The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

Ibadan Youth Aquarium/ Museum/ Exhibition Stem Park Pls.

Governor Seyi Makinde is reported to be considering making some areas in Agodi and Trans Amusement Park into housing estates. Over the last 30 years, we have informed each governor that Ibadan requires modern city public entertainment facilities like enlightening museums, aquaria, exhibitions of type Nigeria’s children abroad are availed of in Dubia, London, New York etc. Ibadan is awash with hundreds of amazing active and retired brains in and around intellectual, agricultural and scientific institutions with famous acronyms UI [with 75 departments], UCH [with 25 departments], LCU, KDU, FRIN, CRIN, IITA, IAR&T, all sadly out of reach of Ibadan’s two+million children yearning for an intellectual career exposure. As an engineer, will Governor Makinde stamp his visionary intellect on Ibadan by spearheading a legacy project – an Ibadan/Oyo State AQUARIUM/EXHIBITION/MUSEUM/ARTS/SCIENCE/TECH/MATHS EDUTAINMENT PARK by allocating and approving a building with cubicles 10-20 square metres for each one of the 100s of departments in the aforementioned institutions? Housing estates are good and needed. Inspiring youth inquisitiveness is necessary.

The murder and mutilation on duty of the distinguished DPO Bako Angbashim in Rivers State by cultists is a heinous crime and the subsequent offer of N100m bounty by Governor Fubara is justified. Many security personnel have died gallantly which requires an onslaught.

Nigeria has lost N16.25 trillion or N16,250,000,000,000 for 150,000,000 citizens i.e., approx. N125,000/person to oil theft. Imagine where our foreign reserves, education, health, transport and airlines etc. would be with that money?

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How has Nigeria survived the trillion-naira+ theft annually? We survive because of the many millions of poor daily paid workers who, combined are a huge economic net countrywide as they feed their families daily from financial exchanges at their own level somewhat bolstered by the few crumbs falling from the rich man’s table which are mopped up mostly by immediate government hangers on. This economic net is very strong as testified by the fact that by doing the menial and low-level jobs they are servicing the essential supply chains supporting lives of every Nigerian from farm, village to villa, from playground to palace and from market to mansion and daily requiring daily transport to work, daily food for self and family, daily support services.

These are mostly menial jobs, the orange, bread, tea, akara, amala, newspaper viewing vendors who are all involved in the nationwide hidden-in-plain-sight micro-markets which together form a huge sub-bank cash economic safety net blanketing and comforting the ordinary citizenry asking the morning question just before dawn – ‘Can I feed myself/ my family today?’ and every night comforted again by saying ‘I fed myself/my family today’ as he and mostly she closes tired eyes at night. At that level, goals and achievements are daily not annually. And that daily income is destroyed immediately by a nationwide strike. Government office workers will probably get paid. Many workers are self-employed or employed by the private sector formal and informal. There will be no multi-million worker daily spending, demand or income on or from local transport, corner-corner feeding, semi-free readers’ association newspaper vendors.

That daily income will be zero for millions who will not get that money back unlike for salaried workers. Such strikes have a far greater impact on the daily paid workers than the monthly paid government and many private sector workers as the millions of daily paid workers are denied the income and will bring home zero income leaving millions of hungry mouths and minds at the level of sleepers on the street, under bridges, hamlets and low-income homes nationwide. Of course, many private businesses are also impacted as they provide food and transport services and the owners will often lay off or just not pay for ‘No Work Days’.

Living only day to day is a bitter reality of a lopsided economy and polity where politicians have arrogated to themselves an ‘unbelievable political sense of financial entitlement’ at the direct expense and loss of income for the generality of the citizenry. This is a serious greed-as-a-drug addictive-like disease which thrives because there are never any serious sustained exemplary punishments or countermeasures. The disease is totally resistant to the usual treatment of calling out and public humiliation, which like Trumpian crimes, has been turned into self-promotional media frenzied circus activities especially when such accused find themselves in court.

Politicians have resisted appeals to cut their salaries and perks. Every iota of Nigerian common sense screams against such illegally legal treasury robbing miscalled ’entitlements’. How come such greed-driven politicians stiffen their backs and harden their hearts, when they see the quagmire of poverty caused by their greed-driven plenty in their palatial homes filled with fine vehicles paid for by depriving the poor? Why are most Nigerian politicians not moved to repent and offer services at costs equivalent to similar rates to those of politicians elsewhere in the world? Since politicians have used every subterfuge, legal, illegal, legally illegal and illegally legal to maintain their stranglehold on the Salary and Perks, and reject simple logic of poverty and needs of our country, we must suggest new strategies.

The major trade unions should come together and demand what we demand – that Salaries and Perks should be cut by 75% with a similar cut in pensions in proportion to what high grade level civil servants earn.

Indeed, major trade unions should during strike negotiations insist on politicians taking a 75% salary cut or only modest sitting allowances and one house chamber, preferably House of Representatives.

September 13, 2023
The presidential election, the judgment, and the crybabies

When it comes to election, election petition, and the court’s judgement, the presidential candidates of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, as well as their supporters are birds of the same feather. They all cried on election day once it was clear from the returns that they had lost. They cried when the winner was declared and given the certificate of return. They cried over the inauguration of the President-elect. They went to court and cried while their case was in court, lying about the judges and even intimidating them. They cried over the judgement. They will cry again over the judgement of the Supreme Court to which they are headed, because the same Court had ruled earlier on key issues in their petitions.

After reading through the 798-page unanimous judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court, I was surprised at how thin the petitioners’ evidence was and the amount of previous cases cited by the justices in support of their rulings. Equally surprising was the petitioners’ focus on auxiliary matters, such as the nomination and substitution processes over which the PEPC had no jurisdiction; Tinubu’s academic qualifications over which several courts had ruled, and his degree certificate tendered; and a non-conviction based forfeiture decades ago in faraway United States, which, in any case, is non-disqualifying as it was a civil suit and not a criminal case, which the United States government had confirmed never existed against Tinubu in their country; and the matter of whether or not 25 percent votes in the Federal Capital Territory was required for presidential victory. It will be wrong to assume that their lawyers were unaware of the paucity of their evidence or that they were oblivious to the Supreme Court’s previous rulings that 25 percent votes in FCT was NOT required. Few Nigerian lawyers would refuse to take on election petitions, because charges on such petitions are a bounty harvest for them.

Some illiterate commentators have joined the appellants to cry. They are illiterate, not in the sense that they cannot read and write, but in the sense that they lack basic knowledge of jurisprudence. For example, many of them are still crying over INEC’s failure to upload the results to its viewing portal but failed to ask the appellants why they failed to call any of their thousands of polling agents to speak to the authenticity or otherwise of the result sheets (Forms EC8A), and also to confirm whether or not there were electoral malpractices at the polling units as the appellants alleged in certain states, including those in which they won!

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Another illiterate commentator ignored the substance of the judgement and focused on a conspiracy theory woven around coincidental developments: The fellow wondered why the judgement coincided with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 100 days in office and why Tinubu was in faraway India, when he should have been in court! He also saw something fishy in the President’s spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, expressing the President’s optimism in prevailing in court, as if the appellants never insisted that they won on election day, should have won in the Appeals court, and will win in the Supreme Court.

Did the appelants have any substantive matters at all? Well, they did have a few, which, in the final analysis, amounted to nothing. For example, they argued that the Independent National Electoral Commission, precisely its Chairman, Professor Mohammed Yakubu, failed to keep the promise of transmitting the results of the election in real time to the INEC Result Viewing (IREV) portal and that some of the results transmitted were unclear. On this issue, various courts, including the Supreme Court, had ruled that electronic transmission of results to the IReV is not stated anywhere in the Electoral Act but was only introduced by INEC in its Regulations and Guidelines as well as its Manual for Election Officials. Therefore, complaints relating to non-compliance to Regulations, Guidelines, and Manuals are not valid complaints for an election petition. In any case, the results of the election are stored in the BVAS machines and in Form EC8A, duly signed by the polling agents. Unlike the IReV, which is only for viewing results, the BVAS and Form EC8A are necessary ingredients for results collation at the Collation Centre, of which the Polling Unit is the first of 5 stages, the others being the Ward, Local Government, State, and Presidential Collation Centre in Abuja.

Two, they wove a conspiracy theory around the failure to transmit results to IReV to argue that the INEC Chairman used the failure to disguise cheating for the winning candidate. Accordingly, they made generic and wild allegations of various irregularities and malpractices in various states, but without substantial evidence, except, to a limited extent, in Rivers and Benue states. In the words of the Judges, “In other places where irregularities and malpractices were alleged are bereft of the material details of the polling units or places where they were alleged to have taken place, or the figures of votes alleged to have been suppressed, deflated or inflated”. Worse still, none of the evidence provided by the expert witnesses called by the petitioners is linked to the malpractices they alleged. In the final analysis, the allegations were ruled out as wild speculations.

I have always maintained that the INEC Chairman failed on ethical grounds for not fulfilling his promise to transmit the results to the IReV in real time. However, as various courts, including the Supreme Court, have consistently ruled on the matter, the failure is not justiciable, because the promise emanated neither from the Electoral Act not from the Constitution but only from INEC’s own Regulations and Manuals.

It is doubtful if Atiku and Obi were unaware of this fact or that some friendly lawyers would not have told them that they had no chance of winning their case. After all, they are both experienced politicians. Nevertheless, it was a convenient ploy for them to pollute public perception about the winning candidate and weep up sentiment among their unknowing followers in order to generate hatred, bitterness, and anger against the winning candidate. The ultimate goal would have been to goad their supporters to stage various protests, which they did, thereby dampening the legitimacy of the election. Their persistence that they won the election must be viewed in this light. Or how else can one interpret the actions of two litigants, each claiming victory but nonetheless agreeing to consolidate their petitions?

The futility of their case underlies most of the antics we have witnessed since the election, including the recent cry for a re-run, hoping perhaps that they might have a chance to consolidate into one party to strengthen their chances. It was as well that the five judges on the PEPC were unanimous in their verdict in throwing out their consolidated case.

September 13, 2023
Alternative paths to the top in modern Nigeria

Some 40 years ago, I went to a friend’s house in my hometown and asked those I found outside his house if X (my friend’s name) was available. They looked at one other until one of them asked me directly: “Do you mean Chief?” Before I could answer the question, my friend came out, shook my hand, and beckoned me into the house. I wasted no time in asking him when he became a chief. He dodged the question but gave me a more interesting response: “Many of you have a title before your name. You are a Doctor or Professor. Others are Lawyer or Engineer. I too need a title. I am Bobajiro. And you don’t need to go to school or take exams to get that.”

This brief exchange illustrates the title craze in our society today. My friend had been a chief for only three months or so. Yet, the people around him wouldn’t address him by name anymore. Some had even forgotten his name. He was simply known as Chief. Today, the craze for title has taken a new turn. As I will illustrate in the second half of this piece, even those who have reached the top of their professions now seek titles, such as Governor, Senator, or President. To crown it all (no pun intended), others seek the throne in their natal homeland.

But it was not always like this. In the precolonial period, the only politics beyond the normal domestic politics of the family was the struggle to attain one title or the other within the traditional system or to become the head of a traditional association, usually of age mates. Such struggles were generally confined to your immediate community. In the West and the North, the monarch was atop the traditional hierarchy. The West had the Oba, while the North had the Emir. There were no titular heads of the standing of these monarchs in the East. However, there were titular heads in particular localities, who got to the position by dint of hard work. While the struggle for the monarchical head was confined to the royal family in both the West and the North, there was open competition for title heads in the East.

The case of the North is rather peculiar, because the emirate system came with Islamic religion, which entered Nigeria through that region as far back as the 11th century, supplanting most traditional hierarchical systems, especially in the far North, while the conquerors imposed their religion and introduced Arabic, the language of Islam. The emirate system, therefore, predated colonialism.

Similarly in the South, Christian missionaries provided another path to a hierarchical structure based on the church pastoral system. However, unlike Islam, Christian missions were more or less forerunners of the colonial administration. Although Christianity was initially brought to Nigeria by Portuguese Catholic monks in the 15th century, the mission did not have roots in Nigeria until Irish Catholics spread the faith early in the 19th century. By the end of the century, the Irish Catholic mission had taken firm roots in Eastern Nigeria, which accounts for Irish elements in Igbo pronunciation of English till today. However, it was the Anglican mission of the Church of England, established in Badagry in 1842, that spread much faster to the rest of the country.

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By the second half of the nineteenth century, various missions had been established in most parts of the country, although with minimal success in the North. Today, the country is saturated with churches belonging to different missions, notably, Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, and a variety of pentecostal churches. With the Christian missions came a variety of top ranks, such as Archbishop, Bishop, Prelate, General Overseer, and so on. The general public may not be familiar with the politics of ascending to the top of the church hierarchy, but it can be as vicious as the familiar partisan politics of today and the various methods of getting to the top.

With the colonial administration came schools, colleges, and universities, which increased exponentially after independence. Education opened up the way to the professions as lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, professors, and so on, emerged, each with its own politics of rising to the top. Others joined the military, the police, and other security agencies. As in the other professions, the security agencies also have their internal politics of rising to the top.

There is evidence, however, that rising to the top of one’s profession is no longer considered as sufficient accomplishment. In recent years, Army Generals, former Police Officers, University Professors, Retired Civil Servants, Actors, and Church Pastors have transitioned to the throne.

The most recent example of Pastor-become-King is that of Pastor Afolabi Ghandi Olaoye, who was recently approved by the Oyo State Government as the new Soun of Ogbomoso. Prior to his selection as the next monarch, Pastor Ghandi, famously known as Pastor G, was a Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God for over 30 years in Nigeria and Germany.

Aware of the perceived dissonance between his pastoral duties and the traditional requirements of the throne, including traditional festivals and esoteric rituals, Pastor Ghandi promised during the selection process that he would embrace the three religions in the community, namely, Traditional, Christianity, and Islam.

Before Pastor Ghandi, many others have left or retired from their professions to take on the spiritual duties of the throne. A popular case was that of Oba Funsho Adeolu of Ode Remo, who was an actor and producer, famous for his role as Chief Eleyinmi in Village Headmaster, before ascending the throne in 1990. The present Suntan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’adu Abubakar was a Brigadier General in the Army until 2006, when he ascended the throne. Similarly, Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos was an Assistant Inspector-General of Police until his retirement in 2002, preparatory to his coronation in 2003. In a similar vein, the present Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, was an Accountant and Real Estate magnate before ascending throne in 2015. His immediate predecessor, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II, was a renowned businessman before ascending the throne. Finally, a famous Ondo King, Oba Adesimbo Victor Kiladejo, Jilo III, the Osemawe of Ondo Kingdom, was a renowned medical doctor before ascending the throne in 2008.

True, these candidates were princes, who ascended the throne of their forebears. But it was not historically or traditionally the case that they would go far away from the royal household to the point of rising to the top of their professions elsewhere. This development is a reflection of the princes’ education and professional training and of a changing trend in social and cultural practices. The consequence is emergency training in royal duties for newly appointed monarchs.

However, there have been controversial cases in which non-princes were installed monarchs, often leading to litigation. There are also cases of newly created kingdoms for friends of the throne to become monarchs of their respective communities. Governors and legislators, who were never princes, may soon become beneficiaries.

September 6, 2023
Strike paradox. ‘Minister: Are you a thief?’ Plaque pls.

There is a paradox in ‘Strike Wars’. Who gets hurt most? Who is collateral damage? The poor or the salaried? Sometimes the salaried privileged are the underprivileged, by salary denial, and made poor. Strikes are to right wrongs. But the poor suffer. Around every salary is a group of daily paid vendors and around a salary pool like a university, institution or government secretariat there is an army of daily paid vendors – food, support services, newspapers and transport. These become zero during a strike. In a strike, Strike 1 is always against the poor!

Once the food vendor loses the stomachs due to strike day, the food vendor will never sell double the day after the strike, so strike losses are 100% for many millions of daily paid workers but not for salaried workers if the salary will still be paid for strike days.

Here is a typical example of strike day losses. Upscaled to any strike length. The unread newspapers on strike day will not be sold next day or post-strike. As usual in the mountaintop to chasm, roller-coaster, 100% to 0% in 24 hours, day-after-publication-day, they become dustbin liners in kitchen, wastepaper basket lining or remain on the street as groundnut, boli, ojojo, gurudi and akara wrapping, too cheap for birthday cake. Yesterday pre-strike, each page was worth N4-5million hosting a congratulatory portrait birthday message or for a politician’s assumption of office, preferably in budget-sucking unmonitorable ‘juicy ministry’.

From strike day the paper devalues into a target practice ‘how far can you pee’ and ‘can you hit the target’ competitions for children in Abe Bridge and break time schoolboy pranks. One or two pages may be salvaged for historical purposes by dedicated newspaper collectors like my late good friend Professor Tobi Aken’Ova or even to become pin-ups for star-struck youth, but most pages are fire-bound, or to block another gutter during rainy season.

But there are some positives from strikes, payment of rights from previously irresponsible governance, sadly post mortem sometimes. Even when funds come after 1-8 month strikes in the health and academic sectors, the positives now come with negative, callous implementation of evilly planned and executed ‘No-Work-No-Pay’ (NWNP) strategy.

This NWNP strategy paralysed medicine and education workers notably, National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD and Academic Staff of Universities, ASUU members, merely fighting for rights denied by greed-driven and arrogant political and ministerial officials who not once been recalled by incumbent government officials to answer why they did not implement agreements and simple promotions as-and-when-due 3, 5,8, 4-10 years previously.

Past government officials are irresponsibly protected by an unspoken and illegal INTERGOVERNMENT OMERTA [SILENCE] POLICY allowing past such officials to get away with minimising or murdering many professions by denying rights.

It is time unions, national professional bodies and concerned citizen groups like SERAP etc take past government officials, year by year of service to court for ‘Breach of Employment Contract’ when they deny payment, steal or divert or misappropriate salaries, pensions, promotions and allowances and the compulsory pensions and other workforce contributions.

So, we must establish that there are as yet unpunished criminally culpable past government officials – failures in their jobs- boastfully walking Nigeria as retired government bigwigs with plaques and oversized pensions to prove it. Shame on them! How dare the current occupiers of those same government offices deny salary service to contractually obligated wage workers for strike periods aimed at righting wicked wrongs inflicted by past criminal government officers? Will there be nationwide NWNP in this ongoing strike? One thinks not!

This week we have 45 ministers sitting in shiny offices amidst nationwide squalor. How many ministers are serious, nationalistic, no-nonsense, bent on improving Nigeria’s most valuable possessions – citizens and currency [naira] value? How many ministers are thieves, wolves in ministers’ clothing, settling into traditional ministerial corruption, kickbacks, budget padding, upfront gratification, party-payback scams and schemes? Are briefcases of money or little black diamond bags reporting to ensure work is ruined on refineries, in electricity, health, education, waterways, ports, passports, roads-all essentially citizen friendly sustainable development projects?

‘ARE YOU A THIEF?’ is a must-ask question based on EFCC, ICPC cases involving ministers etc. Never again! We cannot afford thieves in 2023 government structure. See how a small drop in thievery credited to this government has lifted Nigeria’s oil production by 900,000 barrels but still short of our allocation. Work quicker please. Imagine if no thievery had ever been allowed by past ministers and security agents?

‘ARE YOU A THIEF’ SHOULD BE ON A PLAQUE with a picture of 37 children, given to every new minister, commissioner, permanent secretary, director, parastatal head and security head. The ministerial tree often rots from the head.

Do you wonder why and how Nigeria has survived annual losses of trillion naira+ in financial crimes taken through numerous rarely-concluded court circus cases by EFCC, ICPC with whistle blower evidence? Other countries would have crumbled. Even Nigeria seemed heading for nothingness. The criminal contract-inflation based and selfish individualised politically greed-motivated theft and 419 activities by ministers and high government officials, directors, permanent secretaries and line officers, male and female, responsible for good governance and sustainable development are recurrent. Will they recur 2023-2027? Such scandals would kill most countries. But not Nigeria. Why? Because Nigeria sits not on our corrupted economic, banking and black-market system. Nigeria is protected and saved from corruption because it sits on the strong camel’s back- a camel made by Nigeria’s ‘mama-inside-market-daily-paid economy’ of course!

September 6, 2023
Tinubu, the cabinet, and job evaluation

Give it to this President. Regardless of what the opposition, pathological critics, and noisemakers might have said, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is on track. Those who see a glass half empty in his job performance so far have their eyes to blame. Most people see a glass beyond half full. If nothing else, he has treaded where previous Presidents failed to tread, by waffling or dodging altogether. The removal of fuel subsidy; the stoppage of multiple exchange systems; and student loans. True, the results have not fully matured, but needed change is on hand in these areas

They said his cabinet would be “bloated” and that some newly created ministries are superfluous. They said there are too many past state Governors on his cabinet, forgetting that it is his prerogative to choose ministers and that he, too, was a state Governor. If he became President, like seventeen former state Governors, who became Presidents of the United States, why can’t state Governors be appointed Ministers? In any case, he pushed on with his agenda. He inaugurated 45 ministers; there even may be more. And he got the ministers to get to work, by holding the first Federal Executive Council meeting of his administration on Monday, August 21, 2023. It is to the Ministers and their work that I now turn.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu

The critical questions are: What are they supposed to do? How will they do it? When should they do it? Who evaluates their work and how should it be evaluated? Without a doubt, the answers to these questions revolve around the President.

According to the Presidential spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, the President has mandates and benchmarks for the ministers and a timeframe of three years within which to accomplish their tasks. He goes on to emphasise the President’s disciplinary disposition: The President is “ready to fire a minister at the drop of a dime if he is not getting what he wants”.

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However, Ngelale stopped short of telling us how the ministers’ performances will be evaluated relative to the mandate and benchmarks given to them. I am sure the President has a plan. What remains is to share it with the public. Or perhaps he is still perfecting the plan. For now, here is what we know.

In the report submitted to President Tinubu in June, the National Economy Sub-committee of the President’s Policy Advisory Council devoted the last six pages to a key recommendation, namely, the need to establish a Presidential Performance and Delivery Unit (PPDU), anchored on global best practices. They cited several countries in Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Asia, which have similar units to monitor and accelerate implementation of strategic projects.

They rightly identified three core levers as the mandate of such a unit, namely, (1) Problem Solving; (2) Monitoring and Evaluation; and (3) Coordination and Synergy.

In recognition of global best practices, the Performance and Delivery Unit should be headed by someone of Cabinet Minister level, but certainly not one of the serving Ministers and should report directly to the President. This is necessary so we do not have a take-a-bow situation as in Senate confirmations of previous Senators for the post of Minister. However, such a person should also be of equal rank with the Ministers so he could attend cabinet meetings and be respected by the Ministers.

Equipped with the President’s mandate and benchmarks for the various ministers, the PPDU’s performance monitoring and evaluation framework would include a timeline and appropriate key performance indicators to aid an independent policy and programme impact assessment.

Against the double backdrops of repeated failures and a depressed economy, it is necessary to instill discipline in the execution of government projects. That’s why it is necessary for ministers to face severe consequences, if they fail to meet implementation objectives and deliver within agreed timelines. This was the essence of Ngelale’s communication of the President’s position on discipline.

Above all, in order to realise the President’s transparency objectives, the PPDU should produce regular reports to the President at agreed intervals. Even more importantly, the reports should be communicated through various channels and they should be accessible and verifiable by local and international agencies as well as by the media. It is when such information is not available that our non-investigative media resorts to guess work, such as relying on body language. Once we begin to produce regular reports of government projects, without fail, there surely will be improvements in our performances on various international indices.

It is very important for the President to share his vision of the PPDU, by whatever name it is called, and share its membership with the public. As I have written repeatedly, it is now imperative that such a Unit be established immediately or shared with the public if one has been established. This is not the era of the body language of the President. This is the era of clear communication and concrete, verifiable, execution of government policies, programmes, and projects.

This is necessary for a variety of reasons. First, if there was a time in the nation’s history when everyone was anxious for results, this is it. Fortunately, we now have a President as well, who is anxious to achieve. The PPDU is the agent that could monitor achievements for both the President and the people. For example, it is such a Unit that could effectively aggregate data from various states on how the palliative distribution has been going.

Secondly, one of the major reasons for lack of development in our nation is lack of consistent monitoring and evaluation of government projects, which leaves gaps across ministries, departments, and agencies of government. It is the major reason for abandoned projects besides lack of adequate and timely funding.

What I have here is the kind of advisory that could assist this President. Imagine if ten or more journalists picked on the PPDU in the Presidential Policy Advisory Report and urged the President to establish one instead of bashing him day in day out, even on policies on which they previously praised him? After all, this is our country, not Tinubu’s alone. His success is our collective success. Let’s make the Nigerian project our collective project.

August 30, 2023
Ministers – Be faithful, loyal and honest

Nigeria opens another major page in the 2023-7 Political Yearbook with new ministers, so-called servants, promising to be Faithful, Loyal and Honest, FLH. But this should not be ignored in practice because we live in terrible economic times with consequent terrible social, moral and security times. We cannot ‘expect-little-or-nothing’ from ministers. We need 2023-7 ministers in a hurry to serve our 150+million citizens and not expect the 150m+ to serve them. Imagine a minister who leaves office Salary and Perks with no secret cash bricks or contract percentages in 2027? Most FLH Minister Award? Easy for a new honest minister. Difficult but not impossible for ministers with a history of dishonesty.

Decision time, Minister. Are you ‘Minister for Nigeria’ or ‘Minister Against Nigeria’?

We need Saul-to-Paul corruption-anti-corruption changes among the ministers with poor anti-corruption tendencies at their previous workplaces.

There are millions of honest Nigerians but many are forced into daily systemic corrupt practices starting at pay-to-pass checkpoints and ministry/ citizen interfaces. These must be stopped immediately.

But are there enough honest Nigerians among our presidential kitchen cabinet, ministers, NASS and other politicians, civil servants and private sector participants particularly banks and contractors to make Nigeria great again? To date the answer has been ‘no’ so we pray that 2023-7 will be different. 2023-7 must be different if we are to survive as a country.

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Even if they had corruption questions in the past, these newest ministers can make the FLH anti-corruption decision to immediately impact the corruption perception index. They are our latest fighting line for the proper running and target driven result-orientation of their ministries. But do they possess true FLH values? Only they can answer truthfully to themselves, their children and the poor.

Certainly, but sadly, history tells us that any corruption committed during 2023-7 will only to be ‘discovered’ after hundreds of billions have gone’ and answered in endless court adjournments post-2027 unless ICPC and EFCC launch pre-emptive strikes and intense monitoring from today.

But ICPC and EFCC require to be monitored for FLH citizens themselves.

Will a National Orientation Agency motivational badge with the map of Nigeria and FLH stamped on it?

Many ministers are said to be square pegs in round holes or ill-equipped to man [or woman] the allocated ministries. Can they achieve the urgently needed rapid recovery and development? Some have been posted to ‘juicy’ ministries. Now juicy is a bad word meaning riddled with corruption opportunities with a porous, opaque mega budgets with poor monitoring and easy padding. Can they shun past habits of misdeeds, corruption and fiscal irresponsibility, in favour of inter-ministerial cooperation for the public good and national projects like electricity with more coordination between customs landing and clearing electrical equipment, transport and installation etc. and stop uncoordinated, infighting and cross-purpose ministers.

Coordination is a key to improvement of the value of the naira involving ministry of finance, economic planning, CBN, Sovereign Wealth Fund. Coordination is the key to everything needed for progress and development – security, education, health, power and road infrastructure.

Our ministers must agree to coordinated, cooperative, progress-driven development independent of tribal, sexist, juicy priority ministry-minority ministry rivalry, or greed-driven one which have repeatedly led to failures of ministers in the past.

The main key to our problems is the poor value of the naira which is related to our very weak foreign reserves and our demand and supply ratio controlled by the greed driven black market cabal which has over the years crashed the naira at every opportunity.

TEACH EVERY POLITICIAN: THE STRONGER NIGERIA’S NAIRA, THE FEWER PEOPLE ARE IN POVERTY, THE BETTER YOUR POLITICAL RATING. The stronger the currency, the cheaper the imports and the higher the value of the naira in our pocket. This is far better than just adding more weak naira to our pocket – more weak naira that will buy even less, except more inflation.

The problem has never been the beautiful naira which was presented to us as an Amazon-like powerful currency equivalent to the pound and stronger than the dollar  N1=$1.2=£1. In 40years we decimated our most precious inheritance to N800-960=$1, N1,200=£1 in spite of a permanent inflow of oil-driven dollar revenues and initial massive industrial development covering locally made or locally assembled cars, textiles, motorcycles, glass, batteries etcetera- the golden, strong naira years. What a disgraceful 30-year economic mismanagement requiring forensic examination by economic historians.

The problem has been the politically driven corruption with poor development and actual regression of infrastructure especially communal water, electricity and transport, weakening the moral fabric and moral value all conspiring to collapse business from the cheaper collectively shared water, electricity services to very expensive joke of ‘one man/business LGA, Local Government Area,’ with individual/business generators, boreholes security etc.

We are a country of weak naira value, infected by a morally weak political class which ruined a perfectly good naira value. Nigerian economics is different from everywhere else requiring politics strong on economic calling for Nigerian billionaires that can voluntarily act like banks and give back at zero to three percent loans to CBN of about $10-20b to shore up the foreign reserves while the country makes a spectacular effort over the four years to 2027, not to spend every dollar to meet a foreign reserve target of $50-80b by 2027 when it can repay the billionaires their loans. Simple Nigerian style economic recovery program 2023-7.

August 23, 2023
Avoidable trap of the first 100 days

By Wednesday, September 6, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have spent 100 days in office and the press would be all over him. He should resist the temptation. While he would be trying to put the best foot forward, the Nigerian critical and opposition press would be feasting on gaps and failures, as if he should have fixed all the observable rot in virtually every sphere of national life in 100 days. Beyond the press, however, the masses too have their own misgivings. True, the President has come up with many bold policies, applauded at home and abroad, which, if well implemented, should ameliorate their sufferings, but there isn’t much yet to report on desired results. Instead, the people have been experiencing labour pains in anticipation of the safe delivery of the baby.

Thus, the withdrawal of fuel subsidy has led to a staggering increase in fuel costs, which have yet to stabilize. The unification of the exchange rate has yet to mature, because a gap still exists between bank and black market rates, leading to drastic fall in the value of the Naira and the corresponding increase in commodity costs and inflation rate.

Unfortunately, palliatives have not reached the targeted endusers, because cash distribution was rejected by critics. Yet, cash distribution would have been the fastest way to reach endusers. Even the United States government distributed cash to cushion the effects of economic lockdown during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The alternative method adopted by the Tinubu administration is designed to reach more people; but it will take more time. Even now, many states given money in lieu of rice still have difficulty in finding rice to purchase. Some may end up distributing cash! The cabinet, which should be driving the palliative programmes in various ministries, has just been inaugurated barely two weeks before the 100-day mark.

Moreover, the President has successfully stayed off a hike in petrol price and electricity tariff as marketers and distributors react to inflationary pressures. To be sure, these are teething problems, about which the President warned in his speech on the economy, but wouldn’t it be better to have some teeth out before counting the baby’s teeth?

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It was in anticipation of this state of flux that I sounded a note of caution in welcoming President Tinubu as Nigeria’s 16th leader barely 48 hours after his inauguration: “I implore the Tinubu administration to shun the artificial benchmark of 100 days and instead benchmark six months for charting the full course of action for his administration. Within this period, it must be clear to his cabinet, the National Assembly, and the public where he plans to take the nation” (Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s 16th leader, The Nation, May 31, 2023). This was followed two weeks later by my exposition of the history and contemporary myth of the first 100 days and why it should be avoided at this time. (see History and mythology of the first 100 days, The Nation, June 14, 2023). I envisaged that there would be much more to report on the results of the various actions taken within the first six months than within the first 100 days.

A quick review of presidential activities in the last 3 months will show that much more time is needed to have reports that will showcase desired results. What we have seen in the last three months is a President working round the clock, trying to unify the people in response to the bitterness and divisiveness of the presidential election, listening to them, and making necessary adjustments on the way.

We saw this in the rolling out of palliatives to cushion the effects of subsidy removal and unification of multiple exchange rates. The idea of distributing cash to the most vulnerable citizens was quickly dropped and a range of programmes was rolled out that would benefit even more people than originally planned (see The President’s speech on the economy, The Nation, August 2, 2023). Similarly, the President’s methodical approach to setting up his cabinet was evident in the process we all witnessed. The nominees were sent to the Senate in batches in order to give time for further reflection. Even after portfolios had been assigned, some ministers were reassigned. Time is needed for all these adjustments to take place and even more time is needed for desired results to start showing.

Yet another reason for waiting for six months before celebratory reports to the press is to create room for putting the election petitions behind us so as to minimize the carryover of campaign and election antagonisms of the past year. As I write, Obidiots are still having a free day on social media, ranting about their idol’s “stolen” mandate. Such antagonisms also continue to fester on mainstream media in editorials, columns, and TV shows. To be sure, fake news and criticisms will continue even after the cases are settled, but critics will at least know that the Tinubu presidency has come to stay.

The above notwithstanding, impartial observers have acknowledged the quality of the President’s decisions so far. Even some opposition politicians are beginning to see the light of day. Here, for example, is how the Chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, Sly Ezeokenwa, put it recently in appreciating Tinubu’s policies so far: “I believe Mr President came prepared for this job and people should exercise patience and give him some time to settle well. His government will not be like the previous one”.

In his own speech on the economy, the President himself asked for more time: “Fellow Nigerians, this period may be hard on us and there is no doubt about it that it is tough on us. But I urge you all to look beyond the present temporary pains and aim at the larger picture. All of our good and helpful plans are in the works. More importantly, I know that they will work”.

Certainly, 100 days is not enough time for any of them to work as planned. The best the President should do to mark the mythical 100th day is to have an in-house assessment of where things stand, give each minister a mandate and timeline for accomplishing particular tasks, and ensure that the Presidential Performance and Delivery Unit is set up to monitor progress.

August 23, 2023
An offering to the Nigerian media

This is not an offering to the gods. Rather, it is an offering to the Nigerian media, known in some quarters as the critical media, because their default stance is negative criticism, which stems from the pervasive notion that fault-finding and condemnation are the best ways to keep the government on its toes. It is as if you have to look for something bad or an official blame or even abuse in order to be considered a good journalist or columnist.

In recent years, this parochial interpretation of the role of the media in society has led to the use of acerbic, sometimes uncouth, language in describing politicians and their activities, focusing on what is wrong in every sphere of society. This has led to the neglect of the broader role of the media in informing, educating, and entertaining the public as well as keeping people actively involved in society and politics. In-depth analyses of policies and important issues are few and far between. So are helpful recommendations and suggestions for improvement. Where such attempts are made, they are often enveloped by negative criticisms, which often diminish the value of the suggestions.

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The result has been devastating for Nigeria and its people. For one thing, the perpetual negative stance of the Nigerian media has sold Nigeria to the outside world as a country where nothing works, where the government and designated officials do not know what to do, and where nothing good can come out of the country and its people. International organisations and foreign observers rely heavily on the Nigerian media in forming their opinion about the country and its people. This was particularly evident during the last general elections. The media chorus of INEC’s failure to transmit the results of the presidential election to its portal in real time became the litmus test for assessing everything INEC did during the election. Whatever mainstream media had to say about the election, social media went much further by presenting false and fake information as fact. The overall effect on the populace is the acceleration of trust deficit in government, its institutions, and relevant government functionaries.

It is not surprising, therefore, that, aided by persistent criticisms from the media, trust deficit is already setting in on the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, despite the initial positive reception of the removal of fuel subsidy and the multiple exchange system. In recent weeks, the media have spent more time criticising the policies than in explaining why they are necessary and what should be done to make the policies work better.

Fortunately, Tinubu is a President who listens and engages in necessary self-correction. We saw this in the speedy way he responded to criticisms of cash distribution as palliative. We also saw it in his redirection of ECOWAS to focus on diplomacy rather than armed conflict in resolving the military takeover of government in Niger. However, several issues remain that deserve urgent attention.

One, apprehension is growing over the delayed inauguration of cleared ministers and the assignment of their portfolios. It is believed that the President’s hands are now so full that a functioning cabinet could lighten his burden considerably. It is also argued that the cabinet of possibly 50 or more people will be too large for effective debate of issues and for our national purse in these austere times. It will be useful for the President to provide some justification for the large number when the ministers are inaugurated.

Two, one of the recommendations in the President’s Policy Advisory Council Report is the need to establish a Presidential Performance Delivery Unit (PPDU), which may have already been established. This is an important unit that will monitor the activities of different ministries and appropriate officials relative to the mandate given to them by the President. The PPDU should be headed by a Director-General, preferably a technocrat with experience in performance evaluation and quality assurance. The DG should report directly to the President and should be recruited from outside the government, rather than from within the ranks of ministers or civil servants. The unit should be inaugurated before, or as soon as, the cabinet is inaugurated.

Three, the aftermath of the removal of fuel subsidy and multiple exchange rates recur frequently in criticisms. Petrol price has been going up and so is the rate of exchange, the latter leading to further depreciation of the Naira. These intertwined issues touch directly on people’s lives, affecting the costs of food, transportation, and services. Fortunately, the President has stepped in on both issues. It is hoped that this intervention will produce desired results.

Fourth, it is equally praiseworthy that the President has succeeded in redirecting ECOWAS from bellicose to diplomatic overtures in resolving the conflict in Niger, by taking the initiative of reaching out to Niger’s military junta. War is often devastating to the warring parties. Besides, a war in Niger will be messy for Nigeria, partly because of a shared long border, which will open the door for the influx of refugees, and partly because foreign mercenaries will certainly complicate matters. That’s why war should be used as a last resort in resolving this conflict. A President who came into office wearing a blue badge of hope should not be found wearing a red badge of blood shortly after inauguration.

If I have said nothing new in this piece, it is because I wanted to show that that the media has a duty not only to condemn what is wrong but also to acknowledge what is right and even assist the government in achieving its development goals. This offering is necessary at this time, because, regardless of the opposition to the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima and no matter how we may hate them as politicians, two things are clear: (1) they are they are currently Nigeria’s leaders and (2) their success is our success as a country and as a people, while their failure is also our collective failure. Let’s shoot for success.

August 16, 2023
Nigeria’s turn? Federal Character or ‘Corruption Character’

We are in a world in severe perhaps irreversible climate, crime, corruption, coup-plotting, war-threat turmoil. It certain is ‘Nigeria’s turn’. Watch out for floods now and heatwaves and water shortages to come.

ECOWAS threatens military action to restore the pro-France malleable Niger president. War looms and sides will change then quickly as there are blood and tribal brothers on the other side of the Bismarck line border drawn at the Berlin Conference 1884-5. This Niger coup terrified incumbent civilian West African governments fearing spread of the ‘2020s Coup Virus’. It exposed France’s can of post-colonial neo-colonialism worms spread by social media to ‘the common man’. The reaction to the French oppression by their former-to-present colonial master is not nuclear physics but a get-your-knee-off-my-neck survival vs colonial greed issues.

France’s insatiable acquisition of requisitioned uranium etc. to feed its insatiable 61 nuclear plants begs the question of why, after 60 years of independence, France has not built one nuclear power plant in ‘former’ African territories. If it fears uranium in ‘black hands’, then why has France not placated them by solarising its post-independence colonies? 2023 France, where is your ‘Equalité, Egalité, Fraternité’? Cancel 1960s decree treaties, renegotiate company contracts and return bank held funds to equal status states. France should get its knee off French West Africa’s neck. But France may have already broken the bridge of reconciliation.

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The local cumulative failure to govern has had an increasingly devastating impact on the world, directly and indirectly.

It is a sobering season of death but lost on a ‘Sniggering Senate Sinning against the Citizens’ especially the poor as the senators ‘generously’ ‘‘let the people breathe’’ air, not returning part of the hyper-bloated senate emoluments but with more sniggering and attempts to ‘off -the mic’ sharing N2m/despicable senator ‘holiday money’. A politically shamelessly mis-governed country, on-or-off-mic. It is the mass murder of morality, relinquishing of responsibility and destruction of democratic decency and a misinterpretation of representational power. NASS is a ‘House called the Rising Sun’ bereft of moral fibre seen by the ministerial approvals.

Add multiple mass murders in Barkin Ladi in Plateau and elsewhere in Zamfara, Borno, Kaduna, etc for example. A two-year-old lift plunged 10 storeys. Is death the new ‘wage option of house job’. Was Dr Daiso forced to bribe to get the job or the 10-floor flat like in the Federal Character Commission with financial demands of N1.5-N2m to secure a job? There are deaths from traditional murders for organ ‘get-rich-or-pregnant-quick’ even in central Ibadan where a young graduate was murdered on graduation celebration night and had her uterus removed. What terror for our youth and their families?

Yet the Federal Character Commission information is known but the police, EFCC and ICPC could not spontaneously investigate. Why? These horrible revelations confirm that these uncivil servants and political government appointees seeking personal wealth by preying on youth in education or job-seeking. These criminals, supposedly guardians of the youth instead, create self-wealth out of nothing by bleeding the youth and increasing the cost of employing like their criminal colleagues in the police and traffic agencies and LGA officials extorting from travellers by creating pay-to-pass roadblocks to success and turning our ‘Federal Character into a Federal Corruption Character’. Remember the JAMB ex-registrar Professor Ojerinde 2007-2016 and son. If found guilty, the sums in billions have ruined the education of millions. Was the JAMB exam overpriced? He was registrar NECO 1999-2007 and registrar National Board of Educational Measurement 1992-1999. Professorial Mis-measurement at its Machiavellian malignant worst? What wrong ‘measurements of youth funds disappeared then! NIGERIA’S YOUTH COCOONED IN A CORRUPTION CLOAK FROM CRADLE TO THE GRAVE.

I remember a church car park attendant some 20 years ago saying he was saving towards N30,000 to obtain a form to join the police force to get a LGA signature. Corruption upon corruption, corruption personified. It is systemic youth-targeted and seen by boys and girls at checkpoints daily and neglect of parental salaries and pensions that have ruined the family hierarchy, destroyed the first NGO in Africa – the ‘Extended Family Network’ and ‘Destination Nigeria’ for Nigerian Youth and forced them to japa. But the young should know that Japaism is not new. Nigerian government periodically force Japaism .Today’s Japaite used to be called ‘Andrew’ in the 80s. The consequences of illegal migration are many and include abandonment by the traffickers, attack, drowning,

If Africa had good governance, many migrants might have stayed at home and foreigners would come to a safe, progressive country. The numbers of drowned in the Mediterranean, the English Channel and dead and buried in the Sahara desert over the years should shame especially our African politicians into good behaviour.

We are horrified when fellow humans numbering 250, 120, 400, 41 drown off Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. Some estimates that political failure called japaism was responsible for 50 migrant die/day, 27,000 out of over 602,000 migrating in 2016 from Nigeria – see Guardian Adelowo Adebumiti February 3, 2017. The Sahara is deadlier than the desert. The International Organisation for Migration reported more than 1,200 Nigerian deaths in the first seven months of 2023. Nigerians are in all drowning statistics but the lesson is universal. The migrants’ countries have stay-put leaderships or even a changing leadership which have collectively failed them in terms of development and creating country pride. But colonialist must change their ways.

EVERY MIGRATION DEATH IS A POLITICAL MURDER. ONLY GOOD GOVERNANCE WILL STOP POLITICALLY CAUSED MIGRATION MURDER!

August 15, 2023
Kole Omotoso: A dawn that set

So much has been written for public consumption and so much has been said in private conversations about Professor Kole Omotoso—writer, playwright, essayist, dramatist, and advert personality—since his passing on July 19, 2023. Kole was eulogised for his academic integrity, humanity, a keen understanding of the human condition, and an unending desire to lift people from Sisyphean helplessness to self fulfillment.

The title of this essay was lifted from Professor Wole Soyinka’s tribute to Kole yesterday, July 8, 2023, during a memorial celebration of Kole’s life. The event held at Vodacom World in Johannesburg, South Africa, the mobile telephone company for which Kole made the iconic Yebo Gego commercial that launched him into public consciousness throughout the country.

It was a very solemn occasion with the hall graced by Kole’s immediate family members and close South African friends, most of whom had one thing or the other to say about Kole. However, tributes from close friends from Nigeria were also read. As the event was streamed live, many joined in from various corners of the globe.

Kole came alive in the tributes, which highlighted his essential traits and enduring legacies: He was revealed as a loving father, mentor, and friend to his children; as a loyal friend to close ones; as the face of one of the most popular billboard and television adverts in South African recent history; as an academic and author of many books, including the popular Just Before Dawn (1988); and as an old man, who searched for words as he recovered from a stroke.

Kole’s three adult and accomplished children—Akin (award-winning film maker); Yewande (architect and popular author); and Pelayo (Engineer and university professor) took turns to start-off the tributes.

Akin read from letters he wrote to his father from his days in Command Secondary School, Ibadan. In each letter, he updated his father about his life experiences, such as falling ill with malaria or finding a new craze in basketball. Besides, he often requested one thing or the other, such as a bike or T-shirts for all three kids.

Yewande employed a stream-of-consciousness technique in her recollections, moving back and forth between the present and the past. The emotional load on her of her father’s plight in his last days came through in her voice and words as she recalled her father’s recovery from stroke: “He struggled for words, words that lined up along his tongue as a professor and playwright”. Then she briefly went back to talk about following him to a poetry festival in 2009, where she enjoyed watching him and his colleagues bustling with joyous laughter. It was an impression deep enough to make her want to be a writer. The emotion came back again as she bid her father Good-bye with a sob.

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Pelayo, professorial in voice and carriage, recalled things his father bought for him, from Chess to QED, a book on Quantum Electrodynamics, and Kindle, the popular Amazon reader. He recalled the lessons their father taught them with emphasis on the words “not just to show up but to stand out”.

There was also a memorable message fro Taiwo and Olamiposi, Kole’s stepchildren fro a late marriage to Bukola. They recalled Kole’s influence on their lives and support for their education.

In emotion-laden voice, Bukola, their mother, spoke about her brief but memorable relationship with Kole. She would forever remember the time they spent together. It was as well that she was able to join him shortly before he died, thanks to the Adamolekuns.

In Soyinka’s tribute, read by Yewande, he commended Kole’s artistry in his signature book, Just Before Dawn, and suggested that it should be read by Nigerian schoolchildren. For the umpteenth time, Soyinka blamed Nigerian rulers, ever self-conscious of their guilt, for not only banishing Kole’s book on publication, but also banishing history from the school curriculum to prevent schoolchildren from learning about their past.

In a video, Professor Ladipo Adamolekun provided a crispy synopsis of Kole’s life history as it intertwined with his own experiences since 1957, when they met in the same secondary school. For nearly 67 years, they made steady progress in their academic careers, meeting again at Ife as lecturers. In between and later, they never lost touch with each other, even when Ladi went to join the World Bank and Kole went to lecture in South Africa. On retirement, they came close again, within driving distance of each other as they were when they were in secondary school in the fifties.

There also was an emotional tribute, laden with native songs, by workers in Pioneer House, which provided care for Kole in his last days.

One of the high points of the day was the rendition of Kole’s favourite hymn, “Abide with me”. It was a very popular devotional hymn in IONIAN (Anglican) secondary schools, one of which I attended as well. Incidentally, the song was composed by a Scottish Anglican cleric, Henry Francis Lyte, as he was dying from tuberculosis in 1847.

It will be mistaken, however, to misinterpret Kole’s love of this hymn as a surrogate of his Christianity. He was not religious in that sense. He simply loved the poetry of the lyrics, and the comfort the words gave us as little kids in those days. The song contains lines, such as: “The darkness deepens/Lord with me abide/When other helpers fail/and comforts flee/Help of the helpless/O abide with me”. The final lines are particularly interesting and appropriate for the occasion: “In life, in death, O Lord/abide with me”.

The programme drew to a close with a threesome rendition of passages from The Prophet, one of Kole’s faviourite books. It is a famous book of 26 prose poetry fables written by Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese-American poet and writer. The main character in the fables is Al Mustafa, the prophet, who was leaving the city in which he had lived for 12 years. As he was about to board a ship to carry him home, he was stopped by a group of people. His discussion with them about life and the human condition formed the various chapters of the book. The various topics discussed are of eternal value.

For reasons going back to my childhood, Kole’s death gripped me like the first death I experienced, that of my favourite uncle when I was about five. This essay may well be another way for me to unwind from the grip.

Kole. O dabo o. O di gbere. Vale. Au revoir. Bye-bye.

August 9, 2023