The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • A Nigerian oil sector fable

    A Nigerian oil sector fable

    By Damilola Badru

    Once upon a time in the Republic of Renewed Hope, the people awaited a miracle — not the biblical kind, but something even rarer: an increase in oil production.

    Every week, the palace couriers announced new “strategies,” “frameworks,” and “optimization blueprints.” Each came with glossy PowerPoints, expensive consultants, and carefully worded optimism. Yet, the oil barrels refused to appear.

    At the center of it all was the palace’s Energy Whisperer — a well-spoken, self-declared “reform-minded” visionary with a fondness for roundtables and buzzwords. Her mission? “Unlock value from legacy assets.” Her method? Endless committees, task forces, and memos promoting block level divestments.

    She spoke of transformation, restructuring, and sustainable optimization. But in the oilfields, the wells yawned in boredom. Rigs sat idle, workers sighed, and the only thing growing was the stack of memos evocating a personal (not national) agenda.

    Meanwhile, the nation’s Chief Barrel Keeper, a seasoned hand who understood the gritty mechanics of the industry — the pipelines, the reservoirs, the corrosion, the crude realities — watched helplessly as committee meetings replaced drilling plans.

    “Madam Whisperer,” he once muttered, “barrels only appear by well-work, get out of the way and let the work be done.”

    READ ALSO: Military debunks report of alleged coup to overthrow Tinubu

    But the Energy Whisperer was undeterred. She launched Project Hope 2.0, followed by The Petroleum Cost-Effectiveness Initiative (PCEI), and then the crowd favorite, National Asset Protection and Regulatory Summit (NAPRS). Each launch came with a fresh logo and a new promise that “production will soar.”

    And yet, two years in, production remained flat — not from sabotage or OPEC cuts, but from pure neglect and self-interest disguised as reform.

    Soon, whispers began to spread across the land: perhaps the Whisperer’s energy was better spent whispering than producing energy. Her PowerPoint slides and memos had become the new oil — endlessly refined but never sold.

    The Chief Barrel Keeper grew tired of the noise. “Let’s drill,” he said. “Let’s maintain. Let’s produce.” But every time he tried, a new “presidential directive” arrived from the palace, signed in gold ink and filled with buzzwords like “synergy,” “stakeholder realignment,” and “value unlocking.”

    But in the time, the kingdom had achieved something extraordinary: the greatest missed opportunity for oil production growth in the land’s history raged unfettered.

    When the Energy Whisperer stood before the press, she smiled proudly. “We are repositioning for sustainable value creation,” she declared, as the production graph quietly slid down the page behind her.

    In the villages, the people nodded politely. They had learned long ago that in the Republic of Renewed Hope, under the aegis of the Energy Whisperer, words flow faster than oil.

    And so, new barrels remain elusive — not underground, but under bureaucracy and unnecessary distractions.

    Moral: In a land where strategy replaces substance, and directives replace drilling, the ground may be full of oil — but the treasury will keep running on empty.

     • Damilola Badru is an oil and gas industry expert and keen commentator on Nigeria’s oil sector —politics, policies and paradoxes.

  • The minds and ways of leaders

    The minds and ways of leaders

    By Abdu Rafiu

    William Shakespeare said a long time ago that there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. That will be generally speaking. Sometimes, you hear it said: “As if he has picked my thoughts.” Thoughts are generated by the frontal brain, cerebrum, the seat of the intellect with the intellect transmitting them. The mind serves as the window to glance at the generated thoughts. But it is not given that we read them in the mind until they are expressed. Clairvoyants read forms to which thoughts give rise. Those words which tell of other things than the gross material can only arise through unimpaired cooperation of the intuitive faculty of the hind brain, and these come in pictures. In other words, the back brain is the spiritual receptive part of the brains, the prompting of the spirit in pictures passing through the solar plexus to the heart and then to the back brain. Thus, the hind brain was created for reception but the frontal brain for transmission into the earthly world of thoughts, speaking and action. When the back brain is obstructed and hindered in its activities, the man is solely dependent on the frontal brain which gathers from the earthly and the environment and is thus limited, lacking in freshness and newness of vision. Its capacity cannot go beyond time and space. Another consequence is that “the abundance of the heart” from which “the mouth speaketh” is uninfluenced by the perception of the spirit. Unguided, therefore, by the intuitive perception, so very often, there are missteps and we misspeak. Leaders and the led will always act in accordance with the varied degrees of their inner radiance or even lack of it or trammeled and dimmed.

    With distorted intellect must, therefore, ensue fraud and deception, slavery and force, sensuality and lust, discontent, envy, hatred and murder. There is sole reliance on imagination, most times mistaken for right guidance, but which flows from the combined working of the intellect and physical feeling.

    Wholesome guidance can only come from the intuitive perception — what the spirit draws from On High and is mediated in pictures ending with the hind brain.

    How do we then enter the minds of our leaders to read from therein for the face? Unfortunately, Mr. Shakespeare states there is no art to find the mind’s construction on the face. King Duncan in Macbeth was reflecting on the human nature, how deceptive it could be. He realized he had been taken in by the false loyalty of the Thane of Cawdor; he had misjudged him. Yet, we must strive to understand our leaders. We must learn their language; where they are coming from. We must be open and alert to read their body language and to sense aright. This is because we are inexorably subject to how their minds work.

    READ ALSO: Military debunks report of alleged coup to overthrow Tinubu

    I was reflecting on the spate of defections by governors and legislators everywhere. And I was asking myself whether the idea of opposition is no longer about competition, of ideas and beliefs so that the electorate can be presented alternative choices according to their own light. This is the stage of recognition of human beings in our development in the present time. For we would find later as we grow that, as I have stated in multiple times, leaders are born, not made; they are sent, not electable. Following the failure in the era of Divine Right of Kings, human beings discarded the ordinance placed in Creation by the Maker with which man is to be governed, and replaced it with their own devices.

    Undergirding the defections is absence of principles. It is pursuit of power for power sake; it is the pursuit of inordinate ambition, visibility and influence, pomp and emptiness. In nearly all cases, when a governor defects, he does so with all his commissioners, the Speaker and members of the House of Assembly in the state. Where in all these is honour, where is wholesomeness for the health of our land? In Edo State, the hero-worshipping has gone overboard, indeed to the depths. There, the permit to attend the state’s executive council meetings is, henceforth, the wearing of Bola Tinubu signature cap. You must flaunt it. The artistic design on it is to depict the breaking of chain which he grappled with in the years of struggle to drive back the military to their barracks. It is his symbol of freedom. Ordering that the passport to state executive meetings must be the possession of Tinubu Cap is carrying fawning to the extreme and to the ridiculous. People will always demonstrate love and loyalty to a leader they admire, but not through compulsion. These were to identify with their leaders. Of course, we had Shagari Cap; to a little extent, Buhari Cap. We had Awo Cap, but not once did anyone find it on Chief Adekunle Ajasin; Chief Bola Ige, Bisi Akande, Olusegun Osoba — all his ardent followers. These were not forced on any followers. People would wear them to copy their leaders, some for certain motives, some to bootlick and curry favours, many in false admiration to put flowers on the head of their leaders and some out of genuine affection.

    And closely related to the foregoing, are strikes. Some are justifiable such as the two-week warning dispute by the university lecturers and the strike by resident doctors. The one called by oil industry labour leaders against Dangote Refinery was uncalled for. Now, the nation has not recovered from its consequences. The price of premium motor spirit that shot up during the strike has not come down.

    Movement is driven by the Law of Motion. Where there is no motion, there is no life. Motion drives all human activities. Motion itself is triggered by heat. Absence of heat generated by the spirit is absence of movement by the body. Complex chemical substances called Carbohydrates in plant storage organs supplying energy to the body gives impetus for the movement of the body when we eat them. When the body moves it could be by walking or using automobiles. What powers automobiles in the modern world is fuel and gas. Now, through the technological wonders of this age, automobiles are also being powered with electricity. Any disruption, therefore, to fuel production and distribution is disruption to life and living, to daily rounds of activities and duties, to the economy and to political and social lives of a nation.

    It was shocking that the labour leaders in the oil industry would not give Dangote Refinery, the only one which has come to the rescue of the country in its most trying period time, to settle. The Yoruba elders would say, “Oko s’ero ni alagbede in p’oko ta!” That is, “Oh so, if it were that easy, a blacksmith would not stop at merely fashioning and producing hoes, he would go out there in the bush and till the ground himself.” Former President Obasanjo issued out 18 licences for the establishment of modular refineries. How many have plucked the courage to utilize the licences? Perhaps only Edo State Government! The public refineries have since Obasanjo era gone comatose even after humongous sums of money have been expended on them. Commonsense ought to have dictated that the unions should give Dangote Refinery time to breathe and settle down properly. Would you collect check-off dues from a non-existent refinery? Dangote, the brave one, plunged into it, giving the country a $19 billion plant. The work force is about 4,000! And he says he pays the least worker in the refinery three times the minimum wage, and what a driver earns is four times a graduate is paid elsewhere even in the private sector. Such is the success that within a year Nigeria is exporting aviation fuel overseas. And that is what union leaders wanted to pull down!!Nigerian history books

    The ASUU strike

    This column is in sympathy with the university lecturers. We must have a warped sense of equity and fairness as a people to pay a Professor N533, 000 a month and pay his product he taught in the university N29 million a month, as revealed by Professor Itse Sagay.  I am also referring to the figure of Senator Shehu Sani which put a Senator’s take-home pay at M14 million after certain deductions have been made. Even then! A former Member of the House of Representatives somehow corroborated the revelation by Professor Itse Sagay that the pay of a Rep is N21 million a month. Vice-chancellors who produce the legislators get about N1.5million a month.

    Lecturers cannot maintain their vehicles. Some sleep in their offices. In some cases lecturers stand by the roadside to be picked by their colleagues to the campus, and this is alternated. To be a legislator from most parts of the country, you must have a university degree or equivalent to qualify and even to think of being a legislator. The authority to issue the degree certificates are the professors. For me, that is where we should start. We must make our university lecturers feel worthy and good.

    Over the years, the university activities with regards to providing solid education in our land have been disrupted too often. Students stay longer to get their degrees than is scheduled. The children of the rich, not being able to bear this flee to the Western world or India for quality education. Lecturers themselves are fleeing overseas in search of greener pastures. University education has become basic. Even if later a product from there becomes a mechanic, he will be different, he will make a better and an all-rounded mechanic.

    From Babangida era when lecturers were accused of teaching what they were not paid to teach and Professor Ben Nwabueze was Minister, Professor Babs Fafunwa was also — to the time of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to Buhari, and now to Bola Tinubu, the story is the same and the posture of the authorities not seeing this as an emergency to rectify the shortcomings is sickening. And there has not been any rethinking.

    Prerogative of Mercy

    There has been uproar on the prerogative of mercy President Bola Tinubu exercised recently. The exercise followed the report of a committee set up for the purpose. The committee looked into each case meticulously and with care. The most controversial of the cases, however, is that of the young lady, Maryam Sanda, 37, sentenced to death in 2020 for killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, in a blind rage. The uproar is predictably so as murder is a heinous, first degree crime. The court consequently sentenced her to death. Anyone with human feelings must feel miffed by the show of mercy for her by Tinubu in view of waves of killings sweeping through the land. A great many believed the government was overgenerous to her and that the least should have been to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. But the committee report thinks otherwise. It says she has shown tremendous remorse and has changed. If she has changed, why would we still keep her within the prison walls which we have rechristened Correctional Centres? The purpose of punishment or imprisonment is to correct, make a person see his or her errors and be a new human being, that is, change for good. President Bola Tinubu did the right thing in setting the young lady free.

    Hardly does it occur to us that the lady’s greater punishment is just beginning. How does she face her children and explain to them what happened, what she did to their father? The thought will menace her for several years to come, if not throughout what remains of her life on earth. The husband will appear to her continually in her dreams, perhaps still boiling. He may not have gone far in the beyond and is perhaps seeking an avenue to avenge his murder. Since the departed can pick thoughts, if she is truly remorseful and full of regrets, his rage may begin to give way. If she is open enough, she will feel the change in her husband as well. Sensing he is around she might wish to deepen her atonement by apologizing more profusely and regularly to him and to her children.

    There are two classifications of crime commission. A crime could be committed borne out of impulse. The other classification is when a crime is committed from out propensity and is therefore deliberate. Sanda’s case was borne out of impulse from what I read when her trial was on-going which may be why it was easy for her to recognise the enormity of her crime and she was able to quickly become remorseful and come to atonement. The remorsefulness was palpable that the Custodian Authority became impressed by her becoming a new person. The new thinking by administrators of justice in the enlightened world is that in inflicting punishment there should no longer be time-limit to how long a convicted person stays in the confines of a jail house as atonement cannot be determined in advance! It is believed that punishment without time limit offers sufficient guarantee for a complete inner change of a wrong doer for good. The new thinking being mulled is said to be already being put to test in some prisons in the United States.

    The advocates of the new thinking are saying a wrong doer should stay in jail forever until he becomes a new person, watched over by psychologists and the like along the field to monitor and test for progress and complete change. The thinking is borne out of experiences and knowledge that some felons complete serving their terms and are released without the slightest remorse and in no time they go back into crimes. All in all, the earthly laws must align with the Creation Laws. The three major Laws of Creation are what unfailingly will bring about reward as well as punishment for the human being. It is then, “we shall also understand the real purport of the words of the Old Testament, ‘To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense’ (Deut.32, 35) and “An eye for an eye and tooth for tooth’ (Deut. 19:21) whose deeper meaning has so far never been understood.” (A Gate Opens, by Herbert Vollmann). To set anyone free, it must be borne in mind that the immutable and self-acting Laws of the Creator are operative and awaiting the wrong doers unless the guilt and the attendant burden have completely dropped off him or her through genuine remorsefulness, atonement and change.

    It is also being suggested that prisoners should be separated using the Law of Homogeneity as it is automatically done in the ethereal world, the Beyond, so that prisoners will experience themselves. Out of disgust and abhorrence for the experiences there would be a longing to get out of the bind and that it would lead to atonement as the intention of the law and punishment should be to help and reform out of love. It is through total change that the threads connected to a criminal will not receive further nourishment from power centres in the Beyond. Not finding any more anchorage, the threads will simply shrivel and slide off! And the wrong doer is redeemed. There is no ascent to the Light Realm of Paradise until man’s dirty linen is washed clean.

    • This article was culled from www.radiatingthetruth.com

    • Abdu Rafiu is a renowned editor, newspaper manager and respected elder of journalism.

  • The tyranny of television

    The tyranny of television

    By Ethelbert Okere

    There is a growing paradox in the relationship between practitioners in the television sub-media in Nigeria and their clients; which is that whereas the television provides optimal exposure and glamour for both, shouting bouts are becoming quite regular on our television screens. Time was when television programme anchors, hosts, presenters, newscasters, reporters etc, were a rare breed, greatly admired and sought after by members of the elite who long to savor in the glamour of the klieg light. The prestige is still there but the increasing incidents of apparent hostilities between television show hosts and their guests is gradually diminishing that attraction.  

    Two factors are principally responsible for this state of affairs. One, there is a growing similarity between the television – in the Nigerian context, at least – and the social media, both being electronic and preponderantly visual. Two, and perhaps as a corollary, there is a temptation, in several quarters, to believe that, like in the social media, there are no (longer) editors in the television sub-media.

    While the argument may be obvious in respect of the social media, that of the television is still debatable. But because television show hosts tend to generally give the impression that they are entirely on their own, there is the temptation to think that the television – in the Nigerian context, still – no longer has gate keepers, just like the social media. For example, television show hosts seem unrestrained on the type of questions they could ask their guests. Quite often, they interrupt the guest in the middle of giving an answer to a question with clearly opinionated interjections.

    The other principal factor is the fading attraction and influence of the print media, arising from the revolutionary advent of the social media. Before the television became ubiquitous in our clime and the coming of the social media, the print media was the main arena for public discussions and debates. Opinion, features articles and no-holds-barred interviews were the most formidable avenues for interrogating critical issues. Media handlers of politicians and public office holders fell on each other to get reputable newspapers and magazines to interview their principals; and newspaper and magazine editors on their own would also run after prominent public figures to get their views on important matters.

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    Indeed, going on television was not quite popular because, aside that television outfits were few – television in Nigeria was a state monopoly until the mid-1990s – people did not bother since the newspapers and magazines gave them what they wanted. Not anymore. While newspapers and magazines have lost much of the attraction they held yesterday, the television is everywhere; and even though appearances are mostly commercialized, the elite – the political elite mostly – has no option except, perhaps, to go to the social media.

    Enter the practitioners, the impeccably dressed young men and women on our television screens and the toasts of every political actor and his handler. Now, the big question: Are these TV boys and girls too conscious of their status as beautiful brides? You’d wait forever if you want a plain “yes” or “no” answer but suffice it to say, in the time being, that the ladies and gentlemen we see on our screens appear too sophisticated to fit into such an imagination. I have known and associated with some of them personally since I also once savored in the ‘stardom’ of television appearances.

    That was the period I used to appear on AIT’s Kakaaki for newspaper reviews every Monday. I did it for about two years but after the first three months, I discovered that I could hardly walk for a few meters in Abuja, especially, without being recognized as “AIT Man” and in such a manner that conveyed great admiration. Many would call me by name as if they knew me from Adam. Being a shy fellow, I was at unease most of the time but the benefits were there. One fellow that was completely unknown to me paid for my buffet breakfast at the Bukka restaurant of the Hilton Hotel, Abuja, one morning. Another paid for my plate of fresh fish pepper soup at a joint in Jabbi even though I stopped going there after that day.

    The incident I cannot forget was the day I was ‘accosted’ at Mama Ada’s place in Wuse 2, a make shift eatery where I used to go for white rice with Ofe Akwu, complete with my faviourite Kponmo (cow skin). As I approached the entrance of the eatery one morning, I was greeted with “See Oga AIT”. I retreated immediately and never went there again. But before you say “you too like food”, see this also: A top politician from my state once refunded me the money I paid for a return ticket to Owerri at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja with the remark, “we are proud of you”.

    At a point, I was forced to ask my friend, Utibe Umoren, one of the anchors of the Kakaaki show, whether those of them whose faces appear on television everyday ever walk the streets; if I, who appeared only once in a week, could be having the type of experience I have just related. But I was just asking to fulfill all righteousness since I knew the answer to my question: Television men and women are celebrities, greatly admired and even adored.

    That being the case, it goes without saying that such a status brings about a lot of expectations and responsibilities. To be sure, our television hosts in Nigeria show a lot of brilliance and an amazing grasp of issues but that on itself requires that they need to be more comported and less emotive than their guests. The reason is simple. The slightest display of emotion by the host may be mistaken for bias. While that cannot be ruled out completely, I believe that it is incumbent upon the television show host to deliberately ensure that he or she is not perceived as such. But this deliberateness or caution does not seem to hold much attraction for many of them. More often than not, the host is so persistent over a particular issue or line of argument to the point of being seen as bullying his guest; the overall result being that the guest may walk away with the impression that he or she was ambushed

    Agreed, the host or presenter might be an epitome of classroom knowledge but the point is that in practical terms, the growing incidence of  near shouting bouts between television hosts and their guests is creating an impression – falsely, I hope – that something is missing in the professional upbringing of some of the “stars”. In a bid to show mastery of the subject, many a hosts ask unnecessarily windy questions, thus taking up the time that should have been allowed the guest. They interject even when the host is yet to make a full sentence. Then the next thing you will hear is, “we are running out of time but tell me in thirty seconds, how you will solve the security problem in the country if elected?” Haba! Thirty seconds?

    At other times, the hosts would ask questions whose answers are given but which they pose, nonetheless. One anchor of a popular evening show in a particular television station is fond of raising his voice to the point of suggesting that he believes or thinks that both his guests and viewers are deaf! More often than not, some anchors completely exhaust the time allocated to their show and eat into the next one simply because the questions are repetitive. And you asked, where are the producers even though it is said that in some cases, the anchors are also the producers. It would, of course, be preposterous to argue that television show hosts should be asking patronizing questions but I am of the candid opinion that there is need for a reappraisal of the modus operandi and general conduct during television shows in order to make them look less like trial courts than seems to be the case currently.

    An earlier version of this article was published sometime in October 2022 and which I gave a few instances of hostilities between television show hosts and their guests. However, the recent exchanges between the Minister of Works, Mr. Dave Umahi and one of the hosts of the popular Arise TV programme, The Morning Show, Mr. Rufai Oseni, brought the matter to the fore once again. That incident attracted attention because Mr. Oseni has since cut out for himself the reputation of the “hard hitter” among the crew.

    Before the encounter with the Works Minister, Oseni had had an encounter with Mr. Lere Olayinka, media aide to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Nyesom Wike. The Oseni-Umahi matter has been variously interpreted but methinks that it is high time something is done about the prevalence of hostilities on our television screens. Is there nothing managers of the stations or the regulatory authorities can do about this state of affairs? My view, quite frankly, is that some of our TV stars need to do better.

    Some commentators have raised the issue the professional training. Olayinka in his exchanges with Oseni claimed that the latter studied Animal Science and, therefore, has no business on television. He is right if there evidence that Mr. Oseni does not have additional training in Journalism or Broadcasting even though he might not be the only non-journalist practicing the profession in our clime. In other words, it is incumbent upon Oseni and the regulatory authorities to provide evidence that he got additional training that qualifies him to be a broadcaster. Agreed, many personalities go ahead to excel in areas they are not initially trained in but at a time when the system is saturated with people who are both trained and talented in specific fields, non-trained practitioners in sundry fields should be encouraged to go for proper training. In any case, would the Rufais of this world have allowed a non-trained Lawyer, for instance, appear on their show to speak as a lawyer?

    Conversely, I believe that something is wrong where a Minister asks a reporter – the generic nomenclature for journalists – “Who Are You?” or “You Know Nothing”. A Minister of the Federal Republic should be able to overlook any real or perceived excesses of his or her interrogator in public. Such a scenario, as was witnessed, is unedifying to our collective national psyche. Over all, we need to improve on the standard of our public debates from both the side of public officials and their interrogators.

  • The critical message in Oluremi Tinubu’s National Library Project

    The critical message in Oluremi Tinubu’s National Library Project

    As a very critical part of her 65th birthday celebration, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, restructured the usual pomp that attend the birthday celebration of the political class as we know it. Rather than submitting herself to the numerous treats, felicitations and pageantries that would be sure to have been deployed to mark the auspicious occasion, she demanded that anyone who needed to celebrate her should focus their largesse on the furtherance of the National Library project, and possibly its final completion. And that appeal has generated a beautiful sum of N20b. This is all so grand, and noble but unusual. It is an unusual gesture because a member of the political class, rather than the government itself, is the one championing the resuscitation of the National Library project. Maybe it is the government by association, but then the gesture is not the result of an intentional and deliberate policy commitment that enable the government to connect the library to the larger goal of national development. How do we read this strange but commendable gesture into the overall development status of the Nigerian state?

    The current state of the Nigerian National Library speaks tremendously to the possibilities and failures of the national development project in Nigeria. In many nations of the world, from the Library of Congress in the United States to the Bibliotheque de France and also the National Library, Singapore, the national library signals the single repository of books, manuscripts, orature, archival materials that connects cultural heritages, knowledge production programmes, critical ideas and paradigms, historical documentation and national memories. Adolf Hitler perfectly understands this fundamental significance of the knowledge base of any nation. And this is why, in a most pernicious manner during the Second World War, he ordered the massive destruction of books and materials that were considered to be subversive of, or even contrary to, the ideals of the German Third Reich project. And quite fortunately and pragmatic enough, the allied forced, led by the United States thought it significant and strategic to fight back by making the book resurgent from their crematorium.

    This speaks to the indomitable spirit of ideas, ideals and knowledge that books embody. It is in this critical sense that books and library connect a state to not only its historical and cultural knowledges and heritages, but also signal the state’s willingness to project itself into the emerging knowledge and information society that ultimately define the progress and wealth of nations. Libraries connect reading and learning culture, the dynamics of literacy, educational projects, human capital development and the generation of ideas, as well as paradigms fashioned purposely for creative innovation and policies especially in sociopolitical, socioeconomic, development and governance contexts. Libraries therefore connect a state’s willingness to become a legitimate participant in the evolving fourth industrial revolution while also keeping alive its own credentials as an entity that keeps generating culturally and historically relevant knowledge.

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    Knowledge, ideas and books—indeed the entire educational structures—reinvigorate the ways a state keep reengaging its problems, challenges and the solution and resolution frameworks for understanding and undermining them. Education is the fundamental bedrock that instigates individual, collective and national enlightenment and progress. And this therefore ultimately connects not only with the creative policy intelligence that is enabled by the availability of knowledge preserved in libraries (especially as it denotes the repositories of global knowledge, ideas and paradigms), but also how leaders connect with these ideas and knowledge through what they read. When I wrote my op-ed piece on the reading habit of HE Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima, I opened up the possibilities for a nation that an enlightened leadership embodies.

    Unfortunately, Nigeria does not have a national library. Or more precisely, the national library project that was formulated in 1981 has refused to materialize into a symbolic and concrete structural manifestation of Nigeria’s willingness to join the global knowledge society. The idea of the national library was muted in 1981, but it took the next twenty-five years for the idea to get an enabling contract in 2006. And yet forty-three years later, the structure remains a pipedream that refused to take off. And so, while it was all too easy to build the National Ecumenical Centre and the National Mosque within which the dilapidated library structure located, this significant element of Nigeria’s progress has remained uncompleted. This is simply just emblematic of the general institutional and structural dysfunctional experience that characterize the Nigeria Project right from independence to date. Knowledge production and the entire educational structure in Nigeria have faced significant limitations that derive from the myopic inability to connect development with an enlightened human development capital. There is also the tightrope of anti-intellectualism that the Nigerian political class has always been walking in its relationship with the institutions and structures of knowledge production and idea generation in Nigeria. The ongoing adversarial industrial relations between consecutive Nigerian governments and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over transforming universities into a significant force in nation building efforts in the state is a clear evidence of this a-developmental elite orientation.

    All these dysfunctional issues are surprising given that the Nigerian state is very concerned about both her geopolitical status and credentials as a democratic and developmental state in the world—as the Giant of Africa—and also to achieve a stable and empowering economic growth that measurably improve the life prospect and economic lives of her citizens.                           However, efforts at making the lives of Nigerians better are usually concentrated on purely economic, econometric and macroeconomic indices of development. If reading and education come into reckoning, it is strictly to the extent that they are inescapable to the fruition of any particular human capital development policy. And yet, the quality of a nation’s human capital is measurable only to the extent of the place of an enlightened reading culture, symbolized by a functional and efficient library systems.

    Thus, a state is instigated not only by the economic but also informational and educational resources at its disposal. In other words, the availability and the rate of access to the information resources and the extensive reading rate per capita are the development indices of a society. The number of published books, journals, libraries, readers, writers, translators and publishers of a country are all indices and fundamental criteria of its development. Extending the culture of studying and book reading, developing libraries, publications and distribution of books and utilizing these unrivaled cultural instruments are therefore the requirements and necessities of each society’s growth. This connects the functional and efficient library system to a reading culture that stimulate the young people into the consumption of ideas and paradigms that enable creative and critical thinking.

    Building a Nigerian national library—that possibly will be replicated in all the states of the federation—signals a symbolic aspiration by the government to ground learning and reading as a key variable in the determination of the quality of the human capital that Nigeria needs for her development process. It also determines the quality of Nigeria’s democratic experiment founded on the enlightened status of the Nigerian citizenry. Thus, a lot is riding on Nigeria’s capacity to build a functional and efficient national library as a repository of local, national, regional and global experiences, histories, ideas, paradigms, ideals, perspectives and creative innovation. So, does it matter who lead the crucial initiative to jumpstart and crystallize the national library project as long as it is done? The First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, saw what should be considered a national embarrassment, and responded to it while also ensuring that the gesture is funneled through government institutions, like the Federal Ministry of Education. Having woken up the nation from its slumber on this unarguably defining project with deep essence, it is now an all-stakeholder national challenge to get the noble gesture by the First Lady concluded and put into use. That seems like a long stretch given the forty-three years of policy and implementation inactivity. And I think we should all support this very unique and very ardent attempt to push a significant dimension of Nigeria’s development effort to bring to life what ought to have been alive and kicking many years ago. 

    However, whether we like it or not, the fact that it is an individual and not the government that is pushing for the realization of this project is an indictment of national proportion. One way to read this is that the National Library project is happening on the sideline of whatever consecutive Nigerian governments considered to be significant policy initiatives that aligned with development visions and implementation frameworks. But then, the redemption comes from the fact that the Nigeria Project, unlike the national library project, is a work in progress. And this allows for the government to pick up where there is any glaring historical and political failure and provide redemptive policy reclamation and reconstruction. I think this is the most important lesson that Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s gesture towards the National Library project has provided us. The government and other stakeholders cannot afford to have this project to remain at the individual level. This gesture has therefore become an instigator in terms of what the citizenry can do to push the government to implementing the general will. And this is even all the more crucial because it is coming from a bona fide member of the government itself. This then implies that the government is now instigating itself to action on behalf of the Nigeria Project.   

  • WHERE’S THE MONEY? The Elusive Trail of Sub-National Allocations

    WHERE’S THE MONEY? The Elusive Trail of Sub-National Allocations

    By Keem Abdul

    When he announced the abolition of the fuel subsidy regime on May 29, 2023, Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu listed the potential benefits of the measure to include the prospect of increased allocations to the country’s subnational entities (states and Local Governments) for use in strengthening their economies via spending on infrastructure and social services. A long-standing advocate for stronger federating units with robust financial autonomy, the President followed through by approving exponential increases in allocations (comprised of improved earnings from oil exports, a revamped tax code, and other statutory allocations) to the country’s 36 states and 774 LGAs. 

    Last month (August 2025) alone, according to the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Federation Account Allocation Commission (FAAC) disbursed a total of N2.23trn among the three levels of government. This comprised the following: N1.48trn in statutory revenues; N672.90bn in Value Added Tax (VAT); N32.34bn in Electronic Money Transfer Levies (EMTL); and N41.28bn in the form of Exchange Difference. A breakdown of the allocations shows that from the distributable statutory revenue of N1.48trn, the FG received N684.46bn, states got N347.17bn, and LGs N267.65bn. An additional N179.31bn (representing 13% of mineral revenue) was shared with oil-producing states as derivation. For VAT revenue distribution, the FG received N100.94 bn, while states and LGs received N336.45bn and N235.52bn respectively. From EMTL collections of N32.34bn, the FG received N4.85bn, states got N16.17bn, and LGs took N11.32bn. The N41.28bn Exchange Difference was also shared, with the FG receiving N19.80bn, states N10.04bn, LGs N7.74bn, while N3.70bn was paid as 13% derivation revenues to oil-producing states.

    The above figures, mind you, are for August 2025 alone. Now, multiply that by the over 25 months since mid-2023, when these disbursements took effect. From 2023, in fact – when total monthly allocations for states and LGs stood at an average of N760bn – the figure surged to N3.2trn in 2024 (an almost threefold increase!). For the first time since the 1960s, the sub-nationals – combined – got more money than the FG, ending the top-heavy arrangement that had prevailed before the Tinubu administration came on board.  

    Two years on, though, Nigerians are, for the most part, yet to see the tangible benefits of those increases to sub-nationals – whether in new or rehabilitated infrastructural projects, or in the quality of public sector service-delivery, or in the area of social investments. They are, in short, seeing little or no improvements in their standard of living, let alone their quality of life.  And across the length and breadth of the country, they are wondering: Where and how is this money actually being utilized? More importantly, what form of accountability mechanisms are in place to ensure that these funds are spent judiciously? For them, these funding increases have become what the street calls ‘audio money.’

    No thanks to the dramatic spike in inflation occasioned by President Tinubu’s initial action in pulling the plug on the subsidy regime, Nigerians are asking their respective state Governors to justify the increased allocations. According to them, the majority of state Governors have simply not done enough to cushion the impact of the fuel subsidy removal on their citizens. “If anything,” says a spokesman for the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) “things are getting worse. The quality of life is degenerating at an alarming rate. There is clear and present danger ahead unless [the Governors] change their trajectory.”

    On his part,a spokesperson of the Joint Service Council had this to say: “Even those of us who are working, our salaries cannot cope with the situation … You can imagine the plight of those who … are jobless.”

    No thanks to the sorry plight of the average Nigerian, some stakeholders have now gone as far as questioning the very rationale for the increased (and increasing) allocations in the first place. Why throw money, they ask, at people who are not – by their nature and the lack of strong accountability mechanisms – accountable? It is a sad example, they say, of flushing money down the sink into bottomless pit of corruption.

    The recent behaviour of a large number of these state Chief Executives has led critics to charge that most of them are now prioritizing personal luxuries– in the form of choice real estate (in foreign lands), private jets and other personal indulgences – over public welfare. The stark contrast between the lavish lifestyles of Governors, their aides and other associates and hangers-on, on the one hand, and the poverty-stricken nature of the states they’re supposed to be governing, on the other, is too glaring to ignore. As we speak, 20 out of the 36 Governors (accompanied in most cases by their entire families) are reportedly abroad on vacation – jamborees fully funded by their impoverished (but cash-rich) states. 

    To some observers, most of the monies have also disappeared down the rabbit-hole of patronage networks. “Most of the time,” said one analyst, “the money is a consolation prize for political allies through procurements and contracts … State Governors are using these funds to build their political enterprises, not to provide quality basic services …”

    Other observers have blamed this cavalier, bull-in-a-china-shop attitude of state Governors and their lackeys to public funds on the lack of strong institutions to monitor disbursements and utilization of the funds – and to hold the culpable to account. As long as there are no consequences for mismanagement of these funds, they say, this malfeasance would not only continue, it will grow into another hydra-headed monster populating the Hobbesian jungle that life in Nigeria has become for the common man. This situation is not helped, they say, by the prevailing perception that even the FG does not appear to show any interest in enforcing accountability at the level of states and LGs.

    Though President Tinubu has, on various occasions in the past, appealed to Governors to utilize funds responsibly – to “let the poor breathe” in his own words, and to “spend the funds, not the people” – there is little he can do, short of declaring a state of emergency, or withholding funding to offending states, at least for a while. Even then, he would have to contend with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which mandates that the country’s funds be distributed among its constituent units (without pre-conditions).

    For the time being, then, he – and the vast majority of hapless Nigerians – can only ask the million-dollar question: “Where’s the money?”

    The answer, as the old song goes, is blowing in the wind.

    • Keem Abdul, a public relations guru, publisher and writer, hails from Lagos. He can be reached via text on  +2349046303816 or Akeemabdul2023@gmail.com

  • The fragile side of our digital defences 

    The fragile side of our digital defences 

    • By Emmanuel Adjah

    Cybersecurity is supposed to be the strong part of our digital world—the armor, the safety net. Yet 2024 reminded us it can also be the weak link. A single faulty update from CrowdStrike sent millions of Windows machines into a loop. Airports, clinics, retailers, and offices felt the ripple. It was not a hack—it was a mistake—and it still brought work to a halt. It is the digital version of locking yourself out of your own house.

    The outage revealed a simple truth: Our systems are only as strong as the dependencies they rest on. Many businesses have built mission-critical operations on tools run by a handful of vendors. When one of them slips, everyone feels it.

    The very technology that shields us can also knock us offline. That is a hard truth, but it forces better questions about how we build resilience.

    Plenty of companies in Nigeria faced similar lessons this year.

    A new generation bank was fined by the National Data Protection Commission for privacy breaches, a landmark case that showed regulators are ready to enforce the rules. Flutterwave, one of the biggest fintechs in Africa, suffered an incident involving billions of naira in unauthorized transfers. And earlier in the year, the government suspended a proposed cybersecurity levy after public pushback, a reminder that even policy responses to digital risks can be shaky. These events may differ in scale and impact, but together they expose the same weakness. Digital trust is thin, whether in vendors, regulators, or policymakers.

    I have worked on both sides of this. Earlier in my career, I helped drive cybersecurity adoption across West and Southern Africa, where the infrastructure challenges were sharp and businesses had to adapt with fewer resources.

    This year, I supported clients in the UK mid-market while keeping close track of trends in Africa. The concerns were the same in both regions. Companies wanted speed, savings, and scale. But they also wanted control, privacy, and uptime. Balancing those trade-offs is the real work.

    A brand can be strong and still fail. A policy can be written and still ignored. A control can exist and still be misconfigured. That is not pessimism. It is honest risk management. The companies that coped best this year were not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the most polished security brochures. They were the ones who accepted that something would break and prepared for it. They tested backups, staged updates, and assumed that even trusted partners could let them down.

    One of the biggest illusions this year was control. Many businesses assumed that by buying from leading vendors, they were buying certainty. But the CrowdStrike outage proved otherwise. A single faulty update was enough to bring airports and hospitals to their knees. The same pattern appeared in Nigeria when financial institutions or regulators stumbled. Reputation is not resilience.

    Trust is not a logo. What matters is how well you prepare for the inevitable day when something breaks. This year exposed a shift in priorities across the industry.

    The loudest questions were no longer about stacking more features or prioritizing speed but about certainty. Could companies still function if a provider went down? What happens when data laws clash across borders? How much control do organisations really have once their systems are in the cloud? 

    The responses varied. Some spread their workloads across multiple vendors, while others pulled critical processes back in-house. What united them was a more cautious approach, built on sharper questions and fewer assumptions.

    This shift in focus is healthy. It moves the conversation away from promises and toward practical resilience. It also changes how technology leaders are judged. It is no longer enough to choose the biggest name in the market.

    Leaders are expected to weigh sovereignty, compliance, and contingency as part of their digital strategy. That shift is one of the quiet revolutions of 2024.

    As the year closes, the lesson is clear. Our defences are strong in theory but fragile in practice. And the festive season is always when that fragility is tested most. Online transactions surge. Shoppers hurry. Criminals take advantage of distraction. 

    Cybercrime spikes because people let their guard down. If this year has shown us anything, it is that our digital defences are not invincible, and trust in them must be earned daily. The celebrations should continue, but the vigilance cannot fade.

  • Nigeria’s FX lessons under Cardoso

    Nigeria’s FX lessons under Cardoso

    By Ayobami Oyalowo

    Two years ago Nigeria’s foreign exchange system was under extreme pressure. The naira had collapsed to historic lows, multiple exchange rates encouraged arbitrage, and a $7 billion backlog of unmet obligations threatened investor confidence.  Today, foreign reserves have climbed above $40 billion, covering more than nine months of imports, while net foreign reserves are at their strongest point in three years.

    This turnaround reflects the Central Bank of Nigeria’s deliberate policies under Olayemi Cardoso, supported by the Tinubu administration’s broader exchange rate reforms. When Cardoso assumed office, he inherited a system weakened by distortions and opacity.  His response was firm. He unified the exchange rate to restore transparency, cleared billions in FX obligations to signal credibility, and raised interest rates to 27.5 per cent to curb inflation.

    More importantly, the CBN reduced short-term liabilities like swaps and forwards, giving clarity to what reserves Nigeria actually controls. These steps were politically and economically difficult, but they restored investor confidence. The results are visible. Gross reserves stood at USD 40.11 billion in July 2025. Even more telling, net reserves reached USD 32.87 billion, a clear reflection of the actual financial buffer now available to policymakers.

    As Cardoso put it, “this improvement in our net reserves is not accidental; it is the outcome of deliberate policy choices aimed at rebuilding confidence, reducing vulnerabilities, and laying the foundation for long-term stability. We remain focused on sustaining this progress through transparency, discipline, and market-driven reforms.”

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    With stronger net reserves, the CBN can defend the naira, absorb shocks, and assure investors it can meet obligations without scrambling for emergency funding.

    The naira’s adjustment came with costs. The currency plunged to about ₦1,600 per dollar in 2024, fueling inflation and public frustration. Yet the devaluation also worked as intended: it boosted export competitiveness and improved the balance of payments.

    Remittances, long a lifeline, surged. Monthly inflows rose from around $250 million in early 2024 to $600 million by September. By the end of 2024, Nigeria recorded $20.93 billion in diaspora inflows; the highest in five years. The CBN now targets $1 billion a month through new instruments like diaspora bonds.

    Investor capital has also returned. In Q1 2025, Nigeria attracted $5.2 billion in portfolio investments, more than 92 per cent of total capital importation. Of this, $4.2 billion went into money market instruments.  Overall capital importation hit $5.64 billion, a 67 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2024. These inflows signal that reforms are working, and Nigeria is regaining investor confidence.

    Why net reserves matter deserves emphasis

    Gross reserves offer a headline number but include funds tied up in liabilities. Net reserves reflect the resources Nigeria truly commands. Stronger net reserves mean the country can stabilise the naira, manage external debt and reassure investors without compromising credibility. For businesses, this translates into a more stable operating environment, and for policymakers, it means greater freedom to plan beyond immediate crises.

    Nigeria is now moving from crisis management toward relative stability. A market-aligned naira has made Nigerian goods and services more attractive abroad. Stronger reserves provide a cushion for shocks and create a base for sustainable investment. Cardoso’s stewardship has turned short-term volatility into a foundation for recovery through disciplined management and clearer communication.

    Still, the next stage of reforms must go beyond monetary policy. Nigeria cannot rely indefinitely on oil or remittances to strengthen reserves. Fiscal policy must drive industrialisation, expand non-oil exports and deepen diversification. Manufacturing, services, and technology must grow to generate export earnings and jobs.

    Remittances should be captured more effectively through official channels, and fiscal authorities must work in lockstep with the CBN to consolidate stability.

    • Oyalowo is the Executive Director of Finance & Administration at the Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority (O-ORBDA)

  • Who really killed Charlie Kirk?

    Who really killed Charlie Kirk?

    Be very wary and suspicious of the people who are already telling us to stop asking questions about the Charlie Kirk assassination”- Candace Owen.

    How right Candace is. Yet we must continue to ask questions about this gruesome assassination and demand answers regardless.

    There can be no doubt that the assassination of the young, popular, right-wing, pro-Trump, American commentator Charlie Kirk was a professional hit which was sanctioned from the highest quarters. The question is who was really behind it?

    There are many suggestions about what the answer is to this burning question but to me, from what we have seen and heard so far, the most compelling is the following.

    That even though he was one of their most ardent supporters at the advent that Israel ordered the hit & executed it with the knowledge of & support of the American Deep state.

    I say this is compelling for the following reasons:

    1. He started raising serious questions about the complicity of the Israeli Government and security agencies in the October 7th attack.

    2. He argued that they actually allowed the attack to happen in order to justify their destruction and decimation of Gaza.  

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    3. His strong opposition to the Isreali attack on Iran & American involvement.

    4. His declaration that Epstein was a MOSSAD agent.

    5.  His calling for the Epstein files to be released.

    6.  His deep concerns about the overwhelming power of the Israeli lobby and AIPAC on American politics.

    7. His opposition to the curbing of the freedom of speech even when it came to criticising the State of Israel.

    8. His expression of concern to his friends that Israel may eventually target and kill him weeks before his murder.

    9. The post on X and by his best friend, one Harrison Smith, one week before his assasination that he would be targetted by Israel and that he feared for his life.

    10. His declining of an invitation to Israel which Prime Minister Netanyahu personally issued to him.

    These 10 points provide food for thought and to be sure Israel has a track record in such murky matters.

    It is in the same way that they killed President John F. Kennedy, that they were behind 911, that they were behind the attack on the American warship U.S. Liberty (killing dozens of American servicemen), that they killed Count Folke Bernadotte, that they killed Jacob de Haan, that they bombed King David Hotel in Jerusalem (killing many British servicemen), that they killed the Yemeni Prime Minister and his entire Cabinet & that they control American Presidents, the American Federal Reserve & the American Congress.

    It is therefore plausible & not a far-fetched notion that they organised the hit on Charlie, contracted the real hit man, organised a decoy on the scene (the old man that claimed he was the shooter and that was initially arrested), are manipulating the media reports, are teleguiding the investigation & have successfully provided a “patsy” or a “fall guy” (the young man called Tyler Robinson who was dressed in black, wore a black cap & dark glasses and who has allegedly “confessed” to the crime) to take the blame for the whole thing just as they did for the JFK murder.

    I have no doubt that after they finish using the patsy they will either kill him just as they did in the case of the alleged assassin of JFK in order to cover their tracks or they will conduct a show trial which will result in a conviction but which will not expose the truth of the matter and those that were really behind it.

    In addition to that the authorities will come out with the crazy conclusion that it was their patsy who they will describe as a “liberal”, “confused”, “crazy”, “pro-trans gender” & “anti-fascist” madman who just wanted to kill Charlie in order to deal a blow to the American right and all that he stood for.

    We see all this unfolding before our very eyes and it is an eloquent testimony to the low intelligence quotient that many members of the American public have that they so readily accept it.

    The truth is that those who believe their hogwash do so at their own peril because it is very obvious that there is far more to the whole thing than the media is telling us.

    They are simply trying to cover up the truth just as they have always done with such high profile assasinations & just as they did with 911 and so many others.

    This is the modus of the Israeli intelligence Services & the American Deep State who they work closely with.

    This is the sort of thing that they do so well.

    It may interest the skeptics to note that Charlie himself complained publicly on a podcast a few weeks ago that the Israelis would come after him and that despite the support he had given them over the years he was now being labelled as an “anti-semite” simply because of a number of questions he raised about their behaviour.

    To add to that is it not strange that a book titled “The Shooting of Charlie Kirk” was released on the 9th of September, just one day BEFORE his assasination.

    This is bizarre and provides even more food for thought.

    Now that the patsy, a 22 year old Utah student by the name of Tyler Robinson, has been apprehended and has apparently “confessed” to his relatives to killing Charlie let him tell us who it was that he was communicating with on Discourse that allegedly provided him with the rifle.

    Let the authorities tell us why that person has not been identified or arrested? Is thst person not an accomplice or is he or she above the law? Does he or she have a licence to kill or to support and assist those that have been commissioned to pull the trigger?

    Let them also tell us who Tyler was working for or with. Is there not a clear and distinct possibility that, as in the JFK assasination, there was another shooter who slipped away quietly and undetected? Was that the plan all along?

    Outside of that let them tell us about the private jet that flew off from the local airport 30 minutes after the murder, that turned off its tracer for one hour and that returned to the airport 30 minutes later.

    Who was in that plane, where did it go and why did it not want its movements tracked or traced? Why have the pilot and crew not been arrested? Who did they smuggle out of the vicinity and why did they find it necessary to hide their destination?

    Again why would the Governor say that no other people would be charged and that Tyler the patsy “acted alone?”

    These questions all need to be answered.

     Regardless of whether they are answered or not one thing is clear: if anyone honestly believes that a 22 year old University student with no special training as a sniper or shooting and with no experience in the military or security forces can take one shot and hit his target, who was wearing a bullet proof vest, in the neck from 200 yards away and then make a cool, calm getaway without any help from anyone then that person will believe anything. You need to be a fool not to see through this one!

    In my view the whole thing, including the unfolding and immaculate cover up, was planned with precision by a hidden hand from beginning to end and that hand resides in Tel Aviv.

    That is the nature of the Zionists and their friends. That is who and what they are.

    In all this it is only Charlie and his family that I feel sorry for. To be assassinated by your former friends right in front of your wife and young children is a terrible thing.

    This is especially so when you have left such a beautiful family behind. May his soul rest in peace.

    Chief Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Aviation and former Minister of Culture and Tourism.

  • Africa’s food future lies in the hands of its young entrepreneurs

    Africa’s food future lies in the hands of its young entrepreneurs

    By Alice Ruhweza

    Ending hunger in Africa is not about growing more maize or producing more milk. It demands a balance that involves scaling agronomic solutions such as fertilizer, improved seeds, and irrigation, while mobilising young people to deliver the systems that make these tools work. Fertilizer, for example, only works when it reaches farmers at the right time, and seeds achieve their promise when distributed through trusted channels and planted with the right advice. Irrigation also boosts yields only when markets can absorb the surplus.

    What ties these elements together for a transformative output are reliable actors, without whom even the best technologies risk sitting idle. This is where Africa’s demographic advantage comes into focus. With a vastly youthful population, the continent has the human capital to drive agricultural transformation. However, for this potential to be realized, systemic constraints that have long undermined African farming must be dismantled.

    For starters, we must acknowledge that, too often, input supply chains are broken by adulteration and weak distribution. Farmers, uncertain of what they are buying, hesitate to invest. Strengthening quality control and enabling youth to run distribution franchises could restore trust and ensure genuine products reach the all-important last mile.

    Markets also fail farmers when prices collapse or buyers vanish, destroying livelihoods. Youth-led aggregation businesses and contract farming could stabilise incomes and provide dependable off-take for smallholders.

    Extension services remain another glaring weakness, with too few government officers serving millions of farmers. This leaves wide gaps for misinformation to persist. Digitally savvy youth extension workers can bridge this divide, delivering localised guidance at scale.

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    And without rural roads, cold storage, or functioning market centers, even bumper harvests can rot before they generate value. Investments in infrastructure, covering roads linking villages to towns and cold chains preserving perishables, would not only reduce waste but also create fertile ground for youth-led enterprises.

    Meanwhile, across the continent, young entrepreneurs are already reshaping food systems. They are building climate-resilient farms, launching agri-tech and agri-finance start-ups, and modernising value chains from seed to shelf. Consider Arabuko, a Kenyan enterprise run by young entrepreneurs. The company sources produce from smallholder farmers and has grown into a certified exporter, meeting international standards while employing youth and training hundreds more to become agripreneurs. Arabuko connects farmers to inputs, aggregates produce for markets, ensures compliance with export standards, and creates jobs along the way.

    For widespread impact, such initiatives must be empowered to scale, facilitated by deliberate investments to keep the entire system connected, rather than leaving entrepreneurs to fight in isolation. In this regard, youth-targeted blended finance with first-loss guarantees to de-risk private investment, land tenure reforms that enable long-term leases, pluralistic extension models and peer networks, stronger input quality controls, and youth employment targets embedded in national agricultural plans, are mandatory.

    This year’s Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar will be my first as the President of AGRA. With AGRA also marking its 20th anniversary, the drive across the continent to democratise agriculture, especially for smallholder farmers, has been both inspiring and instructive. Over the years, we have seen how access to better seeds, markets, finance, and knowledge can shift not just harvests but entire communities. Yet the work is far from done. As we gather in Dakar, my focus is on how we can accelerate these gains by placing young people at the center of food systems transformation, ensuring they have the tools, trust, and opportunities to lead Africa into a more secure and nourished future.

    I look forward to celebrating the continent’s excellence through the Africa Food Prize, the Women Agripreneurs of the Year Awards and the energy of the Youth Dome.

    These commemorations are not just events, they underscore a larger truth, that transformation will only come when we empower Africa’s young people to drive systemic change, backed by reforms in finance, land, inputs, and infrastructure. Dakar is our chance to act with urgency and unity to turn that promise into progress.

    • Ruhweza is the President of AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa)

  • The bond between President Tinubu and VP Shettima

    The bond between President Tinubu and VP Shettima

    By Tunde Rahman

    Long before President Bola Tinubu decided on Vice President Kashim Shettima, who turned 59 last week, as his running mate in the last presidential election, both of them had first collaborated across boundaries and different political parties several years ago to the present, when they are working together at the helm of Nigerian affairs. President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima continue to march on in harmony and deep partnership. Their relationship is borne of mutual respect and trust and fired by patriotic zeal and the need to promote democracy, good governance, and economic development. That bond has continued to wax stronger.

    I do not feign any knowledge regarding the exact time the two leaders encountered each other. It’s on record, however, that both worked together, alongside other like minds, to merge the legacy parties that eventually formed the APC in 2014. Indeed, the torchbearers of the merger were President Tinubu – leading the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria from the South-west – and the late President Muhammadu Buhari, who led the Congress for Progressive Change from the North-West. However, Vice President Shettima of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party and other party leaders, among others, also played an important role in the consummation of the merger that brought together progressive forces from across Nigeria’s North and South.

    By the time of that historic event, the relationship between Shettima and his political leader and former governor of the state, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS), had gone frosty. Although up until that point, SAS dominated the ANPP structure in Borno State almost to the total exclusion of then Governor Shettima, a battle line was being drawn between supporters of the Godfather and the Governor. The merger therefore emerged like a rescue avenue for Shettima, and Asiwaju supported him greatly to successfully wrest the party structure and assume full leadership.

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    Asiwaju also came to his support when the Chibok girls were abducted, and the Goodluck Jonathan government saw Shettima like a villain. Shettima had to take his story and efforts to rescue the abducted girls to the international community. Asiwaju helped in all of that and also facilitated his quick return to Maiduguri. Many will recall that celebrated interview Shettima granted CNN’s Christian Amanpour at the time.

    As governor of Borno State, Shettima’s admiration for Asiwaju Tinubu and his politics was well known. He would often invite him to inaugurate some legacy projects of his administration, even while they were in different parties. On one such occasion, Asiwaju arrived in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, along with his entourage, in the heat of the Boko Haram insurgency. He spent two days in that city, inaugurating the Doctors’ Quarters, which were built by Shettima and named after Tinubu, among other projects.

    With that visit, it was evident that both leaders had become political soul mates – akin to a political father and son.

    In the run-up to the 2023 election, Shettima pitched his tent with Asiwaju Tinubu. He rooted for Tinubu during the APC primaries and criss-crossed the country with him while the campaign lasted. Given his competence, leadership experience, dynamism, and loyalty, it was no surprise that Asiwaju picked him as his running mate. Indeed, it is an affirmation of his competence and good qualities that the committee set up by Asiwaju to recommend a suitable running mate for him had Shettima at the top of its list. Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and former ally of President Tinubu, Babachir David Lawal, headed that committee. Importantly, Shettima’s choice was reportedly blessed by the late President Buhari.

    In the end, the APC won the election. Asiwaju and Shettima were inaugurated as president and vice president.

    After more than two years in the saddle, they are moving on, united by a shared vision to engender a strong economy, deliver prosperity, and improve the living standards of Nigerians based on the Renewed Hope Agenda.

    This relationship has not been without its challenges. However, the union has continued to weather the storms.

    It is always the case in a political environment that power mongers and schemers will seek to throw spanners in the work to upset political relationships or any union, for that matter. Indeed, relationships between a principal and deputy, like that between governors and their deputies or presidents and vice presidents, can be very testy, as suspicion and mistrust can sometimes creep in.

    Deputies are endangered species. Like Caesar’s wife, they must be above board at all times, politically correct, and ensure they do not swim against the tide.

    Writing in “Deputising and Governance in Nigeria,” former deputy governor and later two-term governor of Kano State, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, contends that “the role of a vice president in government depends largely on his relationship with his boss, and could be expanded to make him influential, if positive and collaborative.”

    According to the constitution, the vice president chairs the National Economic Council. However, the vice president has no special powers except those delegated to him by the President, which is entirely at the President’s discretion.

    The marriage between President Tinubu and VP Shettima is strong and vibrant. There is no doubt that Shettima has demonstrated absolute loyalty to President Tinubu. He has shown he is a worthy partner who believes that both of them must work together for the good of the country they both love.

    If anyone doubted the bond between them, President Tinubu cleared the doubts in his 59th birthday message to Shettima on September 2, 2025. VP Shettima also responded with matching words of gratitude.

    In the stirring message, the President said, among others, “Every day as vice president, you have justified that choice by strengthening our work, bringing fresh perspectives, and upholding our commitment to Nigerians. Your dedication reassures me that I did not make a mistake in choosing you as my deputy.”