The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Emir as a trespasser

    Emir as a trespasser

    The action of the Kano State governor, Abba Yusuf, particularly the imbroglio over the throne of the Kano emirate, has further diminished the traditional institution in Nigeria. Historically, after the conquest of the Hausa kingdoms, in the 19th century, by the Fulani jihadists, the emergent religious/traditional kings, known as Emirs, became omnipotent within their domains, until their kingdoms were reconquered by the British imperialists. Notably, their powers have continually whittled down with each new democratic constitution, until presently, when they seem to be completely emasculated under the 1999 constitution (as amended).

    Clearly, the constitution did not reserve powers for the Emirs, Obas, Ezes, and similar traditional title-holders, across the country, despite the glamour and influence they have over the people within their domain, and even beyond. While the governors, when expedient refer to themselves as subjects of the traditional kings, and give the impression that they treat their kings with some reverence, the kings’ impotence are revealed whenever they disagree or hold different opinion from the governors, who wield enormous constitutional powers under the 1999 constitution.  

    Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State has shown that any claim about his respect for the royal institution of the Kano emirate, is glib. Despite any pretence of being a subject, he has shown scant respect and regard for the title of the Emir of Kano. Otherwise, how could he in an effort to get at his political opponents, desecrate the same institution that he purports to protect? To add salt to the festering injury inflicted on the Kano emirate, he has declared the 15th Emir of Kano, HRH Ado Bayero, a trespasser, in what ordinarily should be the Emir’s court.

    Read Also: Kano ruling unambiguous, Abba Yusuf must resign, says Coalition

    According to a media aide to Governor Abba Yusuf, the dethroned Emir Ado Bayero has been served an eviction notice, to vacate the Nassarawa palace, where he took refuge, after he was unceremoniously and ignominiously removed from office. In a manner reminiscent of the military era, within 24 hours, the governor procured a law from the state House of Assembly, reuniting the five emirates carved from the old Kano emirate, into one. The law was made without any pretence to democratic tenets of public hearing, to know what stakeholders and general public think.

    The result was the purported sacking of Emir Ado Bayero of Kano, and the other four Emirs of Bichi, Karaye, Gaya and Rano, in a most contemptuous manner. Feeling abused and humiliated, a kingmaker, Aminu Agundi, approached the Federal High Court, praying the court that his fundamental human rights have been violated. Hon. Justice Muhammad Liman, by ex parte, ordered for the maintenance of the status quo, pending the hearing of the motion on notice. While the matter was sub judice, Governor Yusuf, flagrantly went ahead to sack the five emirs, installed Emir Lamido Sanusi, as the 16th Emir, and contemptuously abused the judge, for allegedly issuing the orders from outside the country.

    But for his immunity, under section of 308 of the 1999 constitution, the governor ought to have been charged with the contempt of court. This column, believes that a court whose unequivocal order has been desecrated by parties before it, should not surrender like a helpless wimp, but rather strike at the contemnor with its enormous inherent powers. In reaction to the publicly declared contempt of the governor, the court went ahead to declare all actions done by the governor in violation of its interim order as null and void.

    Of course, the issue of jurisdiction would be dealt with at the Court of Appeal, and the appellate court would determine whether the substantive issue before the court is a fundamental human rights claim or substantially a chieftaincy matter. At the end, while the governor may eventually have his way, actions done in defiance of the court’s interim order, which the federal judge rightly frowned at, would have become casualty. Governor Yusuf, clearly denigrated the court, when he ignored the interim injunction, and went ahead to depose Emir Bayero and install Emir Sanusi.

    The latest order that Emir Bayero would be evicted like a common trespasser further shows how low the traditional kingship has been defamed in Nigeria. The governor through his aides said Kano has earmarked N99.92 million to renovate the Nassarawa palace, which they derisively called a cemetery/graveyard, albeit with a part of it serving as a guest house for important dignitaries. They also claimed that the building is defective, and needs to be renovated, adding that it is therefore unsafe for the Emir to live in the palace. 

    But assuming that the Kano State government is the rightful owner of the palace, a trespasser, especially one which has the consent of the landowner has some rights which the law would protect. There is no doubt that Emir Bayero until he was purportedly dethroned, had right of access to the Nasarrawa palace, now in contention. If that is the case, there would be no doubt that he had the express consent of the Kano State government to use the palace.

    As held in Okubule vs Oyagbola, (1990) 4 NWLR (pt 147) 737, the Supreme Court, per Karibi-Whyte JSC held that “A person whose entry or continuance upon premises is with the leave and license of the owner who is the landlord, cannot become a trespasser. The relationship of landlord and tenant having been created exists between them.” In Ekwere vs Iyiegbu (1972) NSCC 438, the court further held that “a customary tenant who misbehaves should be sued for forfeiture of his holding, not trespass to land.”                   

    Governor Yusuf must realize that Justice Liman while not annulling the law made by the Kano State House of Assembly, had annulled the deposition of Emir Ado Bayero, and the installation of Emir Sanusi. The import is that he entered the Nasarrawa premises legitimately, and may be staying there lawfully. The Kano State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Haruna Dederi, who sought to interpret the ruling of the Federal High Court, to make Governor Yusuf, happy, must resist the temptation to resort to self-help, in evicting Emir Bayero from the Nasarrawa palace.

    The admonition of Salami JCA in McLaren vs Jennings (2003) 3 NWLR (pt 808) 470, on self-help is recommended to him. He said: “Resorting to force rather than rule of law is fast gaining currency. This does not augur well for the profession. It is a wind of change that blows no one any good. If the members of the profession decide to throw to the winds the ideals of rule of law they, in no distant future, stand to reap whirlwind.”

    What is happening to the Kano Emirs, in the hands of their “subjects” elected to constitutionally guaranteed offices, shows that the traditional kingship in Nigeria, has become anachronistic.

  • In the news: Two tabloid narratives

    In the news: Two tabloid narratives

    Two tabloid narratives – I am almost prepared to call them tawdry – obtruded from the counter-social and counterfactual media where they were “trending,” to employ the portentous pseudo-scientific term of that platform, into the mainstream of the news last week.

    The first cantered on a report that former President Olusegun Obasanjo had stopped by at President Bola Tinubu’s residence in Lagos to pay “Sallah homage” on the occasion of Eid al-Adha.   Told that Tinubu was not at home, Obasanjo had decided to pay a courtesy call on the First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, who happened to be available.

    The second concerns President Tinubu’s official visit to South Africa for the inauguration of  President Cyril Ramaphosa for a second term.  Pictures purportedly taken at the occasion,streamed with running commentary mostly in Igbo, showed Ramaphosa delivering a calculated snub to Tinubu, the type that should have roused even the most obidient disciple to patriotic anger.

    Observing all protocols, I start with the report of Obasanjo’s visit to Tinubu’s residence and the many questions it left unanswered.  The whole thing has the marking of a comedy or errors not untinged by elements of farce.

    Obasanjo, it is necessary to concede, is no respecter of the finer elements of social or political engagement.  But even he, I wager, will have sent word ahead that he would like to stop by to greet Tinubu.  And if word had reached him, Tinubu would have indicated that, much to his regret, he would not be available because of a previous commitment. 

    The more likely alternative is that Tinubu would have rescheduled any previous commitment just to receive and honour Obasanjo.  For it is not everyday that a former president undertakes a courtesy visit to a sitting president, especially when, between them, there has never been any love lost.

    The hardest evidence of the visit consists in just one picture, which serves only to deepen the mystery.  The ambience does not reflect the opulence and the lavish furnishing of presidential homes in Nigeria, official or private.

    Read Also: Atiku’s plan to unseat Tinubu in 2027 wishful thinking, says support group

    And the distance between guest and hostess seems curiously wide, suggesting a reluctance of both parties to engage no closer than was absolutely necessary.  That is the conclusion that a plain reading of their body language suggests.  Those gifted with a third or fourth eye may see it differently, of course.

    Even for an informal visit, the former president, who has in late life earned a reputation for dapperness, appeared rather casual.  And the First Lady seemed more demure than usual.  It was almost as if they had posed for the picture against their will and against their better judgment.

    One speculation doing the rounds has it that Obasanjo and Mrs Tinubu had met accidentally at a function in the home of a Lagos socialite known for elegance and haute couture, and that the picture in circulation was taken at that venue.

    Whatever the occasion, both seemed casually turned out.  If it had taken in some of the other dignitaries in attendance, the picture would have supplied a richer context.  Can it be that it originally included other guests,  and that they had been edited out of the published version for reasons best known to those who had made it available? 

    That would seem to explain the large distance between Obasanjo and Mrs Tinubu in the picture.

    Neither the former president nor the First Lady has disavowed the picture.  Neither the former president’s library nor the First Lady’s office seems inclined to provide some elucidation, thus perpetuating what is now shaping up as perhaps the most poignant political comedy of errors in Nigeria’s recent history.  Neither has disavowed it.

    Nor have Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi, projected to be, respectively, the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the united Opposition in the 2027 General Elections, cottoned on to it as the latest and most telling evidence that the 2023 presidential election was stolen from them severally and jointly.

    But give them time.

    The second narrative that “trended” on the antisocial and counterfactual media before leaping into the mainstream media in the period under review concerns, as I was saying, the reporting of President Tinubu’s official visit to South Africa for the inauguration of President Cyril Ramaphosa to a second term.   The celebration was in order, Ramaphosa having barely steered the formerly all-conquering ANC away from a rout in that country’s recent General Election.

    There, in a video clip, was Ramaphosa shaking hands enthusiastically with guests on a receiving line of African and foreign leaders, studiously avoiding the merest eye contact with Tinubu, who was looking on forlornly from the second row and was saved from further humiliation by an announcement summoning Ramaphosa back to the podium.

    An Igbo-speaking commentator, his guttural voice chafing with bitter disappointment at the fate he said had befallen Nigeria under Tinubu, helped the audience make sense of the proceedings. Reactions came thick and fast.

    Not a few regarded it as South Africa’s latest act of ingratitude to Nigeria and demanded the immediate expulsion of its High Commissioner and simultaneous recall of Nigeria’s High Commissioner from Pretoria.  It was one thing for South Africans to mistreat resident Nigerians. It was another for the government of South Africa to show such consummate disrespect to the President of Nigeria and Nigerians.

    Ingrates all, others chimed in.  Where would they be today if Nigeria had spared any exertions in freeing them from the vicious jaws of apartheid?

    Was it the case that Ramaphosa could not distinguish Tinubu from other dignitaries on the receiving line, despite his trademark cloth cap embroidered with the mathematical symbol of infinity as motif?

    Most unlikely.  In three reporting trips to South Africa – two in the time of apartheid and the third after the collapse of apartheid — I found its policy-makers and officials sell versed in virtually every aspect of life in Nigeria.  As I reported back then, it was as if the apartheid state had prepared to engage its most formidable adversary on the continent, based on the old international relations dictum:  Know your enemy.

    Still others called for the immediate confiscation and nationalization of assets of more than 100 South African-owned businesses in Nigeria, among them Multichoice, Shoprite, Standard Bank, and Clover Industries, to name a few of the better-known.  Even those calling for restraint said the least Nigeria could do was to carpet South Africa at the next summit of the African Union and demand an unconditional apology.

    They were all agreed that South Africa would not have embarked on such reckless conduct in the time of Sani Abacha, Muhammadu Buhari, or even Goodluck Jonathan.  Still, the point had been made.  The world now knows that though we have our differences at home, you cannot assail the Nigerian state and its President and escape without swift retribution.

    Nigerians were warming up for such retribution when a picture of Ramaphosa engaging in talks on bilateral relations and other issues of mutual interest with Tinubu during a courtesy call on Tinubu in Pretoria – the same Ramaphosa who had snubbed Tinubu with visceral contempt the previous day, in an event seen in real time across the world? 

    And now he is ingratiating himself with Tinubu in an attempt to escape from the consequences of his contumely?

    “We no go gree, we no go gree.”  That was the chant that burst forth from the lips of irate citizens under the aegis of the League of Patriotic Nigerians who had been following the story as it unfolded in the counterfactual media.

    Your move, Mr President.

  • IBB and the ghost of June 12

    IBB and the ghost of June 12

    As events memorializing June 12, 1993, the day of promise he turned into a nightmare unfold each year, I find myself wondering:  What are former military president Ibrahim Babangida’s thoughts and preoccupations?

    Remorse? Contrition? Vindication?  Fulfillment?  Triumph?  Defiance? All of the above?

    We may never know until he releases his much-postponed memoirs.  We may not know even then.  He glories in duplicity and makes a virtue of inconstancy. 

    Why, in any case, did Babangida annul the 1993 Presidential election, the anniversary of which was marked last week with greater pomp and circumstance than in previous years, under the rubric of Democracy Day – an election that would have secured his place in the national pantheon?

    Thirty-one years later, he has not been able to give a coherent answer. Rather, he has been fudging and dissembling as is his wont.  He has said, among other things, that he annulled the election as a favour to Abiola, because Abiola would have been overthrown and probably killed, if Abiola was allowed to take office.

    Colonel (as he then was) David B. Mark, is on the public record as having stated that he would personally shoot – and presumably kill — Abiola if Abiola was installed president.

    The closest Babangida ever came to laying out his regime’s case for the annulment was his June 23, 1993 broadcast.  But as I will try to show presently, it is a threadbare case that falls apart when examined with the care reserved for archaeological specimens.

    Those, it is necessary to recall, were desperate days in Abuja – days of wild improvisation and frenzied experimentation.  The scheduling of the broadcast reflected that much.

    It was to be made at midday, according to an official statement.  It did not take place.  It was rescheduled for an hour later.  Still no broadcast.  The broadcast would now take place at 7 p.m, they said.  That hour came and passed, without the broadcast.

    It took place, finally, two hours later, at 9 pm.

    It was a sprawling, laboured speech, some 2,700 words long.

    The first part was an exercise in self-glorification.  Babangida said that the policies and programmes he had pursued — SAP, for example? — were sound “in understanding, conception, formulation and articulation,” and “comparatively unassailable,” and that history would certainly score the administration high in its governance of Nigeria.

    So much for the testimonial he issued himself. Thirty-one years later, the widely-held verdict is that Babangida was, and remains, the prime architect of the nation’s woes.

    The concern here is with the rest of the broadcast, in which Babangida laid out his reasons for annulling the election.

    In implementing its reforms, he said, the regime had to contend with social forces that had in the past impeded national growth and development, as well as new social forces that the programmes spawned. To resolve matters, he said, the regime was constrained to tamper with the rules governing the transition.

    Here, one positively must interject: Whatever happened to the “in-built” corrective mechanism that the regime and its palace intellectuals had forever advertised as a unique feature of the transition design?

    To return to the speech:  Tampering with the rules out of sheer necessity unwittingly attracted “enormous public suspicions” of the regime’s “intentions and policies.” Translation:  The attentive public concluded that Babangida was nursing a hidden agenda, the object being to perpetuate himself in office and in power.

    The transition Babangida continued, was about building a lasting foundation for democracy.  But “lasting democracy,” is not a temporary show of excitement and manipulation by an over-articulate section (the Lagos and Southwest media?) of the elite of the whole nation and the political process; lasting democracy is a permanent diet to nurture the soul of the whole nation and the political process.”

    Read Also: Young Farmers’ Club to be launched in public schools – First Lady Tinubu

    A further interjection, the last.  Democracy as “soul food?” As “stomach infrastructure,” in other words?  Shades of Ayo Fayose.

    The June 12 election, like the presidential primaries that were cancelled the previous year, Babangida said, did not meet the basic requirements of democracy:  free and fair elections, un-coerced expression of voters’ preference, respect for the electorate as the

    Final arbiter in elections, decorum and fairness on the part of electoral umpires, and absolute respect for the rule of law.

    But because the administration was determined to keep faith with the deadline of 27th August, 1993 for the return to civil rule, it over-looked the reported breaches. The breaches continued into the June 12, 1993 election on an even greater scale, but Humphrey Nwosu’s National Electoral Commission went ahead and cleared the candidates.

    There was also, Babangida continued, “a conflict of interest” between the government and both presidential candidates that would have compromised their positions and responsibilities were they to become president.

    The courts had been intimidated and had been subjected to “the manipulation of the political process by vested interests, to the point that the entire political system was endangered.  Under these circumstances, the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) decided to annul the election in the supreme interest of law and order, political stability and peace.” (emphasis added.)

    Resting his case, Babangida declared: “To continue action on the basis of the June 12, 1993 election, and to proclaim and swear in a president who encouraged a campaign of divide-and-rule among our ethnic groups would have been detrimental to the survival of the Third Republic.” (my emphasis.)

    Everyone was to blame for the annulment: His colleagues, his advisers, the candidates the media, civil society, the courts, the election umpires, and the international observers.

    Everyone – except Babangida.

    Despite all the fudging, it is beyond dispute that the NDSC approved holding the election. Babangida admitted that much in the broadcast, perhaps unwittingly. In any case, the NDSC in whose name he claimed to have acted was for all practical purposes a phantom of his own making, whose authority he invoked only whenever it suited him.

    Was it not Babangida’s proxy, Arthur Nzeribe, and his so-called Association for a Better Nigeria that, to use Babangida’s own words, “intimidated and manipulated” the courts?

    In that subversive undertaking, were they not aided and sheltered by the regime’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Clement Akpamgbo, and by Babangida’s retinue of kept judges, shysters,and forensic cardsharpers?

    The alleged breaches of the electoral laws that vitiated the election, as Babangida claims, furnished an opportunity to disqualify and prosecute the perpetrators and clean up the process.  Why did he put up with them for so long?

    The public was primed to vote on June 12.  That date had been seared into its consciousness.  It was Babangida’s regime, not NEC, that created a climate of uncertainty around it.  Even so, 15 million Nigerians came out to vote.

    To invoke the “rule of law” to justify the annulment is to stand that concept on its head.  How can a regime that enacted retroactive laws not subject to judicial review claim credit for unwavering adherence to the rule of law with a straight face?

    Who among the candidates, by the way, encouraged “a campaign of divide-and-rule” among Nigeria’s ethnic groups, as Babangida claimed?   A candidate for national office employing such tactics would have known that he was committing electoral suicide.  The public would have rejected him emphatically.

    The resident palace intellectuals never missed an opportunity to tell the public that Babangida’s “place in history” was assured.  They pontificated that Nigeria’s history would be divided into two epochs:  the pre-IBB Era when all was dark and void and formless, and the IBB Era, when light and progress supervened and reigned.

    Recognising at last that his case for the annulment was porous through and through, and seeing June 12’s salience wax year after year even as whatever was left of his reputation waned and waned, Babangida changed tack.

    Since then, Babangida has been claiming that he presided over the “freest and fairest” election ever held in Nigeria, and should be accorded the fullest credit for that distinction.

    This schizophrenic claim does not square with his sweeping rejection, nay demonization, of the June 12 election.  Rarely do men and women in public life set out to quarrel with and reject their own signal achievements so viscerally, even if it was unwitting.

    The legal titan Professor Ben Nwabueze, who served as Secretary for Education in Babangida’s ineffectual Transitional Council, while doubling as a strategist in the evisceration of the June 12 election that was supposed to be the culmination of the transition, provides an important clue to Babangida’s disposition at that critical time.

    “His behaviour in the last days of his regime,“ Nwabueze wrote in the inelegantly titled June 12, 1993 Election:  Problems and Solutions, “left a rather strong impression of a man forced to quit against his will, of one un-reconciled to quitting in the last days of his rule and in the face of defeat, he cut a figure of someone unwilling to reconcile himself with composure to the adverse torrent of events, of an angry and bitterly disappointed man.”

    More tellingly, Nwabueze wrote of Babangida: “His mind, his motions and his actions seemed to have become somewhat disoriented, and no longer governed by disinterested, patriotic considerations. . .”

    Holed up these days in the opulent sterility of his Minna Hilltop mansion, Babangida has to lived with the misfortune of witnessing and contending with the day he had sought to eviscerate with manic desperation, become a potent national symbol, a point of reference, and a goal of our collective aspiration.

    He must be thankful for the occasional visitor, who is more often than not a political straggler or voyeur concerned not to pay homage but to take the measure of the much-diminished “evil genius,” and enduring lesson in the delusions of grandeur and the instability of human greatness.

    His confederates and enablers are gone for the most part.  Sani Abacha is gone,  So is Ernest Shonekan.  So is Arthur Nzeribe.  So is Clement Akpamgbo.  So is Uche Chukwumerije. So is Ben Nwabueze. So is Bassey Ikpeme.  So is Samuel Ikoku. So is Abimbola Davies (or Davis).  So is Hammed Kusamotu. So is Dahiru Saleh.  And so are many others of lesser specific gravity who willingly lent a hand or were suborned to turn what promised to be a great dawn into a nightmare.

    History has largely forgotten the bit players in the June 12 saga, condemned to live in its afterglow; and entertaining no compunction in gorging on its promise that they had tried to snuff out.

    Today, Babangida stands almost alone as the arch-villain of the piece, condemned to absorb the barbs, the arrows, and the jeers of those who stood resolutely at home and abroad for the right of the public to choose their rulers.

  • Autonomy — from who?

    Autonomy — from who?

    There’s a buzz over local government autonomy — but autonomy from who?  States, of which councils are integral parts? How can you seek autonomy from yourself?

    And before making a false parallel that states are integral to the Federal Government, as local governments are integral to states, know that is a ringing fallacy.

    The federal principle knows no more than two partners: states or regions; and the central government.  Whatever the sub-nationals do with their native or local administration is exclusively their business.

    The crisis, of course, dawned when the military tried to subjugate the federal ethos to their unitary instincts.  The most perilous, of the live tragedies, was the seven-month Head of State, Gen. Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi (15 January 1966 – 28 July 1966).

    With a stroke of the pen, Gen. Aguiyi-Irosi, in his Unification Decree No. 34 of 24 May 1966, cancelled the then four federal regions: Eastern, Midwestern, Northern, and Western; and pronto decreed them a group of provinces!

    The swift chaos that ensued showed social organizations don’t answer to gruff military diktats!  Yet, the so-called intellectuals of the day, relying more on ethnic sentiments than logical rigour, egged Aguiyi-Ironsi on, along that path of avoidable doom.

    That terrible backlash somewhat made the succeeding Gen. Yakubu Gowon to junk the  “group of provinces”, for Nigeria’s first 12 states, which he created on 27 May 1967, on the virtual eve of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970).

    Yes, the immediate goal was to isolate the core Biafra homeland, from the old Eastern Region, into a sole East Central State (now split roughly into the present five Igbo states), thus cutting off the secessionist enclave from the sea. 

    By that single pre-war gaming, Biafra lost its contiguous continental shelf, aside from its legal link to Port Harcourt, the former region’s economic hub, with its big sea port.

    Legal plank — because it would take the 3 Marine Commando of the Nigerian Army to prise the oil-rich minority areas, starting with Port Harcourt, Bonny Island and allied areas, from the secessionists.

    Still, beyond the immediate war stratagem, the 12 states made a gamely attempt at states founded on tongue and cultural contiguity — as core federalist Chief Obafemi Awolowo had always argued — away from the old regions of ethnic majorities, virtually “swallowing” their minorities.

    It was not until 3 February 1976, when the Murtala-Obasanjo government started carving out more states — they increased the original 12 states to 19, aside from changing the names of most — that the federal ethos receded further. 

    To that regime and beyond, states were no more than atomized administrative units, to press a martial command-and-control realm, masquerading as a federal territory. 

    Read Also: Obasanjo pays Sallah visit to First Lady Tinubu

    Little surprise, then: 1976 also saw the dawn of the Ibrahim Dasuki reforms, that created uniform local governments nationwide, as if councils were civilian barrack formations answering to a central czar — the states, in which these local governments were located, be damned!

    The sweet sop of this new Army wonder was direct funding from the federal purse — money that nevertheless belonged to the federal and state governments, now arbitrarily carved out for a so-called “third tier”.

    But that tier has only succeeded in tearing apart the accounts: with the states taking own pound of flesh — the so-called “third-tier” money is partly theirs by right; and the out-foxed Federal Government bawling “autonomy!” 

    But again, autonomy from who — and for who?  What’s that Achebe-speak again: “Eneke the bird says since men have learned to shoot without missing, he [too] has learned to fly without perching”?

    Shovelling money at the local governments was easy and sweet.  Accounting for the cash, from far-away Abuja, is the crux!  The states have only appropriated what they feel is theirs, leaving the central Leviathan screeching, despite its awesome powers! 

    The rich also cry!

    Again, sociology hardly answers to military orders!  It’s a journey to nowhere, and the Federal Government, now civil and democratic, had better stopped chasing the wind!

    Uniform local governments are one of the many illogics of the military era.  Local governments should be the exclusive business of the states — no one else’s.

    It was a messianic complex to fix what was not broken. The result is the eternal holler for “autonomy” — reverse autonomy that would shove aside the states, while the central nanny plugs the feeding bottle into the mouths of its local government babies? Easier said than done!

    Still, nothing should suggest this piece endorses the rascality of state governments pilfering local governments’ money.  But again, “pilfering” is rather a sweeping word.  How can states pilfer money that partly belongs to them?

    Nevertheless, the bad faith that leaves law-abiding people in a developmental lurch is condemnable.  Nothing can justify that.

    Still, the only organic solution would be to remove the bad faith on both sides, with the basic starting point: the Federal Government has no business in council matters.  

    So, let the Federation accountants calculate the federal share of the third tier funding, pay it into the central purse, but pay the balance to the states: to nurture their local governments, as they damn well please; subject, of course, to the core principle that local governments, as federal and state governments, must be elected.

    For that, the Federal Government should spare nothing to throw states under the bus of public opinion.  It should goad, in every legitimate way, the citizens to call their state governors to account, over local government matters.  That should be a popular move.

    The people, as arch-sentinels over their own welfare, should be the ultimate watch — and control — over local government affairs.  If done very well, good governance at the council level; and democratization at local and municipal levels, could well become core electoral issues, with fatal consequences for erring incumbent governors.

    The military hit their limit in hubris by codifying 774 local governments in the 1999 Constitution — an accident of history, as at when they scurried from power in 1999, but turned into arresting the future.  Now, that was junta arrogance taken too far. 

    It was the same contraption that stopped Lagos from consummating its 52 local governments, because even the Supreme Court, while decrying President Olusegun Obasanjo’s illegal seizure of Lagos council funds, said the creation was “inchoate” because of a support legislation from the National Assembly that never came.

    Lagos, by now, has no business monkeying around with 32 so-called local government development areas (LCDAs), frozen with the 20 “recognized” councils. 

    Instead, the Lagos State House of Assembly could even have created more local governments beyond the 52, so long as the state has the funds to power them.  That should not be Abuja’s headache.

    That’s federalism applied to local government administration — not hankering after military-era “autonomy” that’s well-neigh impossible because it’s plastic and artificial.

  • Second anniversary expectations

    Second anniversary expectations

    Agreeably, it is unfair to judge a four-year marathon race at the first anniversary turn because those at the back end may increase their pace to become champions while some in the fore-front may lose steam and lag behind towards the finishing line. But as the African adage says, the chick that would be a magnificent rooster shows the signs early enough. So, by the second year anniversary, which is half of the four-year term, certain parameters must be in place to show the potential for regime success.   

    For this column, the two key issues the federal and state governments must face squarely in the next one year are security and energy. Should they solve those two challenges, the national economy will rebound, unemployment will dip, the value of the naira will appreciate, food security will redound, and the gross domestic product will surge. Within the energy sector the most telling challenge is electricity supply. This writer therefore urges the federal and state governments to collaborate, to change the dynamics. Already, some states have enacted necessary legislation to take their destiny in their hands, and those yet to do so, should imitate their peers.

    On its part, the federal government should redouble the effort to strengthen the national grid. It is challenging enough that our vast country is relying on a centralized grid, with all the security challenges, such a plan pose to the nation. While senior government officials are castigating the labour unions for shutting down the national grid during the recent strike action, it is hoped they also realised that enemies of the country, can exploit such centralisation to harm the country.

    So, the federal government should have a plan to decentralise the national grid, for efficiency and as a measure to forestall a national sabotage. The states can also fasten the process of decentralisation, by establishing state grid or collaborate for a regional grid. The Electricity Act, 2023, has made provisions empowering states to generate, transmit and distribute electricity within their states. The law also provides for the use and integration of renewable energy into the Nigerian energy mix, and the security of investments and regulations that can attract private capital.

    The other problematic arm of the energy sector is the supply and cost of cooking gas, petrol and diesel, which directly impacts the populace. Luckily, the chairman of the Dangote Refinery, Aliko Dangote, has said that the price of petrol would crash once his refinery starts operation next month. Many are concerned that similar promised crash, in diesel, has not been as dramatic as expected. So, they are asking: would the introduction of Dangote petrol, make any significant difference in the pricing?

    Nigerians earnestly hope it would. There is also the promise that the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries would soon come on stream. There are also a few modular refineries, which should add to the volume of available petrol and diesel. Hopefully, also, the much promised resort to compressed natural gas, CNG, would impact significantly on the energy mix, to further reduce the cost of petrol and diesel. The federal and state governments must do all they can, to ensure that these promises and potentials are realized, by the second anniversary of the regime.

    The security challenge facing the country, is something the federal and state governments must quickly do better than they are doing. What baffles this writer is that governors who are bearing the ignominy of insecurity, as lame duck chief security officers, are not enthusiastic about finding solution to the problem. Since the start of insurgency in the northeast, governors have always lamented that the problem bedeviling their states, is uncontrollable because they have no control over policing in their domains. Sadly, as insurgency reduced in the northeast, banditry escalated in the northwest.

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    Last week, Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State was all lamentations. Hear him: “We, as governors, don’t have control over military, we don’t have control over the police as well as the civil defence. In most case we get frustrated.” He went on: “When you need these people, they are nowhere to be found and the best thing to do is to set up that kind of security outfit.” He continued: “Sometimes, when you are really helpless, when you need them, they are not there. Even when they are there, they are given certain instruction on what to do and what not to do.”

    His lamentations are not different from that of his predecessors, across the states, whether in the northwest, or other regions across the country. It was so under presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari and now Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But surprisingly, the call for state police, has not gained enough traction amongst the governors. If the majority of the governors feel the need to have control over the police, why have they not encouraged their representatives, at the National Assembly, to push for constitutional amendments, to have state police?

    Governor Lawal, boasted that with the right political will, he can rout the bandits making life unbearable for the state. He said: “In two weeks, we can take care of the situation but the political will are not there” He reiterated: “We know who they are. We know where they live. It is just that there is no political will.” He affirmed: “Zamfara State has become the hub of banditry in Nigeria. If you are able to take care of Zamfara today, you have solved more than 90% issues in northern Nigeria as a whole.”

    No doubt, the hunger ravaging Nigerians would subside if the business of banditry that has overwhelmed the northern Nigeria is curtailed. Whether in the northwest, northeast or north central, bandits who rustle cattle, extort farmers, kidnap for ransom, and kill and maim for no cause, are substantially responsible for the food insecurity that is pushing our country to the edge. If the federal and state governments can decisively deal with the insecurity across the country, the nation will inexorably return to the path of growth and development.

    For this column, the twin challenges of insecurity and energy remains at the root of our present challenges, and our leaders can solve them, more so with President Tinubu at the helm of affairs. As many pundits have rightly posited, the solution to national economic growth lies with the small and medium enterprises. As evident, despite the plethora of fiscal interventions, that sector has not been able to deliver as expected. Their core underlining challenge is energy, and unless and until that is solved, no amount of subventions would make any difference.

    By the second anniversary of the federal and state governments, it is hoped they would have impacted significantly on the national energy crisis and the insecurity ravaging the country.

  • Of wage and rage

    Of wage and rage

    Now that a consensus seems forming around N62, 000 as national minimum wage (even if comical Labour remains marooned at N250, 000), what now happens?

    Will organized Labour drop its visceral rage: throwing tantrums with senseless figures; and hugging serious economic sabotage by switching off the national electricity grid?

    Or will it, for once, replace that visceral rage with clinical thinking; trash all Aluta delusions, and grab the best deal for its members, under very dire circumstances?

    Dire circumstances!  Yes.  But they don’t refer to the Federal Government’s policy bind alone.  Withdrawing oil subsidy and floating the Naira — with their bumper inflation — are very testy stages indeed, of the government’s painful economic reforms.

    If it eventually gets it right — as regime friends hope — everyone will forget the current bind.  Everyone loves a winner! — more so in a polity that lacks institutional memory.

    If it doesn’t, foes — more of cynical, partisan opportunists with no superior ideas — would feast on it, in their bid to corral power.

    That sobering scenario alone condemns President Bola Tinubu to getting it right!

    But Organized Labour too is condemned to making things right with its constituency.  For starters, Joe Ajaero’s Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has blissfully de-marketed itself with too many false strikes, for partisan matters, sans any worker interests. 

    The most hair-brained of it all would appear switching off the national grid — Labour’s rash muscle-flexing to browbeat everyone.  So, what other jokers is it left with, if it were to reject N62, 000 — still a far-cry from its fanciful N250, 000 “last card”?

    For Festus Osifo’s Trade Union Congress (TUC), it is unfortunate that the Labour Aristocracy allowed itself to be infected by the NLC factory boys’ economic illiteracy. 

    Pray, which serious economic thinkers — and Labour centers, especially of policy makers to which TUC belongs — would first bandy N615, 000 as minimum wage; then, N494, 000, then N250, 000, in today’s Nigeria? 

    Where will the cash come from?  Or is TUC too, as NLC, guilty of “kalo-kalo” (gaming machine) thinking? 

    Even if you adopt N250, 000 for the least-paid worker, where will the confetti of cash, for the consequential adjustments up the salary scale, come from?  How can the economy survive the hyper-inflation to follow — virulent inflation of cash sans value?

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    It’s not the best of times for our Labour centres.  It’s a horrible epoch, in which history will jeer at them as core and comical economic illiterates.

    Still, Organized Labour won’t be the only letdown.  The state governors too!

    Imagine that breed that was AWOL — absent without official leave — at the tripartite negotiations, only to be the first to bawl they couldn’t pay N60, 000, while the Federal Government and the Organized Private Sector (OPS) just cobbled together N62, 000?

    That must be democratic irresponsibility raised to power 36!  The governors — particularly the six chosen to represent the six geo-political zones — can certainly do better!  They can be more sensitive to the plight of people that elected them.

    The governors should please spare the polity the old cant about using all their states’ resources to pay workers, most times no more than 15 per cent of the populace. 

    If by subsidy removal they are harvesting cash — and indeed they are, by the sheer quantum from the Federation Account they now share  — that cant is getting jaded, annoying and absolutely despicable.

    The idea is not to bankrupt the states with workers’ pay.  The imperative is to push a good share of the cash in their till, from subsidy removal, to the welfare of the people that elected them — workers and non-workers alike. 

    That is not too much to ask, is it?

    Still, the buck stops with the Federal Government– even if the states (that holler “federalism!” when it pleases them) must also assume some level of response and responsibility in their local spaces.

    At the end of the day, however, the Federal Government must manage the fallouts of its own policy, as the surgeon manages his patient, away from death to life. 

    That’s the promise of the economic reforms: initial pains, eventual bliss. But at the current pain zone, the Federal Government must take full charge.

    Oil subsidy might have been a fraud that a few smart Alecs badly exploited.  Even at that, citizens still bought petrol at either a high N100 or a low N200-a-litre belt. 

    If that has vanished for a N600-N700-a-litre fuel-purchase belt, it shows the quantum of money the federal authorities have vacuum-cleaned from the public space, into government coffers.

    The imperative right now is to fashion out — and fast — how to push back some of these mopped-up cash into the people’s lives.  The simplest, though by no means easy, is a fair minimum wage.  The government must not make a hash of that.

    But the more complex is investing in transportation infrastructure — rail especially — to drive down shuttling costs, as a total structural war against inflation.  That would take some time to fix but the government should clearly show its aggressiveness and intent.

    Already, there are compressed natural gas (CNG) buses and tricycles being injected into the urban centres.  Though that’s a long shot, it could eventually drive down transport costs since it’s far cheaper than petrol or diesel.

    On the petrol front itself, the pump price should eventually drop, with Dangote Refinery set to start pumping petrol this month.  If the NNPC Ltd’s Port Harcourt Refinery follows by July, then local petrol refining would be taking its place to help deliver the reforms.  That should save forex and boost the Naira’s parity.

    Then, part of the subsidy “savings” should go into conditional cash transfers and other social safety-net schemes, which have suffered since the suspension of Beta Edu as Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation minister. 

    The same should go for the N-Power graduate volunteer scheme that the Tinubu order inherited from the Buhari years.  It should get the suspended scheme back on track. 

    N-Power’s 500, 000 volunteers dwarfed the federal civil service, put back then at around 80, 000.  Giving 500, 000 graduates temporary jobs, with retraining deals — as N-Power did — could renew hope and stanch youth restiveness.

    Of course, the ultimate public transport investment must be in rail, for its economy-of-scale mass capacity that drives down shuttle costs. 

    Transport Minister, Sa’idu Alkali’s assurance that work is apace on rail projects is rather reassuring.  Yet, the polity could do with the rail passion of the Rotimi Amaechi years!

    To doomsday howlers, things are not that hopeless.  Dire challenges are throwing up exciting opportunities.  So, the Tinubu order should seize the times and make hay! 

    Even then, hare-brained Labour is welcome to further burn itself out for, on this score, history favours the president. 

    A certain Ayodele Akele (God bless his soul!) huffed and puffed, while Governor Tinubu carried out his Lagos reforms.  Today, about everyone hails the Lagos success.  But who remembers Akele and his Labour gang? 

    Yet, compared to Ajaero and own gang, Akele and co  were a paragon of calm and reason!  That shows how low Labour has sunk!

  • Fubara: A twist in the tale?

    Fubara: A twist in the tale?

    Finally, it does appear that Governor Siminalayi Fubara and company may have rejoiced too soon given yesterday’s judgment of the Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt. For a party that have been in wild, non-stop celebrations over the vanquishing of their supposed foes, the lucid, unambiguous and certainly uncontroversial judgment of Justice Okogbule Gbasam of the Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, as reported by this newspaper, would come close to a deadly blow to the solar plexus. Clearly, Fubara’s nightmare, as indeed those of his hordes of irreverent supporters, may have only just begun.

    Now, the sum total of the judgment is that Martin Amaewhule and 26 other members of the Rivers State House of Assembly are still members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Being members of the PDP of course means that they could not have lost their seats in the House of Assembly. In other words, everything that the 27 lawmakers have done in the course of their legislative business is deemed to be proper in the eyes of the law; which renders the ‘gang of three’ who have been carrying on in their place at the prodding of the governor, as impostors!

    And the court didn’t stop there. As if to clear the fog of possible ambiguity on the status of the group of 27, it made clear that membership of a party is only proven by being listed on the party’s register, or by membership card, and that television ceremonies and or verbal statements, were not part of the equation. Some other accounts (not The Nation) ominously, (at least for the all-conquering party), quoted Justice Gbasam as saying that the Rivers State government is bound to obey all laws passed by the 27-member assembly.

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    For the hitherto all-conquering party, the latest twist must have been somewhat devastating. However, while the option of an appeal is still open, what is apparent is that the room for judicial shenanigans have since narrowed considerably. The best the governor and his team could do at this time is play for time; even at that, it seems unlikely that the appellate courts will overlook the constitutional aberration of his anointed three-member parliament carrying on with the business of law-making while the matter drags through the tortuous process. Surely, the courts couldn’t be such an ass!

    And while it seems still early to speculate on what the future bodes for the governor, what is increasingly unlikely is the erstwhile gung-ho, self-help and undisguisedly scorched earth tactics earlier pressed for service by the governor, will further avail him. And with the political option midwifed by President Bola Tinubu cynically shredded in the moment of assumed invincibility, and the same judicial cum constitutional path, which the governor and his team have disdained have suddenly come to constitute a burden too heaven to carry, never rule out more sinister, devious and equally desperate measures from the quarters of a man whom I referred to in this column of May 14 as emperor!

    Which leads yours truly to another minor plot in the intriguing play: the response of the state government to the judgment as reported in most newspapers and the television yesterday. Again, as reported by this newspaper’s online edition, the state government is said to have described the report of the judgment affirming the 27 as members of the PDP as ‘misleading and false’. The report quotes the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Dagogo Israel Iboroma, as saying that the suit before the court did not seek to declare the seats of Amaewhule and 26 others vacant.

    Who to believe?

    It would, most certainly, have been a different matter had the attorney-general denied that suit in question was ever heard in the Port Harcourt not to talk of a judgment proceeding therefrom. Rather, what he, an interested party, did amounted to his own interpretation of the judgment on Monday.

    Do I believe him? What’s in the credibility of a so-called officer of the law, whose appointment is not just tainted with illegality (he was screened by a three-member parliament) but, going by the governor’s declaration, is actually a Man Friday, sworn to fight the enemies of the governor? Nigerians, surely have better things to do than pay attention to the rather specious effusions of that central figure in the travesties going on in the court-rooms of the famed Garden City!

    And lest we forget how we got here: We had a rumble in the parliament and so the edifice had to be torched ostensibly to prevent a worse disaster from happening; a governor, sworn to the public interest thought nothing of rolling out the bulldozers to finish the job; all of these in desperate acts of self-preservation. Now, we are told that the state government has approved N19.6 billion to put the building back. Yes, the governor and his government have been carrying on in flagrant defiance of the law.

    Meanwhile, a majority elected by the people can’t sit because the governor deems them to have abdicated; he thinks a three-member parliament is just fine because he says so. And the good people of Rivers are cheering him on because their beloved governor appears to be winning his self-appointed war against the godfather!

    Soon, it would be daybreak! 

  • Still on Labour’s impetuousness

    Still on Labour’s impetuousness

     When I read your piece on NLC and TUC strike Tuesday June 4, I simply chuckled. It is as if you were reading my mind.

    It is insightful and demonstrates how low organised Labour has sunk since the ascent of Joe Ajaero and his side kick, Festus Usifo as President.

    What Ajaero has been doing is pure brigandage bothering on a treasonable felony against the Nigerian State, daring President Tinubu to bare his fangs. So far, the president has been restrained and I commend him.

    For crying out loud, how can you begin a negotiation by insisting on the consolidated salary of the highest ranking public servant on Level 17 as the acceptable minimum wage (600k plus) and then drop to the equivalent of Level 16   step 7 (the last step on the level-400k plus) as your best take on the issue?

    Truth is Labour is intent on destabilising the present government to achieve a predetermined agenda.

    As Labour was strutting about its touted minimum wage, public servants were having a big laugh wondering if Labour was actually ready to get a deal for them. Even before I retired in April, speaking to a cross section of different cadres, I got the same feedback: Is Labour actually ready to have a deal with the government on the new minimum wage?

    On my part, I knew they were bent on “shutting down the economy” as a way to demonstrate their new found “power” under the present government during which it has been declaring strike actions on the drop of a hat.

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    I have witnessed strike actions in my time and never ever has the Labour union forcefully shut down the national grid, throwing the entire country into darkness. Or locked up the airports forcing private carriers to incur undue charges and passengers incalculable stress and losses in terms of cancelled pre-arranged business transactions across the country.

    This is gangsterism at its highest and economic sabotage that should be punished to avoid recurrence. Labour cannot and should not continue to hold the country ransom in the guise of fighting for the course of workers.

    Indeed, strike action for Labour under Ajaero and Usifo is now the First resort not the Last resort. For crying out loud, public servants on the directorate cadre are barred from participating in strike actions and so government offices were never locked by Labour in the course of any strike to allow skeletal services to go on.

    This age old tradition has been desecrated under the new Labour leadership. I believe it is time to reconsider the issue of decentralisation of NLC and TUC. Truth is, when the smoke clears, only the Federal government can pay whatever is finally agreed. Many State governments except a few would be able to pay the new minimum wage. Ask public servants in many of the States when they started earning the old minimum wage of mere N30,000 years after it came into effect! I expect Labour to declare another strike action whenever this is proposed but it is the way to go moving forward.

     Labour cannot pretend to be fighting for all workers in the country, whereas at the end of the day, many State governments will not adhere to the outcome and the Organised Private Sector would look the other way, even though it is usually part of the Tripartite negotiating team  that holding it to ransom is no longer acceptable..

    •Oji Onoko,Lagos.

  • Emerging state tigers

    Emerging state tigers

    In the midst of the economic challenges ravaging the country, especially with the Labour unions threating to resume their debilitating strike over the demand for a new minimum wage, there are some state governors, making giant economic strides that could transform their states, to economic tigers. While not exhaustive, they include Enugu and Niger state governors. A major emphasis for the economic growth of the states should be agriculture and agro-allied industries which would cure hunger and unemployment, in one fell swoop, for the majority of states in the country.

    Governor Umaru Bago, of Niger State is placing emphasis on food security and agricultural mechanization programme and his plans are exciting. With the largest land mass amongst states in the country, measuring 76,363 km2, substantial part of which is arable and hosting Niger River valley, the state is well positioned to be a major agricultural hub in the country. Commendably, Governor Bako is focusing on championing agricultural revolution in the state which presently, is hosting a number of large scale rice mills.

    There is a large scale rice farm in Swashi village, Borgu Local Government Area, reported to cover 3,000, hectares, and is worth about $15 million investment. The Kiara Rice Mills Limited is reputed to be Africa’s largest rice mill. With an investment worth $30 million, it is located in Kpatsuwa village, in Mokwa Local Government Area, and it is said to produce 350 metric tons of rice annually. Mostly, private investments, they are made possible, because the state government has provided the enabling environment.

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    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) must have seen that commitment, to make out time, to visit the state about three months ago, to commission about 1,000 tractors and other agricultural equipment which would galvanize agriculture development in the state. Commending the governor, PBAT said: “we have seen the level of commitment here. We have seen leadership. The success of any leader will depend on the ability to do what needs to be done when it ought to be done.”

    Clearly, Governor Bako appears to understand the connection between the ravaging insecurity plaguing his state and unemployment. Niger State, abutting the federal capital territory, Abuja, and with large expanse of ungoverned spaces, constitute a threat to itself and its neighbouring states and the FCT. The state, also endowed with vast mineral resources, is an attraction to the bandits and vagabonds, who engage in illegal mining, and have made life very unbearable for the law abiding citizens in the area.

    So, attracting investment and providing machineries for indigenes of the state to engage in commercial agriculture is not only encouraging the economic growth of the state, but dealing a blow the insecurity in the state. The governor also talked about a collaborative effort with Kogi, Benue, Kwara and Lagos states, which is a welcome development. A state like Kogi, which is afflicted by bandits and sundry criminals, roaming much of its ungoverned space, should take a cue from the Niger State government, and turn its land to meaningful use, to ameliorate their challenges.

    Enugu State is another state whose governor is an exemplar in growing the state economy. One exciting news for this columnist is the gradual revitalization of the cashew industry in the state. There are large expanses of cashew plantations in Oghe and Oji River areas, and they use to be a major income earner for the southeast region, under Dr. Michael Okpara, as the premier of the region. Should the state government show the kind of commitment to cashew production as it is doing in other sectors, the local economy of the communities and local governments where the plantations are would be better for it.

    With an ambitious plan to grow Enugu State economy from the current level of $4.4 billion to $30 billion, the governor is surely one of the governors to watch. The magic the governor did with making water available in the metropolis, after decades of neglect, within 180 days of assuming office, literally turned him into a hero amongst the urban populace, and this columnist asks him, to remember the rural communities. They too need pipe borne water, after all, what is good for the goose, is good for the gander.

    Another interesting area of development in the state is the education sector. Few days ago, I was talking to a relation, a retired principal of a secondary school, and she shared startling information about the senior secondary school examination going across the state. The state government has threatened any school principal, whose students are caught in examination malpractice, with demotion. My relation told me of a principal, who called together the final year class, to plead with them, not to engage in malpractice, to save her job.

    The school authority is also formally banned, from entertaining the examination invigilators. She said schools are only entitled to provide water and nothing more for the invigilators. The state governor, who boasted in an interview that he has not seen anywhere in the continent or elsewhere where similar education plans like his, is being implemented, within the time limit he set for himself, may actually be correct. In fact, another relation of mine, who has been in politics since the Babangida era, rubbished the governor’s plan to build 260 smart schools, across the wards, as unrealistic.

    But the governor has boasted that he will deliver on that promise, and has budgeted a massive 33 percent of the 2024 budget, for education, far higher than the UNICEF standard. He promised to deliver 12 years of free and mandatory education for every child, using what he referred to as Experimental Learning. From age three, the child is taken through pre-primary, when still impressionable, and within that three years, the moral proclivities of the child, will be moulded. No doubt, the plans are bold and exciting.

    The governor claims he wants to produce, versions of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, in the state. He is also planning to recruit and train the teachers to do the magic. Of course, the state with the crown jewel as a sub-national tiger is Lagos State, reputed as the fifth largest economy in Africa. With a gross domestic product of $84 billion, and the continuous massive economic add-ons, like two deep sea ports, at Lekki and Badagry, new rail lines, and agricultural partnerships with states that have what Lagos lacks – land, Lagos remains the exemplar of state tigers.

    Luckily, PBAT was a state governor and one who suffered some deprivation from the federal government while he was in power as governor. He is therefore in the best position to collaborate with any state governor, willing to set his domain on the part of sustainable growth. As he keeps reiterating, the economic recovery and growth of the nation needs the collaborative support of the sub-nationals.

  • A tale of two Anthems

    A tale of two Anthems

    The National Anthem which ushered in Nigeria’s independence from colonial rule in 1960 and prefaced every important official ceremony until it was replaced in 1978 on the eve of the inauguration of the Second Republic, sprang back into life two weeks ago, literally and figuratively.

    The debate that resurrected it took just two days in the National Assembly.  While it lasted, many in the attentive audience compared the effort to revert to the old Anthem to a solution in search of a problem, as something ginned up by a legislature bereft of a sense of the nation’s priorities to create the illusion of momentum.

    The National Assembly voted unanimously in favour and President Bola Tinubu signed it into law in double quick time.  Goodbye, Arise, O Compatriots; welcome back, Nigeria We Hail Thee.

    Personally, I prefer the latter to the former. 

    There is a cadenced solemnity, an evocativeness, to Nigeria We Hail Thee that is missing in  Arise O Compatriots. The first time I heard Arise, I burst instinctively into something between a jig and a marching drill. Its rhythm called to mind the chants of the white-garment churches in the neighborhood and the parade-ground orders of the military that decreed it into being.

    It has been claimed that Nigeria We Hail Thee was composed one languid summer between dinner and bedtime by a British “housewife” – never mind the sexism – who could find no better use for her time.  But when it comes to the sociology of Nigeria, she is far more percipient than her critics.  To distill that sociology into 95 words arranged in three evocative stanzas is no mean achievement.

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    It has also been argued that reverting to Nigeria We Hail Thee smacks of atavism. But atavism has its uses.  In the evolution of the species and society, it serves as a mechanism of correction and regeneration.  Any wonder, then, that there is a clamour for a return to parliamentary government in place of the predatory assembly that now passes for the legislative branch?

    There is some irony in the return to Nigeria We Hail Thee which, remember, was the unofficial anthem of NADECO and the Opposition during the struggle for the validation of MKO Abiola’s election as President – an election annulled by military president Ibrahim Babangida.

    His successor, the loathsome Sani Abacha, warned darkly through a senior official, that singing the old anthem at any ceremony would be regarded as treasonous and punished as such.  But that did not deter the June Twelvers. It is a mark of the desperation, the mendacity of the regime that, even when activists sang the official National Anthem at their outings, “security reports” had it that they had sung the old anthem.

    I recall three such events.

    The first was an international conference of the Africa Leadership Forum (ALF), at the Gateway Hotel, in Ogun State. At the time, its president, General Olusegun Obasanjo, was a prisoner in Abacha’s sprawling Gulag.  I was chairing the final session when the security official – there was no mistaking his French suit and the jacket’s bulging pockets and the walkie-talkie — ordered us to disperse.

    I often wondered where the inspiration came from, but I asked the audience to rise and sing the official National Anthem as an affirmation of our faith in and commitment to Nigeria.  I have since realized that it came from an overweening sense of self-preservation.  Even under Abacha’s brutal rule, it seemed to me, they were unlikely to shoot people singing the National Anthem.

    The official who had looked so menacing when he walked in now stood at attention and executed a salute, while those his superiors regarded as unpatriotic, if not downright subversive, were singing the National Anthem lustily.  Much to my perverse pleasure and doubtless to the pleasure of many others, confusion, nay, bewilderment, was stamped all over his face.

    The second was a lecture (May 23, 1996) organized by the Lagos NUJ to mark the first year in prison of Kunle Ajibade, editor of TheNEWS magazine, who had been jailed, based on perjured evidence, for being an accessory to a coup that was for all practical purposes a phantom.

    Just before the event started, the intruder approached me and he said he had “orders from above” to preempt the “meeting.”  I told him it was not a meeting.  The “conference” must not be held, he reiterated.  It was not was not a conference, I replied testily. 

    Whatever it was, he said with a hint of exasperation, he had come with orders from above to stop it.  His back-up stood not too discreetly at the back.

    Could I see the order?  No sir, he said, barely concealing his surprise that anyone could have the audacity to make such a request.  How then do we know that you have such an order, and that it comes from the proper authority?

    Sensing that his patience was running out, I asked the journalists assembled to sing the National Anthem as an affirmation of our faith in Nigeria.  It was rewarding to watch him and his backup spring to attention and take a salute as we sang the anthem, after which we dispersed.

    The third occasion was nothing if not surreal.

    We were gathered at the Conference Hall of Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, in Victoria Island, Lagos  — judges of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal,  ambassadors, university professors and administrators, captains of industry, eminent political and literary figures — for the public presentation of Chief Bola Ige’s memoir, People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria (1949-1979).  Odia Ofeimun and I were the designated masters of ceremony.

    The indications were unpromising.  The lights and the air-conditioning had not been switched on at the time the event was scheduled to start   The hall was musty.

    Soon enough, the inevitable security official surfaced.  Pulling me aside, he stated that the ceremony must not hold.  After some jousting, I led him to Bola Ige and asked him to repeat what he had just told me.

    Ige, who had no tolerance for humbug, was a study in composure.  Sweeping the audience with one arm, he did a roll call for the intruder’s benefit.   

    The former Chief Justice of Nigeria is here, he began. So is the Chief Judge (now President) of the Court of Appeal.  So are several Senior Advocates.  So is the Ambassador of the United States.  So is a former head of the Nigeria Security Organisation.  So is the vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan,  So is Chief Anthony Enahoro, one of the architects of Nigeria’s independence. . .

    “And you say you have orders from above that this ceremony must not hold?” Ige said, looking the officer in the eye.

    Yes sir, the officer replied tremulously.

    “You will have to make the announcement yourself,” Ige said.

    Just as the officer was finishing, I respectfully asked the audience to sing the National Anthem to affirm our citizenship and respect for the laws of the land.

    Not a few shook their heads in sorrow and despair as they walked out of the Auditorium.

    In each of the instances I have cited here, the “security report” claimed that I had been rousing disgruntled elements to sing the old National Anthem.  A solicitous inside source warned, per a well-connected uncle, that something nasty might happen to me if I did not leave the country at the earliest opportunity.

    It is a delicious irony that the 1960 Anthem, the rendition of which Abacha’s regime criminalized, has been restored as the National Anthem.

    Nigeria, we hail thee.  June Twelve, our Democracy Day, we hail thee.  To all Nigerians born on June 12, 1993, and its anniversary, Happy Birthday.  To their mothers, Happy Anniversary.