The Nation Newspaper

Category: Niyi Akinnaso

  • Nigeria’s place in the world

    Nigeria’s place in the world

    No one doubts that Nigeria, the most populous black nation on earth, has enviable potentials. At 923,768 km2 in land area and an estimated population of 218 million, Nigeria is the 32nd largest and seventh most populous country in the world. It is estimated that by 2040, at the current growth rate, Nigeria may be the fourth largest country in the world after India, China, and the United States, with a potential to surpass the United States in 2047! The major contributors to Nigeria’s population, which need to be checked, include early marriages, high birth rates, lack of sufficient attention to family planning, and illiteracy.

    Enormous material and human resources come with Nigeria’s size and population. The country is rich in a variety of mineral resources, notably oil, gas, bitumen, and gold, among others, some of which remain largely untapped, while others are mismanaged. Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of oil and the sixth largest oil producing country in the world. Similarly, Nigeria is sixth in the world in bitumen deposit. Large portions of the land are also very fertile for a variety of agricultural produce, including cocoa, rice, maize, yams, cassava, fruits and vegetables.

    While the education boom lasted, Nigeria produced world class professionals in all disciplines, especially in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, engineering, architecture, law, accountancy, and the arts. Proud products of Nigeria include universally acclaimed professors, fine artists, actors and directors, and literary artists, including novelists, poets, and dramatists, notably, Chinua Achebe and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka. Today, Nigerian professionals are found in the top cadre across the world, especially in Europe and the Americas. With the children of the Nigerian elite now receiving education abroad, the class of Nigerian professionals abroad has been increasing steadily, making Nigerians among the most educated immigrants abroad.

    One area in which Nigeria has been making a big splash recently is in the arts, not in terms of the return of Nigerian artwork by European countries, but also in terms of the magnitude and quality of creative expressions. Today, Nigeria has the second largest film industry in the world and her musical artistes are dictating the pace in the global hiphop music industry.

    Read Also: Never was so much owed by so many Nigerians to so few youth 

    Although Nigeria’s economy looks gloomy at home, it is still ranked as the 27th largest economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP, and 24th largest in terms of purchasing power parity. These statistics may well be behind its borrowing power, although the enormous size of borrowing is currently raising concerns at home.

    These concerns lead to the twin question of how Nigeria fares today and the status of the country to be inherited by the next President in 2023. The answers are discouraging but not altogether unexpected.

    A combination of interrelated problems persists, preventing the actualization of the country’s potentials. They include insecurity, corruption, income inequality, unemployment, poor health system, substandard education system, poor governance, non-diversified economy, abject poverty affecting over 70 million people, and deficits in infrastructural development. The infrastructural deficits are manifested in inadequate power and water supply, bad or inadequate roadways, and inadequate and substandard public facilities and utilities.

    Although the economic crunch is pervasive, insecurity is regarded as the greatest problem at the moment. Manifested as terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, robbery, cultism, and separatist agitations, insecurity affects people’s lives and property directly, especially those whose relatives, co-workers, friends, or acquaintances have been killed, kidnapped, robbed, or had property destroyed. It also affects farming, traveling, and social gatherings, because of fear that any of these criminals could strike anywhere and at any time.

    Corruption, mismanagement, and lack of transparency and accountability are the bane of the economy. At the same time, they are among the indicators of bad governance. Corruption is typified by the diversion of public resources into private pockets from other sectors of the economy, such as education, healthcare, and infrastructural development. The effects of corruption are noticeable in all sectors of the economy, particularly in energy output-inadequate power supply; shortage of fuel (petrol and diesel); and shortage of cooking gas. Fuel and cooking gas shortages are caused partly by theft at source and partly by inadequate distribution network. Perhaps, by far, the greatest inadequacy is lack of domestic refineries on which billions of Naira have been expended without result. `

    These shortcomings continue to make life more and more unbearable, especially for the poor and unemployed, who are in the majority. One of the downsides of rapid population growth in the country is the booming youth population, which has continued to put a major stress on public institutions, raise the unemployment figures, and provide willing recruits for criminality.

    The deepening poverty level results directly from the mismanaged economy. Nigeria has been trading places with India as the poverty capital of the world. Instead of creating the conditions for generating employment, such as industrialization, manufacturing, and education for the job market, government after government has been engaging in ad hoc programmes for the unemployed and handouts (poverty alleviation measures) for the poor.

    The cumulative effects of these shortcomings are revealed in various international indices on which Nigeria is ranked very low. Thus, as a result of persistent corrupt practices, which plunder national resources and impede access to needed public services, Nigeria scored 24 out of 100 points on the latest Corruption Perception Index, placing Nigeria at 154th out of 180 countries surveyed.

    The latest Human Development Index, which captured the effects of long-term neglect of the health sector, ranks Nigeria among the lowest countries in the world, with a low tier score of 0.539. It is no wonder then that life expectancy in the country has hovered between 54 and 55 years for quite some time.

    Similarly, as a result of persistent insecurity, the World Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria as the third most terrorized country in the world, after Afghanistan and Iraq. A complementary ranking is provided by the Global Peace Index, which equally places Nigeria in the low category.

    On top of it all, the Failed State Index puts Nigeria in the “at risk” category, followed closely on the table by Iraq and Haiti. The indicators of failure include weak or ineffective central government, widespread corruption, criminality, intervention of non-state actors, involuntary population movements, and insufficient provision of political goods.

    Against the above backdrop, the job of the next President is well cut out. He needs to take Nigeria from the brink and make her take the rightful place among nations. I know of only one candidate, who can do that effectively. But that is a subject for another day.

     

  • BBC Africa Eye on banditry in Nigeria

    BBC Africa Eye on banditry in Nigeria

    The Federal Government’s threat to sanction the BBC for circulating The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara, a video of interviews of bandit warlords in Zamfara state in the Northwest, did not come as a surprise. The Federal Government has never hidden its disdain for negative press and sharp revelations of its shortcomings. This is particularly true of the government’s reactions to international media coverage, such as the CNN story on the Lekki gate shootings during the #ENDSARS protest, and negative international indices, such as those published annually by the Corruption Perception Index and the Fragile States Index. The banning and unbanning of Twitter for spreading fake news is yet another example.

    Nevertheless, the BBC Africa Eye documentary under discussion is somewhat different from these examples. For one thing, the video, circulated on social media, specifically, YouTube, goes to the heart of the most serious social problem in Nigeria today, namely, insecurity, which, in many parts of the country, is a matter of life and death. This problem is accentuated by the impending presidential election, scheduled for February, 2023. The heightening of insecurity in recent months has led some observers to question the propriety of the election, if the present trend persists. The recent attacks on the presidential fleet, leading to fatalities, could only compound the problem.

    The existential nature of the problem requires that its coverage be handled with utmost care. To be sure, the public has a right to know, which is a motivation for any media outlet to cover any event. However, that right must be balanced with the government’s need to tackle the problem without undue media interference that might complicate matters. It is one thing to criticize the government for not doing enough to fight terrorism; it is another thing to give voice to the same terrorists in the name of performing journalism’s function of providing information to the public, thereby satisfying their need to know.

    The BBC failed in achieving proper balance, by showing images and voices of bandit warlords, thereby etching banditry in the viewers’ mind and creating fear. Can such images provide closure to survivors of banditry or victims’ families? Absolutely not. What is worse, the dreaded subject of ransom is confirmed in the video, with the bandit confirming a high figure, which he claimed he witnessed with his own eyes.

    To be sure, the video might have provided some clues to the government as to how to deal with banditry, but the overall implications of the video are damaging to the government’s effort.

    What is particularly troubling about the video is the propaganda effect it has for the bandits. It is rather unfortunate that a global platform, such as the BBC, turned itself into a venue for terrorist propaganda. To be sure, this may not have been the intention of the BBC in making the documentary. Nevertheless, it has become its inevitable outcome. Anything that propagates violence, such as banditry, creates fear in citizens but difficulty for the government in allaying peoples fears and in coming up with a suitable strategy of containment.

    On closer scrutiny, the BBC Africa Eye documentary is the more troubling for two reasons. First, it is circulated on social media, specifically YouTube, apparently in order to achieve wider circulation. But propagating banditry, which has claimed thousands of lives, should not be used as a bait for high rating.

    Second, it would appear that the BBC is not consistent in its coverage of violence. Neither the violent struggles of the Irish Republican Army nor that of Sinn Féin, its political arm, was given a voice on BBC nor was a documentary released about their activities while their struggles were still going on. It is high time media international coverage of Africa adopted the same global standard that applies everywhere. There should be no more one standard for the North and another for the South.

    It would have been a different matter if the BBC shared its findings with the Nigerian government or its law enforcement agencies before airing the documentary. Such sharing will allow government officials to offer appropriate editorial advice to lesson the propaganda and fear-creating effects. Perhaps the BBC just went ahead to avoid discouragement from airing the documentary.

    It is as well that the Federal Government has now registered its displeasure with the documentary. It is not clear what censorship the government is planning to issue. Whatever it is, the censorship must include the requirement for shared footage of future documentaries or similar investigations before release of the final product. It is also not too much to have the BBC pull down the documentary from YouTube with immediate effect. Already, over one million views had been recorded within one week. That should do it for BBC’s rating game.

  • CAN and the reification of religious intolerance

    CAN and the reification of religious intolerance

    In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, requiring that projects financed with federal funds “take affirmative action” to ensure that hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. Kennedy’s foundational action laid the foundation for Kennedy’s Vice President and successor to sign the sweeping Civil Rights Act in 1964, which prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, colour, religion, or national origin.

    Today in Nigeria, some (not all) leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) are trying to roll back the hand of the clock on a local variation of affirmative action. Rather than ensure that the choice of a Vice-Presidential candidate by a party’s flag bearer is free of religious bias, they are arguing that the choice must be biased in favour of their own religion, namely, Christianity. In particular, they are opposed to the choice of a Muslim running mate by the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, himself a minority Muslim from the South, a predominantly Christian region.

    Tinubu’s insistence that the choice of former Governor, now Senator, Kashim Shettima of Borno State, is based on his sterling qualifications-experience, competence, ability, vision, and readiness to work as a team player-mean nothing to CAN.

    It also does not matter to CAN that the region from which the choice is being made is predominantly Muslim. There are nineteen states in the North, only 4 or 5 of which have a sizable Christian population. Of these Christian states, three are dominated by the Peoples Democratic Party with PDP Governors. Is CAN saying that the voting sensibilities of the remaining 14 or 15 Northern states, mostly APC states, do not matter? It also does not matter to CAN that the leading opposition candidates from the North are Muslim. If Northern Muslim voters follow CAN’s my-religion-only logic, they may all vote for the opposition Muslim candidates from their region. But the voters are much wiser than that. Above all, CAN seems to overlook the critical fact that Tinubu is a politician looking for a running mate that shares his vision of the country, not a Pope looking for a Camerlengo (Deputy).

    CAN’s position on what has come to be known as the Muslim-Muslim ticket comes with far-reaching implications for identity politics and our democracy. First, it sets up a we/they dichotomy between Christians and Muslims, thus stoking hatred by reifying religious difference. By implication, it also sets up the predominantly Muslim North against the predominantly Christian South.

    Second, CAN ignores the separation of Church and State, enshrined in the nation’s constitution, by openly bringing religion to politics. Some priests have even gone as far as urging church members to register and show evidence of their voter’s card, while others are openly canvassing for votes against a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

    Third, the timing and intensity of CAN’s opposition to a Muslim-Muslim ticket accentuates the political orientation of its action. The critical question is: Why is it now that Tinubu chose a Muslim running mate that CAN is screaming and protesting on the streets? Where was CAN when the PDP flouted their party’s constitution and elected a Muslim flag bearer to succeed another Muslim, who would have completed eight years in office by May 2023? What sympathy did CAN extend to Governor Nyesome Wike, a Christian, who cried out against such injustice? Where was CAN when a Bishop was killed and a Christian student stoned to death by fellow Muslim students both in the North?

    Why didn’t CAN demonstrate on the streets, like they did recently against Muslim-Muslim ticket, when over 40 church goers were massacred in cold blood inside a church on Pentecost Sunday just over a month ago? Or did CAN shelve protest at that time, because the Vice-President was a Christian Southerner, a pastor, and a member of CAN? Perhaps CAN realised then that the Vice-President actually holds no formal power but has now forgotten about that in the case of Shettima!

    What is getting clearer and clearer from CAN’s opposition to a Muslim-Muslim ticket is its political undertone. In this regard, CAN’s opposition manifests major characteristics of a negative campaign. First, it is a diversionary campaign intended to achieve at least three related goals: (a) stoke the fear of neglect among Christians who may share their views; (b) aggravate existing religious fault lines in the country by setting up Christians against Muslims; and, above all, (c) put the APC ticket on the defensive, by diverting attention away from major national issues, such as security, economy, education, healthcare, youth employment, gender equity, and so on.

    The second characteristic of negative campaign manifested in the CAN strategy is repetition for emphasis. CAN opposes every step Tinubu takes on the running mate issue, from announcing the name of the candidate to unveiling him officially by the party. CAN even imitated the political strategy of carrying a mock coffin in one of its protests as it was done against former President Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 campaign.

    What is really striking about CAN’s actions is how much they chorus, or are being chorused, by other political parties contesting for the office of President with the APC candidate. This is particularly true of the PDP, which would lead one to ask whether CAN is working for that political party.

    To be fair, CAN has every reason to be agitated about the killings of Christians, including Bishops and priests as all Nigerians should. It will be unfair, however, to present such information to the world as if Muslims are not killed by the same criminals. Indeed, the data on killings since 1999 show that more Muslims than Christians have been, and are still being, killed, especially in the North.

    There is no magic formula in a Muslim-Muslim ticket that will worsen security just as there is no guarantee that a Muslim-Christian ticket will improve it. Indeed, we have had a Christian-Muslim or Muslim-Christian ticket since 1999. Yet, the security situation in the country has been getting worse and worse. What CAN really needs to do is to negotiate security measures with all the candidates and note the one that has the best plan.

     

     

  • Remembering the future

    Remembering the future

    If you are born poor, It is not your mistake If you die poor, it is your mistake. —Bill Gates

    Two of Professor Oladipo Adamolekun’s exceptional traits are his power of recall and his penchant for excellence. The power of recall has propelled him to the pinnacle of the academic profession, beginning with a First Class degree in French at the University of Ibadan to an outstanding DPhil (Oxford’s equivalent of a PhD) in Administration at Oxford University. After an outstanding academic career at the University Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), where he rose to the deanship, he joined the World Bank in Washington, D.C., in the United States for another distinguished career.

    I have known Ladi, as he is fondly known among his close associates, since his secondary school days at Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure, and followed him from a distance through Christ School, Ado-Ekiti, and the University of Ibadan. For his doctorate, he went to Oxford University in England. He had completed his doctorate before I embarked on mine at the University of California at Berkeley, USA.

    We never went to the same schools but we were contemporaries. However, he was always ahead of me. His father’s early embrace of literacy education gave him a head-start. So, while he was sent to Elementary School, as Primary School was then called, I was apprenticed to a diviner to acquire the secrets of Ifa divination. The gap in our years in school came partly from differences in the early paths to which our parents directed us and partly from my three-year affliction by the yaws (ògòdò) epidemic of the 1940s to early 1950s. Yaws was eventually eradicated in Nigeria by penicillin, after it became widely used in the mid fifties.

    Although Ladi and I only knew about each other during these years, it was only at Ife that we met in the early 1970s as lecturers. Even then, we were never close. Our friendship grew only in our retirement years, when he moved to Iju and I to Idanre, via Akure. Since then, we’ve been exchanging visits. We even developed a monthly lunch date with our common friend, Professor Kole Omotoso.

    Today, we exchange ideas virtually on a daily basis, via phone calls, email, and WhatsApp to keep us both socially and intellectually engaged. He promptly responds to any and all messages from me, while I struggle to catch up with him!

    It is to his power of recall and penchant for excellence that I dedicate this tribute today, July 20, 2022, as he turns 80.

    We tend to tie the idea of remembering with the act of recalling the past. We normally do this by digging into the store of data in our memory. But we know that memory can fail, especially as we age. The ancient Sumerians and Egyptians were the first to provide alternative to cognitive recall. They devised a means for externalizing memory, by inventing writing. The Sumerians used reeds to record on clay surface about the same time that the Egyptians were also developing hieroglyphic writing. One of the earliest uses of writing was for list making for commercial and administrative purposes.

    With advances in technology and the advent of electronic (digital) writing, we began to store information on disk or a local or distant server (otherwise known as the cloud). Bill Gates, author of the above quote, and the late Steve Jobs were among the earliest developers of electronic writing and the cloud for storing data.

    One of the early devices used for storing information for long-term use is the diary in which events and notable developments are recorded, using manual writing. Among my circle of friends, Professor Ladi Adamolekun is the best user of the diary for record keeping, a trait he apparently inherited from his father. In recent years, he has been employing digital writing for the same purpose.

    His autobiography, I Remember (2016), employed, among others, data from introspection (memory recall) and diaries, notes, and letters. A keen sense of observation and involvement also aided the recall of specific events. The first set of diaries was kept by his father and by his mother. His father was only minimally literate, while the mother was completely non-literate. But she employed scribes to record in notebooks important information about her children and notes on her trading activities.

    The second set of diaries was his own, which he started keeping in 1962 at age 19. To enhance his diary-keeping habits, he moved from yearly to 5-year diaries in 1986. As he finally embarked on writing I Remember (2016) Adamolekun decided to write 52 weekly recollections from January to December 2013. His new monograph, Nigeria and I, being launched today to mark his 80th birthday, may well have used the diary as a source of data.

    Diaries and other devices used for storing information are useful not only for remembering the past but also for planning for the future. Diaries are like looking back to see where, why, and how you fell in order to prevent a reoccurrence in the future. It is in this sense that diaries are also about remembering the future, as indicated in the title of the above title.

    Even more importantly, Ladi has used the art of remembering to excel in school and in the workplace in order to secure a profitable future for himself. In other words, he has ensured that he would not make the mistake of dying poor.

    Ladi’s knack for excellence came from various sources, including domestic discipline, attending the best schools, and working in the best environments. His punctuality and sense of responsibility come from his penchant for excellence. It is no wonder then that he has always been among the few outstanding achievers, wherever he went to school or worked.

    It is heartwarming, therefore, that Nigeria recognizes him as an outstanding and productive scholar, by awarding him the Nigerian National Order of Merit. As of February 2022, only 79 Nigerians have been so recognized since the Award was established 43 years ago.

    No one should be surprised, therefore, that Ladi is intolerant of failure, tardiness, and avoidable loose edges, although he understands that they happen.

    Finally, I thank Yemi Adamolekun for inviting me to contribute to a book of Tributes, which gave rise to this contribution. Here’s to my friend’s toast as I wish him many more years of healthy, peaceful, restful, and productive life.

     

     

     

  • Overwhelming endorsements for Oyetola’s re-election

    Overwhelming endorsements for Oyetola’s re-election

    The current Governor of Osun State, Gboyega Oyetola, should be re-elected to a second term. And he will be re-elected on Saturday, July 16, 2022. This is the wish of majority of the state’s traditional and religious leaders. It is the wish of the elite and the masses alike. It is the wish of the workers, particularly civil and public servants, as endorsed by various unions. It is the wish of artisans and okada drivers. Above all, it is the wish of the majority of voters in the state, as revealed by various opinion polls.

    There are several major reasons why Oyetola should be re-elected. First, by all standards of measurement and within a short time, Oyetola courageously and methodically recorded significant achievements in infrastructure, healthcare, education, welfare, and the peaceful coexistence of Osun citizens.

    Oyetola has constructed or completed over 2,000 kilometers of roads, including  Gbongan – Akoda road; Ikirun-Iragbiji road Osogbo- Kelebe-Iragbiji road; Idi-Odan-Anaye-Araromi road; Ada-Igbajo township road; Ede-Ara-Ejigbo road; Moro-Yakoyo-Ipetumodu-Asipa road; Akindeko-Awosuru-Alekunwodo road; Osogbo-Kelebe-Iragbiji road; Ejigbo-Ara Junction-Ede road; Ikirun-Ekoende road; Aagba road; Modakeke -Famia road. To cap it all, he started and completed Ola Iya Flyover virtually within one year.

    Rather than listen to market noise about industrialisation or adopt a diffuse focus on several industrial projects at the same time, Oyetola focused on gold mining, which led to the state’s partnership with a Canadian listed gold developer. In no time, the first and only large-scale commercial gold mine in the country was established and production has begun. In due course, the mine will become a major employment generator for youths and wealth creator for gold entrepreneurs.

    Oyetola’s achievements in the Health sector are even more remarkable. He constructed or renovated and also equipped 332 Primary Health Centres, one in each ward in the state, thereby bringing healthcare closer to the people. At the same time, he improved significantly on the state’s major referral hospital, the State Specialist Hospital in Asubiaro, Osogbo. What he accomplished in this Hospital is beyond ordinary: In addition to a 120-bed ward, he constructed a new Children’s Ward; a Surgical Ward;  a Trauma Centre, a Blood Bank Building; and 30 units of Doctors’ Quarters. He also paid special attention to the health of public and civil servants, by renovating the Government House and the State Secretariat Staff Clinics. On top of it all, he established the Osun Health Insurance Scheme to which subscription has been growing steadily.

    The regular payment of workers’ salaries and pensions deserves special mention. Ordinarily, the regular payment of workers’ entitlements should not be regarded as an achievement as such. However, in the special circumstances that federal and state governments have found themselves, in which the majority of state governments owe arrears of salaries and pensions, Oyetola’s achievements are spectacular in this regard, more so when the three financial deficits he inherited are duly considered, namely, (a) arrears of salaries and pensions; (b) debt servicing on loans for capital projects; and (c) dwindling federal allocations and stunted Internally General Revenue for the first two years of his administration.

    The two-year delay in the effective take-off of his administration is another major factor to consider in assessing Oyetola’s achievements. It will be recalled that the administration was virtually in limbo for the first six months as it faced election litigation that went all the way to the Supreme Court. To complicate matters, COVID-19 hit just as the administration was taking off, thereby putting everything on hold for another 18 months. Within this period, the #EndSARS protest took place with devastating destruction of various private and public facilities, including the Governor’s vehicle. Effectively, then, the above achievements occurred within a short span of less than two years.

    The critical question, which has not been fully covered in previous assessments, is how Oyetola has been able to accomplish so much in so little time. Three key factors are working in his favour—his personality; the template of his governance model; and his knowledge of finance and the financial world. Oyetola is a calm, cool-headed, and reflective personality, who listens attentively to suggestions and alternative viewpoints.

    He also developed a governance template anchored on inclusive and participatory governance. I participated in the development of this template, which led him to seek the people’s input at every turn and take their demands as the starting point of participatory democracy. Thus, at the beginning of his administration, he sought public opinion through Town Hall meetings and a Citizens Needs Assessment, conducted by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) recently replaced by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

    While participatory democracy is key to progressive governance, it could lead to conflict between two successive administrations, particularly when the electorate demands a change in policies they didn’t like during the preceding administration. That was the case with the changes that Oyetola made to the education policies established by his immediate predecessor. Although abundant evidence exists that the changes were in response to the people’s demands, no argument could convince his predecessor that they were not premeditated (for details, see Continuity and change in Osun’s education policies, The Nation, March 11, 2020 and Premium Times of the same date).

    A third factor underlying Oyetola’s achievements is his superb understanding of financial management. He brought into governance his years of experience as an Insurance guru and boardroom expert. Of the numerous Governors I have worked closely with, none has as much understanding of the financial world as he does. His financial background allowed him to develop an alternative financing model, which attracts only contractors who would do the job within a limited time but take agreed staggered payments over a specified but short period of time. This is a smart alternative answer to borrowing from financial institutions with prohibitive interest rates and long-term payment burden.

    Despite the hue and cry about insecurity, Osun state remains arguably the most peaceful state in the nation. It is not by accident. Oyetola quickly built on the amity established by the preceding administration between the Fulani community and their herders, on the one hand, and farmers and villagers, on the other hand. He was among the first to embrace and set up Amotekun in the Southwest and its officers’ activities with police enforcement. He equipped both the police and Amotekun and got them to nab bank robbers, cultists and Yahoo Boys in the state, while keeping kidnappers away.

    As affirmed by the APC big rally in Osogbo yesterday, there is no alternative to re-electing Oyetola, if Osun is to remain peaceful, progressive, and a safe haven for citizens and investors alike.

  • Why collaboration with Cuba is important

    Why collaboration with Cuba is important

    For over two years on this column, I have been advocating collaboration with Cuba on technology transfer and vaccine production (see, for example, Cuba fights COVID-19 with homegrown vaccines, The Nation, June 30, 2021), and, for almost as long, the Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Clara Pulido-Escandell, has been negotiating the possibility with officials in the Ministry of Health as well as the Ministry of Science and Technology.

    A major step in that direction was taken recently when Nigeria and Cuba signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on contract manufacturing, technology transfer, local production of vaccines, and the sale of Cuban  biopharmaceutical products in Nigeria. In a well coordinated effort, the agreement was signed while a delegation of Nigerian officials, scientists, and businessmen were in Cuba from late April to early May, 2022.

    Some of the delegates went there to inspect Cuba’s biomedical facilities, while others went there to explore business potentials, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Yet others went there to attend the international conference on biotechnology, which held from April 25-29, 2022.

    The Cuban Ambassador organised a briefing at the Cuban Embassy last Wednesday, June 29, 2022, to provide an opportunity for the delegates to share ideas about their experiences in Cuba, focusing on what they found that could be beneficial to the Nigeria from partnership with Cuba.

    A summary of the key issues at the briefing was provided yesterday by Moses Emorinken, Health Correspondent for The Nation Newspaper, who attended the event along with other media representatives (see Nigeria, Cuba explore prospects of local vaccine production, The Nation, July 5, 2022).

    As Emorinken demonstrated in his account, the delegates provided interesting justification for a Nigeria-Cuba collaboration. Nevertheless, certain details are missing, which need to be emphasized. First, Cuba’s biotechnology industry, which developed in response to the US blockade in the early 1960s, is among the best in the world and a good model to follow. It is made up of more than 30 research institutions and manufacturers, under the supervision of the state-run conglomerate, BioCubaFarma. This development allowed Cuba to grow into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of biopharmaceutical products, especially vaccines. It was Cuba that developed the world’s first meningococcal B vaccine in the late 1980s. Today, Cuba produces as much as 80 percent of the vaccines used in the country, and sends hundreds of millions of doses abroad.

    Second, Cuba’s investment in medical training and biomedical research provides a global model, which allows the country to have one of the highest doctor to patient ratios in the world. As if in response to the famous America’s Youth Corps, Cuba established the Henry Reeve Brigade in 2005, which dispatches healthcare professionals all over the world to combat disasters and epidemics. They were in Haiti during the cholera outbreak in 2010; in West Africa during the Ebola crisis of 2013-2016; and in Italy when COVID-19 peaked in 2020.

    Cuba’s strengths in these areas are precisely what Nigeria needs in a partnership in order to develop necessary skills in the same areas. Although Cuba has assisted a number of African countries in the past, the Nigeria-Cuba partnership in technology transfer and vaccine production will be the first such partnership on the African continent.

    Fortunately, Cuba is not only willing to partner with Nigeria in these areas, it is actually anxious to do so, and the reason is not far-fetched. Cuba has deeper historical ties to Nigeria than to any other African nation. This was evident in eyewitness accounts by the Nigerian delegates to Cuba, some of whom were mesmerised by similarities between the two countries in observed cultural practices while they were in Cuba.

    For the Nigerian government, of course, It cannot be denied that the immediate motivation for this collaboration was the search for vaccines to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Wealthy Northern countries did not only hoard the vaccines they produced, they also engaged in proprietary hoarding of biotechnology. Moreover, they only sold among themselves, neglecting Southern countries even when they were prepared to pay. The result has been pathetic for Nigeria as the nation could only settle for donated vaccines, which has so far been administered on just about 10 percent of the population, one of the lowest in the world. It is as well, therefore, that the collaboration Nigeria is seeking now is not with a Northern country but will be a South-South collaboration.

    From what we know about Cuba’s preparedness and from my exchanges with the Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Cuba is prepared from Day 1. The question now is: Will Nigeria be able to fulfill its own part of the agreement? Now that the Federal Government has entered a lame-duck session in preparation for the 2023 elections, what chances are there that Nigeria will push forward beyond the expression of interest?

    But then, Nigeria will not be starting from scratch. There are research labs. There are scientists. All that is needed is take-off funding to revive moribund labs and incentivise scientists interested in the collaboration. In this regard, there are even Nigerian doctors and other scientists in Cuba, who could be attracted to come home to participate in the project.

    Finally, there is the need to light up that fire in the belly that is known as political will. Dedicated officials in relevant ministries are needed to ensure that the agreement signed in Havana bears fruits in Nigeria.

  • The welfare of Nigerian workers

    The welfare of Nigerian workers

    The recent brutal murder of a bus conductor in Lagos by irate herdsmen for accidentally running into and killing two cows that strayed onto the nation’s highway indicates the value placed on human life by a group of people in this country.

    By the same token, the failure of the police to protect the bus conductor who ran to their station for protection is also symbolic of how negligent the current officials of the Nigerian state are in upholding the constitution they swore to obey. According to the constitution, one of the “fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy” pointedly states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government” (Section 14(2)(b)).

    As a result of the escalation of terrorist, banditry, and kidnapping activities in recent years, media attention has been devoted largely to the “security” component of this constitutional clause. Consequently, little or no attention has been paid to the “welfare” component.

    Even then, the media interpretation of security has focused almost exclusively on security from physical harm. This has led to the neglect of social security, which implies the welfare of citizens. True, advanced democracies develop strong armies and a formidable police force to ensure physical security, but they also invest heavily in social security, which begins with the provision of critical infrastructure and other shared political goods, such as education and healthcare, and then puts special emphasis on workers’ welfare and social safety nets for the young, the elderly, and the physically challenged.

    It is incontrovertible that the Nigerian state has failed woefully in all aspects of physical and social security. However, as indicated earlier, it is now time to turn the spotlight on some critical aspects of social security, particularly the welfare of workers. Three recent events heighten the urgency of this focus.

    One is the ongoing strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, which started on February 14, 2022. Very soon, the duration of the strike will beat the old record of 5 months and 15 days, recorded in 2013 (July 1 to December 17). Indeed, ASUU has embarked on as many as 16 strikes over the past two decades with debilitating effects particularly on university students. A critical bone of contention in these strikes is staff welfare, ranging from salaries to welfare packages.

    A second recent welfare crisis was highlighted by the strike of workers of the National Assembly and the National Assembly Service Commission. Again, their complaint is about salaries and allowances.

    The third and most recent welfare crisis was provided by the Justices of the Supreme Court, whose mind-boggling complaints rattled the whole nation and even international observers. Their grievances include decrepit vehicles; epileptic power supply at home and at the Supreme Court; lack of drug supply at the court’s clinic; a dearth of capacity building opportunities at home and abroad; failure to recruit qualified legal assistant; and lack of Internet facilities for the Justices.

    A recurrent feature of these three cases is the failure of the relevant authorities to do the right thing, including implementing agreements with relevant workers. In all cases, repeated complaints were also ignored.

    These federal cases attract attention because of their media visibility. Similar cases go on in state and private universities, state Houses of Assemblies, and state courts. Even more deplorable cases of welfare crisis go on across the 36 states of the federation, where basic entitlements, such as salaries, are not paid on time, if at all. Worse still, those who have devoted 30-35 years of their lives to public service are left in a limbo, without the payment of their pension.

    So critical has the payment of salaries become in some states that it has become a major campaign issue. In Osun state, for example, the regular payment of salaries has become a major achievement of the current All Progressives Congress administration in the state. Since the administration could not be faulted for this achievement, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party is campaigning on the inverse of the situation by deceiving votes into believing that the administration would revert to half salaries, if voted back into office. Of course, the administration has no such plans.

    It must be admitted, of course, that federal and state governments have launched various social protection programmes to provide succour for youths, the elderly, the physically challenged, and the poor. The problem with many of these programmes is their temporary and transient nature as well as their variation across administrations, especially when party lines are crossed.

    It is now time for this nation to develop an enduring welfare and social security policies and set up stable structures for their implementation. If there is any laudable function that central governments perform in advanced democracies, it is the smooth and effective implementation of such policies.

    In the United States, for example, two notable enduring programmes are Social Security for the elderly, which is the equivalent of our contributory pension, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, otherwise known as the WIC programme. The programme provides supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income women and to infants and children up to age 5.

    The incoming administration can understudy these successful programmes for adaptation to the Nigerian situation. But, more importantly, the new administration should move from ad hoc to enduring social protection programmes. The implementation of these programmes cannot be domiciled in Abuja like the current school feeding programme. Decentralisation is needed to ensure effective implementation. This leads to the need for devolution of powers. But that is a subject for another day.

    In the meantime, the three federal welfare cases discussed above should be resolved as soon as possible in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the legislative houses, higher education, and the temple of justice.

  • Who wants to litigate Ekiti governorship election results?

    Who wants to litigate Ekiti governorship election results?

    The rush to the election tribunal by losers has become a staple of Nigerian governorship elections. However, litigation of election results need not be normalized as standard practice for various reasons.

    First, it makes a mockery of the electoral process when virtually every loser rushes to the tribunal to seek redress. To be sure, there are losers, who are clearly cheated. However, such losers will only need to go to court, if the margin of cheating was so thin that redress could lead to a reversal of the result in the loser’s favour of if a rerun election was ordered due to recognized malpractices that could lead to the disenfranchisement of certain voters. Such was the case in Osun state in 2018, where the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, led the All Progressives Congress candidate, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, with less than 500 votes. The rerun led to the victory of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, which the PDP challenged in court but without success.

    It must be acknowledged, however, that some reversals had been based on technicalities, even when the purported loser did not even participate in the election. Such was the case of Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi in 2007. He won the governorship primary election but his party, the PDP, substituted another candidate for the election proper. The Supreme Court faulted the substitution and gave the victory to Amaechi. It was a resounding message to political parties not to unilaterally substitute candidates, who legitimately won primaries.

    It is very clear, however, that, based on available data, there is no way in which victory could be reversed in the governorship election held in Ekiti state last Saturday, June 18, 2022. The victory of the All Progressive Congress candidate, Abiodun Oyebanji, was so overwhelming that neither of the two candidates contemplating litigation ever came close. They are Engineer Segun Oni of the Social Democratic Party and Ms. Josephine Kemi Elebute-Halle of the ADP. Oyebanji of the APC polled 187,057 votes (53.16%), whereas  Oni of the SDP polled 82,211votes  (23.37%)  and Elebute-Halle polled a paltry 3,455 votes.

    Even Mr. Bisi Kolawole of the PDP, who came third by polling 67,457 (19.17%) of the votes, readily congratulated the winner of the election without delay. This is what incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi of the APC did to former Governor Ayo Fayose of the PDP, who defeated him roundly in 2014. That is how it should be, if our democracy were to be appropriately nurtured.

    Another implication of losers rushing to the tribunal is the dampening effect such action poses for the significant gains recorded by the Independent National in conducting elections.

    Besides, frivolous litigation poses serious problems for recognising legitimate winners of elections, thus making a mockery of the electoral process. Of what value is an election if it is automatically bastardised by litigation, which the courts would eventually throw out? Moreover, such litigation often ends up as an abuse of the court process, even now that the courts are complaining about poor welfare.

    To be sure, a candidate, such as Oni, who had expected to win, would be under the illusion that victory was snatched from him. The leadership of his party and his frontline supporters have a duty in ensuring that such illusion gives way to reality. Rather than spend more money on a case his is sure to lose, he should count his losses and disregard money-grabbing lawyers, who would assure him falsely that he has a good case.

    In the Ekiti case, losers should sit down to review the election and ask themselves why they lost. Simultaneously they also will be reviewing the factors that led to the victor’s emergence. Clearly, Oyebanji of the APC had several key factors going for him.

    One, he is a “home-grown boy”. He had his primary, secondary, and much of his tertiary education in the state. He had occupied various positions in the state, including Special Assistant on parliamentary affairs; Chief of Staff; Commissioner for Integration and Inter-governmental Affairs; Head of Ekiti’s Office of Transformation Strategy and Delivery; Commissioner for Budget, and Economic planning; and Secretary to the State Government. No one can deny that he knows Ekiti state and that the Ekiti people know him.

    True, Oni had been Governor of the State before (2003-2007) but he entered Ekiti politics from the top and, unlike Oyebanji, who served in the current government, Oni’s service had been relegated to history by many young voters, who might not have known him well.

    Second, Oyebanji has two prominent political godfathers in the state, former Governor Niyi Adebayo and current Governor, John Kayode Fayemi, who served the as Governor for a combined 12 years. They provide Oyebanji with a wealth of social and political capital that paid off during the election.

    Thus, third, days before the election, the godfathers participated the organisation of a mega rally in which leaders of the ruling party, including 14 serving Governors, participated. Central to this event was the participation of former Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu and the APC National Leader participated as the flag bearer of the party. His presence and resounding victory in the presidential primaries energised the voters and led many of them to vote APC in the hope that Tinubu’s victory in 2023 might rob off on their state.

    Oni made yet another mistake by veering into the Social Democratic Party for the purpose of the election as a way of venting his anger against the APC. Perhaps except Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, formerly of the Labour Party, and the candidates of All Progressive Grand Alliance in the Southeast, no candidate of a minority party has won the governorship outside the two major political parties.

    There is yet another deterrent to litigation in the just concluded Ekiti governorship election. Local and international observers viewed the election as free, fair, and transparent. Of course, there were notable hiccups, such as vote-buying. However, voters confirmed that all four frontline political parties in the election, including Oni’s SDP, participated in the practice. To be sure, there were differences in scale and in the amount involved, but that does not exonerate the SDP. Besides, the culprits are being investigated. Hopefully, many would be charged and punished according to law.

    I know Segun Oni. He is a fine gentleman. I trust that he will allow reason to prevail.

     

  • Meet the Vice President

    Meet the Vice President

    As the deadline approaches for presidential candidates to pick their running mates, the question of who will be the choice of particular candidates has become a hot topic. Partly because he is the presidential candidate of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress; partly because of the spectacular way he won his party’s primary in a landslide; and partly because of his popularity and gravitas, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has attracted the most attention over his choice of a running mate.

    Of the three major factors featured in the discussion of who should be his running mate, one is already settled, and that is the geographical zone the chosen running mate should come from. It should be the North, because Tinubu is from the South. The other two factors are: (1) Does the chosen running mate have the requisite qualifications to discharge the role of Vice President effectively and (2) How many votes can the running mate garner for the presidential ticket?

    The issue of qualification centres on whether the running mate, considered a heartbeat from the presidency, can truly assume the presidency, while the President is not available. How presidential can the running mate be in carriage, communicative ability, and knowledge of the job? What managerial or governance experience has the running mate had that would enable her or him to step up to govern Nigeria? What preparations for that role has she or he had? These are questions Tinubu and the APC leadership can easily answer, because the Northern region is not short of supply of well qualified candidates for Vice President.

    This leads to the third major question about the number of votes the chosen running mate can bring to the ticket in order for Tinubu and the APC to be able to win the election. It is within this context that the question of the religious affiliation of the running mate would be considered by the presidential candidate and his party.

    However, others, including the media, ignore electability by arguing that the top of a presidential ticket at this time must be balanced with a running mate of a different faith in order to douse the ethno-religious tension in the country today. Accordingly, it is argued, there must not be a Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian presidential ticket.

    The Christian Association of Nigeria has been particularly forceful in advocating the choice of a Northern Christian as Tinubu’s running mate, because Tinubu himself is a Southern Muslim. To be sure, CAN has every reason to defend its constituency, especially in the light of escalated abductions and killings of Christians. The attack on Christians has been particularly frequent and deadly in the last few months during which Bishops were abducted and church members killed in the House of God.

    However, it cannot be denied that terrorists and bandits have killed far more Muslims than Christians and the Muslim President has not been able to stop the carnage. Moreover, the ruling presidential ticket under which these atrocities have been taking place is a Muslim-Christian ticket, with President Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim, on top of the ticket and Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a senior pastor and a member of CAN, as his Vice President. He also comes from the Southwest, where the horrific killings of church members recently took place.

    But what exactly has Osinbajo, a Christian pastor, been able to achieve in dousing the killings of Christians other than visiting the scenes of crime and expressing sympathy? He cannot announce a new policy of containing terrorism and banditry unless he has the express mandate of the President. Even in areas where the constitution grants some powers to the Vice President, such as the chairmanship of the National Economic Council, he can only push the policies approved by the President. He cannot unilaterally reverse the downturn in the economy and lighten the burden of a mounting debt in excess of N40 trillion.

    I raise these questions, not to indict Vice President Osinbajo, who has performed exceedingly well in that office, but to show that the limits to his power are defined by the constitution and the whims and caprices of the President, who is empowered by the same constitution to delegate whatever functions he deems fit to the Vice President. That’s why the President was able to whittle down on the assignments previously given to the Vice President, particularly the social protection programmes, he had been supervising.

    The point being made here is that the Vice President performs more symbolic than real functions, including representing the President here and there. But election is real and it is a game of numbers. In our present political configuration with multiple presidential candidates, the search for votes is a real challenge. In particular, the APC has to contend in the North with the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, former Vice President Atiku Abukar, who is a Northern Muslim.

    To make things harder for the APC, the North is made up of 19 states, only three of which could be regarded as predominantly Christian states. The remaining 16 states have predominantly Muslim populations. APC’s failure to make a significant incursion into Muslim voters may give Muslim Atiku a competitive edge in the region.

    To be sure, there is a possible advantage for the APC in terms of control of the levers of power in the North. Of the 19 states, 14 are controlled by the APC. Nevertheless, for the predominantly Muslim population, there are indications that they usually vote massively for one of their own. This can only put additional pressure on the APC to select a Muslim running mate.

    Another factor overlooked by advocates of a Christian running mate for Tinubu is the lifemate he already has in a Christian wife, Senator Remi Tinubu, who, incidentally, is also a pastor. Thus, the religious equilibrium he is being invited to practice at the national level he is already practicing at home.

    Finally, advocates of a Christian running mate for Tinubu are overlooking one critical factor. When the top of the ticket is from the North, the pressure to pick a Christian running mate from the South is imperative, because the South is predominantly Christian. By the same token, the pressure to pick a Muslim running mate cannot be overlooked, when the top of the ticket is from the predominantly Christian South. Given what we have witnessed in the last eight years, it will be a shame if Southern voters ignore one of their own over the choice of a running mate.

     

     

     

  • The semiotics of the Owo massacre

    The semiotics of the Owo massacre

    Neither the rough road to the All Progressives Congress presidential primary nor the struggles for power in a presidential election, still over eight months away, should be allowed to overshadow the pain and anguish from the barbaric massacre of 30 or more innocent Christian worshippers on Pentecost Sunday on June 5, 2022, at the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo. The sad event occurred in the hometown of Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, the Governor of Ondo State and Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum.

    There are interesting parallels between the incident and the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 during the reign of Henry II of England as told by T.S. Elliot in his verse drama, Murder in the Cathedral. True, no Bishop was murdered in Owo on June 5, but the crude murder of innocent worshippers was viewed as a message to Governor Akeredolu, the equivalent of Archbishop Becket in this allegory, except that he is not Catholic and he was not in that church on that day.

    The truth is that many observers did not see the targeting of a church, or any gathering of people for that matter, in Owo town as a random selection. The Yoruba Socio-Cultural Group, Afenifere, for one did not mince words in making the association between the Owo massacre and Governor Akeredolu’s firm stance on security and in championing the course of the South in the zoning debate within his political party

    He was tough against bandits marauding the Ondo forest reserve. He backed the activities of Amotekun, the security outfit of the Southwest. He pushed for the adoption of a law banning open grazing in the region. More recently, his call for zoning the presidential ticket to the South has been very strident. But he did not take these positions to protect himself and family. Rather, he took the positions to protect the people of his state and of the entire Southern Nigeria. He acted either as Governor and Chief Security Officer of his state or as the Chairman of the Southern Governors Forum. In the latter case, he only reflected the views of all 17 Governors across party lines in the region.

    It is believed that Governor Akeredolu or his state is being targeted for these positions, because they are being viewed as an affront on a group that sees itself more or less as the state. The parallel with Archbishop Becket, as revealed in Elliot’s drama, is very striking in this regard. The four knights who assassinated Archbishop Becket claimed that the king was frustrated with Becket, whose actions were viewed as undermining the stability of the state.

    Those behind banditry may view Governor Akeredolu in bad light today for defending his people and fighting for their right to govern this country. But history will judge him well for standing up for his people and the entire people of Southern Nigeria. Even now, in recognition of his tough stance on security, the National Working Committee of his party made him the Chairman of the Security Committee of the party’s convention.

    He was away in Abuja on this assignment, when the gunmen struck in his state. He quickly returned to his state to commiserate with his people and condone the bereaved. The entire nation rallied around him with condolence visits and messages.

    What is heartwarming about Governor Akeredolu is that he is not a man to be deterred by intimidation. Not even COVID-19 could floor him! No sooner had he returned to Abuja than he quickly put the party Chairman in his place for attempting to go against the zoning decision that Northern Governors had made in consonance with the demand of Southern Governors, which he gallantly championed.

    It must be emphasized, however, that the implications of the church massacre reverberate beyond Owo and Governor Akeredolu. The sad event is a poignant metaphor of the high level of insecurity in the nation. It is also a sad reflection of the poor standard of crime control and investigation in the country. Although the nearest police post to the church is said to be less than two miles, no policeman showed up in the church until the bandits had fled the scene of the crime. The police post reportedly had no operating vehicle to take them to the scene. Up till now, the simple information about the exact number of casualties from the church massacre remains unknown. So is the whereabout of the killer bandits

    It is easy to extrapolate from this example that the necessary knots and bolts of security in this country are hopelessly loose. No wonder then that many citizens are kidnapped or killed every day. What is worse, there appears to be no solution in sight.

    And this is where the next President comes in, now that the stage is set for the presidential election in 2023. The first thing the electorate should focus on in the candidates’ manifesto is their plan to tackle the security problem in this country. The plan must rest on the tripod of state police, devolution of powers, and fiscal federalism.

    Put quite simply, every state must be in charge of its own police. However, in order for that to be possible, more powers must devolve to the states as in the United States of America, whose constitution we copied. Moreover, states should be fully resourced in order to perform their functions effectively. This requires further revision of the federal allocation formula and consideration of a new resource control formula.

    The truth is that the more each state is equipped to control its destiny, without being crushed by an all-powerful centre, the less the agitation for separation and the less ethnic and religious considerations will count in national affairs. What is more, the best approach to poverty reduction is not by sharing bread from an invisible centre but by having each state put its residents on the path to self fulfillment.