and obviously it is the states with better educated population and better alternative opportunities that failed to show up in large numbers for the recruitment exercise. A recruitment exercise that attracts the least educated and least prepared in life should worry our policy makers if they care about the country. As things are, Nigeria is poorly policed, and it would be unmanageable tragedy if the few hands recruited are mainly dullards.

So, our policy wonks must impress on the political leadership the urgent need to change the police structure in other to attract quality applicants. We cannot keep employing the dregs of our society into our police force and expect a better policing. Those who hold the view that the centralised policing structure can be tweaked through the so-called community policing should see that the gimmick is not working. The monster of insecurity in rural areas is not satiated by the highly promoted community policing.

In my rural community, Imezi-Owa, in Ezeagu Local Government Area of Enugu State, the police post has been shut down since the advent of the unknown gun-men in parts of the southeast region. Similar shut-downs have become the norm is several rural communities where the few policemen that man the rural police posts have become soft targets for the bandits that have taken over our rural communities.

Obviously, because of the centralised command of the police structure, the local authorities including the state command would continue to wait on Abuja to determine how to deal with the situation. I bet that if the state and indeed the local governments have powers to recruit police at their levels, the abandonment of policing in rural communities would not be the case, as we see across the country.

Instead of being conquered by fear, the states which now rely on sundry groups with no legal rights to bear arms, except as approved by the president or IGP, would employ their own police, train and equip them to deal with the menace. Perhaps, it is necessary to conduct a comparative analysis of the quality of persons who apply to join the quasi-police structures across the states in the country, and those who applied for the recent police recruitment exercise, so as to appreciate the underlining challenges.

If applicants for states’ quasi-police, like Amotekun, Ebubeagu, state traffic control corps, and similar others, attract more qualified persons than the federal police, then, those in-charge of the federal police should be very concerned. Should that be the case, what it implies is that despite the advantages attached to being a federal policeman, recognised by the constitution, as the only police in the country, with guaranteed authority to bear arms, with better assurances of payment of salaries, with other better privileges, attract lower grades of persons than the state quasi-police.

In an address, the chairman of the PSC Alhaji Musliu Smith, appreciated the gravity of the challenge as regards the quality of applicants, when he said: “this is a sad reflection of the calibre of officers that will be patrolling our communities in the event that these persons actually end up enlisted in the police. Perhaps owing to disenchantment with the police, the inability of citizens to appreciate the value of police and policing has further impacted the quality of persons applying to work in the force.”

While he understands the challenge facing the recruitment of quality police personnel, there are no signs that right steps are being taken to address those challenges. As a former IGP, Smith is in a good position to advise the federal government to change the paradigm, for the good of our country.

The toxic petrol imported into the country by a reckless cabal, which has wrecked many private vehicles is a metaphor of how reckless leadership at various levels have wrecked the lives of ordinary Nigerians. In the same manner that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), which we were told is the sole importer of petrol until now, is trading blame over who imported the toxic petrol, it is the same way that elected and selected leaders trade blames over their toxic leadership that have wrecked lives.

According to the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, the various mandatory inspections conducted by its agents do not include checking for ethanol. Explaining the tragedy, he said: “as a standard practice of all PMS import to Nigeria, the cargoes were also certified by inspection agent appointed by the Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).” He went on: “It is worthy to note that the usual quality inspection in load port in Belgium and our ports in Nigeria do not include the test for percentage of methanol content.”

Yet he claimed in the same presentation that “NNPC investigation revealed the presence of methanol  in four of the PMS cargoes imported by our DSDP suppliers, including MRS, Emdeb, IH Energy, Britannia-U Consortium, Oando and also our own company, Duke Oil.” In their reaction to Mr Kyari’s media briefing, MRS said: “Due to the current subsidy regime, NNPC is the sole supplier of all PMS in Nigeria.” It went further: “Consequently, the NNPC through their trading arm, Duke Oil, supplied a cargo of PMS purchased from international trader Litasco and delivered it with their Tanker (MT) Nord Gainer.”

The above quotes show the underlining contradictions in the explanations of NNPC and its allies in what seems to remain the greatest economic despoliation of this democratic era. When the economic history of this democratic era is written, the tragedy of petrol importation and the racketeering surrounding it would cover several pages. In his statement quoted above, the NNPC claimed that testing the percentage of ethanol is not one of the requirements of the agents at the originating and landing ports. Yet, the action taken by NNPC and the federal government, over the present import, show that petrol with high ethanol is dangerous to our vehicles.

So, what then do the inspectors test for? Does it mean that there are no established standards of the grade of petrol that should be imported into the country? In essence, if another petrol marketer had not raised the alarm about the toxic petrol, it would have been distributed and sold to Nigerians who would be left on their own, to take care of the damages to their vehicles. Of course the claim that NNPC discovered the toxic petrol contradicts the fact it was not tested for by her agents.

Having discovered the toxicity of the petrol, there is the dispute about who imported it between the NNPC and its cartel. Meanwhile, until now, the official information was that NNPC was the sole importer of petrol into the country. This column bets that it is also likely that nobody can say with certainty the quantity of petrol being imported, otherwise how come that the quantity of imported petrol according to NNPC statistics keep rising astronomically in the past few years.

Read Also: Toxic petrol: Firms, NNPC in row as Buhari orders sanctions

From the revealed tragedy of the past week, it is most likely that the criminal despoliation of our country’s economy in the guise of petrol importation subsidy scam which we thought reached its apogee under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government may still be climbing the corruption ladder, under President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. Perhaps, the Transparency International’s ranking of Nigeria as progressively more corrupt is not a fluke, as the media handlers of the government have tried to argue, since the latest ranking of our country on the corruption index came out.

According to Transparency International’s latest ranking released last month, Nigeria dropped five places in the 2021 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The country scored 24 out of 100 points and is ranked the second most corrupt country in West Africa. Yet, the federal government’s media handlers would argue that President Buhari is adjudged the anti-corruption czar in the African continent. Except perhaps the African Union leaders are humouring Mr President, the report of Transparency International is toxicity on such a lofty claim.

This column like most Nigerians prays that Nigerians are not being treated to an even more trenchant variant of the monumental fraud visited on the national economy by the petrol import scammers of the Jonathan era. We recall that under that regime, NNPC connived with unscrupulous elements to write fictitious bill of laden of imported petrol cargoes. In some instances, the ships represented as the carrier of such fictitious cargoes had ceased to ply the high seas for many years.

It was to forestall such economic banditry that the Buhari government claimed to have restricted petrol import licence to NNPC. But with the importation of toxic petrol the past week, it has come to the public knowledge that the so-called restriction of license to NNPC is a ruse. What has happened is that the free for all important licence under Jonathan has been replaced by an oligopoly. This column hopes that the club of cartels is not doing to us what the free for all importers did to Nigerian economy under President Jonathan.

What baffles this column is how the quantity of imported petrol continues to shoot up, despite the recent double recessions that affected the productive sectors of the economy. Could it be that the leakages under Jonathan’s era has gotten worse, or is it that the national economy has ballooned to soak that alleged huge increase in the litres of petrol imported into the country? It would be a monumental tragedy if the NNPC in the present dispensation is once again leading the nation down that ignominious part.

This column applauds the president for asking for a probe of the importation of toxic petrol into the country. He should follow up to ensure that those responsible are held accountable. It is strange that so far nobody has been held accountable by the NNPC leadership. Both the president and the leadership of the National Assembly should demand accountability from NNPC, since it claimed to be the sole importer of petrol. It is also in the public interest that the criteria for selecting the importers are transparent and competitive.

Clearly, at the root of the challenges facing our nation is the toxic leadership of the elected and selected public officials at several levels. Unfortunately, their mediocre performances have become the norm. Let’s hope the promised reforms under the Petroleum Industry Act would expunge the toxicity from the NNPC’s arteries.

Restorative Justice Practice is slowly gaining ground in Lagos State as an integral part of the criminal justice system and this column urges other states in the country to quickly follow the example. Restorative justice can be described as an opportunity for the victim of a crime to meet with the offender who has pleaded guilty to the crime and is willing to offer physical and emotional restitution to the victim and others affected by his/her action.

This new approach will put the real victim in the driver’s seat, unlike the traditional criminal justice system wherein the state is treated as the victim and receives compensation where applicable, or sends the offender to prison as punishment. So, under the traditional criminal justice system, the real victim feels alienated from the processes since even when the offender admits to have the subject of crime in his custody, the magistrate or judge would order that the stolen item be returned to the state.

A training programme in restorative justice shows that it approximates closest to justice in the eyes of the ordinary man, and arguably to what was in practice in the pre-colonial criminal justice system. As part of the introductory process of restorative justice in Lagos State, trainings are going on, and this writer with other certified mediators, was privileged to undergo a rigorous one-week training organised by JSPL Consulting and the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption (RoLAC) Programme of the British Council, sponsorship by the European Union.

Under the guide of very experienced faculty of mediators and arbitrators, led by Akeem Olajide Bello PhD, an associate professor at University of Lagos, Mrs Adeyinka Aroyewun, Director Lagos Multi-Door Court (LMDC), Mrs Achare Cole Deputy Director LMDC, and Mrs Sola Adegbonmire, chartered arbitrator, the mediators were taken through a rigorous training on the philosophical framework and fundamental concepts of restorative justice; interrelationship between the Lagos Criminal Justice System and restorative justice principles; roles, interests and rights of various actors in the restorative justice process; overview of the practice direction on restorative justice and procedural steps on arraignment at a magistrate court, and restorative justice programmes and process.

In the introductory remarks, Howard Zehr, described as the grandfather of restorative justice, defined restorative justice as “a process to involve, to the extent possible, those who have a stake in a specific offence to collectively identify and address harms, needs and obligations in order to heal and put things as right as possible.” Robert B. Cormier on his part defined restorative justice as “an approach to justice that focuses on repairing the harm caused by crime while holding the offender responsible for his or her actions, by providing an opportunity for the parties directly affected by crime – victims(s), offender and community – to identify and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime, and seek a resolution that affords healing, reparation and reintegration, and prevent future harm.”

As I have argued on other occasions on this page, the current criminal justice system has substantially failed to give justice to the state, the victim and the accused. The best example as it affects the common man is the tragedy of the so-called awaiting trial men which in some states constitute more than 70% of men and women languishing in jail, which has been rechristened correctional service centres. At the upper echelon of the society, is the fact that while billions of dollars of the Nigerian resources have been stolen over the years, less than 1% of the offenders are in jail.

So, every state should be interested in this innovative form of criminal justice practice which no doubt will ameliorate the debilitating practice on offer presently. Of course, it must be noted that restorative justice may not deal with serious crimes like murder, rape, armed robbery and the like, but it will help clear the clog of small crimes which also impact the society, and that will help the magistrates and judges concentrate on the big criminal cases. After all, every victim of a crime, regardless of the size will feel alienated and disconsolate when the system fails to give him/her what approximates to justice, for the harm done to him/her.

For while a few persons whose item has been stolen by a thief may be assuaged if the offender goes to jail, the majority will rather ask for restitution and perhaps an apology as recompense. Specifically, if a person whose goat has been stolen gets back his goat or the cost of another goat, he will feel better than that the culprit is serving a jail term. Also, the society which is scandalised by such a development would prefer to see the culprit engage in community work that will directly impact them.

From the training manual, we see that while in retributive justice the offender accountability is taking punishment, in restorative justice, the offender accountability is understanding impact of crime and helping decide how to make things right. Again, while under retributive justice the system is concerned with purely legal terms, devoid of moral, social, economic and political dimensions, under restorative system, the offence is examined in the whole context of moral, economic and political contexts. Furthermore, while retributive justice does not encourage repentance and forgiveness, restorative justice encourages such possibility.

The listed benefits of restorative justice for the victim include that he has opportunity to ask questions about the offender, tell the offender how he feels about his/her actions and what the impact of the crime has been, have his/her input on how to make amends, and understand the motivation for the crime. On the part of the offender, he has opportunity to take responsibility for the offence, have a voice to tell his/her story, hear first-hand the impact of the crime on the victim and community, have an opportunity to apologise to the victim and to put things right by carrying out the agreed actions.

The training manual also showed that the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011 (CLLS) make provisions for using restorative justice processes and outcomes in resolving criminal matters. Furthermore, that Administration of Criminal Justice Repeal and Re-enactment Law 2011 (as amended) (ACJL) make some provisions for restorative justice outcomes. Section 3(1) of the CLLS provides that rehabilitation and restoration is one of the guiding principles that should guide the interpretation and application of the law or any regulations creating offences. The other disposition measures listed in section 15(2) are compensation, restitution, community service orders, probation, curfew orders, binding over orders, rehabilitation and correctional orders, victim-offender mediation and other restorative justice measures.

There is no doubt that Restorative Justice Practice will bring a new dimension to criminal justice systems, and I urge other states to key into the programme.

With the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, in sight, the season of make-believe is upon us again, and many aspirants who fail to win the ballot, would go under psychologically and financially. For some of the aspirants, the dénouement would be permanent, while    the inimitable ones will rise from the ashes like a phoenix. But as lawyers would advise, I magnanimously put forward a general notice to all aspirants: Beware.

In the history of political chicanery at the highest level, perhaps former military president, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida has the gold. I have heard from people who know, how IBB as he was fondly called, led a lot of distinguished Nigerians to their psychological and financial waterloo, on the premise that they were his preferred presidential candidate. A particular gentleman and boardroom general from Delta State, was lured into the unending circus of a presidential hopeful, and the end was not funny.

As IBB reshuffled the transition cards, from banning of old politicians from participating in the elections to encouraging the emergence of new generation politicians, he ruined many lives on the altar of aspiration. A more recent example is what happened in Imo State under the government of Senator Rochas Okorocha. In the eight years that Okorocha was governor, those who aspired to contest the local government elections paid very dearly, psychologically and financially.

Like IBB, Okorocha kept shifting the goal post, making new demands and promoting different sets of aspirants. At a stage he ordered aspirants to enrol in a training programme and they sheepishly did, at additional cost to their aspiration budget. Needless to say that after the training, no elections were held. Apart from the powerful office holders who are courted, there are the smaller ones lurking on the side lines. They could be the aide of the big office-holder, an associate or relations who pretend to be in a position to influence the choice.

Again, there are powerful politicians who are treated as political gods, and many aspirants believe they have the power to make or mar. The late strongman of Ibadan, Chief Lamidi Adedibu, was one such man. While he lived, and while President Olusegun Obasanjo held sway as president, he was imbued with so much power in Oyo State. When Governor Rashidi Ladoja refused to offer adequate sacrifices at the Alaafin Molete’s shrine, Adedibu set off a chain of actions that bruised the governor very badly.

Across the country, they are persons who project such influence, and who would demand that unless you first appease them, the aspiration would die prematurely. Just as we have warlords controlling turfs in war-torn countries, they are pretenders all over the stratified political turfs across the country. And the situation is similar, whether we are talking of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), or the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), or even smaller parties.

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All aspirants must also be careful about those down the ladder, the cheerleaders who egg them on, even when they truthfully know that they lack the capacity to achieve their aspiration. The aspirants should wonder why whenever any person declares for any position, even when they have no chance of getting elected, there will still be people telling them, go ahead, you have already won! These cheerleaders have led to the ruination of many aspirants, as their only interest is in what they would gain, while the circus lasted.

Once an aspirant makes the pronouncement that he/she has an interest in an elective post, these group will set up store in his/her house, and they will make a habit of trouping in daily to feast and praise the aspirant to high heavens. One local government chairmanship aspirant, who was a victim of the unwinding road to the local government election in Imo State that never held, told me how his followers were slaughtering his goats and making banquet in his house daily for years.

One can juxtapose that with those who have uttered the intention to vie for governorship election in any part of the country, not to talk of those aspiring to become the next president of our dear country. To aspire to become a governor under any party with a mile chance of winning the election would require expending millions of naira in preparation for the elections. In my penultimate piece, I referred to this upcoming season as a season of a peculiar political economy, using the word, figuratively and literally.

With what is in the open about what becomes the life of the winner of a gubernatorial election, his extended family, his friends and the friends of these persons, most cheerleaders to any gubernatorial project, go for a kill, right from the preparatory stage. Apart from appointing ward coordinators across the state who will be placed on salary for months, there are several altars to be appeased in the state, for one to emerge the flag bearer of a major party that has the remotest chance of winning the election.

In our peculiar political environment, throwing a hat into the ring to vie for the governorship election is not for the lily-livered, and aspiring to run for the presidency could ruin very successful persons, psychologically and financially, if they fail. To aspire to vie for the presidency is a totally different kettle of fish. The list of those who have declared interest to run in the APC and the PDP shows that only money bags, or those supported by money bags have a remote chance.

The front runners for the primaries, so far, include Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, and perhaps Vice President Yemi Osibanjo of the APC. While in PDP, you have Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Senator Bukola Saraki and Senator Anyim Pius Ayim. Of course, a few more would still declare before the dates for the primary, but already the houses of the interested parties have become centres of political economy.

In the days ahead, and as boys are separated from the men, this column will examine the potentials of a few of the presidential aspirants. Until then, it is fair to say that the public declaration of interest by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has raised the bar for presidential aspirants, whether in the PDP or APC. Some analysts have even said that Asiwaju would not dare if cannot win, but of course they are a few who have sworn that unless they die, the Jagaban of Borgu, would not smell the presidency.

With the 2023 general election in sight, perhaps it is already too late to demand for less expensive elections, so that aspirants who are not money bags can come forward. For now, this column warns: aspirants beware.