The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Treacherous favours, eager recipients

    Treacherous favours, eager recipients

    When the story of Celestine Omehia‘s political career comes to be written, reversals of fortune will have to be its central theme – reversals that range from the stunningly affirming to the utterly crushing.

    The stunningly affirming occurred on April 14, 2007, when he was declared winner of the Rivers State gubernatorial election which, according to the best authorities, was marred by massive vote rigging and widespread violence.

    The election tribunal reaffirmed, and for 166 days, from May 29 through October 23, 2007, Celestine Omehia was the Executive Governor of Rivers State, lord and master of almost all he surveyed in The Treasure Base of the Nation.

    Omehia became governor through a corruption of power not uncommon in this clime.

    Rotimi Amaechi had, as they say here, emerged from the gubernatorial primary of the PDP as its candidate.  But the PDP’s grandees chose to substitute the wisdom of the electors with their   prejudice.  They stripped Amaechi of his victory at the primaries, claiming that he had been indicted on corruption charges and thus rendered ineligible for the race.

    Then they proceeded to fill the vacancy they had created with Omehia. Thus was Omehia translated from failed gubernatorial aspirant to His Excellency the Executive Governor of Rivers State.

    It all lasted166 days that were anything but blissful, despite the lavish perks and perquisites.

    Then, in its confounding forensic wisdom, the Supreme Court voided the election on which Omehia’s tenure had subsisted, with all seven justices concurring.  Omehia was not a valid candidate for the election, it held. The valid candidate was Rotimi Amaechi, who had won the PDP gubernatorial primary but was wrongfully excluded from the substantive poll. The court ordered that Amaechi be sworn in immediately

    And for the two terms that Amaechi served as Rivers State governor, Omehia languished in the political wilderness.

    Fast toward to May 2015 when the able and combustible perpetual-motion machine they call Nyesom Wike succeeded Amaechi. While Amaechi was in power and in office, the PDP grandees who had connived to foist Omehia on the electorate as the party’s gubernatorial candidate could not reverse the Supreme Court’s decision voiding Omehia’s purported election.

    Any resolution to that effect would have been dead on arrival.  Amaechi would have vetoed it at the threshold.

    Read Also: Celestine Omehia in troubled waters

    With Wike now in the saddle, they did the next best thing: they moved the State Assembly to pass a resolution mandating the exchequer to resume paying Omehia his statutory entitlements as if he were still the state’s executive governor.

    Not one to dither and prevaricate and waffle in the face of a resolution of the state’s lawmakers assembled, Governor Barrister Nyesom Wike duly assented.  The people as legislature had spoken – the same people who had stripped Amaechi of his victory at the primary.

    There the matter rested until last week when, in a breath-taking volte-face, the state House of Assembly ordered Omehia to refund the monies he had received while enjoying the perks and perquisites of a serving executive governor after ceasing to occupy that office in fact and in law, the latter prerogative having been bestowed on Amaechi by the highest court in the land.

    The refund came to N600 million by way of pay and benefits, plus N97 million by way of pension.  Not a Naira more and not a Naira less.  The state’s accountant-general had figured it out.  No doubt from fellow feeling, they did not add the interest due, as the exchequer would have done if bureaucratic considerations pure and simple were at play.

    The State Assembly said the learned attorney-general had advised it that the status it had conferred on Omehia was extra-judicial, and that it had no power to change the judgment of any court of law, let alone that of the Supreme Court.

    Wike assented within 24 hours, based, he stated, on his “abiding respect for any resolution” passed by the State Assembly. The House, he explained, had reviewed the matter based on the “better information” at its disposal.

    And so, there he was the other day, in front of television cameras, signing the law “de-recognising” or “de-listing” Omehia as a former governor of the state, red pen wedged between his right-hand index finger and middle finger, as an aide dutifully indicated the dotted lines.

    The querulous are saying that Wike had confected this vengeful outcome to punish Omehia for allowing himself to be suspected of harbouring sympathies for Wike’s bête noire, PDP presidential candidate Abubakar Atiku who, having regard to Wike’s volcanic temperament, had declined to make him his running mate, despite a showing in the primaries that was second only to Atiku’s.

    Pure slander, says Wike.  He had at all times been actuated and will always be actuated by an abiding commitment to rule of law

    Perfusing this tale is the reckless disregard for consequences with which Nigerians in public life make shabby compromises.

    All the main actors are trained lawyers.  Omehia took a Bachelor of Arts degree in law from Manchester Polytechnic, Manchester, in the UK, in1984.  The following year, he earned an LLM in international law from the University of Hull, also in the UK.  On his return to Nigeria, he engaged extensively in corporate law practice and litigation.

    Between 1991 and 1997, he served as an adjunct lecturer in law at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology.

    Thus, Omehia was better equipped than most not merely to be wary when they substituted him for Amaechi who had won the PDP gubernatorial primary, but to reject it as an unlawful proceeding.  And when the State Assembly voted to continue paying his salary and allowances even though he had become functus officio, he should have realized that it was conferring a benefit that it had no power to confer any more than he had a right to enjoy.

    But Omehia pocketed the gift as his special due.

    The Rivers State House of Assembly is a law-making body whose powers are spelled out in the law establishing it.  Many of its members are trained lawyers.  Its remit does not include offering statutory benefits to persons not recognized by the state’s public service. Only the most egregious contempt for the law could have led the House to act in that manner.

    And while all this was going on, where was the state’s attorney-general and chief law officer?  Did he warn that the House was embarking on a usurpation and a dangerous precedent?  If they rejected his counsel, did he not feel obliged, as an officer of the law, to resign rather than condone its flagrant breach?

    Governor Nyesom Wike, who assented to the usurpation, is a trained lawyer and barrister.  Could he not see then that, in so doing, he was sanctioning illegality and violating his oath of office?

    And now, they all seek exculpation, insisting that if they are to be blamed for anything, it is for their fidelity to the rule of law. Wike in particular claims that the volte-face had nothing to do with Omehia’s unwillingness to take Wike’s side in Wike’s feud with Atiku.

    They should tell it to the sharks.

    This being Nigeria, I fear that this may not go down as the cautionary tale it ought to be.

    If Omehia signals to Wike’s camp today that he has become a convert to Wike’s cause, something tells me that Wike’s implacable heart will melt quickly.  He will cause to be de-recognised the law through which Omehia was de-recognised as a serving governor, with all the benefits appertaining, and thus ensure that Omehia is restored to favour and full credit.

    And the entire process will be televised, in keeping with Wike’s abiding commitment to the rule of law and transparency.

  • Divide and rule tactics on ASUU

    Divide and rule tactics on ASUU

    The federal government has taken the battle to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the presumed hope that a divided ASUU would be amenable to the poor funding of federal universities. With the prolonged strike of ASUU enjoying even the sympathy of the nation’s judiciary, the federal government has recognised two other unions in the universities to weaken the stranglehold of ASUU and hopefully force the teachers back to their classes.

    The Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige, arguably in contravention of the Trade Union Act, went ahead to recognise Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA) and the Nigeria Association of Medical and Dental Lecturers in Academics (NAMDA). On their part a panel of Court of Appeal justices gave a strange ruling in an interlocutory application, by seemingly determining the very issue on appeal, as a pre-condition to allow the right of appeal. Perhaps the learned jurists are as frustrated as other Nigerians with the prolonged sitting at home of university students.

    This column hopes the leadership of ASUU has fully understood that the federal government, as I argued on this page few weeks ago, has won the propaganda war and gained the sympathy of Nigerians. As the column advised, ASUU should appreciate that President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime is on the way out and the federal government is also broke, and therefore has no resources to pay substantial part of the ASUU demands. Again, the regime is not populated by persons who care much how history would remember them.

    So, instead of showing sympathy to ASUU, the regime is employing strong-arm tactics. Of course, there were similar prolonged strike by ASUU under President Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan. Under Obasanjo the strikes got so bad that Nigerians asked public universities to scrap one academic year from their calendar. So, while ASUU’s demands are reasonable, the times do not favour them for the battle they are engaged in with the federal government.

    Again, this column reiterates that the funding pattern of the universities are unsustainable, and the earlier all concerned parties realise that the better for our country. As I wrote in an earlier piece, I thought the Buhari regime would have the courage to drive the unpopular but inevitable policy of payment of part of the training fees by students of tertiary education in public schools. So, going forward, this column hopes that the intervention by the Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila-led House of Representative would find a way to help ASUU should sheath their sword.

    Read Also: Ngige: taking the fight to ASUU

    As to the registration of two new unions, this column is of the opinion that the Minister of Labour and Productivity did not follow due process, as provided by the Trade Union Act. Section 3(2) of the act provides: “No combination of workers or employers shall be registered as a trade union save with the approval of the minister on his being satisfied that it is expedient to register the union either by regrouping existing trade unions, registering a new trade union or otherwise howsoever, but no trade union shall be registered to represent workers or employers in a place where there already exists a trade union.”

    On procedure on receipt of application for registration, section 5(2) provides: “The Registrar shall cause a notice of the application to be published in the federal Gazette, starting that objection to the registration of the trade union in question may be submitted to him in writing during the period of three months beginning with the date of the Gazette in which the notice’s published.” Sub-section 4 provides: “The Registrar shall not register the trade union if it appears to him that any existing trade union is sufficiently representative of the interest of the class of persons whose interest in the union is intended to represent.”

    In the humble view of this column, while the interpretation provision of section 3(2) of the act may vary depending on the leaning of the judge, whether a conservative judge or a liberal judge, the provision of section 5(2) is definite and therefore must be met by the registrar. Thus a conservative judge can legitimately decouple the provision of section 3(2) where it provides: “but no trade union shall be registered to represent workers or employers in a place where there already exists a trade union” to hold that since ASUU is already in existence, the nascent CONUA and NAMDA cannot be registered.

    A liberal judge may lean more on the freedom of association, as enshrined in section 40 of the 1999 constitution (as amended). The section provides: “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests.” Interestingly, the proviso in section 40 of the constitution while expressly derogating the freedom with regards to formation of political party was silent on proliferation of trade union.

    So the interpretation of section 3(2) can go either way, more so as the earlier part of the provision that the minister can give approval on being satisfied “that it is expedient to register the union either regrouping existing trade unions, registering a new trade union or otherwise howsoever…” can be interpreted as a discretionary power of the minister.  But it will be absurd for a court to allow the registration of CONUA and NAMDA if the provision of section 5(2) on publication of their application in a Federal Gazette was not met.

    The section protects both a natural and constitutional right. As espoused by Nnaemeka Agu JSC in Adigun v A.G. Oyo state (1997) 1 NWLR pt. 53, p. 678 SC, “The principle has been incorporated in our jurisprudence that a man cannot be condemned without being heard. This is often expressed by the Latin maxim, audi alteram partem; hear the other side, and it is applicable in all cases in which a decision is to be taken in any matter, whether in a judicial, quasi-judicial or even in a purely administrative proceeding involving a person’s interest in a property, right or personal liberty.”

    It is such power as exercised by the Minister of Labour and Productivity that the provision of section 36(2) is geared to mitigate. The notice in the Federal Gazette is to enable interested parties, as in the instant case, ASUU, to raise any objection to any such new registration for the consideration of the registrar as provided in section 5(3) of the Trade Union Act. While the registrar may exercise discretionary judgement on the merit of the objection, he cannot with respect to providing such opportunity to object.

    But if the parties resort to litigation, the students will continue to suffer, until the Buhari regime becomes history. The solution to the ASUU crises no doubt lies in mediated settlement.

  • Still on Julius Berger’s hell

    Still on Julius Berger’s hell

    We are just wailing every day! We are a captured people! We deserve the government we elected. Don’t we have elected officers from this axis – Councillors, House of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate and other political appointees? Another election is coming!

    The above, copied from a WhatsApp platform – Lagos Ibadan Road Update 3 – is just one among the dozens daily shared on the messaging platform created by motorists on the nation’s busiest corridor – the Lagos – Ibadan expressway. The statement goes beyond merely expressing the anguish daily suffered by Nigerians from the hand of the construction giant, Julius Berger and of course the indifferent federal government; it aptly captures the utter helplessness, the grim alienation by the citizens long condemned to slavish, hellish living.

    To describe the experience of the past two months on the inward-Lagos bound journey on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway as nightmarish would be an understatement; slow motion lynching will come close to describe the hell that motorists on Nigeria’s busiest traffic corridor have been subjected. Those Nigerians who thought they had seen the worst in the earlier phase of the construction work may have rejoiced too soon; in fact, many are wondering if indeed Julius Berger hasn’t chosen to save the bitterest of the pill for the last minute with the final phase of barely six kilometres stretch already visiting unequalled trauma on hapless motorists.

    Now, a journey from Arepo on the expressway to Alausa Secretariat, which my Google map puts at 11 kilometres, can take anything between three to five hours! And it does not matter whether it is early morning rush or evening-time shuttle. And that is when one gets lucky not to be mugged by those ubiquitous miscreants while stuck on the Warewa Long Bridge!

    By the way, the remaining stretch of work, according to Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola, a mere six kilometres on the Julius Berger end, is expected to end in December – for those still lucky to  be alive then!

    Months into that final push, the daily experiences remain as diverse as they come. I know a family friend who works in Ikoyi. To get to work by 8 a.m., she has to hit the road by 3.30 am daily. She tells me that she gets back home at about 10.30 pm with barely enough time to catch some sleep before she takes off again on the clock! A young lady who also lives in Arepo, and who just got a job in Lekki could no longer be sure if the high-paying job is a blessing or a curse just after a week-long stress. Once I witnessed a lady, pressed, abandon her car to answer the nature’s call right on the bridge and in full glare of other prying citizens.

    Read Also: Ajaokuta ‘still’ company

    Tales like the above goes beyond exemplifying the chaos unleashed by Julius Berger and its enabler, the federal government; they emblematise the colossal failure of governance as indeed the absence of compassion at its highest levels.

    In a country where mismanagement in the broadest sense isn’t just the norm but the directing principle of everyday life and living, it is even pointless to conceive of an evaluation by anyone of the physical and human toll that the latest phase of gridlock has wrought. In any case, who cares for the man-hours lost in a country where national productivity is cheap, textbook stuff? Or the public health correlates more so in a country where death is barely worth a dime?

    Certainly not after our government, which for the love of us, has since determined that no costs be it material, physical or even human lives deserves to be spared on the project; same for its partner, Julius Berger. It seems to have taken it for granted that Nigerians would put up with any pain – or even death if it came to that – if only to have a taste of those autobahns for which the Germans are renowned! For that favour, we must thank the government – and Julius Berger – never mind the quantum indeterminable costs already borne!

    I have heard countless of times that Julius Berger wouldn’t dare to put the citizens through such trauma in their home country of Germany. The Nation’s columnist, Dr Jide Oluwajuyitan puts it succinctly in a piece on the matter last December.

    “Julius Berger”, said the much revered columnist “represents everything that is wrong with the nation. It  shares all the negative attributes of the Nigerian governing elite – impunity, insensitivity, greed and lack of empathy for Nigerians they often treat as subjects as against citizen”.

    Let me simply state that the statement is true in every material particular. Indeed, it could not have been better put.  It is hard to imagine any country in the world, save Nigeria, that would leave a project with such profound impacts on public health/safety and convenience to the whims and caprices of a powerful contractor or service provider. One would ordinarily imagine that a work plan detailing the flow and how the inconveniences to citizens would be mitigated, would be incorporated into the project. And then of course, the government being the enabler of the public good would immediately put its agencies on the alert to mitigate the pains while the provider is kept on its toes. Not in Nigeria.

    What do we have here? A company left to do as it pleases while the agencies of government watch pathetically on. And while it can afford to take all the time in the world to carry on its own business, well assured of the sanctity and inviolability of its own contract, other economic actors are supposed to stew in their own juices – including the trillions of naira in losses – incalculable man-hours, in materials and other allied costs that must be borne – underwritten by the same wearied but hapless citizens as collateral costs.  Only in Nigeria!

    Nigerians are said to be an impatient lot; but then, there is something in the programmed anarchy in the public service delivery that would weary even the owl – a bird renowned for its patience and solitude. In any case, isn’t the programmed anarchy thus enabled that allows our super-citizens the open license to promote their brand of chaos on the highways and from which the lesser citizens have taken their cues? Yes, the cycle is not complete without the blaring of the siren, to alert the rest of us, that the man of power is not just passing through but has an urgent assignment which must involve driving against the flow of traffic. And then of course the police and sundry traffic officials making of hay of the extortion business as Nigerians roast.

    Again, isn’t that how we roll?

  • PDP ways and means

    PDP ways and means

    Those scandalised by the hefty housing allowance Dr Iyorchia Ayu shared among members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), seem to have forgotten one of the earliest legacies of the PDP. At the beginning of the present republic one, of the most appalling trauma faced by those who voted for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was the staggering allowances members of the National Assembly dominated by PDP shared amongst themselves, for sundry claims like furniture and housing allowance.

    Interestingly, the whistle-blower about the huge payment which some are saying is a bribe by Ayu is Governor Nyesom Wike of River State, a PDP governor. Like a predatory shark smelling blood, Wike is encircling the PDP chairman for a sumptuous meal. Some of Ayu’s men are however claiming that it is the same people who pressured the chairman to approve the huge housing allowance that were the first to return the money on the claim that it is an attempt to corruptly enrich them.

    Before going for the jugular of Ayu, Wike had pummelled him with the allegation that he received a whopping N1 billion as inducement to return the PDP presidential candidate. While Ayu was still reeling from that sucker punch, Wike like an experienced boxer moved in with an upper cut against Ayu, with the allegation of massive inducement of his colleagues in the NWC.

    According to The Punch, six NWC members including the Deputy National Chairman (South), Taofeek Arapaja, National Woman Leader, Prof Stella Effah-Attoe, National Vice Chairman (South-South), Chief Dan Orbih, and three other members of the committee have returned the tainted housing allowance to the party coffers. The report claimed that Arapaja returned N36 million while the other returned N28.8 million. The report names the remaining 16 members of NWC who are yet to return their loot which amounts to N450 million.

    In defence of the huge pay-out, one of the beneficiaries, the Deputy National Leader Timothy Osadolor said: “It was a housing allowance for the NWC members and it is unfortunate that those who are now playing politics of malice with their housing allowance were even those who pressured Ayu into signing and approving such an allowance for them.” He went on: “They have been on the man for the past three months to approve the housing allowance for them – that it is their entitlement. The man has been stalling and saying, ‘we have major work at hand’.

    Without gainsaying, the major work at hand for the Ayu-led NWC is the return of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar at the presidential polls in 2023. Interestingly, Atiku was there at the beginning of the republic as vice president to President Olusegun Obasanjo, when the culture of dubious allowances by the PDP dominated National Assembly was instituted. Now that he is seeking to return to the national stage as president, it appears the party is returning the culture back to the country.

    Some of Atiku’s opponents have attributed that culture of settlement to the former vice president. They refer to the devastating claims by President Obasanjo in his books on Atiku. How Atiku can wash off those allegations as the campaign for the 2023 general election kicks off remains to the seen. But whether those allegations of malfeasance against the PDP leadership and her presidential candidate would play significant part in the run up to the election would be seen in the days ahead.

    Read Also: Fani-Kayode demands arrest of Ayu, PDP NWC members

    This column recalls that for many years, the joke was on the PDP led National Assembly as a hegemon of corrupt practices. In fairness to the legislators, the executive branch also led by PDP refused to be outsmarted in the sharing of dubious allowances. It was under the PDP that we heard that public officials took hardship allowance for what the public thought was their routine responsibility. The argument then just as now was that the dubious allowance followed due process.

    When the heat became too unbearable for members of the National Assembly, they reinvented their benefits by legislating one hefty slice of the national budget which they share in their cocoon, away from the preening eyes of the public. With one hefty sum as the budget item known to the public, nobody could say what the line items are for each legislator.

    There is the chance that apart from the common line items, there could be other benefits like Christmas and Sallah allowances amongst several others. With the PDP hoping to return to power in 2023, the party chiefs seems to be in a haste to return to their old ways. They however, forget that they are pleading with Nigerians to give the party another chance. How they would explain the return to their dubious old ways of sharing dubious allowances is a task for the campaigners.

    For this column, with the allegation of receiving bribe from a presidential candidate still hanging on the party chairman, as well as the confirmed case of offering tainted allowance to his colleagues also hanging on Ayu, the PDP has no alternative than to sacrifice the man. Whether that sacrifice would appease Nigerians who are weary of the PDP ways of governance or appease Wike and his colleagues who are determined to oust the party chairman for betraying the quest for a southern president remains to be seen.

    As should be clear to the PDP party apparatchik, the road to the 2023 presidency is strewn with thorns. Perhaps that is why Atiku is already showing so much desperation. While meeting with the leaders of the southeast in Enugu barely a week ago, he promised to support a candidate from the region for the 2027 election. While the region was still digesting that strange offer, Atiku reportedly again promised Governor Wike to support him during the 2027 presidential election, in exchange for 2023 support.

    Of course after choosing Governor Ifeanyi Okowa over Wike as his preferred candidate for the post of vice president, he insinuated that he chose Okowa because he is the right person to step into his shoes at very short notice. Perhaps, his calculation is that Okowa though from the south-south zone is a bonafide Igbo, and if he has also promised Okowa the 2027 presidency, he can ingeniously argue that he fits his promise to support Igbo to win the presidency after him. But how Okowa could also be passed off as Wike, would require special ingenuity.

    What is clear is that the PDP and her presidential candidate has a rougher road to the 2023 presidency than their opponents. Could it be that the noose is already tightening on yet another ill-conceived Atiku presidential quest, so early?

  • Pollsters at work

    Pollsters at work

    Nigeria is a planner’s waking nightmare.

    Back in 1966, the American economist, Dr. Wolfgang Stolper, on secondment from USAID to help prepare Nigeria’s First National Development Plan (1962-68), accented the difficulty of the task with a book appropriately titled “Planning without Facts.”

    Forty-six years later, in September 2013, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Marie-Françoise Marie-Nelly, warned during a workshop in Lagos for statisticians that there could be no meaningful development or evaluation of national strategies without quality statistics to identify socio-economic challenges.

    Little changed with regard to the availability of reliable facts in the nearly five decades intervening, and since 2013 when this preface to the present submission was first published.

    The nation’s planners have continued to draw up plans on practically every aspect of national life without facts — without even knowing how many people they are planning for, nor how they are constituted.

    The point of departure for serious national planning is the population census.  That is the body of data – the sampling frame – from which field investigators draw up a representative sample for the kind of study and analysis that will make it possible for them to apply their findings to the general population with confidence.

    But nobody knows the population of Nigeria to the nearest 25 million. Since the 1950s, the population census has been padded, for political reasons. Instead of rectifying the errors of the preceding census, every subsequent census has reinforced and even amplified them. Each census has been in effect an exercise in programmed inflation.

    That is why few things work in Nigeria the way they are designed to work. To be sure, corruption and incompetence play a large part in the national dysfunction, but the dearth of reliable facts and figures must also be counted as a major contributory factor.

    Take as an example the oil industry, the lifeblood of the economy. Nobody knows how much oil is extracted from our waters or shores. In 1980, Professor Ayodele Awojobi, the University of Lagos polymath, discovered that the barrel used for lifting oil in Nigeria was four gallons larger than the standard barrel. The situation may well have been rectified, but the fact remains that nobody knows how much oil is actually lifted

    When they say that as much as one-fourth of Nigeria’s oil output is stolen, that is just guesswork based on guesswork.

    Just as nobody knows how much oil is extracted, nobody knows how much oil is consumed. During one of the perennial oil ‘subsidy’ debates, the defunct NNPC and the Department of Petroleum Resources gave wildly different figures for national daily consumption.

    Without reliable data, it follows that, if the consumption of petroleum products is indeed being subsidized, it is impossible to calculate the amount of subsidy. Yet a trainload of projects is usually rolled out, to be funded with the money that would be realized from cutting the alleged subsidy.

    Hardly a day passes without one official or another declaring with certitude how many billions would accrue to the federal exchequer from ending subsidies on rice or wheat flour or cement or sugar or poultry imports, and how many billion tons of cassava or rice would be harvested in the next season as a result of improved seedlings provided by the government.

    Whenever they put out the inflation rate, you have to ask: “In what country do these people live?” For, the figure bears almost no correspondence to the experience of the people. And it is not unusual for two government agencies to supply different figures for the rate of unemployment, each of them guesswork at best.

    It all goes back to the absence of reliable census data, and no reliable sampling frame without which it is impossible to draw a probabilistic sample – one in which every member of the population has an equal chance of being represented.

    In the absence of such a sample, it is impossible to conduct meaningful public opinion polls in Nigeria.  But that has not stopped the news media from sponsoring or conducting opinion polls and publicizing the results, especially during the election season.

    Be sceptical when you encounter reports of opinion polls conducted on Nigerian soil on any aspect of Nigerian life.  Be very sceptical when the report comes dressed in the jargon of psephology.

    I am reminded of one notorious instance in which a newspaper lavishly published “exit polls” on an election that was yet to be held. In another instance, the forecast for the presidential election published by the same newspaper, in conjunction with a foreign polling agency that refused to submit its methodology to scrutiny, was matched in every particular by the outcome.

    Read Also: I’ll be doing more harm reposting your work – Don Jazzy

    But given the flawed sampling frame on which the Nigerian poll was based, it was perfectly justifiable to infer, as many commentators did, that the election had been determined, and the task before the pollsters and the newspaper was to fix their findings to that result.

    The entry on the Nigerian scene in 2011 of NOIPolls (NOI as in former Finance Minister and current World Trade Organization president Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala) in partnership with Gallup US promised to improve the climate and practice opinion polling in the country.

    Dr. Goodluck Jonathan must have been heartened by the NOIPolls findings in its August 2013 poll that six of every 10 Nigerians (the actual figure was 57 percent) approved his job performance, up four points from the previous month, and the highest since January 2013.

    Not bad for a month marked by tumult within the ruling PDP, a nationwide strike by university teachers, and killings on an industrial scale by the Boko Haram

    Jonathan and his supporters would most certainly have been surprised, however, by the counter-intuitive findings that his approval was strongest not in his South-South redoubt (66 percent), but in the South East (76 percent), followed by the North-Central (70 percent).

    In its most recent outing commissioned by banker and democracy campaigner Atedo Peterside’s ANAP Foundation, NOIPolls released its findings on the 2023 presidential election, the first in the field.

    If that election were to be held at the time of polling in September 2022, NOIPolls said. Peter Obi of the Labour Party would win with 21 percent of the vote, with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the APC and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP would tie for second place with 13 percent apiece, and Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party would bring up the rear with four percent.

    This report has sent the Obidients jubilating and the other parties crying foul.  It has not said that Peter Obi will become Nigeria’s next president.  It allows that the poll’s findings are not conclusive. The best poll is nothing but a snapshot of a race in progress.  It does not indicate who will finish first.

    Plus, it is necessary to point up some factors that would appear to vitiate the NOIPoll’s findings.

    The first is that since nobody knows Nigeria’s population to the nearest 25 million, any sample drawn from it cannot be claimed to be scientific or probabilistic.

    The second is that the margin of error of five percent is rather self-indulgent. That margin of error could have resulted from pure chance.  Gallup, which NOIPolls names as its partner, would not settle for that.  NOIPolls should strive for greater rigour.   A three percent margin of error is the industry standard.

    Third, 47 percent of those polled said they were undecided or would rather not indicate whom they would vote for.  That is just a little under one-half of the population of 1,000  telephone owners aged 18 years and above who said they intended to vote.   A poll with so many undecided voters or voters loath to name their preferred candidates is of limited utility.

    And, by the way, what are we to make of the dispositions of those who do not own telephones and who were not included in the sample?  Can it be that their choice will have no bearing on the election outcome?

    Its flaws notwithstanding, the NOIPolls have the merit of being grounded on an actual poll, not the “surveys” nor “available data” from unidentified sources, that led a newspaper to declare the other day that  Peter Obi “is not just the issue in the election” but that he also “appears set to disrupt and deadlock” the presidential race.

    The newspaper goes on to report figures about how the leading four presidential candidates are “trending” in each of Nigeria’s so-called geopolitical zones. The reader has not the faintest inkling as to how those figures were arrived at.

    Apparently, that issue will be addressed by the major global polling outfit the paper says it is planning to launch this month to analyse its exploratory surveys and trends in greater depth and hopefully, with greater transparency.

  • Crossroads Lagos

    Crossroads Lagos

    We have come to the cross-roads
    And I must either leave or come with you.
    I lingered over the choice
    But in the darkness of my doubts

    You lifted the lamp of love
    And I saw in your face
    The road that I should take
    — “The Mesh”, Kwesi Brew (1928-2007)

    In 2023, Lagos rolls into a new age: the metro rail age, if you will.  But 2023 is also a crucial election year.

    For voters, it would be a cross-roads of sorts. Many a partisan now hawk their electoral wares, screeching at buyers in the market din.  Most of the noise though is not unlike the Shakespearean tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

    Even then, in the election season, anything goes!

    Still, Lagos must know from where it came to hit this crucial juncture.  That is the only way it can be master of its new age, the rail age; and get right its “rail mandate”.

    Back in the 2nd Republic (1 October 1979-31 December 1983), the great Alhaji Lateef Jakande, that era’s iconic Action Governor, dreamed of a Lagos rail Metro Line; and was about actualizing that dream when the military struck and scuttled everything.

    Between 1999 and 2007, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who would claim due plaudits as the latest of the grand modernizers of Lagos, drew up an integrated transport master plan, central to which were no less than six urban rail lines, criss-crossing the state.

    Babatunde Raji Fashola, dubbed the “Actualizer” by Tinubu himself, started laying tracks and building stations in the first of the lines, the Blue Line, the first phase of which was to run from Mile 2 to the Lagos Marina.

    Between 2019 and now, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu (BOS) is adding the Red Line, to run from Agbado to Oyingbo (first phase) and later, to co-join the Blue Line at the Lagos Marina.

    Meanwhile, the junta Saul that scuttled Jakande’s Lagos Metro Line has, as elected president, turned the liberal Paul that has galvanized BOS’s rapid rail strides on the Lagos Red Line, in a stunning burst of historic redemption: Muhammadu Buhari!

    Unlike PDP presidents before him, led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, that treated the railway as an ultra-exclusive zone from which they must flex sterile federal might, President Buhari has liberalized that corridor, so much so that federal and Lagos rails develop side by side and co-share facilities without much ado.

    That is a mighty leap in rail federalization, so much so that BOS is about setting a record as heading the first Nigerian government ever, federal or sub-national, to start and complete a rail project within a four-year term.

    It’s yet another practical proof that common-sense federalization is antidote to Nigeria’s many challenges, without media show-boating or empty grandstanding.

    As in transport, so will it be in security (culminating in state police); and in power, with states developing own grids (or pooling resources with neighbours to build one), without prejudice to the national grid — common-sense federalization to get stuff done!

    Yet, comes the hour and a rash of partisans come crowing to stake a claim — hardly illegitimate!

    First, PDP’s Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran, aka Jandor, comes strumming the nativist banjo, screeching Lagos for Lagosians, as battle-entry cry!  But whoever abandons core merit for nativist crows, except those that can’t compete?

    Two weeks ago (See: BOS’ Lagos or Jandor’s jungle, The Nation, September 20), Sanya Oni x-rayed the “Jandor-Jenifa” essay at rogue populism (at best); atavistic regression (at worst) — the Lagos PDP idea of a winning campaign, in a state nationally famous for its unapologetic cosmopolitan temper.

    Why, earlier at the Osun election, the duo of Jandor and Jenifa (actor Funke Akindele, Jandor’s running mate), broke into a comic dance, with Davido driving the orchestra.  To be sure, that was ode to an “Ade Dancer” that may well dance his way to Osun Government House, if he clears all post-poll legal obstacles.

    Even then, Osun and Lagos are diametric opposites.

    In Osun, the sitting governor blew the winning aces he inherited, in clear pro-people programmes, only to run helter-skelter at election-time; and be walloped by the PDP candidate, whose most critical assets are a nimble body mass and seamless, bewitching dance steps — unbridled Prince of Owambe!

    Lagos is of a more serious and less comic hue.  BOS seized his gubernatorial heirloom and built furiously on it, so much so that he stands on the cusp of history to deliver Lagos its rail age, befitting a mega-city state worth its crow.

    But aside from Lagos PDP’s comical duo, Peter Obi’s children of anger, across all ethnics, coalescing under the Labour Party (LP), brandishing a “youth” charter, also furiously gun for electoral spoils.

    In the reflex of the moment, this band craves to re-live the End-SARS Lekki Toll Gate and its phantom “Lekki massacre”, as winning campaign joker, by the children of anger!

    But as satanically evocative as that might look, did it ever strike this rather un-thinking band that, for Lagos, the End-SARS riots also evoke unfazed vandals, torching history in grand monuments and iconic buildings and razing the future in glittering infrastructure?

    Beyond fashionable anger of the moment, how does a 21st century echo of Barbarian vandals come to plague Rome hold any attraction for Lagos, and for true Lagosians (again of all ethnics), who bode well for their thriving mega-city?

    Besides, what emotional intelligence is in blitzing through Lagos streets, on your National Day, echoing the destructive force of EndSARS, to make a political point?

    O, for a deep dose of introspection! — John Keats, the tragic English romantic poet, would have yelled.  Hardly a surprise though, for children of anger seldom think straight! But again, it’s election season.  Anything goes!

    Still, here is the thing: a rail-propelled Lagos beckons at far saner transportation, with absolutely no space for Okada, Keke Marwa and allied contraptions.  Rather, it’s a promising era of safe rail moving millions daily, better-fitted vehicles on roads, aside from water transport supplements, in ferries and allied water craft.

    This era calls for far more rigorous policy thinking to boss the new age.

    Yes, hardly anyone would miss the preening road outlaws: belting Okada riders and dare-devil Keke Marwa cousins criss-crossing traffic and their gory daily harvests: hewing limbs and cracking skulls.

    But look beyond this grisly daily road massacre and you would see vanishing incomes and disappearing livelihoods.  Lagos therefore needs serious policy wonks to work on restoring these livelihoods, though in safer and sustainable alternatives.

    From their thoughtfulness, thoroughness and rigour of the past four years, BOS and his hardworking team appear custom-cut for such a hard chore, even if there are always rooms for improvement.

    Not some nativist comics sizzling with rank entitlement.  Even less some “me too syndrome” lobby moonlighting on the partisan front, eternally powered by resent, grudge and envy.

    BOS and co have proven their mettle.  Lagos is in safe, competent and steady hands.

  • ASUU: Time to break the ice

    ASUU: Time to break the ice

    To think that seven months after, the nation is nowhere near cracking the proverbial knot in terms of the substantive issues at the heart of the current FG/ASUU imbroglio is to appreciate not just the depth of the nation’s leadership crisis, but why the nation is virtually on hold on all fronts.

    Yes, all manners of expletives have been spewed on the government for what many have come to term as its obduracy that bothers on criminal indifference.; but so have a good number of the discerning public said of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU which has, in addition to assuming the role of the opposition, become so consumed in its righteous indignation to such an extent that the otherwise powerhouse of rationality has allowed reason and the liberal tradition to take flight.

    Obviously, if a part of the tragedy of the current time is how the feuding parties let pass a great opportunity to reset the framework of the tertiary educational sector, the bigger revelation must be the deafening silence of the voices of reason and moderation in the entire saga.

    And what do we have: Banalities and unhelpful grandstanding at the centre-stage as against what was initially presented as a battle for the soul of the university; an orderly society squirming in utter embarrassment at what has since become a contest of egos.

    Say what you may of last week’s ruling of the National Industrial Court ordering ASUU to call off its seven-month-old strike, it seems to yours truly, a face-saving breather that the parties –ASUU as much as the government– truly need at this time – if only to get back on track.

    At this point, it is worth reminding that the matters which have brought the country to this level are no more new than the solutions, most of which are already in the public square, are novel. ASUU wants an overhaul of the learning environment in our universities, an improvement in the current funding levels and, crucially, an enhanced package for university staff and such other incentives intrinsic to their job.

    Read Also: Our protest over ASUU strike will be worse than #ENDSARS-NANS

    Interestingly, the government does not disagree that the system needs better tending or that university teachers aren’t deserving of fair remuneration. Overall, what appears to be at issue is the extent to which the government can go in the circumstance that agreements from the time it was originally penned in 2009 and its subsequent review in 2013, have been observed in the breach by successive administrations. Needless to state that ASUU is insistent that the funds are not only available but that the government has a duty find them by any means possible. And then the government on its part says that ASUU itself has neither been helpful nor realistic given the nation’s dire economic situation. In other words, the implementation of the agreement, which ASUU insists is cast in stone, is only to the extent that the revenue of the government would permit.

    Had the whole brouhaha not been reduced to winning arguments as against pressing for real, fundamental changes in our university system, we’d probably by now be framing the questions a bit differently.

    Of course, every government in the past was simply deemed the culprit since, ASUU could do no wrong. And when it does go on strike – as it is wont not infrequently – the entire blame goes to the supposedly tone-deaf government for its failure to act – hence the demand on the treasury to pay restitution even for the work not done. Today, things are changing.  There is apparently now a new sense of awareness of the limitation of the government in the environment of declining national revenues and unprecedented infrastructure gap; and then increasingly, a growing weariness with ASUU’s frustratingly one-sided, winner-takes-all methods, particularly when it insists on getting paid for the duration of the strike.

    Trust ASUU, it has, like in times past, regaled us with fine arguments on how lost academic grounds would be recovered as soon as the strike is called off; it has, true to its nature, artfully played up the dreary alternative – wholesale cancellation of sessions/programmes should government insist on obeying its own law that denies them the purse on account of strike! Only that in their well-articulated arguments, they have neglected to work out the human and material cost of a compressed academic calendar on the students, the educational sector as indeed the society as a whole, and whether or not the elements can be redeemed!

    To ASUU, getting universities back on track could only mean government drawing the cheque. As for the issue of sustainability, that would either come later or perhaps wait another round of wildcat strikes that would remind everyone of the folly of the current model!

    For all the good that it has done to keep the system running, we have certainly reached a point where ASUU has to re-examine the current paradigm of funding our universities as indeed its fixation with it.

    This suggestion is certainly not new.  This newspaper’s Thursday columnist, Emeritus Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, not too long ago canvased a model which would involve a shared responsibility between the government and the beneficiaries. Most recently, Professor Hamman Tukur Sa’ad, one-time vice chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna and chairman of the Federal Government Visitation Panel on the 2020 crisis at the University of Lagos also lent his voice to the need for a different approach. His suggestion is for the universities to take their autonomy seriously and for the councils do the needful, including paying good salaries to lecturers. But then, it seems given that that could only happen if everyone comes to a basic agreement on what it costs to run the programmes and related services in the university system. Indeed, only thereafter could we begin an enlightened and fruitful debate on the appropriate charges – and flowing from this, the all-important question of that fraction of the cost to be borne by the government and the rest to be covered by the recipients through appropriate institutions and mechanisms.

    Would the proposed framework not lead to the weakening of ASUU?

    Most likely, it will. But then, we are talking here of the future of the academe; for only ASUU in this day and age still pretends that some bored bureaucrats siting in their comfy offices in Abuja would be interested in the welfare of the university staff or the students.

    Which of course leads to the final point in this piece, which is: Who will bell the cat? Would ASUU be prepared to climb down its high horse to consider the bigger picture – which is the future of the sector? What about the governing councils of the universities; would they be amenable to leading the charge to redirect the course of the current engagement?  And the committee of vice chancellors; what can they do and what should they be doing at this time to bring amity? Time is running out.

  • Refund 2022: Life imitating art?

    Refund 2022: Life imitating art?

    On reading about the Agricultural Extension graduate of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology who returned his diploma to the university the other day on the ground that it had proved of little practical worth and demanded a refund of his undergraduate tuition, my memory ticked.

    Wasn’t this a case of Nigerian life imitating German art across eight decades?

    There welled up in my recollection novelist, essayist poet and playwright Fritz Karinthy’s1938 one-act drama, in which a man, about 40 years old, returns to his old school eighteen years later and demands a refund of the tuition he had paid on the ground that the education he received had not prepared him for life’s challenges.

    Osunleke Alaba had gone into farming after graduating from LAUTECH, but those pesky cattle herds and their feckless Fulani minders ate everything. Then he went into entertainment, where only a meagre existence was to be made.  And that is where we find him.

    In desperation, he hit upon the idea of returning his diploma.  If he could recover his tuition, he reasoned, he would put it to much more profitable use.

    We do not know what Wasserkopf had been doing since leaving school18 years earlier.  His name, literally “water on the brain,” is more than mildly suggestive of mental lassitude and its accompaniment.  Let us just say he is unlikely to be held up as a good advertisement for the school’s brand.

    Osunleke’a goal is roughly the same as Wasserkopf”s, namely a refund of their tuition, which they judge to have been a bad investment.  But their approaches differ.

    Osunleke is comparatively restrained, sober even.  Wasserkopf, as we shall see, is boisterous, bullying, threatening and utterly disdainful of his former teachers, calling them to their faces the unflattering nicknames which their students of yore could only call them behind their backs, and out of earshot.

    Alaba would settle for a quiet recompense.  Wasserkopf insisted on being re-examined in the courses he had taken at the school.  The result would show that he had been taught nothing of value, and would make his case for a refund unassailable.

    The Principal was gobsmacked.

    He convenes a faculty meeting to discuss Wasserkopf’s proposal.

    His colleagues were inclined to reject it forthwith, but the mathematics master demurred.

    “Gentlemen, it is my conviction that we will lose nothing by re-examining Wasserkopf,” he said.   “If he fails, he will place us in an awkward position; therefore, he must not fail. He has – shall I say? – pursued advanced studies in the school of life. We will not make our questions too difficult – agreed, gentlemen? We are dealing with a sly, crafty individual, who will try to get the better of us – and his money back – by hook or crook. We must checkmate him.”

    How is this to be done? Asks the physics master.

    “By sticking together. The object is to prevent him from failing, because if he fails, he succeeds. That we must stop. If he fails, tomorrow there will be two more former pupils, and the next day a dozen. We must back each other up, gentlemen, so that this painful affair does not become a pedagogical scandal. We will ask him questions. Whatever his answers, we agree beforehand that they are correct.

    Thus is the stage set for an examination the candidate was determined to fail and the examiners were determined he must not fail.

    It was decided that the mathematics master should take charge of the proceedings.

    When Wasserkopf calls his interlocutors the most disrespectful names, says the mathematics master, that the candidate shows an understanding 0f the patriarchal manners, which the school had emphasized in its curriculum over the decades, in keeping with the days when the medieval humanists, teachers, and pupils related on a footing of perfect equality.

    He says that the candidate, having shown in a most tactful way, that he understands the usages of that era, need not be examined in what appertains to gentlemanliness. Instead, the school waives the examination in that subject, and awards the candidate a grade of Excellent.

    The faculty assents.  Wasserkopf’s examination had commenced in earnest.

    Offered a seat, Wasserkopf disdainfully rejects it, electing to stand during his oral re-examination.

    Evidence, says the mathematics master, of a splendid physical condition.  And he recommends that the principal, who teaches that subject, award the candidate a grade of “Excellent” in Physical Culture

    The principal concurs.

    “No, no,” Wasserkopf protests, realizing that they had put one over on him   He vows that they would not catch him off-guard again.

    Whereupon the principal enters on the candidate’s scoresheet, “Alertness, Very Good.”  To which the History master adds, “Perseverance, Unusual.”

    The History exam comes next.

    Read Also: LAUTECH has not resumed, says management

    “How long did the Thirty Years’ War Last?” the History master asks.

    Wasserkopf replies he does not know the answer.  By gestures subtle and unsubtle, the faculty telegraph the answer to him. It is not in their interest that he should fail the exam.  But it is in Wasserkopf’s supreme interest to fail, so he feigns incomprehension

    Suddenly, conjures up a eureka moment.

    “Seven metres,” he says, unblushingly.  “Exactly seven metres.”   That was how long the Thirty Years’ War lasted.”

    Wasserkopf gloats.  His strategy is working.  The faculty seems paralyzed. The history master is disconcerted. But they cannot afford to lose the plot.

    “Seven metres,” the history master repeats.  Your answer is excellent, he tells a disbelieving Wasserkopf.  It is again the turn of the mathematics teacher to explain the verdict as the history master fumbles around for one.

    Wasserkopf’s answer, says the mathematics teacher, accords perfectly with the theory of relativity and the insights of Max Planck.  “Einstein has taught us that time is as real as space and matter. It consists of atoms, and may be synthesized into a unified whole, and may be measured like anything else. Reduce the mass-system to a unit and a year may be represented by a metre or seven years by seven metres.”

    And, considering that actual fighting took place only for half of each day and that the combatants had to eat and rest and recuperate, the history master adds helpfully, it could well be that actual fighting occurred only for seven years which, under the theory of relativity the theory, may be represented by seven metres.

    Farce piles on farce, with Wasserkopf’s most inane answers to the commonsensical posers eliciting grades of Excellent from the faculty.  The re-examination culminates in two questions posed by the mathematics teacher, an easy one, and a difficult one, as he characterized them.

    First the easy question:  “If we represent the speed of light by x, and the distance of the star Sirius from the sun by y, what is the circumference of a one-hundred-and-nine-sided regular polyhedron whose surface coincides with that of the hip-pocket of a state railway employee whose wife has been deceiving him for two years and eleven months with a regimental sergeant-major of hussars?”

    “Two thousand, six hundred and twenty-nine litres.”  Exact.  No fractions.  Wasserkopf chuckles, satisfied that he has turned the tables at last on the faculty.

    Wrong, says the mathematics teacher.  The correct answer is two thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight litres.  The error is less than one-tenth of a per cent, but it is an error nonetheless.  “The candidate fails.”

    He adds that the candidate’s request for a refund is reasonable, and that the only question left is the amount of the refund.

    Wssserkopf is exultant.  His plan has worked, and he is counting on coming into a hefty sum of money soon.  The faculty is discombobulated.

    “How much do we owe you, Herr Wasserkopf?” the mathematics teacher asks, turning to the candidate.

    Wasserkopf recalls every expenditure from his school years and submits the total as what the school owes him. With paper and pencil in hand, the mathematics teacher checks the math.

    “It is right to the smallest detail, the mathematics teacher announces, as he congratulates Wasserkopf.  That was my difficult question.”  Grade earned:  Excellent in mathematics.

    Overall, says the principal, Wasserkopf has chalked up a distinction in every subject, confirming that he earned the certificate he was awarded on graduation.

    Wasserkopf may well have felt like the man who died a fake death and was given a fake burial.

    Osunleke Alaba of LAUTECH fared better. The school’s alumni crow-funded a sum to cover the refund of his tuition.

  • Tinubus aping Clintons

    Tinubus aping Clintons

    It was celebration time for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, last week, as the latter turned 62 on Wednesday. In an emotion-laden tribute, Asiwaju paid glowing tribute to the love of his life, affirming that each time her birthday turns up, nothing else matters. Not even the pursuit of his ambition of becoming the president of Nigeria, nor serenading his teaming followers and supporters who throng wherever he goes.

    Of course, everywoman who is a good wife deserves to be celebrated especially during her birthday. As the book of Proverbs 18:22 (NLT) proclaims: “The man who finds a wife finds a treasure, and he receives favour from the Lord.” The sagacious Asiwaju knows how a treasure is treasured, for as the Book of Matthew 13:44 (NIV) said: “The Kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

    As Asiwaju affirmed in his eulogy, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, a serving senator, is one such treasure. There are so many who attest that Senator Tinubu is a treasure, for her generous support to charitable causes. But beyond being a treasure tome of a wife and charity, could it be that Senator Oluremi Tinubu is to presidential candidate Bola Tinubu, what Senator Hilary Clinton is to former President Bill Clinton, in their respective political odyssey?

    Perhaps there has not been enough interrogation of the influence Senator Oluremi Tinubu brings to the table for the nationally acclaimed political strategy of Asiwaju Tinubu. Could it be that her influence and power in the political rise and rise of Asiwaju Tinubu has been subjugated under the effusive patriarchal system that is predominant in our political environment?  If Asiwaju makes the presidency, would it be apropos to say that Nigeria will have two-in-one president, as was said of Bill and Hilary Clinton, when Bill was the president?

    With the presidential campaign for the 2023 general election kicking off tomorrow, perhaps it is appropriate in comparing the Tinubus with the Clintons to examine the chances of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose success at the polls would further make the comparison even more exciting. No doubt, Asiwaju Tinubu of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is the frontline presidential candidate, and unless there is a tectonic movement in the political landscape, he has the best chance of winning the 2023 presidential election.

    Among other reasons, Asiwaju Tinubu, fairly regarded as a master political strategist, started plotting his presidential ambition many years ago, and as he boasted, would not throw his hat into the ring if he had no chance. This writer had the privilege of hearing directly from Asiwaju about his presidential ambition, four years ago, and while he stated clearly that he was not desperate to run, he expressed his determination to give it his best shot. And as a master strategist, he must have been plotting the contest for much longer time.

    Strategy wise, Asiwaju’s game plan is unimpeachable. Since 1999, he has deliberately built a political coalition of surrogates, associates, friends and partners, which is unmatchable by any of the other contenders. Today, he can legitimately lay claim to helping the incumbent president and his vice ascend the throne. He can also train his political proboscis to the senate present, speaker House of Representatives, and of course, many serving and past governors, legislators, local government chairmen, and hundreds of other political leaders across the country. And such network of collaborators would have far-reaching impact in the election.

    Experience wise, Asiwaju can legitimately claim to have performed outstandingly as governor of Lagos State. There is no doubt that amongst his peers, he stands tall, and can beat his chest that he performed well as governor. As a governor he was very innovative. Apart from raising the state internally generated revenue to a record high, he reinvigorated the judiciary, and initiated new programs like LASMA, LAMATA, BRT, and laid a solid development plan which his successors have built on.

    As a political leader, Asiwaju has unmatched record. Love him or hate him, he successfully put in place a succession mechanism that even while some condemn it as god-fatherism, has gifted Lagos political stability and high performing governors and power elite that has made the state the envy of others. Even while some commentators complain bitterly about being left out in the scheme of things, the recruitment and preferment process he instituted in Lagos, with all its shortcomings has survived three political transitions and is alive and kicking.

    Again Asiwaju has proved his mettle as a development strategist. Apart from his audacious human capital development strides, he has with his lieutenants turned Lagos State into the 6th biggest economy in Africa. Such audacious projects as Eko Atlantic City deserve all the accolades his campaign team are milking from it. The story of Eko Hotels and what it has become with his invitation of private capital is perhaps what is lacking in the management of wasting national assets across the country. The same can be said about the Lagos State Independent Power Projects, sabotaged by the federal government.

    As the political campaign kicks off tomorrow, Asiwaju would need to calm the political nerves of those stringently opposed to his choice of Senator Kashim Shettima, a fellow Muslim as vice presidential candidate. Also, he has to tactfully deal with the anti-establishment discontentment that is driving the rise of Peter Obi of the Labour Party. As a political strategist, instead of abusing those angered by the choice of Shettima or enchanted by the promises of Obi, he has to wear the garb of an ingenious salesman.

    There is no doubt that Nigeria needs a president who is a political and development strategist. A political strategist to mend the broken fault lines exacerbated by the Fulani hegemonic regime of President Muhammadu Buhari, and a development strategist to stem the haemorrhaging national economy and lay the plan to sustainable economic development. Amongst the three major gladiators, Asiwaju Tinubu undoubtedly has the best combination of the requirements. The job of his campaigners is to sell the right message to the electorate.

    Expectedly, Tinubu would campaign as hard as any of the other gladiators, if not even harder. And at his tow would be his jewel of inestimable value, Senator Oluremi Tinubu. If the Tinubus make the presidency, they would once again be aping the Clintons in their political odyssey, when a list of the offices held by the couple are listed. Away from presidential politics, I join Asiwaju Tinubu to celebrate Senator Oluremi Tinubu, a dutiful wife and political titan in her own right.

  • Paradise lost, paradise regained

    Paradise lost, paradise regained

    One of the many tributes in the book made a parallel between the author and another, who also wrote a book at 90.

    “By publishing her autobiography at the age of 90, Mama has joined the pantheon of 90-year-old authors in the world,” the tribute by Pastors Kenny and Wale Adeduro went.  ”That includes the Sri Lankan 90-year-old author, Sybil Wettasinghe, author of Umbrella Thief, a classic children’s book.”

    Indeed, Umbrella Thief is one of the more than 200 books in the children fiction genre, from the fecund Sybil Wettasinghe (1927-2020), who lived for 92 years, “harvesting” books, from her fertile mind, all through her life.

    But the vital difference: Sybil Wettasinghe was a celebrated, decorated writer.  Bernice Olawunmi Ifaturoti wrote her first-ever book, Daughter of Grace, at 90 — her peaks of pleasure; her dales of despair.  Yet, on balance, a surfeit of grace.

    This autobiography is salute to a humble, primary school retiree, zestful teacher of her beloved Mathematics, yet all her life a voracious reader.

    It is ode to a rare clarity of mind when human organs are no longer tick-tock — intellect craving to be tested, when the natural elements are far from their prime.

    Still, given the book’s theme, a more enduring parallel would be to Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, two epic poems by English man, John Milton (1608-1674).

    But that would only be metaphorically speaking.

    Milton’s works belonged to the era of classical poems: the first set of English epics (English then no more than the local, humble tongue of the hardy folks of the British Isles), playing hard catch-up with the cosmopolitan Greek and Latin, the two that ruled the globe, in literature, general scholarship and even the royal courts.

    Ifaturoti’s Daughter of Grace is only but a lean autobiography, in simple, precise and concise prose, by an old woman determined to share her ups and downs with the world, as her 90th birthday gift.

    For the author aged 57, it was “paradise lost” when her darling husband, around whom her entire world revolved, died.  The sheer drama of it all was nerve-shattering!

    That day began with fulsome promise.  Yet, it ended with the most barren of despairs!  With absolutely no warning, Peter Adeyeye Ifaturoti was gone — no thanks to robbers that attacked his car and cut short his life.

    The widow would freeze that anguish of 1989: “There on the bare floor, the lifeless body of my husband lay, in the pool of his own blood,” she wrote. “He died, aged 64.”

    Irony of ironies: earlier at lunch time, in his characteristic lunch-time chat from work, her husband had told the last of their daughters, who picked his call because her mom was out: “It’s okay.  I’ll be seeing you later …”  That never happened.

    Still, Ifaturoti would begin her new life of “paradise regained”, just five months after her husband’s cruel passage of November 1989, though she was in no position to know.

    She captioned that decisive phase of her life: “Easter 1990: the Redeemed years”.

    It was a new beginning: the anguished loss of a beloved husband replaced by a yearning soul that doted on and swooned after God, bolstered by new church work, in her newfound creed.

    That would anchor the life of a grieving and broken 57-year-old widow, and romp her into a 90-year-old matriarch — and still counting!  Paradise lost, paradise regained!  It was, in mid-life, a brand new life!

    Back in Ilesa, their hometown in Osun, the Ifaturotis and the Fagbemis (Bernice Ifaturoti’s maiden family) were ardent Christians, though steeped in Ijesa tradition.

    The Ifaturotis are royals, scions of one of the four branches of the Atakumosa ruling house of Ilesa: the Bilayearere, though their immediate clan is called Bilasa.

    The other ruling branches are Biladu, Bilaro and Bilagbayo.  The Bilayearere produced the current Owa Obokun, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran, though an Ifaturoti (Prince Adebayo Ifaturoti, now late) contested that stool.

    The Fagbemis, on the other hand, are top among the Ijesa traditional gentry. Benjamin Olubode Fagbemi, the author’s father, belonged to the Ogboni chieftaincy family, next in ranking, the book claims, to only the Atakumosa ruling house.

    But he was born an avid Christian; and remained a devoted Christian all his life.  As an elder, he become the Baba Ijo of St. John’s Anglican Church, Iloro, Ilesa.

    The Ifaturotis too were no less avid Christians than their Fagbemi in-laws, though the Ifaturotis are Methodists as the Fagbemis are Anglicans.

    So, aside from Bernice Ifaturoti’s birth, education, marriage, family, her lovely offspring of three boys and three girls alternated in near-perfect order (the last girl came willy-nilly to “balance the rime” years after the couple had decided to halt after three boys and two girls!), the book is also a rich traverse in diverse other areas.

    Its brief sorties into Ifaturoti and Fagbemi family histories offer an alluring window into Ijesa royal history, and the Yoruba traditional family, when polygamy, much traduced in today’s world, ruled the roost.

    In the Ifaturotis you saw a launch into the Kiriji War (1877-1893). Owa Lowolodu aka Bilasa Owa (of Bilayearere) was king in those troubled times of Yoruba civil war.

    He despatched his cousin, the intrepid Adedayo Ifaturoti, to Iwoye-Ijesa as Loja (Baale in general Yoruba; Duke to the English).  His duty was to safeguard Iwoye.

    But that firmly established an Ifaturoti royal dynasty in Iwoye-Ijesa (the stool has since been upgraded).  The late Prince Ifaturoti, that contested the Owa throne with Oba Aromolaran, later became the Loja Wasere of Ijana (the stool again, since upgraded).

    The author crowed over the royal lineage of her husband: “My husband, on his father’s side, was Omo Owa Bilasa.  On his mother’s side, they were Omo Loja Onibokun.”

    That means the Ifaturotis could lay claim to the throne of Iwoye and Ijana, aside from Ilesa, the Ijesa mother-city itself.

    The Fagbemis are a tale of glorious polygamy: one husband, nine wives and 23 children.  But the man that started life as a promising bricklayer became a successful master-builder that sent all of his children to school, sans any gender discrimination!

    Indeed, one of them, Prof. Olasupo John Fagbemi (of blessed memory), became Nigeria’s first professor of computer science, after being in 1948, one of the pioneering students of the University College Ibadan, on full government scholarship.  He had earlier entered Government College Ibadan, also on scholarship.

    But as in too many cases of a country that seems to war against its own very best, Prof. Fagbemi — with his tick-tock mind — was a victim of the Murtala-Obasanjo military government’s purge of the University of Lagos!

    Even then, Easter 1990 fetched the grieving widow another life.  Though reluctant to leave her husband’s Methodist creed, she joined The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), where with others, she planted the first-ever RCCG parish in all of Isolo, Lagos — among other RCCG churches, home and abroad.

    She recounted, with relish, how at old age she was ordained assistant pastor, after the rigours of Bible school.  She also glowingly spoke of her experience as Jerusalem Pilgrim (JP).

    This is a lean autobiography, spiced with pictures that denote family heirlooms.  But like the proverbial dry meat, it rapidly fills the mouth when chewed.

    It’s a pleasant and delicious treat!