The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Banking and national economic recovery process

    Banking and national economic recovery process

    • By Godswill Iyoha Iyoke

    You shall know the Truth and the truth shall make you free”. In the subject context, only the Truth about our economic predicament and the route to get out of it can set us free from the affliction of national reproaches engendered by our economic situation.  

    Recovery is a return to normal state of health, prosperity, mind or strength. While there is no fixed or universal standard for measuring or determining normalcy, abnormality is discernible. This is particularly so, where existing situation or circumstances deviate from the norm. The norm can be socially or constitutionally deducible. The Nigerian Constitution in section 14(1) provides that the Nigerian state shall be based on “the principles of democracy and social justice”; while stipulating in section 14(2)(b) that; “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”.

    From the foregoing, the principles of democracy and social justice constitute the basis of the Nigerian state. Regrettably, the ignorance or misconception of the dynamics of these concepts is culpable for the lapses in legislative acts, executive policies and judicial processes and the socio-economic condition of the nation. While both concepts are mutually dependent, it is the actual practice of democracy that ensures social justice. Unfortunately, democracy is pervasively, misconstrued and limited to the exercise of electoral franchise. Contrary, to this notion, political activism or constitutional civilian governance is not what defines democracy’

    Democracy, which is participatory governance, presupposes that everyone is a participant in the government or the governance processes. The only process that can guarantee the participation of everyone is through the socio-economic development systems. This is constituted by the socio-economic developmental processes of innovation and ideas; production or value-addition; logistics/distribution; and consumption. Everyone is a consumer and therefore interested in development or production processes of what is consumed. Functional banking systems is the lubricant that ensures the sustenance of these processes and participation in them. It is by participation or assurance of access to these processes that social justice is achieved. Social justice is the concept that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. In the absence of social justice is disorder, as there is temptation to commit breaches in despair. Social participation through economic opportunities is what guarantees social justice, which is what a functional banking system guarantees.

    Economic recovery presupposes being in an undesirable state or condition and imperative of getting out of same. The reality of the Nigerian state is that she is in a state of social disorder. There is pervasive dissatisfaction.  While no wage earner in the public service earn enough to meet basic needs of food and shelter, the majority creative and innovative entrepreneurs have no access to financial capital to turn their ideas into consumable products. Meanwhile, even where there are products, access to the market is hindered by poor logistics facilities, which development are hampered by lack of financial capital. Even where the products are available, majority do not have sufficient financial resources to procure them. Thus, is the vicious circle of poverty and discontentment, which breed social disorder with all sorts of vices.

    Times were, when the average wage earner earned sufficient wages to meet basic needs. While unemployment was never at zero percent, most workers were in gainful employment. Just as the value of the local currency, our sense of nationalism as well as national global image was impressively high. This was a time when N600 could fetch $1000. The civil service was strong and functional. In those times, Nigeria was a donor-country and choice destination for quality tertiary education. While like in other climes, violent crimes and other acts of criminality have always been there, such acts were not as brazen and vicious as they have become. Never was Nigeria’s territorial integrity so violated, as it has been the trend in recent times. Not even immediately after the end of the Nigerian civil war, all through the General Yakubu Gowon’s era ending in 1975. There were many positives about Nigeria during the leadership of the General under whose leadership the civil war was prosecuted. There were no reprisals after the war. Despite being in arms against the rest of other Nigerian people, those from the erstwhile rebel enclave were fully reintegrated into the Nigerian society within a very short period. It was, really, inconceivable that the nation could easily recover from the many bruises of the war. In the north where many non-indigenes had lost their lives, those who had properties recovered them immediately after the war. There has been a reversal and degeneration of this situation in recent times. Nigeria is currently facing social, economic, political reproaches, both locally and globally. 

    National economic recovery implies the imperative of getting back to normalcy. A testament to this imperative is the “Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP)”, which is the major economic initiative of the Buhari-led government. The ERGP was a medium-term all-round development initiative that aims to restore economic growth, invest in Nigerians and build a globally competitive economy. Besides the semantics or nomenclature, the ERGP is the economic paths that both developed and developing economies take. Prior to the ERGP were the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP); Agriculture Development Plan as well as the National Economic Empowerment & Development Strategy (NEEDS)/State Economic Empowerment & Development Strategy (SEEDS). Despite their diverse nomenclatures, the various economic development initiatives had similar or same objectives. As good and laudable as these policy initiatives are, the implementation strategies have been faulty. Each of them is restrained or limited by the following factors.

    1. The centrist orientation of the Federal Government inspired the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) office in the presidency, which centralized and controlled the implementation of the NEEDS/SEEDS policy. Regrettably, the implementation was by intervention projects across the country. It became a mere contract-awarding bureaucracy in the presidency.

    2. Perhaps due to its low or limited impact of the NEEDS/SEEDS policy, the President Jonathan’s initiated the National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP); Agriculture Revolution Program (ARP), which were very comprehensive and conceived as Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements. 

    3. However, the APC- government of Muhammadu Buhari, from 2019 initiated the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which in all material particulars was similar to Jonathan’s National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) and the Agriculture Revolution Program (ARP). Except Jonathan’s NIRP/ARP, Obasanjo/Yar’adua’s NEEDS/SEEDS and Buhari’s ERGP were implemented by intervention projects through various agencies and institutions of the federal government.

    The ERGP, which like the NIRP/ARP of Jonathan’s, is an “all-round developmental initiative” and presupposes an ‘all-inclusive’ development program, is short in some very critical respects. The policy formulators failed to take cognizance of the absence of commercial banking in the system, which is the only avenue for the private sector to access the requisite finance to engage in the economic process. Just like Jonathan’s, President Tinubu’s emergent Economic Advisory Committee, with ‘Bankers’ have failed to reckon with the absence of functional banking system.

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    Banking is a part of social science and aspect of finance that ensures the mobilization and protection of financial capital and the provision, management, or circulation of the same for purposes of wealth creation and well-being of individuals and society. Banking, an invention of society, which facilitates the realization of social justice, is a financial system by which money owners lend involuntarily to the society at large. It is a social evolution and testament to human sophistication. Existence of a functional banking system is evidence of good governance and functional politics, whose absence is testament to a dysfunctional socio-economic order, which breeds insecurity and poverty. To avoid this situation, the framers of the Nigerian Constitution made it mandatory that; “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. These objectives constitute the articles of faith in developed or developing countries. Banking and financial services are institutionalized for these purposes. The essence of Central Bank as regulatory agency of the state is essentially to ensure the preservation of the banking systems, by ensuring the trust of the money-owners (Depositors) and discipline on the part of money-holders (Bankers). This is why the Central Bank provides mandatory prudential guidelines for banks.

    Commercial Banking is eloquent testament to the extent of mutual-human dependency, which is the key to security of state and welfare of the people. Functional financial services system is what guarantees development or productive engagement of the citizenry. Development or productivity is a function of the ability of the people to engage in any one or more of the processes or levels of development or economic activities. These are the processes of ideas, creativity or innovation; production or value-addition; logistics or distribution and consumption. The extent to which these processes go on simultaneously and the people’s engagement in them is what defines or determines economic prosperity. The whole purpose of governance or public administration is to ensure that the people are engaged or capable of engaging in either or several of the said processes and have the capacity to enjoy the benefits therefrom. This is what functional banking systems ensures. It is, indeed, the true and indispensable path to productivity, development, economic recovery and national restoration.

  • National Security: Special Intervention Squad (SIS), its impact, prospects

    National Security: Special Intervention Squad (SIS), its impact, prospects

    By Olumuyiwa Adejobi

    The development of a Nation in all areas is linked, and could be directly proportional to its security architecture and dynamism. In many areas, and by many scholars, security has not only been seen or perceived as absence of war, but the general well-being of the citizenry of that Nation, which encompasses the principles and concept of ‘The New Security Agenda.’ The components of the new security agenda include human security, environmental security, economic security, and political security, each of which is interconnected and collectively contributes to a country’s overall resilience and stability.

    In the global space, security has been so crucial to development, through which Nigeria has been prominent and relevant to Global decisions on security issues, general growth and development, most especially on African continent due to its vast geographical, demographic and resource-based strength.

    Over space and time, Nigeria has been faced with certain security challenges which could be attributed to many parameters, and dimensional nature of human, material and natural endowments. These crop of security issues have put the country, its institutions and departments on their toes with a view to proffering possible solutions as prompt as possible.

    In the words of McNamara (1968)1, “Security is not military hardware, though it may include it; security is not a military force, though it may involve it; security is not a traditional military activity, though it may encompass it, security is development, and without development, there can be no security…”

    The role and mandate at a reliable Police institution like the NPF could not be appreciated without Nigeria experiencing quick economic recovery, social integration and general developments. The nexus between our National development and active policing system is fundamental; and these could be achieved with a police that is professionally competent, service driven, rule of law compliant and people friendly -the vision statement of the IGP.

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    The above which seems like  a theory has formed the basis for  the need to key into the New Security Agenda, which prompted the Inspector General of Police, IGP Olukayode Adeolu Egbetokun, Ph.D, NPM upon assumption of office as the 22nd indigenous Inspector General of Police to envisage the creation of a special squad to augment the already existing security structure of the Force, which is geared towards combatting crimes and criminality ranging from Kidnapping, Banditry etc which has been on a rise across various regions in Nigeria. The Special Intervention Squad which is a core vision of the IGPs administration was firstly launched in Jos, Plateau State on the 29th of December, 2023 when the IGP visited for an on sight assessment of the damaged caused by armed bandits who attacked Mangu, Bokkus and Bakinladi Local Government areas on 24th Dec, 2024, Christmas Eve, where over 200 persons were killed and various properties destroyed. The activities of Special intervention squad in Plateau state has led to the arrest of various suspects who have been found to be directly involved in the attack, of which they have confessed to the crime. The IGP also ordered the deployment of the supervisory AIG ZONE 4 to Plateau State to oversee the affairs of the Intervention squad in combatting these crimes and to put to maximum use all the assets and resources at their disposal, make the State inhabitable for criminal elements and restore normalcy to the State.

     The Inspector General of Police, IGP Olukayode Adeolu Egbetokun Ph.D, NPM in the same vein on 17th January, 2024 launched the Special Investigation Squad for the FCT ably supervised by the DIG Operations Ede Ayuba and commenced immediate operations in the FCT and its environs. The IGP while recapitulating the need to control the influx of armed criminals and hoodlums into the FCT prerequisite to combatting these crimes of banditry and Kidnapping, ordered the posting of men of the intervention squad and assets to border communities connecting other states like Niger, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Benue, Kogi as the criminal elements leverage on the multiple boundaries and proximity of the FCT to the boundary states, to perpetrate their criminal and evil acts, which are however surmountable.

    The intervention team commanded by CP Benneth Igweh, mni, who are in high spirit to fulfil the mandate of the IGP, combed Kawu, Kuchikau, Bwari, Nigerian Law School, Verias University, Claritian Missionary Seminary, Zuma I, Zuma II, Iguh areas of the FCT which are known areas for terrorist and bandit activities. They later proceeded to Tafa, Gauraka, Garam areas of Niger state and other boundary areas of Kaduna state for similar operations.

     Covert Operations of the Special Intervention squad on the 18th January, 2024 at about 0010HRS led to the interception of one Grey Toyota Hilux Van with Reg No RBC90DC Abuja carrying four passengers, driver inclusive, upon sighting the Policemen, one of the kidnappers opened fire on the men in an effort to escape but superior fire power of the squad led to the rescue of one SEGUN AKINYEMI who was kidnapped in Abuja and was being taken to Kano state. One Chinaza Philip of Life Camp Abuja was arrested while 2 G17 model pistols, one Beretta pistol, ten (10) 9mm P.A.K ammunition, and five (5) 9mm special ammunition were recovered from the kidnappers as effort is in top gear to locate and arrest the fleeing members of the gang who managed to escape in a white Mercedes Benz.

    The SIS in conjunction with the Department of Force Intelligence – Intelligence Response Team (FID-IRT), the FCT Command Anti-Violent Crimes Section, Anti-kidnapping Section and neighbouring State Commands, in a concerted effort with troops of the Nigerian Army, on the heels of the kidnappers that struck the Zuma 1 area in the Bwari Area Council on the 2nd of January 2024, the Police has successfully rescued the Victims around kajuru forest in Kaduna state at about 11:30 pm on Saturday 20th January 2024. The rigorous well-calculated rescue operation was coordinated by the recently launched NPF Special Intervention Squad. The victims have been reunited with their families.

    Similarly, the SIS has successfully rescued four (4) other kidnap victims within the FCT. One of the victims, one Suleiman Sabo, was rescued in Sauka, along Airport Road while Muhammed Abel who was responsible for his kidnap was arrested with one (1) MK 1 Rifle and ten (10) rounds of live ammunition. Two (2) victims abducted from the residence of Barr. Cyprian Adikwu at Army Post Service Housing Estate, Phase 2 Extension Hilltop Kurudu on 18th January, 2024, and one Gideon Nanjul reportedly abducted on 19th January, 2024 were all released on 20th January, 2024 at about 0845hrs as a result of tireless efforts and pressure mounted by Police Operatives in conjunction with vigilante and hunters around Kurudu and Azhata Village. Victims have been reunited with their family members.

    On the 20/01/2024 at about 2200HRS, DPO Tafa Division, Kaduna State  acting upon credible intelligence led a team of patrol men to Easy Way Hotel in his AOR where one BELLO MUHAMMED ‘M’ aged 28YRS from Zamfara State was arrested in Possession of 2,025,000 (Two Million, twenty Five Thousand Naira). Upon interrogation, he confessed to being a kidnapper and when his phone was profiled, a picture of him holding an AK-47 Rifle inside the bush was found.

    Operatives of the special intervention squad on 24/01/2024 at about 0530hrs in conjunction with officers of Robuchi Division, anti-kidnapping unit of FCT Command, Vigilantes stormed kidnappers camp located at Ukya Village Nasarawa bordering with FCT, bandits upon sighting the operatives engaged them in a gun duel which resulted to the rescue of fourteen (14) hostages unhurt. All victims have been reunited with their families.

    In recent development in Mangu area of Plateau State which was attacked by hoodlums on the 24th of January, 2024, operative of the SIS deployed to the area swung into action, preventing further attacks and have arrested Nine (9) suspects in connection to the recent attack, recovered from them were dangerous weapons including machetes, petrol kegs, which is suspected to have been used by the hoodlums to set fire on houses in the area. Normalcy has been restored and security operatives are fully on ground to thwart any further attack.

    On the 28/01/2024 at about 630hrs, one Peter Ede in company of one ThankGod Ogunyi both of Piwoyi Lugbe area reported at Karmo Division FCT, that on same date at about 0150hrs while praying at Idu Gbagyi area some hoodlums numbering seven (7) armed with guns and cutlasses attacked them and abducted three (3) of ther members to unknown destination. Upon receipt operatives of SIS, DPO Karmo alongside vigilantes swung into action, engaged the hoodlums in a fierce gun battle leading tot the rescue of the three (3) abducted victims, namely; one Igbodi Emeka ‘M’, Precious Uche ‘F’, and Eric Chukwudi ‘M’ unhurt and have been reunited with their families.

    In the space of two (2) weeks till date, operatives of the Police tactical squads, FID-1RT, FID STS alongside operatives of the Special Intervention Squad (SIS) have successfully arrested a total number of twenty six (26) suspects for various offences ranging from Kinapping, Cultism, Gun Running, Unlawful Possession of Firearms, Armed Robbery amongst others in its efforts to clampdown on criminal elements in the FCT and its environs. The following exhibits were recovered from the suspects; 10 military camouflage uniforms, 10 camel bags, 12 military hats, 6 military cardigans, 3 anklets, 2 military belts, 13 AK-47 rifles, 6 AK-49 rifles, 2 SMG rifles, 1 LAR rifle, 1 locally fabricated AK-47 rifle, 1 Revolver Pistol, 290 rounds of AK-47 live ammunitions, 4 AK-47 Magazines, 2 SMG Magazines, 1 LAR Magazine, cash sum of N2.2 million Naira, a bag containing several illicit drugs, 2 Pump action rifles, 1 dane gun, 2 volkswagen Golf cars, 1 gun-like wood carving.

    Embracing the new security agenda is not just a choice but a necessity for Nigeria’s stability, development, progress and the well-being of its citizens. The interconnectedness of security challenges demands a paradigm shift from traditional approaches to a more integrated and intelligence-driven strategy. The path which the present Inspector-General of Police is towing to reposition the NPF in actualizing its mandates and regain its primacy in the internal security business of our dear country. These challenges are not isolated but are interconnected, and addressing one aspect often triggers complexity, ambiguity and security gaps. The overview and prospective possibilities must be holistic and all-encompassing should any change be achieved.

    The journey towards a more secure Nigeria calls for sustained efforts, collaboration among security operatives and comradeship for combating crimes. As Nigeria navigates the complex global realities, our new security agenda must reflect our commitment to adaptability, collaboration, and foresight. The path ahead is challenging, but with determination and a united effort, Nigeria will navigate these challenges and secure a safer and more prosperous future for its citizens and the global community. Nigeria is embarking on a new security agenda that addresses these complex challenges which also requires drastic approach such as the invention of a Special Intervention Squad SIS by the IGP, whose main duty is to take the ”war” to the door steps of these criminals, completely flush them out in FCT and its environs, similar operations will be launched in every other State across Nigeria. The fight against insecurity in Nigeria is our collective responsibility.

    ·               ACP ADEJOBI, is a Public Relations Practitioner, Security Expert and member Society for Peace Studies and Practice. Email: princemoye@gmail.com

  • Nigeria leads Africa’s mining sector resurgence

    Nigeria leads Africa’s mining sector resurgence

    By Segun Tomori

    The 30th edition of “Investing in Mining Indaba” recently held in Cape Town, South Africa provided another opportunity for African countries through their Ministers of Solid Minerals/Mineral Resources to consolidate on the pact to forge a common front in projecting the continent’s interest in the global mining industry. Nigeria and Uganda had led over a dozen other African countries into a coalition, early January, on the sidelines of the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to make a case for local value addition and maximum beneficiation from its vast mineral resources for citizens and member countries.

    The coalition gave rise to the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) and Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake was unanimously elected as the pioneer chairman on the sidelines of the mining conference in South Africa. Moving swiftly to rally his colleagues for concerted action, Alake declared that the era of carting away solid minerals without commensurate value addition to develop Africa’s economy is over.

    His words, “We must speak with one voice on value addition as a prerequisite for investment in the mining sector. Let those who want our minerals know that if you go to country A, you have the same regulations and laws guiding the sector. You go to country B; you find the same. So, there is no divide and rule anymore. That is when we can show sincerity of purpose, and the world will begin to take Africa seriously. On behalf of our president, I pledge our full support to achieve our objectives”.

    Doubling down on the resolve of the African continent, the Minister whilst speaking as a panelist on the theme, “ Positioning Africa to Succeed in Diversifying  Global Value Chains”, emphasized the necessity of creating the value chain from exploration, to mining, processing, inventory management, transportation and then delivery to the end-consumer. “All these processes require infrastructure, and in my engagement with private sector players over time, I have discovered that a lot of them prefer to engage in investments in mining sites close to ports. That means there is a need for transportation – roads and rails. I’m thinking that the best approach is to collaborate with consumer nations who need these raw materials on the provision of infrastructure without jeopardizing local value addition”, he added.

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    Highlighting why Nigeria should be the destination of choice for prospective investors in the Lithium value chain , Alake stressed that the country is experiencing a “Lithium boom” citing the preponderance of the critical metal in several localities, which he noted are literarily on the surface of the earth, in most locations. “This will culminate in lower production costs for extraction compared to other countries.”

    Whilst reiterating the need for Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in cahoots with multilateral financial institutions to unlock the requisite funding for mining sector development, the Minister informed his audience that Nigeria has taken the lead with the establishment of the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF) to build the capacity of local investors to engage in minerals exploitation. “The SMDF is also in partnership with the African Finance Corporation (AFC). This body has been responsible for encouraging local investment in the mining sector, and appreciable results are coming in. They are also through the AFC involved in the Lobito corridor involving Angola, Zambia, and DRC. We are encouraging the same corridor to be put in West Africa, starting with Nigeria because we have these mineral resources in abundance”.

    Speaking further on financing, Alake charged African countries to take a cue from Nigeria by taking a critical look at the SMDF model. “While we look forward to the foreign financial institutions, I will recommend to other African countries to also look inwards. The SMDF in Nigeria is sourcing its funds from other economic engagements. I will recommend this policy initiative to other African countries”.

    Back home in Nigeria, reforms of President Bola Tinubu on the mining sector are gathering momentum. Just recently, an inter-ministerial committee tasked with developing a blueprint for securing natural resources established by the president and chaired by Dr. Alake has since swung into action. The administration envisages the setting up of a specialized security outfit made up of well trained operatives, equipped with requisite technology and ammunitions that will secure natural resources comprising solid minerals, forest flora and fauna, and  the marine economy.  The last meeting involved heads of security agencies, and they were given time line to come up with a robust action plan that will assist the committee in turning in its report.

    In line with the Minister’s 7-point agenda, plans are ongoing to bequeath an efficient governance structure for the mining sector with the establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) tentatively called Nigerian Mining Corporation. The corporation is conceptualized to be private sector driven, with cumulative equity for the private sector pegged at 50%, the government 25% and the Nigerian public 25% respectively . Learning from past experiences, this model is designed to minimize government interference and guarantee the corporation’s efficiency and stability, even beyond any administration.

    Already, the National Assembly through the House of Representatives has begun the process of amending the 2007 Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act in collaboration with the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development. When the amendment is concluded, the proposed mining corporation and other reforms will be backed by relevant statutes. Just last week, the House Committee on solid minerals organised a public hearing on the bill for amendment of the mining act and took submissions from top officials, agencies of the ministry, mining industry stakeholders, amongst others.

    During a recent interview with Channels TV, Dr. Alake hinted at an impending revocation of more mining licenses. It will be recalled that late last year, 1,633 mining licenses were revoked due to default in payment of annual service fees, and he had vowed to wield the big stick on other categories of defaulters. This is necessary as part of efforts to free up the space for genuine investors and those who are ready to abide by regulations.

    In all of these, what is not in doubt is that Nigeria is playing a pivotal role in Africa’s mining sector renaissance. Summing up the new direction as chair of the AMSG during Cape Town’s Mining Indaba, Alake affirmed, “We are sanitizing the mining environment, creating the enabling environment to attract investments whether local or foreign. This time around, emphasis will be on local value addition. So that henceforth, Africa can gain maximally from its abundant natural resources”.

     ● Tomori is the Special Assistant on Media to the Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals Development.

  • Papa/Mama Wigwe: Why do bad things happen to good people?

    Papa/Mama Wigwe: Why do bad things happen to good people?

    No amount of condolences, prayers, sympathies and commiseration could ever fathom the depth of the grief of Papa Shyngle and Mama Stella Wigwe. And the reason is simple: no parents should ever have to bury any of their children. The reverse should always be the case. And this is a deep principle of humanity that is not restricted by culture or society. It is just simply the natural order of things. It is fundamental—and indeed a thing of joy for all parents—that they would be buried by their children. When the reverse happens, and one loses a child, then the entirety of one’s existence is shrunk into that indissoluble vacuum of pain and grief. The depth of that sorrow becomes bottomless when one loses more than one child. Since I heard about the terrible calamity that befell this beautiful octogenarian couple, I have come to fathom the depth of what Aeschylus, the ancient Greek tragedian, meant when he said, “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.”

    This brief statement sums up the depth of the bereavement of Papa and Mama Wigwe: their minds would be clouded simultaneously with remembrances of the births of their sons, their upbringing and naughtiness while growing up, their struggles to raise them as godly as God would permit, their collective memories of moments of joys and happy events and incidences, their family traditions and Christian values, the successes of their children, and many more. All this while their entire being register as starkly as it can the fact that a second child just died with his family when they had barely dealt with the pain of losing the first one. But there is more. Papa and Mama Wigwe are solid Christians. I can attest to that. And they have been serving God for as long as my memory of relating with them (albeit from a distance) could permit. Since this tragic incidence happened, the first verse of the first chapter of Job has run ceaselessly in my mind: “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” This is my summation of Papa and Mama Wigwe.

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    And yet, they lost two children. The story of Job is one of the most challenging books of the Bible. And its challenge is purely because of demonstrating one of the cornerstones of a deep theological paradox: how could a good God create a world that is filled with evil, or even permit those committed to him to be ravaged by such evils? Since God created the world and certified that his creation is good, how did evil creep in? The problem of evil in a world created by a good God has troubled Christian theologians and apologetics, from St. Augustine to Ravi Zacharias, for centuries. Losing two fully grown children that one had trained to such a period in their lives does not square with the joy of bringing them into the world and the sacrifices of upbringing. And yet, Osita and Herbert left their parents in the world.

    The theological problem caused by the life and trauma of Job in the bible also raises a larger philosophical question I will like to touch in this lamentation. For anyone who has read the book of Job and has witnessed the tragedy that good people have encountered in life, the question is: why do bad things keep happening to good people? Papa and Mama Wigwe are good people. Both have been together for 56 six years, more than five decades of a love story sweetened by the birth of six children, including Osita and Herbert. When in an interview, Papa reminisced about Osita— “That boy was one in a million. He had the attributes of a daughter; he had the attributes of a son. He was a solution provider to all family problems”—I have a deep and intimate sense of what Papa Wigwe was talking about. I encountered Osita as a graduate student at the University of Ibadan (he was then a final-year engineering student), and I knew him deeply at many of his beautiful and humane personality. Pa Wigwe was then the DG at the Nigerian Television Authority, and that was how I met him and Mama for the first time.

    Osita was a very brilliant young man. I know this because we were both members of the University of Ibadan debating team, and I had a first-hand experience of how an engineering student could be so deeply knowledgeable and magisterial in a field usually dominated by students from the humanities and the social sciences. When I raised the issue of why he was an engineering student and not in, say, the humanities, his response gave me a solid insight into the deep flow of affection between father and son, and how that led to Osita’s desire to follow in the footsteps of his father the engineer. During a period when I was still searching for an intellectual enlightenment, rather than a spiritual one, I was immensely fascinated with Osita Wigwe, his intellectual brilliance, deep family values and pure spiritual commitment. It was essentially due to him that I visited the RCCG for the first time in 1986, and would eventually become a staunch member much later. Which was why I was baffled and very confused as to how such a spiritual father could experience the death of such a godly son—the same way I could still never wrap my head round the death of Pastor Enoch Adeboye’s son, Dare. And then twenty-seven years later after Osita’s demise, as if God still has some unfathomable purpose for Pa and Ma Wigwe, Osita’s kid-brother is taken.

    Questions and more puzzling questions. Who knows why the Almighty would allow Job to be tempted? Who knows why sit-tight African leaders, the very incarnate of the diabolical, who sit on the people’s democratic liberation, would just not topple over and be transited? Job imparted an everlasting lesson that each one of us increasingly come to internalize and try as much as we have it within us to live with: humans are born to troubles. In philosophical terms, for Fredrich Nietzsche, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” This is one juncture where the pastoral calling would be a heavy burden for Papa and Mama Wigwe to bear. This is a time when it would be justified for even a role model with a spiritual responsibility to give vent to his or her doubts and frustrations with life and with God. This is a Job moment. It is a moment to reflect back to June 5, 1997, drag that reflection to the fiery trauma of February 9, 2023, and then try to connect the dots in existential and spiritual terms. Where could the hands of the Almighty be in all this? How could the meaning and purpose be uncovered?

    Eventually, we all—believers, agnostics and non-believers alike—must bow before the inscrutable universe, and the denseness of the mystery that pervades all we have to deal with in life. For Christians, “great is the mystery of godliness” (I Timothy 3:16). Great is also the mystery of why good people like Papa and Mama Wigwe needed to suffer the death of two sons. We can theorize all we want about why terrible and traumatic things happen to good people. And yet we must eventually just accept that we are powerless against the Divine Mind that crafted a world where humans have survived—borne on the wings of faith—the harshest, cruelest and most challenging of all trials. Indeed, there are those who have passed through the excruciating valley of the shadow of death, but received grace and mercy to look back in gratitude for God’s deep wisdom in holding the world together, and holding us together at the critical moments of our needs.

    Now close to their nine decades in life, Papa Shyngle and Mama Stella Wigwe have walked with God for far too long not to be able to recognize His presence at this moment of unbearable sorrow—no matter how dim that presence might be now. No matter how intrusive and heavy the question of why the hand of the Almighty was heavy upon them, they must find comfort in Jesus’ sorrowful lamentation on the cross: “My Father, my Father, why have you forsaken me?” Papa and Mama Wigwe are knowledgeable about the purpose behind the crucifixion of the Lord; may they be able to find a good grip on God’s wisdom that mold us all in the fiery furnace of life.

    Let me conclude this difficult homily with William Blake, the English poet: “Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?” But I ask: How much sympathy, weeping, lamentation or homilies can comfort one in perplexing loss? We can only drown our grief in the assurance that God—the owner of the universe and our lives—knows what he is doing.

    When peace like a river attendeth my way,

    when sorrows like sea billows roll;

    whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,

    “It is well, it is well with my soul.”

    It is well with Papa Shyngle and Mama Stella; it is well with the entire Wigwe family.

    • Prof. Olaopa, Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja

  • Is that thing ahead of us scary?

    Is that thing ahead of us scary?

    By Yomi Odunuga

    If there was ever a time that Nigeria requires the services of its best brains in the business of inspirational or motivational speaking, it is now. The nation needs all the positive vibes it can garner to enable it gain some strength in its wobbly legs. Unfortunately, such inspirational speeches are expressly lacking in the leadership style of those who, over the years, got Nigeria into the mess that has now ballooned into a clear and present threat to our collective existence as a nation. Where one had expected the leadership to own up to its failures, make genuine and spirited efforts to galvanize the citizenry into action amid the grave economic and food crises that we have found ourselves, it is amazing that most of them have resorted to the time-worn antics of playing the blame game. This is simply not just about Rome burning while the emperor fiddles , it is more about a complete lack of tact at the various levels of leadership interventions as the situation worsens by the day.

    If anyone was living in denial before about how fast the nation is drifting towards an implosion, recent happenings ought to have perished such thoughts. First is the gradual slope of the Naira against the dollar and the other is the scary volatility in the prices of food items and essential commodities. Obviously, the millions struggling to eat as well as the average Nigerian family struggling to fund a child’s university education in yonder shores have never had it this bad. The optics is truly bad for those who care to see it the way it is. In simple English, Nigerians are not smiling. And, as they put it in the local lingo, ‘sapa’ is real across the land.

    Read Also; Why is Southwest neglecting agriculture? (2)

    Let’s get some facts right. We would be wrong to lay the blame of the present scary economic hardship – a product of years of fiscal negligence and economic mismanagement – at the footsteps of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration as many of his critics would want us to believe. And it would be very naïve to assume that all our governors and top bureaucrats who are privileged to play key roles in managing our resources share President Tinubu’s populist concerns. With the withdrawal of oil subsidy, governors and other top officials now have increasingly huge billions to play around with. Some are excellent, people-focused performers but some too, are only good at making only little or no positive impact on their people and each time they meet to share the monthly federal statutory allocation, more sackfuls of Naira appear to  be chasing the dollar and all we get is a worsening exchange rate. “With the removal of fuel subsidy, more volumes of naira are being shared by the federal, state and local governments and some of these monies are changed to dollars at the parallel market, ” Jude Idimogu, an APC chieftain was quoted as saying in a very recent news publication.

    Some alert, data-sensitive and objective patriots note that it has become evident that an inverse relationship exists between the amount of money disbursed by the government through FAAC and the stability of the naira-dollar exchange rate at the black market across Nigeria. Following disbursements of N907.1 billion last June, N966.1 billion in July, N1.1 trillion in August, and N903.4 billion in September, the exchange rate consistently depreciated from N825/$ to N1,140/$ by October. Similarly, disbursements of N906.9 billion last October, N1.09 trillion in November, and N1.13 trillion in December coincided with further decline in the exchange rate, reaching N1,415/$ by January. These patterns raise concerns about the diversion of funds to foreign currency by state governments, highlighting a lack of concerted efforts to address underlying economic challenges.

    We do not need to play politics with such a serious matter by deploying dumb hypotheses. Yes, the buck stops with the president and he has to find a way of navigating the country from a seeming imminent collapse. That is his responsibility and there is no way he can run away from that duty. After all, it should be clear to anyone who wants to rule Nigeria that The Presidency is not a retirement home for those who want to enjoy the good life. It is not a tea party at all even if, President after President, teeth-picking has become a major letdown of subtle presidential arrogance. Sometimes, they are so far removed from the realities of daily shuffling as nothing seems to affect their larger than life embrace of ‘soft life.’

    Be that as it many, what we all must accept is that what we are dealing with is the outcome of the many years of systemic abuse in our governance structure where leaders are presumed, ab-initio, to be exceptionally imbued with the mystic power of infallibility. It matters less if such leader’s expertise is in wood carving. As long as he has been appointed as President, he is not just the Commander-In-Chief; he is elevated to some sort of tin god with the magical wand to solve all problems. Though the constitution empowers him to appoint qualified assistants that would make his job easier, he is not under any obligations to listen to such advice no matter how sound. The buck stops with him. He is the unseen but powerful manipulator at the oil and gas sector; in the Central Bank; at the Finance sector and every other sector with a retinue of aides who dare not change his policy directives. That is how we got here. This journey of self-destruct started in 1999 and it has been nose-diving since then.

    Yet, the excuse above cannot and should not be a justification to wish away the crying incompetence that has been on display ever since the decision was made to allow the Naira to embark on a free-floating dance of shame. In fact, one would have thought that the eggheads that said the Naira needed to breathe and that the heist called fuel subsidy must be allowed to die naturally do have the best mechanism to ameliorate the anticipated sufferings that would be the lot of millions of impoverished Nigerians who are the direct victims of such harsh but inevitable decisions as we were told. Eight months after, we are all peeping from the dark. No one is sure anymore. Before the dual tragedy of subsidy removal and floating of the Naira, 50kg of local rice was sold at N28,000. Today, the same bag of rice costs between N67,000 and N70,000. The more assorted varieties eaten by the families of those in power are being sold between N80,000 and N85,000 per 50kg bag. Yet, the minimum wage is stagnant at N30,000 monthly. As it is today, any civil servant who buys a 25kg bag of rice would need to add money to his one month’s salary and such persons should be probed. The other day in an abattoir in Abuja, families gather to buy a cow at over N800,000. It wasn’t as if each family went home with bowls full of meat. Let those who are still living in the cyberspace of doubt ask how much they sell baskets of tomatoes, pepper, onions and other food items at the so-called fruit markets across the nation. Cement was sold for N4700 before May 29. It is now hovering between N8,000 and N9,000. The prices of iron rods and other building materials have hit the rooftops and the impacts on the quality of buildings would soon be seen in a country where contractors have perfected the art of managing materials. Nigerians are groaning under the yoke of the hardship inflicted on them by those policies.

    When people say they are scared of Nigeria’s future should things be allowed to go on this free fall, it is exactly because they are not seeing, in concrete terms, whatever the government says it is doing to stop the drift. Daily the naira keeps losing the battle against the dollar. In May 29, 2023, it was just about N700 to a dollar at the official market. Slowly and gradually, it zoomed past the N1,000 mark as the British Pound Sterling knocked over N1,200 to a Pound Sterling. Today, as I write this, it is N1,800 to a dollar while the Pound Sterling sells at N2,100. And, right before our very eyes, the Naira may soon become a worthless piece of paper regardless of the CBN’s publicized yeoman’s efforts at redeeming a national currency that was said to have been ‘highly undervalued’ by Olayemi Cardozo, the new man at the helm of affairs at the apex bank after Godwin Emefiele’s pathetic eight years of impetuousness with President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration goading him on in a seeming drive to kill the naira. From June 24, 2023 to date, the Nigerian Customs Service has adjusted the exchange rate from N422 to a dollar; then to N589 and, on July 6, 2023 to N770. On November 14, 2023, it went to N783 and then N951 by December 7. Few days ago, the same CBN announced the adjustment and approval of the dollar exchange rate for the Nigerian Customs Service at N1,605.82.

    Now, is there still anyone in the corridors of power that does not know the implication of this on our economy and how this would affect inflation? Of course, importers and exporters of goods and services would have to adjust to the realities of the market pricing mechanism while those who trade in naira and dollars would also up the game. It is for that reason that a car that was cleared with less than a million naira in April, 2023 and sold for about N3.5M would now be sold for over N9M at the car mart, eight months on. The simple economic theory is to sell what you buy and make profit. The same thing goes for the prices of imported materials and locally made ones in which the manufacturers rely on imported raw materials bought in hard currencies that were purchased on the streets! Or is the CBN pretending not to know how the raw dollars they give the banks to trade with at official rates get to the open foreign exchange markets? Are those in positions of authority feigning ignorance about how the monthly FAAC release to state governments get exchanged into dollars and get hidden in private vaults or freighted away thereby sabotaging the system? Don’t they know the ripple effect on the populace and its negative impact on economic projections?  How does the government expect a 2024 budgetary forecast based on a N700 per dollar rate to reflect growth and possible bullishness when, two months into the year, it has ballooned into over N1600 at the official rate? Is such a budget realistic again?

    You know, I laugh whenever I read comments by the men in power blaming political opponents or sore losers as sponsors of the raging protests over the astronomical cost of living in Nigeria. They miss the point. Sapa (hunger) is real. Nigerians are hungry and they are justifiably angry. They are not laughing in the streets at all. The likes of Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, might not understand how deep the gnashing of teeth has become. The kind of hunger in the land does not separate the supporters of the All Progressives Congress from that of the Peoples Democratic Party or the Labour Party. It is a gripping hunger that has turned otherwise respectable men and women into beggars.

    If, like Akpabio frothed, these forces were the ones shielding the government’s efforts to ameliorate the problem from the eyes of the suffering masses, then it means the government, including the legislature, do not have any reason staying a day longer than necessary in that office. By the way, can someone tell Akpabio to have the decency to keep buccal cavity shut and allow the executive fix it’s self-created economic dysfunctions. It is not the responsibility of the people to engage in a supremacy battle with those the government has identified as saboteurs of its good intentions for the masses. That is the reason why a government is put in place, especially one that has been playing different roles since the inception of democratic governance in May 29, 1999. Every time the government says saboteurs are behind its lethargic impotence at discharging assigned responsibilities, it sounds as if these saboteurs live in another planet and, therefore, untouchable. Yet, when another election comes, the saboteurs would be punched into surrender by these same apologists!

    After the dusts had settled regarding issues relating to the elections, it would be tragic if all the government can do is to sit on its hands, offering unsolicited excuses about the activities of its political detractors to derail its programmes for a better life for the people. That cannot be in the mix. That would be shifting the goal post after a goal has been recorded by the referee. Is the government saying it doesn’t have the capacity to enforce law, order, and decency and create an enabling environment that is safe enough to drive a nation’s collective economic and political growth? Isn’t that a scary prognosis even at its imaginative best?

  • Adebisi Afolayan: mother-tongue-medium education icon

    Adebisi Afolayan: mother-tongue-medium education icon

    February 21 every year is International Mother Language Day. A United Nations (UN) document on observances of days and weeks declares as follows: “The United Nations designates specific days, weeks, years and decades as occasions to mark particular events or topics in order to promote, through awareness and action, the objectives of the Organization. Usually, it is one or more Member States that propose these observances and the General Assembly establishes them with a resolution.” 

    The UN notes in addition: “International Mother Language Day was proclaimedby the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999. The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh. The UN General Assembly welcomed the proclamation of the day in its resolutionof 2002.”

    In another document, the UN states: “International Mother Language Day… underscores the role of languages in promoting inclusion and achieving Sustainable development Goals. Multilingual education policies, highlighted in the 2024 theme ‘Multilingual education – a pillar of learning and intergenerational learning’, are crucial for inclusive education and the preservation of indigenous languages. By starting education in the learner’s mother tongue and gradually introducing other languages, barriers between home and school are bridged, facilitating effective learning.  Multilingual education not only promotes inclusive societies but also aids in preserving non-dominant, minority, and indigenous languages. It is a cornerstone for achieving equitable access to education and lifelong learning opportunities for all individuals.”

    In consonance with the recognition of the benefits of providing education in mother-tongue medium, a 9 December, 2022 editorial of Daily Trust stated as follows about the then-Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu: “In another attempt to ease knowledge acquisition for learners in Nigerian schools, the federal government recently approved a new National Language Policy that seeks to make mother-tongue a compulsory medium of instruction in the first six years of basic education; from primary 1 to 6. Addressing reporters after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said mother-tongue would be used exclusively for the first six years of education; adding that it would be combined with English language from Junior Secondary School.”

    Read Also; Why is Southwest neglecting agriculture? (2)

    The editorial further stated: “Adamu, however, said the policy could only be fully implemented when government developed instructional materials and provided qualified teachers. He noted that the decision is only in principle for now as it would require a lot of work to implement. Although the minister declared that all Nigerian languages are equal and shall be treated as such, he was quick to add that the mother-tongue to be used in each school would be the dominant language spoken by the community where it is located.”

    Relatedly, at the 10th Annual Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Lecture Series organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation and held in Maiduguri on 27 January, 2024, the Governor of Niger State, Mallam Muhammad Umaru Bago, referred to the Chinese and Malaysian experiences in which education in the mother tongue has been the pivot of development. He then asked rhetorically with respect to Nigeria: “We need to decide to say do we need to speak English in our schools, so that we don’t waste another 7 years trying to learn English?”

    The former Minister of Education and the incumbent Governor of Niger State have a worthy forebear in Professor Adebisi Afolayan. Indicated by a close source as being in his late nineties now, Professor Afolayan, former Head of the Department of English and Faculty of Arts at Obafemi Awolowo University (O.A.U.), is not just a Language and Education academic and intellectual, he is a mother-tongue-medium education advocate, ‘activist’ and icon. Together with his equally innovative academic and intellectual colleague at O.A.U., the late former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University and later Minister of Education, Professor Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, Professor Afolayan embarked on a research project to test the hypothesis that children would learn more effectively and better develop optimal self-esteem if they were taught exclusively in the mother tongue at the early stage of education. This project which was named “The 6-Year Primary Education Project” ran from 1970 to 1978.  

    A 62-page unpublished 1970 document by Professor Adebisi Afolayan details different aspects of the project, and is entitled, “The Six-Year Primary Project in the Use of Yoruba as the Medium of Primary Education: A Project of the Institute of Education of the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, in Collaboration with the Ford Foundation, the Western State Ministry of Education, the Local School Board, and All Available Scholars of Yoruba and English Studies.” On 9 February, 2024, at O.AU., Ile-Ife, a book presentation was organised in honour of this icon of mother-tongue medium education and Coordinator of the pilot project, Professor Afolayan. The title of the 713-page book is Adebisi Afolayan: The Celebration of a Legend – His Life, Works and Everything In-between. It is authored by Michael Oladejo Afolayan (with a Foreword by Toyin Falola), and is published by Pan-African University Press in Austin, Texas, and Ibadan in 2024.

    Of particular interest is Chapter 8 of the book. It is entitled “A History of the Six-Year Primary Project in the Use of Yoruba as the Medium of Primary Education,” and is authored by the famous historian Professor Toyin Falola and the notable Professor of Linguistics and Education Michael Oladejo Afolayan. According to these authors, “Afolayan identifies four problems that faced his team of experts, who were selected from various fields: The provision of an adequate syllabus; the availability of adequate textbooks; the supply of adequate teachers; and experimental and technical difficulties. All of these differ a great deal from the even more complicated issue of political will …The political will as well as anachronistic views of consumers, especially parents, who were already ingrained into the culture of total dependency on the colonial education and what it considers as the retrogressive and delimiting factors of a mother tongue education for their children, militated against the embrace of mother tongue education.”

    Professors Toyin Falola and Oladejo Afolayan note further: “The Six-Year Primary Project sadly did not go beyond the initial experimental stage and never experienced implementations at any appreciable large scale known to us. Yet, it was not a wasted effort because among products of the experiments were some of the finest professionals uniquely endowed in their individual calls of life. Chief among those success stories is the famous musician, saxophonist and choreographer popularly known as Lagbaja, whose unique model of musical performance and theatricality has been nonpareil in the Black world.”

    It is quite thoughtful that in the month in which the UN-declared Mother Language Day was celebrated worldwide, the legendary Mother tongue education advocate, Professor Adebisi Afolayan, was also honoured by beneficiaries of his mentorship. As one of his mentors, the late Professor Femi Akindele put it in a 1994 citation when Professor Afolayan was retiring from the services of O.A.U., “To put it mildly, he made most of us in the Department of English today.” Support for Professor Akindele’s claim is not difficult to find.

    Professor Adebisi Afolayan was the one who, forcefully arguing the need for “special dispensation”, got about twelve of us employed as Graduate Assistants in 1982, at a time the Senate of the University had taken a decision against appointing lecturers into that cadre. Professor Afolayan believed the decision was not in the best interest of the University, and he tenaciously argued his support for our appointment. And Baba, as Professor Afolayan is fondly called, was a powerful ‘debater’. He would argue his points logically, citing minutes of meetings of very many years ago that many members would probably have lost sight of or forgotten and with his characteristic “let’s see how you would beat this argument” gesticulations and other reinforcing non-verbal language.

    Baba achieved that feat, because he was never afraid to stand alone. As a Business Growth Leader, A.G. Danish, states, “In a world where conformity often feels like the easiest path, it takes remarkable courage to stand alone, [and] those who dare to stand apart from the crowd are the ones who make a significant impact on the world.” Not minding the cost in criticism and confronting adversity, Professor Adebisi Afolayan could stand alone on any matter and in any forum, regularly validating the Orwellian dictum that “Sanity is not statistical.”

    In his reminiscences of Professor Afolayan’s heydays, a Professor of Linguistics, Akeem Salawu, remarked: “I could recall the energy and excellent teaching ability of Baba Agba when he taught me EGL 101 in 1985… Baba taught us all aspects of English studies in Part 1.” Yes. Professor Adebisi Afolayan believed that the most competent, most skilled and most experienced of the lecturers in a department should be the ones to teach Part 1 courses, so that the new students could have exposure to the best ideas on every subject in the department, have a solid foundation of scholarship in the academic field and enjoy a good first impression of university life, through the guidance of the most mature minds available.

    Professor Afolayan is a devout Christian. And there were testimonies to this by lay people and Christian clergy. But the clearest indication of Baba’s identification with and devotion to Christianity is that even masked ace musician Lagbaja, in his performance at the book presentation, raised Christian hymns which the audience chorused heartily and to which they danced in unmistakable and infectious joy. Notwithstanding his Christian credentials, Professor Afolayan was father to all and he nurtured us in our academic and intellectual infancy. Mama, his darling wife, was mother to us all, as well.

    So, they both quite well deserve the prayer which the Qur’an, Chapter 17, Verse 24 exhorts a Muslim to offer for their parents: “My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up when I was young.” This prayer is apposite in the light of the Qur’an, Chapter 36, Verse 68, which says, “And those to whom We grant long life, We revert them to a state of weakness.” When I consider how our physically agile and intellectually robust Baba, who is now in his late 90s, has responded to the dictates of nature, I can only say, “God is great.”

    The legacy which Professor Adebisi Afolayan and his team on the mother tongue medium education project has left for posterity is to indicate what is desirable, show how it can be done and point to the amazing products of its experimentation in the Southwest. It is hoped that our present crop of leaders would take up the challenge from there by convening broad-based summits of intellectuals, educational administrators and other education stakeholders to make the nationwide implementation of the noble mother tongue medium education proposition a reality in due course.  

  • Words uttered are altars (2)

    Words uttered are altars (2)

    By Henry Adelegan

    Text: “….As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you” – Numbers 14:28

    From our text, God told Moses and Aaron that what the Israelites grumbled about must be their possession. He cursed them that anyone who is above 20years of age will die in the wilderness and their young ones will embark on a journey of 40days for 40years. Beloved, God honors our confessed words, and we are expected, as His children, to confess His promises irrespective of what we are seeing or the things that are happening around us because words uttered are altars.

    The primary way you cooperate with the power of God is by agreeing with what His word says. If you reject the word of God, it cannot come to pass in your life. In the same way, if you reject Satan’s words, they cannot manifest in your life. Whatever Satan cannot plan in your mind, he cannot plan in your life. It is therefore my prayer that God will forgive you in areas where you have, perhaps out of anger and frustration, used your tongue against yourself, your spouse, your children, your place of work, your church or your nation in the name of Jesus Christ.

    Read Also: Too early to expect perfection from Tinubu – Gowon

    Beloved, please note that things don’t just happen until they are commanded to happen by the Word of God. Changes only occur where they are commanded to occur in the place of prayers and complimented with action. When you confess the written word, God makes your voice irresistible to the elements of the world (Ecclesiastes 8:4; Rev. 19:16). Nothing happens in an environment of spiritual numbness (Psalm 81:10). Please be informed that the Word of God is superior to whatever adverse situation you are passing through now. It is by accepting and tenaciously declaring the truth that will give you the leeway to suffocate what you are passing through ( 2 Cor. 4:18).  When you focus on the condition, you get yourself trapped in the condition. In real life, you may be sick but the position in Christ is that you are healed (1 Peter 2:24). The condition of life may be that you are poor, but the position in Christ is that you are very wealthy. Things may be quite unkindly in Nigeria now but the truth is that Nigeria is a great nation and shall bounce back soon. Kindly note that all things are yours in Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:21; Peter 1:3).

    Elijah the Tishbite used the word of God concerning the weather in 1 Kings 17:1 when he said unto Ahab that “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, BUT ACCORDING TO MY WORD.” He used his lips to seal heaven and kept the keys for three and a half years; and when it pleased him, he opened heaven again. Also at another time in history, five kings of the Amorites, Jerusalem, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon, gathered themselves together and made war against Israel. The Lord discomfited the 5 nations before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon. As they fled before Israel, Joshua spoke to the sun and moon that, “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies”. (Joshua 10:12-14).

    Another person who made a landmark confession was Prophet Ezekiel. He spoke to dry bones as he was commanded to do, and the laws of nature were suspended, dead bones rose up, bones were joined to bones and a mighty army arose ( Ezekiel 37:1-7). As God lives, whatever had been classified as dead in your life shall hear the word of God and come to live. Where they have said there was no way for any of yours, ways are opening now. As many that are trusting God for marriage, I confess that your right bones shall locate your bones. That job which you are trusting God for shall locate you. God shall move you from where you are to your right place and position in the name Jesus.

    What you need to do henceforth is to ensure that you are not trapped in your condition but to confess what is written and take positive action in that direction. I bear God’s witness that as you continue to wait on Him in this season of Lent, He will come through for you in His mighty power and shall satisfy you with all that are expedient for your testimonies in the name of Jesus. Always remember that the words you utter are your altars.

    Prayer: Lord, please guide the words of my mouth and let my confessed words facilitate my full restoration in the name of Jesus.

  • Palliatives: The Ogun example

    Palliatives: The Ogun example

    By Seyi Bakare

    Plenty words, aver the Yoruba, do not fill a basket. And that is why during his press conference on palliatives at the Olusegun Osoba Press Centre, Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, last week, the Ogun State governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, stuck to his accustomed brevity underlined by clarity and resolve. Having surveyed the socio-economic climate in the state, he announced a N5 billion intervention fund covering education, health, workers’ deductions and food palliative to cushion the corollaries of the rising cost of living and inflation. His words: “As our administration acknowledges the concerns raised by many of our citizens regarding the rising food prices and shortages, coupled with the depreciation of the naira, we identify with you and are taking proactive measures to alleviate the impact of these challenges to guarantee the welfare, well-being and wellness of our citizens in this difficult time. We aim to address these challenges by implementing a series of phased initiatives aimed at alleviating these burdens on all our citizens.”

    The plan: providing a minimum of five exercise books for all 850,000 students in Ogun public primary and secondary schools, one-time N10,000 education support grant for at least 100,000 pupils in public primary and secondary schools in the state, an education grant of N50,000 each for all the 27,600 indigent students in tertiary institutions nationwide, insurance health cover for over 70,000 beneficiaries;  free pre-natal care, an additional N5,000 per birth and free post-natal care in state hospitals and Primary Health Care centres, and food palliatives for about 300,000 households across the state.

    As it turned out, a television presenter who applauded the governor’s move after reading the news wanted to know how the distribution of food would be done. That is a legitimate question and here’s the answer: through the social register generated in the state during COVID-19. As COVID-19 raged, the state created a database of its vulnerable citizens, sent food to them and went ahead to monitor the distributors’ compliance by asking the intended beneficiaries directly if they had received the food. Excuses were not tolerated and the margin of error was slim. Indeed, former president, Muhammadu Buhari was so impressed by the response of the Ogun State government to the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the provision of health facilities that he singled it out, along with Lagos, for special funding support.

    Read Also; Fed Govt completes Tincan port road

    Against that backdrop, Dapo Abiodun being proactive and creative and constantly pushing himself and his team out of their comfort zone is only natural. Abiodun it was who, in the wake of the removal of fuel subsidy, announced immediate payment of N10,000 to workers in Ogun State and the reduction of working days while the rest of the country was still embroiled in lamentations over the pains that attended subsidy removal. The story needs re-telling: long before President Tinubu announced the federal government’s decision to remove fuel subsidy in his May 29, 2023 inaugural address, the Ogun helmsman had anticipated the move and charted a data and science-driven course to ameliorate the impact on the populace. His roll out of a gas-powered public transport system, with the state’s wifi-enabled buses converted from PMS to gas-powered vehicles, was made with the thinking that public buses would cost much less if they were CNG rather than PMS-powered. That was not all: the governor and his team launched electric motorbikes and tricycles all over the state. Here’s what the governor said at the time: “The initiative was clearly anticipated because we knew that the deregulation of the downstream sector was imminent and unavoidable. We have two types of palliatives: cash transfer and technology transfer. If you buy food at controlled prices at designated areas, it saves a lot of money. If your transport cost is lower, your disposable income will be higher and the standard of living will consequently be better. Buses converted to CNG have been test-run and people will henceforth be refilling their vehicles at designated points.”

    Local mechanics, a vital part of the conversion engineering, were trained, while conversion stations were set up in senatorial districts, allowing for the rapid conversion of commercial and public mass transit buses and vehicles across the state. The initiative provided training and job opportunities for thousands of technicians and mechanics around the state. Some of the buses were given to workers and students, while some ply the Mowe-Ibafo to Berger in Lagos and Redeemed axis to Lagos Island, a heavily congested corridor. The government engaged in bulk purchase of food and sold it at controlled prices, paid hazard allowance to health and medical personnel and peculiar allowance for public servants, paid leave bonuses to public servants, and gave immediate cash-backing for the quarterly payment of gratuities to pensioners; distributed food palliatives to vulnerable citizens while mandating the Gateway Trading Company  to establish food distribution outlets across the state and sell the items at the rates obtainable in the market before the removal of fuel subsidy.

    If the foregoing establishes any point, it is this: Ogun under Abiodun is always ahead of any other state in the area of people’s welfare. That is why now that things are getting out of hand, he has rolled out a strategy to keep Ogun State running. No doubt, the new N5bn intervention will have multiplier effects in the state. A tertiary education student with a N50,000 bonus at this time, and in addition to the normal bursary regime, has something to tide him/her over. Parents will have some relief. At the lower levels, parents can channel the funds that would have gone into the purchase of exercise books to other pressing needs, and they can certainly make do with the government’s food palliatives. It is great news that pregnant women and the elderly have a safety net. This is a pragmatic intervention.

    No doubt, the situation in the country is critical, but staying aloof will make things worse. The Abiodun administration has come out forcefully to identify with the people, focused on its ISEYA mantra.

    • Bakare contributes this piece through seyibakare@gmail.com

  • Valentine’s Day: Fertility in fatality’s shadow

    Valentine’s Day: Fertility in fatality’s shadow

    By Wole Olujobi

    “Forget not in your speed, Antonius, to touch Calpurnia, for our elders say the barren touched in this holy chase, shake off their sterile curse,” decreed Roman General and tribune, Julius Caesar,  who had positioned his barren wife Calpurnia to stand on Mark Anthony’s way as the annual Roman fertility ritual got underway on the Feast of the Lupercalia.

    Even though a colossus that bestrode the entire world, the spiritual and cultural significance of the Lupercalia in the lives of Romans was not lost on this totalitarian Roman Army General as Caesar stayed glued to seize the temples of the gods in his majesty to preside over the affairs of Romans.

    On the feast of the Lupercalia, young noblemen were arrayed naked on a race course through the streets, carrying strips of leather with which they pretended to strike all the people in their way. Barren women who wanted children would stand in their path and hold out their hands to be struck, since they believed that this would bring then what they wanted (children).

    The feast of Lupercalia, the festival of fertility in Roman culture, which turned out to be the precursor to Valentine’s Day, was marked by tradition and rituals for the procreation health need of the Roman society, yet it marked the beginning of the rebellion against tradition and culture that was the heart of the clash between Roman culture and the new religion (Christianity), which was taking a firm root in the world’s first church, the Roman Catholic Church.

    The most daring move by the church was the period that Emperor Claudius 11 held forte in the Roman royal court that awed the world. But then the spirit of the new religion seized a Roman Catholic priest, Valentine, who stood to the face of Emperor Claudius to challenge his authority and the place of tradition and culture in Romans’ lives.

    For Valentine, it was against the Canon law to challenge the authority of the church. And also for Emperor Claudius, Rome would not abandon culture and tradition for the new religion.

    Now the Feast of Lupercalia, also known as Lupercal, which is also the origin of Valentine’s Day, was a pagan holiday in the middle of February, between February 13 and February 15. It was a holiday to celebrate fertility. Men would strip naked and sacrifice a goat and dog to purify the city of Rome, promoting health and fertility.

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    Lupercalia was a full month festival before the Ides of March (March 15). Therefore, within the one month period, no Christian religious activity of any sort must hold in the entire Rome as a mark of respect for the traditional Feast of Lupercalia commencing from February 13. But Valentine would not allow any let up in the resolve of the church to challenge the authority of the tradition and culture of Rome.

    Emperor Claudius 11 warned Valentine against this heresy and issued arrest threat as punishment for challenging the authority of Roman tradition. During the one month period marking the Feast of Lupercalia, no other event, particularly that of the new religion, must hold. But Valentine and his disciples would not accept that.

    Among the new converts into the new religion were young men and women who had recruited themselves into the Army of Jesus Christ led by Valentine and who were bent on challenging the authority of Emperor and the tradition of Rome.

    To assist Emperor Claudius II in his resolve against the church, he banned marriage because he thought married men were bad soldiers. Valentine felt this was unfair, so he broke the rules and arranged marriages in secret. 

    As a direct affront and assault on the tradition and the palace, Valentine and his disciples chose the same period (February 13 and 15) coinciding with the Feast of Lupercal for a mass wedding among these disciples against the authority of the Palace. When Claudius found out, Valentine was imprisoned and sentenced to death, as Claudius, drawing from the authority of his office and exercising the power of his estate, seized Valentine and hurled him into jail. Inside his cell, Valentine agonised, and his disciples wailed, but that would not break their spirits, as they resolved not to bow to the authority of the Palace and tradition.

    Buoyed by the audacity of the church, Valentine spoke from his jail and sent holy blessings to the couples in their connubial consummation in defiance of Emperor Claudius’ decree.

    Despite remonstrations from Claudius’ daughter, Emperor Claudius sentenced Valentine to death by beheading. Valentine paid the supreme price for his faith in Christ. For his belief in the primacy of Jesus in His Holiness, Valentine in death was consecrated and canonised on February 14 into the Order of Holiness and Sainthood from which the annual celebration of St Valentine’s Day on February 14 emerged.

    In the late 5th Century, Pope Gelasius I outlawed Lupercalia and designated the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day on February 14 to replace the pagan holiday of the Feast of Lupercalia.

    In essence, Valentine’s Day, in its real form and content, in the past or even now, ought to be a religious event marking the belief of the adherents of the Christian faith and love in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. It is to celebrate the sainthood of the ancient Roman Catholic priest, St Valentine. It is also the celebration of love between married couples, particularly those who suffered persecutions during courtship based on sectarian sentiments.

    However, like the Lawrence Anini’s many Benin City’s hijacks, modern day Valentine’s Day is very much a product of the various industries that benefit from it – namely, stationery, chocolate, flowers, and jewellery companies.

    Every year, billions of dollars are spent on these items, even in countries where Western holidays are frowned upon or outlawed have seen an upsurge in Valentine’s Day gifts in recent years. It is now a daylight hijack by multinationals and private individuals who cherish commerce and lechery over the spiritual essence of the Christian festival of faith and love of Christ.

    Even in Saudi Arabia, where the holiday is illegal, there is a thriving black market for red roses and heart-shaped chocolates in February, all in the celebration of the body to spite the sanctity of the soul as the temple of Christ.

    The bastardisation of the purport of Valentine’s Day (from the deep sense of the observance and reverence for the pious decencies of the holy cross to the festival of lechery and celebration of debauchery in the world) speaks loudly about the place of morals in the church and the society at large.

    From the red districts of Allen Avenue, Toyin and Ayilara streets in Lagos, Maitama in Abuja to the hearts of Benin, Ibadan, Ports Harcourt and in fact across the country, where Esthers, Catherines, Deborahs (now Debby), Marys (the supposed mother of Jesus) make a living from the auctioning of their bodies to Matthews, Josephs,  Andrews, Peters, James and Johns, the new reality in many parts of the world is that Valentine’s Day marks the annual preparation for the misfortunes of unborn children, who even before their birth, are already orphaned.

    It is also the annual festival to breed and raise a large pool of criminals under city bridges to menace the society. Ask the devotees the meaning of Valentine’s Day and they tell you Valentine’s Day is a day licensed for a free and violent sex. For them, Jesus Christ and His Cross have no place in today’s Valentine’s Day. Even Saint Valentine himself remains an anonymity!

    To stress the rot in Valentine’s Day celebration, Pastor Mike Bamiloye quipped:  “Many men will sleep on the same beds with ghosts tonight” celebrating Valentine’s Day, in what is seen as a love by death sealed in hell.

    In road accidents, drowning at the beaches and ritual murders, several devotees of Valentine’s Day lost their lives to what they do not even understand, as the fertility essence of the Feast of Lupercal, the precursor of Valentine’s Day, looms in the shadow of fatality.

    For the married couples and those who survived persecutions and other forms of hard times before sealing your love in holy matrimony in the true spirit of martyrdom as espoused by Saint Valentine, happy Valentine’s Day. May you live long to celebrate more of Lovers’ Day in good health, peace in your homes and progress at work.

    • Olujobi, a journalist and politician, writes from Ado-Ekiti.

  • Super Eagles’ day at the Villa

    Super Eagles’ day at the Villa

    By Oche Echeija Egwa

    Nigeria’s high-flying, football team, Super Eagles, returned to a hearty welcome, and their visit to the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Tuesday, February 13, turned into an icing on the cake of a successful outing in the tournament. Apart from the cheers, hugs, handshakes and selfies that heralded their entry into the hallowed Council Chambers, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, quintessentially, had a surprise for them.

    On behalf of a grateful nation, President Tinubu announced gifts of a flat for members of the team, a piece of land in Abuja, and also conferred national honours, Member Order of the Niger, on them. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, in his characteristic, hands-on style of leadership, distributed land forms immediately to start the process of allocations.

    The president’s warmth for the team members, who dazzled at the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2023, in Abidjan and Yamoussoukro, the Ivorian economic and political capitals respectively, was a humbling and revealing moment for many. The Nigerian leader shone brightly at the reception by calling players by their first names, and sharing his insight on the matches, particularly on the final with the host team, Elephants of Cote D’Ivoire.

    President Tinubu described the vice-captain of the team, William Troost-Ekong as a “warrior” who provided strong leadership for the team, and the rampaging striker, who consistently tormented the opponents’ goalkeepers, Victor Osimhen, he called a “Trojan horse”. Although the Nigerian team lost at the finals2 – 1, to the Ivorians on Sunday, February 11, after scoring first, the magnitude of commendations and celebrations reflected appreciation for the zeal, diligence, and dexterity that the Super Eagles showcased in Abidjan.

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    Super Eagles defender Troost-Ekong was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) at the 2023 AFCON.

    The Villa was upbeat and ready like the nation to receive the team. A combination of public officials and ordinary Nigerians watched the final play at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa Sunday, at the invitation of President Tinubu. After the match, an elated president said the Super Eagles represented the nation with panache and dignity.

    “Let this passing event not dispirit us, but bring us together to work harder. We are a great nation bound as one by the green-white-green banner of resilience, joy, hope, duty, and untiring love.

    “To those cherished Nigerian youths expressing their gifts in communities, drawing lines in the sand as they play football in their humble rectangles of play, you can be our heroes tomorrow; do not relent in your pursuit. My administration is here to make dreams come true,” the President said.

    In an unusual show of support for the Super Eagles, President Tinubu had sent the Vice President Kashim Shettima to Cote d’Ivoire for the semi-final and final matches in less than five days, explaining that his role as ECOWAS chairman of Heads of State and Governments, restrains an open campaign against a member state. The vice president, Secretary to the Government George Akume, Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, Sports Minister John Enoh, Jamila, and Bio Ibrahim, were part of the reception at the Villa.

    President Tinubu told the Super Eagles that he was moved by their “team spirit’’. He said their collectiveness should serve as an example to the political class that the country can thrive and succeed, with less rancour, tension, and division, by redirecting energy into building the nation.

    “You were determined. We salute your resilience. You lifted our spirits, and you made us proud. You made us smile as Nigerians.

    “It is not easy to absorb a loss, particularly when the expectations are high. But you have demonstrated sportsmanship, resilience, and teamwork throughout the entire tournament. That is what AFCON stands for, the unity and resilience of the continent. You have done a great job, and I am very proud of you,’’ President Tinubu noted.

    To further accentuate his “open door policy” in the growing sectors of the country, the president assured the Super Eagles that they would be consulted on issues related to sports development while sharing his vision for a more structured, functional, and purposeful local football league.

    “As your President, I will go out to attract greater private sector investment in the Nigerian Professional Football League. We have to grow our local league, and I promise to be a super promoter of sports in our country.

    “Many of you may in the future become managers of our local premiership system. I want to say once again that I am proud of you, and Nigeria is proud of you. You are a lifter of spirits,” he said.

    Doing an X-ray of Nigeria’s participation at AFCON, 2023, the Minister of Sports, attributed the success of the team to the support received from the president, from the preparation stage of the tournament to the finals, highlighting some areas of conflict that were carefully taken care of.

    “For the first time, we have gone through a major competition; we have come back without any crisis, without any complaint, without any issues whatsoever relating to allowances, bonuses, or whatever. This kept the team focused on the matches in front of them with quality results,” the minister said.

    The Minister of Youth was full of appreciation for the support received by the team, and the president’s focus on empowering youths in the country.

    Ibrahim said the fatherliness shown by President Tinubu serves as a pillar for the youths to show more loyalty and commitment to the growth of the nation, pledging more dedication in ensuring the creation and integration of programmes, particularly in sports.

    Alex Iwobi’s presence at the Council Chamber elicited more celebration as public officials and staff specially approached him for pictures while denouncing the cyber-bullying after the final match.

    Troost-Ekong had some good words for the president and a promise for the future: “We are very grateful for your support during our time in Ivory Coast. We did our best until the final. I wish that we were here carrying the trophy for you.

    “In 2019, I was here with a bronze medal. Now we are here with a silver medal. I have two gold-medal winners beside me here and all we can promise is that we will continue to work hard, and the next time we meet, hopefully, next year, we will be bringing home a gold medal,’’ the vice-captain said.

    Speaking with newsmen, after individual and family photos, NFF President Ibrahim Gusau, said, “This is a great day for all of us; you can see how the president received the team, and we are highly elated to say that we have been honoured with MON, to all our entire team, including myself and my general secretary.’’

    The coach, Jose Peseiro, revealed it was the first time he had met a country’s president in the course of his managerial career.

    “I would like to say thank you to the president. I am 60 years old, and this is the first time a president has invited me to his house,” the Portuguese coach said.

    Peseiro, however, said it would have been better if his team had lifted the trophy. “Of course, I would have liked to bring the cup to the Nigerian people. I’m sad about that. But of course, I’m happy because I think we did a fantastic job. In the final, I think we felt that atmosphere.”

    Team members, like goalkeeper, Stanley Nwabali, and Osimhen said they were already looking forward to the qualifiers for the World Cup, and AFCON 2024 in Morocco, assuring the nation of a better outing.

    • Egwa is an Assistant Director, Information, in the Office of the Special Adviser to the President, Media & Strategy.