The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Dessert for El Rufai

    Dessert for El Rufai

    Last Saturday, the petit enfant terrible that governed Kaduna State for eight years, from 2015 to 2023, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, raised alarm that his successor, Governor Uba Sani, whom he called his godson, was responsible for the political violence that marred a rally he organized to foster the opposition parties in the state. According to media reports, thugs invaded the ceremony, for the official inauguration of the transition committee, jointly set up by opposition parties in the state. El Rufai accused the state governor of sponsoring terrorism.

    While not sympathetic to El Rufai considering his past records, this column condemns all forms of political violence. But we must recall that as governor of Kaduna State, El Rufai ruled like a sovereign potentate, and he treated his victims worse than subjects. The former governor confessed that he paid cross-border herders from neighbouring countries to stop killings in southern Kaduna, instead of bringing them to account. According to him, he told his emissaries to inform the criminals that one of their own, a Fulani, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, had become the president and they should stop the killing.

    But did the killings stop? It didn’t. In fact, it got worse, and instead of showing empathy to the victims, he criminalized them, and made them look like the aggressors. He framed the killings as reprisals and revenge attacks, especially in Kajuru and Kachia local government councils. But interestingly, since Governor Uba Sani took over, the killings have stopped, and even markets closed for many years have been reopened. So what could have led to the return of peace in the communities after the exit of the former governor?

    While the crisis lasted, many indigenes of the affected communities viewed El Rufai as an enabler of the crisis. The Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU) on the eve of the 2019 general election raised such alarm. In February, 24 hours to the 2019 polls, they said “The attention of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) has been drawn to a report credited to Governor Nasir Ahmad El Rufai over alleged killing of 66 Fulani in Kajuru Local Government Area.”

    They went on: “We are at a loss as to the real motive behind the governor’s disclosure, made public less than 24 hours before the commencement of national polls that were postponed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).” They continued “We are of the view that El Rufai’s comments over Kajuru killings was deliberately orchestrated to inflame ethnic and religious sentiments to produce yet another cycle of bloodshed.” The leaders accused El Rufai of lying about any killing of Fulanis, and accused him of being silent about the actual killing of Adara natives in Ungwar Barde, in Kufana District of Kajuru Local Council.

    The leaders didn’t spare the former governor. In their words “Arising from the above, SOKAPU is shocked at the deliberate falsehood by El Rufai who found it convenient not to inform the world of an earlier attack that claimed lives of 11 Adara natives. SOKAPU is convinced that Governor El Rufai is on an irrevocable journey of inflaming ethnic conflagration that has always been in line with his deliberate chronicle of profiling Southern Kaduna people as favorably disposed to violence.”

    The group claimed that El Rufai was instigating the crisis for political gains. While on one of his visits to the scene of the killings, El Rufai promised to set up a judicial panel of inquiry, which he later did after several months, and sounded sympathetic. He said “It is very sad that people that had lived together side by side for hundreds of years have suddenly started killing one another.” He went on “It is not in our culture, our religion to permit anyone to kill. All those who engage in these are not godly people but godless people, they are neither Muslims nor Christians.”

    Hearing El Rufai sound sanctimonious, one would think that his regime was driven by fairness while he governed the state. That indeed, he had regards for all citizens of his state, regardless of their tribe or faith. But far from that, El Rufai governed the state as a very divisive person, who cared more about winning election at all cost. While justifying his choice of a fellow Muslim as deputy, when all previous governors had shown concern for religious plurality in the state, he spoke derogatorily about the people concerned.

    Speaking to Channels Television, el-Rufai said “what if I tell you that no matter who I choose as my running mate, even if I choose the Pope, 67 per cent of Christians in Southern Kaduna have made up their minds that they will never vote for me.” Clearly el-Rufai was a very reckless and insensitive fellow, who cared not, whose ox was gored. Yet by some accounts, the Christian population is about half of the population in the state.     

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    In the eyes of the law, El Rufai can be properly prosecuted for aiding and abetting terrorism while he was governor of Kaduna State. Some of his opponents who are of the same faith with him, suffered similar abuses like southern Kaduna Christians. Renowned activist and former senator Shehu Sani, calls El Rufai a very divisive fellow, and he believes that the state is safer since his tenure ended. He accused the former governor of engaging in mass sackings, property demolitions and flagrant disobedience of court orders.

    Shehu Sani, wrote El Rufai off, as a “midget professor” and said that “out of power, he is sanctimoniously preaching democracy to the country he helped to wreck, plundered, and persecuted”. He went on: “He demonized the opposition when in the palace and now embraces them in the wilderness.” No doubt, El Rufai is a shifty politician, when it comes to loyalty. He was brought to limelight by former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, but when it suited him, he aligned with former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, to persecute his former benefactor.

    When last week, El Rufai accused his successor of sponsoring terrorism, many waited for a bombshell of evidence. Rather, he said he would submit the evidence to the police if given the chance. One hopes it is not his usual bluff, otherwise why would he wait to present the evidence before the court of public opinion. If he could make such a weighty allegation, without waiting for police investigation, he ought to present his evidence bare, without hesitation.     

    The people of Southern Kaduna, and others, who bore the brunt of several alleged terrorist acts, linked to the ill-tempered governance of El Rufai, as Kaduna State governor, must be amused that the hunter has become the hunted. They would call it, his just dessert. It is also alleged that his poor records as governor, made President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, drop him as a ministerial nominee. Clearly, El Rufai will still pay a lot more price for his time in power as Kaduna State governor.

  • Broken record

    Broken record

    The one they call Ebora Owu lives the reality of a broken record. Tearing others down  echoes his broken public life, when the subject is not brazen service of self.

    Might his core then be rot, since he sees nothing but rot in others?  Only one full of rot would see only rot in others, over all seasons, in every material particular. 

    Indeed, former President Olusegun Obasanjo ticks all the sickening, stinking boxes, in flamboyant rot.  He, the wannabe Pope of public sector morality, is the very epitome of that harsh Biblical put down: a whited sepulchre, rotten within, glittering without!

    His latest sickly pastime confirms it all: the release of a book, Nigeria: Past and Future, to mark his 88 years, though his birthday was in March.

    In that book, he claimed the late Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) was the worst president since 1999; and that incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) waits, with bated breath, to topple Buhari’s record, just two years into own tenure!

    That’s rich — isn’t it? — coming from a fella whose wayward regime of naked power, powered by holy sleaze, set his PDP on a steady and progressive push to Golgotha!

    Still, if PMB and PBAT are power never-do-wells, and poor President Goodluck Jonathan got crushed by Obasanjo-era systemic sleaze, and the ill-fated Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was too ill to do what Obasanjo dragooned him to do, then who is the best of all times?

    No prize for guessing right: His Excellency, Holy and Immaculate Olusegun Obasanjo, Efficient and Effective, All Wise and All Glorious, Competent and Compassionate!

    Yet, history would reduce his name — and fairly so — to twin-emblems of brazen self-service: Obasanjo Farms Nigeria (OFN) and Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) — both of suspect moral provenance.

    For starters, both are glittering personal trophies from his two tours of duty, first as military junta head (1976-1979), and, as elected President (1999-2007). 

    Then, both are clear policy ambuscades to glorious state capture.  The grund norm of both is the Land Use Decree (now Land Use Act). 

    With the Land Use Act, Obasanjo gamed a huge parcel of land nation-wide (for OFN: incidentally, the twin-abbreviation for his military-era Operation Feed the Nation, OFN); and, in Abeokuta, for his OOPL, his end-term presidential racket.

    As sitting President, for his OOPL — first in Africa! — he proceeded to launch the most bare-faced executive extortion in contemporary Nigeria. 

    Yes, he called it “donation”: president and commander-in-chief — and sitting Oil minister to boot! — glaring down the cream of Nigerian Oil and Gas, opportunistic bankers, brow-beaten PDP state governors, and the emergent local investor class, with sharp eyes for sweetheart deals, coaxing them all to “donate”!

    Such blatant extortion, powered by the most unconscionable abuse of office, is yet to be matched by anyone.  On that, history would be brutally frank, when this generation is long gone.  Yet, Obasanjo tags others “corrupt”!

    But back to his finger-pointing on PMB.  

    Which of the two, for instance, is more public-spirited — even in the eye of a pumpkin, in the Laderin neighbourhood, of Obasanjo’s native Abeokuta?

    The one whose name gloriously adorns a crass business centre for gross personal gain — Obasanjo?  Or the one that silently erected a humming train station, named for Prof. Wole Soyinka, and sworn to total public comfort — PMB?

    That, of course, is the fundamental difference between both: PMB “hurried” with whatever good he had to do — though Obasanjo tagged him “Baba Go Slow” — and bowed out in a blaze of glory.  He made own mistakes, though.

    The tagger, on the other hand, is self-condemned to traducing others, all his very long life; hoping, fasting and praying that others’ “rot”, from his cynical mouth, would bury the putrid stench from own obvious decay, though he were holy Pope.  Nice try!

    Even then, a very special gift from his creator: in Obasanjo’s very eyes, all the tinsel he had packaged as gold would badly unravel, even as he busies himself seeing only the bad in others — before his maker calls him home!  It’s a bond he has with fate!

    All that is playing out in the current PDP misfortune.  It’s grand irony, though: the Great Seer and Grand Visionary, that led that party down that path of perdition, sees nothing!

    Still, you must know: Obasanjo’s obsession with running down others, but exulting self, dated back to 1990, when he released Not My Will, if you discount My Command,(1980), his Civil War tales by the moonlight, in which he framed himself the sole war super-hero.

    But in Not My Will, he went a reckless step further, when he openly mocked — callow, hollow youth! — the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s failure to attain federal power, the same power, he bragged, a military junta handed him on a virtual platter!

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    Still, after three years of junta power, and eight years of huff-and-puff presidency; and he still has to drone, now and then, to corral relevance, he is finding out, the bitter way, that greatness hardly correlates donkey years in power.

    The Awo that Obsanjo mocked — after his death, as his latest drivel does PMB — governed the Yoruba-majority Western Region for a scant seven years (1952-1959).  Yet, he turned the place into an irreversible force for good and progress, which still makes it the most prosperous and livable part of all Nigeria.

    Contrast that to Obasanjo’s cumulative 11 power years, and all he is leaving behind are OFN (more, the cynical policy gaming; less, the pristine farming policy); and OOPL — both bawling and screeching the sweet arrogance of self-service! 

    Why, even the rotten provenance of OOPL now attracts a rotten clientele, with EFCC securing conviction for a rash of 419 racketeers using its poolside as merry base! The shallow clearly call to the shallow, just as Awo’s deep called to the deep!

    Awo needed no eternity to put down others.  All he did, with his razor-sharp policies, from his cutting-edge intellect, was hauling up millions, in glorious social democracy!

    On Obasanjo/PMB, history would even be harsher.  For OBJ’s OFN and OOPL, PMB left sundry life-saving public works, to serve Nigerians — and in a season of no cash too: cash earlier finagled during the Obasanjo and PDP ancien regime!

    The taciturn PMB even taught the garrulous OBJ quiet lessons in president/vice-president relations and sane elections; talk less of basic decorum in relations: mutual respect among peers.

    Pray, which military senior or junior hasn’t OBJ abused or traduced with his fashionable rudeness, promoted as high morality?  Gen. Yakubu Gowon?  IBB?  Who?

    It’s the sad tale of avid teacher, lousy learner.  He’s so anxious — arrogant, even — to teach.  But beyond conceit, he has pretty little to impart.  All he projects is he’s too big to learn!  So, how can you teach much, if you had so little in the tank?

    Public-spirited donors must turn the Buhari Centre into a true store of institutional memory, of rich public service — a thunderous rebuke of that loud fakery in Abeokuta.

    In his wild attack on President Tinubu, Obasanjo trained his cynical guns on the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway.  But don’t be fooled, it’s same rotten strategy: bad-mouth legacy projects because you boast none!  Besides, the old blackmail that “PMB-knows-no-economics” is gone!  PBAT appears master of that forte.

    The post Obasanjo/PDP grapes are sour — really sour!  But Obasanjo forgets spite never vitiates the sweetness of honey!

  • Dilemma of Governor Mbah

    Dilemma of Governor Mbah

    The 2027 general election has become like a sword of Damocles dangling on the head of some key actors whose political parties are in disarray. Thanks to the brinkmanship of key leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose former chairman Vincent Ogbulafor once boasted would rule Nigeria for 60 years, the party has become a gargantuan shadow of itself. The dire condition of the party resulted in the exodus of state governors, former presidential candidates and several bigwigs who felt that the PDP’s political boat may soon capsize.

    Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar who has always treated the PDP like a special purpose vehicle for his presidential ambitions, has already jumped out of the troubled ship. While he has not ported at another political party, perhaps out of fear of the unknown, there are strong indications he may join the African Democratic Congress (ADC), whose leadership has been hijacked by former senate president, David Mark. 

    The governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori, and the entire PDP structure in the state moved over to the All Progressive Congress (APC) in August 2024, a development that shook the PDP. Ten months after, the governor of Akwa Ibom State engineered a wholesome movement of the PDP structure in his state, to the APC. Of course, several other bigwigs have left the old warhorse, for the ADC which many are now taunting as a damp squib, after its abysmal performance in the recently held by-elections across several states.

    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.

    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. 

    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.

    The PDP produced Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, who after eight years of reign handed over to Sullivan Chime. Sullivan after eight years in power handed over to Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who also ruled for eight years. During the reign of the three former governors, the state House of Assembly, the federal House of Representatives and the Senate were dominated by the PDP. The stranglehold on the state was so strong that the contentions for the PDP primaries were more contentious than the general elections that followed. During that era, to be in the good books of the governor and be chosen as the party candidate was the main coronation that party members fought for, not the general election that will follow.

    The domination was so annoying that this column spent considerable space and time canvasing that other parties, should be allowed to breathe. Back then, to contend that the All Progress Congress (APC) should be embraced by politicians was considered a mortal sin. Each time this column comes out with a piece considered favourable to the APC, relations and friends would throw tantrums alleging that one has sold out to haters and hegemonists. The challenge faced by the APC continued even when some big wigs, like former Sullivan Chime, joined the party. 

    But what is commonly called the Peter Obi tsunami untangled the PDP stronghold in a most dramatic manner. Even the amiable immediate former governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, was shellacked, as he could not win his senatorial seat, after completing eight years as governor. Out of the three senatorial zones, PDP got one, while the LP got two. In the House of Representatives, LP got seven out of the eight slots for the state. As for the House of Assembly the PDP won 10, while Labour won 14.  

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    With such a clean sweep, it remained contentious about who really won the governorship race. But with the performance of Governor Mbah as governor, can one say that such upset is now in the distant past? One would have been tempted to say so, if not for the recent success of the LP candidate, in the Enugu South Urban Constituency election. No doubt, Governor Mbah is arguably one of the best performing governors in terms of infrastructure development. Within two years he already has few legacy projects tucked in his sleeves.

    One such legacy project, the International Conference Centre, Enugu, is currently hosting the Nigeria Bar Association Annual General Conference. There are others like the modern bus terminals at strategic places across the states and the CNG buses adorning the state roads in their ecstatic beauty. There is also the Enugu Air, not to talk of the incomparable state security network that has made the state one of the safest destinations in the country. The governor is also reportedly resuscitating the palm oil and cashew industry state owned agro-allied industrial base.

    So, what is responsible for the poor midterm political assessment of the governor by the people of Enugu South Urban Constituency, as shown in the recent reordered election? Again, is that result a reflection of how the ordinary people elsewhere across the state, feel about Governor Mbah, despite his high performance in the development of infrastructure across the state? Furthermore, could the sins of PDP before he took over as governor, be so entrenched and nauseating that it obfuscates the governor’s performance so far?

    There is the unconfirmed rumour that Governor Mbah may move over to the APC in the coming months. This column has written a piece on the similarities between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Peter Mbah, in January this year, titled “Two Ideas Men”.  So, moving over to APC may indeed be helpful to his political future. But he must not do it in such a way to engender a backlash. As we await Mbah’s political manoeuvre, this writer thinks he has two major challenges, which will be explored at another time.

  • Tunji Bello: A witness to history

    Tunji Bello: A witness to history

    Nearly a week after the official handover of the 550-seater architectural masterpiece that is now the Olatunji Bello Auditorium at the Epe Campus of the Lagos State University (LASU) to the officials of the institution, quite a lot has certainly been written about the rare philanthropy of my dear friend and brother, Olatunji Bello, the executive vice chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) to fill a book of tributes. While much of the story has run in bits and parts of which the running threads in the various accounts is the exemplary generosity of the donor, the timeliness and uniqueness of the sacrifice, the public spiritedness that have come to define not just his chequered private and public life, I believe yours truly couldn’t but to preface this piece with an innocuous detail which I consider as bearing the imprimatur of Divine approval on the initiative as yours truly, and my colleague Tunji Adegboyega (Cyclone) undertook the 127-kilometre journey to the venue last Wednesday morning.

    We had arrived at the venue early enough – that is some few minutes after the 10 am kick-off time to meet the venue nearly packed full. It turned out a roll-call of who-is-who in public service and the professions; time to reconnect with old time buddies, friends and colleagues. The governor was there, so also was his deputy, Femi Hamzat, and the chair of the occasion, the minister of education and Tunji’s namesake, Tunji Alausa.   It was in every way, Tunji Bello’s day with past and present Lagos State executive council members represented.

    However, just before the event proper kicked-off, the skies suddenly became pregnant with the foreboding of a possible disruptive rain. Given that the event was an outdoor one, the prospect was somewhat troubling. In fact, the cultural troupe brought in to perform actually staged their performance under the light showers.

    By the way, with yours truly and Cyclone seated in a position that was particularly vulnerable, he on his part couldn’t but wonder aloud if the donor had thought of the minor rite of African logistics of putting the rainmakers on the standby particularly with nearly one-score traditional rulers clad in their traditional regalia seated on the front rows!

    While any thought of such question popping up was not only  bizarre but also late in coming, yours truly could only chuckle that the light showers which had become somewhat threatening at the point could only be a sign of blessing; or better still, a note of approval from the celestial realm which only the discerning could interpret; which probably explains why the blue skies soon after receded to give way to the clear sunny skies that would provide the much needed warmth to the event and thus put the stamp of Divine approval on the exemplary offering from a noble heart!  In the end, it was like the elements had determined that being Tunji Bello’s Day, they would ensure that nothing would be allowed to mar its success.

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    Call it an awesome moment in which the anxieties and not least the endless wonders of the nights, would melt into a beautiful testimony. It was a sight to behold.

    Of course, the story behind the auditorium story is already in the open. So are the lessons. Indeed, the story that began some 14 years as an annual prize in five disciplines of Law, Mass Communications, Social Sciences, Engineering and Medicine for brilliant but indigent students offers great lessons in the power of the small but silent beginning, of commitment and the perseverance to see worthy causes through. For while 14 years might seem like nothing given TB’s blessedness, yet, in a clime where showmanship has become something of popular culture, it is certainly a big deal that the seed of those years has not only survived but thrived. Seen in that context, the 550-seater auditorium would seem a mere icing on the cake, a natural progression of a life constantly in the purpose – an attestation to the character, something in the DNA of the dreamer that is beyond the ordinary.

    To those who somehow conceive of giving as something of a painless art, Tunji would offer two pragmatic counsels: nothing good comes easy; the other, a reminder of the Biblical parable that “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God”.

    For Tunji, the moment came when he had to sell a prized property so the work could go on.

    Also worthy of note is that the project actually predated the vice chancellorship of his dear wife, Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello. In fact, a huge dose of the credit deservedly belongs to her. As Tunji himself is wont to testify, the idea of giving back to the university was originally hers. However, on receiving what could only be the tiny mustard seed, his was to mull on the idea until it found concrete expression in the gigantic project that became the auditorium.

    Call it a divine arrangement: an idea conceived in the womb of our doughty professor being fertilised by the spouse and delivered during her tenure as vice chancellor.  I love the coincidence!

    My colleague, Segun Ayobolu has written on the Tunji Bello phenomenon and the grace of selfless giving just as Tunji Adegboyega has in his Sunday column echoed the same sentiment of the cheerful donor.

    Let me add that the Tunji Bello that I have known since 1986 on the Features Desk of the Concord newspapers actually embodies the truth about giving as life itself! However, while it is no surprise that names like the late Bashorun MKO Abiola and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu feature among those that inspired and continues to inspire him, those close to him, particularly those who have benefitted from his generosity, including yours truly, cannot but testify to the uniqueness of his persona, particularly his innate propensity for charity and charitable causes.

    Let me end this with a simple takeaway: the fact that one does require a big pocket to start giving. I love how Tunji elliptically puts it: If God gives you a dream or an idea, he will somehow avail the means to bring it to accomplishment!

  • Yoked to inanities

    Yoked to inanities

    As in life, as in death: former President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) shut down what might have flared into — and still be — a raging inanity.

    That controversy brewed on July 9, at the launch of Garba Shehu’s book, According to the President: Lesson from a Presidential Spokesman’s Experience.  It was set to grow into a media din — until PMB’s death, in London, England, on July 13, squelched it all.

    The old soldier — in death, as in life — brooked no inane quips, no sundry rants! So, his deployment of what Ripples called “strategic deafness” during his presidency.

    The controversy?  Boss Mustapha’s banger: “When you sum up” what “… gave us victory in 2015, the aggregate of the total vote were 15.4 million votes.  So, … what we brought to the table — the other parties … in the merger — in addition to Buhari’s12.2 million votes, were 3.2 million votes.”

    Armageddon!  Differently phrased, all what the APC merger — read the South West huffing-and-puffing, and flexing of messianic muscles — added to PMB’s 2015 win were barely three million votes, in a 15.4 million haul!  Armageddon!

    Those stung would howl.  Those that sting would smirk.  

    The stung South West: for a wilful diminution of its well — and fairly acclaimed — help to, at last, get PMB across the presidential line.

    But the stinging “North” — of Mustapha, PMB’s second Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF): no retreat, no surrender, Nigerian politics being what it is!

    Still, Ripples cares less about these partisan warriors — inside the same party! — for politicians would be politicians. The worry is the media, which reflex always gets drawn into sterile controversies, while critical issues crave attention.

    In truth, Mustapha’s take was a fib — but not because the “12 million votes” were duds. But without the North-West/South West entente that romped APC into life, PMB would — yet again — have laboured in vain.

    But as the South West came through for PMB in 2015, the North West too came through for PBAT in 2023.  The North East though, got the Vice President. 

    That alliance fired President Bola Tinunbu to power; and may yet gift him an encore in 2027 — never mind the palace conspiracy theories and theorists: by Buharists (read the CPC rogue minority); and BATists (read rash players in the BAT ruling court).  Also add: media “we vs them” commentators, that screech shriller than the bereaved!

    Yes, Mustapha’s “12 million votes” claim was provocative. But that wasn’t his only take. 

    His other take was that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) was building on PMB’s policies and programmes: in infrastructure, in agriculture, and sundry sectors, thus from 2015, breathing fresh life, after the PDP-era paralysis of 16 desert years.

    His exact words: “President Tinubu’s administration has not only retained the momentum of governance reforms, but has introduced bold initiatives that further entrench institutional credibility and fiscal sustainability.”

    This is true: with virtually all-Nigeria now construction sites in roads and rail.  That’s an APC legacy, near-absolutely unknown to the pre-2015 PDP years.

    So, why didn’t this second comment get traction, though it would have neatly juxtaposed the APC era with the PDP epoch?

    Again, that’s ode to inanities: to which both politicians, and the often sensational media, are yoked!  No wonder, a good chunk of public discourse is mere junk.

    Little wonder too, political desperadoes, with annoying “me-too” complexes, and a surfeit of pay-as-you-go analysts, are ever ready to drum “we-are-always-a-hopeless-case” dirges, otherwise known as “nothing is happening”!

    With such merry recourse to fashionable self-ridicule, it’s little surprise that at mid-term, the media gets more drawn to shrill voices that bad-mouth; not crack minds that grind out solutions, to long-term hard problems.

    But back to Mustapha’s sweet-sour takes — twin-hyperboles, though.

    PMB’s “12 million” votes might be statistically correct.  But that they romped him into power is wrong.  Had the South West votes not gifted the required national spread, PMB would still have come short.

    No less hyperbolic was the claim that PBAT was, neat and sweet, deepening the PMB policy regime.  That isn’t true in every material particular.

    PMB was brilliant in infrastructure and agriculture, with near-zero cash, setting up new exciting templates, after the PDP years.  But he wasn’t so brilliant in monetary policy. 

    Indeed, he had little choice outside debt capital because the till was empty.  The PDP-era, of gargantuan steal, had cleaned out the till. Under President Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015), that heist had become an epidemic.

    PBAT, on the other hand, has been sparkling in monetary policy, while maintaining the PMB-era strides in infrastructure, with many legacy projects; but far less glaring in agriculture, though he promises a dramatic upsurge, during the harvest months, 2025.

    The clear elephant in the room, for PBAT, is still the food inflation challenge, though progressive numbers suggest it’s trending down — but not as down as many crave.

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    But these two contrasts build one solid story.  From a suspect monetary policy of its early nativity (2015 to 2023), the APC order, under two presidents, has evolved a far more organic, and certainly, far more coherent and promising economic vista, than anytime during the Obasanjo-led PDP era (1999-2015).

    Yeah, to Nigeria’s brow-beaten citizenry, “reforms” has become a buzz word.  That word, it was, that the Obasanjo lobby waved, as a magic wand, to sell his doomed third term agenda. 

    But unlike the Obasanjo era, these present “reforms” are springing visible projects — roads and rail — aside more reassuring economic numbers.

    Still again, the mighty elephant in the room: reform pains!  These pains condemn the government to rivals’ emotive blackmail.  The pocket still hurts. The belly still rumbles.  That’s the opposition charter, en route 2027 — to milk the people’s misery!

    By fixing PMB-era monetary challenge — which Chukwuma Soludo hyperbolized as a “dead economy” — PBAT has somewhat made the economy potentially more rounded, though traditional progressives continue to rile at his harsh neo-liberal choices, which seem to leave the people — in any case, the most vulnerable — winded and angry.

    On balance though, there would appear a progressive uplift from the PMB years — a rich continuity the ruling order ought to toast, not break into Buharist-BATist free-for-all, as if under opposition curse.

    Proof?  Barely 10 years after PMB’s Lagos-Ibadan-Kano medium gauge rail, PBAT is sighting a bullet train, linked to Lagos-Abuja-Kano; and Abuja-Port Harcourt — in three years!

    That was virtually impossible during the PDP years — except PDP projects as audio tricks (witness the endless stunts pulled on the 2nd Niger Bridge) — even with the Jonathan parting gift of the Abuja-Kaduna rail, which PMB completed and inaugurated.

    So for APC, doesn’t it then make more sense to frame public communication that consolidates its gain from 2015, rather than split hairs between 2015 and 2023?

    Had it done that, it would have taken the wind off the sail of power opportunists, that offer little beyond cheap emotive blackmail.

  • Refining NNPCL fraud

    Refining NNPCL fraud

    A popular definition of insanity arguably attributed to Albert Einstein is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. While in law, insanity exculpates an offender from criminal responsibility since the defender is deemed to be afflicted by severe mental illness at the time of committing the crime. The insanity referred to in this piece, is that of the popular highway. So, could it be that Nigerian leaders are afflicted by insanity, for repeatedly plunging billions of dollars to turn around the moribund NNPCL refineries?

    The last leader afflicted was former president, Muhammadu Buhari, who approved nearly $3 billion for the turnaround maintenance of the NNPCL refineries at Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna. A report by Punch indicates that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is probing the sum of $1,559,084.36 allocated to the Port Harcourt refinery, $740,669,600 spent on Kaduna refinery and the $656,963,939 earmarked for the Warri refinery. Despite the humongous resources expended, the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries barely worked, while Kaduna is still in works.

    President Buhari was not the first to engage in turnaround maintenance of the refineries in recent times.  While the first Port Harcourt refinery was commissioned in 1965, the second one was commissioned in 1989. On its part, the Kaduna refinery was commissioned in 1980, while the Warri refinery was commissioned earlier, in 1978. The refineries which were operating optimally years after commissioning started having challenges, when corruption and politics overwhelmed the turnaround maintenance programs in the 1990s.

    The challenge reportedly arose when the military government of President Ibrahim Babangida, ordered NNPC to transfer its account to the Central Bank of Nigeria. With that, NNPC lost its autonomy, and political interference determined who does the turnaround maintenance, and the release of funds for such technical works. Again, political actors were in position to determine when to do the turnaround maintenance. Available statistics shows that the capacity utilization of the 445,000 capacity refineries plummeted to abysmally low levels following the poor maintenance of the refineries.

    Because of such interference, the turnaround maintenance which ordinarily should be between two to three years, happened only when the political actors wished, or after the refinery has completely packed up, for lack of maintenance.

    After failed turnaround maintenance efforts by the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the majority shares in the refineries were sold to a consortium of Nigeria businessmen, led by Aliko Dangote. The special purpose vehicle known as the Blue Star consortium on May 17, 2007, paid $561 million for 51 percent stake in the Port Harcourt refinery and $160 million for 51 percent stake in Kaduna refinery. Obasanjo sold despite protests by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN). 

    President Musa Yar’Adua who succeeded President Obasanjo wasted no time in cancelling the sale to the popular acclaim of many Nigerians. The civil society groups which alleged that Obasanjo had hidden stakes in the consortium were over the moon that nemesis had caught up with the former president, despite the fact that he handpicked his predecessor. Obasanjo vehemently protested the cancellation, imploring his successor not to succumb to blackmail, since he had done due diligence, before concluding that the refineries were irredeemable in the hands of NNPC.

    The government of Yar’Adua, which was succeeded by President Goodluck Jonathan following the former’s ill-health and death went ahead to spend $396 million in turnaround maintenance of the refineries between 2013 and 2015. President Jonathan, whose government was dismissed as clueless, was succeeded by President Muhammadu Buhari, a former Federal Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources under Gen. Obasanjo’s military government. With a reputation as a no-nonsense former military leader, his promise that the refineries would finally be turned around was taken to the bank by many of his admirers.

    According to media reports which prompted this piece, nearly $3 billion was spent on that mother of all turnarounds. Yet, as my people will say, that thing crying, is still crying. After spending $1.5 billion on turnaround maintenance of the Port Harcourt refinery, the NNPC shut down the plant in May, barely six months after the turnaround, which happened after several years of abandonment. There is no verifiable news whether the so called ‘planned maintenance’ estimated to last one month has ended.

    The Kaduna refinery is reportedly still a work in progress, while the Warri Refinery which started after the turnaround, was shut down over safety concerns in May. There are however conflicting reports as to whether it has restarted again. Instead of exciting results after the humongous expenses, what we are getting is that the EFCC has busted scams committed by the sacked senior officials in the name of the turnaround maintenance. The commission is reported to have recovered N5 billion and $10 million from contractors and government officials.

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    The news report indicates that the commission was working to recover another N10 billion and $13 million linked to bloated contracts by the erstwhile officials. One hopes the economic tragedy associated with the corruption spangled turnaround maintenance of the NNPC refineries would end with the new Board painstakingly assembled by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.  The team inaugurated on April 2, is headed by Engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman. The two major actors had stellar experiences under multi-nationals in the oil industry, and one hopes that would come to play in the slippery terrain of corruption in NNPC.

    Nigerians wait to see, how they would deal with the monster of corruption that turnaround maintenance constitutes in NNPC. Will they like their predecessors give Nigeria the false hope that the refineries would be up and running once billions of dollars are budgeted for their maintenance? Or will they show courage and slay the monster that has caused Nigeria several billions of dollars with nothing to show for it.

    Between 1995 to 2020, Business Day newspaper estimates that about $25 billion has been spent on turnaround maintenance of the three refineries in Nigeria. To compound the near worthlessness of our refineries now, the man who led the Blue Star consortium to pay for the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries in 2007, has gone ahead to build a private 650,00 barrels per day capacity refinery at a total cost of $19 billion.

    This column has confidence in the competence of President Tinubu to understand and analyse the challenges facing the NNPC refineries. As a political leader, the challenge will be what he will make of the contending monster of political factors which many times trump sane economic decisions. Will the oil industry trade unions, the National Assembly and the presidency, show courage, and slay the monster of corruption that the NNPC refineries have become?

  • Canada and Nigeria’s wayward children

    Canada and Nigeria’s wayward children

    In a country where many would not hesitate to sell their country for a morsel of bread, the case of Nigeria’s Douglas Egharevba, whose asylum petition was rejected by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), would ordinarily have numbered among the unlucky dip from the pool of those known to have filed baseless claims of ‘persecution’ and ‘primitive cultural practices’ against our beloved country. 

    However, with the Federal Court in Canada upholding an earlier decision of Canadian Immigration Appeal Division (IAD), which had earlier on denied him asylum, our dear country seems to have arrived at the point where the harvest of daily indiscretions by errant nationals have finally berthed in kind of judicial monstrosity that would not have been associated with so-called developed countries at normal times.

    I refer here to the ratio decidendi advanced by the court for the decision.

    First, the court found issue with Egharevba’s membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Peoples Congress (APC) (sic). Second, it agreed with the IAD that the PDP in particular, engaged in conduct amounting to terrorism and subversion of democratic institutions. And third, that the PDP were perpetrators of political violence, intimidation, and subversion and were protected being the governing party in power during the elections.

    The PDP, it also averred, conducted unlawful acts such as ballot-stuffing, ballot box snatching, intimidation, violence, and murder of opposition supporters and candidates in the elections, and that the party had knowledge of the crimes committed by members and supporters but apparently did nothing to discipline its members or discourage violent and subversive practices, noting that the use of political violence was a long-standing feature of the PDP!

    And finally, that the rank and file of the PDP, to which the petitioner had admitted to its membership, was vicariously liable for the violence and subversion of Nigeria’s process, thus rendering the applicant inadmissible in Canada!

    Nigerians, understandably have been fulminating against this novelty of a trial under which a political party that was not even remotely a nominal party was found guilty of terrorism and subversion and those deemed to have associated with it condemned to suffer its dire consequences, and this in immigration proceedings!

    “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”; so says the holy writ.

    Like many of our compatriots, our dear national may have in the moment of a desperate struggle escape Nigeria’s Titanic thought little of the dire consequences of munching sour grapes. Now, his teeth and perhaps those of the rest of us are condemned to the edge!

    For a story that began nearly eight years ago, the judgment must have come as dramatic, unwanted, if not entirely unimaginable, twist.

    It began in September 2017, when our man, Douglas Egharevba, filed an inland refugee claim. The Background Declaration Form which he completed had stated that he was a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from December 1999 until December 2007. He claimed to have ported, thereafter to the All People’s Congress [APC] in December 2007 and remained in the party till May 2017.

    (Note that the APC was never at any time known as All People’s Congress but All Progressives Congress; in any case, the party was not formed in 2007 when the applicant was said to have joined but in 2013). 

    Anyway, he was referred to a Canadian Border Services Agency [CBSA] to determine his admissibility to Canada. A year later, in September 2018, he would make his appearance before a CBSA officer. Although the official would in January 2019, declare him inadmissible to Canada on the grounds of being a member of PDP, an organization which in the opinion of the immigration official, had engaged in ‘acts of subversion against a democratic government, institution, or process and engaged in terrorism, based on his earlier affirmation of membership of the PDP’, the Immigration Division [ID] would, nonetheless determine that the applicant, Egharevba, was not subject to inadmissibility under the relevant provisions of the Canadian law.

    That reprieve turned out to be temporary. Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness immediately took the matter to the Immigration Appeal Division (IAD). In the end, the ID decision was overturned.

    Next, Egharevba turned to the court for judicial review. Well, it came on June 17, when Canada’s Justice Phuong T.V. Ngo affirmed the judgment of the (IAD). Notably, the judge also found Egharevba’s membership of the PDP alone as sufficient to make him inadmissible to Canada under paragraph 34(1)(f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) – in what could arguably be the most expansive, if not egregious rendition of the doctrine of vicarious responsibility in modern jurisprudence. 

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    Like most Nigerians, I join in the outrage on the simple ground that the law needed not be an ass as the Canadian court would have us accept. And just like one commentator noted, the decision wasn’t just an immigration one; it was in every sense a political one, very pregnant, with the consequences so dire that the Nigerian government will do good to pay attention. Yet, to the extent that the judgment purports to put the entire political system to trial, the pronouncements, with all due respect, smacks of a jurisdictional overreach.

    The other equally troubling part of the judgment is the imputation of guilt by mere association and this in the absence of any specific charge, particularly against the applicant in the aftermath of the court already deeming the PDP’s sins as treasonable and so, unforgiveable. It explains why the Canadian court would cite a specious interpretation of ‘terrorism’ and ‘violence’ to validate what could only be a strange decision. That is absolutely unnecessary. Surely, the Canadians can make their immigration decisions without pulling the roofs over the heads on everyone or as in this particular case, (mis)appropriating the frustrations of the citizens with the electoral process for purposes that are not entirely altruistic. It is neither helpful nor right.

    For while the Nigeria’s electoral system is certainly far from perfect, its greatest critics are by far Nigerians themselves.

    This takes us to the deeper question of how Nigerians, caught in the vortex of immigration challenges, would not hesitate to throw their country under the bus. Surely, the Egharevba story is only one out of many. As it is, the real story behind the movement from the PDP to APC only to end up as fodder for an asylum bid in faraway Canada will most likely remain untold. So it is for other countless asylum applicants known to have sought asylum for variety of reasons ranging from female genital mutilation (circumcision) even where the cultural practice no longer exist, to the Boko Haram insurgency even when those filing the claims have never in their lives crossed to the other side of River Niger! In all of these, the end is supposed to justify the means.

     Thanks to the global strongman, Donald J. Trump, assumptions about immigration are fast-changing as the myths that have sustained them have been whittling. Across the globe, things are no longer at ease. For while the grass may be greener outside, the pathway to that other side has continued to narrow.

    For the Canadian court, the terrorism tag on the PDP goes beyond a ratio decidendi of convenience; more like a symbolic invitation for Nigerians to take note. 

  • Rude staff, wild clients

    Rude staff, wild clients

    Rude operators, wild patrons — that about captured the August 5 and 10 hurly-burly on the aviation front.  In that uppity travel sector, there’s no saint across the aisle.

    Which must have forced Festus Keyamo, SAN, Aviation and Aerospace Development minister, to wave the white flag of no victor, no vanquished; and shut down the ugly saga. 

    Smart or dumb? The jury is still out!

    Still, even the most critical of Keyamo’s intervention would admit this one: but for his neat resolution, that gripping plot — from KWAM 1’s brash suicide bid of August 5, to Comfort Emmanson’s inelegant brawl of August 10 — was set for another drawn-out rumpus, on which emotional scammers had perched. 

    But Keyamo imposed his white-flag denouement, and a hot dispute sizzled into a final angry — if reluctant — hiss!

    Indeed, Keyamo’s quick thinking seems reminiscent of the Biblical Solomon and the two harlots.  Solomon won the first of his wisdom stripes, with two feuding harlots and two babies; one dead, the other alive. 

    The harlot that crushed her baby in reckless sleep wanted the living baby cut in equal halves — as King Solomon had baited.  But the compassion in the other, whose baby lived, would hear none of that crass infanticide.

    Solomon the Wise spotted a cynical and malicious campaign. Pronto, he awarded the baby to the rightful mother; and told her spiteful rival to go bury hers.  Case closed!

    By the Solomon (sorry, Keyamo!) “judgment”, KWAM 1, that — horror of horrors! — stood before a taxiing ValueJet plane, to block it from take-off, became the ValueJet Ambassador on Tarmac Security.

    Emmanson, fierce “Taekwando” Queen, that screamed, punched, kicked and slapped, to resist arrest for alleged violent in-flight misconduct, on board Ibom Air Uyo-Lagos flight, became the Ibom Air Ambassador on Good Cabin Conduct.

    Cynical wisdom, ala Keyamo?  Maybe!

    But it took Keyamo, like King Solomon schooling the two harlots on basic psychology, to spit it out: their excellencies, the “Ambassadors”, were tagged with each offended airline, to serve as community penance: to self-rebuke for their earlier faults! And neither perk nor pay for that service — more of elegant servitude!

    Might we then say Keyamo read well our fractious and infantile polity, with supposed adults ever-ready to play the child, to have one over the other foe, real or imagined?

    It was clear, had the kerfuffle drawn on, not a few had primed themselves to grind political capital from this twin-affront: of baiting airline staff and bawling passengers.

    The ever-droning Peter Obi, for one, unfazed master of populist inanity, had already blared on X: “The poor must not be punished while the powerful walk free”.

    That already insinuated some close cabal cruelly stewing Emmanson for her violent behaviour, but senerading KWAM 1 for something no less outrageous.  Yet, there was no solid evidence: other than KWAM 1 being the informal presidential palace bard; and the president, in Obi-speak, must cover up his own, evidence or no evidence!

    In fairness to Obi though, the context of the tweet was much more conciliatory, if mischief can cohabit with genuine conciliation.  But had he resisted his penchant to rush to comment before thinking things through, he would have realized the Keyamo intervention was along the lines he suggested. 

    But you bet! Some Obidient zealots would crow: but for Obi, Keyamo wouldn’t have resolved the crisis as he wisely did.  Such populist fiction gifts Obi political oxygen!

    Then, Oby Ezekwesili, the famed Madam Due Process of the non-due process Olusegun Obasanjo presidential era, also weighed in, with tad any due process!

    Bawling “double standards” and galloping into the fray like some furious moral sheriff, she painted KWAM 1 as the unconscionable giant; and Emmanson, the helpless dwarf, in Nigeria’s evil system, which Angel Oby must smash, with the “99%” Nigerians under peonage; versus the “one percent” ruling class, insufferable and irredeemable!

    What drama!  But it was built on nothing but conspiracy theories powered by frothy emotions and bubbly mischief.  Still, Oby’s melodrama took a brief back seat with her admission that the young woman’s “behaviour also raised concerns”!

    That’s the point, though.  Emmanson’s landing in Kirikiri was on her: her own violent conduct, openly seen by all, though hardly anyone saw the cabin crew provocation that elicited that temporary insanity.

    But like Obi, it’s Oby’s recent penchant too to — without due process! — jump into matters, in her hot ardour to play the moral police.  First, it was the Anambra teen that forged JAMB results to claim she had a stellar outing. 

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    Then, the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Senate saga, into which Oby jumped, decreed the guilty party — even with the first court verdict finding against her feminist hauteur.   Yet, she goes on with laughable bluff. It’s that huff and bluff she has taken to this case.

    No tears for both KWAM 1 and Emmanson, though.  Both had it coming.

    What the hell was KWAM 1 thinking, planting himself before a moving plane?  Did he think the fearsome Ijebu “jazz” — as the Igbo call it — would save him from wilful suicide? 

    Or as a mischievous fellow gruffed: was it the “Abobaku” complex in him, now that his Awujale of 65 years just passed?  If KWAM 1 by this has become a butt of cruel, rib-cracking jokes, he had it coming!

    Still, between KWAM 1 and Comfort Emmanson, whose violent conduct was no comfort to her case, there were clear differences — as everyone saw.

    The worst that could have happened to KWAM 1 was self-perdition, though it could also have blighted the plane pilots; caused passenger trauma, and fetched the airline  a huge bad press.  That explained the temporary suspension of the ValueJet pilots.

    But Ms Emmanson’s rabid violence was a disgrace to womanhood.  Even more rebuke was her reflex ire, knowing her dressing was, ab initio, compromised.  Lo!  How would a bra-less girl get into a graceless scuffle, yet moan and cry at the horrible result?

    That feral aggression, un-lady-like as it was stunning, railroaded her to Kirikiri, not some fictive class divide.  Her indecent exposure too, regrettable as that was, issued from her incomplete dressing.  Yet, had she stayed calm, the struggle to bundle her out of the cabin wouldn’t have arisen.

    Good thing Emmanson was reported to have shown open remorse, at the dock, when the chips were down.  Our Comfort should take great comfort from that, learn true lady-like restraint, and shun these hypocritical voices trying to goad her further astray.

    Still, three incidents: the Adam Oshiomhole showdown with Air Peace, KWAM 1 scuffle with ValueJet and the Emmerson rumble with Ibom Air, have shown a trend: the airlines, though they charge a leg and an arm, almost always treat their long-suffering patrons with scorn and infuriating condescension.

    For the growth of Nigerian domestic aviation, that should not be allowed to continue.  That dovetails into another wise Keyamo call: industry-wide retreat to retool and re-school these air staff in handling tacky air customers.

  • Remembering our doyenne

    Remembering our doyenne

    Twenty-two analogue years ago, on February 1, 2003, or thereabouts, I wrote for one of the newspapers a piece welcoming Dr Hamidat Doyinsola Abiola (HDA, hereafter) to my demographic neighbourhood on her 60th birthday, little knowing that she had actually preceded me to the precinct.

    When she turned 80 some three years ago, her status as the doyenne of the Nigerian Press (I use that old-fashioned term advisedly) was affirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari in a stirring birthday tribute.  Asiwaju Bola and Senator Remi Tinubu called her a valued friend and associate in advancing progressive causes. Dele Alake and Tunji Bello, who had served under her as editors for the Concord newspapers, called her, reverentially, “our Editor-in-Chief.”

    It is in the latter category that HDA’s renown will reverberate down the ages.

    Her last address was the sprawling Concord Newspaper Group where she presided as Editor-in-Chief and chief operating officer.  At its height, the Group boasted six titles in its stable, and had on its staff some of the best-known Nigerian journalists. 

    In its reach and efficiency, its distribution network was unsurpassed.  If just one newspaper was on the newsstand in the most far-flung corners of Nigeria on any given day, it had to be one of the Group’s titles.

    In a male-dominated industry, leading such a conglomerate was no mean task.  But HDA played that role for years and carried along a team comprising members of perhaps the most querulous occupational group in Nigeria.

    It helped that she was the wife of Concord publisher, Chief Moshood Abiola, but it took much more than that to stay at the top of the game.  HDA did not just walk into the role. Long years of academic and professional immersion had prepared her for it.

    Graduating from the University of Ibadan in the 1960s, HDA entered journalism as a writer and columnist for the Daily Sketch, in Ibadan.  From there she went on to the Daily Times as part of the pioneering graduate team that its visionary leader, Babatunde Jose, had recruited to raise its intellectual appeal to match the appetite of an audience that had grown much more sophisticated than the leading newspaper of the day.

    It was in keeping with that programme that the Daily Times sponsored HDA for doctoral studies at the State University of New York, in Buffalo, in upstate New York.  Before that, she had earned a Master’s degree from the highly regarded journalism programme at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison, Wisconsin.

    With the communication doctorate under her belt, the first by a Nigerian woman, she returned to Nigeria and served on the Editorial Board of the Daily Times, which Dr Stanley Macebuh had transformed from a routine expedient to the newspaper’s cranium.

    Then, Moshood Abiola and the Concord Newspapers happened, in the aftermath of the 1979 General Elections.  HDA relocated uptown from Kakawa, to Ikeja, the operating base of the Concord Group, shortly thereafter becoming editor of its flagship title, The National Concord.

    The Concord Group unapologetically pulled for President Shehu Shagari and the ruling NPN, despite their unpopularity in places where Nigeria’s core newspaper readership resided.  Abiola’s endorsement of sharia grated against the sensibilities of Christians, leading some church officials to order a boycott of the Concord titles. 

    Moshood Abiola was also widely regarded as an apologist for the military regime. That did little to enhance the standing of the Concord titles.

    Through it all, HDA kept the newspapers in a stable, holding pattern. She came into her own when Moshood Abiola severed his links with the ruling party and became a less strident proselytizer.  The Concord newspapers grew in appeal and respect.

    A far greater challenge lay ahead.

    It came when Moshood Abiola entered the 1993 presidential race and won the presidential ticket of one of the two officially recognized political parties, the Social Democratic Party, SDP.

    Like the rest of the private press, the Concord newspapers saw through the duplicity of Babangida’s political transition programme and took a leading role in exposing it.  The regime exacted a heavy price.  A banning order put its weekly newsmagazine African Concord out of circulation permanently.

    The Concord titles were handed a separate banning order along with The Guardian and the Punch during the debacle confected to prevent Moshood Abiola from being declared winner of the 1993 presidential election.  When the ban was lifted after a year, the operating climate had become unsustainable.  The Concord titles limped on for a while, shadows of what they once were.  Then, they expired.

    Abiola’s struggle to claim his electoral mandate thrust HDA into a role for which nothing had prepared her:  spouse of an embattled president-elect fighting for his life under a brutal military regime, and editor-in-chief and chief operating officer of her husband’s mass-circulation newspaper.

    In the Abiola household, there was an unspoken but clear division of labour among the wives. Kudirat Abiola was the popular face of NADECO, the umbrella organization of progressive elements campaigning to retrieve Abiola’s mandate;  outgoing, outspoken, and defiant right up to the moment she was gunned down in broad daylight by government-sponsored assassins on her way to yet another strategy meeting on how to retrieve the June 12 mandate.

    The thoroughly apolitical and sedate but engaging Adebisi Abiola kept the home front humming.

    HDA was the intellectual face of the struggle, the discreet mobilizer who maintained and used effectively a network of influential persons in Nigeria and abroad.  She brought to this task acute political intelligence, a cosmopolitan outlook, a steely disposition, and mastery of the emerging communication technology. 

    At the height of the annulment crisis, she prepared — full disclosure: I assisted in the effort — a monthly newsletter on the political situation in Nigeria she sent to key officials of the United Nations, the United States, the Organization of African Unity, and the Commonwealth.  From the feedback, we were satisfied that the effort was not wasted.

    The June 12 struggle took a fearsome toll on HDA.  Kudirat’s assassination was a clear signal that nothing and nobody was off-limits in General Sani Abacha’s desperate plot to foist his brutish rule on the nation.  The regime’s officials kept her under suffocating surveillance.  They drew her into enervating mind games.

    Not long after Kudirat’s assassination, a bullet issuing from an undetermined origin would have struck HDA on the head right in her living room at the Abiola Residence in Opebi, had she not shifted her position some two minutes earlier.

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    The stakes were prohibitive.  HDA was as vulnerable as a sitting duck. Yet her resolve was unshaken.  She helped keep the struggle alive until the President-elect was done to death, very conveniently across the coffee table from a United States delegation visiting ostensibly to facilitate his release from the military regime’s custody.

    Nor did HDA confine her exertions to the Boardroom or political networking.  She imparted her knowledge, skills, and insights to journalism students at the University of Lagos, among other institutions.  She deployed her resources and her influence to promote worthy causes nationwide.  A generation of Nigerian women counted her as a role model.

    HDA’s sacrifice in the epic struggle for democracy has not been officially acknowledged, much less honoured.  Recognition has instead flowed to fringe actors, and even to some who did everything in their power to subvert the will of Nigeria’s sovereign electors.  Her entry into the eighth decade of her life provided an opportunity to redress this neglect.  They fluffed it.

    I feared that something was amiss when I heard nothing from her after my tribute on her 80th birthday, on which I drew for this piece, was published.  My anxiety deepened when my phone  calls to her Lagos and London coordinates went unanswered, time and again.  It was so unlike the punctilious doyenne, an embodiment of the social graces.

    Dr Hamidat Doyinsola Abiola died two weeks ago following a protracted illness, her life fulfilled and her place in Nigeria’s intellectual history assured.

    Hail and farewell.

    It remains for the Federal Government to honour her immense contributions to the struggle            for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, the advancement of women’s rights and media professionalism, not forgetting her discreet philanthropy, with the posthumous conferment                                of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) or a higher distinction

    •Dare contributed this piece from Caledonia, Michigan, USA.

  • Ikokore sensation

    Ikokore sensation

    Ikokore?  Yes, that’s ethnic Ijebu stuff.  Classic pan-Ijebu cuisine!

    That delicacy made news at the 20th Ilese-Ijebu community gala, formally Ilese Day: 20th Annual Convocation of Ilese-Ijebu people.  Its one-week celebration climaxed at the weekend, spanning August 8-10.

    The Ijebu, Yoruba sub-ethnics, are mainly in Ogun State, with their metropolitan capital of Ijebu Ode, which just lost its monarch of 65 years; and their atavistic roots, in Ijebu Igbo.  The Ijebu are spread out in other famous towns and a network of proud villages. 

    Also, their Remo cousins: spread over Sagamu, the Remo head town, Iperu, home town of Governor Dapo Abiodun, and Ikenne, the glorious nativity of the eternal Obafemi Awolowo, the most rigorous politician — so far — in Nigerian history, among others.

    But the ethnic Ijebu, whose lingo bears uncanny similarities to the Itsekiri of Delta, are also native to Ikorodu and Epe (the Epe township and its outlying areas of Eredo: Odo Ayan, with its famous market, Mojoda; Odoragunsen, Ibonwon, etc), now carved under the Eredo LCDA in Lagos State.

    Ikokore is as central to the Ijebu fun-loving palate, as Agemo, the pan-Ijebu cult and yearly conclave, is central to the Ijebu traditional spirituality.

    The Ikokore cooking contest had always been integral to Ilese Day, as it took off in its current format, 20 years ago, in 2005.  So, this year’s news lay less in the delicacy itself but in the winner of the contest.

    Enter: Goodluck Abidemi, 14, a Junior Secondary School (JSS 2) student, who the Ikokore gourmet-judges crowned over three far elderly ladies, whose forte is the kitchen.  It was nothing short of sensational, as the hall quaked in a thunderclap of cheers!

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    Abidemi was classical news oddity, albeit a very pleasant one. How a 14-year-old boy would beat three women, veterans of the kitchen, to the Ikokore prize, beat everyone!  Should the contest not have been a shoo-in for the ladies?

    Then, the teen chef’s Ikokore story, which also bucked the trend: his motivation came from his father, not his mother! 

    Pop-eyed, he had always watched his dad turn cold, grated water-yam paste, into a steaming, seasoning-rich, palm oil wonder-broth. That sizzling bubble not only always enthralled the nose, it also condemned the tummy to a pleasant rumble and grumble! 

    What’s more?  Hot Ikokore is best eaten with that Nigerian staple eba, when it’s as cold as the morning dew!

    But Abidemi’s win, aside linking a fledgling teen to his deep Ijebu roots, and a putative future promise as exciting chef, if he hones his potential with quality education, epitomized the crux of this year’s celebration: the town’s youth as centre of its future.

    Yes, the town’s monarch, the Elese, Oba Oluremi Obayomi, launched a N200 million palace fencing project, to better secure a tony palace within its vast grounds; and the Asiwaju Ilese, Kunle Kalejaye, SAN, who the Elese coronated at the 19th home-coming in 2024, was in charge of affairs, the focus this year was pretty much the youth.

    The rather self-effacing Otunba Sola Mogaji remains boss of the Ilese Day Planning Committee.  But Adeniyi Adeiku, one of the town’s many young Turks, is now general secretary, Ilese Development Council (IDC), which mandate gives Ilese Day its yearly life.

    Adeiku’s IDC 2024/2025 report, spanned key development areas as primary health care, education, security, community relations, and street lighting, among general infrastructure — particularly of the three-kilometre Ilese main stretch, since developed into a broad dual drive-way, with a befitting median.

    A road that hitherto powders into a riot of dust, as the carnival floats strutted their stuff, is now a smooth tar, with night solar street-lighting to boot! This Light-Up Ilese project, is courtesy local politicians:  Foluso Badejo, chair, Ijebu North East Local Government and Oriyomi Ajoke Adeiye, councilor representing Ward 8, Ilese, at the council, both proud home boys.

    The council, courtesy its “home boy” chairman, has also built a new health post, to cater for the town’s expansive primary health needs.  That shows a community that considers its youth a future to treasure, but not also neglecting its senior folks.

    But nothing perhaps captured this youth-centric focus more than the trio serenaded at the 2025 yearly awards.

    The most dramatic of the three was Samuel Badekale.  He graduated from the University of Lagos, in Cell Biology and Genetics, in 2024.  With a “perfect” 5.0 cumulative GPA, he was not only the best graduated student in the Sciences, he was also UNILAG’s best performer for 2024.

    For that rare feat, Governor Abiodun snapped him up as the Ogun State Education Ambassador.  A year later, he was serenaded native, in whom Ilese was well pleased!

    The other merit awardees were Prof. Olalekan Bello, a professor of Health Education and veteran academic and Dr. Shafiu Ademola, a scion of one of the Ilese ruling houses, and first, from Ijebu North East local government, to have earned a PhD in Nursing, specializing in maternal and child health, aside sundry garlands, across multi-disciplinary sectors.

    It’s not clear if the three academic-leaning awardees were happenstance.  But they gave a clear message: education and sundry quality training are the clear future.  Asiwaju Kalejaye said that much at the final day rally.  It’s the Ilese 2025 gospel to its youth — and just as well!

    But should any doubt remain, the yearly Baba Ijo Education Support and Grant, set the records straight.  The scholarship scheme is endowed by Chief Rufus Odusanya, the Baba Ijo of Ilese Christians, and a retired director of the Federal Ministry of Education.

    The Baba Ijo made it known to all that though he was going nowhere soon, the yearly scholarship would continue even after his death.

    This year, that scholarship will benefit 25 pupils, spanning primary school, Junior Secondary School (JSS) and Senior Secondary School (SSS).

    The scholarship also told its own story: of Ilese as an equal-opportunity community.  Though the sponsor is Christian, the scheme is open to all.  Beneficiaries come from all faiths, and all schools, Christian or Muslim, so long as the child demonstrates merit.

    What’s more?  It’s non-discriminatory.  It doesn’t matter where the child’s parents come from, in any part of Nigeria: so long as the family is domiciled in the Ilese community, and the child is brilliant.  The only criterion is merit, well proven.

    By that, Ilese appears blind, deaf and dumb to base and divisive sentiments, the forte of political charlatans and sundry demagogues.  In own corner, it strives to build a merit-driven ethos, as model for the greater Nigeria.

    Twenty years on, what would Ilese be?  From its progress these past 20 years, hope is rife it would likely not only attain most of its developmental goals, it’s also propping up competent youths to drive its next generation.

    That should be cheery news to the Elese, Oba Obayomi, the Asiwaju Ilese, and the rest of the natives that always put together this wonderful yearly homecoming.

    Who knows?  That Ikokore wonder boy might well be among the future elite, driving the town to its next level!