The Nation Newspaper

Category: Festus Eriye

  • The long walk to 2027

    The long walk to 2027

    The 2023 electoral cycle is the one that never ended. Even after the Supreme Court dismissed the cases brought before it by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s (LP), Peter Obi, it was clear that for the two men, there was no closure.

    They never accepted defeat, never congratulated the winner President Bola Tinubu, and showed by their reaction to final judicial defeat that they were ready to relitigate the matter – this time in the court of public opinion.

    Standard behavior – even in politics – accepts that there’s time for everything; a time to campaign, a time to govern. The changing of times is usually marked by the termination of legal hostilities at the apex court. But in an age where denialism has become reality, nothing is the same.

    The only outcome that would have been acceptable to either Atiku or Obi was one in which they were declared winners. Since it is impossible to have three winners on one contest, they have grudgingly accepted the fact that there’s a president sitting in Aso Rock, while they are skulking around in the opposition wilderness. This is just a restless, holding position.

    Everything they have done since points to the fact that they are warming up for a repeat of a contest that is at least three years away. Take Obi for example. While his performance at the polls last year surprised many by its reach into largely Christian areas of North-Central, it also exposed the weaknesses of his presentation and how his candidacy was perceived.

    He would have loved to be seen as a pan-Nigerian figure whose message resonated with a younger demographic, but the lopsided results in the Southeast made him out to be an ethnic project. His performance in the Southwest was anaemic – with the exception of Lagos where a complex mix of religion and ethnicity delivered a famous win for him in the presidential poll.

    By choosing the same-faith ticket, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Tinubu, opened the window for his rivals to weaponise religion. While Atiku attacked the ticket will all the gusto he could muster, it was Obi who really made a meal of it. He traipsed through mega churches the length and breadth of the South with the rallying cry ‘Christians, take back your country!’ Such exhortations were often greeted with exuberant cheers.

    His determined attempt to cement himself as the Christian candidate in an environment where the Muslim-Muslim ticket had been demonised would end in a scandal after his fawning ‘yes daddy’ phone conversation with Pentecostal grandee, Bishop David Oyedepo, was leaked.

    While he was pursuing the strategy of locking up the Christian vote North and South, he forgot the downside of being seen as anti the other side of the religious divide. It was no surprise therefore that the LP flagbearer made only the most perfunctory of attempts to canvass votes in the far North. It was a factor that would deny him the national spread required to win the presidency.

    It is clear the man recognises the mistakes made and has been taking baby steps to remedy them. For instance, the same person who wanted Christians to take back their country one year ago, was sighted in a couple of gatherings during Ramadan breaking fast with Muslims.

    Social media was also agog with images of a poorly executed borehole project bearing his name somewhere in Zaria. Many were quick to conclude he was was rebranding ahead 2027. Such were the extremes to which he went in 2023 that he would need more than these photo-ops and posturing to reverse the damage.

    As for Atiku, he has never hidden the fact that for as long as he has breath, he would pursue his dream of becoming president. So, next stop, 2027. But with the former Vice President there’s been noticeable change. Gone is some of the arrogance that misled him into thinking he could win the last election without the support of the Nyesom Wike-led G-5 rump of the PDP.

    The same man who preferred to hang on to the questionable electoral asset called Iyorchia Ayu rather than work with five state governors, is today feverishly marketing a grand coalition of opposition parties as the only way of toppling the ruling party at the next election. For inspiration, he points to the victory of the 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye at the recent Senegalese presidential poll as evidence of what’s possible when parties work together.

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    It can be taken for granted that all things being equal, the incumbent will run again. At least he made that obvious when at the inauguration of Lagos Red Line rail project in February, he taunted Joe Ajaero and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to wait until 2027 if they were interested in political power.

    The trouble for Tinubu’s rivals is that while the next elections represent a window of opportunity for those who wish to supplant an officeholder with a record, they would be reduced in that time to merely carping on the sidelines watching the president wield power.

    They may wish he stumbles from error to error – providing them with ammunition to attack his record. But the reverse is also possible; that he could go from win to win – becoming more presidential as the days go by. Critically, he’s taken some pivotal and very unpopular steps early in his tenure, giving him sufficient time to ride out any negative blowback. Early signs point to the fact that fuel subsidy removal and the forex reforms were the right calls needed to unlock the economy.

    Given what we know about the evolution of political power in these parts, it’s going to take more than opposition name-calling to bring about regime change at the next election – especially if the pace of reforms is sustained and the economy rebounds and becomes stronger. PDP, LP and others would then have to make a compelling case as to why voters should dump a tried and tested model for a pie in the sky.

    In the days when the British Tory Party seemed to have a lock on power, going from one electoral triumph to another, it was a young Tony Blair who warned his comrades in the then far left-leaning British Labour Party about the need to develop policies and an image that would make them electable. He argued that no matter how well-meaning a party’s policies were, they could do nothing about them except they found a way to get into power. He would then push Labour to be more centrist and eventually electable.

    At least the Labour Party was not just a cohesive platform, it was perceived by British voters as a credible alternative to the Conservatives. Today, the PDP which in its days in power appeared invincible and even dreamt of governing non-stop for 60 years, is on the ropes – riven with factions. This week it would hold crucial meetings that would affect its future. It is a measure of how much confidence Atiku has in it that he’s desperately marketing a joining of forces with other parties.

    The same affliction has paralysed the Labour Party which is locked in an internecine feud with NLC which claims to own it. Such is the bitterness of the dispute that it promises to be long drawn – rendering it largely useless to anyone hoping to ride it to power.

    Perhaps, the most credible challenge to APC rule lies in an opposition coalition. But its prospects are dead on arrival because of the ambitions of the would be promoters and partners. The day Atiku sacrifices his ambition for Obi or the NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso or vice versa, is the day to begin to take such a project serious. Until then, any visions of power these perennial contestants may be having are nothing short of a mirage.

    •First published on April 17

  • Mutually assured destruction in Rivers

    Mutually assured destruction in Rivers

    The gladiators in River State’s political slugfest crossed the Rubicon long ago: all their recent actions only confirm the fact. People say there are no permanent foes in politics – not in this South-South state.

    Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, on a visit to the state at the weekend, told a gathering that making Siminalayi Fubara governor was a mistake he would correct at the right time. A day after, his embattled successor who, interestingly was Accountant General in that period, declared he would probe all eight years of the Wike administration. It was an ominous step which carried the unstated threat that he knew where financial bodies were buried.

    Just yesterday while touring some projects he lamented the debt burden on the state caused by Wike’s projects. As he reeled off the figures of outstanding liabilities he said much as he loath to do so, he had to speak out ‘so the blowing wind will expose the fowl’s bottom.’

    The probe and the sudden disclosures are therefore not so much about accountability, but dragging a preening opponent into a mud bath.

    Interestingly, in May 2022 the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared Fubara and three other officials of the state government wanted for alleged criminal conspiracy, money laundering and misappropriation of N117 billion.

    Can the probe threat then be said to akin to being a judge in one’s own case, or should we see it as a manifestation of the Samson complex – pulling the entire structure down on everyone?

    No matter the motivation the move is understandable. Over the years governors have been known to use such probes to fight their rivals or estranged godfathers. Wike did same to Rotimi Amaechi over the metro line and other projects. Godwin Obaseki did it to Adams Oshiomhole in Edo after their falling out. In Kaduna State, the assembly is probing the financial affairs of the Nasir El-Rufai administration.

    There’s nothing novel about the feud. It’s a replay of godson trying to break free from the shackles of the benefactor. Sometimes it blows open when an overbearing godfather goes too far and tramples on the ego of his successor. Other times, it’s the case of an unwise godson not biding his time and stooping to conquer.

    We can discern how the Rivers conflict got to this point through Fubara’s statement that he would always appreciate his predecessor, but never worship any human being.

    Everyday that passes you get a sense of the growing cockiness of the Fubara camp. At the weekend one-time factional Speaker of the House of Assembly and current Chief of Staff to the governor, Edison Ehie, told a television station his boss would teach his foes a hard political lesson.

    Much of their confidence comes from the hazy legal status of the state legislature and its leadership. But equally key is the fact that governors are very powerful in Nigeria, so much so that some have become mini emperors. They dictate who gets what at state and federal levels and have the key to the treasury. Rivers is one of the most affluent states in the country and Ehie has suggested that the fight is about controlling the state’s resources.

    But as powerful as governors can be, we have also seen that they can be brought to heel. Local factors determine how these power struggles pan out, not minding how powerful the gubernatorial office is. For instance, where most governors are able to impose their successors, we saw in Delta State in 2015 where a combination of power brokers thwarted Emmanuel Uduaghan’s bid to install his anointed.

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    Four years later, former Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, was frustrated in his bid to impose his man. In Lagos State, Akinwumi Ambode, lost his chance to run again after the bulk of his political family rose up against his aspiration.

    So, in analysing what is likely to play out in the Wike-Fubara face-off, people shouldn’t be in a hurry to declare victory for any side. This is going to be a long drawn fight that could go to the highest court in the land. There will be collateral damage, such that whoever is left standing at the end would only have achieved pyrrhic victory.

    For starters, the Wike political family that went into the 2023 elections as one unit, is now fractured. Given the bitterness of the ongoing fight it’s hard to see how they can ever work together again. More is better than less for any structure.

    In this dispute mistakes have been made on every side. The first was the bombing of the House of Assembly following threats by lawmakers to begin impeachment of the governor. It doesn’t require clairvoyance to discern that only those opposed to what was about to be executed in the chamber may be behind it. In short order, Fubara would order the demolition of the whole complex ostensibly for renovation. The rubble became a tomb for the assembly’s records!

    It’s as if the Rivers governor’s camp has torn a page out of the playbook of Edo Governor Obaseki, during his battles with Oshiomhole. In 2020, faced with a hostile bunch of lawmakers who were still loyal to the then APC national chairman, he caused the roof of the assembly to be removed and lorry loads of sand and gravel to be dumped at the gate to facilitate ‘renovation.’

    The sudden zeal to beautify the assembly temporarily rendered the facility unusable. What followed was factionalisation of the legislators with the majority anti-Obaseki elements sent into exile, while the minority ruled the roost.

    Today, in Rivers, a farcical situation exists where three or four lawmakers are passing budgets, screening and confirming commissioners, whereas Chapter 5, Part 2, Section 91 of the constitution states that the House of Assembly would consist of between 24 and 40 members, and quorum would be one-third of that number.

    The Fubara camp sees in this context what it thinks is it’s trump camp. The constitution does provide that those who defect from the party on which they were elected would lose their position. But it goes on to give certain provisos. For instance, the defections can be justified where there is a division in the party. It also provides a role for the Speaker in the process of declaring the seats of defectors vacant.

    Flowing from this, many have accused the pro-Wike lawmakers of making an unforced error. Knowing that the courts will be ultimate arbiters in this dispute, it is important to understand how they work with evidence, not hearsay. True, there was a press conference where the legislators purportedly quit. But don’t rule out a twist.

    For instance, when a lawmaker wants to defect, he writes a letter to the presiding officer of the chamber who reads same to the whole house and proceeds to cross the carpet, as it were. His seat would then be declared vacant. Have these processes been followed in the Rivers assembly? Have the lawmakers formally resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with evidence in form of letters of resignation? Can the local party leadership confirm they have renounced membership? Have these legislators been registered and formally issued All Progressives Congress (APC) cards?

    Ultimately, the courts would determine how this conflict ends. They would rule on the legitimacy or otherwise of the Martins Amaewhule leadership or whether Victor Oko-Jumbo’s claim to the Speakership is real or fanciful. Which way the decision goes will also determine the fate of the governor and his foes.

    In January this year, Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja gave a series of rulings that effectively tied Fubara to the status quo. Among other things he nullified the N800 billion budget passed by the Ehie faction of lawmakers, declared the Amaewhule group authentic and warned Fubara not to exceed his powers.

    But just a few days ago, there was another injunction from the state High Court which barred the 25 pro-Wike lawmakers from parading themselves as members of the House of Assembly. Flowing from that the governor issued an Executive Order directing the assembly to meet in Government House. This is in direct violation of the Omotosho court order.

    The dramatis personae in the power struggle clearly have very short memory. They forget that it is in that same Rivers State that disobedience of an existing court order led to APC not having a governorship candidate at the 2019 polls.

    There’s another scenario on the table of options. This is a state which in the past was notorious for political violence such that it was branded ‘Rivers of blood.’ With the hardline positions of both sides the hope is that things don’t degenerate to violence. That would make a compelling case for presidential intervention through a state of emergency.

    Rivers is not an ordinary state. It plays host to the headquarters of many firms active in the oil production industry. If it is at war with itself there are economic implications for the country as a whole.

    Control is important but all sides need to ask themselves how far they are willing to go. The hawkish positions that have been adopted are clearly the work of persons behind scenes with their own agenda.

    Many thought the political solution sponsored by President Bola Tinubu was a recipe to calm things down and postpone the fight to another day. But the ink was barely dry on the documents before all sorts of interests began piling pressure on Fubara, arguing the deal was not only lopsided but unconstitutional and non-binding. Perhaps, due to their influence and counsel, the governor has only implemented one or two items like recalling commissioners, but steadfastly stopped short of representing the 2024 budget, or doing anything that confers legitimacy to the assembly led by his opponents.

    With the heat turned up, many are now calling for another presidential intervention. But why would Tinubu lend the prestige of his office to brokering another deal when the initial one has been observed only in breach? Respect for his office would have required that the original pact be honoured to the letter, even if for the sake of peace.

    Peace is the primary requirement for building anything. For those egging on the combatants, it is pertinent to state that those at war can never be at peace. Everyday this conflict drags on, it is entertainment for non-partisan observers, but a distraction to the main players – Wike and Fubara. But more importantly, by the time it runs it’s course, there would be damaging consequences for all sides whenever they are counting the cost of their ‘victory’.

  • Hard times are for learning

    Hard times are for learning

    There are events in the life of nations that transform them forever. While not suggesting that anything happening to Nigerians now approximates what Jews experienced during the Holocaust, after that harrowing experience they vowed ‘never again.’

    South African blacks suffered through the apartheid years and were scarred by their experiences. When Nelson Mandela got his chance to rule he rejected a new form of discrimination by the majority, choosing instead to build a ‘rainbow nation’ out of the ashes of racism.

    Nigeria had her civil war, a sufficiently traumatic event that would have changed another nation. Despite the fact that a generation that were witnesses to its grim fallout are still active in governance, they don’t appear to have learnt any lessons from it.

    Ethnic suspicion, hate, profligacy, lack of vision and extreme corruption – some factors that led to that dark chapter in our history are still alive and well today, as we try to make sense of troublous times more than half a century after the guns fell silent on the Eastern front.

    Perhaps, the excruciating nature of this season is to brand it on our psyche that as a nation we can’t continue business as usual. We have lived a lie for too long. We’ve been pampered and screened from truth about our true condition.

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    Sometime in the last ten years people were horrified when the dollar-to-naira rate breached the N200 barrier; they are shell-shocked now that the greenback is going for over N1,400. Inflation which in the last 20 years never crossed the 20% mark is almost hitting 30%. Although, that’s still a far cry from what prevailed between 1992 when the rate was 44.59% and 1995 when it reached an all-time high of 72.8% under General Sani Abacha.

    Nigeria is smack in the middle of an economic crisis and it’s a hurricane that has been brewing. It is trouble that many with insight had been predicting for years. But administrations that have come and gone chose to play ostrich, ignoring the obvious systemic distortions. This crisis wasn’t caused by the removal of fuel subsidy; that move simply blew away all pretences and exposed the tattered condition of our undergarments.

    Today, it is politically correct to lament about how people are suffering as a consequence of the double whammy of spiralling inflation and naira collapse. Everyone going on about general hardship is simply stating the obvious. Even if they say so a thousand times, it changes nothing. What is needed is the silver bullet that would bring inflation down to lower double figures and forex rates to affordable levels.

    Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes. That is the reason why the twisting and the turning by the Central Bank and all those managing the economy has not resulted in any dramatic improvement. The apex bank can do all the tweaking it wants, if there are no significant increases in dollar inflows, not much would change.

    Part of the problem with our country is living in denial, just kicking the ball down the road, hoping that magically we will emerge from the hole we’ve dug for ourselves.

    I believe that one of the first steps towards recovery is full disclosure. We need to know how bad things are so we can begin to make the necessary adjustments. For instance, Nigerians need to be reminded that up till last year, 95% of all our revenues were being spent on servicing debts!

    The World Bank’s Macro Poverty Outlook for Nigeria: April 2023 put the actual figure at 96.3%. That left less than four percent for funding government’s objectives. The report observed that while oil price booms previously supported the economy, all that changed in 2021.

    The cause for this, according to the World Bank, was macroeconomic stability weakening amidst declining oil production, costly fuel subsidies, exchange rate distortions, and monetisation of the fiscal deficit.

    Our economic reality has largely sustained by things that were not sustainable. Fuel subsidy was not sustainable and virtually everyone – from labour unions, to economists, to all the presidential candidates at the 2023 election agree it had to go.

    The exchange rate was make-believe – sustained by the CBN shelling out billions to defend it against major global currencies. While this allowed the populace to access forex at relatively affordable rates, it opened a thriving window for arbitrage that made overnight billionaires out of people with the right connections.

    The battering of the naira was collective work and we must all own it. Typically, most of those moaning delude themselves they had no hand in it. Those who were making hay round-tripping, government officials who spend billions to buy dollars for hoarding, politicians who have to be bribed to do their constitutional duties and would only receive their gratification in dollars, contributed.

    Most bureaux de change (BDCs) are owned by those who have the power to approve them and allocate forex. For years it was in their interest to sustain the system of multiple exchange rates – virtually placing their feet firmly on the neck of a prostrate naira.

    We didn’t learn much in times of prosperity. Rather than investing proceeds of the 70s oil boom on building a future, the lack of leadership vision saw us squandering petrodollars on fiestas and jamborees.

    Between 2003 and 2019, crude oil rates were at record highs, yet not much was done to wean us from our appetite for imports, or to diversify the economy. While the world was preparing for change in the use of energy with a tilt away from fossil fuels, we carried on like the windfall would last forever.

    That’s the explanation for how we went from former President Olusegun Obasanjo paying off most of Nigeria’s debts at the time of Obasanjo’s exit to where we were at Muhammadu Buhari’s departure where over 96% of national revenue was being spent on debt serving.

    That we’ve not learnt any lessons or are not inclined to was evident in the recent controversy over the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) headquarters from Abuja to Lagos. Rather than being scandalised that over N500 million was being wasted on needless travel between cities by the agency’s officials, the argument was over regional political advantage.

    For most countries dealing with rampant inflation and forex scarcity it’s like going through hell. While are our challenges may not be as grave, there are certain aspects that are reminiscent of the Greek economic crisis between 2010 and 2018.

    At the height of its troubles Greece could not borrow. The populace was confronted with several reforms and austerity measures that led to impoverishment, loss of income and property, and a humanitarian crisis of sorts.

    There was massive political upheaval leading to the fall of government after government and the flight of hundreds of thousands of well-educated Greeks out of the country – their own version of japa.

    The government introduced round after round of tax increases, spending cuts, and reforms between 2010 and 2016, which caused riots and protests nationwide. In addition to these measures, the country still needed several bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others.

    One lesson from the Greek experience is that getting this economy back to health might be a matter of years, not months. It is a bitter truth that we need to start getting used to. Another is that some of the remedies might be bitter medicine no one wants to take. It would be akin to economic chemotherapy which would be brutal to the one being treated.

    The government will need to do more to block leakages, break up age old practices where a privileged few have fed fat on government. These steps won’t be popular with vested interests and would be opposed. What is required is the iron will to press through.

    As citizens we have a responsibility to take pride in that which is produced locally. We must change our consumption habits, produce most of what we eat or drink or wear. Those in production must up their game such that the gap in quality between imports and local products is eliminated.

    One major source of dollar demand pressure is the importation of petroleum product. With the Dangote, NNPC’s Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries as well as BUA’s facility, set to begin production in the near future, Nigeria could soon be in a position where it no longer needs to bring products.

    Things may look dire right now, but it is not hopeless for this country. What would really be sad is after making a massive effort to get out of the woods, we don’t learn our lessons. There may be hardship in the land, but we must keep reminding ourselves of the immediate and remote causes so that they are not repeated. 

  • The long walk to 2027

    The long walk to 2027

    The 2023 electoral cycle is the one that never ended. Even after the Supreme Court dismissed the cases brought before it by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s (LP), Peter Obi, it was clear that for the two men, there was no closure.

    They never accepted defeat, never congratulated the winner President Bola Tinubu, and showed by their reaction to final judicial defeat that they were ready to relitigate the matter – this time in the court of public opinion.

    Standard behavior – even in politics – accepts that there’s time for everything; a time to campaign, a time to govern. The changing of times is usually marked by the termination of legal hostilities at the apex court. But in an age where denialism has become reality, nothing is the same.

    The only outcome that would have been acceptable to either Atiku or Obi was one in which they were declared winners. Since it is impossible to have three winners on one contest, they have grudgingly accepted the fact that there’s a president sitting in Aso Rock, while they are skulking around in the opposition wilderness. This is just a restless, holding position.

    Everything they have done since points to the fact that they are warming up for a repeat of a contest that is at least three years away. Take Obi for example. While his performance at the polls last year surprised many by its reach into largely Christian areas of North-Central, it also exposed the weaknesses of his presentation and how his candidacy was perceived.

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    He would have loved to be seen as a pan-Nigerian figure whose message resonated with a younger demographic, but the lopsided results in the Southeast made him out to be an ethnic project. His performance in the Southwest was anaemic – with the exception of Lagos where a complex mix of religion and ethnicity delivered a famous win for him in the presidential poll.

    By choosing the same-faith ticket, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Tinubu, opened the window for his rivals to weaponise religion. While Atiku attacked the ticket will all the gusto he could muster, it was Obi who really made a meal of it. He traipsed through mega churches the length and breadth of the South with the rallying cry ‘Christians, take back your country!’ Such exhortations were often greeted with exuberant cheers.

    His determined attempt to cement himself as the Christian candidate in an environment where the Muslim-Muslim ticket had been demonised would end in a scandal after his fawning ‘yes daddy’ phone conversation with Pentecostal grandee, Bishop David Oyedepo, was leaked.

    While he was pursuing the strategy of locking up the Christian vote North and South, he forgot the downside of being seen as anti the other side of the religious divide. It was no surprise therefore that the LP flagbearer made only the most perfunctory of attempts to canvass votes in the far North. It was a factor that would deny him the national spread required to win the presidency.

    It is clear the man recognises the mistakes made and has been taking baby steps to remedy them. For instance, the same person who wanted Christians to take back their country one year ago, was sighted in a couple of gatherings during Ramadan breaking fast with Muslims.

    Social media was also agog with images of a poorly executed borehole project bearing his name somewhere in Zaria. Many were quick to conclude he was was rebranding ahead 2027. Such were the extremes to which he went in 2023 that he would need more than these photo-ops and posturing to reverse the damage.

    As for Atiku, he has never hidden the fact that for as long as he has breath, he would pursue his dream of becoming president. So, next stop, 2027. But with the former Vice President there’s been noticeable change. Gone is some of the arrogance that misled him into thinking he could win the last election without the support of the Nyesom Wike-led G-5 rump of the PDP.

    The same man who preferred to hang on to the questionable electoral asset called Iyorchia Ayu rather than work with five state governors, is today feverishly marketing a grand coalition of opposition parties as the only way of toppling the ruling party at the next election. For inspiration, he points to the victory of the 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye at the recent Senegalese presidential poll as evidence of what’s possible when parties work together.

    It can be taken for granted that all things being equal, the incumbent will run again. At least he made that obvious when at the inauguration of Lagos Red Line rail project in February, he taunted Joe Ajaero and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to wait until 2027 if they were interested in political power.

    The trouble for Tinubu’s rivals is that while the next elections represent a window of opportunity for those who wish to supplant an officeholder with a record, they would be reduced in that time to merely carping on the sidelines watching the president wield power.

    They may wish he stumbles from error to error – providing them with ammunition to attack his record. But the reverse is also possible; that he could go from win to win – becoming more presidential as the days go by. Critically, he’s taken some pivotal and very unpopular steps early in his tenure, giving him sufficient time to ride out any negative blowback. Early signs point to the fact that fuel subsidy removal and the forex reforms were the right calls needed to unlock the economy.

    Given what we know about the evolution of political power in these parts, it’s going to take more than opposition name-calling to bring about regime change at the next election – especially if the pace of reforms is sustained and the economy rebounds and becomes stronger. PDP, LP and others would then have to make a compelling case as to why voters should dump a tried and tested model for a pie in the sky.

    In the days when the British Tory Party seemed to have a lock on power, going from one electoral triumph to another, it was a young Tony Blair who warned his comrades in the then far left-leaning British Labour Party about the need to develop policies and an image that would make them electable. He argued that no matter how well-meaning a party’s policies were, they could do nothing about them except they found a way to get into power. He would then push Labour to be more centrist and eventually electable.

    At least the Labour Party was not just a cohesive platform, it was perceived by British voters as a credible alternative to the Conservatives. Today, the PDP which in its days in power appeared invincible and even dreamt of governing non-stop for 60 years, is on the ropes – riven with factions. This week it would hold crucial meetings that would affect its future. It is a measure of how much confidence Atiku has in it that he’s desperately marketing a joining of forces with other parties.

    The same affliction has paralysed the Labour Party which is locked in an internecine feud with NLC which claims to own it. Such is the bitterness of the dispute that it promises to be long drawn – rendering it largely useless to anyone hoping to ride it to power.

    Perhaps, the most credible challenge to APC rule lies in an opposition coalition. But its prospects are dead on arrival because of the ambitions of the would be promoters and partners. The day Atiku sacrifices his ambition for Obi or the NNPP’s Rabiu Kwankwaso or vice versa, is the day to begin to take such a project serious. Until then, any visions of power these perennial contestants may be having are nothing short of a mirage.

  • The strange case of the Binance escapee

    The strange case of the Binance escapee

    The mysterious escape of Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla, from custody in Abuja has left the authorities with the proverbial egg all over their faces.

    The timing couldn’t have been more disastrous nor the paradox more stark. This was the week in which President Bola Tinubu praised National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the armed forces to high heavens for their work in rescuing I37 abducted Kaduna pupils and another group of 17 students snatched in Sokoto State.

    While the nation was still revelling in the double dose of good news, reports of Anjarwalla’s escape came like a slap across the face – terminating even the slightest hint of euphoria.

    The circumstances leading to the escape would make many question whether the near-flawless extraction of the abductees from captivity was entirely down to the skill of security forces or mere happenstance. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that kidnap victims would be freed and the Police and others try to grab the glory, only for it to emerge that ransom had been paid.

    What is known thus far is that the 38-year-old Briton who also holds Kenyan citizenship, waltzed his way out of the guesthouse where he was being held with another colleague and vanished into thin air. It is said guards who were supposedly watching over them led him to a nearby mosque for prayers.

    It has also emerged that the detainee fled the country by way of a Middle Eastern airliner using a smuggled passport. What remains a mystery is how he was able to get on an international flight while his British passport remained in the hands of the authorities. It’s the stuff of which spy thrillers are made.

    In a typical case of medicine after death, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) says officers who were guarding the Binance executives have been arrested and a global manhunt launched for the fugitive from justice. All the best with that!

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    The immediate questions are many and troubling. Yes, this episode reeks of compromise and incompetence on an epic scale. But it is also a deep conspiracy executed to perfection.

    If these were truly high profile detainees whose activities may have negatively impacted Nigeria’s national security and economy, the circumstances in which they were held at some so-called guesthouse couldn’t have been more lax. If they needed to pray, couldn’t they have done so within the confines of where they were kept?

    How on earth did the guards who led Anjarwalla to the mosque lose sight of him for so long that he had sufficient time to get on a plane without some sort of alarm being triggered? At what point was his disappearance noticed?

    Were the guards really watching the subject or did they conveniently abandon him to his devices? Were they drugged and put to sleep by other co-conspirators? Was this visit to the mosque a regular thing or just one wrong move that backfired?

    This was clearly not happenstance. You don’t just hop on an international flight on the spur of the moment – especially when your primary travel documents have been seized. This was an elaborate scheme that involved the procurement of a fake passport – probably with a false identity. It obviously had been in planning for a while. It involved people turning a blind eye long enough for him to get on pre-arranged transport to the airport in a foreign city.

    All of this happened without the so-called guards giving chase or alerting possible entry and exit points out of the city and country!

    Even if your vessel of flight were a private jet you still have to run the gauntlet of myriad security agencies at the airports. If it is not the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), it is the Department of State Services (DSS) or some other murky outfit. It is unbelievable that Anjarwalla’s name wasn’t on their watch-list, or his visage wasn’t plastered all over their systems.

    No conspiracy would work without the target to be extracted having communication with outside helpers. Clearly, the Binance executives had sufficient contact with external collaborators for Anjarwalla to have known when to move and where to be in order to be spirited out of the country. It just makes you wonder whether he and his colleague were in detention or on vacation.

    We’ve seen in this country how tightly security agencies can keep a prized detainee. The late dictator General Sani Abacha held Chief M. K. O. Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 elections, for four years in so many faceless facilities such that he was cut off from the world. At every point he had as many as fourteen agents watching him. They guarded him as if their lives depended on it.

    Perhaps, the circumstances are different, but it is pointless seizing a man’s passport, announcing to the world that you’ve detained him, only for him to take the next available flight out, right under your nose. Just another strange tale out of Nigeria!

    Of course, these daring gambits occur from time to time. Three years ago, Nigerian security agents entered Kenya and arrested the fugitive leader of the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. He had briefly stepped out of his lodgings in Nairobi and was without his travel documents when he was seized. Next thing, he was being paraded in handcuffs in Abuja.

    In this instance it was clear security agencies of the two countries had worked together to apprehend the separatist leader. The mystery that the authorities now have to unravel is the chain of collaboration that led to Anjarwalla’s disappearance. It involves compromise from his immediate guards to those at the country’s exit points. Everyone implicated must pay a steep price.

    While this episode is embarrassing, we shouldn’t just focus on the shame but see it as a window into why our security challenges are so complicated and unending. It is a difficult thing to admit, but there are many individuals in the different forces whose integrity or loyalty to the country cannot be vouched for.

    Those who allege that many in the forces are available for rent are being proven right in different theatres of conflict from the Northeast to Northwest to South-South. In the Niger Delta, oil theft continues unabated because of security compromise. The giant ocean-going vessels that berth in our waters to lift stolen crude can only do so with connivance of those who should be arresting them.

    The whole of that region is swarming with make-shift refineries that produce black market diesel from stolen crude. They then move their illegal products to markets across the country in tankers that move in and out with little or no hindrance.

    All the major roads are lined with checkpoints manned by soldiers, yet the trade keeps booming. An activity that is draining life out of the activity won’t stop for as long as those sent to stamp it out are busy lining their pockets – unconcerned about something called the national interest.

    Even in the recent tragic events at Okuama community in Delta State which resulted in the killing of 17 soldiers, one of the allegations is about security agents for hire complicating matters. Ultimately, a proper investigation would unmask what happened in a communal dispute between two hitherto anonymous villages.

    Just as he’s doing with certain institutions critical to the wellbeing of the economy, President Tinubu needs to pivot to rooting out the rot in the security agencies. It would be a long, hard fight, but it is one that has to be engaged quickly otherwise his much-vaunted reforms would end up being frustrated.

  • The mystery of mass abductions

    The mystery of mass abductions

    Nearly ten years have passed since that dark day in April 2014 when fighters from the terrorist Boko Haram group lighted on a government secondary school in Chibok, a small town in Borno State, and kidnapped 287 hapless schoolgirls. Some escaped captivity by their own devices, others as a result of the efforts of civil society groups.

    An indeterminate number remain in capacity either as wives or sex slaves of the fighters of this extremist group, and yet many others succumbed to death in the course of their harrowing experiences.

    Until the Chibok girls episode the phenomenon of mass abductions was relatively unknown – even in the North – which now appears to be the main theatre for its manifestation. That was the reason, perhaps, why the government of then President Goodluck Jonathan, received initial reports of the kidnapping with much skepticism.

    The then governor of Borno, now Vice President, Kashim Shettima, was hauled into Aso Rock for a grilling as to how it was possible for a ragtag bunch of thugs to march in and spirit away almost three hundred girls with such ease. Poor guy, though he was governor and supposedly chief security officer of his state, he didn’t really control troops and had little say in their deployment.

    Such was the suspicion that the incident was just political mischief to embarrass the government of the day that then First Lady Patience Jonathan got in on the act and convened her own panel of inquiry to get to the root of the matter. The result was a comic, shambolic affair that end with her famously wailing in frustration “there’s God o!”

    Unfortunately for Mrs. Jonathan and the rest of Nigeria, those who engineer and execute mass abductions of vulnerable people don’t dread or regard the God she was drawing their attention to.

    Abubakar Shekau, the late, unlamented monster who controlled Boko Haram, would confirm the reality of the kidnapping shortly after through several propaganda videos with the largely Christian girls now wrapped up in the Muslim hijab. His maniacal laughter taunting the authorities to come and get the girls if they could was national humiliation.

    The motive of Shekau and his goons in pulling off their crime was to advertise their extreme ideology to a global audience that hardly paid attention to them. After Chibok, the world knew the name Boko Haram.

    The Jonathan administration’s inability to bring back the girls, or to rein in a campaign of terror unleashed across the North by the extremists, was part of the contributory factors that defined it as weak and clueless. It would pay the price at the 2015 presidential elections.

    The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) which had done an excellent job of defining the then Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government as inept, soon inherited the headache. Back then, the ruling party encouraged the insinuation that the opposition were complicit in the Chibok kidnapping and other terror acts as it would help them politically.

    After taking power in 2015, the best efforts of the Muhammadu Buhari administration still didn’t bring the girls home. If the dark suggestions of his political rivals had really been true, then it would have been relatively easy to organise their return and repeat a massive harvest of goodwill. That didn’t happen. Not long after, those who were accused of knowing about the Chibok incident soon found themselves having to deal with another mass abduction – this time on their watch.

    In February 2018, a faction of Boko Haram stormed into a girls’ science school in Dapchi, a town in Yobe State and captured 110 girls. Almost all would be released not longer after, less five who lost their lives in this episode.

    In mid-December 2020, gunmen riding on motorcycles arrived another secondary school in Kankara, Katsina State and seized 300 boys. The state government went into negotiations and six days later their release was announced.

    Six years after Shekau’s goons plucked the Chibok girls from their hostels, it was evident that the nature of mass abductions in the North had changed. There was now clearly an economic motive given the swift manner in which the crisis was resolved after negotiations. No doubt, ransom had changed hands – never mind what the authorities said in public.

    From February 2021 to July of the same year, a slew of mass kidnappings would happen across three Northern states that left the Federal Government and myriad security agencies looking helpless. On February 17, gunmen wearing military fatigues visited the science school in Kagara, Niger State and abducted 27 students and three teachers.

    Nine days later there was a nighttime attack on a boarding school in Jangebe, Zamfara State, with 300 schoolgirls taken captive. A few weeks after, all were released after money exchanged hands. In March 2021, 39 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation at Afaka, Kaduna State, was kidnapped, only to be freed in batches in April and May. In the same state, armed men visited the private Greenfield University and took away 20 students.

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    More trauma was in the offing when in April bandits stormed into the Bethel Baptist High School in Chikun area of Kaduna State and took 100 students. They would later be freed in batches after the payment of ransom by parents and the church. When a particular security agency tried to claim credit for the release of the initial batch of abductees, irritated parents shut them up by revealing the mind boggling sums that had been paid for their freedom.

    In the last two to three years, it seemed like the criminals had lost appetite for their evil enterprise. Not so. They are back with a vengeance. On March 7 this year, the usual suspects raided a school in Kuriga, Kaduna State and seized 287 pupils who they are still holding. They have asked for N1 billion to set their captives free; a demand that has been rebuffed by President Bola Tinubu.

    The same questions that people asked ten years ago are still relevant today. How is possible for gunmen to move hundreds of children on motorcycles with no one being any wiser? Didn’t this raucous procession pass through any community? On tarred roads such movement would be a logistical nightmare; in the forest it would be no easy undertaking.

    In an age where the skies have technological eyes, it is easy for security agencies to identify the location of the kidnappers. That not much has been done with the information they have is down to the fact that the kidnappers use their victims as human shields. Unfortunately, knowing this is cold comfort for parents and the authorities who are under pressure to rescue the abducted.

    A reckless military action might destroy both captor and victims and generate even worse outrage than doing nothing. The recent incident of error bombing in Kaduna State showed how difficult things can become in such circumstances.

    While it is possible to sympathise with the authorities, things cannot continue this way. Yes, they are under pressure to act. But make no mistake about it, the kidnappers are also under pressure to resolve things. It cannot be a tea party having to mind 287 little children in the middle of nowhere.

    The first step towards ending the menace of mass abductions is to refuse to pay up. Take away the economic incentive and the monster will begin to die. The business is alive and well because it is yielding profit for its perpetrators. Tinubu must hold firm on not paying ransom or his administration would end up infusing the monster it wants dead.

    Secondly, the public must be prepared for the fact that the stand-off cannot last forever. At some point government would have to intervene forcefully if it is going to be any different from its predecessors. As often happens in these circumstances, there could, unfortunately, be loss of lives. But mass kidnapping would only decline when people realize they would pay a steep price for abductions.

    Lastly, the question must also asked as to how much communities are committed to frustrating this phenomenon. Criminals hide victims in their midst and in nearby forests – not in thin air. They can provide intelligence that would be useful to the authorities. But how much cooperation are they offering to those they want to deliver them?

    How much are elite Northern voices speaking out to denounce the evil of mass abductions? Not much, I would say. Instead, we have the likes of Sheikh Gumi making a case for dialoguing with bandits as though they’ve become a fact of our lives we much live it. An end must come to indulging evil.

  • Nigerians and silver bullets

    Nigerians and silver bullets

    A little over 13 years ago, a 53-country Gallup poll scored Nigeria 70 points – rating it the most optimistic nation on earth. It even outperformed Britain which only managed 44 points. People were incredulous given that the country was still grappling with the old demons of poverty, corruption and violence.

    Last year, the Global Happiness Ranking after analysing data for four years beginning with 2020, placed the country 95th out of 146 countries polled worldwide and sixth in Africa.

    Many would compare the findings above with their reality and cry: lies, damned lies and statistics! Today, the buzzwords are ‘hunger’ and ‘hardship.’ They are in most newspaper headlines; on the lips of many people. It’s not dissimilar to the situation in early 2023. What with the fuel scarcity and Godwin Emefiele’s disappearing naira.

    Pain has never been popular anywhere in the world. Even the most stoic people just bear it and carry on, waiting for better days. In a notoriously impatient nation uncommon economic challenges have created an air of crisis. Everyone wants a solution and they want it now.

    You can say the current problems have come about because fuel subsidy was removed and the naira floated. You can even hark back to the N30 trillion ways and means outlay which the Central Bank under Godwin Emefiele afforded the Muhammadu Buhari administration and, in so doing, snuffing life out of the naira.

    What you cannot ignore is that many are cashing in to make a bad situation worse. Some are doing so to make a point and justify their political choices; others, simply out of spite and hate.

    Such is the breakdown of trust between government and the governed that not many believe anything that comes from officialdom. That’s why claims of sabotage are often quickly dismissed as propaganda and excuses. Of course, we know the economic problems are down to more fundamental structural issues.

    They have been long in the making and would require an extended period to unmake. It’s the politically-incorrect thing to say in an environment where many expect a silver bullet to be deployed to bring dramatic change.

    You hear people tell the president to do something urgently. They warn the country is sitting on a keg of gunpowder, about to be blown to smithereens. For all the alarm bells they have rung, I am yet to hear anything that approximates a magic formula. I suspect that’s because no one has it.

    Instead, there have been a few short, medium term and long term solutions proffered. The trouble with these is the assumption that our problems are down to systems of governance only, ignoring the human dimensions to our troubles. It is for this typically Nigerian factor that methods which work optimally elsewhere, fail woefully down here.

    One of the more interesting proposals is the move by 60 members of the House of Representatives to return the country to the parliamentary system of governance.

    Spokesman for the so-called Parliamentary Group, Abdulsamad Dasuki, which has introduced a constitution amendment bill, argues that the failings of the presidential system are glaring.

    He said: “Among these imperfections are the high cost of governance, leaving fewer resources for crucial areas like infrastructure, education, and healthcare, and consequently hindering the nation’s development progress, and the excessive powers vested in the members of the executive, who are appointees and not directly accountable to the people.”

    If proponents successfully navigate the long road to passage, the amendment would take effect in 2031.

    The strongest selling point of their plan is cost-cutting. Perhaps the 2031 vintage of the parliamentary system would work if foreigners are imported to implement it. We’ve travelled this road in the First Republic and it all unravelled in just five years.

    The same factors of ethnicity, regional competition, personal ambitions, corruption, violence and incompetence which the military used as excuses to intervene in January 1966 are still there today. If this system was the cure-all that the country needed, the military under the late General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi wouldn’t have introduced a unitary system. They would have returned power to the next in line following the death of then Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa.

    As part of the process that preceded the Second Republic, a Constituent Assembly presided over by the late Justice Udo Udoma engaged in lengthy debates that ultimately rejected the parliamentary system and plumped for the American presidential model. Many of the members were active participants in the First Republic – with experience in the system that some would have us believe is Nigeria’s solution today.

    The British parliamentary system is 223 years old and still going strong. The American presidential system invented in 1787 is even older. Both nations have had their challenges. The United States fought its civil war. They never changed their way of governance – beyond occasional amendments; they changed those who ran the system.

    For all its imperfections, Nigeria’s democracy has been self-cleansing. The Fourth Republic is 25 years old. In 2015 an incumbent president lost to the opposition candidate and handed over peacefully. Some would have us junk this model completely because of present challenges. The replacement would be something we last experimented with 60 years ago.

    At least, we can credit the Parliamentary Group for proposing that which can be actualised through lawful means. In the last few weeks we’ve also received proposals from the lunatic fringe in the form of calls for military intervention.

    Although the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has strongly denounced those soliciting soldiers to embark on treasonable actions, yesterday Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja, reiterated the military’s commitment to defending democracy and constitution.

    While many may not have taken the coup talk seriously, whatever unease may have existed probably came from the recent rash of such excursions in the likes of Niger, Mali, Gabon and others.

    An even stronger reason for dismissing it is because there was such solicitation by the Anyone-but-Tinubu gang in the days following the declaration of the results of the February 2023 presidential elections. Their goal was to scuttle the inauguration of the winner. They never got over their loss and see in current challenges an opportunity for regime change.

    Only the total clueless would consider the military a viable option. Nigeria is not Niger. It is a strategic and massive country with over 200 million people. The world won’t stand for military the meddling in its governance. It would be swiftly turned into a pariah with the pain flowing to us all.

    Nigeria of 2024 is a totally different proposition from the country it was in the heydays of coups in the 70s and 80s. The world has changed politically and technologically. We saw in the experience of Turkey how in 2016 a putsch was frustrated by the populace using social and traditional media.

    Despite our frustrations with politicians and the process, the last time Nigeria was under the military was 25 years ago. It is the longest stretch of civil rule ever in this country and evidence of our commitment to democracy. The reactionary forces who would love to take us back forget that when soldiers intervene, they don’t just sack individuals, they overthrow the constitution with all the rights it guarantees.

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    They bulldoze every political institution – be they presidents, senators, Reps, governors, state assemblymen, local government chairmen etc. It doesn’t matter whether the office holders are APC, PDP, Labour Party or APGA. That’s why people must be careful what they wish for.

    Perhaps, the most annoying aspect of military intervention is the presumption. A bunch of unelected gun-toting soldiers impose themselves without our consent. They govern without proof that they can do a better job than those they ousted.

    A history of modern Nigeria can be titled: ‘How the Armed Forces Underdeveloped a Nation.’ They come promising to clean up but end up worse than the bandits they toppled. Long after his death, Nigeria keeps receiving repatriated millions of dollars looted by General Sani Abacha whilst he was Head of State.

    Some West African countries that allowed they to be seduced are learning the hard way. Take Guinea for instance. In September 2021, General Mamady Doumbouya overthrew President Alpha Conde.

    The junta banned all demonstrations in 2022 and arrested several opposition leaders, civil society members and journalists. Internet restrictions imposed three months ago were lifted recently, just days after unions declared a general strike over rampant inflation and hardship. The Guinean military haven’t been an improvement on the flawed democracy they truncated.

    Every country goes through trying times. In the 80s, it was as if half of Ghana emptied into Nigeria. When they were humiliated and chased out of this country, departing in cramped lorries, with their belongings stuffed in Ghana-Must-Go bags; they left to begin the long process of fixing their home. It wasn’t long before Nigerians started flocking there to buy property and enjoy stable electricity.

    It’s time we accepted that only hard graft and staying the course will get us out of the woods, not aimless chasing after silver bullets.

  • Nigeria’s Economic Crisis: What are governors for? 

    Nigeria’s Economic Crisis: What are governors for? 

    First Ladies are said to be the closest and most influential advisers to presidents. This is because they are the first and last ones these powerful figures see every day. They have the privilege of sharing counsel in the most intimate of environments where other couturiers can’t get to.

    So, when the president’s wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, visited the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, a couple of days ago, he gave her a message for her spouse. ‘Tell your husband Nigerians are suffering,’ the monarch said.

    Last week in the same city, Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, at an interactive session with the business community bemoaned the state of the economy and promised to inform the president in person of hardship in the land.

    On Monday, governors of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gathered together for consultations on the state of their party and the country. They later issued a communique proclaiming ‘Nigeria was on the road to Venezuela.’

    Perhaps, there are parallels because Venezuela is a Latin American country with some of the world’s largest crude oil reserves. But it somehow managed to go from boom to bust, such that today it is more of a basket case and the regular subject of global ridicule.

    The socioeconomic and political crisis which began around 2010 during the presidency of Hugo Chávez, worsened under his successor Nicolás Maduro. It has been marked by hyperinflation, worsening starvation, disease, crime and high mortality rates, leading to massive emigration from the country.

    A United Nations report estimated in March 2019 that 94% of Venezuelans lived in poverty, and by 2021 almost twenty percent of citizens (5.4 million) had fled their country. The crisis is that grave and is ongoing.

    It is a moot point whether Nigeria’s condition is on such an irreversible trajectory as to be glibly compared to what is happening in this South American country. Naturally, it isn’t the business of an opposition party to be understanding when its rival is in an awkward position. It is their job to paint themselves as a better option.

    I agree that the president should be held accountable when things are headed south on the economy or with security, just as he should take credit when things start going swimmingly. Tinubu, himself, has been quoted as saying no one should pity him given that he applied for job and Nigerians graciously elected him.  

    Prior to the February 2023 presidential elections, some farsighted people had written that they pitied whoever would succeed Muhammed Buhari as president, given the precarious state of the economy and continuing challenges with insecurity.

    Truly, the buck stops at the president’s table but he isn’t the only locus of power in a federation. At least, the constitution says we are a federation. So it’s a bit rich for these governors to carry on as though they haven’t contributed to the making of our national mess; or have no responsibly for cleaning it up.

    The 1999 Nigerian constitution sets out clear roles for federal, state and local governments. Section 4 (1) of that document contains 68 items on the Exclusive Legislative List over which only the Federal Government of Nigeria can legislate.

    The Concurrent Legislative List provides for items which the federal and state governments can legislate on. This list includes allocation of revenue; antiquities and monuments; archives; collection of taxes; electoral law; electric power; exhibition of cinematography films; industrial, commercial, or agricultural development; scientific and technological research; statistics; trigonometrical, cadastral, and topographical surveys; universities; technological and post primary education.

    Even if the federal government takes the lead, the framers of our constitution anticipated a critical and complementary role for states and their governments in ensuring the economic wellbeing of the country. That is why it specially created a National Economic Council (NEC), headed by the Vice President and comprising all 36 governors.

    Listening to the ongoing national discussion you would think government exists only at federal level. In reality, the constitution provides enough leeway for creative and competent governors to make life reasonably comfortable for their people.

    But in most states governance has not risen beyond the level of gathering to collect the monthly Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) handout and proceeding to share same. A 2022 report by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) put together could only muster N1.93 trillion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Of that number only six states – Lagos, Rivers, Ogun, Delta, Oyo, Kaduna and the FCT – managed revenues in excess of N50 billion yearly.

    Aside what accrues to them as FAAC share, some states also enjoy special windfall through the Ecological Fund pay outs by reason of their location. Governors preside over humongous security votes over which there is little accountability.

    As his second term wound down, former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, embarked on the inauguration of a slew of infrastructural projects which he boasted were funded through refunds from the Buhari administration. He them revealed that sister states in the Niger Delta had benefitted and challenged citizens to ask their governors what they did with their share.

    The cat was set amongst the pigeons! His embarrassed and rattled colleagues started rendering incoherent account of funds they never disclosed had come into their coffers.

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    This sorry state of affairs is especially noticeable in the South-South zone which, paradoxically, produces the bulk of the nation’s wealth through crude oil, and whose states have received trillions in the past two to three decades, yet remains one of the poorest regions in the country.

    In many states today, workers are owed huge arrears of monthly salaries. A lot of them cannot pay the miserable minimum wage. This is after many governors have castrated local governments by seizing their funds and preventing them from carrying out their functions. That is when properly elected councils are not being fired on a whim, to be replaced by appointees of the governors.

    Some of those presiding over this scandalous state of affairs have the gall to cry about hunger and hardship in the land. How won’t there be hunger when people are not paid in states where the only business is government business?

    In some Northern states, governors are notorious for spending more time in Abuja than in their capitals. While he acted as interim chairman of the All Progressives Council (APC), Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, was often criticised for his absenteeism from home.

    It is heartrending that despite the resources that have accrued to states over the past few decades, Nigerians who aren’t fleeing overseas keep flocking to Lagos and, to some extent, Abuja. How did we mismanage a country such that just two or three cities are the only magnets for people seeking a better life?

    The office of the president is powerful, no doubt. But state governors are not incapacitated in any way by what the constitution permits them to do. They can develop agriculture in their domains and ensure that food produced in rural areas get to city centres. They can create industrial hubs where people can find good paying jobs. They can make an effort to pay the measly wages of those who work them and stop the ego-tripping of appointing hundreds of unproductive ‘Special Assistants’!

    Nigerians are welcome to scrutinise how well Tinubu is doing in office. But no president, no matter how visionary, well-meaning or hard working, is going to turn this country around without states and local governments which receive a healthy chunk of national resources pulling their weight.

  • Hard times are for learning

    Hard times are for learning

    There are events in the life of nations that transform them forever. While not suggesting that anything happening to Nigerians now approximates what Jews experienced during the Holocaust, after that harrowing experience they vowed ‘never again.’

    South African blacks suffered through the apartheid years and were scarred by their experiences. When Nelson Mandela got his chance to rule he rejected a new form of discrimination by the majority, choosing instead to build a ‘rainbow nation’ out of the ashes of racism.

    Nigeria had her civil war, a sufficiently traumatic event that would have changed another nation. Despite the fact that a generation that were witnesses to its grim fallout are still active in governance, they don’t appear to have learnt any lessons from it.

    Ethnic suspicion, hate, profligacy, lack of vision and extreme corruption – some factors that led to that dark chapter in our history are still alive and well today, as we try to make sense of troublous times more than half a century after the guns fell silent on the Eastern front.

    Perhaps, the excruciating nature of this season is to brand it on our psyche that as a nation we can’t continue business as usual. We have lived a lie for too long. We’ve been pampered and screened from truth about our true condition.

    Sometime in the last ten years people were horrified when the dollar-to-naira rate breached the N200 barrier; they are shell-shocked now that the greenback is going for over N1,400. Inflation which in the last 20 years never crossed the 20% mark is almost hitting 30%. Although, that’s still a far cry from what prevailed between 1992 when the rate was 44.59% and 1995 when it reached an all-time high of 72.8% under General Sani Abacha.

    Nigeria is smack in the middle of an economic crisis and it’s a hurricane that has been brewing. It is trouble that many with insight had been predicting for years. But administrations that have come and gone chose to play ostrich, ignoring the obvious systemic distortions. This crisis wasn’t caused by the removal of fuel subsidy; that move simply blew away all pretences and exposed the tattered condition of our undergarments.

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    Today, it is politically correct to lament about how people are suffering as a consequence of the double whammy of spiralling inflation and naira collapse. Everyone going on about general hardship is simply stating the obvious. Even if they say so a thousand times, it changes nothing. What is needed is the silver bullet that would bring inflation down to lower double figures and forex rates to affordable levels.

    Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes. That is the reason why the twisting and the turning by the Central Bank and all those managing the economy has not resulted in any dramatic improvement. The apex bank can do all the tweaking it wants, if there are no significant increases in dollar inflows, not much would change.

    Part of the problem with our country is living in denial, just kicking the ball down the road, hoping that magically we will emerge from the hole we’ve dug for ourselves.

    I believe that one of the first steps towards recovery is full disclosure. We need to know how bad things are so we can begin to make the necessary adjustments. For instance, Nigerians need to be reminded that up till last year, 95% of all our revenues were being spent on servicing debts!

    The World Bank’s Macro Poverty Outlook for Nigeria: April 2023 put the actual figure at 96.3%. That left less than four percent for funding government’s objectives. The report observed that while oil price booms previously supported the economy, all that changed in 2021.

    The cause for this, according to the World Bank, was macroeconomic stability weakening amidst declining oil production, costly fuel subsidies, exchange rate distortions, and monetisation of the fiscal deficit.

    Our economic reality has largely sustained by things that were not sustainable. Fuel subsidy was not sustainable and virtually everyone – from labour unions, to economists, to all the presidential candidates at the 2023 election agree it had to go.

    The exchange rate was make-believe – sustained by the CBN shelling out billions to defend it against major global currencies. While this allowed the populace to access forex at relatively affordable rates, it opened a thriving window for arbitrage that made overnight billionaires out of people with the right connections.

    The battering of the naira was collective work and we must all own it. Typically, most of those moaning delude themselves they had no hand in it. Those who were making hay round-tripping, government officials who spend billions to buy dollars for hoarding, politicians who have to be bribed to do their constitutional duties and would only receive their gratification in dollars, contributed.

    Most bureaux de change (BDCs) are owned by those who have the power to approve them and allocate forex. For years it was in their interest to sustain the system of multiple exchange rates – virtually placing their feet firmly on the neck of a prostrate naira.

    We didn’t learn much in times of prosperity. Rather than investing proceeds of the 70s oil boom on building a future, the lack of leadership vision saw us squandering petrodollars on fiestas and jamborees.

    Between 2003 and 2019, crude oil rates were at record highs, yet not much was done to wean us from our appetite for imports, or to diversify the economy. While the world was preparing for change in the use of energy with a tilt away from fossil fuels, we carried on like the windfall would last forever.

    That’s the explanation for how we went from former President Olusegun Obasanjo paying off most of Nigeria’s debts at the time of Obasanjo’s exit to where we were at Muhammadu Buhari’s departure where over 96% of national revenue was being spent on debt serving.

    That we’ve not learnt any lessons or are not inclined to was evident in the recent controversy over the relocation of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) headquarters from Abuja to Lagos. Rather than being scandalised that over N500 million was being wasted on needless travel between cities by the agency’s officials, the argument was over regional political advantage.

    For most countries dealing with rampant inflation and forex scarcity it’s like going through hell. While are our challenges may not be as grave, there are certain aspects that are reminiscent of the Greek economic crisis between 2010 and 2018.

    At the height of its troubles Greece could not borrow. The populace was confronted with several reforms and austerity measures that led to impoverishment, loss of income and property, and a humanitarian crisis of sorts.

    There was massive political upheaval leading to the fall of government after government and the flight of hundreds of thousands of well-educated Greeks out of the country – their own version of japa.

    The government introduced round after round of tax increases, spending cuts, and reforms between 2010 and 2016, which caused riots and protests nationwide. In addition to these measures, the country still needed several bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others.

    One lesson from the Greek experience is that getting this economy back to health might be a matter of years, not months. It is a bitter truth that we need to start getting used to. Another is that some of the remedies might be bitter medicine no one wants to take. It would be akin to economic chemotherapy which would be brutal to the one being treated.

    The government will need to do more to block leakages, break up age old practices where a privileged few have fed fat on government. These steps won’t be popular with vested interests and would be opposed. What is required is the iron will to press through.

    As citizens we have a responsibility to take pride in that which is produced locally. We must change our consumption habits, produce most of what we eat or drink or wear. Those in production must up their game such that the gap in quality between imports and local products is eliminated.

    One major source of dollar demand pressure is the importation of petroleum product. With the Dangote, NNPC’s Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries as well as BUA’s facility, set to begin production in the near future, Nigeria could soon be in a position where it no longer needs to bring products.

    Things may look dire right now, but it is not hopeless for this country. What would really be sad is after making a massive effort to get out of the woods, we don’t learn our lessons. There may be hardship in the land, but we must keep reminding ourselves of the immediate and remote causes so that they are not repeated.   

  • Northern interests versus national interest

    Northern interests versus national interest

    Never mind their nationalistic posturing, many of our elite are at heart closet tribal champions and ethnic jingoists waiting to manifest. Squeeze them a little and they break out in their true colours.

    Their rhetoric shows that more than a century after the amalgamation by the British in 1914 of the Northern and Southern Protectorates, the lure of the tribe remains quite strong. That’s why we proudly rally round such groups as Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Middle-Belt Leaders Forum, Ijaw National Congress (INC) etc.

    Deep down there remains much anxiety about the long term sustainability of the Nigerian project. So, while pretending to be committed to some sense of nationhood, we spend our days prosecuting mini tribal wars – with unelected warlords leading the charge.

    One such war just broke out over the relocation of a few departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from Abuja to Lagos. Given the heat these seemingly innocuous actions have generated, you would think secession was imminent.

    In reality, these are just two out of hundreds of parastatals and agencies owned by the Federal Government. So why would matters of administrative convenience in a couple of organisations stir such much controversy? Politics, sheer political mischief!

    Here’s what happened. On January 12, the CBN announced plans to decongest its head office in Abuja.

    It explained the rationale behind the move thus: “The action plan focuses on optimizing the utilization of other Bank’s premises. With this plan, 1,533 staff will be moved to other CBN facilities within Abuja, Lagos, and understaffed branches.

    “Our current occupancy level of 4,233 significantly exceeds the optimal capacity of 2,700 designed for the Head Office building. This overcrowding poses several critical challenges.”

    Affected by the relocation are five departments: Banking Supervision; Other Financial Institutions Supervision; Consumer Protection Department; Payment System Management Department and Financial Policy Regulations Department. That’s just five out of the institution’s 17 departments. The headquarters and the office of the Governor remain domiciled in the federal capital.

    Just to confirm that there was nothing sinister about the move, a former Deputy Governor of the bank, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, in a post on X, revealed that the CBN’s Lagos office was inaugurated 12 years ago but had been underutilised.

    He noted that the relocation addresses the overstaffing challenges at the Abuja headquarters, where the staff count exceeds recommended health and safety limits.

    Moghalu argued that the decision was logical because affected departments primarily oversee market entities situated in Lagos.

    With conspiracy theorists still chewing on the CBN decision, the announcement that the headquarters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria’s (FAAN) would also be moving, was confirmation that that the end of the world had come!

    The organisation in a statement by Obiageli Orah, its Director of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection said: “Those affected by the decision to move the headquarters to Abuja have since returned to Lagos as there is no office space for them in Abuja. It was ill-advised in the first place to move the headquarters to Abuja when there was no single FAAN building in Abuja to accommodate all of them at once.”

    She explained that retaining the status quo would mean abandoning “the old FAAN building in Lagos to rot away and to use its scarce resources to rent an office space in Abuja for millions of naira of public money when in actual fact more than sixty percent of its activities are in Lagos given the huge passenger volume of the Lagos airports. The stakeholders and the Minister decided against that and to save the country from this waste.”

    Those vociferously opposed to the relocation would rather ignore important matters of waste of public resources that has been going on since the headquarters was moved in 2020. They are not concerned about prolonging the bleeding at a time when the nation is struggling economically. So much for love of country!

    What is particularly provocative about this controversy is the way it has been spun as an attack on a section of the country. ACF’s National Publicity Secretary, Prof. T. A. Muhammad-Baba, claims the moves were part of a plot to under-develop the North.

    “The CBN’s decision is no means of isolated or normal administrative action to fix some logistics problem. Rather, it fits into a disturbing pattern of antagonistic actions often taken by certain federal administrations against the interests of Northern and other parts of Nigeria,” he said.

    This raises immediate questions as to how the CBN and FAAN movements affect the North. Is Abuja capital of Nigeria or of a particular region? Is the federal capital the property of the North or of all Nigerians?

    This curious sense of ownership is perhaps borne out of the fact that in over 40 years either by design or otherwise only Northerners have been Ministers of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). When President Bola Tinubu broke that pattern with appointment of former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, he was attacked by the likes of Sheik Ahmad Gumi as though he had done something sacrilegious.

    If people want to make a political mountain out of something as simple as the movement of an agency’s departments, then they invite awkward questions that people have chosen not to ask for reasons of national cohesion and peaceful coexistence.

    For instance, is there any provision of the country that requires that all parastatals of the Federal Government be located in Abuja irrespective of their operational peculiarities? For instance, does it make sense to site the headquarters of a marine-based agency in the federal capital?

    Have those hyperventilating about the CBN and FAAN asked why the overwhelming majority of the nation’s defence establishments are located in the North – Kaduna specifically? No one is making waves about this.

    Read Also: I’ll take on your concerns one by one, Tinubu assures South-south indigenes

    Can they, beyond an inexplicable sense of entitlement, explain why over the years certain federal ministries like Defence, Agriculture, Education, FCT, Water Resources etc. always ended up in Northern hands and no one cried foul?

    I would have been alarmed if the relocation meant Northerners working in these two establishments would lose their jobs. But that’s not the case. So in what way has the region’s interests been hurt?

    The curious position of the ACF has received backing from the Northern Senators Forum (NSF). Aside rejecting the CBN and FAAN relocation to Lagos, they argue the 2024 budget was not favourable to their region and threatened legal action to address their grievances.

    It is amusing that the legislators have just discovered that this year’s Appropriation Act doesn’t favour their region. It bears pointing out that all 58 of them participated in discussions that led to the passing of the budget in December 2023. Whether at committee level or as part of the whole house, they signed off on what was allocated.

    Are they now suggesting that someone cast a spell on them to pass a spending plan that doesn’t favour their region? As willing participants in this legislative equivalent of scoring an own goal they have no one else to blame but themselves.

    In trying to inflame passions or bully the rest of the country, the ACF, NSF and their co-travellers want to start something they cannot finish. Every section of the country can play the game of threats and bluff. But before going further they should spend quality time reading the constitution.

    Rather than wasting their days on mischief, there’s so much they can do to better the lot of their people. They can throw their collective energies into reducing the number of out-of-school children, synergise to get more people back to farms, improve access to healthcare and attack widespread poverty in their region.

    Their parochial agitation is a distraction the country doesn’t need at this time. I understand that individuals may be aggrieved over loss of privileges and access. Yet, in all their scheming they can never get to the point of convincing majority of Nigerians that what they define as their regional interest is superior to our overall national interest.