The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Amupitan and godfathers

    Amupitan and godfathers

    This columnist doesn’t know whether Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, the newly installed Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, has ever read “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo. In that famous novel, Vito Corleone, the godfather, while making peace with the dons of the other mafia families, after a failed attempt to assassinate him, gave a near impossible condition for peace to reign. He told his bewildered underworld colleagues: “I am a superstitious man, a ridiculous falling, but I must confess it here.”

    He went on: “And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, if he should hang himself in his cell, if new witnesses appear to testify to his guilt, my superstition will make me feel that it was the result of the ill-will still borne me by some people here. Let me go further. If my son is struck by a bolt of lightning I will blame some of the people here.”

    Corleone furthered on his terms of peace: “If his plane should fall into sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of ocean; if he should catch a mortal fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would blame the ill-will felt by people here. Gentlemen, that ill-will, that bad luck, I could never forgive.” As this writer read the encomiums that followed the distinguished professor of law, Joash Amupitan, to the exalted position of INEC chairman, the words of Don Corleone, reverberated.

    With his curriculum vitae, reading like a book, Amupitan, became the darling of hitherto die-hard antagonists of the nomination of INEC chairman, by a sitting president. In the senate, he spoke with such eloquence and candescence that after two hours, when the senate president following a motion, put a voice vote, whether Amupitan should be allowed to bow and go, the ayes had it. The few nay-sayers were not outraged, for they merely wanted an opportunity to speak to the legal giant.

    Within the civil society, the story was rife that Professor Amupitan was a member of the team of Senior Advocates of Nigeria that defended the president after the 2023 general election. Without engaging in any research, those who dominate the civil space with their diatribes swore that the 2027 presidential election was already compromised, before the due date, and they were determined to use all means available to them, to oppose the nomination of Amupitan, being the godfathers of the civil space. 

    Luckily for Amupitan, he was not a member of the team of SANs and he was in no way connected to the president. Indeed, there is also no evidence that he is connected to the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC). As a result, the nay-sayers have shown willingness to give him the benefit of doubt, as the new INEC helmsman. But while not a pessimist, this writer wonders how long the honeymoon with the self-appointed godfathers will last?

    So, far, in his statements, Amupitan appears to have struck the right cords. He said to his staff: “we should not compromise our values or processes that could have consequences. So the integrity of our elections is not even something we should negotiate, please.” He also said: “Mr. President, in his remark, also echoed the same, that we should do everything possible as we go into an Anambra election to give this country a free, fair and credible election.” He also promised that staff welfare will be a priority, since much will be expected from them.        

    But does the 1999 constitution (as amended), and the Electoral Act, 2022, give the INEC chairman the powers to guarantee a free, fair and credible election? According to paragraph 14(1) The Independent National Electoral Commission shall compromise the following members: – (a) a Chairman, who shall be the Chief Electoral Commissioner; and (b) twelve other members to be known as National Electoral Commissioners.” Section 14(3) further provides: – “There shall be for each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, a Resident Electoral Commission….” None of those are appointed by or can be sacked by the chairman.

    Among other ancillary responsibilities, paragraph 15 provides: – “The Commission shall have power to – (a) organize, undertake and supervise all elections to the offices of the President and Vice-President, the Governor and Deputy Governor of a State, and to the membership of the Senate, the House of Representatives and the House of Assembly of each State of the Federation.” While the duties are expansive, there are no legal provisions to guarantee the necessary powers to perform the functions.

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    For instance, INEC is not self-financing. It has to rely on the Federal Executive Council and National Assembly to get the necessary finances to perform the functions. While Section 3(3) of the Electoral Act, 2022, provides: “The election funds due to the Commission for any general elections are to be released to the Commission not later than one year before the next general election”, there is no provision that what is released must be adequate or according to the demands of the commission.

    The commission also does not have control over the nation’s underdeveloped infrastructure. While distribution of materials and collation of results from the towns and nearby villages can easily be dealt with by the commission, what can it do with remote parts of the country, some of which have no access roads or difficult means of connection? Will those clamouring that all election results be transmitted electronically real time, hold Amupitan responsible if it became practically impossible to do so?

    While sensitive electoral materials are usually delivered very close to the day of election and handed over to the electoral officers on the morning of election from secure custodies, would Amupitan be held accountable if there are no vehicles, or boats or even light aircrafts to ferry an electoral officer or some sensitive materials or results after the election, to and from the election any centre scattered across the length and breadth of our expansive country?

    With majority of the political actors grossly undisciplined, how would Amupitan rein in, those who seek to compromise the electoral officers or use brutal force to determine the outcome of the results, in several far flung voting centres across the country? Should the security agencies get induced to compromise in one of such remote places, would the INEC chairman be held accountable? While this column looks forward to further improvements in our elections, under Amupitan, there are enormous challenges bedevilling elections in our country. 

    Unfortunately, like Vito Corleone, the godfather, many Nigerians are superstitious when judging the INEC chairmen. For such people, it is only when their preferred candidates win that they accept that elections are free, fair and credible.

  • Uneasy times for the ‘Deep State’

    Uneasy times for the ‘Deep State’

    When in January 2024, the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration issued a circular directing “automatic” 50 percent remittance of the total revenue of all its self-funded enterprises, not a few wondered if this was merely precursor to the overdue comprehensive fiscal governance reforms at the federal level or a mere touch up of the vice-ridden old ways of the Nigerian bureaucracy.

    “The Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), subject to the categorization of agencies shall map and automatically effect direct deduction of 50% on gross revenue of self/partially funded agency/parastatals and 100% for fully funded agencies/ parastatals as interim remittance of amount due to the Consolidated Revenue Fund,” the circular had read at the time.

    The practice, hitherto, was for the agencies to retain up to 50 percent of their revenue as expenditure while keeping 20 percent of the balance as “operating surplus” —the balance apparently left for the principal to do as it pleased with.

    The move, according to the federal government, was meant to improve revenue generation, fiscal discipline, accountability and transparency in the management of government financial resources and prevention of waste and inefficiencies.

    Notable agencies affected included the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS).

    I recall Waziri Adio of Agora Policy, warning that “these cash-saturated agencies had become founts of mind-blowing profligacy and sleazy vehicles for patronage and rent-extraction!

    It was no exaggeration. In truth, these agencies had become a lot more! Aside the humongous sums they collectively deny the national exchequer in entitled funds, they evince the demonstrable power of the deep state together with their apparatus of subversion and institutional denudation!

    Imagine having an agency of government run recurrent and capital outlays that dwarf those of some state governments, and this without the strictures of appropriation by parliament; that Nigeria and Nigerians tolerated that practice that represents a clear affront not just to the law but of constitutionalism can only be in the realm of the usual Nigerian mystery. To think that the same Nigerians are only too eager to recite Section 162(1) of 1999 Constitution which requires that all revenues collected by the federal government be paid into a special account called the Federation Account, with a few exceptions in their never-ending ‘federalist expositions!

    Here is the thing: Aside the personal income tax of the personnel of the armed forces, the Nigeria Police Force, the ministry or department of government charged with responsibility for Foreign Affairs and the residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja which were singled out in the quoted section, nowhere in the document did it refer to our big spending parastatals as remotely qualifying for such privilege! And this is a document that has been in operation since 1999 together with all the amendments!

    Surely, if Olusegun Obasanjo in his holy rage did not blink an eye in snuffing out the life out of the Sani Abacha-created Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, the wonder ought to be in the survival of related practices which expressly offend the letters and the spirit of the law. The agency, created in the wake of the removal of fuel subsidy at the time- was administered by select consultants under the direction of the late president, Muhammadu Buhari, and operated like a parallel government answerable only to Abacha – the Supremo. President Obasanjo merely on the ground of its incompatibility with the country’s supreme law, despite the pressures from the usual quarters of privilege, didn’t even need to confer with the judiciary let alone the parliament to terminate its incestuous existence!

    Call it pragmatic, we know that the referenced January 2024 circular, conceding the 50 percent revenue to the agencies, could only have been temporary for the reform-minded Tinubu administration. After all, ensuring that leakages are plugged at every level, and ensuring that every kobo due to the exchequer is accounted for, would seem the least that an administration sworn to overhaul the public finance system could pursue with uncommon vigour given the financial mess that the country has found itself. But in this, most Nigerians would appear to have been fixated on the tax reforms almost entirely to the exclusion of the needed wholesale reengineering particularly in the face of the obnoxious fiscal practices.

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    Thanks to the administration’s Economic Management Team, this obvious lacuna did not elude them.  Only that this time, no tanks are being rolled out and no concessions are being offered: only a simple directive with a definite timeline: All collections by the agencies must henceforth go straight into the federation account. The money, after all, belongs to Nigerians and not to any agency operating in silos. And so, the long-standing practice that allowed revenue agencies to deduct a share of funds as the cost of collection before remitting proceeds to the federation account has come to an end.

    The decision, since approved by President Bola Tinubu, is said to be aimed at tightening fiscal discipline, enhancing transparency and ensuring that all revenues are available for distribution among the three tiers of government.

    Even here, Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun couldn’t resist a reminder on the anchor of the law: the constitutional requirement that all revenues be remitted into the federation account before distribution using the approved sharing formula.

    And then the sordid practices that have made our public finance practices such a joke: “When you look at the gross figure, you see all kinds of deductions before you get to the net distributable figure, which goes to the federal, state, and local governments. And I must inform you that even during the last FAAC allocation, most of those deductions have been removed once and for all”. Good riddance!

    Hopefully, Nigerians, with time, will come to appreciate the import of this new thinking when the stocks are finally taken of the trillions annually creamed off by members of Nigeria’s Greed Incorporated, and cost of the unfulfilled dreams of national renewal. For now, it suffices to stop the haemorrhage!

    Finally, say what you may: surely, no administration, past and present, has taken on so much within so short a time as we have seen in the last 28 months of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu presidency. Like a builder whose mastery of the game is unequalled, the administration plods on, with its eyes on legacy. Yes, it’s been a season of demolition: from the fraud-riddled infrastructure of subsidy, to that of arbitrage and now, to one of state licensed heist. Although the job might seem slow at the beginning, surely, there can be no denial of its rhyme and rhythm. That is – if only Nigerians will care to pay attention.

  • Opposition parties in disarray

    Opposition parties in disarray

    Despite the propaganda of the emergent African Democratic Party (ADC), and the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), remains the main opposition party in the country with a potential to put up a fight against the dominant All Progressive Congress (APC), in the 2027 general election if they can put their house in order. But with all the crisis bedevilling the PDP, it appears the party would remain in disarray, unless the warriors sheathe their swords.  

    Looking back, former president, Goodluck Jonathan and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, principally bear the blame for the precipitate decline of the PDP. What Atiku started in the run up to the 2011 general election by decamping from the party, Jonathan consolidated by running for the 2015 general election which he eventually lost. While PDP members, especially from the north accepted as fait accompli that Vice President Jonathan should run for election in 2011, after completing the term granted late President Umaru Yar’Adua, they rejected outright his attempt to run again in 2015.

    From hindsight, the division caused by the decision of Jonathan to run led to a fissure, and the emergence of what became known as new PDP, which some governors and legislators championed. The eventual loss of power by the party saw the exodus of many members of the party, especially the fair weather ones, to the APC which won the presidential poll with President Muhammadu Buhari, as flag bearer. And ever since, it has been a free fall for the PDP.

    Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, after abandoning the party during their crisis period, returned for the second time, to hijack the presidential ticket of PDP for the 2023 general election. That action appears to have set the party down to its current free fall to destruction. The former governor of Rivers State and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, having been deceived by the former Speaker, House of Representatives and former governor of Sokoto, Aminu Tambuwal (an Atiku accomplice), appears to have forsworn never to be taken for a ride again, by the party men.  

    Wike has ensured that he has the PDP is in his vice grip, and so unless on terms, that he considers as fair and just, he has vowed that the party will not hold the National Convention to elect new party leaders. Governors Bala Mohammed and Seyi Makinde, of Oyo and Bauchi states, respectively, and other party leaders who dared Wike to do his worst, are realizing that life is being squeezed out of their party, as the day unfolds.

    The chairmen of PDP, in Imo and Abia states, Austin Nwachukwu and Amah Abraham Nnana, with the party secretary in south-south zone, remains in court, claiming that the PDP has not conducted the required congresses in some states to elect delegates to the planned convention amongst other grievances. While that case is still pending, the PDP got enmeshed in another crisis, between the acting national party chairman, Umar Damagun and the national legal adviser, Kamaldeen Ajibade, SAN, over the right to appoint a counsel to defend the party in the suit filed by those opposed to the convention.

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    The legal adviser contends that by Article 40 of the party’s constitution, no other party officer or organ has the right to appoint a legal counsel to defend the party, without his concurrence. The National Working Committee, without waiting for the court presided over by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, to determine the conflicting claims between the chairman and the legal adviser, relieved the legal adviser of any right to represent the PDP in the suit.

    There is the chance that the legal adviser may seek to open another battle front with the party, over what he may consider as attempt to whittle down his power. While all that is playing out, the secretary of the party has raised a bombshell capable of truncating the entire plans for the convention. He claimed that his signature was forged on the document, notifying INEC of the planned convention, and has petitioned the Department of State Security (DSS), the Nigeria Police and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), over the claim.

    While PDP has dismissed the impact, and vowed to forge ahead with the convention, we wait to see whether the claim if proved to be true, would affect the veracity of the notice required to be sent to INEC before a convention can be validly held by a political party. While Anyanwu is seeking the prosecution of the party leaders, over the alleged forgery, it is instructive that no party official has come forward to renounce the alleged forgery of the signature of the party secretary.

    Less than four weeks to the date slated for the convention, the court has asked the parties to maintain status quo, pending the determination of the suit. Of note, Justice Omotosho, has promised to determine the substantive suit by the end of October, so the parties would know their fate. If he gives the party the go ahead, to hold the convention, the challenges over party delegates, the alleged forged signature and other issues, would continue to becloud the convention.

    Interestingly, there are diehards in the party who have maintained that the party would survive all the challenges and come out stronger. Apart from the governors of Bauchi and Oyo states, there is the elder statesman Chief Olabode George of Lagos State. There is also the latest alliance between Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim and former Senate President Bukola Saraki, to work together. On the reverse side, recently the governors of Enugu and Bayelsa states have left the party, and their colleague in Taraba, Agbu Kefas, is touted to be on his way out of the party.                                   

    The ADC which the promoters had said would provide the opposition to the APC, when juxtaposed against the indices of potential greatness, so far, is akin to the despondency of Macbeth in the Shakespearean play, of the same title: “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” In that play, Macbeth had made the exclamation on the hopelessness of his life, when he heard that his wife, Lady Macbeth had committed suicide. This column believes that those who believed the hype by the promoters of ADC, may now exhibit such despondency.

    The other party which got some elixir, in the 2023 general election, the Labour Party, has been left high and dry, with an “enemy chairman” in charge of the party. At the last INEC meeting with party chairmen, Barrister Julius Abure, who has fallen out with the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the former presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi, and the only party governor, Alex Otti, was ensconced in the chair reserved for Labour Party.

  • PDP: Old stab, new gash

    PDP: Old stab, new gash

    Idowu Akinlotan, the muse of “Palladium”, The Nation Sunday back-page column, near-prophetically declared the PDP won’t die: “Defections and wind of change”, October 19.  Maybe he is right?

    But except he used PDP as the opposition generic (as it was in the late 1960s/1970s, when the defunct Daily Times was so dominant it passed as a credible generic for other newspaper titles) — and not as PDP qua PDP — he just might be wrong.

    How?  Well, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), home to Yoruba pro-democracy heroes, and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) veterans that wore a chip on their shoulders, as arch-conquerors of Sani Abacha and his political army goons, also died.  The AD died when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) delisted it on 6 February 2020

    Yet, in 1999, AD swept well-nigh everything there was to win in the South West, just as PDP, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the fleeing military, fearing a civil order puritanical backlash, made hay in other areas of Nigeria, save the defunct All People’s Party (APP, later, ANPP: All Nigeria People’s Party) redoubts mainly in the North.

    But Palladium was right on one score: even if PDP, as we know it now withers, the opposition won’t necessarily die with it. 

    There is a strain of AD in the present ruling APC (recall this chain: AD-Action Congress, AC,-Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN,-and finally, All Progressives Congress, APC). So, the PDP will also morph into some future opposition coalition.  The first stage of that is already manifested in the new SPV, African Democratic Congress (ADC).

    Therein then lies Paladium’s basic point: Nigeria would hardly succumb to a one-party rule, the hysteria the scattered opposition are now bleating, for cheap sympathy.  But with the havoc PDP had wreaked on Nigeria, may they long endure their blues!

    But even with its present bind, the opposition may yet, in future, clutch back at power.  That would power Nigeria’s democracy, as other global democracies that experience periodic power changes, by sheer voter power: for or against the ruling order.

    Yet, it’s joy, perverse and impish, seeing the PDP that, between 2001 and 2003, went berserk to kill the AD, now grouching, mourning and moaning, going through what seems the final dance of its own death!

    Indeed, it’s a classic comeuppance: the old cruel stabs PDP dealt the AD, and these no less ruthless gashes PDP is being dealt too! What goes around comes around!

    No less thrilling too: the two main orchestrators of the AD death and burial are very much alive, to see the PDP grand unravelling and chaotic meltdown.

    One is former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007).  To, “by  force, by fire” seize a South West base, he must subvert and eventually kill the AD.

    The other is the martial Chief Olabode George, in their power heyday, Obasanjo’s dashing viceroy, in their joint scramble to “capture” Lagos!  Old man George did not retire as Navy Commodore for nothing!

    In that campaign was indeed mutual bliss: Bode George’s trophy as PDP National Vice-Chairman (South West) was nothing without the glorious vice of “capturing” — his very word! — his native Lagos!  Operation Capture Lagos was a task that must be done!

    For his imperial Abuja principal, seizing the crown jewel of Lagos was a worthwhile gambit: to consummate the grand surrender of his native South West which people, by the dire presidential results of 1999, didn’t exactly love him.  Indeed, they scorned him. 

    But the more the South West scorn, the harder Obasanjo’s will to crush!  PDP was the armoured vehicle.  George was the fearsome field commander.  AD was the nuisance to be squelched.  2003 was the year! 

    Mission accomplished?  Not quite! The South West did fall. But the crown jewel proved a bridge too far!  George would later tell Daily Champion (3 June 2025), though: “We also won Lagos but the result was manipulated.” Well, arch-delusion is democratic!

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    The same PDP opposition nemesis in 2003 is the same ruling party PDP nemesis now: Bola Tinubu, then the Governor of Lagos, now, the President of the Federal Republic!

    In closet, former President Obasanjo would wail for whatever befalls the PDP today, though the Owu chief makes a huge show of his divorce from partisan politics.

    Yes, the PDP might have been an Army Arrangement SPV, which was why Obasanjo, George, David Mark and other retired political soldiers, were very prominent in its ranks.  So, when folks wax poetic over some PDP founding ideals, Ripples just yawns! 

    The PDP “founding ideals” were nothing beyond power and how to grab it.  That was why it made a hash of governance for 16 ruinous years; and even a greater mess of the opposition, these last 10 years, since it lost power in 2015.

    Even then, ex-President Obasanjo knows the PDP, no matter how vacuous, would still have turned out far better, without the inglorious anti-democratic manouevres, under his watch, that further denuded the former ruling party. 

    But God has spared his life, to witness the mess he created, in its final putrescence!

    Chief George lacks such closet luxury: hence his dramatic collapse in public, at the defection of Peter Mbah, the Enugu governor and ex-PDP wonder boy of Wawa country. 

    To boot: Mbah reeled out his strides, in infrastructure and sundry achievements, in his PDP sack speech, to boisterous applause on October 14.  The next day, Bayelsa’s Duoye Diri drove another knife into the PDP spine. You can imagine the further meltdown in the George camp!

    The sheer anguish from the old man: “The governor” — meaning Mbah — “we all waded in … You’ll get whatever is due to the South East,” he told Channels TV, “But the rationale and emphasis he gave, it was like I was in a very long dream” — the same long dreams that the AD fellows felt in the PDP glory days!  All is turned gory now!

    But not even that would stop the old man from crunching sour grapes; and putting on a sheen the PDP never had — or would ever have — given its dire public record, both in power and in opposition. 

    “We’ll campaign, go to the field,” he blustered, “and tell Nigerians what the APC has done or failed to do to put smiles on their faces …”

    Pray, what glorious legacy might PDP campaign on?  Galloping corruption that nearly sunk Nigeria in 2015? 

    Or the eternal fumbling as opposition: that childish, silly penchant to lie, bare-faced, about its past, thinking folks are too fickle to remember its horrors-in-government?

    A very good luck on that!  With old habits, this PDP might just be beyond redemption!

    The opposition, victim of PDP’s use of brute power, is the same under which the PDP now grinds!  So, it too should know a future life in opposition is very possible!

    Which is why it must learn from the PDP bind.  That’s the only way it can, in future, avert the PDP current blight.

    Multiple governors swelling the APC ranks are good for optics.  But the real deal will be the ruling order domesticating the gains of its reforms in most, if not all, households. 

    On that, from the data coming up, it has the momentum. But it’s time to go for the kill, make the people happy, and kill off any opposition dream to milk subversive sympathy, in the run to 2027.  

  • Ariya Eko!

    Ariya Eko!

    “Metal on concrete jars my drink lobes …” 

    That opening phrase, by Sagoe in The Interpreters (published 1965), Wole Soyinka’s first novel, said it all.  Lagos of the 1960s: a vibrant night life grooving with Highlife, the king of urban music and popular culture!

    That metal chairs screeched on bare night club floors sent Sagoe grumbling about his hearing health!  Lagos nights and happy chaos!

    Sixty years later (1965-2025), Afrobeats might have upset Highlife; as twinkling new generation star, Modola, proved on the nite.  For the more nativist, Fuji could have also elbowed aside Juju — that 1930s musical creation of Tunde King.

    The eternal Lagos vibes — Ariya Eko! — propelled the MUSON mirth of October 5: the Ariya Eko Independence Music Festival, to toast Nigeria; and honour those that merit it.

    Its theme: Musical Journey of a Nation at 65. Venue: Shell Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan.  Organizers: Evergreen Musical Company, the treasure the late Femi Esho left behind, flowering and booming still, under her father’s daughter, Bimbo Esho.

    Sponsors: the Lagos State Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture and Pastor Daniel Olukoya’s Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM) extremely rich musical arm.

    The honourees: Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey (Ariya Eko Timeless Contribution), Lemi Abiodun Ghariokwu, aka “King of Album Sleeves” (Ariya Eko Graphics Gifted Hands), Evang. Funmi Aragbaiye, JP, (Ariya Eko Gospel Pioneers), Uncle Toye Ajagun (Ariya Eko Muscial Peacemaker), Alhaji Kolington Ayinla, aka Kebe nKwara (Ariya Eko Fuji Revolution Doyen), Yoruba poet, Ajobiwewe: Baba Sulaiman Ayilara Aremu (Ariya Eko Esa Oriki Resilience), D Guv’nor, Ken-Calebs Olumese (Ariya Eko Night Life Legend), Mainframe genius, Baba Tunde Kelani (Ariya Eko Distinguished Film Maker) and Admiral Dele Abiodun (Ariya Eko Juju Leaders).

    The others: Dr. Ola Balogun (Ariya Eko Pioneering Film Maker), Samba Queen Stella Ada Monye (Ariya Eko Cultural Values), Mrs. D. A. Fasoyin (Ariya Eko Evergreen Gospel Anthems), Tee Mac Omatshola Iseli (Ariya Eko Distinguished Flutist), King Jossy Friday (Ariya Eko Cultural Innovator), Laolu Akins (Ariya Eko Multi-Talented Producer), Queen Salawa Abeni Ibiwunmi (Ariya Eko Waka Transformer), Evangelist J. A. Adelakun (Ariya Eko Evergreen Gospel Anthems) and Premier Music (Ariya Eko Musician’s Backbone).

    The list speaks for itself: the showbiz spirit of the age. MFM’s Pastor Daniel Olukoya, duly represented, also announced N500, 000 for each honouree.

    Ebenezer Obey, with King Sunny Ade (KSA) drove the longest musical hegemony in Nigerian contemporary history.  Such durable quality!  Such classy fecundity!

    Admiral Dele Abiodun, with his Adawa Super hits, carved out a fair share of the Juju market, striking a rivalry of his own, with the late Emperor Pick Peters, but no less vibrant in their own rights!

    But Elder Femi Akinmade told Ripples during that memorable night, that many of the Juju hits had the muse, Ambrose Campbell (1919-2006), to thank.  Campbell, a Lagos-born Saro, founded the West African Rhythm Brothers (formed 1940s), UK’s first black band.

    Obey’s philosophical monster hit, “Eni Ri Nkan He”,  was a re-make of the Campbell original.  So was Dele Abiodun’s “It’s Time For Juju Music”.  Both, of course, added own contemporary flavours!

    Kolignton, with the late Ayinde Barrister — both of them Civil War veterans — were able Fuji pioneers. They transformed the Muslim “Were”, performed at dawn during Ramadan, into dance-floor commercial music. KWAM 1, Adewale Ayuba and co were the younger Turks that have deepened that heritage.

    Were Fuji to have a female gender, Salawa Abeni’s Waka would certainly be it!  Both had Islamic roots.  As Afro-Juju’s Sir Shina Peters (SSP) under Prince Adekunle, Salawa was a teen-wonder, that carved out own niche, in the Lagos music world.  Ariya Eko!

    But on October 5, Alhaji Jamiu Salami’s Lefty Band also outed with “ijinle” — rootsy –Sakara music from Isale-Eko!  The original “Lefty”, Alhaji Salami Balogun (1913-1981) is dead and gone.  But his left-handed percussion genius continues to define the group.

    Left-handed Balogun would send his favourite tambourine into provocative messaging, getting instant responses from dancing patrons! The “Lefty” legend was born!

    On the night, Lefty leapt right from the dead, when his current inheritor ignored the compere’s appeal to wind down.  With Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in-situ, as the White Cap Chiefs that represented the Olowo Eko, Oba Rilwan Akiolu and the Oniru of Iru, Oba Wasiu Lawal, the Lefty Band would be damned to let go its day in the sun!

    Pray, what with the ijinle groove, went on in the governor’s mind? His Okepopo, Lagos, nativity?  The Iga Jakande (Jakande Palace) just a stone’s throw away?  The Igunnuko Oshodi clan at Epetedo?  Or the “felele” football challenge at Onola?  Memories!

    Obey, at own investiture by the governor, turned the Owanbe house bard, praising the governor, Lagos State and President Bola Tinubu, with other honourees — Salawa, and the Gospel pair of Funmi Aragbaye and Mrs. Fasoyin — all on the charmed roundtable!

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    Mrs. Fasoyin and her CAC Good Women’s Choir, Ibadan!  It was the age of indigenous carol challenge at Yuletide.  Prof. Akin Euba (1935-2020), leading the likes of Richard Bucknor, Art Alade, Afolabi Alaja-Browne, Roseline Ngor and  Funmi Adams, outed with “Elu Agogo Keresimesi”.  That carol hit clawed for radio air space with the traditional foreign ones. 

    Then, out of the blue, came “Odun Nlo S’opin O Baba Rere …” from the Good Women, with sizzling dancing, native Pentecostal mirth, vocals, percussion and allied flavour! It has since become a yearly constant on radio, as the year rolls to an end!

    Stella Ada Monye, the Samba queen?  The globe-beater Afrobeats Stars of today have her and the likes of the late Sonny Okosuns and Bongos Ikwue — very much alive — to thank for their pioneering works.

    Fela, the Abami Eda! Whoever dares talk of Fela, the patron saint of Afro Beat, in the past tense!  Who? And who, more than Lemi Ghariokwu, gave graphic poetry to Fela’s irreverent and incandescent music, the blight of military tyrants?

    Laolu Akins brought SSP out of a musical death-at-noon with monster hits like Ijo Shina, Ace, etc.  After the pioneering efforts of Dr. Ola Balogun, Tunde Kelani and his Mainframe gave new depth and poetic technicality to the local Nigerian cinema!

    The sight-and-sound of Lagos — and Nigeria — at 65! 

    No wonder, the likes of Baba Eto, the late Adeolu Akinsanya, also leapt alive, from the back-up orchestras, replete with the MFM Highlife band, bending old secular classics, with today’s proselytizing, to win new souls for Christ — Ariya Eko!

    But then: those who make others happy, often bear deep personal woes. Dele Abiodun dedicated his award to his late daughter; and King Jossy Friday, to his late wife, who ironically died after sending a text message to her friend who just became a widow.

    Stella Monye too was there with her only child, Ibrahim.  Ibrahim has been battling to stay alive, after a horrendous teen accident at 11 in 1999, when his mother was away on a national assignment.  Ibrahim is now 36.

    Who will help fund Ibrahim’s life-saving surgeries, so Mum Stella is not fated to a future morbid dedication, after a future award?  Who?

  • World Bank and Nigeria

    World Bank and Nigeria

    It was inevitable that the Nigeria Development Update, the World Bank’s biannual flagship report will generate some talking points. Titled “From Policy to People: Bringing the Reform Gains Home”, it claims, as usual to be a broad overview of the economy in terms of trends, policy outcomes, and key challenges after what is arguably, the most aggressive reform path to be undertaken by any administration since independence.

    As far as its summary goes, it was particularly telling as it was instructive: “Nigeria has made substantial progress on macroeconomic stabilization”. The economy, it noted, expanded by 3.9% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, up from 3.5% in the same period of 2024. So was growth, driven largely by strong performance in services and non-oil industries. And just as oil production maintained a steady course, agriculture was also not left behind.

    It noted the steady rise in foreign reserves currently in excess of $42 billion with current account surplus rising to 6.1% of GDP – all of these thanks to higher non-oil exports and lower oil imports. On the fiscal side, it noted that despite lower oil prices, the federal deficit is projected at 2.6% of GDP in 2025, broadly unchanged from 2024, while public debt is expected to decline for the first time in over a decade—from 42.9 to 39.8% of GDP.

    While acknowledging these positive sides, it was also no time for fulsome praises for the administration’s reform efforts: “Stabilization gains”, it noted “have yet to substantially improve Nigerians’ livelihoods”.

    Food inflation and poverty both of which Nigerians already acknowledged as the country’s albatross, remains unbearably high, even as the report drew attention to the need for urgent action to reduce inflation, enhance public spending efficiency, and expand social protection. It referenced the estimated 139 million citizens, said to be living in poverty, even as it warned that the country risks losing reform gains if they fail to translate into tangible improvements in people’s welfare.

    Not surprisingly, the report has since torn Nigerians into two camps: the army of critics who couldn’t imagine the Tinubu administration ever getting anything right on the economy on one side, and the government and its hordes of supporters on the other, particularly with regards to the referenced 139 million citizens said to be living in poverty.

    Bolaji Abdullahi, the megaphone of the African Democratic Congress, the Special Purpose Vehicle cobbled together to realise former vice president, Atiku Abubakar’s presidential dream, has since gone to town with the claim that “the report exposes the widening gap between the government’s propaganda of progress and the harsh realities faced by millions of citizens whose lives and livelihoods have… been devastated under the All Progressives Congress-led government”.

    President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare has also countered that the methodology used by the World Bank in its determination was not only dated but somewhat suspect given that the “figure was derived from the global poverty line of $2.15 per person per day, set in 2017 using Purchasing Power Parity”.

    Drawing opposing conclusions from the same set of facts being an old game is certainly not exclusive to politicians. It is nothing new particularly to development scholars depending of course on which side of the ideological spectrum that one belongs. And while it seems a fair game that a party like ADC, sworn to displace the ruling APC, will seek to weaponise that aspect of the report, I believe that the government spokesman has provided a robust rebuttal possible in the circumstance.

    Yes, the economic situation in the country is bad enough, without the World Bank compounding our misery with its mystery figures whose values are utterly questionable! So much for the Breton Wood institution’s age-long fixation with the orthodoxies of ‘single stories’ of which our own dear Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her 2009 TED Talk, warns – ‘creates and reinforces stereotypes, robbing people and cultures of their dignity and complexity’; it has become for most Nigerians, like an old wife’s tale to be recycled!

    So, Atiku and his ADC people as indeed those interested, may as well run to town with it! That is if it helps to supply the opposition with some oxygen at a time when everything else seems to be falling apart. The government on its part should move past the acknowledgment that things are bad to pressing the throttle. Like most Nigerians, I believe that the signs are clear enough that a lot is moving in the right direction. Time to move the needle to the micro-economy.  

    Away from hugging the headlines, I think Nigerians should take another look at the report to discover the one part of the report so easy to miss: the self-serving prescriptions that have, more often than not, defined the institution’s relations with developing countries. It calls it the three urgent priorities to address the problems of inflation and poverty.

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    I start with the first and perhaps the most curious of them all: the prescription that the government tackle food inflation by “removing trade barriers such as import bans and excessive duties, while addressing structural bottlenecks in seeds, input supply, security, logistics, and infrastructure (including transport, power, storage, and cold chains)”. Familiar?

    How about this in the age of Trumpism, of trade barriers and protectionist walls?  Imagine a hugely-endowed agrarian economy being asked to throw its borders open for unrestricted food imports so the army of its poor can avail of cheap foods!

    Yes, the prescription is right there in the book!

    So also is the other prescription: the removal of ‘structural bottlenecks in seeds, input supply’ – all in the guise of enhancing farmers output and productivity, policies that have proven over time to perpetuate the same old cycle of dependency and the despair that our farmers have suffered and continue to suffer.

    With friends like this, who needs an enemy?

    And finally, the same barely tolerable, long-winding, if meaningless sweeteners: improve the efficiency of public spending through greater fiscal transparency, stronger discipline in Federation Account (FAAC) deductions, and a national pact to align fiscal policy with development objectives, especially human capital investments, and, expanding and institutionalizing social protection, including regular, domestically financed cash transfers for the ultra-poor and a shock-responsive safety net system to help households manage crises – bland grammars which merely masks their true intent?  

    My question: What will it take for these busybodies to remove themselves from our national affairs so we can concentrate on fixing our broken parts?

  • Enugu ingests APC

    Enugu ingests APC

    Growing up in Enugu State in the 1970s, the commonest medicine for fever, cold, aches and pain was APC. Every mother had those over-the-counter, white looking tablets, handy in a small jar, at home. Our village dispenser, in charge of the community dispensary at Nwankwo, Ogwofia-Owa, one Romanus Ozobu (God rest his soul), would grind it, and with a little water, force it down our young throats to quench the fever and aches that followed the reckless plays and junkets.    

    That APC meant a combination of Aspirin, Phenacetin, and Caffeine, which is no longer in use. But the APC of my interest today, is the All Progressive Congress, a party formerly derided in the Southeast, as Janjaweed Ideology. Those who supported the party then, were reminded that the medical APC was no longer in use, and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), taunted the party as an expired drug. To propagate APC as an alternative to PDP, in the state, was considered an insalubrious anathema.

    A few ignored the abuses, and continued to support and propagate the party. Today, the governor of Enugu State, Barrister Peter Mbah, and majority members of the PDP at all levels in the state, have joyously ingested APC, and they are looking forward to the party returning them to power in 2027.

    This column which has for the past ten years recommended APC as an alternative to PDP, joyously welcome them to the progressive party. They must inculcate the Igbo saying: “Obialu be onye abiagbu kwe n’eya”.

    In my most recent piece on Governor Peter Mbah barely two months ago, which I christened: “Dilemma of Governor Mbah”, I had given ample reasons why Mbah should move over to APC. I quote extensively: “With the PDP doddering, Governor Peter Mbah who got elected by a controversial razor tin vote advantage in 2023 must be weighing his options, as the race to the 2027 general election dominates the political landscape. Mbah’s challenge is made worse by the fact that the politically conservative Enugu State voters, appears to have shown inflexibility with the recent result of the Enugu South Urban Constituency reordered election.”

    I went further: “Apparently, to the shock of Mbah and his supporters, one Bright Ngene, who originally won the state legislative assembly election in 2023, again won the reordered election after postponements arising from repeated disruptions. To make it more embarrassing for the ruling party in the state, Ngene of the Labour Party, who was sentenced to seven-years imprisonment for a community related dispute, won the election from the prison. It remains to be seen whether he will serve what is remaining of his tenure from the prisons.”

    I also stated: “From the whiplashing the PDP received in the 2023 general election in the state in the hands of the Labour Party (LP) and the recent mud on its face in the Enugu South Urban Constituency reordered election, the PDP on whose platform Mbah was elected is seriously in decline. The PDP which dominated the state like a colossus, making it nigh impossible for any other party to breath in the state must be wondering what happened to her glorious days in the sun.”

    As the new leader of APC in the state, Governor Mbah’s biggest challenge would be how to harmonize the interest of the decampees from the PDP with those of the APC members, which they met on ground. Of course, the temptation would be to hijack most of the available positions, and yield little to the old members of APC. I hope the governor also realizes that he needs all the help he can get, to move those who voted for him in PDP over to the APC.

    It will be poor appreciation of political idiosyncrasies for the governor and his team to think that moving from PDP to APC, automatically means the addition of the voters on both sides to become one. A lot of work needs to be done to convince the PDP voters that APC is not the demonized caricature that they painted it as, prior to this transition. One of the surest way to do this, is by ensuring a peaceful harmonization of contending interests, under the banner of new APC.

    Read Also: NAEE commends Tinubu’s macroeconomic policies, urges protection for vulnerable Nigerians

    Those contending against the entrance of Governor Mbah into APC, led by the erstwhile state party chairman, Barrister Ugo Agballa, should not be discarded without giving them a hearing. Now that the tide has turned, may be they would be willing to make peace, if given a chance. While arguing that they be given a fair hearing, this writer urges them to appreciate the enormous advantage the governor brings to the party in the state. Without the combination of forces, there was no chance for APC to win over the state, all by its former self.

    Luckily, Governor Mbah has shown himself worthy of a second term, within two years of his administration. So, he should be encouraged to deliver on the great promises he has set for the state. It would be a great disservice to the state to undermine the giant infrastructural developments he has been pursuing, and so, I urge those opposed to his emergence to give peace a chance. Running to the court would only compound the situation for those accused of anti-party activities, even as they may make the party weaker.

    Again, the state APC needs peace within its rank to deliver a reasonable percentage of vote to the party at the presidential election in 2027. Such delivery would aid the receipt of greater federal interventions in the state. For instance, Governor Mbah’s promise of 1,000 megawatts of electricity through coal needs the support of the federal government to succeed. Since the right over coal, which is a mineral resource, falls within the exclusive legislative list, the governor needs the approval of the federal government to explore it.

    As I wrote earlier this year, in January, in a piece I tiled: “Two Ideas Men”, Governor Mbah and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu are men of ideas, and a synchronization of their God-given talents would benefit the state and the country at large. As I wrote back then: “So, when PBAT went to Enugu State, last Saturday, this writer was excited that a knowledgeable president was visiting a knowledgeable governor. Instead of a clash of ideas, there will be a synergy of ideas.”

    While President Tinubu is pushing to deliver $1 trillion national economy, Governor Mbah is working to move the state economy to $30bn. As the PDP flag is lowered for the APC flag, in my beloved Enugu State, we wait to see what further impetus it would wrought to the pace of governance. Congratulations NdiEnugu. Let President Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda join forces with Governor Mbah’s promise of tomorrow in Enugu State.

  • 2027: Different strokes

    2027: Different strokes

    Different folks, different strokes, goes that rhyming, still rather jaded cliche.  But it is as sharp as any to paint the government/opposition contrast towards 2027.

    The one reeled out stats to prove potent antidote is here to fix endemic problems.  The other serenade the economic doom, as treasured electoral tool. 

    A soapy serenata of doom and gloom is, after all, much easier than rigorous policy alternatives: to gyp the naive, rile the angry and push the pressured!

    How’re they so blest, you’d say!  Trouble, though: the situation is dynamic.  What if the government’s stats bloom into a pleasant reality? Checkmate opposition? Ha!

    Still, before conking the opposition tactics — or none — perhaps the government too, as opposition, would have trodden that same cynical path!

    Remember how the Lai Mohammed ACN, and later, APC formidable machine sent the Jonathan (dis)order running helter-skelter, until it electorally ran it out of town in 2015?

    Different folks, different strokes!

    Still, given the impressive stats President Bola Tinubu reeled out in his October 1 broadcast, there seems a clear difference between the Jonathan plumbing; and the sense of a new rise — with very verifiable landmarks — which the speech presented.

    True, the president sold a dummy, which only the alert could have beaten: that bit about Nigeria having, in 1960, 120 secondary schools to a pupil population of 130, 000; aside only two tertiary institutions: the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, and the University of Ibadan. 

    Sixty-five years later: a virtual, if welcome, explosion: 274 universities, public and private, 183 polytechnics, 236 colleges of education, 23, 000 secondary schools. 

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    But what about the parallel explosion in population: 45 million (1960) to an estimated 237.5 million (2025)? 

    Leaving out the youth population now clanging for school space kills any logical analogy between now and 65 years ago.  With that clear gap — deliberate or coincident? — we can’t say whether educational access is better today than in 1960.

    But beyond that flabbiness, most others stats are tight.  They indeed give cause for hope — not happenstance hope, but hope that logically crowns gruelling, hard work.

    Indeed, Premium Times just ran a fact-check through the president’s claims; and the nine were deemed true. 

    That second-quarter 2025 posted a 4.23% growth (against IMF’s projection of 3.4%), the highest in four years; that inflation, at 20.12% in August, has been the lowest in three years; that Nigeria’s foreign reserves, at US$ 42.03 billion, are the highest in six years: since 2019; that tax-to-GDP ratio has risen from less than 10% in 2023 to 13.5% in just over two years.

    The remaining claims: aside surplus in five consecutive trade quarters grossing N7.46 trillion by Q2 2025, manufactured exports from Nigeria soared by 173%; crude oil production is up: from one million in 2023 to 1.68 million barrels-a-day in 2025; a solid mineral boom: coal mining leaping from -22% to 57.5%; better sovereign credit profile by global rating agencies; the CBN cut interest rate, if marginally, for the first time since 2020.

    No one — so far — has fact-checked the president’s claim that rail infrastructure has grown by 40% and water transportation by 27%.  But unlike pre-2015 when hardcore infrastructure were rare, rail and big road legacy projects are common fare.

    The president said the 284-km Kano-Katsina-Moradi standard gauge rail was nearing completion.  That done, the next step is to link Ibadan with Abuja, and modern rail, linking coastal Lagos-Ibadan-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano-Katsina-Maradi would be a reality!

    That itself would be the deepest penetration of modernized rail since 1960.  With that should come big import freight from Lagos to Nigeria’s landlocked neighbours: Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, etc. 

    That trade boon should translate into rail, as a transport sub-sector, contributing more to GDP.  The sturdier the GDP, the doughtier the local economy, the stronger the Naira, the lower the inflation, the higher the standard of living and the lower the poverty rate.

    These indices, other things being equal, signify an economy on the rebound.  In any case, that’s the picture the ruling party is pushing.

    But the opposition — in full panic mode or wilful delusion? — would rather luxuriate in the current blight; and wish it continued, at least for their 2027 electoral gain.  That, wholesale, appears their strategy so far.

    Take Peter Obi, the most prominent pretender, among the lot, to subversive data.  Obi merrily hanged himself with own words, that same noose he confected for others.

    Hear him: “By the end of 2007, our total debt was about N2.5 trillion, only 10% of GDP, after President Obasanjo’s government secured debt forgiveness of over US$ 30 billion.  By 2014,” he added, “Nigeria had become Africa’s largest economy and was primed to achieve middle-income status.”

    Yet, by 2015 — with “Africa’s largest economy”: by re-basing, that statistical wonder, by the way! — 12 states, out of Nigeria’s 36, could not pay salaries!  It’s yet another manifestation of Obi’s notorious plastic approach to issues!

    But the story here is not even that statistical plasticity.  It’s Obi identifying with the Obasanjo ancien regime, routed under fall guy Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, as his prescribed future paradise! 

    The Obasanjo-era “reforms” posted dire infrastructural deficits.  One reason: the US$ 12 billion, paid the Paris Club to cancel Nigeria’s US$ 31 billion debt could have been invested in infrastructure, which should have spurred the economy — a terrible opportunity cost. But post-2015 reforms are changing that infrastructure decay. 

    If you doubt, check out — all post-2015 — the Lagos-Ibadan standard-gauge rail and revamped expressway; and the Second Niger Bridge, into Obi’s South East homeland, which never leapt off campaign videos, all through the PDP years!  Without roaring infrastructure, how can you grow an economy?

    Beyond cynically skewing statistics to game the unwary; and whining over challenges instead of providing clear solutions, Obi’s thinking is bland on almost all scores!

    Atiku Abubakar?  The 2023 self-proclaimed “northern” candidate, strutting in glorious ordinariness which he mistakes for political exceptionalism, is busy denying non-issues instead sharing fresh ideas — which he never had — with the polity.

    The other day, he would protect Yoruba interests as president.  The next, he would stand down for a younger candidate!  When comes the next gush of denials?  Gosh!

    Former President Jonathan?  The good riddance to the PDP-era bad rubbish, with his electoral spanking of 2015, is busy shopping for a sure ticket, from either PDP or its clone, ADC, to re-contest in 2027!  What grand achievement would he campaign on?

    To be sure, the Tinubu order would face close and tight scrutiny on how harsh neo-liberal tactics have enhanced its “progressive” essence.  But, from verifiable stats that the president just rolled out, its harsh surgery appears restoring the patient.  With far lower food and transport inflation, it might even be singing a redemption song!

    That seems more solid than self-professed people’s friends, but really fiends, praying — and fasting! — that hardship endures, for them to stand any electoral chance! 

    What satanic — and panic-prone — strategy!

  • When PENGASSAN sneezes

    When PENGASSAN sneezes

    The former President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Peter Esele, while speaking to TVC News last week, on the importance of the quick intervention by the federal government in the trade dispute between PENGASSAN and Dangote Refinery ironically espoused the grave danger which the recent strike action by PENGASSAN constituted to the national economy.

    In the words of the trade unionist: “You have seen government running in so quickly to address the issues because when PENGASSAN sneezes, we know what that means. Cutting gas supply, cutting oil supply, that is the live wire of Nigeria’s economy.” Implicit in that statement is the fact that PEGASSAN has the power to cripple the Nigerian economy if it wishes. Indeed, the union bared its teeth, and the nation shuddered when it ordered that gas and oil supply to even non-combatants in the dispute be shut down.

    Ordinarily, there are parties to every trade dispute, and in the instant case, it was between DANGOTE Refinery and the members of PENGASSAN. Section 1(2) of the Trade Disputes Act, provides: “In this Part, unless the context otherwise requires – “the dispute” means the trade dispute in question; and “the party” means a party to the dispute.” Clearly, the recent dispute was between PENGASSAN and Dangote Refinery and yet when PENGASSAN wanted to cut gas supply, it did not restrict its action to the parties is dispute as provided by the law.

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    So, why did PENGASSAN escalate the dispute to affect the supply of gas and crude to other companies and entities not involved in the trade dispute? Of course, PENGASSAN knows that while the right to call a strike is implicit in the Nigerian laws, the legal regime is quite rigorous when followed. Section 4 of the Trade Dispute Act, provides that before a dispute is reported, parties must first attempt settlement, and where they cannot agree, the parties shall within seven days appoint a mediator.

    Section 6 of the Act, provides that where the mediator is unable to settle, the parties shall report to the minister in writing, and the minister, according to section 7, shall appoint a conciliator to effect a settlement. Where the conciliator is unable to settle, section 9 provides, that the minister shall within 14 days refer the matter to the Industrial Arbitration Panel. Section 14 of the Trade Disputes Act, provides that where there is objection to an award by the Tribunal, the dispute shall be referred to the National Industrial Court.

    Section 17 provides for direct reference to the National Industrial Court in certain special cases, and its subsection “a” provides for direct reference where “the dispute is one to which workers employed in any essential service are a party.” On what constitutes essential services, paragraph 2(a) of the first schedule to the Trade Disputes Act, provides: “Any service established, provided or maintained … for, or in connection with, the supply of electricity, power or water, or of fuel of any kind.” 

    Even when one concedes that the Nigeria’s legal regime may be too difficult for a trade union to follow, which is why in every settlement, a trade union extracts that no member should be punished for participation in a strike, it does not imply that a union should call a strike at the drop of hat, just because if the union sneezes, the nation will catch cold. A trade union which possess such enormous power to cripple a national economy should use it sparingly.

    Indeed, while this column is peremptorily sympathetic to trade unions which ordinarily are weaker when in contest with the state, it is extremely dangerous that a trade union could be imbued with such power as exhibited as PENGASSAN. Before a union calls a strike that has the capacity to cripple the nation, it must diligently follow due process. It cannot call out Dangote Refinery for allegedly sacking its members without due process and then rely on an illegal process to bring the alleged offender and even non-offenders to account.

    The way forward is for government to insist that trade unions should fully democratise and be accountable to its members. Of course, it won’t come without a fight from the officials, who have been benefiting from the current system. The trade unions must understand that where they are dealing with private companies, they wont have the luxury of eating their cake, and still have it in the fridge. The imbroglio with Dangote should be a lesson that the era of trade unions in the oil industry holding everyone to ransom may be over.

    PENGASSAN, must realise that Dangote Refinery is different from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), which the government officials and the workers treat as cash-cow for themselves, rather than a business entity for the general shareholders. Members of PENGASSAN in NNPC, and its several affiliates could afford to wrestle their companies to ground knowing that those who ordinarily should ask questions about the financial health of the government owned companies, are in bed with them, jointly raping the companies.

    How on earth would the corrupt ministry officials raise any eyebrow about NNPC and its affiliates, when they are in cahoots in with the unions in taking what does not belong to them? Nigerians know that the NNPC and its affiliates run opaque systems and so when the trade unions use their power to extort their own share of the proverbial national cake, they can get away with it. But the Dangote Refinery is a different ball game and the prime mover, Aliko Dangote is a boardroom shark, whose driving force is the financial bottom line.

    As they would have realized, they just goaded their now former members to a cul-de-sac. The pyrrhic victory which they achieved in getting Dangote to agree to send the reabsorbed workers to its sister companies, namely the Sugar and Cement companies, automatically makes the reabsorbed workers, non-members of PENGASSAN. We wait to see how the unions in the oil industries would protect their technically estranged members who no longer belong to their unions, when the dragon turns them to ‘suya’ for lunch.

    There is no reason why all oil workers should be members of either PENGASSAN or NUPENG, as that should apply to other trade unions. Section 3(1) provides: “An application for the registration of a trade union shall be made to the registrar in the prescribed form and shall be signed by (a) in the case of a trade union of workers, by at least fifty members of the union.” Also, person with the resources to set up refinery should get similar encouragement as Aliko Dangote got, to open shop. Once monopoly is killed, within the unions and the industries, Nigerians will breath freely.

  • Nigeria at crossroads

    Nigeria at crossroads

    At 65 years of Independence, Nigerians, surely have a tough decision to make. Will the majority go on with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s (PBAT) administration’s far-reaching reforms or will they turn to those making a swansong of the challenges associated with the reforms? Historically, reformers like Mikhail Gorbachev of Soviet Union paid a huge price for his Perestroika and Glasnost. Will PBAT pay the price for being a reformer or will he survive?

    Nigeria’s economic challenges have been systemic, ranging from inflation, import dependency, foreign exchange crisis, erosion of the value of the local currency, food insecurity, hunger, to abject poverty of the majority of the citizens. Amidst these economic headwinds, Nigerians were literally subsidizing the fuel imports of her neighbours. To compound the situation, her rapacious elites were trading on her currency to the detriment of businesses and other genuine economic activities.

    The implication was that while the few elites connected to the seat of power, were making millions by getting direct foreign currency allocations from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and trading on it, those engaged in genuine economic activities were substantially at the mercy of the ravenous economic saboteurs. The most impactful on the country was sourcing foreign exchange for the importation of fuel, as the three major refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna were comatose.

    The way out for the immediate past regime, was printing more money by the CBN, euphemistically referred by government officials, as ‘ways and means’. The challenge of sourcing foreign exchange to import fuel was further compounded by the opacity and massive corruption of the process. Nigeria experienced all manner of racketeering, as many so-called fuel importers presented fake documents for non-existent imports, and with the connivance of corrupt state officials got paid humongous sums to the detriment of the already bleeding foreign exchange reserves.

    Other businesses, like foreign airline operators, who after collecting the cost of tickets in local currency could not buy foreign exchange at the official foreign exchange rate to repatriate their earnings, either departed the country, or took matters into their own hands. Those that stayed, charged much higher for tickets sold in Nigeria, when compared to prices for similar tickets in neighbouring countries. Travels for students, businessmen and holiday makers became so excruciating that Nigerians went to neighbouring countries to connect Europe and America at huge costs.

    Many multi-national manufacturing companies, finding it difficult to access foreign exchange to import needed raw materials, closed shop, and moved to more economically stable countries. As unemployment skyrocketed, and more valueless money chased fewer goods, inflation soared into triple digits, and the national economy was on a tailspin. The impact on food inflation was so devastating that basic essential commodities, some of which were import dependent, were priced out of the reach of the ordinary Nigerians and the country was almost imploding.

    The insecurity in parts of the country further drove food prices to a dangerous level. With the north-central states of Benue and Plateau, major food baskets of the country overrun by murderous herdsmen, Nigeria was on the throes of asphyxiation. While the north-central was on the boil, farmlands further north were the grains come from, were in the grips of internecine war, waged by Boko Haram and the so-called bandits. While Boko Haram elements were fighting for their lives in northeast, the bandits were claiming territories in northwest.

    On assumption of office in May, 2023, the PBAT administration decided to confront the twin challenge of fuel subsidy and foreign exchange racketeering. The immediate impact was a runaway inflation and further depreciation of the official rate of the Naira, which had been artificially buoyed over the years by the CBN. Many commentators viewed the twin steps as bold, while some considered it reckless. Those who supported the twin policy of the administration argued that it was the only way to bring sanity to the national economy.

    Initially, the side effects of the twin policy were so devastating, as the nation witnessed galloping inflation, especially food inflation that even the core supporters of the administration doubted the wisdom of the policies. But the administration stayed course, and presently while Naira is gaining value by the day, inflation is tending downwards. The removal of the subsidy also made the nation buoyant enough to increase the minimum wage and for sub-nationals to have money to engage in infrastructural projects.

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    The implicit deregulation of the price of fuel has seen the price of that national economic driver now determined by marketers. Recently, the price of fuel has been moving up and down without Nigerians and especially labour unions pointing fingers and threatening the industrial peace of the country. Luckily for the Tinubu administration and indeed for Nigerians, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals came on stream to fill the huge gap left by the bumbling and incompetent Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL).

    But at the cusp of Nigeria’s 65th anniversary, the apparent redundancy that private sector-led Dangote has made of the two major industrial unions hegemons in the oil sector, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, rears its ugly or beautiful head, depending on which side, the commentator belongs. The two industrial unions were made nationally popular during the war for democracy in Nigeria, after the annulment of June 12 general election, which Chief M.K.O Abiola won, particularly under the leadership of late Chief Frank Kokori of NUPENG.

    But like NNPCL, the two unions appear to have fallen into disuse with the private sector dominating the downstream oil sector. Considering the alleged underhand tactics of the leaders of the union to make themselves wealthy at a huge price to ordinary Nigerians, the two unions have a herculean task to convince Nigerians that their ongoing tango with Dangote Refinery is not for private gain. Unfortunately for them, their relatively recent antecedent with respect to the federal government’s sale and repurchase of the three earlier named refineries makes them complicit in the economic sabotage of the oil industry in recent decades.

    While it would be unfair for Dangote Refinery to deny workers their rights under section 40 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), to belong to Trade Unions; the arbitrary, unconscionable and buccaneer trade practices of NUPENG and PENGASSAN, cannot cohabit with private capital, without their internal reforms. Of note, most of their officials live like oil Sheiks, from illegal dues, and the fallout of those practices, is on the ordinary Nigerians. As the country celebrate her anniversary, this column wonders which way Nigerians will go?

    Will Nigerians follow through with the Tinubu reforms, or will they fall for the antics of the rapacious elites mocking the ordinary citizens with their new swan song of ‘I am hungry’, when the humongous wealth the cheerleaders display, are far beyond what they could have gotten from their honest labour?