Category: Sanya Oni

As would be expected, just about every Nigerian, who claims to know a thing or two about the arcane subject of quartiles, deciles and percentiles have not only condemned the Nigerian Labour Force Survey (NLFS) released last week by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), they have also pronounced on its implausibility. If there is one moment when a national institution chose to mess things up when rigour and hard thinking was expected; when a lead agency of government abdicated its sacred responsibility to guide the leaders at a time of grave national crisis, the latest survey report would be it. Hiding under the cover of global best practices as ‘decreed’ by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the body went on a voyage of fantasy even without as much a concern for the relevance or the validity of its work. It is certainly a sad day that highly resourced institution like the NBS would contemplate an activity that would in the end be deemed unproductive.

Understandably, much of the focus has been on the unemployment rate which the NBS puts at 4.1 percent; down from a record 33 percent – a statistical wonder in a country where some 133 million citizens are said to be multi-dimensionally poor. Recall that the NBS only last November affirmed that 63 per cent of Nigerians were poor due to a lack of access to health, education, living standards, employment, and security.

More than that however, Nigerians should equally pay attention to the other issues provoked in the wake of the release of the survey. In fact, the issue, as it is increasingly turning out, would seem as much about the NBS’ understanding of the sociology of unemployment as a subject, its integrity as an institution as it is about its fidelity to the national cause.

Yes, every institution that ought to have spoken have lent their voices. The Nigerian Labour Congress, the employers’ body, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria etc. Their conclusion appears to be the same: not only has the NBS goofed, it would take a body quartered in the moon to produce the farce said to be the labour force report!

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In all of these however, none came anywhere near the well-reasoned intervention of the former Statistician-General of Federation/Chief Executive Officer of the bureau, Dr. Yemi Kale. First, he let it be known that the pressure to change the methodology was certainly not new; that it was something he experienced as helmsman of the institution. Secondly, that he was able to resist the pressure apparently convinced that the nation’s greater cause was better served using the old method. Thirdly, that whereas the ILO could have valid reasons to seek a change in how its unemployment figures are computed, the project – the change in methodology, that is – neither make sense in the context of the nation’s current realities nor could be said to constitute its priority.

To borrow his exact words: “I resisted (to change the model for unemployment methodology) for 10 years because it did not make any sense in terms of providing the information that our policymakers need.

Indeed, if the former NBS helmsman understood the methodology in the strict sense of the premium placed on its global comparability, far more concerning to him, it would appear, was the issue of their relevance and their implications for policy in a country yearning to address a crisis long acknowledged as having reached a tipping point.

 “But policymakers can’t use it, and I must repeat that the most important use of data is to provide information for policy not for international comparison,” he had further noted.

Now, that was from an individual who ran the agency for a decade.

The question we must insist on finding an answer is – what has changed? The story out there is that the new rate “aligns with the rates in other developing countries where work, even if only for a few hours and in low-productivity jobs, is essential to make ends meet, particularly in the absence of any social protection for the unemployed”.

The other argument is that “it also bears close semblance with the figures in neighbouring countries- Ghana (3.9 per cent), Niger (0.5 per cent) Chad (1.4 per cent) and Cameroun (4.0 per cent).

And then the blathers from one Ibrahim Wakili, the NBS’s head of communication and public relations department who chose to go for the messenger rather than the message: “In my 30 years of service, he is the worst ever, and the youngest served statistician-general we ever had. Everything was crippled, not even light in the office. The money the government spent on NBS, we did not see anything”, he had said of Kale. Imagine a supposed image maker of a government institution indulging in such crude reductionism on a raging public policy issue!  (The NBS has since issued a disclaimer).

The issues are certainly far less of a technicalese than what the NBS sophistry could ever seek to conceal. I imagine that those NBS fellows do not live in the moon; otherwise they would have resisted the absurdity of that broad classification of a one-hour work a week as an acceptable threshold to make the status ‘employed’. Had the typically bored fellows in the NBS bothered or cared to find out, they would have discovered that there is no such thing as hourly wage in Nigeria that could be compared with those that the ILO would seek to pair on its global comparability. Not Ghana, Togo or wherever.  And if the big guns in NBS must know, their institution exists to serve Nigeria and Nigerians; it is not an outpost of the ILO from whom justifications must at all times be sought!

If Nigerians are not, by now, sufficiently alarmed by the unceasing onslaughts and the wholesale de-legitimisation of our institutions by the supporters of those yet to come to terms with their electoral losses, it can only be on account of the entertaining value of the hare-brained delinquency being daily exhibited by those dwellers of the parallel, virtual universe of the Net-dom.  With the development of the past few days however, Nigerians must begin to ask themselves whether enough would ever be enough for that throng of atavistic folks for whom it is either their way or hell’s highway.

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Thanks to the still bitter partisan atmosphere, we have seen those traditional dividing walls between the good versus the bad, virtue versus vice, morality versus amorality, believing versus the disbelieving, not only shrink to the point of being nearly unrecognisable, a generation defined only by entitlement as opposed to knowledge may have been thrust into the mainstream of our political life while the rest of the orderly society barely took notice. Now, they are everywhere; whereas the EndSARS and the associated tragedy may have been the moment of their revelation, the 2023 general elections would supply the crown to their infamy.

Defined more by anger and unreasoned rage, they are the opposition army opportunistically split into the two camps of Atikulates or Obidients. Unafraid to unleash the awesome power of the social media – potentially the most lethal weapon invented since civilisation came upon humanity – the two separate armies like the proverbial wrecking ball, have certainly been at work to do maximum damage to the polity and society.

In their post-truth world, nothing is given, let alone held as sacrosanct. That an election was held and a clear winner emerged under rules that are neither spurious nor ambiguous was not their problem; it was sufficient that the first runner-up wants the winner disqualified so he could be handed the trophy; as for the second runner-up, he says he won the election on the strength of the supervotes in Abuja, the seat of the federal government and so it must be. If Nigerians were initially fed with the garbage that votes tally, between the polling units and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) was the problem, the cases filed in court which alluded to nothing of the sort, would ordinary pass for the scam of the century! But then, what does it matter?

The wheels of course have turned full cycle for the two groups co-joined in their worlds of mischief, rascality, and alternative reality. From denying that February 25 never happened let alone its clear, emphatic and unassailable outcomes, to impugning not just the process but the character of the electoral umpire and its leadership when that failed, the speed have been turning in such rapidity as to leave Nigerians breathless.

Yes, at some point, the group and their paymasters, in some bizarre twist of spurious inventiveness, even attempted to fly the interim government kite all in the bid to scuttle an already concluded process. And when that also failed to fly – and that failure was spectacular – they brought in their palace seers, false prophets who would decree that May 29, will not be. Of course, that date came and passed without incidents to their shame!

And now finally that the rest of us await the final stage of the process to run their full course(s) as prescribed by law, elements in the group, sworn to ensure that this happens only on their terms, have resorted to the most venal and destructive tactics.

From twisting the submissions of counsels in the crude Goebellian tradition to the skewed reportage of proceedings, we are finally at the point where guns are literally trained on the heads of  judges adjudicating on the presidential election petitions. Imagine judges being routinely hounded and ridiculed as some would of common felons with all manners of invectives poured on them for no crime other than their acceptance to sit on the electoral panel!  The whole idea, I suppose is to browbeat them into delivering judgments deemed favourable to them.

What else have we not seen? The other day, one Umar Sani, a Twitter user, without any basis, claimed that Boloukuoromo Ugo, a justice of the court of appeal, had withdrawn his membership of the presidential election petition panel. The faceless (?) Sani even claimed that the judge, in his resignation letter, stated that he was asked to “cripple the independence of the judiciary” by ruling in favour of a certain political candidate!

“Justice Ugo’s resignation has caused a serious uproar and a setback to the activities of the presidential election petition court,” Sani would claim in the tweet that soon after went viral.

This came barely 48 hours after, one Jackson Ude, who would later become a star cast in the crude and dangerous gambit, would falsely and most maliciously report that the president spoke with Olukayode Ariwoola, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), on the pending presidential election petition.

None of these of course happened as the National Judicial Council and the Supreme Court would later put out – save perhaps in the twisted minds of their purveyors; yet, it was nonetheless sufficient for the warrior tribe in the netizens to run with, convinced without a scintilla of proof, that the cases, still under adjudication was as good as compromised. 

Talk of Jackson Ude and his mindless muckraking, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, former Lagos State governor and some lawyers of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he would also go on to allege, were writing a judgement the ruling party intends to hand over to an unnamed judge sitting on the electoral petition. And also that, the most distinguished Justice Mary Peter-Odili, retired justice of the supreme court, was, “negotiating a pathway for President Bola Tinubu” and that “she meets regularly with Appeal and Supreme Courts” in that regard.

Of course, there are countless others, although not so brazen, all over town selling their noxious stuff in what is supposed to be an appeal to the conscience of the justices. In all, the underlying message is not for the jurists to do justice according to the evidence and the law, but on such other grounds that those behind the enterprise would deem acceptable.

Lest I forget, there are, already mementoes and other memorabilia with such texts emblazoned demanding the poor jurists to do justice by rules unknown to established norms of jurisprudence being parcelled out as gifts to the undiscerning public!

To borrow a familiar analogy: first, they came for Mahmood Yakubu, the world class academic and chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but no one came to his rescue; then they went after clerics whose theologies offered different perspectives to theirs; again no one offered a word in their defence; now that they are making a mince-meat of the revered institution of the judiciary, no one is even feigning to lose sleep! Unfortunately, in choosing to take on the duo of Fashola and Justice Peter-Odili, Ude or whatever he calls himself, may have murdered sleep! As they say among the country-folks, every day for the thief…

Solomon in his wisdom wanted to find out who the mother of the child truly was. He had a dilemma for the two women who claimed the child was theirs. Back then there was no DNA test so this could only be solved through unusual wisdom. Solomon said to bring out a knife and attempt to kill the baby. Whoever truly owned the baby will rather have the baby live even if not with her than to see the child die. There and then the owner of the baby was revealed for a true mother will rather see her baby live with another than witness the baby crying in deep pain as she bleeds to death under the slice of a sharp knife. Selah.”

The above ancient Bible story, recast in such elegant language would have been taken as one of those brilliant exegeses which, although commonplace among our high-flying Pentecostal pastors, are nonetheless evocative of profound Biblical jurisprudence that couldn’t but leave modern judicial establishment in awe.

Unfortunately, it came from Poju Oyemade, the presiding pastor of The Covenant Nation. Merely by the rain of abuses that followed the tweet, one would be forgiven to imagine that he had committed the mortal sin of blasphemy.

Here is the leader of a church whose highly-regarded programme The Platform first thrust Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate into national prominence – never mind that he, Peter Obi governed Anambra State for eight years; that he spoke candidly on a subject that he knew best was sufficient for the cult of supporters dubbed Obidients to call him out.

Let’s take some samples of reactions to the ordinarily harmless post. The first by @CharmXtova read: “Since the sham elections, everyone on the opposing side has pushed Obidients. They stole our mandate and asked us to go to court. We did. They said we shouldn’t come out to protest and allow the courts do their job (but they came out to protest). We allowed the courts do their job.

“They told us not to protest on inauguration day so as to not scuttle the peace of the nation. We heeded. The case at the court have (sic) begun to seem like it’ll end in our favour, they have already started protesting and threatening the peace of the Nation.”

Another, Dr. Kelvin Alaneme as reported by this newspaper also fired a salvo: “You cannot gaslight your way to the truth. As a pastor, you are meant to be an apostle of truth. But alas! It is a shame to see your unravelling. Retrace your steps before it is too late. You know the truth. Only that truth will set you free. Selah.”

And yet another from Kelechi Ugonna (PhD): “Thank you @pastorpoju. And the disciples asked him, what is the meaning of this parable. And he said unto them. The baby is the seat of power in Nigeria. The mothers are the presidential contestants in the past election, and Solomon is the judiciary.

“The mother who stole the baby is that candidate who was illegally declared the winner with fraudulent documents. He did not care if he’s putting a knife through the heart of democracy in Nigeria; he wanted the prize at all cost. The other mother is the one who chose the path of peace through the courts to reclaim his stolen mandate, and asked his people to follow the process.”

Not that it came as any surprise though; such have been the mindless wave of intolerance displayed by the mob in the build up to the general elections as indeed its aftermath that comments which run against the grain of their delusions are treated as treason. An earlier post, I believe in July last year, by the same Pastor Poju had similarly drawn the ire of the mob.

In the tweet, now-deleted, he had stated: “Faith is not just the blind belief or hoping for a miracle. Faith sees. Faith has her eyes opened and possesses the evidence upon which it builds its belief. Faith prepares long, sometimes for years just as Joseph did for the years of famine. Faith counts the cost before embarking…

“Without having real evidence upon which you are acting nor preparation for the task, recognising real obstacles that lie ahead and making concrete plans, one is just being delusional about the outcome. The enthusiasm of the youth must not be wasted on poorly planned projects.

“Noah spent month/years planning for the flood & and he was operating in faith. Jesus said no man goes to battle without taking stock first nor lay the foundation of a tower without counting the first lest he will be mocked. Our faith is intelligent it doesn’t live in denial”.

More than a year after, (the earlier tweet was also followed by torrents of abuses), none of the profound truths contained in the 145-character tweet appeared to matter. For while their principal, Peter Obi and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, may have gone to court to challenge the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, nothing in the legitimate step appears to have doused their foul, anti-democratic temper as their most recent onslaught against the mild-tempered cleric has shown.

Let’s take the story from the middle: two men in court to challenge the victory of the third. Both insist that they won – which is why they are in court to prove that they did. The first, Atiku Abubakar wants the victor disqualified so he could take his place. The second, Peter Obi, not only wants the victor disqualified, he is staking his claim of ‘stolen mandate’ on the 281,717 super votes delivered to him in Abuja! And the victor, President Tinubu, says; look at the votes returned by the electors – not the specious technicalities!

Back to Pastor Poju’s tweet on Solomonic wisdom earlier referenced.

Were the reactions borne of the underlying truth contained in those few words being extremely hard to bear? Talk of the mob being at work:  From mindlessly hounding innocent clerics, they have since gone up several notches.  Today, judicial officers have become fair game; when they are not being bullied, they are being called out even when no offences are indicated. As for opposing counsels, when they are not being openly derided or vilified, their written submissions are twisted in such manners that would have done Joseph Goebbels proud.  And that would seem a child’s play compared with the verbiage being served as true reportage of the events in the court rooms including the hare-brained propaganda that could only have been carefully curated to foist a regime of anarchy! And all of these in the media and the cyber-sphere.

Yes – and that is even permitting the Obidients with their disdain for the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, between truth and fiction, between reality and make-believe – there remains still, something in that old-time Solomonic template ever so seductive and alluringly captivating as to be troubling!

Had our ever excitable horde of emergency experts not been too self-absorbed in their debate on the desirability or otherwise of the N8000 conditional cash transfer to miss out on other items of governance on offer, we’d probably on the way to examining, in a more structured format, the whole gamut of interventions being put in place by the Tinubu administration to address the challenges brought on by the current lean season. If merely by the way some emergency experts have gone on and on about the cash transfer specifically targeted at the segment regarded as the poorest of the poor, one would be tempted to see the lone item of intervention as mutually exclusive somewhat, to other bouquet of initiatives designed to address the current dire emergency.

Yes, there are those who have contemptuously dismissed the cash transfer initiative as non-starter. While no one has yet accused President Tinubu of seeking to emboss his signature on the N8,000 cheques a la Donald Trump’s Covid-19 vouchers, there is even now, just enough staccato of condemnation to drown any good that the initiative could have been deemed to represent. From rantings in the supercharged netizens parliament to no less frenzied agitations in the mainstream media right up to the whining on the main street, most would seem to agree that the cash transfer would neither provide sufficient elixir to the current hardship nor address the problem of poverty in any tangible, let alone sustainable manner.

By now, a good number of Nigerians must have come across a particularistic recommendations currently being recycled among various WhatsApp groups: That the N500 billion will purchase approximately 8,000 luxury 60-seater buses with each state and the FCT getting 216 buses!

Again, the argument would appear simple and straight-forward: the latter option will deliver more value in terms cheaper transportation and employment to thousands of Nigerians than the government’s plan.

Yes or no? That, I guess, is debatable.

Of course, there can be no denying the countless options through which public funds could be deployed. That is what the economists mean when they talk of opportunity cost – the cost of a forgone alternative. In this wise, the government, having considered the many options, chose the cash transfer option as being the best in the current circumstances. It is something it is eminently entitled.

Suffice to add at this point also that none of the options being bandied around can be said to vitiate the need for the lifeline to the poor; in any case, one doesn’t even need to be a dyed-in-the-wool monetarist to appreciate the economic impact of the N500 billion cash injection into the local economy at a time like this. To the extent that it answers to the rationale of governance as being about the greatest good for the greatest number, the inherent wisdom would, itself, seem unassailable.

As for the other fear about its sustainability, I think the federal government has sufficiently responded to that: the cash transfer, expected to run for six months, is what it is – it is a temporary reprieve to assist the recipients tide over the current hardship. Clearly, if the government could bail out manufacturers, bankers and all manner of actors in the economy, it seems unthinkable that anyone would oppose such lifelines being extended to the poor. 

The above obviously takes us to an unlikely item in the palliative menu, yet one that goes right to the heart of the current crisis: the state of emergency declared by President Tinubu to tackle the issue of rising food prices and shortages. It is interesting that the proclamation didn’t quite make the headlines in the same way that the N500 billion approved for the palliative did!  Talk of a minor news item clearly displaying the major in a moment of national crisis!

To better appreciate the context of the event, we only need to look at the stats by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on the situation. In its report titled “Crop Prospect and Food Situation”, the body projected that some 25.3 million people in Nigeria would face acute food insecurity during the June to August lean season.  

It went on to note that the situation “…is mostly driven by the deterioration of security conditions and conflicts in northern states, which as of March 2022 (latest data available) have led to the displacement of about 3.17 million people and are constraining farmers’ access to their lands”. The results are evident – from 24.32 percent in January, there has been a surge in food inflation to 25.25 per cent in June.

That projection, by the way, predated the removal of the fuel subsidy. True, if the administration appreciated that the subsidy removal and its aftermath have merely brought in fresh complexities to a long festering problem, it seems to have adroitly set its eyes on the bigger picture, which is how to contain a more dire emergency. This is where the ardent critics of the administration, in their mindless obsession with the form and shape of the palliatives, appear to have conveniently missed out on the import of that presidential declaration on food security!

These are interesting times no doubt.

And talking of the emergency declaration, Mr Dele Alake, the president’s spokesman, while giving vent to the president’s thought, certainly did a good job of capturing the president’s as indeed the mood of the administration on the issue: “That all matters pertaining to food and water availability and affordability, as essential livelihood items, be included within the purview of the National Security Council.”

For starters, he announced: “We will immediately release fertilisers and grains to farmers and households to mitigate the effects of the subsidy removal.

To give direction, he also stated: “There must be an urgent synergy between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure adequate irrigation of farmlands and to guarantee that food is produced all-year round.

It is of course the elements contained in the plan that Nigerians should actually pay close attention to. Among these are the creation of special purpose vehicles like the commodity boards to liberalise the food production value chain, immediate activation of land-banks across the country (some 500,000 hectares of already mapped land that will be used to increase availability of arable land for farming are said to be waiting for deployment), as well as putting an end to the age-long and problematic nomadic animal husbandry – to be replaced with government-managed ranching.

Nothing, it would seem, was left out – from transportation infrastructure, to food storage, the agricultural research institutes right up to the 11 largely dysfunctional river basin authorities, and of course the Central Bank of Nigeria. All of them are being brought together under the new impetus to save Nigeria and Nigerians. Taken together, the elements are bold, broad and ambitious. In that context, the current noise about palliatives might well prove to be one of those needless distractions.

It’s been a little more than two weeks since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed into law what is arguably the most consequential legislation after the Educational Trust Fund Act – the Higher Education Act 2023. Never mind that the legislation has been in the works since 2016, many, including the so-called ‘industry leaders’, continue to claim not to have seen the law beyond what the media has put out as its key elements. Again, never mind that the media, since its assent into law, has done a fairly good job of reeling out its key elements; suffice to state that those sworn to find no good in it have, by now, just enough talking points to dismiss it as unworkable if not dub it ‘satanic’ in its entirety!

We are here talking of a law, which although has been largely, well received by the larger society, has continued to draw flaks from the usual quarters.

Let’s start with what the law is all about. Simply put: it seeks to avail students of institutions of higher learning in Nigeria, interest-free loans for the payment of tuition fees. To achieve that, it emplaces a well-structured pool from which the funds would be drawn in such ways to guarantee its long term sustainability. These are said to include interests arising from deposits in the bank, education endowment fund schemes, education bonds, a percentage (1%) of all profits accruing to the government of the federation arising from oil and other minerals, a percentage (1%) of all taxes, levies and duties accruing to the government of the Federation from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and the Nigerian Customs Service, and interests and revenue accruing from savings and investments made by the education bank.

If anyone ever needed any evidence of good thinking – this ought to be it. Like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) before it, it is something of a marked departure from typical ad hoc initiatives of government which promises to deliver heaven and earth at initial point but end up as a dismal joke.

Yes, the law also created the implementing agency – the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, and vests it with the power to administer, supervise, coordinate, and monitor the management of the student loans in the country. That means business.

However, not a few among the critical stakeholders in the sector are still unimpressed. The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, for instance believes it knows what is more fitting for the sector in the circumstance. I watched its president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke sum up his union’s position on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme thus: “It should be called a grant since it is coming from the Federation Account and not that (after) these people have access it and when they are graduating, they have heavy loads behind them and within two years, if they don’t pay, they go to jail…”

In other words, his union wants freebie of sorts a la national cake! To him, it is not just the burden of the loan package and its ‘draconian’ conditionalities’ that is odious, the mere thought that the new regime would actually be the harbinger of future tuition hikes is doubly offensive!  Describing the loan as “not practicable”, he went further to claim that more than 90% of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan!

I believe that the point needs to be made that the law does not pretend to be anything perfect – the magic wand that some would rather have it to be. To be sure, no law is; and this one can’t be an exception – which is why the best of laws are routinely re-done whenever new realities dictate. However, while I do understand the penchant by our typically vociferous elite to take to pedantic overdrive over minor issues which in the end merely obscure rather than illuminate public discourse; going as far as dipping something as consequential as that item of public policy in the narrow ideological claptrap, is quite frankly, disingenuous. It is a reflection of the degree to which our elites have lost touch with reality.

Like most of its critics, I must confess that yours truly is yet to lay his hands on a clean copy of the law. However, from what is already available in the public space, it’s underlying its philosophy would appear sound as its intendments are unassailable. It is essentially about reducing the burden of tertiary education among Nigerians, particularly parents and sponsors; for some, the loan might well be the entry point to that highly desired course in financial literacy if not independence both of which many of our esteemed undergraduates badly need but which are ever hardly taught in the classrooms! That, essentially, is what public policy is all about – using regulations, law to impact societal orientation! That is why it is uncharitable that anyone would casually throw away the law without the benefit of a robust scrutiny.

So much for the fixation – and I daresay romanticisation – of the past where the best of things in life are supposed to be free, the part of the problem with our thought leaders, it would seem, is their inability to step out of their cocoons into a fast-paced world – a world far removed from their carefully contrived world of models and pure forms. Imagine the jejune argument: the loan is bad because the conditions are stiff; students wont to be able to pay back because future employment is not guaranteed; and only a minority few will benefit because the income threshold set out for the parents of would-be-beneficiaries would preclude the greater majority from access! How many needs to qualify before they become either students or Nigerians?

What exactly does ASUU want?

Of course, it is the same old argument why fees cannot be charged for tuition; why the government must continue to subsidise the cost of accommodation even when some students openly sell their hostel lots for triple the official price while university administrators struggle to find the funds to keep minimal services in the hostels running.

For me, it is hard to imagine – in a world where 10-year olds are not only known to operate bank accounts but are already being systematically inoculated into the world of consumer credit –that our own undergraduates, are being outed from financial services because their teachers consider the conditions as too ‘stiff; or that because the future for which they are being prepared are such that offer them no guarantees that loans taken will ever be repaid, they might as well forgo the opportunities that the current initiative offers!

Talk of the same old but wearisome arguments in which the government is expected to continue to play the Santa Claus. A sobering reality, as sure as day, beckons!

By now, most Nigerians must have seen the viral image of Godwin Emefiele clambering down a Toyota Hilux van into the waiting hands of the men of the Department of State Security who immediately saw him into a waiting aircraft. A far cry from what the truth-averse netizenry had put out as the account of the man not only cuffed but thoroughly manhandled in what was supposed to be the greatest hounding of the century; none of such drama was suggested in the less than a minute-length video. Rather, an apparently ‘humbled’ or ‘flustered’ Emefiele with half dozen security men in tow, with one dangling a cuff as if to remind of the seriousness of the moment, was the best of the ‘drama’ we saw!

Of course, with conspiracy theories never in short supply in these parts, and with the DSS already providing the lead in their characteristically distracting mind-games, such are the tales already being woven about the man’s many sins that future Nollywood movies are not only already in the making, there have since emerged the usual tales of an ethnic plot being hatched!

With all that happened in the past week, the question of what has become of the December 9, 2022 order by Justice John Tsoho of an Abuja High Court barring the Department of State Services, DSS, from arresting and detaining Godwin Emefiele on allegations bordering on terrorism financing and economic crimes has since become somewhat academic.

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The learned judge, while declining to grant the application ex parte at the time  had noted that (1) secret police did not provide any concrete evidence to substantiate its claims that Emefiele was involved in terrorism financing and economic crimes; (2), that the name of the respondent was given simply as ‘Godwin Emefiele’ without a material disclosure that he is the same person as the CBN governor, and (3) that if the applicant believes that the evidence available to it so far is sufficient, then it can as well arrest and detain the applicant, even without the order of the court!

Interestingly, Justice M. A. Hassan of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would, based on that ruling further hold that “any continuous harassment, intimidation, threats, restriction and free movement, abuse of right of office, surreptitious moves to arrest, and humiliation of Mr. Godwin Emefiele over trumped up allegations of terrorism financing and fraudulent practices etc., would constitute a flagrant breach of his rights to personal liberty, dignity and human person and illegal and unconstitutional!

That was six months ago. So what has changed? Pretty lot, you might say. In the first place, none of the rulings actually went as far as pronouncing Emefiele as untouchable! Justice Tsoho in fact did aver that DSS didn’t even need a court order to arrest and detain Emefiele if it truly believes that the evidence available to it so far is sufficient!

In any case, the terrains between the two rulings and the present have certainly changed considerably. And this, I daresay, goes beyond the simple fact about a new Sherriff being in town! As it is, the man is no longer the nation’s topmost banker. He is simply Godwin Emefiele – without the CBN address. Moreover, there is a new broad thinking both on the direction of the economy as a whole and more specifically the entire gamut of monetary policy management. While the latter has inevitably raised troubling questions about the role of yesterday’s men in fostering the current climate in which the apex bank actually became an SPV for all manner of executive fancies, asking Emefiele to step aside would seem the least an administration which not only knows what to do but how to go about the business could do in the circumstance!

Then comes the question – why bring the DSS into the equation? The question, to my mind, is best directed to the high officials of the Buhari administration who tolerated the initial aberration. Was the president actually aware of the grave charges levelled against his number one banker? Was it a case of the president not appreciating the grave implications of the DSS putting a sitting CBN behind the bars? Even the learned Justice Tsoho was sensitive enough to chide the DSS for seeking to detain ‘Godwin Emefiele’ without a material disclosure that he is the same person as the CBN governor!

Surely, if it seems stranger than fiction that the DSS would move to take in Emefiele for questioning over allegations of high crimes, even more baffling is that the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces would treat same as just another routine matter of crime and investigation.

Again to the question – why now DSS? Thanks to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, all the encumbrances on the path of the DSS have since been removed. Much as Nigerians tend to find the sometimes loathsome methods of the secret police deplorable, it nonetheless stands to reason that the DSS needs to be availed of the opportunity of proving the charges!

Of course, there might yet be other parallel questions on Emefiele’s stewardship as helmsman at the apex bank; an inquest to know the conditions and the extent to which procedures were subverted, if truly there were such cases, or where laws were broken, to establish them. Such an undertaken, were it to be considered necessary, would seem to be better suited for an independent body of external auditors. Mercifully, there is at the moment, no indication that the administration will shy away from undertaking this important task, if it becomes necessary.

For now, it suffices to state that drama apart, the DSS more than any other institution, ought to know the implication of labelling a citizen a ‘terrorist’.  Nigerians surely expect to see the weighty allegations proven in the court of law; and whilst that is ongoing, ensure that it does not constitute either a distraction or something of a judicial fishing expedition that would in the end translate into the more pressing tasks of institutional correction and restitution being left undone.

Surely, the DSS ought to know that anything short of the foregoing would turn the man into a hero!

For Emefiele, the wheels, as they say, have turned full cycle. Imagine how quickly how the tables have turned. Yours truly, had while calling out his untrammelled power described him as “a governor without the restraint of parliament; whose control of the purse knows no limits; an individual who could, in a fit of unbridled activism and assumed opportunistic exigency, collapse the dividing walls of monetary and fiscal management without a restraining voice; a player whose ego and sense of entitlement not only reckons him among the gods but also above the deep state…”.

That was four months ago. All of those now belong in the past. It is a lesson in the transience of power.

Sunday May 28, yours truly had made a rather cryptic ‘joke’ on my social media (Facebook) page: Today is May 28…Tomorrow is May 29…and with it a new beginning! It shall happen! And I’m not even a prophet!

Of course, the pun was fully and comprehensively intended! With the background in the prognostications of doomsday prophets many of whom had either pronounced that the day would never come, or if it came at all, would be a terrible one (for them); recall others wishing that May 29, 2023 be expunged from the calendar since the man they wanted in Aso Villa was out of reckoning; it was something of a timely reminder that the moment finally was at hand!

Needless to state that the post, a bare-knuckle jab had a defined target in mind: the purveyors of that toxic theology that permeated the electoral season; and then of course the notorious, but now discredited school of fake prophets and their sons who equated the prophetic office with necromancy and for whom the call involves the upending of the divine will; that none of their ‘theorising’ came to pass at that point was for me the moment to call out the deluded band.

Trust the fellows not let such moments pass without a challenge. The reactions which followed came in torrents. On the one side were those who, as one might expect, chorused an Amen to the leg of the post relating to the prayer for a new beginning, with copious heart-felt prayers for the incoming administration, to succeed. Others perhaps convinced that Nigeria’s problems are such that require Divine intervention merely asked that God took control.

On the other was the throng who saw the ordinarily harmless post as another extension of their so-called battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and so promptly called out yours truly. One of them, whom I held utmost respect, was aghast.  To him, the post bordered on apostasy hence his angry riposte: “This comment leaves me cold as a Child of God. First, Muslim-Muslim ticket. Second, who truly is BAT? Thirdly can we as Christians say this is a true reflection of what happened on February 25th and finally if we are OK, may the Lord bear witness”.

And that was some few hours to the H-Hour! That for me was the moment of realisation that tried as one might, to ‘educate’ some people on our constitutional imperatives, and that God is not in the business of fostering let alone promoting confusion among his people, some people are far too gone to be cured of their delusions!

My response, admittedly betraying angst, was swift and laser-guided: “Yours just leaves me just as cold! Muslim-Muslim? I thought Nigerians have settled that on the ballot? Seems so easy to forget that a constitutional process did take place during which the candidate emerged, followed by general elections!

 “It was never in my place to reject anything but to vote, and that I did and a winner emerged! Perfect or flawed? Isn’t that why those who claim they won have gone to court to challenge the result?

Specifically referring to the main thrust of the irksome post, I had added: “My only problem is with religious deities who insisted that God spoke when He didn’t and so declared that May 29 shall not be! Now that May 29 is here, is it that God changed His mind? Will someone be humble enough to admit that they lied and God didn’t speak? I’m Christian enough to know that God’s ways are not our ways…

“Part of my Christian duty is to pray for BAT to succeed as president so we can have a better country. God can use anyone that He pleases. Unfortunately, many Christians appear to want to substitute their preferences for the Divine Will. Hence the current frustrations across the land! I’m sorry if my theology sounds strange; it is what it is!”

Well, May 29, came. None of the dramas as predicted by our band of deluded prophets came to pass; if anything, the day was heralded with generous showers of rain – a sign of cool refreshing across the country, even as the world beheld the glorious moment of transition during which former president, Muhammadu Buhari handed the baton to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Read Also: Ndume begs NLC to call off planned strike over subsidy

Talking of prophets and prophecies, how about one, Feyi Daniels, described as founder of ‘I Reign Christian Ministry’, who in a fit of prophetic rascality, had posted on his YouTube channel on February 19 the following: “About to be sworn-in, that day, everybody that said he (Tinubu) is the next president will be rejoicing and they will be saying, I told you, prophets that don’t see far will start telling you that, didn’t I tell you that Tinubu is the next president? At that event, it looks like a very open ground, like a stadium-like centre, while at that event, military men will come in and they will arrest Tinubu.”

Well, none of his predictions (delusions) came to pass. In fact, the last I heard of the ‘prophet’ was that he is cooling his feet somewhere in jail over an alleged rape! Whether he would still have enough ‘anointing’ left, after his current ordeals, to apologise to his congregation and to Nigerians for misapprehending the prophetic message and thus proclaiming a false prophecy – would remain moot at this point. Not so the great harm unleashed in his unguarded utterance on the body of Christ –that will surely take time to heal.

Yes, our dear country marches on, in renewed faith and hope for a better tomorrow, under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. As for those wishing themselves ill under his leadership, theirs is the choice to make! As for me and my house, prosperity beckons!

NLC: As it was in the past

Had the Joe Ajaero-led Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) bothered to properly gauge the national mood, it would, most likely have been a bit more deliberative over a matter which most Nigerians would appear to have left the ranks of the organised labour behind. By going ahead to declare nationwide strike effective tomorrow, Wednesday, should the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNCPL) fail to reverse the new petroleum price regime, the leadership would appear to have fallen prey into a delusion of exaggerated power!

Imagine a strike notice issued barely four days after the new president, Bola Tinubu, declared that there would no longer be a petroleum subsidy regime as it was not sustainable.

Thanks to its somnambulist leadership, an NLC that could not find the intellectual resources to stop the National Assembly from passing the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), in July 2021 and former president, Muhammadu Buhari, from signing it into law a month after, has suddenly found the ‘courage’ to demand a halt in its implementation simply because a new administration, has dared to communicate an obvious fact –and which most Nigerians had already accepted as gospel – which is that the just departed administration made no provision for the subsidy in the second half of the year and so has settled the subsidy question!

I do understand why the resort to brusque methods might be tempting in such circumstances. The truth however is that the subject is one on which the new president had not only made a commitment but which circumstances had somehow forced on the ballot, the very reason other presidential candidates – including Peter Obi which Ajaero’s leadership not only endorsed but actively supported – made specific commitments too.

Now, the NLC, rather than engage on how to bring succour to its members, wants to bring down the roof simply because President Bola Tinubu not only kept his word but has taken steps to give effect to the desires of Nigerians to have a clean break with the fraud-ridden subsidy regime.

Under President Tinubu, economics, law, justice and equity, national survival and common sense may have, finally, found a meeting point in the subsidy question. While an NLC leadership still steeped in the old gung-ho tactics of the past can’t see it, they must never be allowed to set the clock backwards.