The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • The pilgrimage to Daura

    The pilgrimage to Daura

    It’s the age of instant analysis. Never mind that many would-be analysts are the least qualified to analyse. For them, body language, facial expressions are supposed to mean something even when they have no real significance. So, President Bola Tinubu, sitting on the second row at the recent inauguration of South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, with other foreign leaders, meant a diplomatic snub for Nigeria and a personal insult to him.

    It makes me wonder why the South Africans would take the trouble to invite one of their most important continental partners to the celebration only to embarrass the leader publicly. It’s not logical.

    Every picture supposedly tells a story. But in an age where images, audios and videos are constantly being faked, how believable are the stories they tell? People with a certain mindset, who want to believe what they want, won’t care.

    No wonder photographs of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar with former Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, in tow, visiting former President Muhammadu Buhari, in his hometown of Daura, had many in a tizzy. The images, we are told, represent incontrovertible evidence of a budding scheme to get rid of the barely year-old Bola Tinubu presidency.

    To top off the ‘mountain’ of evidence, former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, soon popped up in Buhari’s sitting room for what looked ordinarily like the regular courtesy visit, but which we have also been assured is another chess move of a grand coalition of Northern forces committed to regime change come 2027.

    Although, it didn’t happen in Daura, a third clutch of photos showing former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, meeting with El-Rufai had some crowing joyfully that political mischief aimed at their bete noire, was afoot.

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    An official statement by the former VP explained that his visit to Katsina was to condole with the family of former Governor Lawal Kaita on the loss of their matriarch. He only detoured to Daura for a courtesy call on Buhari. Such explanations weren’t enough to cool the ardour of conspiracy theorists. The vast majority of published reports completely ignored the statement, choosing to focus on their preferred narrative.

    It would be understandable if indeed the toing and froing was tied to the politics of 2027. After all, the supposed plotters all have something in common – deep-seated grievance against the incumbent president. Atiku who thought he would finally end 30 years of frustrated bids for the presidency in 2023, hasn’t reconciled himself to the fact that his one-time ally and friend beat him to the prize.

    Determined to make one more bid to achieve his lifelong ambition, in the last one year he has implemented a strategy of putting himself in the shop window with unrelenting attacks on the administration.

    One of the greatest mysteries of the transition between the Buhari and Tinubu administrations, is how El-Rufai became estranged from a man whose candidacy he enthusiastically promoted last year. Who can forgot how the then All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate publicly pleaded with the then Kaduna State governor to be part of a future federal government. He refused to take no for an answer until he received that commitment.

    Tinubu would go on to nominate El-Rufai as a cabinet member. However, strong opposition arose in the National Assembly, causing him to withdraw from consideration. Some of the former governor’s associates argue that the President could have done more by using the weight of his office to get him over the line. What Tinubu did or didn’t do isn’t available in the public domain.

    What is clear is that such legislative roadblocks to the clearing of influential cabinet nominees are not new. In 2015, former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, found his ministerial bid imperilled at the Bukola Saraki-led Senate. While others with lesser political profiles waltzed through the process, his clearance was held up by formidable forces with strong grudges against him.

    In a bid to save his nomination Amaechi became a regular presence in the National Assembly, pressing buttons among his old pals in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He didn’t wait for Buhari to pull his palm nuts out of the fire. He was wise not to. After all, the former President didn’t lift a finger when his anointed candidate for the Senate Presidency, Ahmed Lawan, was upstaged by Saraki in a stunning revolt early in his presidency.

    Perhaps, we would one day get to know what went wrong between El-Rufai and Tinubu. We may also find out how he managed to fall out with incumbent Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, who he virtually installed as successor. Allegations of corruption which the state House of Assembly has levelled against him, are tried and tested tools deployed by political godsons to break free from overbearing godfathers. Who would have predicted that El-Rufai who, at a 2019 Bridge Club lecture in Lagos, proffered ideas for breaking the yoke of godfathers would today be downing a dose of his own prescription? How could this unthinkable turn of events have come about in less than a year?

    Former APC National Vice Chairman (Northwest), Salihu Lukman, accuses Sani of fanning his erstwhile benefactor’s troubles to please Tinubu. This, coming from a close associate of El-Rufai, is evidence of bad blood. It would be naive not to believe that someone who is deeply aggrieved would look for payback.

    Kwankwaso, too, has his own agenda that would drive him to seek out allies to secure his interests. His desire to build a political redoubt in Kano is threatened by the missteps of the Abba Yusuf New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) government – among suck cock-ups being hasty demolition of multi billion naira property as initial acts of governance, as well as the ongoing emirate stool crisis pitching Lamido Sanusi against Aminu Bayero.

    As the crisis drags on a sense of paranoia has taken over with Kwankwaso believing that the Federal Government is only looking for the perfect excuse to impose a state of emergency and pinch his prize. It is enough to force an ambitious politician to seek out the most unlikely of allies.

    On the surface there’s enough reason for these political figures to make common cause. But to suggest that recent trips to the sleepy town of Daura is to enlist Buhari as part of grand Northern political plot against the incumbent president is to to make a mountain out of a minute molehill.

    There are no permanent friends or foes in politics. Still, there’s so much history between those supposedly scheming that we should swallow these tales with good helpings of salt. We are expected to believe that Atiku will suddenly be embraced by a Buhari on some so-called political agenda. For their part, El-Rufai and the ex-VP have had a well-advertised antagonistic relationship, with plenty of name-calling over the years.

    Beyond grievance there’s not much that binds them together. In reality, this would be nothing more than an Alliance of the Disgruntled (AD). There’s nothing to suggest that the retired president would have anything to do with such an arrangement.

    True, many believe he wasn’t truly supportive of the ambition of his successor. However, once Tinubu emerged as the APC’s pick, he made his peace with reality and toed the party line. Since leaving Aso Rock he hasn’t done anything to suggest he is interested in political meddling or in becoming an alternative power centre. If anything, in words and deed he has indicated he wants to be left alone to enjoy his retirement and also wants distance from the FCT to allow his successor run the show.

    Even if he harboured political ambitions, Buhari of today doesn’t have the same pull as he did in 2015. Eight years battling Nigeria’s demons dulled much of the messianic glow that propelled him to power. You only need to look at how APC’s vote haul has declined over the last three election cycles. By 2023, with large swathes of his home state Katsina under the thumb of bandits, the ruling party lost the presidential poll there.

    Buhari’s track record shows that he’s largely conformist. He will not turn against his party and it’s leadership. He is content to play the role of statesman and isn’t going to become another Olusegun Obasanjo who fancies himself a kingmaker – chucking verbal bombs about.

    If Daura has become a Mecca of sorts in the last one year, it’s because former office holders are queuing to pay respects to the town’s most famous son who was once their principal. This sort of traffic is not unheard off concerning respected former public figures. Anyone reading more into these courtesy visits is probably battling a bad case of premature electoral fever.

  • Suicide bombers; Death in the house

    Suicide bombers; Death in the house

    Since 2018, more than 50 children have been used in suicide bombing. Last week, suicide bombers, S-Bombers, three children and two young mothers did not go voluntarily to blow themselves up at a football match and a wedding and subsequently at their funeral respectively. Another two were intercepted and neutralised. What manner of life and death is this? What is the solution?

    No doubt, if we say we are not at war, certainly the bomb makers and dressers of the children with bomb vests are at full war with Nigeria and Nigeria’s innocent children.

    Last week a Deputy Comptroller of Customs prepared himself, like others before him, said goodbye to his family and left for the intimidating job of defending the finances of his office before the National Assembly, NASS’s House of Representatives. Unfortunately, he was not to return home alive. May he Rest in Perfect Peace. He was Andrew Essien, suddenly a victim when tragedy struck while responding to a NASS ‘Harrowing/Harassing Inquisition Chamber’ oversight enquiry. I cannot confirm the level of bullying involved, if any. NASS, empowered by immunity, often verbally rides roughshod over the civil servant ‘victims. Sadly, he started coughing, requesting for water. The committee chairman offered water or tea. Essien then asked again for water and slumped. We are told he died in the clinic. Did he die in the chambers; was he then ‘brought in dead’ or ‘Dead on Arrival’ or ‘alive on arrival’ and then died in the clinic? The person receiving the patient in the clinic will confirm.

    However, ‘Was the correct First Aid procedure carried out immediately he collapsed?’ I mean beyond the usual panic traditional measure of dousing the head and face with a water.  This works in simple heat and dehydration related fainting but not in a heart attack for example.

    Worldwide, laying the patient on the floor, face up and performing CPR, Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation, Mouth-to-Mouth and Chest Compressions are essential First Aid steps before a defibrillator for the heart electric shock arrives. May His soul Rest In Perfect Peace and may his family be comforted and supported and may his entitlements and pension be paid promptly and without having to bribe anybody. Amen.

    Sadly,  NASS which is very greedy in SELF-ALLOCATION of budgets, is using the passing  of Essien to publicly promise itself even more of the scarce budget, in the ‘public interest’ , for a NASS ‘a state of the art’ medical centre.

    NO! NO!! NO!! Nigeria cannot endure more diversion of severely scarce public funds when nearby Abuja government hospitals and Primary Health Centres are wallowing with mediocre services, replacement fund paucity and outdated facilities. Let me add the ‘Nigerian Total Lack of Maintenance Disease’ from lack or theft of Annual Maintenance Budgeting. This deprives Nigeria of the required annual painting/ furniture refurbishment requirements of outpatient and refurbishments especially of toilets and water provision. These are required by every facility with high human traffic. We celebrate cleanliness in toilets elsewhere but fail to maintain our own in working order.

    I spend more money monthly in toilet paper and water supply and cleaning paraphernalia in my small clinic than some states actually spend annually in one hospital.

    There is so much to steal because maintenance budgets are vandalised and stolen in Nigeria. Staff of all neighbouring shops use my clean facilities. I therefore provide anti-cholera/typhoid health services service for free to my community.

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    The toilet with wash basin is the unit of resistance to disease including cholera and typhoid. No toilet=No health! Dirty, no water toilets and ‘toilets for executive bottoms ‘are the bane of Nigerian MDAs life. Are staff to use the bush?

    Ten staff is 30 visits to the toilet daily, at least two to pee and one to poo!  Hospitals, MDAs and NASS may allocate toilet maintenance but the funds budgeted may be released but disappear. Shame or greed?

    Open every toilet in every MDA and hospital countrywide as part of the anti-cholera/typhoid anti-open defecation policy. Judge MDA by their toilets.

    NASS, you should build ‘state of the art’ facilities for all the people and then use those facilities for yourselves and families.  Yes. That would be true oversight! 

    NASS: Do not create yet another island of ‘state of the medical art’ privilege for NASS MEMBERS ONLY.

    NASS; Do not be distinct from the citizens. Learn the lessons from Kenya. NASS is insensitive but the citizenry is sensitive, because Essien was a civilian, not a sectional NASS member. His death is personal for the citizenry, no matter what the outcome of the NASS enquiry into Customs will be. 

    Of course, the Ministry of Health, and NMA will recommend upgrade of the NASS Clinic with the First Aid skills needed and a Medical Code Red Alarm System  direct to established government hospitals for help to arrive within minutes or prepare for NASS patients transfer. 

    There should be a Civil Society Oversight Legit/BudgIT/SERAP public enquiry into the total NASS Clinic budget for 10 years to identify if corruption, incompetence or/and theft are behind why NASS does not have a ‘state of the art’ medical centre. It is immoral to use this unfortunate incident to install a NASS hospital, CT Scan or MRI.

    The NMA must object to any effort by NASS to create a specialised hospital for the tiny NASS community.

    NASS must review its oversight modus operandi.

  • The Northern question again: Facts unknown or ignored

    The Northern question again: Facts unknown or ignored

    Early in the colonial period, Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria were administered as two separate colonial territories under British control. However, right from inception, the North had posed serious problems to the British government. Chief among the problems was economic—the territory was being run at a budget deficit. The Northern Protectorate was also an administrative nightmare. According to colonial records at the time, the Northern protectorate was “predominantly Muslim and animist”, whereas the Southern protectorate was largely Christian and aggressively “westernizing”. The early adoption of Western education produced surplus personnel to assist the colonial administration. That was not the case in the North, where Western education was resisted. The colonial government also wanted better ways of moving people and goods across the two protectorates.

    The colonial government’s solution to these economic, administrative, and commercial problems was the infamous amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates of 1914. The merger allowed the colonial administration to use the budget and personnel surpluses from the South to run the larger territory together. But the Northern problems persisted. This was particularly evident in the education sector. The resistance to Western education persisted so much so that, on the eve of independence in 1959, less than ten secondary schools were located in the entire North, whereas about 150 were already functioning or taking off in the South.

    One whole century plus ten years later, the Northern question remains the Nigerian problem. This is manifested today in many ways, three of which are paramount and interrelated. First, the legendary educational underachievement of the North persists. True, there are now many highly educated Northerners, but the North lags seriously behind the South in literacy rate. One distinctive feature of education in the North is its limitation to the children of the elite in their bid to reproduce themselves in power. In the colonial and early postcolonial periods, the children of the elite predominated in the few secondary schools in the Northe, such as Barewa College in Zaria. Today, the elite outsource the education of their children to foreign institutions in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. The vast majority of the talakawa, including the almajiri, are left largely uneducated.

    Read Also: Another perspective on the Northern question

    Today, none of the 19 states in the North has attained 50 percent literacy rate, whereas all Southern states are beyond 50 percent. For example, according to the latest UNESCO data, the top three Northern states and their percentage literacy rates are Kwara (49.3); Kano (48.9); and Plateau (46.6), while the bottom three are Taraba (23.3); (Katsina (21.7); and Borno (14.5). However, on the other hand, the top three Southern states are Lagos (92.1); Ekiti (80.0); and Ondo (75.1), while the bottom three are Bayelsa (62.0); Ebonyi (53.0); and Imo (53.2). On the whole, the average literacy rate across the North is 34 percent, whereas the average literacy rate across the South is 68 percent.

    Poverty is another major drawback for the North. The World Poverty Clock currently has Nigeria at 71 percent poverty level. The bulk of the poverty burden is borne by the North. As with high illiteracy, poverty is at its highest level in the region. According to World Bank and NBS data, the North accounts for 87 percent of Nigeria’s overall poverty level, whereas the lowest poverty rates are to be found in the South. Poverty is so pervasive in the North that as many as nine states have poverty levels in the nineties!

    The third burden the North has made Nigeria carry is insecurity. Boko Haram, banditry, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and other violent crimes are rooted in the North and continue to draw the North and the rest of the country back. As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu indicated on Monday, June 24, 2024, some of the conflicts underlying insecurity in the region are rooted in “historical injustices” that have torn communities apart.

    What is really mystifying about insecurity in the North is that the region has produced two Presidents (Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, 2007-2012, and Muhammadu Buhari, 2015-2023), both from Katsina state. Their state and region remain largely illiterate, poor, and insecure. Since he became President in 2023, Tinubu has focused on insecurity in the region, by repeatedly drawing attention to the problem and by deploying resources and homegrown personnel to the region. Accordingly, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Defence Minister, the Minister of State for Defence, the National Security Adviser, the Vice President, and as many as 19 state Governors are all from the North.

    This is not to say that insecurity in their region is their problem alone. It is a Nigerian problem. But everyone from the region has a duty to do something about it. This is particularly true of state Governors, who are the Chief Security Officers of their states. It’s a shame that instead of focusing on the triple problems of education, poverty, and insecurity in their region, some of these Governors are chasing power (as in Kano and Kaduna) or building elephant projects (as in Bauchi state).

    The conjunctive implications of these problems in a single region could be overwhelming. Illiteracy limits employment opportunities. Insurgency feeds on illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment for recruitment. Rampant insecurity hampers farming and food security, which further deepens the poverty level. To be sure, there are a few factories here and there in the North, the region continues to supply some foodstuffs to the South, the region still depends largely on resources from the South, distributed as federal allocations. At the end of the day, the North remains a burden on Nigeria, recalling the economic burden on the colonial government, which led to the amalgamation of the North with the South in 1914.

    I grew up learning from the elders that you do not count the number of fingers of a nine-fingered person to his or her face. However, if a section of the country continues to lag behind the rest of the country for over a century, it is high time the problems were highlighted addressed one way or the other.

  • 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.

    Read Also: Traditional ruler urges Nigerians to support Tinubu’s administration 

    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.

    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.  

  • Save Nigeria: Cut governance; Cholera

    Save Nigeria: Cut governance; Cholera

    The Abuja and State Caucus Club of Political Parties, ASCCPP 1999-2024, including the Presidency and ministers and state governors, is in deep trouble entirely of its own making. Its deliberate strategy of greed-driven laws is enriching the ASCCPP in super-salaries, Allowances, Perks & Pensions, SAPPing the country dry but leaving a legacy of poverty pauperising the citizenry.

    Citizens know the law of action and reaction. Remember the N100m kidnapping demand a week after the insulting and inflationary N100million Presidential Form – a fee bringing N3+billion, super-inflating the cost of governance as every kobo ‘invested in politics’  is automatically ‘stolen back’ by budget padding and other forms of corruption with huge interest.

    So, sadly, there is a direct negative relationship between ASCCPP actions and inaction and the citizens’ condition. The ASCCPP acts out of step with the needs of the suffering citizenry, 80% underfed.

    The disease of poverty easily diagnosed as the disease of eating one meal a day, 0-1-0, ignored by ASCCPP, 1999-2024, was rampant for years throughout the tertiary education life of Nigerian youth. Now it has spread from the student population nationwide.  Many millions eat less than 0-1-0. Why cannot the ASCCPP change ‘This Nigerian world’?

    But we know that the APPCC, 1999-2024, has, from day one, 1999 done everything possible to establish itself financially and power-wise above everyone else and everything else in Nigeria.

    Read Also: Minister tasks primary healthcare board to guard against outbreak of Cholera

    We, the people are daily insulted and derided by the visual excesses of the ASCCPP 1999-2024. We the ‘masses’, know this to be true because ‘we have watched the infrequent whistleblowing sickening video’ over the 1999-2024 years.

    During that time the media videos have shown too few, less than 0.2% of members of ASCCPP, who have objected to wallowing in misappropriated luxury actually the property of the hungry masses. Those few politicians of moral conscience, stood against the profligacy of their co-politicians. The apparently greed-driven political majority in ASCCPP have developed a habit of ganging up like conspirators against fellow ASCCPP199-2024 whistle-blowers and the country. What fate awaits the three who refused jeeps? The citizens should protect them, not watch the video of bullying them.  

    As a result, the few politicians who have called out the ASCCPP for greedy practices,  are shouted down, disgraced, ostracised and even suspended the other ASCCPP members. This bullying causes embarrassment and shame to their families. The heavy hammer majority ASCCPP backlash against moral opposition silences internal ASCCPP dissent.

    Nigerians are familiar with ‘shouting down’, ‘OFF THE MIC’ and ‘ORDERS FROM ABOVE’ and ‘OGA AT THE TOP’. To this end APPCC members appear to put in place ‘illegally legal’ or ‘legally illegal’ and certainly morally reprehensible wrong laws designed to enrich themselves members beyond wildest expectations.

    The APPCC must put aside its political infighting and meet about redirecting the dangerously terminal fate of the country still struggling to be a nation according to the tenets of all three national anthems – the old, the new and the old new. The ASCCPP can decide to ignore the obvious woes, financial and security, plaguing the country but wisdom suggests it needs to extricate itself from its long-standing reputation for profligacy, political high horse trading with the poor population and living above the means of its Fellow Nigerian citizens.

     The budget-padded walls of Abuja, the gilded cage of  ‘N160m jeeps’, the bloated gowns and garb of ‘always’ imported maxi-costing garments of ‘dignified dress code’, are a fake public stage life and  must not immune the political class especially the leadership to the desperate and unwarranted plight of the citizenry. If you think the citizenry is lazy and undeserving, I recommend that every serving politician spends a day with a market load carrier, or policeman at a junction, or doctor in the hospital. It is the belief of many that every serving politician and indeed senior civil service should spend compulsory hours in a police cell, a court and a hospital clinic.    

    So, we have complex problems visited upon us by a complex corruption prone political system which has so far consumed almost all the good work done by so many of our forebears and even current hard workers and which is consuming an unacceptable number of lives in kidnapping and terrorism activities. 

    But now, our ASCCPP-led exorbitant borrowing, misuse of funds, serial budget padding, and an unreasonable financially demanding, greedy political class are the burden of the poor.

    Nigerians expect that ASCCPP would have surveyed the political, economic and security terrain and by now aligned itself with international political office holders’ emoluments  and slashed by 70% the ridiculous ASCCPP Salaries, Allowances, Perks and Pensions to reflect the suffering of the masses in keeping with the principle that politics is a sacrificial service not a blank corruption cheque. 

    Saving Nigeria requires sacrifice which means ASCCPP must urgently cut its crushing economic burden signposted by an unaffordable two-house NASS, extravagant  governance, constitutional projects,  presidential jet(??), a huge VP palace monstrosity, superhighways, corrupt distribution of financial handouts instead of speedy electricity and water provision to prevent cholera and create jobs.

    Nigerians want one NASS house but if two houses greedily insist on staying, then urgently cut their budgets by 75%.    

    Congratulations to the team who traced the source of the Lagos cholera outbreak. Political failures, law breaking, poor water supply, poor hygiene conspire to kill, like typhoid simple requiring potable water and electricity countrywide – denied by politics but not nuclear physics.  

  • Ayo Banjo, Educare Trust, Nigeria

    Ayo Banjo, Educare Trust, Nigeria

    I have fortunately closely known many great men and women, irokos, most in shock that Nigeria has, during their 60+ years of contribution, failed to live up to the developmental targets.  I am constantly amazed at the generosity of these moral irokos. If only all, especially politicians, had acted accordingly. Of course, many academics are also involved in anti-growth activities.

    We are mostly in awe of Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo. His stellar input in academia is public record. He also had other interests including his work with Educare Trust. I am blessed with having worked with his senior brother, late Dr Bayo Banjo of The Jokotola Infirmary along with Dr Mrs Abiola Oshodi and Professor Ope Adekunle among others in the terrifyingly turbulent time of the Nigerian Medical Association proscription of the 1980s, ‘Buhari 1’, with summary arrest and sack of doctors. Who remembers?

    I first had met Professor Ayo Banjo around the University of Ibadan in late 60s-early 70s. He lectured my late wife, Lola Alalade. Sadly, education suffered malicious chronic underfunding, Machiavellian education policies like removal of Civics and History as subjects, confiscation and destruction of standards in faith-based secondary schools and immoral financial neglect by military and civilian governments especially worse in the Abacha regime. This was an uphill task in the political and religious  minefield of a negative education terrain,  combating corruption-driven low education budgets, poor  school empowerment, greed-driven oversight politicians and role model moral decadence with the get-rich-quick epidemic promoted by much of Corporate Nigeria’s shamefully infecting the youth with  a ravenous hunger for quick-fix ‘instant millionaires’’, ‘bonanza’ strategies and televised questionable morals of  ‘Big Brother’ shows with zero growth  and instilling  apathy and revulsion in regard to hard work.

    Read Also: New York Times’ jaundiced report on Nigeria’s economy

    Abacha’s coup forced my association of friends in Ibadan, formalised as The Group, to brainstorm in secret places, on how to resuscitate everything from agriculture to education. In education, we needed to show a good example for others of ‘the good old days’ to follow in education. As a result, I started Educare Trust by sounding out great philanthropists like Chief Dr Raymond Zard, Dr Toyosi, Dr Bayo Banjo and leaders in education led by Emeritus Professor Banjo. I invited them and others to our inaugural planning meeting in October 1994 at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ibadan under the auspices of Dr, now retired Professor Dele Fawole. The name ‘Educare Trust’ (ET) was confirmed.  Professor Banjo, always punctual, advised that ET should concentrate, not on tertiary level, already infected with chronic entry examination manipulation, but on ‘innocent’ pre-corrupt primary schools and secondary schools already infected with cultism, to get the foundation right. The aim was to quickly get a better educated, co-curricular active, ‘non-bored’, non-cheating, non-cult, morally honest generation into tertiary education. And that is what we did reaching several million students and their teachers since 1994. We helped to change the university ‘garbage in – garbage out’ mantra to ‘goodness in – greatness out’. We also produced several Education Policy Papers. The journey is a forever one, never ending.

    With Justice Babalakin as chairman of the Board of Trustees,  after Dr Toyosi, Dr Bayo Banjo and Emeritus Professor Akinkugbe, and Ogie Alakija, Ayo Banjo   became chairman of Educare Trust and was succeeded by Dr Olutunde Oni and  the current chairman Dr Tokunbo Abiose. Emeritus Professor Banjo held the post with characteristic distinction, grace, commitment and great love of youth activities, not missing any event. As we in the honest NGO community all know, fundraising especially outside financial hubs like Lagos, is a ‘thankless tasks that must be done’ for NGO work. Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo lent his name with some success and it was a joke between us that he was not able to get a large donation even after several requests from a close very conspicuously wealthy friend. We wrote it off as   donor fatigue. Because of Emeritus Professor Banjo’s foundation membership and his guidance and others’ guidance including Emeritus Professor Ayo Bamgbose, his senior ‘Twin’, Educare Trust survives and is 30 years old this year. Hurray!

    Professor Banjo was also, since the mid-1980s, a very active member and past chairman of the Ibadan Dining Club, founded by Chief Simeon Adebo and associates, who never missed a meeting.

    Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo demonstrated an unwavering commitment to family, education and the youth of Nigeria, leading the University of Ibadan into the education battle for VC two terms. He used his conquering the language of the colonial power in the wider context of an all-purpose education empowering the then next generation. His inspiring shadow spanning across the classroom, lecture room, research opportunities and necessities, progressive policies, music appreciation, academic academies, the powerful LNG Literature Prize committee chairmanship, Educare Trust founding membership and later chairman, Dining Club chairmanship. He received a Kilimanjaro or Mount Everest sized mountain of well-deserved awards, titles and a tsunami of goodwill.

    Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo stands out as always being especially generous with his time and talent – strategizing for the youth.

    Personally, I have many pleasant memories and a rich record of ‘Do Not Delete’ WhatsApp chats with Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, rich with his often humorous ‘Quotable Banjo Quotes.’

    God Bless Him and Keep Him and Mama. May He Rest In Perfect Peace and may the Banjo family, nuclear and wider, take justifiable pride in the multifaceted legacy of its forebears. Amen.

  • Democracy: Significance of 25 unbroken years

    Democracy: Significance of 25 unbroken years

    In today’s Nigeria, it’s fashionable to be angry, negative and cynical. That, perhaps, explains why a major anniversary in our national evolution went uncelebrated amidst the din over spiralling inflation, a rising and falling naira, the Lagos-Calabar super highway, minimum wage and national anthems – old and new.

    On May 29, 1999, Nigeria’s Fourth Republic took off with President Olusegun Obasanjo at the helm. Just six years earlier, on June 12, 1993, the country had trooped out to vote in landmark elections that would be celebrated as about the freest and fairest in our history.

    Conducted under the so-called Operation A4 arrangement developed by noted political scientist and then chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Professor Humphrey Nwosu, voters queued behind their preferred candidates and the outcome in each unit was determined by a transparent headcount that left no room for manipulation.

    What followed with the annulment of the results would go down in history as one of the high points of impunity under military rule. The cancellation plunged the nation into six years of tension and instability marked by brutal suppression of human rights and regular rumours of coups.

    Some of these were trumped up charges just designed to purge potential rivals or supposed enemies. It was in one of those episodes under the regime of General Sani Abacha that Obasanjo found himself charged with plotting the overthrow of the junta. Despite international pressure to grant him and his co-accused reprieve, he would be convicted and jailed.

    For perspective, it should be pointed out that as at 1999, Nigeria had been independent for 37 years. Thirty of those years were under the military following the putsch of the 1966 and the subsequent coups and counter-coups that dominated the period leading to the onset of the Second Republic in 1979. That democratic project would be short lived – truncated in 1983 by soldiers suffering from power withdrawal symptoms.

    The great tragedy of military rule in Nigeria is that it prevented a democratic culture from taking root. Each time there was a coup, the constitution was suspended and all structures for civilian rule scuttled. The country would then be ruled by strange contraptions like a Supreme Military Council (SMC) or an Armed Forces Ruling Council  (AFRC). They were accountable to no-one and their word was law. Penalty for opposing them was harsh detention or in other instances the death sentence. Some of the nation’s brightest officers would perish at the stakes, no thanks to the unending cycle of coups.

    Given that their intervention was illegitimate, the juntas were always under pressure from the international community to restore constitutional rule. Their response was usually to propose halfhearted transition programmes like those under General Ibrahim Babangida that often led to nowhere. Abacha equally cooked up a plan which, in reality, was a contrivance that would have seen him transmuting from military dictator to civilian president. But for the unscripted intervention of death, he would have gotten away with it.

    To achieve a pre-determined end there were all kinds of harebrained experiments. At some point, politicians were branded Old Breed and New Breed using very opaque parameters. Those in the former category were barred from participating in the political process – never mind what their human rights entitled them to. In reality this was just a manoeuvre to exclude some of the more experienced people from governance.

    At the height of his manipulation of the process, Babangida created two artificial parties – one left of centre and the other to the right of the ideological spectrum. Politicians were then herded into these sterile camps like cattle.

    The upshot is that each time the transition ended properly, the new operators of the system embarked on a steep learning curve. In many cases institutional memory became a casualty. It’s hard to imagine what kind of country we would have had, what sort of development would have taken place, had the military not meddled for 30 years.

    Read Also: DSS alerts on Democracy Day “sinister” protests

    The juntas thrived at a time when the nation was flush with petrodollars. But rather than enunciating the sort of development vision that military rulers like Park Chung Hee used to transform South Korea or Suharto adopted to change Indonesia, our soldiers were satisfied with bingeing and squandering Nigeria’s riches on white elephant projects.

    The waste of trillions from the General Yakubu Gowon era through the Babangida years could have delivered the foundation for economic prosperity which the governments that came after are still struggling to lay. The consequence is a nation still wallowing in poverty in 2024.

    The economic challenges facing the country and the backsliding into junta rule of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gabon and others in West and Central Africa, has made some who were too young to experience military dictatorship think it’s an attractive option to move the country forward. It’s not.

    Their time at the helm is evidence that soldiers can be more corrupt and incompetent than the civilians they toppled. The term ‘settlement’ – another word for corruption – became popular under Babangida, while Abacha turned the Central Bank into his personal piggy bank. Twenty six years after his demise in 1998, Nigeria continues to receive repatriated millions of dollars he had stashed away in several European havens.

    To have stuck with democracy for 25 unbroken years is evidence of our acceptance of this way of governance. There is much to criticise in the way we’ve practiced it since 1999. Still, we must be restrained in our condemnation and begin to look more critically at how to improve. There are no perfect democracies anywhere. That’s why hundreds of years after practicing it, millions of Americans who backed Donald Trump in 2020 are now certified election deniers. Our polls may not be perfect but there has been noticeable improvement through the years.

    What is evident is that the people expect more from the system. The fact they have not received the sort of dividends they anticipated reflects in their disenchantment – resulting in many voting with their feet. In 2003, the highest voter turnout was recorded at 69.1%. This has dropped with every election cycle since – hitting an all-time low last year with just 26.7%.

    Restoring the people’s belief in the process, encouraging greater voter participation should therefore be the focus of the political class as the journey to the next 25 years begins. That’s why the federal government’s decision to sue the 36 states over local government autonomy is just one baby step to enable the grassroots feel the impact of government. More needs to be done in this direction.

    Unfortunately, many office office holders – especially in the legislative arm – are haring off in the wrong direction, totally oblivious of what’s important. They are busy with proposals to return the country to parliamentary rule as though it has not been tried in these part. Others think the country’s greatest challenge is restructuring presidential and gubernatorial tenure to a single six-year term.

    These are elite concerns that have no bearing on where the shoe is pinching the average citizen today. Our focus should be on making democracy work for the majority of our people, not in reinventing the wheel. That means deploying all the resources of government at all levels to lift our teeming millions out of abject poverty. Until we have that reset, the disconnect between governors and the governed would continue to widen.

  • Cut exclusive list; lasers: EFCC ‘NOKs’ corruption!

    Cut exclusive list; lasers: EFCC ‘NOKs’ corruption!

    Please celebrate June 12 with less talk and more restructuring and transferring more ‘Exclusive List’ items to states. After electricity devolution, what next?

    Taraba State government bans felling of trees because of climate change. Your state nko?

    And why a band differential electricity price for volume users? Why not just pay more of the same unit price for more use-democracy. Meters are coming at last-but at what cost?  Inflated? Made in Nigeria, pls!

    A doctor, Chief Party, USAID Funded Accelerating Control, HIV Epidemic in Nigeria, was arrested at Geneva Airport for carrying a laser pointer for lecture slide. He did not know laser pens were banned since June 2019. We in Africa get such information late or feel it ‘does not consign [read concern] us’. Such information, every delegation should know. Certainly, the ban is justified because of eye risks. The warning to travellers from Abike Dabiri-Erewa Head, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NiDCOM, is timely for all ‘lecturers’ including ASUU. Why is something banned used in Nigeria? Not everything banned abroad should be banned here without a ‘TO BAN OR NOT TO BAN’ discussion.

    Hurray, the EFCC IS ‘FOLLOWING THE MONEY’, like in the US prosecution of Al Capone caught, not for murders, but for tax evasion. Finally, through the Ministry of Justice, EFCC catches one of many wayward super civil servants. THE CIVIL SERVICE, FEDERAL AND STATE AND LGA, IS OFTEN DESCRIBED AS THE ENGINE ROOM OF CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA. In this case the founder of NOK University Kaduna ‘FAILED HIS EXAM’ to account financially for the source of his funding or name mysterious investors. He worked in various ministries including some shamefully so-called ‘lucrative or juicy ministries’ which I call ‘deadly’- Health, Women Affairs, Niger Delta, Youth and Sports Development, Health again as Director of Finance and Accounts Dept. 2016-19 and finally Works and Housing.  

    Read Also: Tinubu commends Tolaram Group for believing in Nigeria’s economy

    Yet we have annual Declaration of Assets and sometimes relentless tax men and women. The NOK man should have had the odour of corruption on his person and on his file halting his climb to director, unless he was protected. A government employee getting so criminally rich as to establish a university is misplaced altruism or megalomaniacal arrogance, especially as he also has many other personal and family financial acquisitions. He is a ‘cause of corruption’. The consequence of such megalomaniacal accumulation of [other-peoples’ life changing] assets, is destroying  millions of hopeful Nigerians’ dreams at yet another  Government Social Development Project mega-Announcement ‘full of sound and fury meaning nothing’.

    Too many Fellow Nigerians paid and continue to pay the heavy price, forced to sacrifice their livelihoods, opportunities, benefits, wellbeing and even lives to numerous failed projects, in which all funds were stolen upfront in multibillions diverted from  yardstick essential SDGoals.

    Why can’t everyone see that the price of all corruption is the last gasp of a child, the screams as blood drains from a dying delivering mother and an aged person’s frustrated anger at destroyed dreams and stolen pension, too broke to buy medicines?

    JUDGES, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT ALL CORRUPTION MONEY IS BLOOD MONEY. EVERY STOLEN KOBO, IN A POOR COUNTRY LIKE NIGERIA IS A DROP OF BLOOD SHED BY A DEPRIVED NIGERIAN SOMEWHERE.

    The price of corruption is always born by the unseen victim, supposedly the beneficiaries of civil servants’ work. This particular NOK benefiting massive corruption was spread over six ministry appointments with blood spilt by victims in terms of vulnerable underserved patients and women and girls, neglected contracts and services in the Niger Delta, severe reduction in youth entrepreneurial and social support and sports achievements and finally high corrupt contract costs with low works and housing project execution.

    We must measure cost and consequences to corruption victims. We must then punish the cause, the thieves, proportionally if we want to stop this rampant N1-100b mega-theft.

    There is no difference between a murderer with a body and this level of corruption with dead and dying and deprived victims.

    In a country with no pride in public property, where people take pride in walking during the National Anthem, old-new-and-old-again, thieves are being sent to steal joints and solar-lights on newly refurbished Third Mainland and Second Niger Bridges.  These corruption causes will have deadly citizen consequences.      

    Thus theft can be big or small but both are corruption with equally deadly consequences to culture.

    What will happen to the seized assets, including a whole university, NOK, with a motto ‘Knowledge and Excellence’ way! Excellence in theft of citizens’ assets?? Such assets must not rot away!  What will happen to the NOK students, youth and staff? It is not a cheap university and no educational humanitarian effort by the owners even though they got the money ‘for free’ without permission from the citizens.

    Of course, there are several other universities set up by people of questionable financial responsibility and morals. Pathologically, they expect praise for starting such universities and secondary schools with stolen corruption and actually ‘blood money’. They forget that their theft has ruined more youth education facilities and lives than any university will ‘help’ in 100 years. 

    They must face EFCC.

    Final Questions: If you build religious, educational or health facilities with the multibillions stolen from budgets meant to better every citizen’s life, will you get marks from God or a rebate on your predicted punishment in hell? I think not.

    NIGERIANS, WE WILL ONLY GROW IF WE STOP STEALING. 

  • Bullying kills: Stop eye injury

    Bullying kills: Stop eye injury

    Bullying: There Must Be Consequences Pls! Bullying, school gangs are not new. Every school leaver easily remembers verbal and physical bullies. NB ‘WORDS WILL ALWAYS HURT YOU!’ 

    In primary school when I was 10, I was viciously pushed from behind over a basketball foot bar by an unknown student. I fell on my face and cut my lip and tongue and lost a front incisor tooth and a half tooth leading to a lifetime of dental appointments, agony and over 100 gum injections. My bully got away with CHILD ABUSE and Grievous Bodily Harm and appears ‘innocently’ at reunions.

    Professor Wole Soyinka recalls how he and two colleagues waylaid a bully in Government College. Pa Soyinka, then not a Pa, jumped from a tree onto the shoulders of the predatory bully.

    Today, do not take on the bullies, as in Soyinka days but do not be silent. JUST PRIVATELY REPORT BULLIES TO THE AUTHORITIES AND TELL YOUR PARENTS AS BACKUP. SILENCE IS DANGEROUS!

    Sadly, weekly we see many youth with  AN EYE DAMAGED FOR LIFE by ‘friendly fire’ or ‘neighbourhood wicked Fellow Nigerian child’ throwing a  stone or  stabbing with biro or pencil or catapulted broomstick, pellet or pebble or a ‘DIRTY SLAP’. Worse, sometimes the perpetrator is a parent or teacher, lashing with a belt or a stick at a ‘naughty’ squirming child who turns an eye to the weapon. Such an injury could also be ‘AN EYE AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE’ in nearby children observing the punishment.

    STOP EYE INJURIES, intentional and accidental. They are often permanent or expensive to manage. The victim is condemned along with a chaperon to a life of misery pain, time loss, expense and emotional cost of many clinic visits and living one-eyed. This severely cuts work and social opportunities as millions of jobs, would-friends, partners, in-laws, and could-have-been spouses will demand two-eyed Fellow Nigerian.

    Read Also: Nigerian referee listed for 2024 WAFCON training

    THE COST OF AN EYE INJURY, meanwhile, is so enormous that there should be a COUNTRYWIDE EYE INJURY PREVENTION AWARENESS CAMPAIGN AMONG PARENTS, TEACHERS, PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS, with NATIONAL ORIENTATION AGENCY ‘EYE INJURY and DIRTY SLAP PREVENTION POSTERS’ in every lecture, class, staff and guard room.

    Today ALARM BELLS from in-school deaths alert every other school and university to initiate a functioning PERMANENT BULLY DETECTION/PREVENTION PROGRAMME complete with A BULLY LOGBOOK and a BULLY NAMING AND SHAMING PROGRAMME. 

    INJURY COMPENSATION RESPONSIBILITY MUST BE DISCUSSED BY THE VICTIM, THE PERPETRATOR AND THE FAMILY AND THE INSTITUTION. To date, victim compensation is almost never raised for playground, school, neighbour or other injuries in spite of the enormous expenses that frequent eye injury treatment causes the victim’s family.

    The perpetrator may or may not volunteer to or be forced to say a meaningless ‘sorry!’  Full stop! There may be suspension, expulsion or sacking. These punishments do not ‘restore-sight-to the blind-eye’ or pay the victim’s lifetime bill. The victim suffers injury and has the additional financial injury of having to pay the care costs for that injury. No. this must change. The care bills for home-clinic-home transport and medical expenses for the victim must automatically be extracted from the perpetrator, the institution, or the family.

    Many perpetrators are bullies and the pain of financial cost/loss is the only language they, their institutions or their parents will understand.

    STOP DELIBERATELY INFLICTED SPORTS INJURIES: The world can cut deliberate and vicious  sports injuries by 80% if football and other contact sports had a ‘CAUSER AND CONSEQUENCE, GBH Grievous Bodily Harm’ CLAUSE  in all contracts and club rules  TO MAKE THE  ATTACKER ‘PAY IN TIME AND MONEY’ FOR INFLICTED INJURY.

    NFA/FIFA: WHY NOT HAVE A TIME RELATED FINE ON THE CLUB AND PLAYER FOR CAUSING ‘INJURY TIME’?

    IF A PLAYER INJURES OR BREAKS AN OPPONENT’S LIMB, HE TOO SHOULD GO OFF AND BE OFF ON ‘BULLY TIME’ AND PAY ALL THE BILLS UNTIL THE VICTIM IS FULLY RECOVERED.

    ‘I’m sorry’, is not remorse, just guilt freedom for no fee.

    Few accused thieves are the actual culprits. It is a bully-tactic to turn friends into an instant ‘Accuser-Investigator-Judge-Jury-Sentencer-Executor escalating into Executioner. This tragic outcome was exposed at the disciplinarian Ajayi Crowder University, Oyo, disgracing the memory of the famous missionary’s Christian legacy. A legally unsubstantiated and unreported-to-the-authorities case of ‘[maybe] you stole my phone’ escalated from accusations to the injustice of a mass instant or planned four hour beating ordeal  resulting in a mob execution of 22-year old Alex Timileyi, a 200-Level Engineering student in a hostel seemingly inappropriately named Shepard by the righteous founding fathers. Timileyi sadly did not complete his walk through the valley of death. Now he is dead, 12 accused of his murder, 13 families destroyed.

    Guilty of theft or not, cult induction or attack or not, his execution is culpable murder. If a gang of legally adult 17-24-year-olds can justify this act in a religious environment, what hope Nigeria? Remember OAU-1999 gunning down of five students and last week’s killing of five soldiers and six civilians in Abia?

    ‘Causer of catastrophe without consequence’ kills moral society- ask our political class!  

    Every school assembly classroom, education institution and lecture room should say and have a poster with a prayer designed by religious bodies and government – NOA. BEWARE OF BULLYING

     ‘WE PRAY FOR PROTECTION AGAINST A-B-C-D.

    A BUSE by word and deed,

    B ULLYING  ,

    C ULTISM and gangs, &

    D EATH.

    DO NOT KEEP SILENT ABOUT BULLYING- SILENCE KILLS. 

  • Another look at how we got here

    Another look at how we got here

    The promised meta-analysis of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s first year in office will have to wait as more assessments are likely to keep coming in until next week. Instead, I bring an edited version of How we got here, which was first published over three months ago (The Nation, February 14, 2024). In the original article, I interviewed a variety of artisans on their views of the economic situation in the country. Sensing shallowness of knowledge about the backgrounds to the present economic situation, I provided them with a brief survey.

    Nigeria’s problems revolve around regionalism, ethnicity, religion, corruption, greed, and to varying degrees, they all found expression within the three distinct forms of government we have had since independence, namely, parliamentary, military, and presidential systems. Two of the systems (parliamentary and presidential) involved partisan politics, while the third (military) was an outright dictatorship. The parliamentary system did not last long. Nevertheless, intra- and inter-regional and partisan power struggles within the period precipitated the first military coup in 1966 and started a chain of coups and countercoups and even a devastating civil war.

    Read Also: First anniversary: Buhari calls for national support for Tinubu’s govt

    Military dictatorships, starting in 1966, suspended the constitution, dispensed with the legislature and the judiciary, and suppressed the press. They told and showed us only what they wanted us to know and see. The civil service was emaciated, if not incapacitated, and erstwhile regional assets, including corporate and educational institutions, were federalised overnight. Even universities owned by the regions then were not spared. By the time the military handed over power, corruption had been institutionalized.

    With the advent of democracy in 1999, there were many more people to share the loot. In no time, it became a case of “My loot is bigger than yours”. You only need to go to Abuja to see the humongous houses, hotels, and businesses, built by politicians, legislators, civil servants, and government contractors.

    Matters began to get worse under President Goodluck Jonathan, beginning in 2013 as preparations got underway for the 2015 general elections. Incidentally, that was the year the All Progressives Congress was formed, mounting a very strong opposition to the Jonathan administration. The treasury was turned into an ATM for election funds. The returned Abacha loot was one such fund that was found to have been distributed to various party supporters and even allies in other political parties. That was the background to what came to be known in the press as Dasukigate.

    Apparently, with recent revelations, things got worse under the Buhari administration. Domestic and foreign debts went through the roof. The nation’s foreign reserve was depleted. The Governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele, appeared to have colluded with the Buhari administration to perpetrate untold atrocities. Naira was printed illegally in order to increase loan to the government.

    By the time Buhari was handing over to Tinubu, the CBN had loaned the government over N20 trillion, with nothing to back up the loan and with no clear terms of repayment. Foreign loan was almost four times that amount. So much was borrowed and so much was looted that Charles Soludo, former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and present Governor of Anambra state, declared recently that Tinubu inherited a “dead economy”. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, had as much to say when he declared that the “treasury was empty” when Tinubu assumed office.

    On his own, Emefiele set up multiple exchange rates within the banking system and gave different customers different rates. The so-called anchor borrowers programme intended to assist farmers was used to assist those he wanted to assist, even when they had no farming businesses. He was also giving loans to friendly individuals as if the CBN was a commercial bank. He allegedly opened numerous accounts at home and abroad and funneled money into them. Part of Emefiele’s scam was the botched currency swap ahead of the 2023 general elections, which caused untold hardships for millions of Nigerians. Already, Emefiele has been facing multiple charges of financial fraud, including printing N684.5 million new notes at a cost of N18.9 billion Naira!

    Between Buhari and Emefiele, a subsidy regime was maintained to keep the country going, while also getting deeper and deeper into debt. Electricity was subsidised. Even the Naira was prevented from devaluation by keeping the official forex market low and supplying the dollar to the market, when necessary. Then there was fuel subsidy, which had become a scam to put money into a few hands, some of which did not even supply fuel at all.

    For years, many previous governments had planned to end fuel subsidy but failed to do so for political reasons. The plan was completed by the Buhari administration. However, for political reasons, he stopped short of ending the subsidy. Instead, he left the job for Tinubu by making sure that there was no subsidy in the budget as from June 2023, when Tinubu took office. In other words, Tinubu had no choice but to end the subsidy. It was equally necessary to provide a level playing field for foreign exchange transactions by unifying the exchange rate.

    What Tinubu did was to end the tradition of money for a few so that there will be money for all in the future. However, such a transformation can never be instant. The intervening period will be difficult. There will be pain. There will be suffering. There even will be hunger. But not for too long. That’s the situation we are in now. However, how soon remains uncertain. That’s why he released billions of Naira as palliative, which state governments are meant to disburse. He also provided funds to states for transportation, agriculture, technology, and entrepreneurship. 

    Against the above backgrounds, it is evident that per capita growth would be stalled; that poverty rate would be higher; and that the rate of insecurity would spike. Yet, as the IMF recently pointed out, Tinubu has “limited fiscal space” within which to tackle these problems. Equally limited are social and political spaces occupied by social media and opposition politicians, who refuse to see any good coming out of Abuja. Then there are internal and external saboteurs, who continue to disturb, distort, or divert government’s well-intentioned policies, projects, and proprammes.

    Against the above backgrounds and the parameters laid out last week, assessors of Tinubu’s first year in office have their job well cut out for them.