On Saturday, February 25, 2023, over 95 million registered voters are expected to troop to 176,846 polling units across Nigeria to elect a new president. This time around, there is a very strong indication that there will be a high voter turnout. The reason is not farfetched. In the last seven years plus, Nigerians have had their high expectations dashed by the present Muhammadu Buhari administration resulting in mistrust and widespread discontent. That is not all, the standard of living and the cost of living for the average Nigerian is nothing to write home about.

These, amidst other unfortunate incidents, are some of the reasons the forthcoming elections must be taken as seriously as possible. From the political parties to the candidates themselves and even we the electorates; all hands must be on deck so we begin to salvage what is left of our nation.

The #EndSARS movement/protest by the youths made the populace realize their power and place in the country. Unfortunately, it was poorly handled or responded to by the government and the resultant effect is what we are seeing today. Now more than ever, at least in the history of our nation, there is an increase in the rate at which people want to “JAPA”, simply put, brain drain or leave the country in search of greener pastures. So this election is a big deal and we cannot afford to get it wrong.

Yes, President Buhari, INEC and the security agencies have assured Nigerians and the international community that the forthcoming 2023 general elections will be free, fair and credible. But there are yet noticeable uneasiness in the country. Volatile security challenges such as banditry, kidnappings, Boko Haram insurgency, killings and harassment of farmers by cattle herders, coupled with religious and ethnic intolerance and violence still plague the country and there are very weak or no attempts at bringing the culprits to justice.

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The impression that these create is that there is no law and order in the country, which has gravely affected the country’s economy. It is unfortunate, that today, Nigeria borrows for consumption as the 2023 budget projected N11trillion deficit revealed. A recent statement from the Debt Management Office put the total debt (local and external) of Nigeria at N42.84 trillion or $103.31 billion. We are yet to know how these monies are spent. Corruption has become the greatest constraint and hindrance to the growth and development of our country. It is estimated, from research, that more than $200 billion has been stolen from Nigeria and laundered offshore since the first year of this fourth Republic.

Shamelessly, Nigeria, a major crude oil producer, imports petroleum products even from non-oil producing countries. The challenges are legion. Today, it has become almost normal to hear that the national power grid has collapsed, yet consumers are continually charged higher tariff rates.

Worn-out public infrastructure, neglect of education and health care delivery, humongous cost of governance, youth restiveness, and abject poverty and misery have been on the increase. It is common to see both old and young begging on the streets for a living.  In all of these, our losses have become a huge human capital gain for offshore nations, particularly the West.

For a country blessed with rich human and natural resources, it is both shameful and painful that we are where we are today. All over the world, we have Nigerians doing exceedingly well in every area of human endeavour. A young Nigerian, Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo is Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in President Joe Biden’s administration and recently, Kemi Badenoch, nee Adegoke was appointed by the British Prime Minister, Liz Truss as the Secretary of State for International Trade for the United Kingdom. These are just to mention a few of illustrious Nigerians helping other nations with their knowledge and talent. If the proper facilities and opportunities were present here, these men and women would be enriching the Nation.

The #Obidient movement bears much semblance with the #EndSARS movement both are driven by the idea for a better Nigeria, both have the youths occupying the central place and both are fuelled, funded, organized by unseen forces that have a magnetic pull on a vast majority of the populace. It will be foolish for the government to deal with it the same way they handled the #EndSARS; as scripture says, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands  take heed lest he falls” (1Cor. 10:12).

From the above narrative, the next president, already has his work cut out for him. This calls for a president that is decisive and forthright; a president, that will avoid and reject nepotism. Nigerians are looking forward to a president that will put food on their table, value education, provide easily affordable housing, promote industry and create jobs and wealth. Nigerians are looking for a God-fearing and people-loving president; that cares and is willing to serve – a servant leader.

To elect such a leader, all hands must be on deck. We must shun all forms of tribal or religious politicking. We must not allow our greed or selfish interest to influence our choices. We must scrutinize each candidate judiciously and without any bias and elect the best man for the job irrespective of tribal, religious or regional affiliations. May God grant us a willing Servant Leader.

• Cardinal Okogie is Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos and former leader of Christian Association of Nigeria (1994-2000).

Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesman, Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council Festus Keyamo, reviews yesterday’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flag-off in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, and gives a damming verdict of a disaster foretold

The launch of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential campaign today in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, was, as expected, a disaster waiting to happen. Once again, the delinquent PDP continued to treat the now discerning Nigerian public with disdain and disrespect.

Aside from the obscenity of a poorly-scripted farce misnamed a flag-off, Nigerians suffered today additional trauma of having to witness a show of shame, listening to a litany of falsehoods spewed out at the gathering by failed, expired and rejected politicians. Speaker after speaker kept echoing a farrago of incomprehensible political jargons that left most Nigerians wondering whether it was a circus.

For example, if not the loss of the sense of shame, what else could have goaded PDP’s now discredited “sit tight” National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to be audacious enough to stand on a podium today in Uyo and make any promise to Nigerians? Has he been able to fulfill the promise he made to himself and his party members to step down from office should a Northerner  emerge as  the presidential candidate at their party primaries? How can a party that cannot unite itself promise to unite Nigeria? How can a party that brazenly violates its own constitution on zoning be trusted to obey the constitution of Nigeria if again trusted with power?

When you have a flag-off campaign that is shunned by the National Vice-Chairmen of the South-South, South-West, and five sitting Governors out of thirteen,  that is a definitive and resounding red-flag that Nigerians should not vote the Presidential candidate of the PDP in this coming election. If the people’s representatives at the state levels are so unanimouly against their party’s candidate that they would shun his campaign launch, then indeed, we would say to Nigerians, “A word is enough for the wise”.

Fortunately, to the benefit of Nigerians, there remains a few good men within PDP. These honourable men belonging to the party’s NWC, deemed it right to return hundreds of millions of Naira allegedly transferred into their individual bank accounts as “hush money” to suppress the investigation of the scandal of humongous financial misappropriation levelled against their National Chairman.

It is quite obvious to Nigerians that the PDP is a house that is divided against itself and it sure won’t stand. At their presidential campaign flag-off in Uyo today (yesterday), the absence of many of the PDP Governors tells a story to Nigerians that no amount of political jamboree can whitewash PDP’s cracked walls. It tells a story of a budding autocratic leadership, nourished by impunity, which now fans the flame of divisions and absolute disrespect for laid down rules and regulation.

Not much should, therefore, be expected from such a gathering. With the obvious inability of its Presidential Candidate to assuage frayed nerves of disaffected persons within their ranks, how will it be possible for such a person to unite people within such a diverse landscape as Nigeria? You definitely cannot give what you don’t have.

After being voted out of power in 2015 ignominiously, Nigerians had hoped that the PDP would, by now, be contrite as a party. Just as many had expected it would be able to muster the organisational acumen to play a formidable opposition Party, having been at the helm of running the affairs of our dear nation for 16 years prior to its disgraceful fall in 2015.

Alas, such expectations now seem far-fetched. Rather than seize every opportunity to redeem its battered image, PDP has continued on its free fall, much the same way it bungled the running of the affairs of our country for 16 good years in an orgy of incompetence, unabated corruption and impunity.

The PDP and its self-conceited leadership failed woefully to put its house in order before hitting the streets to ask for the votes of Nigerians and, ironically, telling Nigerians they are on a rescue mission. Till date, their National Secretariat remains uncompleted, whilst the APC, in its relatively shorter existence, now has a permanent headquarters.

Our democracy is young. This Fourth Republic is barely 24 years old. But then, a 24 years old man would be said to be coming of age. At this time, Nigerians are no longer interested in a trial-and-error leadership. Those who have not been proven to be “good enough” leaders should have no access to our highest office. If nothing else speaks to the disaster an Abubakar Atiku presidency will be, this crisis within the PDP does so eloquently.

It is high time Nigerians called out the PDP for their spurious promises and the obnoxious behaviour of their helmsmen. It is highly unfortunate that some of the most honorable of their leaders are being sacrificed on the altar of the greed of a few persons and their inordinate ambition.

• Keyamo is Minister of State, Labour and Employment

Earlier this week, Elon Musk’s tweet suggesting a path to peace in Ukraine generated controversy. His suggestions which included a UN supervised referendum in the four regions annexed by Russia, concession of Crimea to Russia, guaranty of access to water in Crimea, and Ukraine’s neutrality, was met with criticism. Most of the critics insisted that Elon Musk’s understanding of history is not only fundamentally wrong, but his ideas were also politically naïve. To me, what is interesting is not the debate about historical facts— whether Nikita Khrushchev made a mistake to handover Crimea to Ukraine as Musk suggested—but the reluctance to now give diplomacy a chance.

Admittedly, efforts to broach a diplomatic settlement before the conflict and in the early days of the military operation were unsuccessful, but should the failures of the past render further efforts unnecessary?  In my column a fortnight ago, I argued that these are perhaps some of the most dangerous times for Europe. The large losses that Russia has suffered in its Special Military Operation in recent weeks create the perfect conditions for Vladimir Putin to go beyond conventional war fighting methods. The military doctrine of the Russian state sets lower threshold for the use of weapons of mass destruction. I mentioned that I was inclined to take this new threat by Putin to use nuclear weapons seriously.

From recent reports, it appears my fears were largely valid and my outlined assessment of the state of play is shared by President Joe Biden. In a speech earlier this week, the US president confirmed that he is also inclined to believe that Putin is not bluffing with his nuclear threats. Biden noted that not since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis has the world faced such a pressing danger and the potential of a nuclear war. If this is indeed the case, then surely, it cannot be naïve to seek to deescalate and to insist that a diplomatic solution ought to be prioritised.

Diplomacy to avert war has not been the strong suit of leaders in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in recent years. This is not surprising, after all it is said that, “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. The overwhelming military capabilities NATO possesses creates a sense of assuredness that limits the willingness to seek compromises or find true diplomatic solutions to brewing conflicts. The Libyan crisis of 2011 is a case in point.  While African leaders were making diplomatic overtures to Colonel Qadaffi, NATO was preparing for war. Indeed, African leaders were almost bombed out of Tripoli after UN Security Council resolution 1973 which authorised a no-fly zone over Benghazi was passed. Of course, we are all witnesses to what has become of Libya since the end of NATO’s military action in Libya. Beyond Libya, the fracturing of that North African country after 2011 has had enormous consequences on the security of African states. Weapons from Libya have helped to intensify the insurgency in Northern Nigeria and created an Islamic insurgency in Mali.

Most analysts would now agree that perhaps diplomacy was not given its fair chance before the fighter jets were deployed in Libya. Clearly, what exactly constitutes enough opportunities for diplomacy can also be difficult to ascertain. How much room for diplomacy should we allow when a people are confronting the possibility of being victims of mass atrocity crimes? Or how much elasticity for diplomacy should we display when we are challenged by the imperial ambitions of a leader committed to restoring the glory of an empire long gone? While these are valid questions, and do not yield themselves to easy answers, what seems clear to me is that the doors of diplomacy ought to never be shut. Even in the blistering blaze of a conflict, seeking a politically negotiated solution ought to remain the priority. This is not an idealistic argument steeped in morality, but a pragmatic one. The decree signed by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy on October 4th formally making it impossible for Ukraine to enter into talks with a Putin led government is therefore not only poorly thought but a truly terrible decision.

There is no conflict in modern times with a greater pragmatic need for a diplomatic solution than the War in Ukraine. What makes the war in Ukraine acutely risky is that most commentators seem to gloss over the fact of Russia’s nuclear capabilities. This week, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was reported to have suggested that NATO should have launched pre-emptive attacks against Russia to underscore its seriousness. Following condemnations, his spokesperson clarified that the pre-emptive attacks suggested were of sanctions. Whatever the version of the truth is, Zelenskyy’s somewhat cavalier attitude to the prospects of a nuclear war should be a source of concern. In an address to the US Congress in March, Zelenskyy asked for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine even though such an action would have clearly brought the US into the war as a direct participant. He has been vocal about his frustration that some offensive weapons have been denied his military even though such weapons would cross the Kremlin’s red lines and provide legitimate grounds for Moscow to launch attacks against the donor states.

Zelenskyy’s agitations for more robust international actions are understandable. The deaths and destruction encircling him must have made him less risk averse, but should the rest of the world burn alongside? This is what will happen if conflict goes beyond its current borders.

When the history of Osun State is written for posterity, one of the critical areas of intervention where Governor Gboyega Oyetola’s name will be written in gold is education. While other areas of his Midas touch are already in the public domain for inquiring minds to behold, the recently-upgraded College of Education, Ilesa to University of Ilesa necessitated this piece.

On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, Governor Oyetola assented to the law seeking to upgrade the College to a full-fledged institution of higher education. According to the governor, the “carefully conceived as a thoroughly entrepreneurial and innovative” University of Ilesa was “not a product of fanciful effort” but “a thorough and rigorous interrogation, characteristic of the culture of deep engagement” which his “administration is known for.” According to reports, the assent was the joyful culmination of a journey straddling over-40 years.

Now that University of Ilesa has come to stay, what next? To start with, the southwest zone in the context of Nigeria is perhaps the foremost region to embrace western civilization, just as no region can compete with the Northern part of the country in the area of Islamic orientation and civilization. For the SW zone therefore, the idea of having a university and the longing for it could not have been lower than that of the other zones of the country. Impliedly, the agitation for, and the location of a university in the heart of Yorubaland, especially, in Ijesaland is long overdue. Let us thank God that there are neighbouring towns where our children can acquire university education; but then, that Ijesas have an enduring sentimental attachment to western education is as true as ever. It is like Ekiti purportedly having the highest number of academic indigenes occupying professorial chairs, both at home and in the Diaspora.

Yes, Ijesas might not have produced the number of professors like Ekiti but, sentiments apart, the former are unbeatable in terms of being socially immersed in the transformatory philosophy and enlightenment benefits of education. Take it or leave it, the average Ijesaman takes pride in the virtues of education. So, it is a good thing that the Oyetola-led government decided to give this sub-ethnicity of the Yorubas a befitting University. One can only hope that the promoters of the proposed Federal College of Agriculture in Ijebu-Jesa, my Native Nazareth, would also fast-track the processes leading to its establishment to complement Oyetola’s noble effort.

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As fate would have it, the few antagonists to the establishment of this new University are people outside the beautiful landscape of Ijesaland. Of course, there’s no doubting the fact that the spinners of insidious logic who are notoriously trying to destroy the threads of communal togetherness woven together over a long period of time are doing so for obvious crass negativism. It’s simply because the Pharisees who cry even when they don’t have tears must come up with something to catch their fancy.

Of a fact, the funding of our education institutions in Nigeria remains problematic. Had it not been so, there would have been funds sufficient enough to train our brilliant students abroad and bring them back to the country. Singapore, under Lin Kuan Yew, did it! In the United States of America, General Motors once approached Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), over the problematic electrical circuit of one of its SUV type cars. General Motors funded the research and MIT demonstrated how the gown could be relevant and empirically useful to the town.  In the end, the world was better for it! When Yew was struggling to educate the Singaporeans, he was already an ex-Oxford. Unfortunately, here in Nigeria, the opposite always has its way. Isn’t it sad that the educational qualifications of our leaders are oftentimes questionable? Of course, it’s that bad! It is therefore time Nigeria’s universities thought along this inspiring line of problem-solving, not just gathering students in a classroom for the purpose of vomiting turenchi and savouring tales by moonlight that have no bearing on our communal survival.

Talking specifically, the sad truth is that the people are not weighing the enormity of the challenge before us. Gone are the days when, before one graduated from the university, the goodies of life were already at one’s doorstep, beckoning one to accept mouth-watering job offers. These days, parents sell their belongings to train their children up to the university level only for their graduate-children to return home to continue being fed by their parents. Those who feel uncomfortable with this pathetic arrangement simply embrace ‘yahoo-yahoo’ business scam, and the society continues to suffer crossness, even from foreign countries! In the midst of these, our leaders send their children to private schools in foreign countries. Imagine the children of the poor who have been at home in the last 8 months due to the avoidable industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Isn’t that enough to trap a country’s future in a darkroom of indistinctness?

It therefore behoves governments across board to make sure that education truly pays. Otherwise, people will no longer be motivated to study, but rather succumb to the social vices that guarantee survival. There and then, stealing, banditry, kidnapping and ritual activities will become a routine because people want money. Even, if the government decides to visit the celestial planes to hire angels to man our anticorruption posts, once ‘ise la fi n d’eni giga’ (work is the antidote for poverty) fails to achieve its aims, the society will be ruined and we will all live to regret it. If we ruin the legacy of university education and allow the thriving of ‘yahoo’ business; then, the importance of education will become totally repudiated. Why? A student who is in school must have a focus and a thrust at the back of his mind; that, one day, he must be able to feed himself. It’s the absence of this thrust that fuelled #EndSARS, especially, when the youth saw that they left school only to go back home only to become liabilities to their parents again. But, here we are, in the throes of a system that’s already been rigged against them.

Perhaps more importantly, it is the notion that we should not embrace education that has energized the presentation of rubbished school certificate holders as leaders. If we begin to rubbish education, we will continue to produce and reproduce nincompoops who will sooner rather than later aspire to become presidents of Nigeria. If we don’t reverse it – if we continue in our unwholesome art of thievery; if elections continue to be upturned by the courts based on technicalities rather than merit; and if our leaders prefer being Wikileaks-compliant to being of help to the downtrodden – we will only be postponing the evil days. Until we go back to the drawing board, Nigerians will continue to clap with one hand, even if one million ‘Emi lo kan’, or ‘Atikulated’, even ‘Obedients’ become Nigeria’s First Citizens!

Still on Ijesaland’s new baby, let it be in the consciousness of the Nigerians that, apart from just having schools, Osun State will also attain greater heights if only it has the intellectual capacity; and the intellectual capacity can only come from a well-funded and focused University, such as the new University of Ilesa.

May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Osun State!

• Komolafe wrote in from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk)

Nigeria clocked sixty-two years of independent statehood. And it is time for more sober reflections. We have indeed come a very long way since 1960 when all Nigerians were filled with a deep sense of expectations of what this new state could make of her independence and self-determination. However, in sixty-two years, the bubbles have burst on that euphoria. After fifteen administrations, from the first to the fourth republic, Nigeria still remains in the woods in terms of national integration and real development. Her biggest challenge remains not only socioeconomic listlessness, but the inability to convert the ethnic loyalty of her numerous ethno-nationalities into civic patriotism. And for sixty-two years, we are still struggling with the basics of nation-building – insecurity, bad governance, national value crisis, less than professional civil service, dysfunctional education system, and a gloomy infrastructural gap. At both the governance and institutional levels, the gap between the government and the governed keeps widening alarmingly. At sixty-two, and quite unfortunately, Nigeria stands at the critical precipice. We are barely managing to keep hope alive.

As should have been clear to all by now, when Chinua Achebe diagnosed leadership as being the bane of all that is wrong with Nigeria, he set the focus on the challenge of the elite and elite nationalism. All across the world, from the United States to Singapore, and from China to Rwanda, the elite has always played a leading role in transforming the trajectory of nation-building. The rise or fall of any state has a lot to do with the decision-making capacities, competences and commitment of her elite. It has to do, that is, with whether the elite believes in such a state, and therefore work strenuously and self-sacrificially to uphold her; or they are a set of greedy undertakers who do not mind bringing a great state low by the logic of self-aggrandizement. I once wrote that Nigeria is complicated because her elites are implicated in her complicated state.

It is significant for the Nigerian civil service that one of our own, Professor Oladapo Afolabi, commander of the Federal Republic (CFR), delivered the 2022 independence anniversary lecture in Abuja on the 29th of September, 2022.  The lecture was titled “Elites and National Unity”, and it speaks to the recognition by the elites of the role of the elites in Nigeria’s political morass. Prof. Afolabi holds a doctorate degree in applied chemistry, but spent most of his life in the civil service where he eventually became the head of service of the federation in 2010. The significance of his lecture therefore bears further reflections. And this is because once we no longer pass the buck of the responsibility to Nigerians, and we begin to see clearly where we can begin to mend the cracks that define Nigeria’s unity, then we are about to step up the business of nation building. Prof. Afolabi dedicated quite a portion of his lecture to a conceptual clarification and understanding of who the elites are, and the dynamics of power relations that circumscribe their political actions. It is significant that in prefacing his lecture, he stated upfront his worry about the lack of a strong and coherent ideological framework around which political power can serve as a firm machinery for getting the objectives of state policy, nation-building and development working

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Elite theory insists that a small minority hold enormous power and influence that could set a nation on a trajectory of failure or success through the dynamics of decision-making. This is the famous iron law of oligarchy—whether in a democracy or an authoritarian regime, only a few makes the most significant decisions that determine the fate of any organization or entity. It is therefore the elite that hold all the elements of governance together, and harness all the resources, to facilitate good governance that transform the quality of life of the citizens. Unfortunately, theory is always differentiated from practice. The elite theorization of the Nigerian state has only yielded bad results. Whatever has been harnessed has been to the advantages of the elite themselves. One way to read this is to return to Charles Wright Mills, whom Prof. Afolabi also quoted.

One way to read the malaise of the elite and political class in Nigeria is to lament the absence of a political and sociological imagination that could enable a proper channeling of power and resources into governance conundrum. The sociological imagination requires the capacity to connect personal experiences with one’s social realities and the larger issues involved in it. Once connected with a political imagination, we are targeting the political class and their ability to see the political challenges of the Nigerian state from the perspectives of their personal trajectories. Personal experiences in this instance refers to the backgrounds, endowments, competences and perspectives of the political class, and the bearing that could have on rethinking the Nigerian predicaments. This is where I connect the sociological and political imagination to what I have called generational capital.

The different elites in Nigerian political history have all benefited from the best that Nigeria could provide. In one sense or the other, these generations have all been a product of the Nigerian sociocultural context. We all were groomed here to become what we have become. The second point about generational capital is that we all have been blessed, by providential good fortune, with immense endowments. What is then left is the sheer act of class-will to put competences and endowments to use in harnessing a vision adapted to strategies that could transform Nigeria. Generational capital should be matched with sociological and political imagination. That is where the power of political leadership lies. But as Prof. Afolabi brilliantly outlined, what we rather have is what he calls “counterfeit leadership” that is not only preoccupied with dominance and prominence, or intent on getting people to keep following, even when there is no concrete example or vision to follow. Even the same leadership corps would want to set false tasks for those it wants to make followers, and is fixated with an orthodox paradigm of governance without any hint of innovativeness. Real leadership, Prof. Afolabi argues, shifts the people’s attention to the sociopolitical reality, and then commence a process of cultural adjustment programme that demands a shift in attitude, norms and values. Good leadership must be willing to ruffle the waters and rupture the paradigms.

Thus, it is the fundamental task of elite nationalism in Nigeria to change the Nigerian postcolonial realities. The first means is to provide adequate and firm leadership that undermine Nigeria’s decision deficiency. One way to do this is through a conscious effort to undermine bad politics by differentiating between democracy and demagoguery. This implies that the elites and the political class cannot always play to the gallery in pushing their selfish interests through at the expense of genuine democratic initiatives.

The social contract insists that the political class hold power in democratic trust. And that stewardship demands that politics must be about sound political judgements that orient policy directions. This immediately sensitizes Nigerians to the imperative of holding the aspirants for offices and posts pre-2023 to demand those policy directions—blueprints, that are backed by sound political reasoning. This means, simply, that a functional elite nationalism in Nigeria requires an active citizenry. The vigilance required by democracy derives from a politically sophisticated citizenry that is not easily swayed by frivolities. The values of democratic governance cannot be left to the elites alone.

This leads to the second means of undermining decisional deficiency—policy initiative that is backed by a strategic force of competences and skills. This calls for a solid framework of engagement and collaboration between the political class, the private sector and the civil society. It is the function of the civil society to aggregate democratic demands in ways that could make for transformational politics that affects the well-being of the citizens. A transformational elite cannot ignore or undermine the civil society as a cohort of democratic governance. On its own, the private sector complements the state’s search for competences. And we have the example of the UK under Thatcher. The prime minister’s change management strategy requires the private sector template, and especially the competency of Sir Derek Rayner, the renowned chairman/CEO of Marks and Spenser. Such a new project management praxis goes beyond the significance of the public-private partnership model in ways that infuses the managerial discipline, performance culture, competence and managerial acumen of the private sector into the policy making dynamics of the state. Indeed, this is one strategic intricacy demanded by the evolution of a developmental state that the elites must develop and sustain.

Elite nationalism can only be sustained by a functional developmental state that has the capacity to achieve four distinct objectives: (a) implement sound macroeconomic policies that could alleviate poverty, create employment, and grow a strong, sustainable and competitive economy that could facilitate the well-being of the citizens, (b) promote popular participation that can lead to the indigenous ownership of the development agenda, (c) built a sound institution of public administration that is professional, citizen-friendly, technology-enabled and meritocratic, with a capability readiness to efficiently achieve service delivery, and (d) mobilize state resources, administer budgets  and manage public finances productively, transparently and accountably.

Prof. Afolabi’s lecture is therefore a timely and urgent reminder of the task before Nigeria’s elites and political class, as we steadily approach 2023 and beyond. It is a call for a political awakening and nationalist consciousness. Nigeria needs a surgical operation that divorces elite nationalism from bad politics. That is what has brought us to this precipice since independence. At sixty-two, it is high time we grow into political maturity. A mature political class is the one that gives the citizens the best deal in democratic governance.

• Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary & Professor, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies