The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • No War; Dr Daiso – failed maintenance structure

    No War; Dr Daiso – failed maintenance structure

    Hopefully President Tinubu has skilfully avoided a war by first demonstrating democracy-defender willingness thus keeping the West happy but secondly allowing senate to ‘democratically’ overrule him, as expected, so he can save face in a democracy vs democracy irony.  A political accident or a successful political strategy?

    Nigerian life must matter more than the cost of lift repairs.

    The ‘CINS of Nigeria-Corruption, Incompetence, Negligence, Selfishness’ are demonstrated in the General Hospital, Lagos 10-storey lift crash in which a delightful, successful, full-of-life, very-bright-future, medical doctor and House officer had her life cut short. She had a family, classmates, friends and grateful patients.

    Put yourself in that lift in Dr Vwaere Daiso’s place going down to collect a delivery service meal. Sadly, words like terror, horror cannot begin to describe the wrenching feeling of plunging at 60+kph. Close your eyes and imagine being hit by a 60kph car. One of the best places to have an accident is a hospital but sometimes the injuries are such that the best care in the world cannot save one.

    In Nigeria we already know the cause of death of Dr Vweare Daiso – our national completely lackadaisical and negligent way of dealing with maintenance in Nigeria in general be it the public space or the private space. Our standards are so low sometimes. From the simplest maintenance like toilets nationwide, potholes, solar streetlights, water pipes, libraries, building components like corridor lights, painting, roofing sheets and of course vehicles especially tyres. Even replacement chemicals in school laboratories. Just look at the cleanliness of your wards, casualty and offices. Try going to the toilet! You are so used to dirty walls stained by hands and feet marks and by backrests of chairs and heads and torn fabric and plastic covering of office chairs that you are no longer offended by them and if you took over you would not paint or repair or replace the damaged furniture.

    Read Also; Doctor who died in Lagos hospital elevator laid to rest

    In short, you have sunk from a ‘manager’ who would have done all these things to improve the surroundings. Now, you are a mere ‘endurer’ – enduring all the rubbish around. The latter attitude allows the money allocated for maintenance in the budget to be stolen by politicians and officials of central government, or the office messenger,  even as things deteriorate and equipment malfunctions, misfires, breaks down or goes completely off the road or rails as in a car, train or a lift as in this tragic case.       

    The worst reason for a lack of maintenance culture is ‘Cost Saving’ which is a stupid and wrongly thought-out excuse. ‘Maintenance And Repair’ were handed over to Nigeria by our colonial masters, Great Britain as the ‘Key to Greatness’ and as being far cheaper and cost effective than replacement. We discovered however that ‘Maintenance Budgeted Funds’ were easy to steal and the theft was easy to conceal with fake receipts.  We are all aware of the disgraceful Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of $180-200M for never-working refineries. Just bring that down to the level of a lift and the lift crash at General Hospital Lagos could probably be an example or opportunity from the maintenance officials. The second reason for zero or poor maintenance is the acceptance and institutionalisation of the disgraceful ‘Manage (aka Endure) Culture’ by which we do not mean ‘apply good managements skills’ but we mean a coping mechanism without improvement or an ‘accommodation of errors’ mechanism of the failure instead of ‘as and when due’ preventive repair and replacement maintenance.

    Lifts are expensive and not invisible but important building components, especially for those in charge from politicians, civil servants and out-source contractors. They cannot be repaired by neighbourhood mechanics, masquerading as engineers. Lagos State investigation has revealed that the lift was installed new in 2021, usually with multiple fail-safes, and further analysis will exclude collusion between officials, phantom allocation of ‘Maintenance Budget Fund’, and confirm the paper, text and e-mail trail of ‘Lift Complaints and Recommendations’ from doctors and maintenance staff, through Works Dept to CMD’s Office to Ministry of Health to the commissioner’s table and also Minutes of Meetings where the lift matter were raised. The supply firm’s Repair and Maintenance Contract and Logbook of visits and conclusions by the technicians are vital. Was the company paid as-and-when-due for maintenance or owed or had their maintenance contract been withdrawn?   

    Read Also: 15 things to know about late Pastor Taiwo Odukoya

    Nigerian lives do not matter much to those who govern and treat themselves very well at the expense of other Nigerians. Now one more life which mattered is tragically and horribly lost. A government lift is government of Lagos State responsibility and it should offer more than an apology and life insurance. On investigation, the guilty should pay to elevate standards of maintenance. Money will not bring the dead doctor back, but a realistic financial punitive compensation for every year of a 35-years working medical lifetime would highlight how much cheaper it would have been merely to shut down the lift with duct tape or maintain it regularly even if it is just two years old.  If a Permanent Secretary was using the lift, the maintenance story would have been different. And therein lies the problem. A widespread almost complete loss of responsibility for the people’s needs.

    If ‘Nigerian lives Mattered’ more to every single Nigerian politician and official and contractor, there would be less or no CINS and much more maintenance. STOP CINS TODAY!

  • Celebrate, Kolawole Shoyinka, the attacked teacher, for honesty

    Celebrate, Kolawole Shoyinka, the attacked teacher, for honesty

    The current senate president decries the influx of hoodlums into the National Assembly, NASS Complex. Was he looking at a photo of NASS10, we ask? Are members hiding in plain sight, under NASS immunity, from the wrath of ICPC and EFCC?

    This is one statement that almost all Nigerians will say “‘The Ayes’ have it!’ unlike the insensitive senate sniggering around the hollow and insulting support for the ‘plight of the poor’ without any concurrent significant gesture like a cut in ‘Salaries And Perks’ of NASS by 75%. Not even one NASS man or woman has rejected the NASS largess demonstrating that NASS acts like a separate political party from the known parties where any deviation is severely dealt with. Read Oshiomhole’s case.  

    Far too many of our politicians think they are supposed to make promises they have no idea, and often no intention, of keeping, as they bring little to the job, pretend to learn on the job while ensuring personal enrichment and inflicting trauma and disillusionment on the citizenry. Of course some are amazing and we would praise them if they showed true transparency, faith, loyalty and honesty. The politicians now claim they are a professional body and have made themselves the first among all professionals.  Politics is said to be the only profession with no specific prior qualification, like diplomas, certificates and degrees in management, sociology, development, budgeting, security et cetera. Yet politicians have the highest responsibility for development and social wellbeing of citizens.

    Why have they, therefore, set themselves above everyone by assuming for themselves an illegally legal humongous budgetary allocation and outrageous Salaries and Perks, SAPing Nigeria dry? In the light of the current currency crisis and other economic challenges, notable the suicidal naira value – from a politician-driven corruption and greed-driven economy for years – the personal emolument/operational costs of Nigeria’s political class have unsustainable financial demands creating development failure, damaging the entire structure of the struggling country.

    Consequent upon the excesses of the political class in the areas of Salaries and Perks and Pensions, there is a huge underground movement to urge the NLC leadership and the leadership of other major bodies of working and professional citizens including the NMA and NARD  that all groups across the board should now include on their strike demand as number 1 the ‘cutting of NASS salaries and perks by 75%’ with the reallocation of such funds towards workers’ welfare including backlog of salaries and pensions and also infrastructure budgeted programs as many consider the stupendous politics budget similar to the Abacha loot. If the NASS salaries and perks are justifiable, let the NASS put the matter to referendum.

    CELEBRATE, HONOUR & REWARD FOR HONESTY KOLAWOLE SHOYINKA THE ATTACKED TEACHER. The attack on a teacher, Kolawole Shoyinka in a secondary school, waylaid and beaten by 10 students because he prevented them from cheating in an arts examination is beyond belief. The police, principal and staff have cornered the criminals. The 18+ year olds should face charges of conspiracy to commit a crime and GBH Grievous Bodily Harm and face punishment. It was premeditated, no accident. Younger ones should face juvenile punishment. Shoyinka should be made by radio and electronic media into a hero and honoured for risking his life on principle. Can the average politician do that?

    Kolawole Shoyinka represents all teachers dutifully fighting the moral battle against student terrorism. He deserves the Outstanding Teacher Award from state and Federal Ministry of Education, State Civil Service Honours, Federal National Honours 2023 and awards from corporate bodies. His religious body must make him an exemplary member and award him honours and recognition. Also, his medical bills should be paid now and for long-term injury. He should be promoted and given ‘Teach Cheat-Free-Exams’ assignments state and nationwide. Such honours will empower students so cheating is cancelled from exam strategies.

    Many corporate bodies need to search for genuine Nigerians to honour. Here is one such honest Nigerian who risked death, an unexpected risk for the teaching profession or for an ordinary honest man trying to imbibe his honesty as character building in students who violently rejected his efforts. This man is not a one-day wonder story! The media can make it a nationwide matter to be discussed by students, teachers, parents and government and made bigger than JAMB Mmesoma-gate. REWARD THE ATTACKED TEACHER FOR HIS HONESTY. Make him more famous than Big Brother and any politician. The Kolawole Shoyinka Honesty Club in schools. He could have died.

    If we do not uphold the good when they face persecution for honesty, no one will ever go against those despicable politicians among that class with murky pasts who think dishonesty is a laughing matter, a joke and can laugh heartily at the plight of the poor while they, the greedy and not-so-greedy politicians alike, wallow in luxury only available because it was illegally-legally stolen and diverted from servicing the poor. The plight of the poor would have been reversed and in fact would never have happened if all politicians had been ‘Honest like Kolawole Shoyinka’ since the word ‘politician’ was mis-invented and used for citizens and not themselves. Our naira would be strong. Will incoming minsters , our ‘servants’, be is honest as Kolawole Shoyinka? We pray so! They should all take a lie detector test. How many Fellow Nigerians would fail ‘THE KOLAWOLE SHOYINKA HONESTY TEST?’

  • The President’s speech on the economy

    The President’s speech on the economy

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu might have given the best speech of his presidency so far last Monday, July 31, 2023: Simple and accessible language; necessary plea for patience and understanding; and the appropriateness of content—the doling out of necessary economic measures that would provide a healing balm on the festering economic sores of the nation and its people.

    The speech was a catalogue of economic measures to cushion the effects of the painful, but widely acclaimed removal of fuel subsidy and the preferential exchange rate system, both of which benefitted only a handful of people.

    Below are highlights of the new economic measures rolled out on Monday, all aimed at cushioning the effects of President Tinubu’s bold intervention on fuel subsidy and multiple exchange rates:

    N75 billion to be made available to 75 manufacturing enterprises at 9 percent interest rate per annum, payable over five years.

    Read Also: Ahmed: ‘Tinubu will surmount current economic challenges’

    N125 billion to energise small and medium-sized enterprises and the informal sector.

    N200 billion allocated to agriculture and the agriculture value chain, including N50 billion to cultivate 150,000 hectares of rice and maize and N50 billion to cultivate 100,000 hectares of  wheat and cassava. In addition, 225 metric tonnes of fertiliser, seedlings and other inputs will be provided to farmers keyed to food security agenda.

    200,00 metric tonnes of grains would be released to households from strategic reserves to moderate prices.

    Infrastructure Support Fund was also approved for states to enable them to effectively intervene and invest in critical areas of the economy, including education, healthcare, and rural access roads to ease evacuation of farm produce to markets. N100 billion of the Infrastructure Fund will also be used to acquire 3,000 units of 20-seater CNG-fuelled buses to be made available to participating transport companies at an interest rate of 9 percent per annum, payable over five years.

    Above all, the President also announced that an upward review of the national minimum wage for workers is being worked out in collaboration with the Labour unions. He assured the nation that budget provision will be made for the implementation of the agreed new minimum wage.

    Several observations could be made about the speech. One, at least for once, we have a President, who listens and is willing to make necessary self-correction. There is clear evidence in the speech that the criticisms of the previously announced palliative measure of distributing N8,000 to 12 million vulnerable families across the country was taken to heart.

    Accordingly, he quickly ordered a review. Within three weeks oand appealed for understanding: “Sadly, there was an unavoidable lag between subsidy removal and these plans coming fully online. However, we are swiftly closing the time gap. I plead with you to have faith in our ability to deliver and in our concern for your well-being”.

    Two, it is clear that, on the one hand, the removal of fuel subsidy is working and yielding desired results in terms of savings. According to the President, over N1 trillion was saved within two months of the removal. Although the President made it clear in his speech that the savings “will now be used more directly and more beneficially for you and your families”, critics are now asking, “Where is the money, and how will it be spent?” However, on the other hand, fuel subsidy removal has led to an almost 200 percent hike in the pump price of petrol.

    Two, similarly, the removal of the dual exchange rate yielded both positive and negative results. True, the multiple exchange rates favoured by the Emefiele-led Central Bank, and skewed in favour of a select few, has been eliminated, the official and black market rates have gone up significantly. As a result, commodity prices have gone up significantly.

    At the end of the day, both measures have led to a hike on inflation. It is significant that the President also promised to intervene when and where necessary.

    Three, although the President’s focus was to alleviate the sufferings following the removal of fuel subsidy and and multiple exchange rates, there are other areas of the economy, such as electricity tariff, over which consumers are very anxious. Consumers need assurances in these harsh economic times that DISCOs will not carry through their threat to increase electricity tariff for some time.

    There is no doubt that the President’s speech was generally well received, even by some chronic critics. The major reservation is with the implementation of the various measures, bearing in mind the failures of the various social protection measures established by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

    For effectiveness of implementation of the economic measures recently announced by President Tinubu, a three-prong approach may be necessary. First, the beneficiaries of the funds and items listed in the speech should be identified throughout the country. For the sake of time, this should be done by states and local governments. However, Governors and Local Government Chairmen as well as Party Chairmen should be warned not to be partisan in the identification exercise. Indeed, the exercise could be conducted by representatives of various political parties in each state.

    Second, it may be useful not to crowd the various measures in one hand or in a single ministry. Rather, each measure should be handled by the relevant ministry.

    Third, there should be a performance evaluation body, whose duty is to monitor the implementation of the measures across ministries. Such a body should be independent of the ministries and the civil service and it should report directly to the President on a timely basis.

  • Nigeria’s economic solutions ‘The parasite cartel’

    Nigeria’s economic solutions ‘The parasite cartel’

    Nigeria should have adequate single window ‘white market’ foreign exchange made scarce by poor economic management, oil theft, institutional, political greed and corruption. These are parasites on Nigeria’s back, backpack and in intestines with the specific cartel which officially-unofficially runs the mega-foreign exchange racket taking 30% of every Nigerian’s earnings directly when we are forced, countrywide, to buy scarce foreign exchange from the black market for school fees, healthcare, visits, business or holidays.

    Additionally, the purchase of foreign exchange directly from the black market can be greed-driven for personal or collective advantage, currency speculation, round tripping or corruption funds transfer, the latter ending up unavailable, wasted in foreign banks. It may also be an indirect unconscious purchase when citizens buy products from companies which repatriate costs and profits, like airline tickets or buy from the black market to fund upfront purchases like machinery, end products or for manufacturing ingredients and parts.

    The above covers almost all business financial requirements. So, every family buying anything from abroad, with foreign exchange, is financially impacted by a country’s greed-driven and corruption-driven decision, perhaps by CBN[?], to deliberately underfund the foreign exchange window by instead making secret sales which starve the official window forcing companies into the black market. Thus someone [? CBN] prefers to sell valuable foreign exchange to the cartel and the rich and also the greed-driven political class, instead of protecting and providing for citizens and businesses.

    Nigeria’s complete public and private sector economy was shot in the foot or head when it was fed a black-market poison pill forcing 30+% inflation in all financial requirements abroad while the profit went to the black marketers – the greatest Nigerian parasite.

    Read Also; Taraba leads in highest petrol price in June

    Even if, like millions of fellow Nigerians, we never ever see a dollar or even a black market aboki dollar businessman, 30+% of our earnings and 30% of our sweat equity at work is going directly or indirectly to the black-market monster cartel daily manipulating black market rates raping Nigeria financially.

    The current ongoing precipitative ‘jumping-off-a-palm-wine-tree’ anti-nationalistic ‘naira murder’ beyond predictions is typical of Nigeria’s economic dangerous unpredictability. This near-death of the naira exemplifies the economic survival requirement to set up a mechanism to smash this highly greedy and maliciously controlling cartel before total derailment of the current black-market rate. The cartel has ruined the sound economics of a strategy which would normally have converged the ‘white market’ CBN Bank rate N440-450/-N20 and the artificially manipulated black market rate of N750+ N40 by removal of the white market cap and also pushed more dollars [probably not enough!] into the system allowing more funds at the adjusted white market slacking the need for the black market. Thus, the white/black market unified rate was to settle, according to the US/World Bank predictions, at N500-600.  But na Nigeria we dey!!

    Unfortunately, as usual the Nigerian economic factor stepped in and the white market rate plunged to N795 lower than expected while the black market coughed, rose slightly and then, opposite to predictions, plunged below the expected bottom line of N600, past the worse-case scenario of N800 and escaped to N865+ a family ruining, business-collapsing parasitic-driven figure. This shows that Nigeria rarely obeys market predictions and is an economy driven by uneconomic forces fitting no real model except a greed-driven cartel supervised corruption module which seeks to make as much money from trading in fewer forex funds as it did when the black marketers were fed at the trough of the CBN backdoor for ghost customers receiving dollars at favoured rates.  

    Nigeria’s economic reality defies any development model ever designed for a normal[?] democratic[?] country. Let us remember the reasonably good past. Who is to take the credit for any successes and take the blame for the catastrophic failures?

    Have fellow Nigerians not suffered enough from those ubiquitous members of the ‘extractive industry standards’ greed-driven political, contractor and civil servant class and the foreign currency consuming cabal each working at consuming 30-50% of any funds they encounter, legally or illegally or legally illegal or illegally legal. Solution: Can we shut down the cabal or find the cabal a less avaricious job- like the rest of us already have?

    This economic upheaval is not new. Even non-economic measures get strange results. Ask about the ‘Daily Odd and Even Vehicle Number Days’ expecting 50% reduction in vehicles on Lagos roads. Everyone just bought a second car -the Nigerian solution. Also, the naira has been rubbished. Banks actually created the Nigerian job of ‘selling mint fresh naira’, to girls parading for party sprayers and VIPs who ‘would-not-be-seen-dead’ with one used currency note -an immediate devaluation on leaving bank door. We have had created for us an entire Nigerian super and infrastructure to run the one-ethnic group black-market in foreign exchange nationwide. Add the recent debacle of the ‘Cashless Policy’ partly failed because Nigerian politicians especially and others unexpectedly interrupted the cash flow back to the banks ATMs by mopping up all cash from brothels, clubs, petrol stations, markets, health facilities and drivers cutting off the expected with nothing going back into the banks overnight to be released the following morning causing economic paralysis.

    Babangida’s government halved the naira value overnight. Nigeria also lost $12b Gulf War Windfall. Abacha loot trickles in.   

    We have a criminal financial past and present -a Nigerian tragic economic ‘peculiar mess’ situation and an economy case-study for Economics 101 in our universities.

  • Nigeria and the politics of pain

    Nigeria and the politics of pain

    As a teenager I was once confronted with the reality that the only way I would be free of the discomfort I felt was to press through another threshold of pain. I had woken up on a particular morning with a throbbing toothache which didn’t respond to any analgesic or gel I threw at it. The only way out was to extract the errant molar.

    I lay back in absolute terror as the dentist bore down on my gum with a gigantic syringe that held a close resemblance to the giant claw in Captain Hook’s left hand. The pain as he pulled out the infernal tooth was blinding, excruciating. But once it was done, I began to experience peace and normalcy in my body that I hadn’t known for days.

    For several weeks in Nigeria all the talk has been about the hardship that has accompanied the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu at his inauguration on May 29, 2023. In short order petrol prices crashed through the N500 per litre barrier. Food, transportation costs and prices of everything that had value spiked and all hell was let loose.

    With exchange rate reforms that encouraged a convergence between official and parallel markets, we soon had a perfect storm. We’ve seen the naira fall to unprecedented lows against major world currencies, the upshot being that the price of all imports also went through the roof.

    Chief of these imports is petrol and the removal of subsidy meant we all woke up to start paying real world rates. In any clime no one wants to pay more for anything. My personal weekly petrol bill has quadrupled and it isn’t amusing. So whether you are a supporter of the president or a bitter adversary, no one is exempt from today’s frightening economic realities.

    Wherever there is pain people cry out instinctively. The muted outcry that greeted the initial increases early in June, exploded into raw anger in many quarters following a second hike last week which Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) CEO, Mele Kyari, blamed on market forces. His explanation that prices would fluctuate depending on exchange rate and demand and supply factors left many cold.

    A couple of newspapers and columnists have written OP-EDs querying the new policies and even demanding a reversal. Others who couldn’t be bothered with logic, simply went to town proclaiming Armageddon was upon us.

    On Monday, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, was at his preachy best accusing government of driving millions into poverty through poor implementation of ordinarily noble policies. Given his penchant for opportunistic interventions in the past, it isn’t a stretch to hazard in what direction this barb was aimed.

    It would be dishonest to pretend that in a country without proper mass transit, the most vulnerable segment of the population has not been negatively impacted. Last November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) estimated the number of Nigerians living in poverty to be over 133 million. That’s a lot. But that scandalous stat wasn’t created overnight: it’s the result of decades of mismanagement by successive governments.

    Much of the recent criticism of Tinubu’s moves is about the management of the process. He’s been blamed for announcing the removal on day one. But such dramatic action isn’t unheard of. In September last year, newly-elected Kenyan President William Ruto, a day after he was sworn in, scrapped his country’s ‘costly’ petrol subsidy, arguing it was unsustainable.

    Critics say certain things should have been put in place before removing subsidy. So, let’s start with what we can all agree on. The rollout could have been better, so also the messaging.

    Nearly everyone, even labour unions, admit the subsidy is not sustainable. President Tinubu and his rivals – the People Democratic Party’s (PDP) Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP) – all committed themselves to scrapping it. Obi, with rhetorical flourish, denounced it as ‘organised crime.’

    Also, with the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) the subsidy was supposed to end in February 2022. That suggests by continuing the payments since that time government was actually engaging in illegality.

    Read Also: Court faults ASUU, upholds recognition of CONUA, NAMDA

    In Africa more countries are coming to the realisation that they cannot continue to carry the burden without grave economic consequences. As mentioned earlier, Kenya acted decisively in September 2022. In March, Ghana bit the bullet and junked the subsidy. A few days after Tinubu acted, Angola took the plunge. In all these cases the removal has been greeted with anger and protests.

    If like Tinubu, Atiku or Obi would have removed subsidy what is the argument about? Let’s take them for their word and say the LP candidate wouldn’t have continued this ‘organised crime’ a day longer. The PDP flagbearer who would like to be seen as a reformer and pro-business would also not have encouraged the financial haemorrhage for much longer.

    Their supporters claim, however, that the two men would have handled things differently – whatever that means.

    I have heard all manner of ‘experts’ hold forth with prescriptions about what should have been done differently. Truth be told, no one has been where we are today; no one had terminated subsidy in this manner before. Everyone is just playing guessing games with scenarios. If we had done this maybe that would not have happened.

    Sometimes it is better to act and let men criticise your actions. Waiting for the perfect conditions to do what you should have done yesterday is called procrastination.

    The usual suggestions have been things like fix the refineries, establish effective mass transit nationwide and so on. But a government that is less than 60 days in office cannot be held responsible for the inability of the administrations that held forth in the last 20 years to fix refineries. Waiting to repair refineries means taking another 24 months at the earliest to act.

    I have even heard it said that perhaps we should have waited for the Dangote Refinery to come on stream. The owner promised the end of July but many sceptical voices had suggested at the time he made that statement, that the earliest the facility would start producing was later this year or well into 2024. It doesn’t make sense tying government policy to such uncertain take-off plans. 

    The new administration can’t also be blamed for the failure of its predecessors to put in place some sort of welfare system that enables the poorest of poor absorb the sort of economic shocks we are witnessing.

    So what’s the alternative? Do we because of the pain which the reforms have produced return to the old order of multiple exchange rates which created room for arbitrage that benefitted just a few? Do we return to the opaque regime of subsidies that made billionaires out of cross-border smugglers and was virtually bleeding the nation to death?

    NNPCL estimates that the country was losing N4.8 trillion yearly to the subsidies. In the 2023 budget the last administration budgeted N3.5 trillion to fund cheap fuel till the end of June. At that rate continuing the practice for another six months could have seen the pay-outs reach N7 trillion.

    This is money that can be used for infrastructure, healthcare and education. It would be interesting to know how much Nigeria spent on fuel subsidy over the last 30 years to get a sense of how wasteful we’ve been as nation.

    In the absence of metro lines and similar facilities in major cities, the closest thing to mass transport would be fleet of buses like the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in Lagos. This is something that can done in the short to medium term. But in the current environment of near hysteria I wager that even if this had been in place before announcing the removal it wouldn’t have stopped protests because of impact that’s beyond commuting.

    Other things like an upward review of wages, cash transfers and sundry palliatives are on the table at federal and state levels. The good thing is that the outcry about hardship is putting office holders at all levels under pressure and forcing them into action. We must all add our voices to calling on federal, state and local governments to do all they can to ameliorate the suffering.

    Our national discussion can’t just be an unending singsong about our troubles. We should balance the inconveniences with celebration of good news. At the recent Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting, the three tiers of government had N1.959 trillion as revenue to share in July 2023. (Only N907 billion of the amount was eventually distributed; the rest was saved). It is was a record.

    It was nearly triple the N786.161 billion shared in June and more than thrice the N655.93 billion distributed in May. It would be interesting to see if this upward trajectory in maintained in August.

    With more cash from savings, governments at all levels should be able to do more by investing in the things that are critical to peoples’ wellbeing.

    If this pain isn’t an end in itself, then those on the receiving end need better explanation as to why they are experiencing tough times and what awaits at the other side of the tunnel. Messaging must be improved to outwit those who are only interested in exploiting current challenges for political ends.

  • Obi, Obidiots, and the willful construction of deception

    Obi, Obidiots, and the willful construction of deception

    Section 77(3) of the Electoral Act stipulates that political parties must submit their comprehensive register of members to the Independent National Electoral Commission 30 days before their presidential primaries. According to the evidence tendered by the lawyers of Tinubu and Shettima last week and accepted by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Obi’s name was not in the LP members’ register for Anambra State or anywhere, which was submitted to INEC along with a letter dated April 25, 2022 addressed to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Evidence was also provided that Obi left the PDP on May 26, 2022, and became the LP candidate two days later on May 27, 2023.

    True, the court has not ruled either way on these matters, but the evidence is very clear. Similar evidence was used in the recent ruling by the Asaba National Assembly Election Tribunal to nullify the election of an LP candidate, Ngozi Okoli, on the grounds that she was not duly sponsored by the LP as she was not a member of the party as at May 28, 2022, when the primary was conducted.

    Now that the PEPT has admitted the evidence that Obi was indeed not a member of the Labour Party within the stipulated registration deadline before the party’s presidential primary, it would appear that, like Okoli’s nullified candidacy, Obi’s 2023 presidential run was based on manipulation and deceit, which, in turn, permeated his entire campaign.

    For Obi, deception and manipulation easily became reality. For example, during the presidential campaign, Obi went to Egypt to attend a Bankers Conference. He came back to tell Nigerians that he had gone there to study Egypt’s successful transmission of electricity throughout the country. It was this alternate reality that Obi sold to the Obidiots, who saw Obi as a soothing balm on their frustration. He would change consumption to production and create jobs for millions of Nigerians, he told them, without any indication as to how he would do it.

    Obidiots, in turn, took deception to another level by creating alternate realities and conspiracy theories. In the process, they attacked and demonised political opponents and anyone who disagreed with them. Using various social media platforms, they engaged in disinformation, misinformation, fake news, and trolls. What is worse, they distorted and falsified evidence presented to the Tribunal in order to justify Obi’s conjured victory.

    During the campaign, Obi expanded his world of deception to the transactional use of ethnicity and religion. He capitalised on the Igbo chronic feeling of maginalisation and the Christians’ anger at the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the All Progressives Party candidate and running mate. He presented his election to Igbo leaders as their project and to Christian leaders as a “religious war”. He even promised to compensate them if the war was won.

    To complicate matters for Obi and Obidiots was a sleuth of unrealistic and misleading opinion polls by Atedo N. A. Peterside (ANAP) Foundation, which consistently projected Obi in the lead.

    It is against these backgrounds that Obi and Obidiots’ statements and actions regarding the proceedings of the PEPT must be understood. It all started when once it became apparent from the tallies of presidential election results submitted by the LP polling agents that Obi was going to lose the election, he and his supporters pointed to INEC’s failure to transmit the election results in some polling stations to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal as a conspiracy against them. Nigerian newspapers and media houses chorused the noise and a number of foreign observers, including the European Union, foreign newspapers, and media houses bought the noise.

    Read Also: Court faults ASUU, upholds recognition of CONUA, NAMDA

    Without a doubt, INEC dug its own grave by failing to keep its promise to transmit election results live. However, various Election Tribunals, including the Osun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, have ruled that INEC is free to choose its own administrative procedure for transmitting election results and that the IReV is neither a requirement of the Electoral Act nor of the Constitution.

    After the election and the declaration of the All Progressive Congress candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the winner, Obidiots and their sympathisers engaged in various protests, including plans to disrupt the inauguration on May 29. Their attack on the judiciary in advance of Obi’s petition was championed by the LP Vice-Presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, who warned former President Muhammadu Buhari and the Chief Justice of the Federation not to allow, or participate in, the inauguration of then President-elect Tinubu on May 29, 2023 on the grounds that they would be aborting democracy, because (in his own alternate reality) Tinubu did not meet the constitutional requirement to be declared President. Fare enough, Baba-Ahmed was widely condemned for his vituperations.

    Once they submitted their petition to the PEPT, they championed the call for live transmission of the proceedings. Their aim was to use it a vehicle to further throw dirt in public view on President Tinubu as defendant. The court, of course, declined their request.

    Further conspiracy theories were unleashed after the close of hearings by the PEPT. The LP Chairman falsely claimed that the APC was already preparing for a possible re-run presidential election, because the ruling party knew that the tide was tilted against it in the ongoing legal challenge to the presidential election results. He called on millions of Obidiots to get ready. This must be understood by security agencies as a call to Obidiots to prepare for protests or worse, if the judgement went against them.

    Then came various attempts to discredit the judiciary. They included a widely circulated fake story that President Tinubu had a conversation with some Justices of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Olukayode Ariwoola. This spurious allegation was amplified by the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who claimed that that President Tinubu was planning to influence the judges. Obidiots and their supporters further claimed that the Chief Justice and some other Justices of the Supreme Court had appointed their close relatives as judges.

    Not done, another fake story was circulated widely on Twitter indicating that Justice Boloukuoromo Ugo, a Judge on the PEPT, had allegedly resigned, because siding with President Tinubu against Obi “would mean the death of Nigeria’s democracy”, recalling Baba-Ahmed’s condemned statement. Another far-fetched story claimed that former Rivers State Governor, Nyesome Wike, met with some judges in Malaga, Spain, persuading them to tilt the judgement in Tinubu’s favour. All the fake stories were denied by the relevant court.

    What is worrisome about these fake stories and conspiracy theories is their circulation by mainstream media and major newspapers as if they were to be believed. Yet, they have serious negative implications for our democracy, for the judiciary, for the rule of law, and for national security. They must be condemned in very strong terms.

  • PTSD Generation; N500b: N48k? Buses, Salaries/Pensions

    PTSD Generation; N500b: N48k? Buses, Salaries/Pensions

    There is a call for amnesty for cold-blooded  killers, kidnappers, terrorists and ‘bandits’ who terrorise by burning houses, farmlands, hospitals, schools, security posts and cutting off economic survival necessities like roads to farms and markets and becoming an occupying force pillaging and misgoverning victims’ ancestral lands with terror tactics and terror taxes.

    The live survivors, 5-6+m internally displaced persons, with 100,000+/- 20% dead, live with no ‘war on terrorists’ yet declared. The cumulative horror and terror unleashed on peaceful Nigeria contrasts with the few terrorists killed.

    The deteriorating change in security level must be addressed in a ‘War-Like Manner’. The new government seems to be acting. The blood loss, misery and continued suffering from loss of life, limbs and lands have not been placated by a single voiced apology- just more arrogant belligerency. 

    In the light of the raw nerves, pain, wonton destruction with bombs and other weapons on unarmed civilians and undefended targets, an unasked amnesty is an insult, a slap on the suffering of survivors, some with lost limbs and using crutches or wheelchairs for the rest of their destroyed lives. Sadly, Fellow Nigerian must visit our military cemeteries shamefully to see the supreme sacrifice of our gallant security outfits including the Joint Task Force (JTF) while fighting the superior weaponry of terrorists.

    Many of our kidnapped have been killed, enslaved, married by force or taken to places unknown. Calculate the loss of school-time to our student population with so many of our students also still missing alongside the heroic Leah Sharibu kidnapped on February 18, 2018 at 5.30 by ISWAP and since married off with two children.

    Can we calculate and replace the millions of hours in lost learning time by special emphasis on ANTI-TRAUMA PROGRAMMES to help these traumatised, listless Boko Haram-ISWAP survivors -Locally created monster terrorist PSTD-Post Stress Traumatic Disease Generation? No, we cannot. But we can help bearing in mind we have millions of such affected children prone to mental stress and rational thought disorders, depression and suicide and violence challenges.

    How dare Nigeria expect that generation to carry on as usual and compete with the rest of the country living in the relative quiet not having herder and other terrorism running through our property or kidnapping and killing of our parents and children in front of us.  The level of terrorism cannot be exaggerated. 

    Nigeria’s PTSD GENERATION, started by the deliberately provocative incursions of armed herders into farms and settlements, requires a separate curriculum and additional classes to the traditional curriculum to draw them out and externalise their trauma through confiding in mentors, expression through creative writing, artwork, loosening up with friends. Only then may the pain go and not fester internally only to manifest in suicide by adopting good ‘terrorist capture’, not ‘terrorist-scatter’ military strategies implemented in a coordinated ‘everywhere at once’ multi-pronged plan leaving the terrorists no escape routes. 

    Read Also: Plateau APC Crisis: Ex-lawmaker cautions against unlawful suspensions

    N500b, from the $800m World Bank 25+ years bank loan  planned for conditional cash transfer of N8,000/month x six months totalling N48,000 each to 10-12million low income families as judged by National Social Safety-Nets Coordinating Office NASSCO which was set up in 2016 with $800m World Bank funding over five years  with a current National Social Register, NSR of over 60m households of which the Poor and Vulnerable Households [PVHHs] register number approximately 15million vulnerable across the country. It already ran the programme giving out N5,000 under Buhari and due to the poor value of the naira, an increase to N8,000 was suggested.  Nigerians ask: can it be trusted to deliver in a country prone to institutional, political and internal corruption failure? It should be open to scrutiny.

    Also, can we change the previously implemented 2021/2 programme shortening the N8,000×6 months to one N48,000×1 month, or N24,000×2 months or N16,000×3 months under this new government social intervention/investment scheme. The handout has been discredited by commentators as non-productive. What are the sustainable alternatives offered?

    Introduce gas-driven luxury buses or better, multiply by two that number of rugged good/non-luxury buses, perhaps run by a new breed of transporter, not NURTW, is a popular suggestion as is a CONVERSION at subsidised rates of existing public and private mass transit vehicles to gas-driven:  Gas-driven buses which must be rugged and like hard plastic seated London buses should be non-luxury level, but decent rugged buses distributed through state governments to LGAS and needy selected schools and institutions for daily local movement.

    Pay government-owed salaries and pensions with immediate effect: The federal and state governments are a continuum and must settle outstanding wage/pension bills which non-payment damages families and local economies. Payment with N500b kills three economic burden birds with one stone, drawing down our domestic debt by the figure, say N1-200b. It will economically and emotionally uplift maybe 1-3 million financially strapped family members with their own long-denied self-development funds to be spent in the local economy settling IOUs, rent and raise purchasing power through cash circulation in markets, for building and rent, school and university and also start-ups in business fees, purchases and power supply. A win-win situation. 

    N70 billion for NASS is monumentally insensitivity when 70% of citizens are in poverty. We expected a 70% cut in Salaries and Perks! Learn from France’s Versailles and the aftermath.  Do not dance with arrogance before the desperately deprived. Politicians ignore the poor at their peril. It is a red flag before a belly-empty bull. Reverse this please.

  • The world-wide scourge of credentials and publications fraud

    The world-wide scourge of credentials and publications fraud

    Over the past week, the case of Mmesoma Ejikeme, who faked a Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board’s score of 362, instead of her true score of 249, dominated the headlines. By the time the young lady eventually confessed to the crime, two distinct groups had emerged with different reactions to the story. One group, the fall guys, elevated emotion and fiction over reason and facts; displayed ethnic bigotry; and rode on society’s trust deficit in public institutions to distrust and discredit JAMB. The group includes Mmesoma’s father, Romanus Ejikeme; a former Minister of Educaation, Dr. Oby Ezekwezili; Mmesoma’s school Principal, Mrs Uchechukwu Edum; some church pastors, including the pastor of Mmesoma’s church; some Igbo leaders; and a whole host of Obidiots on social media, one of whom suggested that His Excellency, Dr. Peter Obi, will scrap JAMB once he got his mandate back.

    The other group, the good guys, put reason and facts over emotion and fiction; carried out proper investigation; and eventually bust Mmesoma’s fraud. The group was led by JAMB, which insisted from the beginning that Mmesoma was peddling a fake result and that the Board’s updated portal could not be hacked. The Board was eventually vindicated by Mmesoma’s confession. Other members of the group included former Minister Osita Chidoka, who owns the CBT Centre, where Mmesoma took the JAMB exams. He examined the results of other students from the same Centre and immediately noticed and disclosed the fraud in Mmesoma’s fake result. Then there was the Dr Chukwuma Soludo-led Anambra state government, which set up a committee that thoroughly investigated the matter and confirmed that JAMB was right that Mmesoma faked the result she had been displaying. It was to this committee that Mmesoma confessed to her fraud.

    Read Also : UTME result forgery: Mmesoma suffering from superiority complex, says psychologist

    However, bad as Mmesoma’s case may be for academic integrity, it is only part of the universal trend in admissions fraud. Examinations fraud complements admissions fraud as student-focused crimes. Two other types of fraud in higher education today are credentials and publications fraud, both perpetrated by university lecturers, professors, and administrators. Credential fraud is universal, while publications fraud is concentrated in the developing world.

    Here, I turn the searchlight on credentials fraud, by highlighting a few findings from a new book, titled Fake Degrees and Fraudulent Credentials in Higher Education, edited by Sarah E Eaton, Jamie J Carmichael and Helen Pethrick, and published by Springer in January 2023.

    The authors’ findings after world-wide investigations revealed that the fake degree industry has grown astronomically in monetary value from one billion dollars in 2015 to 22 billion in 2022! There are over 100 diploma mills in the United States alone, which issue fake degrees. However, it would appear that the headquarters of the practice is in Pakistan, where many fake journals also publish articles in local print shops for a fee. Between the US and Pakistan, many patrons have purchased fake degrees from the Americas to Europe, from Africa to Asia, indeed, from everywhere. It is believed that one or two sitting governors may have patronized one of these diploma mills. Today, it is estimated that over 4 billion people have patronized fake diploma mills or fake journal publishers.

    Axact, located in Pakistan, is believed to be the largest single diploma mill in the world. According to a former FBI agent, who led the investigation of Axact, it was revealed that it sold more than nine million diplomas and transcripts drawn on fake universities, claimed to be located in the United States. The names included “University of Atlanta”, “Almeda University”, “Gatesville University”, and “Belford University”, which grew out of “Belford High School” that provided transcripts and high school diplomas. They are all non-existent.

    In another chapter of the book, attention was drawn to a celebrated case in Nigeria in which the National Universities Commission found more than a hundred fraudulent lecturers and professors. They were unmasked in 2019 by the requirement that they upload their qualifications to a national portal. The practice should continue and so should the requirement be extended to publications, especially by those seeking promotion from Senior Lecturer upwards. A consortium of professors should assess those publications from time to time. The number and spread of fake publications, not to speak of their quality, may shock the nation.

    However, patronage of fake diplomas is not limited to workers in higher institutions. It is even more extensive beyond the ivory tower.  The increase in patronage is believed to be coming from government and corporate employees seeking a short cut to promotion or pay raise; growing student international mobility; and an increasingly competitive global job market.

    Credentials and publications fraud have serious repercussions for academic integrity. Professors mount the lecture rostrum, claiming to know and teach what they do not quite know or understand. The result is a confused group of students, who struggle through the course, learning little or nothing they can remember or use later. There is also the erosion of trust in academics and the academia that accompanies cases of credentials and publications fraud perpetrated by university teachers. This trust deficit can only be exacerbated by other crimes, such as sex-for-grade and corruption as well as by perennial union strikes. Trust deficit, infrastructural inadequacies, and falling academic standard are the key factors driving parents, who can afford it, to engage in educational tourism for their children.

    It is high time federal and state governments as well as proprietors of private universities turned attention to academic integrity in the nation’s higher institutions, by investing more in oversight and quality assurance as well as infrastructure and teaching aids, including investment in technology. By the same token, university Vice Chancellors have a major role to play in ensuring the drive toward excellence in their respective institutions. 

  • Southeast as Nigeria’s giant conundrum (2)

    Southeast as Nigeria’s giant conundrum (2)

    Something surreal is playing out in Southeastern Nigeria. Every Monday life grinds to a halt in most of the five states in the zone ostensibly in pursuit of self determination for Biafra. The sit-at-home protests pioneered by the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) have taken a life of their own, not driven by conviction but self preservation on the part of the populace.

    People have learnt over time that to defy the puppeteers behind the action is akin to signing one’s death warrant. And so they suffer in silence.

    Sit-at-home is supposed to force the federal government of Nigeria to accede to a referendum which the separatist strongly believe would produce an overwhelming vote for secession. Unfortunately for the agitators, their chosen tool for pressuring the leaders of the land has had absolutely no impact at all. At least, in the last eight years, the President Muhammadu Buhari didn’t take notice.

    It’s not like when Niger Delta militants held the country by the jugular with devastating attacks on pipelines and oil drilling platforms far out at sea. Their activities quickly slashed oil exports and brought Umaru Yar’Adua government to the negotiating table.

    Rather than punish the government in Abuja, the sit-at-home saga has devastated the economy of the Southeast and is demoralising a vibrant people. In reality, it isn’t popular. That is why official IPOB has tried to distance itself from it. But the Simon Ekpa group which claims to be fighting Nnamdi Kanu’s cause, is gung-ho about it. At his command the region has just been put through one week of forced seclusion.

    A battle of wills is raging. More and more courageous voices are speaking up to denounce what is going on. But the people by their reaction show they would rather obey the faceless terrorists than align with mainstream leaders no matter how reasonable they may sound.

    This week a group of reasonably upset political leaders from the zone gathered in Abuja to deliberate on the way forward. They decided to approach President Bola Tinubu for direct intervention.

    As if in reaction, Ekpa and his band have now decreed a two-week sit-at-home protest. Can the long-suffering people of this region abide this much longer before things boil over? I get the sense that matters have come to a critical juncture.

    Nearly two years ago on October 13, 2021, I shared my thoughts on the troubles in Igboland. Those arguments are just as relevant today as they were back then. That column is reproduced here:

    Southeast as Nigeria’s giant conundrum

    We are at a historical juncture where the Southeast is fast trading places with the Northeast and Northwest as a major source of worry.

    The escalation of separatist violence marked by attacks on security agents, police stations, properties of top politicians, as well as the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) sit-at-home campaign, shows no sign of abating.

    If the Federal Government thought the extraordinary rendition of the group’s leader Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya would lead to a collapse of pro-Biafra agitation and violence, the reverse has been the case.

    In the last few months we’ve witnessed the shocking assassinations of notable figures like former presidential adviser, Ahmed Gulak and Dr. Chike Akunyili, husband of the late Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Dora Akunyili. Both were brutally executed in the street.

    Scores with lesser profiles have been murdered for daring to flout the sit-at-home diktat. Some had their dwellings razed for openly criticising the tactics of the secessionists. Individuals and corporate organisations have lost billions as their trucks and goods were vandalised.

    Even when one or two governors ventured out of their Government House fortresses to encourage citizens to step out on the so-called ‘Ghost Mondays,’ they were ignored because people know who calls the shots in the region these days.

    Such is the scale of the violence that campaigns for November’s Anambra governorship elections have been thrown into disarray. Major parties like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have shut down public appearances for fear of attacks.

    The greater fear is that on polling day we may witness historically low turnout that renders the whole exercise a charade. How are security forces that haven’t been able to stop killings in normal times expected to provide cover for electoral officers in isolated communities on Election Day?

    This spectre of violence prompted Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, to injudiciously suggest that declaration of a state of emergency in Anambra was a distinct possibility.

    Many ridiculed him for being so gung-ho about declaring an emergency in Anambra, while not advocating the same strong medicine in his Northwest home turf where bloodthirsty bandits have killed hundreds, sacked rural communities and disrupted the educational system. They have a point.

    Malami and other senior Federal Government officials should actually be taking a broader view of what’s unfolding in the region. It’s bigger than just delivering some semblance of elections through a show of force.

    Long after the polls have come and gone, the mess in the Southeast would be waiting for someone to clean it up.

    Truth be told, neither government nor IPOB can have it their way. The militarisation of the region and deployment of intimidation hasn’t extinguished pro-Biafra sentiment. A new low was reached last week when soldiers apprehended popular actor Chiwetalu Agu for wearing a robe depicting Biafra colours complete with the rising sun symbol.

    Some may not be as brazen as the thespian by putting their sentiments on public display in such manner, but many harbour a fondness for Biafra in the Southeast.

    Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, recently estimated that over 30 separatist groups currently operate in the region. Twenty years ago the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was the only one, and it was viewed as something of a joke.

    The only way to reverse that growth trajectory is to engage in a battle for hearts, not a shooting war. It’s difficult to sustain a union based solely on military might. Where there’s a will, people ultimately find a way – no matter the might of the state. This is a struggle that’s going to outlive President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration because the sentiments driving it are deep-rooted.

    The Spanish situation is a good example. The Catalan independence movement has been at it since the mid-19th century. When separatist leaders called protests following the jailing of some of their colleagues in 2019, the streets of Barcelona were jammed by tens of thousands of demonstrators.

    They don’t have their own country yet and may not in the foreseeable future, but political parties pushing their agenda have wormed their way into the mainstream, advancing the independence cause.

    The big problem in the Southeast is the gulf separating both sides. IPOB wants nothing short of an independent Biafra, by referendum if possible. But since government will not serve up balkanisation of the country on a platter, it’s increasingly embracing guerrilla struggle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the military wherewithal or political support – internally and externally – to prevail that way.

    Using hate-fuelled rhetoric hasn’t won it many friends. The promotion of Kanu as an almost messianic, cult-like figure has repulsed many in the establishment and political classes who have no appetite for a revolutionary journey to an uncertain destination.

    Central to the challenge facing IPOB is the huge population of Igbos who witnessed the civil war, for whom the memories are still vivid and horrendous. They are in no hurry to embark on a sequel – not for all the pleasures of having their own homeland.

    Overcoming their initial fear, more of such individuals are speaking out, denouncing the heavy material and psychological toll of the violence and sit-at-home campaigns on the region.

    It appears what IPOB is selling isn’t sufficiently attractive, that’s why they are pushing it using terror. While images of deserted streets may represent short term propaganda gains, the collateral damage from the group’s scorched earth approach is alienating many ordinary people. It’s the surest way of short-circuiting their struggle.

    The best route to restore normalcy is for all sides to recognise the limitations of their present approach and admit the existence of legitimate grievances that should be addressed.

    For all the talk of reconciliation following the war, distrust between the Southeast and the rest of Nigeria is latent. This needs to be dealt with in an open and honest manner. Where errors have been made, like other zones having six or seven states and the east just five, this can be revisited.

    Whatever solution is envisaged must acknowledge that Kanu is already trapped in judicial proceedings and there’s no conceivable way out but for the process to run its course. If he’s convicted, some future president, in the spirit of national reconciliation and healing, may decide to offer him an amnesty.

    But the region’s political office holders, would-be presidential aspirants, must urgently seize the initiative because their territory is being destroyed daily in a slow-burn ‘second civil war’ that’s currently playing

  • Refurbished JAMB-fit for purpose -Mmesoma-gate

    Refurbished JAMB-fit for purpose -Mmesoma-gate

    Jamb used to be nightmare ‘JAMBing’ the youth in its corruption tunnel. In 2005 I wrote a poem …

    O!  JAMB  2005

     O! JAMB

    How I hate you./  You hydra-headed hinderer. You monstrous monument/ To mediocrity.

     Do you not heed, /My agony, my anguish?/ What price, your paper? /My forearm for your form?/ My ankle for your admission letter? Must I frog-jump / To the tune of the whistling koboko/ Wielded by your zombies/ Who turn our right into a riot?

    I climb a gate locked against me/ Or relocate to a nearby bukateria/ which sells not just food or even books/ But where JAMB forms and JAMB results/ Are sold to the highest bidder?/ My sweaty palm clutching  stale notes/ Betrayed as a bribe./ It seems I must buy my right/ If I want to become a Jambite/ Or be Jammed in the system.  

    THE END

     And I wrote articles on it…

    The student faces an examination fraught with fraud, examination forms that may be fake, miraculous and endlessly delayed results, an uncertain opportunity at tertiary education due to the logjam of JAMB.1999.

     There were JAMB fighters against the plague of JAMB corruption vomiting unqualified students into universities polluting the education system. Recently we witnessed the fall of JAMB’s ex-boss, Professor Dibu and the rise of Prof Is-haq Oloyede, a recommended potential minister for a corrupted Ministry of Education.

    JAMB and the Anambra State investigations have exposed Mmesoma-Gate negating the social media that thrives on rapid-fire, ear-to-mouth-avoiding-brain explosive statements. Of course, JAMB was born with ethnic bias, immoral cut-off points. Amazingly, Mmesoma scored 249, admitting her on merit. She misled herself or she was ‘played’ and misled badly.

    Why? Was she silly, just playing or greedy with an ‘I can cheat ’ moment? Did another/others tempt, bribe or blackmail her into offering her JAMB access to illegally share in the scholarships? ‘So, you have a 249 JAMB Result!! We will show you or change your result to ‘best’. Just give us half of the prize money, understood?’ Had she or her backers through a JAMB mole, seen the winning 360 score of amazing Uche Ukechinyere, or was it leaked, before offering her a cheating score of 362 to steal the prize in spite of her daily promise to be ‘Loyal, Faithful and Honest’?

    In short, did she really act alone?  Timelines are important during the investigation of the extent of involvement. Has she been threatened to say she did it alone – a typical yahoo-yahoo ruthless criminal threat? Can she prove she did it alone by repeating the act in the presence of the police and JAMB expert officials? Even that test is not fool proof as she may have been taught.

    Is this an unexpected fallout of a Yahoo-Yahoo attack on the newly impregnable JAMB of 2023? It certainly presents material for future JAMB anti-cheating strategies? The National Orientation Agency needs reinvigoration.   

    The good employees over the years and the honest leadership team under Prof Oloyede are to be congratulated for bringing the good threads together creating a JAMB all Nigerians can be proud of. Some tried in the past against the endemic culture of corruption. We must make sure this singular institutional ‘anticorruption change’ is appreciated countrywide and spread to every educational and also other federal government and state and LGA institutions. 

    Those who immediately vilified JAMB’s ability and agenda are now making lame excuses, silently licking their wounded pride or shuddering at seeing their uninspired public performance recorded forever in priceless social media rantings which gave Mmesoma 99% more publicity. Perhaps even her 249 score needs to be investigated through past school reports to exclude ‘mercenaries and manipulation’.

    It is a sad embarrassment for her school but schools are not responsible for the negative activities and ambitions of wayward or misled pupils. Every political and non-political criminal jointly escaping with Nigeria’s trillions, as seen in EFCC, ICPC court cases, was educated in some acclaimed or ‘acquired’ school or tertiary institution. Did they learn their criminality from the institutions? Probably not; unless they were bad criminal cult members who by now must be senior officials across Nigeria and probably even conspiring to become president one day.  

    JAMB has revealed another person Atung Gerard who did not even sit UTME but claimed 380/400. Cheating is much reduced from the detected 10-11% minimum some years ago but one malpractice case can destroy the reputation of hard-to-keep-clean public institutions like JAMB, but 2023-JAMB appears clean. Hurray!

    Regarding punishment… NASS infamously demanded 21 years for university cheats while financial, political and other crooks repaid petty sums or tiny fines for stealing from the purse and crippling Nigeria. In law, Mmesoma is an adult though youth leaders are shamelessly 50 years old! Today she could face laws pronouncing variously 3-7 years jail and/or a N50-100,000 fine. She has been suspended from JAMB exams for three years. Justice and mercy are often combined especially if remorse is demonstrated but all know cheating is punishable.  

    JAMB is hurting as it is an educational institution recently rescuing its reputation which Mmesoma’s actions and followers briefly attempted to poison. Nigeria is just a larger version of JAMB.

    All ‘not exceeding N XYZ’ monetary fines make the ‘law an ass’ with today’s rubbish naira value and should be removed from laws and left to the court.

    Today ‘JAMB IS FIT FOR 2023 PURPOSE’.