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Category: Tuesday

  • IBB dribbles history

    IBB dribbles history

    Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, popularly called IBB, surely has a mysterious gift of celestial mercy. Otherwise, how can his grave sins against Nigerian democracy be atoned by democratically elected leaders who ordinarily should be hounding him? The launch of his autobiography: “A Journey of Service” last week, in Abuja is reminiscent of Isaiah 1:18, which said: “come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be white as wool.” 

    While he reigned as military president, IBB was called Maradona, after the famous Argentine footballer, Diego Maradona, a gifted dribbler, who used his hand (he called it the hand of god) to score a goal against England in the 1986 world cup quarter finals and got away with it. Short and sturdy like IBB, the Argentinian football maestro had leaped into the air and with a feint of his hand, made up the remaining inches needed to score against England. Unlike now, then, there was no video review to crosscheck what happened.

    Until last week, pundits would easily have written off IBB as belonging to the infamy of Nigerian history. His gravest sin was the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election which Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO), won handsomely. That action set a chain of reactions, which resulted in the death of the winner of the election, his wife, Kudirat Abiola, and several other persons killed to enforce the annulment. Many great political careers were annihilated for supporting the malicious annulment or for seemingly condoning it.

    Three decades after, the chief culprit of the annulment, seems to be the beneficiary of fulsome forgiveness in the manner Prophet Isaiah wrote thousands of years ago. While accepting responsibility for the criminal annulment of the election, the wily general also sought to exculpate himself from the criminal act, by laying the actual doing of the act (actus reus and mens rea) on late Gen. Sani Abacha, who he is sure is more loathed, by many. Of course, if you doubt IBB, you can go ask Abacha, his own side of the story.

    A case of eating your cake, and still having it in the fridge or approbating and re-approbating, as we say in legalism. By IBB’s account, if you believe him, he was as much a victim as those who were consumed by the criminal annulment. The worse, he wants history to say of him, is that he was just a coward, who could not stare down Abacha, his subordinate army chief. Perhaps, that may be a better historical indignity to live with, than the criminal indictment of annulling a democratic election.

    It is hoped that a list of those who lost their lives to that act of cowardice of IBB answering the commander-in-chief, when in actual fact, it was his chief of army staff, Sani Abacha, that was the chief commander of the nation’s army, will be published as addendum to IBB’s book of apology. It would also be necessary to acknowledge the personal and national economic losses, Nigerians and the nation suffered as a result of his allowing Abacha to annul the election, as he is now alleging.    

    Of note, many Nigerians, who were mere accessory after the criminal act of the annulment and who had died without the atonement and reasoning together of last week, have been wished the hottest part of hell by many aggrieved Nigerians. If a wish list is made of those who should be in the hottest part of the hades, many of those who were mere errand boys to IBB in the criminal annulment of the 1993 election would feature prominently.

    But, against the run of play, IBB is niftily seeking to come clean, to escape the historic condemnation for the sin which by his own admission, he accepts responsibility for. The members of the human rights community, who may have been nursing the secret wish that IBB can be hauled before a court to answer for the illegal annulment of that election are greatly disappointed. They may have imagined that since Nigerian democracy has become entrenched, and those who were on the firing line of the annulment army, like President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, are now in power, the time for IBB’s criminal indictment is drawing near. 

    But here we are, the man who had dribbled politicians with an unending transition programme; who had banned, unbanned, and re-banned politicians, in a manner reminiscent of dribbles by Diego Amando Maradona, in the soccer field, instead of taking a hit from the offended, not only received plaudits, but garlands from the president and the committee of living past presidents and leaders. And not only the political class, the mega billionaires in Nigeria, were there in their numbers, seeking to outdo each other, in praises and donations for a presidential library of a retired military head of state. 

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    Surely, IBB is a lucky man. A cursory look through the internet would reveal that presidential library is rooted in democracy. But IBB despite being a past military leader has successfully appropriated that symbol of democracy, which he spurned, as military leader. The google says that Presidential Library system formally began in 1939, when President Franklin Roosevelt donated his personal and presidential papers to the US federal government. Now, IBB has rewritten the histories of presidential library by launching one, though he was a military president.

    His legendry skill in making friends was at display at the event, marking the public presentation of his autobiographical book and the launch of his presidential library. Apart from the presence of the former heads of state, the venue was brimming with retired military officers, political heavyweights and leading businessmen, even when many thought that he has become inconsequential in the political scheming of Nigeria. This writer doubts if any other former Nigeria leader can influence the assemblage of such influential men, when the beneficiary can no longer repay such loyalty.

    Many writers have called for forgiveness, more so with Abacha put forward as the escape goat by IBB. Considering IBB’s interest in history, he may actually crave that forgiveness more than the humongous billions raised at the book presentation and launch of presidential library last week. While many living June 12 democracy activists would never give him the benefit of doubt, the wily general is setting up a legacy project that would project his positive side, and seek to write his history in his own image.

    Loathed and feared by his adversaries; loved and adored by his admirers, the one they call the evil genius has shown his uncanny ingenuity even at his twilight. With perhaps his last official performance last week, has IBB succeeded in dribbling history, to his favourable acclaim? History will tell.

  • Less government, more governance

    Less government, more governance

     This headline – “Less government, more governance” — is not original to this column. 

    It’s the legal matrix under which Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Indian minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting, Electronics and IT, portrayed India’s booming progress, over the last 10 years.

    He spoke at the 2025 World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, via a 4:39-minute video clip, courtesy a regular reader, Igwe Pius Ojonile Omachonu.

    Shri Vaishnaw reeled out India’s strides, in public investments, under Prime Minister Narenda Modi Ji.  He started a third term on 9 June 2024, after two successful five-year terms, dating back to 2014.

    The stats simply put, in physical, social and digital infrastructure, were bewildering!

    Public investment rose from about €36 billion in 2014 to about €127 billion in 2024. He didn’t say though, the proportion of debt capital in that investment overlay.

    Rail: In 10 years, India laid 31, 000 km of new rail tracks — “practically the size of the entire German railway network.”  It also electrified 44, 000 km in railway networks — again, as the minister crowed — “more than Germany plus Switzerland plus Belgium put together.”

    What does this tell you?  Germany is western Europe’s largest economy.  But if Indian rail modernization could dwarf the entire German, Swiss and Belgian networks — and it’s yet morning on its investment day — then the global future belongs to big countries that can maximize the advantages of their bigness.

    So ethnic champions and separatist zealots, bent on cannibalizing Nigeria, miss the point.  They simply take the easy — and emotive — way out.  They seem out of their depth with how to lend spark to a vast, thumping, multi-culture country.

    Besides, they are shackled to the past.  India — and China — point to the future, even as America, under Donald Trump, gambles away Uncle Sam’s future, with all-muscle-no-brain bumbling isolationism.

    But back to the strides of India. 

    Social infrastructure: India has opened 446 universities in 10 years — tantamount to, the minister quipped, opening one university weekly, in the last 10 years!  Magical?

    That’s tertiary education. 

    But the health segment of social infrastructure?  Between 2014 and 2024, healthcare hugely expanded.  Now, it covers 350 million citizens. Besides, it just declared free healthcare for Indian seniors, 70 and above, despite its thumping population.

    Inclusive growth, a euphemism for pro-poor policies: India, in 10 years, has built 40 million houses for poor Indians, aside connecting 100 million families, in this critical demographic, with free cooking gas pipe networks.

    Also for the poor: the Indian government opened 540 million bank accounts for the poorest of the poor.  And again, the minister’s winsome comparison: “more than the population of the entire Europe”!

    Imagine dragging such proportion of the huge informal market here, into the formal sector?  Imagine its salutary effect on the Nigerian government’s expanded tax net?

    Result of these pro-poor policies: India has sprung 250 million people from poverty in 10 years!

    But the driver of all these strides is digital infrastructure: the minister dubbed it the Prime Minister’s mandate to democratize IT, to make its use accessible to everyone.

    That mandate birthed the Digital India Programme (DIP) which, rather than cause a dip in transactions, crested in India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI).  By the minister’s stats, the UPI caters for some 400 million users, with 17 billion transactions a month, and a yearly transaction value of €2.8 trillion.  The settlement time?  “Consistently, less than two seconds”!

    For context: contrast that with sundry glitches here, which often traps handsome sums in bank vaults, even after legitimate transfers to destination accounts, private or corporate!

    What’s more?  An enhanced payment system came with a renewed explosion in manufacturing and innovation.  Made-in-India and Start-Up India — both manufacturing hubs — rose from 400 in 2014 to 150, 000 in 2024. 

    So did value of mobile manufacturing — mostly of semiconductors and hand phones — from €2 billion to €50 billion in 10 years.  Manufacturing is driver for mass jobs.

    As for Unicorns — personal or family wealth ploughed back into productive use, without recourse to debt capital — grew to hit 100.

    But the arch-driver of this remarkable development is the legal modernization framework dubbed: “Less government, more governance”, which on the surface sounds more like an oxymoron.

    But in real terms, it means simplifying India’s ancient laws to meet its modern needs.  That means junking no less than 1, 500 archaic laws, with some 40, 000 colonial-era compliances, to fire India’s modern and contemporary economy.

    The video clip went viral and a version of it came with a comment, typically Nigerian: “You’re here in Nigeria sharing palliatives and showcasing construction of 2 km road and 1 Km flyover.  Useless and rogue leaders.”

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    Typical — self-loathing, finger-pointing, empty, conceited, condescending, arrogant –the classical portraiture of the irresponsible citizen, without holding fort for those in government.  As Babatunde Fashola, former governor of Lagos famously quips, anger is no strategy.

    But lo! A segment of the media hugs hare-brained anger as sacred article of faith.  Which is why the media seldom tracks developments in the polity, thus oozing eternal hopelessness.  That’s wilful mirage, even if the government can always do better.

    Take this Nigeria-India comparison.  The Modi Ji India government drives modernized rail, education and health as social infrastructure, inclusive growth, expansive IT, manufacturing/innovation, and modernization of laws as vital triggers of growth.

    The Nigerian government, since 2015, has powered along a similar trajectory, sans re-industrialization, after the crazy imports of the SAP years. That is because comatose DisCos, and decade-investment lags in transmission lines, can’t ensure regular electricity.

    The Buhari Presidency posted good results in rail modernization.  For social inclusion (pro-poor policies), with the World Bank, it compiled Nigeria’s first-ever social register to help the poorest of the poor.  It also pushed the return of local crude oil refineries.

    The Tinubu government has continued on the same path, though choosing neo-liberal tactics to drive its reforms has robbed it of gargantuan social capital, which makes not a few ideologues to question its “progressive” ancestry.

    Still, the same government boasts the biggest student loan policy in Nigerian history, an ambitious consumer credit system that could well lay the ground for booming re-industrialization, if it can solve the acute power problem. 

    Then, ala India: a sweeping bid to modernize Nigerian laws — to boost business –aside an ambitious IT expansion policy and programmes.

    Let the media start tracking the essential.  We may yet gauge where exactly we are, shun fashionable doom and re-find our path to sustainable progress.

    Then, maybe we’ll find that even the Indian “miracle” can be surpassed here.

  • State creation as metaphor

    State creation as metaphor

    The report of the House of Representatives Committee on Constitution Review which proposed the creation of 31 new states is a metaphor of the unthinking political elite that populate the National Assembly. While the report showed the wishful thinking of the committee members, there is no report of any rigorous evaluation of the viability of the proposed states accompanying the report. So, it will not be unreasonable for one to say that the committee merely gathered like children, discussing an upcoming festival, each one mentioning the kind of attire they wish to wear for the ceremony.

    To say that the proposal for the creation of 31 new states is childish is to be mild-mannered. But sadly, that proposal shows how most of the political elite who preside over the affairs of Nigeria, actually think. That explains why, despite the huge resources the country has earned over the decades, the country is still very poor. Many Nigerians would cringe when they remember that it is these legislators that are constitutionally empowered to determine the yearly budget of the country.

    The work of the committee on creation of new states explains how the legislators abuse their powers as envisaged in Section 80(2),(3)&(4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). By the provisions of sub-section (2), “no money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federation except to meet the expenditure that is charged upon the fund by this constitution or where the issue of these monies has been authorized by an Appropriation Act, Supplementary Appropriation Act or an Act passed in pursuant to section 81 of this Constitution.”

    Section 80(3) prohibits any withdrawal from “any public fund of the Federation other than the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation unless the issue of those moneys has been authorized by an Act of the National Assembly.” On its part section 80(4) provides “No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund or any other public fund of the Federation, except in the manner prescribed by the National Assembly.” It is these enormous powers that the National Assembly abuse especially when we have a weak president. 

    Because we have legislators who see the powers they have as opportunity for personal aggrandizement, most of them are interested in inserting monies into the budget. It is such juvenile exercise of powers, instead of acting as statesmen that is the bane of budgets without impacts. Lacking statesmanlike qualities, the legislators compete to outdo each other in budget padding. We have had reports of some committee chairmen inserting facilities, for example, solar panels for their private farms in the national budget. 

    Sometimes, you see a signboard for a road bearing the name of an institution in a state, different from where the project is being executed. Mostly, the so-called constituency projects for which the nation is blackmailed every year end up as lucre for corrupt enrichment. What the legislators do, they invariably teach those who are supposed to execute the projects. The contractors receive the money and vire it into different private projects, with little or no consequences.        

    Also, a legislative arm which does not see their responsibility as a sacred responsibility lacks the motivation to exercise the enormous powers conferred on them by section 88 of the Constitution. Section 88(1) provides: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, each House of the National Assembly shall have power by resolution published in its journal or in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation to direct or cause to be directed investigation into – (a) any matter or thing with respect to which it has power to make laws;”

    And (b) “the conduct of affairs of any person, authority, ministry or government department charged, or intended to be charged, with the duty of or responsibility for – (i) executing or administering laws enacted by National Assembly, and (ii) disbursing or administering moneys appropriated or to be appropriated by the National Assembly.” By these provisions, the National Assembly is conferred with enormous power of oversight, to ensure that funds appropriated by them, are used for the purpose they are meant for.

    Unfortunately, instead of diligently monitoring the use of funds they have appropriated, some of them use the oversight function merely to enrich themselves. Instead of investigating to oversee what uses the resources allocated have been put to, they oversee to see what can come to their personal purse. Of course, those who paid to procure a budgetary allocation would not be afraid of the same people coming to confirm what the budget was used for. The result is that same line item is budgeted perennially for, every year, without the item or project ever executed.

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    This column has argued many times, that unless we have a National Assembly populated by statesmen, who understand the enormity of powers they have to check the executive branch, the nation would only progress at the pace dictated by the executive branch alone. Of note, apart from the president and the vice president who are elected, the heads of departments and ministers are appointed. And being appointees who have no need to come back to the people for a renewal of their mandate, through elections, they operate to please the powers that appointed them.     

    So, where the president is lethargic, as we saw during the time of former President Muhammadu Buhari, a ministerial appointment became for most, an eight-year tenure regardless of capacity and performance. But if the legislators are active and alive to their responsibilities, they are constitutionally empowered to put the ministries and departments on their toes. But as depicted by the committee on new states creation, legislators and those they are supposed to supervise are in the same bed having an unholy alliance, of extortions and debauchery.

    Indeed, the members of the committee who recommended the creation of 31 new states, in the midst of the waste that state executives have become should be ashamed of themselves. As they ought to know, many of the states in the federation borrow to finance their bloated executive and legislative assemblies. The recurrent expenditures of the many of the current 36 states are higher than their capital expenditure. But for what writers call Nigeria’s feeding bottle federalism, most states in the country cannot pay staff salaries talk less of executing any meaningful project in their states.

    If the committee members were serious, they should have understudied whether the atomization of the country into smaller states have any greater benefits to justify their recommendation. They should have analysed the quality of life when Nigeria had regions, and presently when they have many states carved out from those regions, to show the benefits of multiple bureaucracies. Perhaps, the committee members should be investigated to know what motivated their unrealizable recommendations.

  • Adebanjo taku?

    Adebanjo taku?

    “Akintola taku” marked the beginning of the end for Nigeria’s 1st Republic (1 October 1960 – 15 January 1966), though the heady players back then little realized it. 

    Adebanjo “taku” comes with far less catastrophe, though — except for Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-political Titan that, post-1999 to 2003, has progressively shrunk; and now totters in near-total irrelevance.

    But Afenifere’s irrelevance may yet hold serious shock for Yoruba politics. The old lions may be grey and frail.  Still, what they lack in hare-brained vigour, they more than compensate for in rich institutional memory and ideological rigour.

    So, will rank disloyalty that buried Akintola, as he balked at the Action Group (AG) in 1962, long before his actual death in 1966, exalt Adebanjo, as he now holds out against the Afenifere hierarchy, that earlier named him Acting Leader?

    Now at his “departure lounge”, what will Baba Adebanjo tell the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo, when he lands at the other side, on Afenifere’s rise and fall — and Adebanjo’s role in all of it?

    Afenifere is a jewel legacy of the Awolowo era.  Which was why that franchise came in handy for Yoruba progressives to battle Nigeria’s tinpot dictators — the last being Sani Abacha — to a glorious standstill, which procured this current democracy.

    Indeed, these parallel “taku” tales — one by Akintola in 1962, the other by Adebanjo in 2025 — feeds into the rigorous morality of the Awolowo progressive school: unbridled loyalty to hierarchy and the common cause; and total submission to group discipline.

    Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola (SLA) failed to abide by that high ethos.  So, he got banished as reviled sinner-in-chief, in the rigid saint-versus-sinner cosmos of the Yoruba progressives, despite his stellar contributions to that cause pre-1962.

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    Ironically, back then, the youthful Chief Adebanjo and other Awolowo arch-loyalists gained fresh “life” from SLA’s “death”, aside Awoist bragging rights, over the generations that came after them: with Awo, they bawl, fealty is life; perfidy is death! 

    So, where will an SLA-like move leave Baba Adebanjo in the lore of Afenifere, even with the Ijebu chief’s earlier contributions to the body?  The Yoruba institutional memory, with its elephantine capacity, never forgets!

    Still, Baba Adebanjo, with the current Afenifere theatrics, seems to have learnt little from SLA’s tragic thud, even if the old man was himself a player in that grim drama.

    That drama — need anyone be reminded? — birthed the South West “progressives” (the beloved Awoists) versus  “Demo” (the hated SLA and fallen angels)! 

    Yet before, both rolled and joyed as solid, indissoluble columns of Awo’s rock-solid progressive phalanx, against conservative and reactionary elements.  So, why did SLA become the arch-reactionary of Yoruba politics?

    Again, to risk an umpteenth repetition: he failed the test of untrammelled loyalty to the Leader; and total fealty to the collective cause! 

    So, how has Chief Adebanjo fared, in this two-point test, in the brewing Afenifere debacle?  Maybe it’s best to reserve judgment until we revisit the story.

    On 16 March 2021, Afenifere Leader, Baba Reuben Fasoranti, 98 (but then 94), named Baba Adebanjo, 96 (but then 92), then his deputy, as Acting Leader.  He also named, as Adebanjo’s new deputy, Oba Oladipo Olaitan, the Alaago of Kajola Ago, near Ilesa.  Till then, Oba Olaitan was Afenifere’s financial secretary.

    Baba Fasoranti’s reason was old age slowing him down.  So, he needed a spritely lieutenant to delegate powers, while he withdrew into the background.  If there was any other reason, it wasn’t well publicized in the media.

    Though Baba Adebanjo was only two years younger than the Leader, his ebullience, an exuberance not even old age could repel or repress, his lifetime devotion to the Awo cause, and that penchant to joust, cut and thrust in the media, when the issue is Yoruba and Afenifere affairs, marked the Ijebu chief as cut out for the job.

    So, enter Chief Adebanjo, Acting Leader of Afenifere!  But no sooner was he appointed than his old failings took over — that penchant to equate his take as the thinking of the collective.

    In those halcyon days of the southern media, when the hated “Fulani herdsmen” committed all the crimes in the land, after forcefully retiring their criminal cousins from other tribes, whatever Chief Adebanjo thought of it all must equate the “Yoruba” or the “Afenifere” cause!

    That pretty much held true, during his tenure as Acting Afenifere Leader (2021-2024), which dovetailed into the last months of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure.

    Frankly, whatever views Chief Adebanjo holds, whoever he backs in the political sweepstakes, is his alienable right no one can question. The constant crunch, though, is his attitude that his solo run (or at best, what his coterie of close peers feel) must equate an “Afenifere” or even a “Yoruba” stand. 

    That is not and cannot be true.

    Things got to a head when, in July 2022, he committed “Afenifere” — and the chief’s fictive “Yoruba” — to supporting Peter Obi.  That was a gambit pushed too far, and Afenifere felt compelled to clip his wings.  That came with a 24 January 2024 announcement.

    Even then, Baba Fasoranti would appear too much a champion of the collective — and wise master of Yoruba political history — to publicly humiliate his former deputy.

    For context, the so-called “Ijebu Mafia”, a collective of hawks within Afenifere, had pressured the late Chief Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya (AAA) to expel — and thus humiliate — his deputy, the late Chief Bola Ige, when accused of nurturing the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), as rival to Afenifere. Ige himself had accused some Afenifere colleagues of peer envy — and treachery.  AAA wisely declined that rashness.

    So, what Baba Fasoranti did was some soft landing: creating a new Afenifere Elders Caucus.  Though both Acting Leader and Deputy Leader had been abolished, both would find new hallowed space, as “right hand” advisers to the Leader, in that new caucus.  Soft landing, yes.  But the intention was very clear.

    Still, Chief Adebanjo and confederates have dug in.  Their latest act of dissent was announcing Dele Farotimi as national organizing secretary of own Afenifere faction, when they knew Kole Omololu — of the Afenifere that made Adebanjo Acting Leader — already held that position. 

    So, what will Baba Adebanjo, already at his “departure lounge” tell Baba Awolowo: that as SLA broke up the AG by his 1962 intransigence, he too, a professed Awoist all his life, just broke up Afenifere, by refusing to quit as acting Afenifere leader, after  Afenifere had abolished that position — and due to Adebanjo’s own excesses?

    Indeed, if Baba Adebanjo cherishes his place in history, he will do well to retrace his steps. 

    Intransigence in 1962 brought SLA avoidable disgrace, despite his tons of good to the AG cause.  It won’t bring Adebanjo honour in 2025 if, on his account, Afenifere is smashed and destroyed. 

    “Adebanjo taku” is no wreath to crown an otherwise glorious Awoist career.  A word is enough for the wise! 

  • Goodnight Prof Picardo

    Goodnight Prof Picardo

    As Jesus laid on the Cross of Calvary, the chief priests and the scribes mocked him, saying: “He saved others, he cannot save himself.” I am sure that as Professor Neri Picardo, writhed in pains and gasped for breath, following a heart attack while attending to his patient, many would have said of him, what they said of Jesus on the Cross. Perhaps, not in mockery, but believing that the man who had saved so many lives, should have the capacity to save himself.

    No doubt, Prof was a mere mortal, but a very gifted one, who served his Lord Jesus Christ with all the gifts He gave him. In the 43 years that Professor Picardo practiced medicine in Nigeria, particularly in the southeast, he rose to become the most sought-after specialist in internal medicine. Prof consulted for the crème de la crème in the clergy, politics, public service, and the society. He was a teacher of teachers, and mentor to thousands of medical students and practitioners. He was humane, humble and humorous.

    My mother, Bernadette Uzodinma Amalu, who was one, out of his uncountable patients, looked forward to every medical appointment, while she lived. Prof would poke fun, listen with rapt attention, throw in humorous anecdotes, draw local parallels and mimic her smattering English and her local language while consulting. And like other patients, she would be psychologically upbeat even before the medicine is administered. Wherever Prof consulted, more than three quarter of the older patients, would rather stay for long hours to see Picardo.       

    While ruminating the circumstances of his death as relayed to me by one of his closest friends, Frank Offor, (my brother-in-law), I privately wished that Picardo had the capacity to hand over his skills to one of his colleagues while he laid there. For such a colleague could have proffered a solution to Picardo’s heart attack. I am pretty sure that thousands of his patients, who have benefited from his exceptional gifts, as a physician, would agree with me.

    If only Prof could speak, while he lay there, he would have told his colleagues, the medical procedure to get his heart to start breathing again. I recall with a sense of awe, the medical miracle that Picardo did for my maternal uncle, Obuekwe Ejegha, over 30 years ago. My uncle was in his late 50s and had been diagnosed with Cirrhosis of the liver after several months of mistreatment, with unorthodox medications. And for many doctors, it was hopeless case. 

    But Picardo after a series of tests, told my family members that if the scarred part of the liver could be cut off, there is a chance the man could survive. After the operation, my uncle survived and lived for another 30 years. On occasions, Picardo referred to my uncle as the man who cheated death. On his part, my witty uncle regarded him as the white wizard.

    Another profound medical experience I had with Professor Picardo, concerned my father-in-law, Donatus Nebo. The man was admitted at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, under the care of the most famous professor in the hospital then. My father-in-law had taken some local medicinal concoction which apparently bashed his organs. So, he went to the UNTH, for treatment. Following repeated information that the illness was getting worse, after some weeks, and the man may likely pass away, I decided to travel from Lagos, to see things for myself.

    On getting to the hospital, my father-in-law managed to whisper to me that he was dying and truly, some of his relations were already conversing on the next step, since for them, the end was imminent. When I consulted with Picardo’s friend, Frank Offor, he advised me to demand that the man be discharged so I could take him to Prof Picardo at Niger Foundation, for consultation. He warned that the hospital may refuse, unless I sign an undertaking to be responsible for the discharge.

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    With a straight face, I went to the matron and requested that my father-in-law be discharged immediately. When she saw that I was dead serious, she brought an undertaking for me to sign. After consulting with my wife’s elder brother, I signed the undertaking, and took my father-in-law to Niger Foundation Hospital. Picardo asked what happened to the man, and was told by my mother-in-law that her husband had gone to the hospital to check what was happening to him, after taking some local herbs, that terribly upset his system.

    Terribly disappointed by the medical attention Nebo received at UNTH in the hands of his renowned colleague, Professor Picardo’s thundered that he would hold the Prof responsible should anything happen to my father-in-law. To our pleasant surprise, my father-in-law was stabilized within 24 hours and in less than seven days walked to the car after he was discharged. My father-in-law lived for another 13 years, as he passed on in 2015.

    One of Prof’s extra ordinary gifts as a medical doctor is his listening skill. Whether the patient was young or old, Prof would listen attentively to the medical history of the patient, before making his prognosis. Another special quality was what I personally believe is an interlude of prayer, for divine revelation of the underlining cause of the intricate web of stories from a sick patient. I usually notice what I consider a quite communion between Prof and angelic spirits while he is consulting.                  

    Prof was a celibate member of the Catholic society of the Opus Dei (Work of God), founded by St. Josemaria Escriva. He was a Papal Knight of St. Gregory the Great. In a tribute, titled Prof Neri Picardo: A life of service, sacrifice, and medical excellence, Sonnie Ekwowusi, gave deep insight into the training and working career of the one, some colleagues call the Indian magician. A Professor of Internal Medicine, at College of Medicine, Ebonyi State University, he was the first Chief Medical Officer of the Niger Foundation Hospital, Enugu. Also the Head of the Gastroenterology/Endoscopy Unit at the UNTH, as well as an external examiner for graduating students.

    I listened to a broadcaster on Afia Television say that her mother told her she would not have survived, after birth, if not for Prof Picardo. I also believe that my mother, who passed on, in 2016, lived to be 86 years, because of the medical attention over the years by Prof Picardo. Since Prof’s death on Wednesday, February 5 while on active duty, they have been deluge of mourning in many homes at the demise of the one who God used extra-ordinarily to heal the infirm, especially the aged.

    As Prof is buried next Thursday, February 13, I believe strongly that his soul is in Heaven, interceding for the living. Goodnight the one, who had the attributes of a saint. 

  • I.E and $1 trn economy

    I.E and $1 trn economy

    The Tinubu order is pushing for a US$ 1 trillion economy by 2033.  Also, President Bola Tinubu just returned from the January 27-28 Africa Energy Summit in Tanzania. 

    The goal of that summit is to partner with the African Development Bank (AfBD) and the World Bank to give 300 million Africans electricity by 2030 — five years from now.

    Even if that plan works, what structures does Nigeria have to push electricity to homes and industries — these corporate invalids called distribution companies (DisCos)?

    Ikeja Electric (I.E.) — the biggest DisCo — epitomizes such paralysis. Part of its market sits bang in the heart of Lagos.  Yet, the way I.E. blows hot and cold, it may well be in a remote village!

    For seven days, January 18 to 24, large swathes of Okota, Ire-Akari Estate, near Isolo, and environs were thrown into pit darkness.  The reason was a faulty feeder, which I.E.

    took seven days to fix!

    If its technical capacity was suspect, its customer service was warped. It took I.E. four days to alert its customers: total darkness stole in on Saturday, January 18.  The first customer alert was Tuesday, January 21!

    The fault was not cleared till another three days — but that, of course, reinforces the firm’s technical paralysis: hardly news!

    Such tardiness echoes the dead but unmourned National Electric Power Authority (NEPA).  How can NEPA, dead as dodo, still live in I.E. — and other DisCos — and anyone expects them to be part of a power future? 

    Isn’t that delusion, rich and grand?

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    To be sure, not a few are already bolting from the DisCos — fast becoming corporate lepers customers won’t touch with a long pole, if they had a choice.

    The Punch, of January 13, flashed a putative requiem: “Serial outages: Dangote, NNPCL, Total, 247 firms dump DisCos, generate 6, 500 MW”.

    To be sure, that’s captive power generation for solely own — and maybe captive customer — use. In that case firms, unimpressed by DisCo notorious yo-yos, could join.

    Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) approvals for captive power generation — which cuts out the DisCos — is dawning more and more. That means the big private-sector players are removing selves from the shambolic service of the DisCos.  As that popular Yoruba street lingo would put it: “it’s bye-bye to jati-jati”!

    But the real fun will start when the real market dam breaks!  Will we ever devise a truly liberalized power market, in which households too —  neighbourhood small businesses included — have a choice to shun non-performing DisCos?  That would be the day!

    It might not mean total and complete perdition, to be sure. Nimble DisCos may quickly shape up to new market dynamics.  But how many DisCos today are nimble?

    Clumsy is the word — as I.E. that took an entire week to fix a faulty feeder, and four long days to appraise its long-suffering customers!   They probably would all vanish, never to be mourned or missed as the old NEPA!

    Still, even if I.E. — so ruinously representative of other DisCos — doesn’t care about its customers, does it not care too about own survival?

    Pray how, for seven long days, would a firm firmly lock itself off legitimate income — no thanks to its technical incompetence?

    For those seven days, per pre-paid meters, that meant I.E. didn’t earn a dime, even if those meters had trapped in them tokens of electricity units, worth millions in Naira!   How does a serious firm, in 21st century Lagos, Nigeria, do business that way?

    If that recurs, how does it even pay its staff?  How does it meet its overheads?  How does it service its loans from banks?  How does it bolster its capital and sundry machinery, such that faulty feeders don’t take eons to fix?

    Perhaps the firm still has huge customer captives in fraudulent estimated billing: by which it could slap whatever bills on them, for consuming no more than total darkness? 

    Surely, to sanitize these DisCos, the first thing is to ensure they meter everybody, as fast as that can be done, even if that means declaring a national meter emergency?

    The Aba Power Limited Electric (APLE) — a generating firm which has cut out the DisCos — just announced it would meter 100, 000 customers.  Juxtapose that with I.E. and Eko DisCos that tried to pressure customers into buying new pre-paid meters for outdated ones!  The difference is clear?

    Even then, see how DisCos have weaponized meters for customer injustice.  In a more litigious jurisdiction, where folks have the cash and staying power to call the bluff of cheating firms, many DisCos would either be under by now, or are grappling with huge punitive costs, awarded customers by the courts.

    Electricity customers have been so brow-beaten — no thanks to estimated billing — that pre-paid meters at least ensure you’re billed for electricity consumed.

    But at best, that is cold comfort!  Implied in buying electricity tokens is that the DisCo would make the current, paid for in advance, readily available. 

    But lo!  DisCos — near-private trading firms — collect your money, deploy that sum to deepening whatever business transactions they could, yet spin you a thousand and one tales why what you already paid for may never be readily available!

    Now, what sort of trading model is that?  No wonder DisCos like old NEPA think they do you a favour: even if they collect money upfront, while NEPA collected in arrears!

    How sustainable is that in 21st century business?  That’s why I.E. would shut down an entire business district for an entire week, and still deludes itself it’s in business!

    Do they even realize, during that week of complete blackout, how many household economies they’d further set back, in these days of high inflation, in terms of ruined foodstuffs, with fridges becoming near-ovens?

    Do they know how much productive time vanished — never to be regained — during this period, particularly for those who think to live, and must engage their laptops, now that petrol and diesel had become virtual 24-carat gold?

    If delivering value isn’t driving the thinking of I.E. and other DisCos, how can they be the so-called “last mile” wheelers of electricity, to power President Tinubu’s dream of a US$ 1 trillion economy, which current pains are said to be forging?

    But maybe the crunch is near: if I.E. — and others DisCos — don’t leave the market, the market should be designed to leave them.  That logic is simple — and it should shape further market liberalization, if the government is really bent on a trillion-dollar Nigerian economy.  APLE, in Abia, appears already showing the way.

    If PDP-era crony capitalism imposed this monster model, the APC era should think little of junking it. 

    Enough of this old NEPA apparition shackled to the past, yet feigns it’s prime part of the future.  Otherwise, any talk of DisCos as the “last mile” to actualize a US$ 1 trillion economy by 2033 would turn not only a rich illusion but also a stark delusion.

  • Labour on the wrong path

    Labour on the wrong path

    It is probably too late in the day to remind the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress and its allies, currently angling for war over the newly approved telecommunications charges, of the basic factors of production whether of goods or services. As my grandmother, now late, is wont to say of the futility of teaching a geriatric the use of the left hand, that proposition, as far as organised labour is concerned, is long dead.

    Surely, if the Congress’ continuing retention of the logo of Labour Creates Wealth is any suggestive of the movement’s ideological fixation in the world of Artificial Intelligence, its continuing failure to embrace the cold realism of market imperatives has, quite frankly, become a source of embarrassment that might spell its undoing.

    Yes, it is no news that NLC has, true to its character, called out its men for mass action over the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)’s approval of a 50% hike in telecom tariff. At the end of the emergency meeting of its National Administrative Council (NAC) January 29, it came to a number of startling resolutions top of which is the flat rejection of the 50% tariff hike,  proposing a five percent hike instead, and with it the resolve to embark on a nationwide mass rally effective today, Tuesday, February 4 to press the point. 

    While describing the new tariff as “unjust” and a huge burden on Nigerians already struggling with economic hardship, it says the proposed rally, “will serve as a warning on the dangers of imposing such an unfair increase on a struggling population earning a minimum wage of only ₦70,000; a population that has suffered outrageous hike in the price of petrol, high cost of food, hike in electricity tariff and general rising inflation”.

    Talk about its resort to the familiar weapon, it says nothing is off the table including “a nationwide boycott of telecommunication services and further mass actions which may involve nationwide withdrawal of our service to resist policies that exacerbate poverty and inequality!

    And then adds that it is doing this to protect ‘the interests of Nigerian workers and citizens against exploitative economic policies.

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    “We will not relent in our struggle against policies that undermine the welfare and dignity of our people. Nigerian workers and citizens must unite and take action to prevent further economic oppression. We must resist any policy that prioritizes corporate profits over the well-being of the people”, it said in its communique.

    Never mind that the NCC had in its announcement justified the tariff increase as “necessary to safeguard the sustainability of the industry, while balancing consumer protection”; or even the other point, which the telecoms operators had made long before then, and on which they had premised their initial demand on 100 percent tariff hike, that their industry was, under the existing tariff regime, headed for an imminent collapse, appeared to have made sense to the NLC and its allies.

    Not even with the public knowledge, that MTN, despite posting a 32.6 percent growth in service revenue to N1.5 trillion, actually incurred a loss after tax of N519.1 billion in the first half of 2024 which it blamed on record-high inflation and the naira’s devaluation. The other operators have chosen to make their figures best kept secrets even when the indications are of an industry straining under the yoke of unbearable operational costs! Not a word of understanding let alone sympathy for the operators in a critical sector on which the future of the country’s digital aspirations lie!

    Yet, if the Congress ever needed another casus belli on which to hang not just an industry facing existential threats, but the Tinubu administration that is not infrequently accused of unrestrained embrace of market orthodoxies, it thinks that the NCC approved tariff review qualifies for one.

    By the way, it isn’t exactly that Nigerians do not understand where organised labour is coming from. Grandmasters of the art of populism, if the issue is about winning an argument, it seems unlikely that organised labour could ever lose an argument against any opposition, no matter how rational the latter’s position appears.  Whether it delivers the intended results or not is a different matter; against the Nigerian government, they stand no chance at all and so the round-robin game persists.

    Which is truly tragic. The blatant disdain for its concerns aside, the big question is whether the NLC actually knows anything about the industry. From our major cities where services are barely passable to the theatres of war and violence where vandalisation of telecoms infrastructure are daily fares further down to the sprawling spaces across hitherto served by countless base stations which have since been put out action because it no longer makes economic sense to keep them running, how much of the industry does it know aside the cheap retort about prioritising profits over the well-being of the people?

     This takes us to the premise of NLC’s rejection of the tariff – the charge that the hike is ‘unjust’. I find the charge laughable if not ludicrous. Apparently, ‘just’ to the NLC means leaving the industry to limp from spasm into a certain death. It says nothing about balancing the market imperatives with the demand for service, or even the more concerning issues of transparency, upfront disclosure of all critical details of plans, including costs, validity periods, and benefits, which the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has artfully articulated for the benefit of the public but on which the organised labour seems ill-prepared to educate itself let alone the people on whose behalf it claims to be acting.

    By the way, whatever happened to the research department of the NLC? Once upon a time, it used to be said that Nigerians love  to plan without facts; it would seem a most recent development that a once research-centric NLC has succumbed to the virus in which demands made outside of the prism of, rational, objective realities are served as staple! Or is the NLC suggesting that the operators should continue to sustain the losses even at the risk of their survival?

    The problem with the organised labour, as I see it, is the jaded thinking about those traditional tools availing for all times and seasons.  Not anymore. Whereas the dynamics have changed, only the movement cannot see the signs – a pity really.

  • Trump’s gunboat diplomacy

    Trump’s gunboat diplomacy

    Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States of America (America), has mastered the act of intimidating his opponents, and so far, it appears to be working for him. Americans, non-Americans, foreign leaders, local and foreign corporations, indeed the entire world is apprehensive of what Trump might do with the enormous powers he possesses. Trump, who has vowed to make America great again, totally abjures soft power, and unabashedly is determined to use intimidation and brute force to assert his country’s supremacy and exceptionalism.

    History will record his era, as the return of gunboat diplomacy, in foreign relations. Starting with immigrants, who entered America illegally and are living in the country without documentation, Trump is determined to hound them back to their country of origin. From day one, Trump walked his talk, by signing an executive order expelling undocumented immigrants, and is forcing other nations to accept their deported citizens. President Trump appears not to care about the wider implications of the policy, which includes separating children from their parents, since children of the undocumented persons have themselves become US citizens, by birth.

    While majority of Americans, including those that may eventually be affected by the deportation policy, are in support of throwing out persons with criminal records, the president appears determined to go beyond criminals to rid America of undocumented persons. The claim that Trump is a child of immigrants, or that the nation should worry about the policy’s impact on the availability of cheap labour does not change his resolve.

    Trump is also determined to get at the children of the undocumented Americans, albeit in the future, to leave, as he has by executive fiat sought to reinterpret the 14th constitutional amendment, which provided for citizenship by birth. Reinterpreting what many American thought was settled more than a century ago by the Supreme Court, Trump seeks to exclude the children of the undocumented, non-permanent residents, and visitors, from US citizenship. Trump falsely claimed that his country is the only country in the world that people acquire citizenship by being born in the country.

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    His supporters argue that a reinterpretation of the 14th amendment would help stem illegal migration into the United States. Many of those who figuratively cross seven rivers and seven seas, who climb mountains and walk through the desert, to enter into America, knowing that they will not be documented, do so to give their unborn children, a better opportunity in life, when born in America. The estimated 30 million immigrant workers, 8.3 million of which are unauthorized will be affected by the policy.

    For many, there is the desperation to be born an American, which Trump is determined to end forcefully. But, already 22 states have approached the courts to stop the president on his tracks, a case that will likely get to the Supreme Court for the reinterpretation of the 14th amendment. While Trump has promised to knock down inflationary pressures on groceries, which is another major reason why Americans voted for him, the crisis ignited by his policies at home and abroad, may make that nigh impossible.  

    The two giant US neighbours, Mexico and Canada, plus China, which together account for over 40% of US import, have come under the direct aim of the Trump’s gunboat diplomacy. While the America neighbours will soon be hit with 25% import tariffs, China will have to contend with 10% hike. Instead, of using tariffs to stave off economic emergency which the World Trade Organization, allows temporarily, Trump is determined to inflict arbitrary tariffs on his trading partners without any regard to the rules of international trade.     

    Of course, the affected countries, especially his neighbours, which would pay a heavy price, have indicated their determination to engage him on his own terms. While the balance of trade may be in favour of his neighbouring countries, they provide cheaper goods for his citizens which help to stem inflationary pressures. Trump’s claim that he is imposing the tariffs on his neighbours to force them to join forces with him to fight illegal migration and the poisonous drug, fentanyl across the borders though a plausible argument, is a subterfuge for protectionism.

    Of course, past experience shows that protectionism as a trade policy cannot work side by side with capitalism. America cannot seek to export to other countries, their economic activities of comparative advantage, in technology, intellectual property, arms and ammunition, relying on the rules of international trade on protection, while, it unjustifiably uses illegal tariffs to punish their trading partners. Trump should realize that if America goes rogue in the use of tariffs, other nations may disregard the protection provided by world intellectual property, for instance, and brazenly fake American technology and intellectual property. 

    No doubt, the rule of international relations is guided by reciprocity, as it is nigh impossible for America to rely on its enormous military might to maintain peace and tranquillity in international relations. This writer thinks that if Trump continues his gambit of gunboat diplomacy, he would increasingly push even non-aligned countries, to join the anti-American gang to fight the emerging hegemony. He would be foolish to think that the nations he is seeking to intimidate and harass into towing whatever line he has drawn, would all fall in line, without a fight.   

    He should also not forget that his country is a democracy, and some of his most strident opponents, being non-democrats would outlive him. The roguish president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who has been sworn in for a third term of six years, via a disputed election, made the snide remark that he has outlived three America presidents. He was there when Barack Obama was the president, and also during Trump’s first coming. He saw out, the immediate past president, Joe Biden, and is still there at Trump’s second coming. 

    Trump’s dealing with Maduro has made Americans and non-Americans, worry about the standing of America in the fight for free and affair elections in Venezuela. While Trump claims that he merely sent an envoy to secure the American detainees in Venezuela, international observers are worried that it gives recognition to the rogue president. The world is also apprehensive over how Trump will handle his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, as well as North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un. Both leaders have been there for decades, and are diametrically opposed to democracy, which America is supposedly its champion across the world.

    While many international observers are apprehensive at Trump’s second coming, the majority of US citizens are happy with his performance, so far in office. Of note, majority of faith-based citizens of the world are excited over Trump’s determination to end the elastic transgender initiatives of what he calls the crazy far left. He asserts that God created humans, male and female, nothing more.

  • Mr. President, the felon!

    Mr. President, the felon!

    Not many noticed the grand symbolism of the last days of President Jimmy Carter (1924-2024), the greatest after-office US leader ever.

    First, the dead Carter voted Kamala Harris as his preferred future of America.  The  living majority of Americans hugged their racist past in Donald Trump.

    Then, Carter yanked self off Trumpian America — sheer beast sold as macho beauty.  Donald’s might-is-right?  Too crass for Jimmy’s humane soul! It’s a neo-grim world Carter would rather shun, after cohabiting, for so long — too long? — in the old one. 

    So, a few months after a century, he fled!

    But this-twin symbolism the globe near-missed; because like Trump, the man of the hour, they are too fixated with the gross to notice the sublime! 

    Indeed, fleeing the sublime for the gross is the new buzz of America.  But trust Uncle Sam!  He would sell it as some global high culture! America’s decline beckons, though.

    In 1976, a nationwide outrage, over a mere burglary, powered Jimmy Carter to the US Presidency. 

    To finagle a second term — which he did by a landslide in 1972 — Republican associates of President Richard Nixon had burgled and bugged the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters, at its Watergate office, in Washington DC. 

    Enter, the Watergate scandal!

    But a dam of nationwide fury broke — and swept Nixon out of office in 1974. It was desperate resignation to fend off US House of Representatives impeachment and a possible conviction in the Senate. Yet, it was a mere burglary!

    Flip to 2020, and another second term high drama: Donald Trump levied war on the Capitol, to stop Senate confirmation of his defeat by Joe Biden. 

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    He just pardoned his Capitol mob, as he had bragged.  It’s executive outlawry, stupid!

    But one of them, Pamela Hemphill, aka MAGA granny, spurned that pardon: “We were wrong that day,” she insists.

    Between 2020 and 2024, the former president and future hopeful grossed another infamous record: a convicted felon for 34 counts! A smudge of shame?  No!  A badge of honour, to power him back to power as 47th US president!  American wonder!

    In 1974, Nixon fell from a mere bug-and-burglary.  In 2024, Trump soared: as grand conqueror of the Capitol — virtual treason; and as convicted felon. Hurrah! US 21st century Hercules just grafted political and personal crimes to roar back as president! 

    Enter, Mr. President, the unfazed Felon!  It’s the growth and growth of American democracy, in half-a-century (1974-2024)! Should the world now laugh or cry?

    Between election triumph in November 2024 and inauguration in January 2025, there were enough echoes and echoes of inspired outlawry!

    If Trump, the president-elect, was not talking of annexing the Panama Canal, he was dreaming of seizing Greenland (Denmark’s autonomous dominion) — both by sheer force of arms. 

    See why Carter “baled”?  He ceded the canal to Panama in 1977, though the actual handover was in 1999!

    If Trump wasn’t baiting Canada to, by force by fire, become the 51st state of the United States, he was riling Mexico to rename Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America — a sick joke, taken too far, which neither Canada nor Mexico found funny!

    It would be America’s burden — and the world’s splitting migraine — should President Trump walk President-elect Trump’s rather deranged talk! 

    But wait a minute!  He just decreed Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America!  Will he move with equal despatch to annex Canada and Greenland, and also seize Panama Canal? 

    On the home front, the ace felon even pressed his democratic right as convict not to be duly sentenced!  That, to be sure, was blocked, but not before it got all the way to the Supreme Court.

    That the US apex court dismissed that move, 5-4, showed how frail America’s doughty institution had become against ruinous strong men.  In Watergate America, it probably would have been slammed 9-0 — with nationwide outrage to boot!

    Even then, sentencing or no sentencing, the United States just fell on own sword, when the talk is equality before the law.  Trump got New York jury conviction.  Yet, the stiffest sentence he got was “unconditional discharge”!

    So Trump, though duly convicted and sentenced, has been voter-canonized above the law!  Talk of Aristotle that dismissed democracy as a vote by the mob!

    It’s a noxious rub against due process — over which America always crows — that Uncle Sam may yet rue.

    By the way, warts and all, Nigeria’s law permits no felon to be voted as president!  Why, the old geezer already ogles a third term! Republican Andy Ogles, on January 23, in the House of Representatives, pushed a bill to scrap the US 22nd constitutional amendment — limiting presidential terms to two — to gift Trump a third term.

    Again, that failed under Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria.  Will it fly in Trump’s America? Are we then seeing Trump’s own dream “shit hole”?  Ha!

    Still, as every victory often puffs out crumbs of its defeat, every catastrophe too may reveal the seeds of its redemption.  That starts with a Biden-Trump comparison.

    Democrats may well deem Joe Biden a “failure”, in the raw immediacy of crushing defeat.  But long-term reason suggests otherwise.

    Frail Joe is just a decent old man in an America that bawls with proud decay.  But that doesn’t make debauchery a sane choice over decency.

    As President, Biden did his duty till the very last day — for better, for worse.  In his shoes in 2020, Trump fled in a huff, after failing to bluff a loss into a win..

    If in doubt, contrast Vice President Harris certifying own loss, to Trump sending his thugs to “hang Mike Pence!”.  All VP Pence did was choose sacred duty over treachery.

    At the stomps, Harris stayed above Trump’s vulgar abuse and cheap lies.  In the immediate brain-brawn match-up, at the sole presidential debate, Harris soared over Trump — even if the US electorate would vote brawn over brain.

    Back to Transition 2020, against 2024: Trump (2020) goaded even career civil servants to subvert a peaceful power transfer. Biden (2024) was the direct opposite.

    Finally, Biden was there to hand over to Trump — his last, sacred duty.  Trump bolted in 2020!  Indeed, history would be kind to Biden and co, if America is saved from itself. 

    But if it drowns? The deeds of Biden and co would provide enough vignettes to damn contemporary America!

    No wonder: Morning Star, a U.K. tabloid, dismissed Trump 2.0 as the “Return of the village idiot”!  Uncle Sam may wince, but a good part of the globe is smacking at that vicious but apt put down! 

    What, but village idiocy, is grabbing territories in the 21st century?

    The Carter-Biden-Harris coalition — a multi-racial rainbow in which everyone thrives — is the sane future of America, not some racist, fascist, fear-belching MAGA (Make America Great Again), a euphemism for MAWA (Make America White Again).

  • Tax reforms: Lessons in leadership

    Tax reforms: Lessons in leadership

    Many thanks to the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) for dousing the firestorm needlessly stoked by some self-appointed activist-governors, Nigerians can look forward to an expedited consideration and hopefully the passage of Nigeria’s Tax Reform Bills by the National Assembly. Given how the forum managed the process – particularly the broad consensus that came after – based on their communique – most Nigerians will probably still be wondering what the entire fuss was all about in the first place.

    Imagine: now the NGF was unequivocal about the imperative ‘of a modern tax framework in ensuring fiscal stability’; the importance of aligning Nigeria’s tax system with global best practices hence their declaration of commitment to ‘a more efficient and transparent fiscal policy that will foster economic growth and development’.

    Even more interesting is that the governors didn’t appear to have come to the point without some specific ideas of their own: they wanted a revised Value Added Tax (VAT) sharing formula essentially driven by the need ‘to promote fairness and balance in resource distribution among the states’.

    They even proposed a sharing formula: 50% based on equality, 30% based on derivation, and 20% based on population, which, in their view, will ‘bridge the economic disparity between states, ensuring that all regions benefit from national revenue while rewarding states that contribute significantly to VAT generation’.

    Yes; the NGF considers any contemplation of an increase in the VAT rate or reduction in the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) a no-no at this time; they seek continued exemption of essential goods and agricultural produce from VAT to protect the welfare of Nigerians, support household incomes, and to promote agricultural productivity. They even recommend the removal of any terminal clauses in the allocation of development levies to critical national agencies, namely the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) – all in the effort to ensure uninterrupted funding of education, technological innovation, and infrastructure development, which are vital for Nigeria’s long-term growth.

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    To imagine that this is coming from a 39-member body, 19 of whom on October 28, 2024 had all but pronounced on the bills as not only anti-North but actually instructed the lawmakers from their part of the country to reject them– based on their rather specious definition of ‘derivation’ in the sharing formula of the Value Added Tax; talk of a new day!

    Moving on: it is beside the point that the presidency did not, at any point, pretend that the proposals as outlined in the original bill were cast in stone; or as some of the opposing governors would have the world to believe that they came anywhere close to extra-constitutional executive orders or military decrees.

    It perhaps mattered less to some that the president neither dismissed the concerns of the elements opposed to it nor pretended at any point or indicated at forum that the draft bill was perfect. Or that all that the president wanted was that the process be made to run its full course in the finest traditions of law-making and constitutionalism, considering the sheer efforts that had gone into its making, as against the clamour by some to have it peremptorily aborted by any means fair or foul.

    Yes; all of those are apparently now forgotten. As they say – they belong to the past. Hopefully too the role of some leaders, who after confessing that they had neither read nor were prepared to even read the bill – still couldn’t imagine the president as deserving the benefit of the doubt let alone his prerogative to push an issue that could arguably be said to constitute another critical pillar of his economic reform agenda!

    Do we add the not-so-subtle blackmail by one Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State that his beloved North would show its true colours to the president and presidency if they insist on going ahead with the policies despite the outcries?

    “We will show our true colour; we will fight for it. No policy should be imposed on the people because Nigeria does not operate an oligarchy system of government or a military rule.

    “It is not a good policy for northern Nigeria because we are not going to get money to pay workers’ salaries, to do roads. The presidency and federal government must listen to our plights; otherwise, they are calling for anarchy. And that is not good”.

    Those were his exact words.

    Now, the wheels have turned full cycle.  Common sense has been allowed to prevail; talk of another moment to prove why leadership – of an enlightened, focused and effective variant – is neither cheap nor popular. Yes, the same play, which some arrogant and incurably bad actors had insisted must be called off for peace to reign – is back in session and in the designated arena of the National Assembly, which is precisely where it ought to be in the first place! And while it seems unlikely that the team of slow learners will ever admit to making a false call, it seems to me the ultimate test of leadership that the president, whom they have since resolved must be made to lead from behind, is the one making the final call – right in the front!

    Now, the rest of us can only but wonder about what shape their next game plan might take!

    This takes us to the other revelation – which I actually consider more troubling. We know – and the saying is true – that our governors are powerful. And that quite a good number only hanker after the peacock thrones and so cannot be seen to suffer the inconvenience of the daily grind that comes with the responsibility of the office. But that a section of the governors could openly threaten the president for doing the job that he was elected to do, simply because they find some of his policies disagreeable? How about setting new limits in gubernatorial errancy?

    Again, as they say, it is not truly over until it is over. Whereas the governors’ forum may have spoken, it seems early in the day to suggest that the bad faith and the toxic politics that characterised the discourse in the last few months will dissipate anytime soon. Nigerians had better prepare for the mutations of the same toxicity as the battle shits to the National Assembly. It is, after all, Nigeria’s season of opportunistic politics.