The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Do or die in Edo?

    Do or die in Edo?

    Next Saturday, the people of Edo State, will vote for a new governor to take over from Godwin Obaseki who will soon complete his second tenure. The major gladiators in the election are Obaseki’s preferred candidate, Asue Ighadolo, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Monday Okpebholo, and that of the Labour Party (LP), Olumide Akpata.

    Obaseki who was elected governor in 2016 on the platform of the APC, decamped to the PDP, to contest the 2020 elections, after he fell out with his godfather and predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole who was then the chairman of the APC. The PDP excitedly welcomed him to their fold, and after a keenly contested election, Obaseki was declared the winner. When Obaseki fell out with Oshiomhole, during his first tenure, he also fell out with the members of the state House of Assembly, elected on the platform of the APC, in 2019.

    To the chagrin of even non-partisans, in Edo State and across the country, Obaseki refused to swear in some elected legislators. Out of 24 legislators, Obaseki carried out his executive responsibility, which required the imprimatur of the legislators, with only 10 legislators, out 24, which make up Edo State House of Assembly. Luckily for Obaseki, former President Muhammadu Buhari, condoned the governor’s intransigence and the 14 legislators, who were considered to belong to Oshiomhole’s faction spent their four-year tenure at home.

    Oshiomhole, was also sacked from his position as the APC chairman by his ward, apparently for belonging to the camp of the then potential presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. And with the tacit approval of the presidency, Obaseki swept the polls. As the gladiators head towards the election, next weekend, there is no doubt that the dynamics have changed. Oshiomhole has bounced back to reckoning as the senator representing Edo North, and his faction of APC had won the presidency. Now, he is not only the leader of the party in the state, he has behind him the so-called federal might.

    The APC in Edo State, was also able to cohere, after the presidency reconciled the preferred candidate of Oshiomhole, Dennis Idahosa, now the deputy gubernatorial candidate, with the winner of the second round of gubernatorial primaries, Okpebholo, the candidate of the party. To further compound the challenge facing the PDP, Obaseki’s deputy, the vivacious Philip Shuaibu, fell out with Obaseki, and he has decamped to APC, to fight the next weekend’s election. Shuaibu didn’t leave without a lot of embarrassing drama to the governor and the PDP.

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    Apart from the drama of office space after Obaseki sacked him from the precincts of the government house, there was the religious incense, when Shaibu got his priest to say a Mass to disinfect the new office space he was banished to. To further push the knife into Obaseki back, Justice James Omotosho of Federal High Court Abuja, declared the impeachment of Shaibu as null, void and of no effect. The reinstated deputy governor decided to rub salt to the injury by making a grand entry into Edo State with the APC gubernatorial candidate on July 18, which resulted in the death of Inspector Onuh Akoh.

    The APC has been pushing for the trial of the alleged killers of the Inspector, which they claim was sponsored by those beholden to the state government. While the state government has denied culpability, the Edo State Security Network, which the APC had accused of spreading terror in the state, has been banned by the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun. The governor’s past intransigence also caused a rift between his government and the highly revered Edo monarch, the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, and the implications are far reaching, in an election year.

    The governor whose forbearer allegedly betrayed, the forbearer of the current Oba, is seen by the opposition party as living up to the pedigree of his family. To further compound the challenge on the royal front, the royal courtiers in the Benin kingdom have accused the governor of dragging the king to the court of law, which they consider a sacrilege. The dispute over the custody of the returned artifacts of the ancient Benin kingdom has made the governor an enemy of the Benin royal house.

    There is also the challenge posed by the resurgence of the LP candidate, Olumide Akpata, with the support of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the party in last year’s presidential election. The LP’s candidate is likely to eat into the votes of the PDP, whose officials including the governor, had previously given the impression that the LP and PDP were fighting APC, as a common enemy, at last year’s election. Now that it is only one election, and with the PDP and LP standing differently, and fighting for one trophy, the PDP may suffer the backlash. 

    These challenges perhaps explain why, Obaseki has expectedly declared next Saturday’s election as ‘a do or die’. But how can he contend with the many battle lines he had opened in the last eight years? How can he contend with the far reaching influence of the Oba of Benin, who may likely oppose his candidate? The historical discontentment and his resent challenge of the authority of the Oba are strong influences that may work against his candidate. Again, Obaseki and his erstwhile chummy deputy, Shuaibu campaigned for the 2020 election on the ground that they were slaying god-fatherism, which they said Oshiomhole represented.

    Now, people are accusing Obaseki of being a godfather, who wants to foist a Lagos boy, on the state. Ighodolo, a very successful lawyer, based in Lagos, is taunted with the lack of capacity to speak Edo language fluently. The PDP has however counted that lack of fluency in Edo with the lack of capacity on the part of the APC candidate, to speak fluent English. The battle line will be tight in Edo north, where Oshiomhole and his reconciled boy, Philip Shuaibu holds sway, and will likely give Obaseki a bloody nose.

    The threat of ‘do or die’, by Obaseki may however turn out a wimp considering the enormous security personnel that has been deployed to the state to protect the voting process. According to the IGP, 35,000 police personnel have been deployed to the state for the election. That would be in addition to other security personnel from the Civil Defence. Being an off-cycle election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), should also be better prepared to deliver a free and fair election. Unfortunately, the last time former President Olusegun Obasanjo declared an election as, a do or die affair, even the winner considered the process a sham. Will Obaseki’s threat be proverbial in Edo State election?

  • Dangote sweet and sour

    Dangote sweet and sour

    Now, NNPC Ltd (and allied oil organs) have got to be the wettest of blankets in the world — and they have about proven that twice.

    On September 3, as everyone was toasting the final roll-out of petrol from the Dangote Refinery, NNPC Ltd jacked up petrol pump prices in a spectacularly insensitive version. 

    It’s reminiscent of 1986.  Prof. Wole Soyinka had just won the Nobel.  Then virtually the next second, Dele Giwa was letter-bombed by suspected agents of the Babangida military government.  Our inimitable WS quipped that the parcel-bombing made the Nobel Prize celebration turn “ash in my mouth.”

    In the same token, NNPC Ltd’s timing of its price-hike just turned ash, in our mouths, the alluring promise of local refining, on which not a few had banked upon to begin the final organic assault to rein in the current tear-away inflation.

    Pray, are our long-suffering citizens not entitled to re-assuring news of relief from this blighting inflation?

    Before September 3, while the see-saw over the petrol roll-out lasted, Farouk Ahmed, CEO of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) — industry regulators of local refineries  — threw a twin-bombshell.  That was June 26.

    Ahmed had alleged: Dangote fuels were sub-grade with alleged high sulphur content; and two: Dangote, the perennial “monopolist” was browbeating NMDPRA to capture  the new local refining market, as he did the then new cement market. 

    Dangote, of course, clawed back: some intra-NNPC Ltd/oil regulatory cabals were fending off local refining, to extend their sizzling gravy in costly product imports, because they allegedly had a blending plant and money spinner in Malta. Tit for tat?

    In truth, Dangote ventures stand fairly docked for their past hardly veiled monopolist instincts.  And surely, no one wants local petrol to end up like the ever-costly local cement, when we all look up to local refining to tame inflation and help re-set the post-subsidy economy?

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    But could that also be a deliberate — and cynical — whoop to hoist Dangote by own “monopolist” petard, knowing how such would resonate with the unwary?   

    Indeed, it’s the perfect emotive ambush! Your being quakes and flays the “monopolist”.  But your sharp intellect blissfully forgets not even a “monopolist” bait should trump the clear benefits of a critical national investment, as such a big refinery, come to wipe out eons of fuel importation.

    That — and only that — is epochal key to banishing wasting scarce forex to import processed crude: value to crude oil you could add locally at cheaper costs. 

    So, instead of NMDPRA cynically scapegoating Dangote to continue ruinous imports, it should rather strengthen its anti-trust protocols. 

    Besides, that reckless statement should have earned the NMDPRA boss a severe query, with no less severe reprimand.  Yet, mum has been the word since.

    Now NNPC Ltd is different from NMDPRA, even if both are not unfairly yoked by an historic umbilical cord.  Still, that the leading downstream player (NNPC Ltd) and the oil downstream regulators (NMDPRA) appear rather cold towards local refining should spike fair suspicion, shouldn’t it?

    Is there then some spectre of sabotage, locked deep in there, in the inner crevices of the government itself?  Without tarring anyone, this is worth probing.

    Still, a presidential memo at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) birthed the much celebrated decision to sell crude to Dangote — and other local refineries — in Naira.  That, at least, doused the NNPC Ltd-NMDPRA-Dangote “civil war”.

    That Solomonic wisdom was toasted by all with even presidential aide, Zach Adedeji, gushing at the possible “saving” of almost four out of every 10 US dollars, now spent on importing processed crude.

    That looked promising as a smart step to tame inflation — until September 3 when NNPC Ltd unleashed its latest price demons that unhinged everything.

    The grim message was clear: no matter what, local refining or no, Nigerians will continue paying outrageous prices for petrol.  If you you think “outrageous” here is emotive, why are some state governments already telling some grade of workers to come to work only twice-a-week, under the euphemism to “work from home”? 

    That is admission that such a price regime is unaffordable to most.  If that is so, how does it work for an economy that works for all? 

    Besides, if government workers skip work and still get paid, what about millions of self-employed citizens condemned to the daily grind of high transport costs? 

    What about private sector workers, without public sector cover?  What about those waiting to lose their jobs, from factory shutdowns, due to spiking operating costs?

    How about fresh sharp inflation that makes nonsense of the harvest season, with cut-throat shuttle costs, blunting out whatever relief, in expected lower food prices?

    Such is the centrality of petrol costs to Nigeria’s socio-economic life that whatever policy sweeteners added to explain or justify this latest hike simply don’t make sense.

    So, this is the crunch — get less fixated with dogma craps: subsidy is a crime, floating the Naira is divine and “market forces” are gods — malevolent, by the way — that must be worshipped, even if citizens daily perish at their callous and bloody shrines.

    By the way, “market forces” are elite greed, from which the masses themselves, dog-eat-dog, are not immune.  That’s why some wretched souls in the street don’t blink twice before selling petrol at N1, 500-a-litre, because it’s blessedly scarce!

    The crunch is this economy, for it not to tank, needs oil subsidy.  Fuel is just too central to the spine of Nigeria’s socio-economic life. 

    So, fix a reasonable Naira-dollar parity for the Naira at which NNPC sells crude, dedicated to the local economy, to local refiners. Heresy! — did you hear the neo-liberal dogmatic scream?  More of social common sense!

    If the pump price hits N320/N350-a-litre, it should somewhat cool off inflation.  The so-called “loss” in government accounting is smart investment to repair the hellish social costs, which subsidy removal has unleashed on the people.

    But even that “subsidy” is just for a while.  It should last till the government sufficiently mainstreams — two, three years, max — condensed natural gas (CNG) which, with no subsidy, is far cheaper than petrol.  By the time processed crude is exclusively exported to earn forex, the government would regain the full value in earnings.

    Far too much chirping about “market forces”.  It’s high time someone spoke loudly for the poor that have been thrashing under these excruciating pains. 

    Between policy boldness and policy foolhardiness, there is but a thin line.  Here is the moment to apply the brakes!

  • Petrol: It’s the math, stupid!

    Petrol: It’s the math, stupid!

    For Nigeria’s legion of activist/analysts, the past week must have been a particularly busy one. The subject, as anyone would imagine is the premium motor spirit aka petrol and the econometrics (or is it the economics?) of its delivery at the pump. For if most Nigerians had thought they have gained substantial understanding of the subsidy factor in the fuel price matrix, what the latest round of adjustment in the pump price has most certainly revealed, is in fact, the merely suppressed chasm between the government and the generality of the citizens.

    Yes; it is not just that Nigerians are forced to reopen debate on the subsidy question much sooner than they could ever have imagined; the facts and figures being thrown around costs as indeed the conclusions said to have been derived therefrom for the most part of the past week can only be a measure of, not just the gross misunderstanding which subsists on the matter, but also a reflection of how deeply entrenched the illusions have remained.

    So, it was when citizens first reported the resurgence of fuel queues across the country, some three weeks back. First, the denial, by the country’s sole petrol importer – the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL) that the product was in short supply even when the facts clearly indicated the contrary. As usual, the initial line was that some logistical issues impeded the distribution and thence copious assurances that normalcy would soon return. Second, and because facts are such that could not be wished away like that, the days after will follow with the admission by the NNPCL that it was actually in the hole –and that the burden of $6 billion owed creditors for the supply of gasoline was not only choking but threatening to its survival as a going concern. Recall that the same NNPCL had earlier dismissed the report of indebted to international oil traders to the tune of $6.8 billion, which the report has stated was responsible for non-remittance to the Federation Account. Recall also that the same NNPCL had, even way back still, denied payment of subsidies on petrol when the reality of under-recovery was also reported. If I may recall, Nasir El Rufai, the former governor it was who first stirred the hornet’s nest when he declared some time ago in Maiduguri: “The Federal Government is now subsidising fuel; many people don’t know this. It is the right policy. I have always supported the withdrawal of oil subsidies; but in the course of implementing the policy, the government realised that subsidy has to be back; right now, the government is paying a lot of money for subsidy, even more than before.

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    “You start implementing a policy because you are sure it is the right policy, but in the course of implementation, you come across bottlenecks, and you modify.

    “The keyword in leadership, in my view, is pragmatism. You should be pragmatic. So when you make a policy, you start implementing it and it doesn’t seem to work well. You should have the humility to stand back and say this is not working, and you modify it,” the former governor had stated at the time.

    Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri had responded at the time thus: “I don’t want to delve into that issue. It is a very sensitive issue. It is better we get all the facts. As far as I’m concerned, the president removed the subsidy and it remains removed till today. Anybody who is saying that subsidy is being paid, it is left for the person to bring the facts and then we will talk about them.” Questioned further on whether the fuel pump price for petrol at that point was market reflective, the minister had replied, “It may not be determined by market forces but let us deal with the price as it is today”.

    Well, the wheels have finally turned full cycle; that day, which the minister had hoped could tarry, seems to have arrived sooner than expected. Last week, the NNNPCL moved the price from N568 to between N855 to N897, for a litre of petrol, depending on location, in what signals the clearest indication of where the government is headed.

    As always, the arguments have remained essentially the same. Unfortunately, it is not, as has long become popular, about the price of a litre of petrol in Nigeria being among the cheapest in the world – even if true; or the other equally wearisome argument about the huge price differentials between us and our ECOWAS neighbours as a major incentive to trans-border smuggling – also a valid argument to make. We also hold to be true, the argument about another petrol price hike – occasioning another spiral of inflation – even if the latter is more or often than not driven by mob instinct considering that the price of diesel on which the haulage industry actually depends has long been deregulated.

    The main argument is simply whether it makes a rational sense to sell a product at a price far less the cost of producing it simply because the product is petrol. This, to yours truly, is where the issue has thus far, been poorly, if not improperly joined! For while I am willing to indulge the sentiments of those who locate the problem in the inability of the nation to refine crude for its domestic needs, it ought to be obvious by now that the old assumptions about local refineries being the elixir to the subsidy conundrum has been hopelessly exaggerated. Need proof? Check out the prices of diesel and aviation – two essential fuels currently being produced by Dangote Refinery to see whether this myth is actually borne out. If anything, that myth would appear to have been finally shattered!

    Surely, even without the odious mind games between the NNPCL and Dangote Refinery on whether the former should play the off-taker for the latter; or even the nauseating twists and turns and the bad faith that have accompanied their business relations. The question that must be begging for an answer at this point in time is the price of a litre of Dangote petrol; related to this is whether this price compares with the (Free on Board (FoB) value quoted on global platforms.

    To yours truly, there is where the focus should be at the moment – as against the blatantly uneducated exertions of the tribe that have chosen to foreclose the possibility of the government ever making sense on the matter.

    Here, Nigerians might be interested in finding out the reason(s) behind NNPCL’s sudden disinterest in playing the off-taker role for Dangote Refinery as announced by the company at the weekend. Will the company be open to taking the price deemed to be ‘under-recovery’ from Dangote Refinery? And who will bear the difference? Why despite the professed nationalist pretensions, the Dangote Refinery has chosen to keep its cards close to its chest; making clear its intention to move its products off-shore should things not go its way – price-wise?

    Seems to me that the answers to these may yet be found in the mathematics of cost – which Nigerians love to loathe!

  • Nationwide militancy

    Nationwide militancy

    This column maintains the view that Nigeria has been unfair to the oil producing areas, in the Niger Delta region, since the discovery of oil at Oloibiri, Rivers State in 1956, by Shell Darcy. Ever since, it has been exploitation ala carte, all pun intended. Listening, to Chief Edwin Clark, who is 97 years, recently, as he engaged in virulent verbal violence with the same gusto, as the younger militants like Asari Dokubo, against Minister Nyesom Wike, left this columnist flustered and flabbergasted.   

    Perhaps, it is the age-long exploitation of the region that has bred such ferocious militancy in the old and young, alike. Chief Clark, had thundered “arrest Wike now”, over the minister’s threat to ignite fire in any People’s Democratic Party (PDP) state, whose governor intervenes in the Rivers State political crisis, against his interest. Wike’s threat, while not altruistic, is also not so vile, as most politicians, including the threatened PDP governors, do similar things to protect their political turf.

    The main interest here is about the militancy that has been the lot of the region and nearly every part of the country. While Chief Clark fires verbal missiles, the region’s children in the creeks fire ballistic missiles, making the region a theatre of combustion. Hopefully, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) would be able to change the dynamics so that militancy in different shades across the country, would allow effective governance. A recent good news that things may be looking up, in the Niger Delta region is the increase in crude oil production to 1.658 million barrels a day. Last week, Abdullahi Maiwada, the spokesperson for the Nigeria Customs Service made the announcement at NCS’s Strategic Communication Interagency Policy Committee (SCIPC) media briefing, in Abuja.

    According to him, the Nigerian Navy ‘Operation Delta Sanity’, recently destroyed 15 illicit refineries, 17 wooden boats, and 10 refining ovens in Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, and Ondo states. He also reported that the Navy dismantled two million litres per day refinery, along Ogoloma-Bakana waterways, in Rivers State. The average oil production in 2023, was 1.5 million barrels, and that had been due to the help of Tomopolo’s Tantita Security Services, a company recruited by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari after the Navy, was considered as incapable of effectively defending oil production in the region.

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    Could it be that the Navy is now willing to discharge their statutory duties by defending the Nigerian waters and its abundant resources from the militants and the illegal crude oil thieves who have been making a joke of their supposed superior power? This column hopes the development is not a flash in the pan as the Tinubu administration work towards its crude oil production target of two million barrels a day. It will be good for the struggling national economy if a combination of the private and public security apparatus redeems Nigeria’s security image.  

    Maiwada, spoke about other successes of the military. He reported that the Nigerian troops have neutralized 1,166 terrorists, arrested 1,096 suspected terrorists and criminal elements, and rescued 721 kidnapped hostages in August. Also, that key terrorist leaders and commanders were taken off. They included Munir Arika, Sani Dilla, and Ameer Modu in the Northeast, and Kachalla Dan Ali Garin Fadama, Sani Baka Tsine, and Ibrahim in the Northwest. What baffles this writer is that despite the regular briefings that many of the terrorists have been neutralized, they seem to regenerate in that region.

    According to the spokesman: “The strategy of dismantling these terror groups by targeting their leadership, commanders, and collaborators is significantly diminishing their capacity to carry out major offensives.” This writer wishes that the strategy would yield faster result. And the PBAT obviously wants better results from those entrusted with securing the country. That explains why he sent his Minister for Defence, Bello Matawalle and Chief of Defence state, General Christopher Musa, to Sokoto State to end banditry which consumed the life of an aged traditional ruler, the District Head of Gatawa District in Sabon Birni Local Government Area of Sokoto State, Isa Bawa.

    According to reports, between 2010 and May 2023, approximately, 13,485 deaths are attributable to banditry, while about 1,087,875 individuals in rural communities have been displaced by the bandits. The report published by IPI Global Observatory, further indicates that there are about 30,000 fighters referred to as bandits, spread across the groups terrorizing the northwest. The group of criminals have made life even more miserable for the people of the region, which boast of being the poorest of the poor in Nigeria.

    The impact of the bandit attacks has been devastating on the already pauperized economy of the region. Agriculture which is the mainstay of the regional economy has been devastated, further impoverishing the people which in turn feed the terrorist’s recruitment drive. Also affected, is the cross-border trade on agricultural products, which use to thrive between Nigeria and her neighbours, Benin and Niger.  The causative factors include farmer-herders clashes over access to pasture, poor governance over the years, across board, and insurgents from the Sahel region, with links to Tuaregs who are in the country to fight for their Fulani cause.

    The north-central apart from occasional bloodletting in the Plateau and Benue have been relatively calmer, compared to their recent past. The groups, who target communities, kill, maim and burn down wantonly, are without any scruples. The crisis which initially started as farmers-herders clash, have degenerated to what many see as ethnic cleansing by herders and their agents. Considering that over the years, the south largely depended on the north for most of its food supply, the entire country is affected.

    There is also militancy in the southeast associated with the agitation for a breakaway republic. While the leaders of the main group, known as IPOB strenuously argue that they are non-violent, their so-called militant wings and breakaway factions, constantly seek to embarrass the state actors with attacks on soft targets. Luckily for the region, the present state governors show determination to end the militancy, and they have taken the battle to the enemies. The Monday sit-at-home, an imprimatur of the boldness of the militant group, has ceased to impress, unlike before.

    The northeast which used to be the hot-bed of a militancy that degenerated into terrorism for over a decade has simmered in the past one to two years. The Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa (ISWA) which strangled some of the states in the region for years, have been on the back foot for some time, and hopefully will be finally defeated. While all is not yet Uhuru, the mass abductions in hundreds, especially students, seems to have substantially abated. No doubt, the onerous task of nation-building is being slowed down by militancy and terrorism.

  • The seller is no king

    The seller is no king

    The aphorism that the buyer is king, does not apply to Nigeria, any more. If all things are equal, as they say in economics, sellers competing for customers offer their goods at competitive prices, which make the buyer the king. Where the sellers are unreasonable, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that sellers are estopped from arbitrary price fixing. So, a seller who hideously sells far beyond a reasonable margin should be driven off the market, either by other competitors, or punished by the state. Sadly, most Nigerian sellers want to be kings, averse to fair pricing.

    That perhaps explains why the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), decided to move against the racketeering sellers. According to the Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the FCCPC, the commission will fight the disturbing trend of marketers “engaged in the growing trend of unreasonable pricing of consumer goods and services across the country”. Presently the price of goods and services, now largely depend on how greedy the seller is, damn the buyers, and even more damned, the manufacturers.

    One common example is the price of cement. The chairman of BUA Cement, Abdul Samad Rabiu, captured the kingship of sellers, in an interview with The Guardian, while relaying how his dealers handed the buyers of BUA cement, the short end of the stick. He said: “we sold over a million tons of BUA cement to dealers at the price of N3,500 per bag, to reduce price for the consumers. However, the dealers were selling each bag of cement to consumers for prices ranging from N7,000 to N8,000.”

    He went on: “we were unable to regulate the dealers who were earning substantial profits due to the high margins, as the company lack influence over pricing in the open market so we discontinued the price policy.”

    What happened in the cement industry may not be different from what is happening in other industries, as marketers in anticipation of inflationary pressure on the naira, continuously hike their prices, which in turn further negatively impacts the cost of goods in the market.

    The above scenario is the lot of Nigerians in recent times, otherwise how can the market forces justify the crazy inflationary pressure that has made mincemeat of the nation’s economy. Food inflation for instance, has refused to budge even in the midst of several intervention programs by the federal and state governments. Sometime in February, the federal government announced the release of 102,000 metric tons of various grain types from the Strategic Reserve and the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria.

    Again, in July, the federal government announced the dispatch of 740 lorry loads of rice to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, to cushion the effects of food shortages across the country. Strangely, despite these intervention programs by the federal government, and many others by the states, the prices of food items continue to skyrocket. What the sellers do obviously is to determine the price of the goods, with scant regards to fair pricing and even the supply.

    The discreet investigation by FCCPC as reported by this paper last Friday, captures the profiteering going on amongst sellers. Retailers, joyously increase the price of goods, every day, as if they derive pleasure from the suffering of the masses. And the saddest part of what has been the lot of Nigerians is that the arbitrary gains are most times made by middlemen, who are merely parasitic in the economic value chain. Some are market association officials, who have no goods of their own, but yet determine the prices goods are to be sold at.

    As already seen from the reaction of the organized private sector, the FCCPC won’t find it easy, in regulating the abuses in the retail end of the price manipulation, but they should do their best to curtail the abuses within the sector. The attack from the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), shows a mind-set which do not care much about the consumers. While this column does not advocate for price fixing, mindboggling price gouging and abuses, that is common within the retail end of the market, should be addressed.

    Sometimes, prices of goods change every day, and that cannot be reasonably attributed to market forces of demand and supply. Sellers merely anticipate what the next price could be, and they affix it on their goods. As the enquiry by FCCPC showed, the price of an item sold in a supermarket in the USA, was 500 percent cheaper than what is offered for the same item, in a supermarket in Nigeria. And to further worsen the exploitation, there is over 20 percent increase in the price within a week.

    If the organized private sector, fully understand the market dynamics, they would encourage the FCCPC to use the powers they have to bring sanity to the market. After all, if goods produced do not leave the shelf because of price abuses, their members would close up their businesses. So, the organized private sector, before jumping into the fray to attack the Commission, should research the market dynamics, to determine whether it is inflation or price gouging that is at play.     

    If it is the forces of inflation that is at work, they should lay their findings before the public, and that would spur the government to continuously rejig their fiscal policies. This writer agrees with the position of the President of NACCIMA, Dele Oye, that instead of pointing accusing fingers, concerted efforts by all stakeholders is what is needed. It is easier to point fingers, than to join forces, as Muda Lawal of CPPE seems to be more interested in doing.

    As argued by the FCCPC’s chief executive, what is the rationale for the price of a product to be the equivalent of N140,000 in USA, and N944,999 on the same day, in Nigeria. The blame on ‘fluctuating exchange rate, galloping lending rate, high energy costs, multiplicity of taxes, levies, fees and unfriendly regulatory environment’ while causes for serious concern, do not justify the 500 percent differential, in the practical example shared by the Commission. And clearly, while promoting free trade practices, regulatory agencies, should also forestall trade abuses, as is obviously the case in Nigeria.   

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    A cursory look at the mandate of the FCCP, shows that they are in a pole position to save Nigerian consumers from the exploitative pricing of goods and services, when caused by sellers. With its functions and powers enumerated in sections 17 and 18 of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (2018), the Commission has expansive powers to protect the interest of Nigerian consumers. Again, while not asking for price fixing, the Commission should do all within its powers, to rein in, unlawful anti-consumer practices.

  • War over nothing

    War over nothing

    In a season where every Tom Joe touts the bragging rights to attack the government or anyone believed to be close to those in government over anything and nothing in particular, it comes as no surprise that the directive by the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council not register candidates who are below 18 for next year’s school certificate examinations has become something of a casus belli around which some have found a new rally.

    If my memory serves me right, it’s been some six weeks since the Joint Admissions and Matriculation (JAMB) first broached the idea of returning our tertiary institutions to what they should be: a citadel of learning for matured minds. If that Abuja meeting, which I understand didn’t pass without its own fair dose of controversies, and one in which vice chancellors of universities were in audience, was to communicate government’s resolve to restore what was already an existing policy of pegging the university age at 18, only a few of us pretended to understand not to talk of taking the time out to chew on the implications of what was to come.

    Well, that day has some. The federal government has taken that final – or better still- necessary step to clean the mess! If a child is not expected to be in university until 18 – and so the reasoning went – why allow them, in the first place, to sit for the qualifying examination that would in the end, cause a breach to the rule?

    I perfectly understand the anger of those who think that the government acted rashly, and that some kind moratorium be granted to allow those caught in the web to sail, or even still, that those innocent children should not be punished for the mess they didn’t create but are merely the victims. Still have emerged, related arguments, that the government loses nothing by allowing the status quo since it poses no injury to anyone; and stranger still, that a government that condones marriage of under-18s should have no trouble finding space for 16-year-olds in its university system.

    These are persuasive arguments – details of which could be worked out; surely, they neither detract from the substance of government’s position nor whittle down the import of what the government seeks to do. 

    The irony is that some actually believe that the government shouldn’t even bother about pegging the university age for its would-be entrants. That in today’s world of precociousness, parents should have the liberty to offload their infants on the school system since the society, nay the world, is expected to pivot around their geniuses! In other words, the barely disguised outsourcing of parental responsibilities to teachers and minders counts for nothing since, in some people’s opinion, the society ultimately benefits from early learning by kids!

    To be sure, there have been many more things that have been said about the new measure in our peculiarly certificate-crazy society that citing them would simply add no value save for their nuisance!

    That is how banal things can sometimes get.

    Talk of the new age; the old rule under which children are expected to be properly weaned off their mother’s breast milks before thinking of ‘school’ is gone forever. What of that mandatory stipulation of yore that the child’s right hand, slung over the head, must touch the left ear before venturing near the school gates? All are supposed to belong in the past!

    Convenient isn’t it – since it relives the parents of the guilt that an outsourced parenting brings!

     Imagine the government now stepping in to remind of a 6-3-3-4 policy said to be anchored on that golden rule and which carefully observed would leave no room for arguments. To some, the government rather than propelling the society forward is actually doing the opposite! See how jaded an argument can be?

    Yes, I understand the penchant for the rat race the stuff of which has turned every nth neighbourhood shed into schoolrooms; the associated culture that has turned parents, with neither the luxury of time nor the pleasure of parenting, to perfect strangers to their children. The abominable pressure of moving the children at neck-breaking speed to the next level no matter how nebulous and uncertain is what stands condemnable and must be condemned.

    I recall a riotous scene in my son’s school years back: the commandant of the school, (it is a military school) had, at a PTA meeting insisted on not allowing students in the second year of their senior secondary school programme to have a shot at external WAEC and NECO on the ground that it was distracting to the students and hell was let loose! The parents, apparently couldn’t understand why the school authorities would not indulge their wards the luxury of having their O’ Level grades in the kitty before their formal shot at it a year after! The rat race, as it was as now, remains to yours truly, stranger than fiction.

     How about the unholy matrimony between school proprietors and parents which has eventuated in the crash programme of primary and secondary education as indeed the engulfing anomie which the government now seeks to purge?

     It seems inevitable that the changes which seek to reset the deviation from the normal to the normal will be fiercely resisted. That is the point the country is at the moment.

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    And while we are at, we must thank Prof Farooq A. Kperogi for letting Nigerians know that in United States, ‘students apply to enter universities between the ages of 18 and 19’ and that in Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, South Africa, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, etc. countries that Nigerians love to cite, that anything less than 18 is an aberration in the university system.

    And whereas these countries have a special place for their exceptional gifted pupils; they are treated as exceptions rather than the rule. And the idea of gifted children is certainly not new to Nigeria and Nigerians as some critics of the measure by government appear to suggest, which was why the one in Suleija was established.

    To get back to the point; Prof Mamman is right. He deserves the support of everyone that means well for this country. Needless to add that he’s done nothing outside of the statutes to justify the demand for his head. One urges his critics to let him – and Nigeria – be.

  • Again, Ajaero pushes his luck

    Again, Ajaero pushes his luck

    Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) — not a great one for introspection –rolls out the big guns again, in a battle he is not in any way sure to win.

    This is clear from the latest drama out of a simple Police invitation which Ajaero and gang just flipped into some slur against NLC as a body, letting off insane threats of a Labour meltdown, should the police arrest Ajaero.

    Pray, does the NLC President, as His Excellency, the Workers’ President, now enjoy immunity from arrest and prosecution under the 1999 Constitution?

    Still, like Ajaero’s other past skirmishes since the dawn of the Tinubu administration — all of them needless — he is avid at fluffing whatever goodwill he has left.  Some blokes are just quick — too quick — to push their luck!

    At the end, choices are free.  So, Ajaero can hang himself on own whims. But he has no right to hang organized Labour with him.  There, lies the rebuke in this latest gambit.

    But again, organized Labour must decide — why cry more than the bereaved?  If Ajaero spurs Labour to gallop with Joe, in his joy ride of doom, it’s their choice too! 

    If workers are short-changed — and they will, you can be sure — let them blame no one but selves.  Ajaero has shown to be more than enough distraction, in self-driven gambits that use Labour as opportunistic cover, for his electors to have thrown him off. 

    But if they still indulge his rabid journey to perdition, maybe collective suicide of organized Labour would make logical sense.  Again, their democratic choice!

    How did this latest excitement start? 

    It was an August 7 raid-and-search of a rented shop, on the second floor, at the NLC Abuja Headquarters complex.  But you could clearly see the bad faith, as Labour  — wilfully? — conflated that as raid on its office proper, on the 10th floor.  By the way, the two facilities are eight floors apart!

    Incidentally, Benson Upah, who released that initial press statement (per The Punch August 8) just doubled down on his original fib, in his emotive bluster against a second Police invitation to Ajaero, this time with Emmanuel Ugboaja, the NLC general secretary, fixed for September 5.

    Why, when asked by The Guardian (September 2 ) that reported his bluster, if the duo would honour the invite, he waffled: “some programmes have already been fixed”!  Meaning: entertaining Police invites is now at the discretion of NLC! 

    Femi Falana, SAN, had better correctly advise his clients!  Yeah, government impunity is bad.  But even worse is Labour — and sundry — impunity.  That’s knocking on the door of anarchy.

    But it all issued from the first invite, by which the Police asked Ajaero to report at Force Headquarters, Abuja, on August 20.  But Ajaero, with his lawyers, picked August 29 to appear — and triumphantly marched on Force Headquarters, with lawyers and sundry activists in tow. 

    So, you can pardon Upah for hallucinating over “some programmes have already been fixed”.  It’s one hubris NLC may yet sorely regret should, after a long waiting game, the Police decide to hang Ajaero and co with own long ropes.  Hubris!

    Still, this route of bad faith is a lose-lose.  What does it take to play the civil citizen, go to the Police as invited, then use the same democratic institutions to establish your innocence?  Aren’t there enough systemic checks and balances to do that?

    Shortly after that first visit, Ajaero bragged: the Police had nothing on him — which may well be.  But a second invite might just show the man had bragged too soon. 

    Either way, it really doesn’t matter — the relay of interviews.  What matters is a clean process to firmly establish allegations for a fair trial — or non-evidence to close the case.  Both parties should be committed to such.  Nevertheless, bad faith makes it unnecessarily complicated.

    In fairness to Ajaero and co, though, Labour isn’t the only organized body that takes advantage of its set-up to impose citizen impunity.

    Anytime a journalist runs into a storm, the media are all too eager to jump into the fray to defend “free speech” and “human rights”.  It’s an instinctive jump, powered by preening dogma, with little objective analysis of the facts of the case.

    The other day too, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) was in the dock for alleged failure to declare correct assets — a routine call that comes with his high office. 

    Many a petal in the flower of Nigerian Bar all but told the embattled ex-CJN to resist trial; and spit at the same law that created his office to sit in judgment over fellow citizens — co-citizens that are the CJN’s equal, in the eye of the law. 

    Might the CJN then be above that very law that exalted him above others? Arch-folly!

    Thank God, though: good sense prevailed.  The ex-CJN got convicted at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). But the jurist stays alive to fight his appeal, before the courts right now. 

    That’s due process: submit, even if you have a doubt. Then, prove your innocence.  If Ajaero had followed this process, this distraction wouldn’t have arisen. 

    He — with NLC — would have found quality time to fight the cause of workers whose check-off dues gift them their huge salaries and generous allowances.  But no!  A play to the gallery is irresistible! But how does that advance workers’ cause and welfare?

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    In truth, Ajaero’s self-distractions have caused workers dear — and not the least on the N70, 000 new minimum wage.  After making much row about an outrageous N615, 000, and filibustering over N250, 000, NLC eventually accepted N70, 000, pretty much as a face-saving measure.

    Had Ajaero not picked too many needless battles before then, perhaps he could at least have secured N100, 000 for the lowest earner?   By the time the NLC agreed to N70, 000, the threat of strike, NLC’s most potent weapon, had all but lost its sting.

    Before then, Ajaero had attempted three failed strikes: one after he was battered black and blue at Owerri, for using NLC to strong-arm voters, to favour the Labour Party (LP) candidate, in the Imo State gubernatorial election.

    That ended as double — or even treble? — jeopardy: the LP candidate didn’t only take an electoral hiding, Ajaero himself has since become a near-personal non grata in smart Alec, Julius Abure’s LP.  Add Ajaero’s Owerri drubbing, and it’s a clear treble.

    During another strike, some desperadoes switched off the national grid — a clear security and economic sabotage that the government just let slide. 

    But it might just be as the Yoruba say: the child abused the Iroko and flushes with early victory.  Does the poor lad think the Iroko crushes traducers in the immediate?

    No one — but deluded Labour itself — frets over insane threats to go on strike at the drop of a hat.  It won’t stop anything if plausible evidence exists against Ajaero.

    But the government too must be fair to Ajaero.  No government worth its democratic name would frame any citizen — even the most unreasonable of all gadflies.

    But a parting advice for Ajaero and co: untrammeled rights lead to blatant wrongs, which coast to anarchy.  Anarchy itself swallows democracy and its flower of rights.

  • MAWA

    MAWA

    Donald Trump trumpets Make America Great Again (MAGA).  But you need no especial discerning to figure out what he craves is Make America White Again (MAWA).

    But even if you trump that racist trope — every pun intended — what sort of “White” does Trump have in mind?

    Indeed, trumping a racist motif is imperative here, to hit the crux of the matter. 

    White, Black, Red, Brown — as US Vice President Kamala Harris dubbed her late mum, the Indian immigrant Shyamala, at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at Chicago, Illinois — Yellow, or any sundry colour, are all shades of US rainbow demographics.

    Democracy is all about numbers; and the persuasions and negotiations to make the numbers count in votes.  So, heckling Trump, just on White “racist” sentiments — no matter how true that is — may be great for emotions. But it falls short in cold logic.

    Trump, as much as current presidential opponent Harris; and glorious predecessor, the ever-dazzling Barrack Obama, has as much right to appeal to White votes, as Harris to pitch for Black votes (from her Jamaican father), and “Brown” votes.

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    So, on that score, Trump is no devil any more than Harris or Obama are saints. All is fair in war!

    Still, what sort of “White” does the often sore and grumpy Trump appeal to — and often galvanizes with foul language — against the many others in the US rainbow? 

    For an answer, look no farther than Trump himself — but apply no less a treatment to Harris.  What does the Bible say — by their deeds (and words) we shall know them?

    Trump dubs others: Crazy Nancy (former Speaker, Nancy Pelosi), Sleepy/Crooked Joe (President Joe Biden), Corrupt Hillary (Hillary Clinton), Lyin’ Ted (Ted Cruz, Republican US Senator), Little Marco (Marco Rubio, Republican and US senator), Ron DeSanctimonious (Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis), Laffin’ Kamala (Kamala Harris).

    His is a peculiar cave, from which pit-darkness he sees only the worst in others.

    But wait a minute: are these not a series of Freudian slips, exposing the raw vices deeply buried in Trump’s troubled psyche?  Also, might “Laffing”, which Trump mocks in Kamala, be a natural instinct Trump lacks but badly craves? 

    Pray, who tells lies more than Trump?  And aside his convictions, who is more crooked than Donald — jailhouse mugshot and all, awaiting trial, for election interference, in Fulton County, Georgia?

    Besides, someone once asked if Trump was capable of a good laugh — as natural as a good cry — adding that all he evokes in the public eye are frozen grimaces!

    Harris, at the DNC; and ever since President Biden pulled out and she ricocheted top of the Democratic Party ticket, gave as much in Trump-bombing as she received in Harris-mauling.  But none for her Trump’s infantile name-calling for childish mockery.

    “In many ways, Trump is an unserious man,” Harris quipped at the DNC to rapturous applause. “But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious” — simple, forceful, devastating: because it rings too true.

    Contrast that clinical maturity from a 59-year-old with the eternally wayward infant-belching from a 78-year-old! 

    Is Trump then facing his worst nemesis: an accomplished and polished woman much more relatable to America’s current — and future — spectrum, than the griping Trump and MAGA outpost, irredeemably chained to the past?

    And ouch: she’s Black! — or in Trump’s MAGA cave view, an Indian-just-turned-Black!

    It’s even more amazing how Hillary Clinton flipped sleepy-crooked-corrupt against Trump at the DNC: “Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial, and when he woke up,” she mocked, “he made his own kind of history — the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions!”

    Blistering!  But the cruel sweetener came as the crowd roared: “Lock him up! Lock him up!” — the same “lock her up” the Trump crowd screamed, on the hustings in 2016! 

    The big difference is that Trump is likelier to be “locked up”, already convicted for 34 felonies in New York — awaiting sentencing: a far cry from Trump’s fond wish of 2016! 

    What you wished for others could easily turn your portion — beware!

    The two Obamas — Barrack and Michele, the star-quality couple — also poured chilled water on Trump’s cheap racial condescension after he suggested, at a controversial interview with rather hostile Black journalists, that Latino immigrants from South America, often took away “Black — read: menial — jobs”.

    “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be a Black job?”  The crowd roared to this bruising pun — she should know: Michele was First Lady and hubby, Barrack was President: and they were both Black — and proudly so — but Blacks that built a rainbow coalition, relatable to modern America!

    But that was only a clincher to a brilliant premise — an all-too-obvious insecurity that fuels Trump’s MAGA derring-do: “His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happened to be Black.” 

    That was smack — to MAGA — in the face!  The crowd went berserk!

    Notorious fact: Both Obamas are Harvard Law School-trained — and counted the best among the rest.  But what cut really deep here, in Michele’s “Black job” scorn, is that whereas Barack has a pint of White blood, Michele is as Black as they come!

    In a brilliant turn of phrase, the brainy former First Lady had ruptured two gangling Trump vanities: generational wealth that made him a rude billionaire; and vanishing White privileges — and resultant grudges — that fuel Trump’s MAGA support base.

    Untold tale: none of that — only hard work — will matter in America’s evolving rainbow!  Even more poignant: White panic, after the Obama presidency, spurred Trump and his MAGA.  No wonder the base teems with non-college educated Whites, virtually left behind in contemporary skill-set realities.

    Still, aside self-destruct personal frailties of which Trump boasts a surfeit, how can you place Trump’s bid for a White House encore side-by-side with his 6 January 2021 war on Congress, to claw back the election he clearly lost?  Isn’t peaceful transfer of power America’s global bragging right?

    Which returns to the original question: to which “White” does Trump appeal?  It can only be the dregs — and the disgruntled — despite Trump’s generational wealth.  No country triumphs with dregs — not even Uncle Sam, except he hugs a decline.

    Which is why, for a racist, chauvinist and misogynist, Donald Trump might have met his ultimate nemesis in Kamala Harris.  But that’s not because she’s Black, Brown, Yellow or Red.  It’s because every nation ought to embrace its best to reinvent itself.

    Whichever way, America will make a choice on November 5.  Beyond basic human decency that exalts all, Ripples has no dog in this fight.

  • The creeping anarchy

    The creeping anarchy

    Nearly a month after as the Endbadgovernment protests and the attenuating rage have ended, its aftermath has certainly left an unsettling trail of which to those who truly claim to love Nigeria will do well to pay attention. For much as our legion of activists have made much song of their constitutional guarantees to protest if not necessarily its correlates of peaceful assembly, it is certainly the case that the fears of the government as indeed those of the orderly society have been borne out. Hopefully, the tribe of those seduced into accepting that the so-called rage was all about hunger would have thinned out substantially by now.

    We saw what happened in Kano, Yobe, Borno, Kaduna and one or two of other northern states where the large army of the Almajirs, once unleashed on government institutions and other hapless but generally peaceful populace, knew nothing about holding back; going as far as flying a foreign flag and calling for a regime change.  Even now that the well-choreographed but artfully programmed rage under which the protest organisers had sought cover to rally and inflame public anger against the government have ended as a bitter disappointment, the unsettling security issues which played out in the course of the protests, have become too grave to ignore.  

    The war of course rages still.  In fact, anyone expecting armistice anytime soon will be sorely disappointed. Not with the revelation that the tribe which has long insisted that the government can never put its foot right, moving from merely scoffing at government at every turn into the dangerous terrain of subversion; and certainly not when the government has finally signalled its intent to do battle with the elements who obviously assume that they are above the laws of the land.

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    Yes, the government no longer makes pretences about the drama of the past weeks as being of the routine stuff. Last week, the government got the Federal High Court in Abuja to freeze the accounts of 32 individuals and companies linked to the #EndBadGovernance protest. The government’s lawyers had argued that the accounts were used ‘to promote the offence of criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, cyberbullying and cyberstalking’. Earlier, the government had frozen more than $37 million worth of cryptocurrency held in wallets believed to be owned by some organisers of #EndBadGovernance protests. Earlier still, the police had also ‘invaded’ the Nigeria Labour Congress complex in Abuja over suspicions that one of the suspects on its trail actually operated from one of floors of the building.

    For now, it is the words of the security agencies, nay the police versus those of the NLC; suffice to say however that if the elements sworn to oppose government at every turn, and who convinced of the sacredness of their cause would not baulk at crossing the dangerous line of incitement, subversion and treasonable activities, the least expected of the government as the guarantor of public peace and societal order is to assume the responsibility to act proactively and decisively before things spiral out of control. After all, the protest movement, far from done with their old playbook of de-legitimation, bullying and subversion that seemed to have served her so well in the aftermath of the 2023 presidential election, can’t be accused of lacking the means to fight their battle through. And they have been doing precisely that in their dirty fighting, daily in the cyber-sphere!

    Unfortunately, if it seems a part of the illusion that having conquered that vast jungle, the price of ‘victory’, no matter how nebulously defined, would appear worth every ounce of their exertion. This should be more than sufficient to satisfy their paymasters and their local and foreign backers just as the latest twist must have thrown the rule of unanticipated behaviour into the equation with the government showing that it is truly awake!

    No thanks to the traditional and the social media, the big story is supposed to be the so-called budding tyranny of the government, its intolerance of dissent with sub texts in clampdown of the media and opposition! In the unfolding narrative, a simple invite by the police authorities on the labour leader to clarify alleged links with a suspect has suddenly become a cause around which the nation’s entire labour movement has chosen to spoil for war! To this has been added the never ending feeds in the social media by the usual NGOs and civil society groups of tales of ‘mass abduction of journalists and other activists artfully designed to blackmail the government. In all of these, the government is supposed to pretend that the weighty issues unveiled by the protests be either ignored or glossed over, perhaps until next time – just like that!

    Talk of intransigence breeding impunity; Nigerians, surely will recall the last chapter of intransigence, or better still, outlawry, by the labour movement. That was in June. Then, it was not sufficient for the NLC and its affiliates to embark on strike to press its demand for a new minimum wage; it had to corral players in the essential services sector, the electricity union, into committing a grievous crime. Although renowned for its epileptic services, it seems highly unlikely that the cost of that criminal subversion will ever be known especially in the number of casualties undergoing surgery, the premature babies whose incubators were callously switched off and such other countless emergency situations. That is what impunity has sired. The wounds, if it will ever heal will most certainly take a long time.

    Today, the Canadian government offers a good lesson in how to stand strong in the face of mindless intimidation.  A so-called Freedom Convoy which began on January 22, 2022 as a protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and its restrictions would soon develop into calls for regime change. Recognising the thin line between the rights of the protesters and the brazen anarchy they represented, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government did what they had to do to stop the impunity; they went after the accounts of the organisers even as some aggrieved citizens took to class action against the protest leaders.  We have seen a similar lesson is repeated in Britain today.  There, the fresh mint British Prime Minister Keir Starmer couldn’t bat an eyelid when it came to the issue of the far-right instigators of the wild fire riots that gripped his country during which more than 100 police officers were wounded. To him, the United Kingdom has no place for the kind of outlawry that gripped the country some weeks back. Against the hordes of rioters, the government chose to stand tall and strong. They went for broke.

    Here, we are told that some individuals wouldn’t even honour police invitation; or that if they did, it could only be strictly on their terms. Assuming themselves to be beyond reproach, they are sworn not to give the police or the security agencies the benefit of the doubt. Same for those already called in by the security agencies to answer for their roles in the last mayhem; the government is expected to do nothing, perhaps until the next time. These, surely are dangerous times. Yet, wisdom informs on the need for the government to stand strong.

  • Modernising the police

    Modernising the police

    The dramatic rescue of the 20 medical students of University of Maiduguri and University of Jos from the kidnappers’ den, without the payment of ransom shows what is possible if the police are well-equipped. The students were abducted by bandits within Benue State on their way to Enugu for the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students’ annual convention. Luckily, their ordeal, attracted the attention of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), and the necessary human and material resources were mobilized, by security agencies to free them.

    But there are several other kidnappings across the country which end up in tragedy or the massive extortion of the relations before the victims are freed. In some cases, victims are killed even after ransom has been paid. The tragedy of a Sokoto traditional ruler, killed after a huge ransom was paid is a case in point. Perhaps, because of the humongous ransoms that are easily paid to the bandits without any consequences, kidnapping for ransom has become a lucrative underworld business.

    Unfortunately, there is the general belief amongst ordinary Nigerians that unscrupulous security personnel participate in kidnappings, or cover-up the bandits. Considering the huge sums extorted from victims, sometimes running into hundreds of millions of naira, the temptation to engage in kidnapping may be high amongst greedy security officials. Sadly, once a kidnaped victim is released, whether ransom was paid or not, there are no follow-ups by security agencies to apprehend the bandits, or persons who participated in the kidnap.

    The kidnappers who operate mainly in the vast forests, scattered across Nigeria’s 923,7770 square kilometers, also make it impossible for farming activities to take place in the rural communities. The bandits rape and kill, old and young women, in very remote communities, which don’t make any headlines, in the media. In some rural communities, vigilantes are formed by the local community to combat the menace, but of course they are no match to the bandits who are equipped with better guns. Even when the communities are funded to acquire relatively modern guns, they are still no match for the criminals.

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    In states where the state governments have made laws to establish vigilantes, the legal impediments with respect to carrying sophisticated guns by such vigilantes create tensions between them and the police, who sometimes treat them as meddlesome interlopers. In extreme cases of antagonism, the police treat the vigilantes as enemies, and there have been instances where they are targeted by the security agencies, and they get maimed or killed, without consequences. The reasons for such cruelty, may sometimes be a sign of envy, or merely to keep them off the way in places where the security officials collude with the underworld criminals.

    So, one may ask: what made the difference with respect to the rescue of the medical students over the weekend? This writer attributes the difference to commitment by the security agencies and the availability of resources to get the job done. The Inspector General of Police reportedly deployed, tactical operatives and assets including drones, tactical vehicles and helicopters.  Accordingly, the kidnapped victims were tracked to Ajide forest in Ukwonyo council ward, Ado Local Government Area, of Benue State. So, the first step in all kidnap cases should be to track down the location of the bandits, and that shouldn’t be difficult, especially when the victims are many, and the resources for tracking is provided.

    According to reports, helicopters hovered around the area for days searching for the victims and their kidnappers, and such reconnaissance put the bandits under pressure. With security agencies closing in on them, they reportedly tried to run for their dear lives, and one of them was killed, while another two were apprehended. Of course, the bandits are cowards who love their lives, but because the state has shown untrammeled weakness, they take advantage, to make life even miserable for the citizens.

    While helicopters may be hard to come by easily except with the involvement of the state or federal government, there are drones which every local government should be able to afford, more so, now they would have their federal allocation to themselves. The federal, state and local government can also collaborate to ensure that every Area Command, especially those covering the local communities, have drones they can deploy. Sadly, Divisional Police stations, don’t even have the capacity to track phones, a technology that is cheap and available, at road sides.

    Another interesting angle to the rescue, is the collaboration between the security agencies. The military, Department of State Services (DSS) and police were deployed to rescue the victims, and with each bringing their own innate asset, the job was made easier. Again, even at local levels, such assets exist, and why they are not deployed routinely to deal with the menace of kidnapping is difficult to fathom. I have sometime ago written on this page how military men allegedly refused to pursue kidnappers who passed near their road block, and even stopped the local pursuers from proceeding on their trail.

    If the local vigilantes and the security agencies collaborate, their combined efforts would impact positively on the criminal activities of the bandits. Luckily, many states have vigilantes, and some also Forest Rangers, principally to combat the activities of the bandits, who operate in the forests. The police can establish a team for such collaboration, and they can tap into the intelligence capacity they provide. With knowledge of the local environment, the vigilantes can gather intelligence for the police and other security agencies.

    While awaiting the amendment of the 1999 constitution to allow state police, the president can issue an executive order, for collaboration between the police and the vigilante groups across the country. It is also within the purview of the president to authorize the carrying of arms, by non-police actors. While not urging the president to issue a blanket license for ill-trained vigilantes to carry sophisticated weapons, they should be allowed to carry low capacity weapons, and have official collaborative relationships with the police and other security agencies.

    It beats this writer’s imagination why despite 25 years of democracy, the Nigerian police is still poorly equipped and trained. Under the military rule, the buzzword is that the military don’t want a well trained and equipped police, as they can be a counter force to coup plotting, and unconstitutional take-over of governments. But despite 25 years of civil rule, policemen still buy their stationaries, uniforms and other office accoutrements.

    Even with members of the National Assembly paying themselves furniture allowances equivalent to the annual salaries of some police officers, the senior police officers privately fund the furnishing of their offices, including the provision of alternative power supply, to their offices. Perhaps, these challenges explain why insecurity has become a thriving business, amongst the unscrupulous security personnel.