The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Lawmakers versus Kyari

    Lawmakers versus Kyari

    Lawmaking must always be about facts and not witch hunt, and when witch hunts make progress, facts retreat. That is one of the trap falls of lawmaking, especially when it is tendentious or when it is perceived to follow preconceived path.

    Suddenly some lawmakers are asking the chief executive of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL) to resign, and they are making a campaign especially after some of them visited the refinery of businessman Aliyu Dangote.

    That seems seamy because they made their decision on the issue of dirty diesel, and they took sides without a scientific turn of mind. So, while they are at it, the news is now countering their conclusions about the quality of diesel in the refinery in Lagos.

    According to a new report, the Sulphur level in the diesel is not what the visit to that refinery portrayed, but confirms the assertion by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority boss Farouk Ahmed that its Sulphur level is higher than normal.

    This revelation should turn the lawmakers to retrace themselves and interrogate the new revelations that shows that, as arbiters, lawmakers ought to look at both sides of a story before jumping to conclusion. No rebuttal has been made against the new report.

    Read Also: Protest: Keep faith with Tinubu – Mba, Umahi urge southeast

    There is suspicion in some quarters that the lawmakers’ call for the man to resign has nothing to do with the fact that Mele Kyari turned the company from loss to profit in the billions of Naira. It has nothing to do with the fact that the production level of the country has doubled from 800,000 barrels per day to 1.6 million barrels per day, a fact that the president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, echoed in his broadcast in the aftermath of the protests.

    We can suspect that it has nothing in the form of a grouse against the fact that for the first time, the NNPCL runs an audited account, and that is an act of transparency, the sort we want them to demonstrate in their call for Kyari’s resignation. The lawmakers should let us know if it concerns the delivery of the final investment delivery (FID) for the Nigeria LNG project’s Train 7 development after a grueling four-year snafu.

    There is no perfect situation anywhere, and his stewardship must be encouraged and not looked at with the pessimist’s jaundiced eye. The lawmakers should look again at how the workings of the NNPCL can be better, to increase its production levels and serve Nigerians better.

    President Tinubu intervened in the NMDPR-Dangote furore, and as the top man in the country seeks solution, so should the lawmakers.

  • Haba Abba!

    Haba Abba!

    For the third time in just more than a year, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State, just made another wrong call. 

    What was he thinking — playing to the gallery on protests, while most other governors were telling their people to stay off the streets and opt for something less perilous?

    Well, beware of what you crave, goes that popular English quip.  It may well come back to plague you! 

    Abba’s beloved protesters soon stormed the Kano State House — with their “letters” of petrol bombs, cudgels, broken bottles and stones: for onward delivery to Abuja, as the governor had rhapsodized! 

    En route, they torched a few cars while looting a court complex — with Milord’s pricey wig sitting pretty on the empty skull of a looney protester! — aside a few eateries that fell to frenzied looters, sorry protesters!  Abba just got his dream protest!

    There must be something and bad calls with Governor Yusuf.  First, he went on a demolition spree, just to sate political vengeance.  That has cost the Kano purse dearly, in hefty court fines.

    Then, “yanga sleep trouble go wake am”-wise, he blundered into an Emirship crisis, which has resulted in the de-facto cohabitation of two Kano emirs in the same Kano city! 

    Okay, de jure, the governor kids himself he had dethroned one of the two.  But that is the subject of a raging legal suit, the outcome of which no one can predict.

    Again, you can guess the motive: vengeance against an old order, instead of squarely facing his not-so-new one, to make Kano better.

    Read Also: Tinubu: Govt won’t allow those with clear political agenda tear nation apart

    And now, this: protests which have taken their toll on Kano’s commerce and economy, with mostly child-hoodlums looting with manic zest.  Does that even say anything for the Yusuf government’s child development policies?

    Were Kano some PLC with shareholders tracking their investments, the investors would have called out Yusuf and his government, for the way Kano has bled this last one year!

    But even with that, Abba’s acts would shape Abba’s legacy, compared with his precursors.

    Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Abba’s political godfather, defined own two non-consecutive tenures with solid infrastructures, social and physical, including setting up Kano’s Northwest University (NWU: now Yusuf Maitama Sule University).

    Even immediate predecessor and arch-foe, Abdullahi Ganduje, added own infrastructure stock, in audacious flyovers to further open up Kano for commerce, aside providing a large expanse of land ready for ranching, when many of his peers were playing lusty politics with herder-farmer crises.

    Pray, what will be Abba’s own report card, now that a year is already gone?  Mangled public monuments to teach Kano’s history?  Sterile emirate battles?  Call to protest that turned awry?

    Well, votes have consequences!

  • A familiar failure

    A familiar failure

    For the umpteenth time, the country’s security agencies failed to save a kidnap victim.  A former deputy vice-chancellor of Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, Prof. Olorunfemi Olaofe, 79, was found dead about three weeks after he was, on July 9, abducted from his house with his security guard. His body was said to have been found “in a shallow grave along Airport Road.” It was unclear how he died.

    The kidnappers had taken them away in the retired don’s car. The police said they later recovered the vehicle. The kidnappers were said to have initially demanded a N50m ransom, and later stopped communicating with Olaofe’s family. 

    The Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command, Adeniran Akinwale, was reported saying, “Yes, the professor has been found dead, and we are doing everything possible to exhume the body for burial.” He also said the police had arrested “many people,” adding, “we suspect insider involvement, as the security man employed by the professor was the one who planned it.” He promised that the police would “brief the public at the appropriate time.” The situation of the security guard was unclear. 

    Read Also: Aiyedatiwa hails Ondo residentsfor shunning protest

    Before Olaofe’s body was discovered, members of the Are-Ekiti Progressives Union, the Ekiti Council of Elders (ECE), and the Nigerian Universities Pensioners’ Association, EKSU Branch, had called on the security agencies and the state government to intensify their rescue efforts. He was a member of ECE.

    The ECE president, Prof. Joseph Oluwasanmi, said the kidnap “has left us deeply anxious and fearful,” adding, “we wonder where is the old system of finding a lost person, what of the new method of serial survey employing satellites, sniffer dogs, etc.”

    His words amounted to calling into question the efforts of the security agencies to rescue Olaofe. Indeed, the victim’s death in captivity was not the outcome the public had expected.

    Why did the security agencies fail to save the victim? They were not only expected to rescue the victim but also arrest the kidnappers. As things stand, the kidnappers may well strike again since they are still at large.

    This is a familiar story. It shows why the country’s security crisis persists. It is the responsibility of law enforcement agents to ensure that when kidnaps happen, the victims are rescued, and the perpetrators apprehended and prosecuted.  Sadly, this did not happen in the case of Prof. Olaofe. Indeed, in too many kidnap cases in the country, the criminals get away with crime.

  • Autopilot

    Autopilot

    Autopilot — what a name!  But that’s what Simon Ekpa, an Nnamdi Kanu wannabe, names his lunatic wing of IPOB.

    Or what would explain cowardly gunmen attacking the Onotsha-Owerri expressway, killing a law-abiding Igbo woman plying honest trade with her POS machine and thereafter bragging over it?  Autopilot indeed!

    For coward Ekpa and his blood-thirsty thugs, killing off peaceful people, of their own stock, is worth toasting to liberate Biafra!

    To serenade that madness, a confetti of colourful fakeries: Biafra Defence Forces and Biafra Liberation Army, purported armed wings of the Autopilot IPOB, according to a news report in The Nation of July 31.

    Autopilot IPOB, on autopilot to anarchy in the same “Biafra”, in the doomsday vision of Ekpa?  Now, what of IPOB’s so-called Eastern Security Network (ESN), which the boastful Emma Powerful often rhapsodizes?  That is too tame for Autopilot IPOB?

    Hear Ekpa crow from his Finland woodworks: “The Biafra Defence Forces Owerri Command has recovered weapons from terrorists after neutralizing them in numbers,” he raved, “If you think you will continue to use force and terrorism tactics to force us to remain in the union, this will continue to be your faith in Biafraland.”

    Read Also: Ondo protest organisers pull out

    “Faith” indeed!  It certainly takes a terrorist to know another, aside from the heavy fate of locating your faith in anarchy!  Ekpa’s sweet “faith” is clear: chaos; fast becoming the gory fate of many hapless Igbo, driving their daily hustle in that enclave.

    Meanwhile, the killings which Ekpa celebrates also involved arson at a nearby eatery — somebody’s hard investment — torching a car belonging to a medic making his daily rounds, aside the quake and trauma that gripped the precinct!  All to impose a sit-at-home order!

    As for the surprised security agents — killed or maimed — it’s unclear how that could translate into a “victory”.  For starters, the militants were chased into their rat hole: one killed; others fled with bullet wounds, their operating cars abandoned and seized.

    Even if they all escaped unscathed, how does the killing of those paid to secure a place translate into a plus for its denizens?  How does Igbo-on-Igbo violence benefit anyone?  How do fleeing ventures, from Ekpa’s anarchic faith, benefit the “Biafra” of Ekpa’s jaundiced dreams?

    During the last EndSARS protest, Nnamdi Kanu was yelling like a demented soul, pointing at properties his goons would bomb and raze.  Now, he’s caged, awaiting how his treason trial pans out in court.

    With the much-ballyhooed “10 Days of Rage” starting today, who knows what murderous mischief brews in Ekpa’s unhinged mind?

    No madness lasts forever as Kanu is finding out.  When Ekpa too is dragged home to answer for his crimes, let no mealy-mouthed lobby cry for a so-called “political solution”.

  • Food for thought

    Food for thought

    Figures released last week by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its Selected Food Price Watch for June 2024 showed that the public outcry over crushing food inflation in the country is not baseless.

    For instance, NBS said the prices of tomatoes, beans, and yam rose by about 300 percent in June 2024 from their previous prices in the corresponding period of 2023. These are staple food items, and the astronomical increase in their prices suggests that many Nigerians are struggling to survive the food crisis. 

    According to NBS, the average price of 1kg of yam tuber increased by 295.79 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis from N510.77 in June 2023 to N 2,021.55 in May 2024. On a month-on-month basis, it increased by 52.87 percent from N 1,322.36 in May 2024 to N 2,021.55 in June 2024.

    Also, the average price of 1kg beans (brown, sold loose) stood at N2,292.76, indicating a rise of 252.13 percent in price on a YoY basis from N651.12 recorded in June 2023; and a 14.11 percent rise in price on a month-on-month basis from N2,009.23 in May 2024.

    The price of tomatoes (1kg) increased year on year by 320.67 percent from N547.28 in June of 2023 to N2,302.26 in June 2024. On a month-on-month basis, the average price of this item rose by 55.59 percent from N1,479.69 in May 2024.

    The average price of 1kg garri (white, sold loose) went up by 181.66 percent on a year-on-year basis from N403.15 in June 2023 to N1,135.51 in June 2024.

    The report also indicated that the price of 1kg Irish potatoes grew by 288.5 percent to N2,423.27 in June 2024 from N623.75 in June 2023.

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    Notably, Nigerians continue to complain about the cost of rice.  NBS in April said the average price of 1kg rice (local, sold loose) was N1, 399.34 from N546.76 recorded in April 2023.

    Predictably, the result is food insecurity compounding the situation of many already embattled Nigerians. NBS figures last year showed that Nigeria’s annual inflation rose strikingly in September 2023. In October 2023, the country’s headline inflation rate rose to 27.33 percent from 26.72 percent recorded in September. The figure marked the 10th consecutive rise in the country’s inflation rate last year.

    The result was an alarmingly deteriorating cost-of-living crisis in the country. Economic analysts blamed the grim situation mainly on naira depreciation, higher food and energy prices, and logistical costs, among others. What has changed? This is food for thought.

     It is important to ask what the federal, state and local governments have done, and what they are doing to save Nigerians from hardship.  They are expected to urgently find solutions to the cost-of-living issues in the spaces they govern. 

  • Enter, the new PMG?

    Enter, the new PMG?

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, well-garlanded laureate of open letters to the powers-that-be, and revered postmaster-general (PMG) of self-serving missives, has been quiet of late.

    But no bother!  Dele Momodu, Ovation Magazine publisher — loud ovation, ladies and gentlemen! — seems taking a leave from reporting the rich and the spoilt; and sprucing up the image of Diezani Allison-Madueke (beg your pardon, Diezani Agama). He is rearing to go as the new PMG!

    Watch it, Ebora Owu!  This Edo boy is gunning to annex your fiefdom!

    Indeed, Dele Momodu has been excitable latterly.  First, he fired an open letter to President Bola Tinubu.  No crime, to be sure. 

    It’s a season of opportunistic anger; and pocket messiahs, pseudo-public affairs philosophers, and emergency champions of the masses, are on the over-drive, bawling  “truth to power”. 

    It’s a noble racket too good not to be milked, in this season of sweet hysteria!

    But in Momodu’s phantom talks, he hit on the quality of cabinets; and darkly said someone had exported the “Lagos template” somewhere; pontificating about glorious cabinets belonging to the Babangida era (though he admitted his June 12 executive suicide); and the Obasanjo presidential epoch — did Dele remember Baba Iyabo’s third term gambit?

    The latest neophyte in the PDP camp is behaving true to type.  When you drink from that pool, you’re fated to forgetfulness and you start merrily hallucinating!

    Or how else would Momodu compare Obasanjo-era federal cabinet to the Lagos cabinet of that time (1999-2007), which became a national reference; and in the last 25 years has continued to throw up sheer and rare quality in the political bureaucracy?

    Read Also: Tinubu administration committed to taking Nigeria to sound economic footing – Presidency

    Still, for context.  While Obasanjo, with brilliant cabinet in tow, was bragging that Lagos was “a jungle”, Tinubu, then Lagos governor,  was re-setting that “jungle”, weaning it from Abuja’s feeding bottle, and building its economy, which now is bigger than most African countries’.

    Polices don’t lie, do they?  Today, Lagos has two urban rail lines — Blue rail, already in use; Red rail, soon to follow.  Might someone remind Momodu that Obasanjo tried hard to shut down that rail dream, claiming rail corridors were a federal exclusive?

    Even more dramatic: Obasanjo’s brilliant federal cabinet, with “the Fixer”, the late Tony Anenih as Works minister, was shovelling sand at the roaring Atlantic that threatened to gobble up the entire Victoria Island.  Lagos, with smarter thinking, built a new town, the Lagos Atlantic City from that misery, saving VI and Lekki to the bargain.

    So, how can Momodu’s so-called “Lagos template” be a curse to anyone, talk less Abuja, which had been taking tutorials in impactful policies from Lagos since 1999?

    Yeah, talk is cheap; with too many gullible minds to be scammed, in this epoch of X, FB and sundry social media verbal diarrhoea. 

    Still, Momodu should check his facts before making empty populist posts, that do nothing but cynically milk current challenges.

  • Puzzling policing

    Puzzling policing

    Predictably, the police tried to give the impression that they did what was expected of them in the case of the five Ondo State abductees released by kidnappers on July 22. The five victims, four corps members and one artisan, were kidnapped by bandits on July 18, at Omi Alafa Village in Ifon, Ose Local Government Area, Ondo State.

    The Ondo State Police Public Relations Officer, Funmilayo Odunlami, in a statement, said the command had found them, adding that they “were abandoned by their assailants after the police mounted pressure on them.”

    According to her, “Policemen drawn from the tactical squad led by the Area Commander of Owo, ACP Olufemi Awoyale’s continuous combing of the bush with sustained technical support frustrated the assailants and they were forced to abandon the victims at the Oyinbo/ Sanusi Camp.”

    The corps members were said to have been returning to their homes after participating in a three-week National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation programme in Enugu and Abia states.

    One of them, Patience Andrew, was reported saying the bus they were travelling in got to Ondo State around 10pm. She said the bandits had killed the driver and a woman sitting beside him. “One guy too was stabbed. Two other people died but we don’t know about the guy who was stabbed because he ran away. Then, they brought us out of the vehicle and took us inside the bush.”

     She said the kidnappers “were five in number and their age range should be around 25 years. They were speaking Hausa/Fulani language and they had one interpreter… They tortured us and we were only given garri and water once a day.”

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    According to her, the kidnappers demanded ransom of N1m for each of the five victims, and got a total of N5m. Interestingly, she added that they also demanded and got packs of Hollandia yoghurt, loaves of bread, one carton of Peak milk, one pack of malt beverage, cigarettes, cooked rice and chicken. 

    It is puzzling that the police said nothing about the kidnappers, apart from claiming that they forced them to abandon the kidnappees. If that was all they did, it wasn’t enough.

    As law enforcement agents, they were expected to ensure that the kidnappers did not get away with crime.  Their failure to apprehend the kidnappers, and allowing them to escape with the ransom and other things they received was poor performance.

  • Crisis of learning

    Crisis of learning

    Nigeria faces a crisis of learning if findings from an Enugu State survey accurately reflect what obtains nationwide. And it most likely does. Secretary to the Enugu State Government (SSG), Prof. Chidiebere Onyia, recently disclosed that 50 percent of pupils in the state could not read in English or solve basic mathematical problems. Those who manage to read, he added, faced challenges with comprehension.

    Onyia made the findings known in a keynote address he delivered at the quadrennial convention of the Old Boys Association of Union Secondary School, Awkunanaw. The Enugu government, according to him, made the discovery in its Baseline Assessment of primary schools in the state conducted in November 2023. “Our findings were shocking. After six years of primary school, 50 percent of our children cannot read a single word in English, and those who manage to read face challenges in comprehension. On top of that, 50 per cent of our children are unable to tackle simple subtraction problems. What we’ve found in Enugu State mirrors the situation across our nation,” he said.

    The SSG bemoaned the state of things, but expectedly spoke of remedial measures being implemented by the administration of Governor Peter Mbah in which he serves. He said that in Nigeria, three out of four children who complete basic education lacked proficiency in literacy and numeracy – a situation that some international agencies described as ‘the Nigerian Learning Crisis.’ Part of the problem, according to Onyia, is that teaching methods fail to equip children with vital skills in science, technology, productivity and digital competence.

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    Although he didn’t provide details, Taraba State Governor Agbu Kefas apparently had the same crisis in mind when he recently announced a policy to raise the minimum qualification criteria for teachers in his state. He said his administration planned to make Master’s degree the minimum qualification for teaching in the state’s secondary schools, while a Bachelor will be the minimum qualification for teaching in primary schools. Speaking when he hosted journalists to a dinner in Jalingo, the governor said the era where the National Certificate of Education (NCE) is the minimum academic qualification for primary school teachers was coming to an end. “In no distant time, primary schoolteachers in Taraba must be first degree holders, while secondary school teachers must have a minimum of Master’s degree to enhance the quality of education in the state,” he stated inter alia.

    The country is blighted by a new generation of neoliths, and it is helpful this is being officially acknowledged. But merely raising the certification level of teachers will not cut it; there is rather a need to cultivate passionate educators with requisite career incentives. That is what is lacking and need be emplaced.

  • Rice only

    Rice only

    Rice is on the front burner in the country, not only because of its inflation-induced high cost but also because the Federal Government announced that it will send 740 trucks of rice to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Under the arrangement, each state and the FCT is expected to get 20 trucks carrying 1,200 25kg bags each, which are to be distributed to the most vulnerable people. 

    The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, explained that sending the trucks of rice was part of the government’s moves to tackle hardship in the country.

    However, a survey at the weekend was reported to have shown that only Kano State had received the consignment of rice in the northern part of the country; and in the South-West, only Oyo said the trucks had arrived.

    In the South-South, only Akwa–Ibom, Rivers, and Bayelsa states were reported to have confirmed receiving the bags of rice. According to the report, “Delta State government said the rice had not been received as of Friday noon while Edo and Cross River States’ officials did not respond to inquiries.”

    It is curious that only rice is involved in this arrangement. It brings to mind the food programme introduced by the Governor Umo Eno administration in Akwa Ibom State, in March, “to intervene in the high cost of food in our state.”

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    Initially, under the so-called Akwa Ibom new deal, a state agency would sell 10kg bags of rice, beans and garri once a month to the vulnerable people in the state social register. The food subsidy scheme was later reviewed, and it became a free food programme under which the state government would give out 5kg bags of either rice, beans or garri.

     During an enlarged State Executive Council meeting where the governor signed the bill establishing the agency into law, an attendee made a striking observation.  The curious attendee had wondered how the state government selected the three food items to be sold by the agency, arguing that beans was the only protein in the list while rice and garri were carbohydrates. He, therefore, suggested the inclusion of eggs, another protein source.

    Governor Eno said no to the idea. “Poor people don’t eat eggs,” he replied authoritatively. It was unclear if he had conducted a study on the diet of the poor in the state before arriving at such a conclusion. Eggs are considered nutritious, and have proven health benefits.

    The Federal Government should be told that vulnerable people don’t eat rice only, and shouldn’t be made to eat rice only.  There are other staple food items that are today beyond their reach because of food inflation in the country. The authorities should go beyond the provision of rice, and consider providing other food items as well.

  • Edo: return of the prodigal

    Edo: return of the prodigal

    On July 20, Philip Shaibu, the “resurrected” Deputy Governor of Edo State, embraced happy purgatory in the open.  Resurrected — because Governor Godwin Obaseki had left Shaibu for dead: no thanks to a kangaroo impeachment now judicially voided.

    At the flag-off of the Edo APC gubernatorial electioneering, Shaibu called Adams Oshiomhole “my father”, knelt before him while gobbling a giant humble pie, and earned a loving embrace to sin no more — all to a raucous applause!

    Yes, it was before Oshiomhole, same one that Shaibu and now estranged Obaseki ridiculed in frothy joy, capering on what they thought was Oshiomhole’s political grave, after a rogue suspension from his Edo North ward, by intra-APC power players.

    Now, between Oshiomhole on one hand, and Obaseki/Shaibu on the other, who is now politically entombed, with irredeemable ignominy?  Politics!  But again, Shaibu is lucky — not unlike the Biblical prodigal son. 

    He’s the Edo APC prodigal return home, fated to the grace of a doting father, even if his conduct, to say the least, had been execrable.  Obaseki, is fated to much worse.  He is fighting too many battles at the same time: if he’s not jousting with the Oba of Benin court, he is fencing off bitter foes that already dug his big political grave.

    Even if he somewhat pulls off “installing” Asue Ighodalo, the PDP candidate as his successor, it might just be temporary relief.  Shortly after, Obaseki, would brace himself for the inevitable. 

    You don’t exhibit that level of arrant perfidy, as he did to his benefactor, for your own beneficiary not to pay you back in the same stark coin.  It’s only a matter of time.

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    Indeed, Obaseki has been an intriguing revelation.  Classics, his first university degree, ought to have had on him a civilizing influence.  After, rubbing shoulders with the nimble finance industry aristocrats, in their Lagos golden lairs, ought to have shaped him into a well and true Renaissance man.

    Yet, his governorship tenure, and his executive whims, have been defined more by the crudest form of blind atavism.  He got away with one: shutting out duly elected Edo legislators, all through their entire term. 

    But he couldn’t get away with the final one.  At a most critical juncture, he’s trapped with a deputy he neither wants nor want him — and who could well have the last jeer!

    Suddenly, the dashing, all-conquering emperor finds himself naked and caged!  Yet, there’s a critical election to run!  Well, no tears from here!

    The dazed emperor and the crawling prodigal are ode to Adams Oshiomhole who, in the face of great tribulation, stayed true to his progressive beliefs.  In rare stoicism, he sat on his rights, copped tactical reversal, only to nick a strategic and golden triumph!

    The Oshiomhole Edo story shows all is not lost with our politics.  Obaseki and Shaibu?  Mere flotsam and jetsam best jettisoned for a saner epoch!