The Nation Newspaper

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Nigerian leadership and erosion of trust

By Oluwole Ogundele

It is pertinent to start this paper with a seemingly mundane but foundational question as follows: Are Nigerian citizens truly ungovernable by nature? This question gains its importance against the backdrop of the numerous crises bedeviling the country since the dawn of independence in 1960 from Britain.

With the exception, of one or two administrations, the Nigerian socio-economic and political situations have been going from bad to worse largely as a result of bad, hypocritical leadership. The leaders are known for feeding fat on the wealth of the country while the ordinary people continue to groan. These leaders are always flexing muscles due to their incurable, savage egotism at the expense of robust performance. Painfully, they have refused to emulate their counterparts In Europe and America, who see themselves as servants of the people. In Nigeria, the led must prostrate themselves before our “wonderful”, megalomaniac leaders who are indeed, on a par with archaic Homo sapiens. Certainly, there is a disconnect. Consequently, exemplary leadership coupled with good governance, is still light years away. For how long will this pretentious, crude behaviour continue?

PBAT has a very big job to do. He needs to begin to re-set the imbalance in order to succeed. The president has to make much more sacrifices than hitherto. So far, the people do not trust their leaders based on some antecedents as opposed to sentiments. Government cannot have its cake and eat it. The gluttonous technocrats insulting the toiling masses as if they do not have blood running in their veins, need to do a rethink. There is no space for empty rhetoric again. More and more Nigerians are going to their grave earlier than necessary due to abject poverty. In actuality, destitution has become a major challenge across the country.

Read Also: Cleric urges Nigerian leaders to embrace humility, honesty

It is most disturbing that the political class members continue to behave as if the led do not matter. Huge salaries and allowances running into millions of naira per month for each member of the political class especially the National Assembly. This is happening in a geo-polity where a university professor can hardly buy his drugs and also take care of the nuclear family. Again, most of the retired professors cannot afford to maintain their cars. Who will trust a bunch of uncaring leaders? Are our remote ancestors angry with us? Some days ago, Ghana had transparent, free and fair elections. The leaders and the led demonstrated patriotism and political maturity. On the other hand, the Nigerian political class members, are second to none, in fomenting trouble and buying votes largely because material poverty has been weaponised. Normalisation of evil has become a component of our political culture.

Unfulfilled electoral promises can never promote mutual trust between the leadership class and the ordinary people. The followers are not moronic at all. The Nigerian leadership right from the immediate post-colonial era has been failing the working class. Politics is a lucrative business. I believe that President Bola Tinubu has the capacity to change this ugly narrative. Those who have looted our treasury must be brought to book. These corrupt people should be treated like armed robbers, given the huge numbers of people they had sent to their early grave. Thieving politicians and their business friends are making Nigeria very unlivable despite its abundant natural resources. That’s why many of our youths are desperately migrating to Europe and America among other places.

Experience over the years has shown that Nigeria- a microcosm of Africa, has its own brand of democracy that allows the executive arm to remotely or otherwise control the remaining two bodies-legislature and judiciary. This is a caricatured democracy! Mutual trust must not be treated with levity in order to begin to experience good governance, where actions and activities of the political leaders meet the needs, aspirations and sensitivities of society.

In this connection, the welfare and security of everybody matter a great deal. Deception is not an act of good leadership. It is about spiritual deficiency which is at variance with robust humanity.

Once upon a time, a senior Nigerian public officer, mismanaged a huge amount of money meant for retirees. What happened to him shortly after he was arrested? Nigerian leaders (with a few exceptions) stink to high heaven! Nobody knows his whereabout up to now. The list of huge corruption cases is long and disturbing. I hereby humbly appeal to PBAT to curb the mess. An average Nigerian is becoming more hopeless and miserable than hitherto.

As noted by this swriter in this newspaper a couple of weeks ago, everybody ends in a casket, where maggots will be having a field day. Therefore, our leaders must add good conscience to political power as the clock ticks. They need to become students of practical philosophy. Corruption including megalomaniac tendencies must be kicked out of the Nigerian system. This applies to all levels of leadership including the academia, where a double standard of morality has become a way of life. Prostituted appointments and promotions often dominate the intellectual space.

It is very painful that foreign countries (with the collaboration of the local power brokers), are cheaply harvesting our natural resources while the Nigerian masses continue to experience monumental material poverty. Political leaders do not allow the available institutions or structures to work. This is a leadership form, defined and/or ruled by “bigmanism”-an ideology enshrined in megalomaniac philosophy. The ideology promotes lawlessness by the so-called big men who terrify and silence vibrant Nigerians. Public morality suffers in the process.

The new tax reform bills being debated by the National Assembly are generally viewed with some amount of apprehension by a lot of Nigerians across the board. This is traceable to a deep trust deficit. The followers hardly have confidence in their leaders. This scenario has a long history. However, the current administration should correct this imbalance in the interest of the common good.

Nobody will believe the story of the leadership, that the Nigerian economy is in a coma, given the huge amounts of money that go on frivolous activities and/or projects. Indeed, Nigerians are governable in the face of patriotic, compassionate, exemplary leadership. Government technocrats who are always condemning, insulting the suffering masses should begin to do a rethink.

If truth be told, they are not helping President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who (in my opinion) wants to take Nigerians out of the woods.

Government needs to be communicating with Nigerians more than hitherto in order to enjoy their unalloyed support. Afterall, power belongs to the people. In this connection, transparency, accountability, probity, and equity are too sacrosanct to be glossed over. No basis for unbridled arrogance as if the political leaders are a special breed of Homo sapiens. These are the pre-conditions for sustainable peace and progress. Our focus should be on how to engineer a new Nigeria, where all criminals particularly bandits and kidnappers are brought to book, without any space for ethnic and/or religious sentiments. But shamefully, these politicians have started doing the 2027 arithmetic of power. What a country!

•Prof Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.

December 16, 2024
Perspectives on Elon Musk as reform lead for US federal bureaucracy
- Tunji Olaopa
In preparation for his inauguration as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump has commenced the process of choosing a cabinet that will assist him in the onerous task of governance. Being a very controversial figure himself, Trump’s many appointments are already setting the public sphere on fire. From Marco Rubio (for secretary of state) to Pam Bondi (for attorney general), and from Pete Hegseth (for defense secretary) to John Ratcliffe (for CIA director). One of the most controversial of the cabinet pick, however, is the choice of billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for the post of leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Elon Musk is as controversial as Donald Trump. The combination of both of them was a handful during the presidential election these past few weeks. Musk was so invested in the possible election of Donald Trump that he offered a $1m a day giveaway for voters in critical swing states. And then Trump won the election, and now Elon Musk has got a cabinet position. This is not just a role that Elon Musk is already well suited for given his leadership of a private business enterprise and many years of business leadership. It is also one he has been angling for since Trump won the Republican nomination for president.

In appointing him, Donald Trump said that the task for Musk and Ramaswamy will be to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.” And this is one responsibility that Elon Musk is rearing to step into. In line with the critical restructure that he brought to Twitter (now X), he has once said recently that he strongly believed that the US government’s budget is capable of being cut by $2trillion out of about $6.5trillion. And that a number of government employees and departments can also be significantly reduced.

Donald Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk, his vision of government efficiency and Musk’s willingness to accept the task all have historical antecedents, especially in the emergence of managerialism as the framework for reconstituting bureaucratic efficiency and productivity. Public administration all across the world is now forced to operate in what has been called VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous—world that revolved around the idea of polycrisis. A polycrisis define a situation in which several crises converge at the same time and in ways in which the impact they generate together outweighs their impact individually. Within such a context, public administration must necessarily also adapt to the emerging context of crisis and difficulties. The implication is that the old and traditional Weberian idea of the bureaucracy has become too inflexible and outdated as an administrative means for getting government business done effectively and efficiently in the quest for democratic service delivery to the citizens. In its Nigerian incarnation, the inherited Weberian bureaucratic model rides on a one-model-fits-all service-wide standard operating framework encoded in the General Order (GO) that we now call the Public Service Rule (PSR).

The old Weberian—“I-am-directed”—administrative tradition is founded on an underlying theoretical framework that has been aptly called Theory X. This framework has three propositional dynamics underlying it as the basis for understanding how the bureaucracy works. One, it conceives management as involving the deployment of people, material and money in order to facilitate particular economic objectives. Two, organizational objectives require the control and motivation of people. Three, it assumes that without a strict organizational regimen to put employees in check, humans are usually unproductive and resistant to organizational protocols.

We are able to therefore exhume a very gloomy understanding of human nature that perceives an average employee as being (a) indolent by nature, (b) lacking in ambition and motivation, (c) naturally egoistic and therefore set to work contrary to organizational requirements, (d) naturally resistant to change, especially those that antagonizes selfish desires, and (e) naturally deceivable. Given these assumptions, organizational goals can only be achieved if the discerning manager employs a very strong “command and control” tactic in getting his indolent employees to achieve the set targets and objectives. It is easy to see how this Douglas McGregor Theory X of administrative structure has the capacity to evolve into a monolithic and bureaucratic culture that breeds passive subordinate who are not eager to deploy their creative and entrepreneurial energies to further organizational objectives. This Weberian structure required from civil servants the requisite characteristics of anonymity, neutrality and impartiality, and an overall profile circumscribed by efficiency, effectiveness, integrity, accountability, responsiveness, representativeness, loyalty, equity, fairness, and so on. However, it is a system that is essentially hierarchical, cumbersome and acutely bureaucratic to effectively fulfil the mandate of good governance.

Read Also: Elon Musk’s transgender daughter to leave US after Trump’s win

With the managerial revolution, the public service is compelled to adapt to a new normal that is motivated first by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic struck most governments and their public administration dynamics at the critical service delivery point. Aside the regulatory and policy functions, service delivery is the mechanism that connects or disconnects the governments from the well-beings of their citizens. And the tragedy of the pandemic is that it caught the entire world at varying administrative stages and phases of the normal. This is even worse for the third world countries, and Africa especially. The significance of the pandemic is that it stipulates several initiatives that public administration must confront in order not to ever be caught napping again. This initiative must however ride on the existing new public management (NPM) framework that delivers efficiency through new managerial developments that, for instance, leverages new digital technologies, artificial intelligences and open government initiatives to deliver fast, economic, flexible and efficient service delivery to the citizens.

The new normal for public administration involves the imperative of administrative new thinking. The idea of new thinking is conditioned by a reform program that is strategic. In other words, new think for any organization or institution combines strategic thinking and strategic planning to be able to face the future. It is this strategic thinking that allows an institution like the public service to rethink and reengineer its modus operandi and business model to become better. And this new thinking framework is backstopped by strategic decision-making that builds on various development in decision science. Decision science has become a critical field that has integrated cognate developments from artificial intelligence, organizational psychology, systems thinking, machine learning, probabilistic modeling, scenario analysis, big data analytics, and many more to become a key area that the public service must buy into to push forward its policy intelligence that strengthen decision-making. Modern policy making that has taken cognizance of decision science will most likely possess nine fundamental features: (i) forward-looking; (ii) outward-looking; (iii) innovative, flexible and creative; (iv) evidence-based; (v) evaluation; (vi) review; (vii) joined-up; (viii) inclusive; and (ix) learned lessons.

Thus, it becomes strategic for Donald Trump to want to shake up the US bureaucratic processes in order to facilitate government efficiency. He is simply toeing the path taken by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s when she strategically appointed Lord Derek Rayner, the Chairman and CEO of Marks and Spencer, to put in place a rigorous managerial and capability review of the MDAs at Whitehall. Much earlier after the Second World War, Japan deployed the Keiretsu principle that brought the organized private sector—manufacturers, suppliers, bankers, industries and so on—around a unique dynamic of economic cooperation, further strengthened by the introduction of experts with deep understanding of the relationship between economic growth, development, productivity and performance. And the private sector expertise of the American management consultant, W. Edward Deming, was contracted in the bid to introduce and deploy the idea of quality management that led to: (a) Better design of products to improve service; (b) Higher level of uniform product quality; (c) Improvement of product testing in the workplace and in research centres; and (d) Greater sales through global markets.

No matter the disapproval that attends Donald Trump’s governance capacity, one cannot quarrel with the significance and prospect of the dealing with the cost of governance in ways that accentuate government efficiency. If Elon Musk is able, as he claims, cut $2trillion from a $6.5trillion government budget, that is already a huge success in terms of the reduction of the cost of governance. This, for me, is one huge lesson for the Nigerian government and the fundamental challenge of the cost of governance and the dearth of a waste management strategy for achieving efficiency in performance and productivity. The transformation of the productivity profile of the Nigerian economy is the most critical premise that recommends the audacious institutional reform of the public service. And the reform initiatives will involve critical transformation of the civil service commission, the industrial labour law, the pay and compensation dynamics, and also the trimming of the workforce as a means of undermining the cost of governance burden.

The Oronsaye Committee on the Restructuring and Rationalization of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies still remains a crucial first condition in getting the situation right in terms of a critical restructuring of government efficiency, the same way Donald Trump has fingered Elon Musk as the key personality to weed out inefficiency in government productivity and service delivery. All in all, it might not be who sits at the helm of government affairs but what such a person is able to achieve to alleviate the well-being of the citizens.
December 15, 2024
Syria shows that Putin is in deep, worldwide trouble
- By Jeffrey S. Kargel
With huge Russian losses in Syria, culminating in Assad’s flight to Russia, the world takes stock. The big unknown is the true ideological inclination of the newly empowered rebel movement. Several powers are weakened – the Assad regime was destroyed; Russia was humiliated; and Iran lost its logistical supply lines to its proxy, Hezbollah. Two countries made immediate gains: Israel faces a further weakened Hezbollah to its north, and Ukraine benefits from Russia’s humiliation. All the world sees more clearly that Russia’s military and Iran are overstretched.

However much some may revel in Assad’s flight to Russia, the serious instabilities and unintended consequences are palpable. Nobody can be sure of the full consequences, but we can make educated guesses. Iran and Russia’s immediate responses must be of three types: shock, fear, and damage control. ISIS sees opportunity, to which the US and Israel are responding with pre-emptive strikes to destroy weapons depots and production sites that could otherwise fall to ISIS.

The damage for Iran and Russia runs deep. Here, I explore possible consequences for Russia, beyond the clarity that Emperor Putin has no clothes. Let’s look to where Russia already has weaknesses and how humiliation and tangible military loss in Syria may further manifest.

The Kremlin obviously must know that its military is overstretched, an awareness already revealed in the invitation to North Korea to send troops. Assad’s failure was rooted in the Russian military’s hollowing out in Syria as well as in popular discontent.

There may be no immediate change on the front lines, but the steady erosion over nearly three years of war and now events in Syria have shredded the imagined Russian invincibility. A rapid collapse of some Russian-held sectors of the front lines could occur, but other impacts further afield are even more likely.

A chain reaction of Russian withdrawals are likely, including of Wagner in Africa. Wagner has experienced recent defeats in Africa, in part connected to covert Ukrainian operations. While Ukraine has taken heat for its actions, the heat has come primarily from Russia-aligned countries. Russian forces abroad already were on the back foot before Syria collapsed. Domestic African political pressure and insurgent pressure will mount on remaining Russian forces. A full Russian withdrawal is almost a fait accompli, because Africa is the only place where Russia can draw many well-trained and equipped troops of its own. Western powers should prepare contingency plans.

The situation in the “Stans”

The biggest consequences of Putin’s Syria debacle may be in the former Soviet and now independent “Stans”: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. The independent governments, seeing Putin’s weakness, are more likely to insist that Russia is not their master. Russia has no spare conventional army and air power to punish divorced pieces of the former Soviet empire. Some – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan especially – have terrain that would be unforgiving to invading Russians, if any can be scraped together from an already dis-enthused domestic Russian population.

The Central Asian countries together comprise 70 million people, nearly twice that of Ukraine, and a land area six times bigger than Ukraine. While the Central Asian armies are poorly equipped and their air forces are derelict, the same was true of Ukraine’s armed forces before Russia’s aggressions.

Though Russia has overall friendly governments in the former Soviet countries, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to the region in 2023 and talks with leaders underscored that not all is harmonious between Russia and those governments. There is a hint of Central Asian sympathy for Ukraine and a refusal to support Russia’s war. If the governments do not raise pressure against Russian domination in Central Asia in the face of Russia’s displayed weakness, then former and existing insurgencies likely will, from a differing perspective.

Might Tajikistan, for instance, see a revival of its 1990s civil war, which ended with the Moscow Protocol? The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) also was in armed rebellion in the 1990s.

Low-level conflicts periodically erupt across the former nations. For example, protests over high gas prices led to widespread protests in Kazakhstan in 2022, the response to which was the provision of a small number of Russian troops under the banner of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization). The Russian forces were, at the time, minimized as a mere spectacle.

Read Also: Berlin hosts Europe’s defence ministers after Putin hails new missile

Would Putin, today, order its forces to quell protests or an insurgency in a former Soviet, independent “Stan” today? Using what forces? Many people in those countries must share my doubts. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are not even CSTO members.

And what about China?

President Xi cannot be impressed by Putin’s performance. He must wonder about the stability of the bordering regimes in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. The al Qaeda-linked IMU and East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are considered by Russia, China, the US, and the UN as terrorist groups. ETIM was founded by a Uighur. China used the then-minor threat of those groups to clamp down indiscriminately on its Turkic Uighur minority in western China.

It seems inevitable that the Central Asian “Stans” will either migrate away from Russian dominion either by government policy or by insurgent pressure. Russia is paralyzed by Ukraine. China will see a threat if Central Asian governments do not take command of their security or do so with striking independence.

Putin’s woes may also enflame the Russian hinterlands. Some former Soviet “Stans” are still a part of the Russian Federation. There could be a flare-up of jihadist Islamic or nationalist insurgencies inside Russia, in Chechnya and Dagestan, for example.

Geopolitical outcomes will depend on how independent former Soviet Republics and disaffected domestic Russian demographic groups respond to Putin’s weaknesses.

For Ukraine, events are unfolding favorably in some regards: Putin is revealed as a weakling. Global Chaos Theory has two measures of trouble in one hand, and a measure of hope in the other. The next few months will be wild. The global geopolitical map of national boundaries, military lines of control, and alliances may soon look very different. December 2025 will not look like December 2024.
- This article was first published in www.kyivpost.com
December 15, 2024
Kemi Badenoch’s hatred for Nigeria
“I find it interesting that everyone defines me as a Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with my specific ethnic group. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram, where Islamism is. Being Yoruba is my true identity and I refuse to be lumped with the northern people of Nigeria who were our ethnic enemies, all in the name of being called a Nigerian”- @KemiBadenoch.

Kemi Badenoch MP, the leader of the British Conservative Party and Opposition in the @UKParliament, has refused to stop at just denigrating our country but has gone a step further by seeking to divide us on ethnic lines.

She claims that she never regarded herself as a Nigerian but rather a Yoruba, and that she never identified with the people from the Northern part of our country who she collectively describes as being “Boko Haram Islamists” and “terrorists”.

This is dangerous rhetoric coming from an impudent and ignorant foreign leader who knows nothing about our country, who does not know her place and who insists on stirring up a storm that she cannot contain and that may eventually consume her.

It is rather like saying that she identifies more with the English than she does with the Scots and the Welsh whom she regards as nothing more than homicidal and murderous barbarians that once waged war against her ethnic English compatriots!

All this coming from a young lady of colour that is a political leader in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country that lays claim to being the epitome of decency and civilisation! What a strange and inexplicable contradiction this is.

Her intentions are malevolent and insidious and her objective, outside of ridiculing and mocking us, is to divide us and bring us to our knees.

I am constrained to ask, what on earth happened to this creature in her youth and why does she hate Nigeria with such passion?

Did something happen to her when she lived here which she has kept secret?

Was she the victim of some form of deviant behaviour, abuse or perversion that has resulted in trauma, long term psychological damage and mental health issues?

Is this why she sees red and gets her pretty knickers in a twist whenever she hears “Nigeria”?

Why does the mention of the name of our country trigger such compulsive, violent and aggressive emotions and impulses in her?

Given her pathological hatred for Nigerians, these are legitimate questions that need to be answered.

She hates us with what the Bible describes as “a perfect hatred”, yet in a much publicised and widely read open letter written in 2010 during her first bid to be elected into the UK Parliament she begged the Nigerian community in her constituency to support her.

Read Also: Kemi Badenoch’s ascent in UK politics

At that time, when she still needed us, she identified with Nigerians but everything changed after she was elected.

At that point, in her conflicted and confused mind, all Nigerians became demons, all Englanders became angels and her disdain and contempt for us was unmasked!

She hates us with a perfect hatred yet she still has the effrontery and nerve to haul her rotund posterior back to our country with one Hamish, who I am told is her English husband, to watch polo at the Lagos Polo Club.

This is the same country that she has described as being a lawless jungle and corrupt stinking edifice from which no good can come and that is filled with nothing but apes, monsters and the criminally insane.

Her Nigerian passport (if she still has one) ought to be revoked and she should never be allowed to set her foot in our country again. She should take Vice President Kashim Shettima’s @KashimSM counsel seriously and drop Kemi as her name.

She should formally wipe her maiden name of Adegoke off the record as well and publicly renounce and disavow her father, mother, siblings and Nigerian lineage and heritage.

She does not want to identify with us and we do not want to identify with her.

She sees us as being corrupt and evil and we see her as being the devil incarnate and the spawn of satan. There can be no fellowship between us.

The truth is that she is no longer a mere irritant or the inconsequential object of our contempt and ridicule but she can now be comfortably and legitimately described as ‘public enemy number one’ of our beloved nation.

She should stick to the affairs of her UK, face it’s ruling Labour Party and it’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer @Keir_Starmer and LEAVE NIGERIA ALONE!

On a lighter note, it is a pity that I stopped playing polo many years ago, because if it had been in my days that she attempted to visit the Lagos Polo Club, she would not have got past the gate. And if she managed to do so, our grooms and horseboys would have pasted her self-hating, unpatriotic, ungrateful, treacherous and ever so plain face with Argentinian pony dung before tarring and feathering her.

How times have changed!
- Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Aviation and former Minister of Culture.
December 15, 2024
The truth in Dogara’s intervention on Tax Reform Bills
- By Musa Ilallah
Yakubu Dogara‘s take on the tax reform bills, the North’s economic potential, and the way forward I watched the presentation by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives at the Channels Television town hall session on the tax reform bills with great interest, and came away very impressed by the arguments that he made.

Since he left the House in 2023, the former Speaker has been quiet. Until this very impressive performance on a national stage, delivering deep truths about Northern Nigeria and the massive economic opportunity before it. He is worth quoting extensively. He addressed various issues methodically, showing immense respect for views he disagreed with, and showing us a new standard for public debate.

Among the issues he touched on were the allegations that President Tinubu is anti-North (false); that the Tax Reform Bills are being rushed (false). Dogara said: “I want to talk to my brothers in the North. I don’t think this is the time for us to begin to condemn the president.

And to begin to say that on account of these bills, he’s anti-North. Because I want to remind us that the president has done something that is significant. In my lifetime, if we can pursue this to the end, it will be that there’s no Northern leader of my lifetime that has done what the president has done for the North.

And I will tell you, it is the creation of the Livestock Ministry. The global market size of dairies, of beef, in the next three years, will rise to about 2.5 trillion US dollars.

So if in the North, we’re able to organize ourselves in such a way that we can corner just 5 percent, just 5 percent of this global market size of dairies and beef. I tell you, that gives us 125 billion US dollars.

We don’t need VAT from any State in Nigeria to survive. We are the most endowed part of Nigeria. We have all the resources. We can survive.”

These are profound words that should be translated into local languages across the country — kudos to the former Speaker for this bold and insightful affirmation of the North’s economic potential, which can be attained with visionary and determined leadership.”

His words made me interested in digging deeper into the false narrative of President Tinubu being anti-North. What I found is interesting nothing could be further from the truth.   A man who holds the prestigious title of Jagaban of Borgu Kingdom, and has held this title since 2006, does not get and maintain such an honour by being disdainful of a region.

A quick look at the President’s 19 months so far in office will reveal several landmark initiatives targeted at supporting and developing Northern Nigeria.

I will list some of the ones that come to mind most readily. In addition to the establishment of the Ministry of Livestock Development, there is also the establishment of North West Development Commission, which received presidential assent in July 2024, the effort that has gone into redesigning and re-awarding the contract for the reconstruction of Section 1 (Abuja-Kaduna) segment of the Abuja-Kano Expressway. In August 2023, the President flagged off the construction of a 1,350MW gas-fired power plant in the FCT, which, when completed, will be transformational to the economy of Northern Nigeria.

What of the major security gains being seen across Northern Nigeria, with dozens of bandit and terrorist leaders neutralized, major highways being secured; the launch of the N50 billion Pulako Initiative under the oversight of the Vice President, targeting seven frontline Northern States most affected by banditry.

Still on the matter of security, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), and both Defence Ministers have been appointed from Northern Nigeria in recognition of how critical security is to the region, in light of what it has gone through in the last decade and half.

Read Also: About Yakubu Dogara’s passion

There is also the flag-off of the construction of the 1,068km Sokoto-Badagry Expressway, with work commencing from the Sokoto end, the good progress being seen on the Kano-Kaduna and Kano-Maradi Standard Gauge Rail projects, and the Presidential approval for upgrade of Maiduguri Airport (Muhammadu Buhari Airport) to International status, with an operational take-off date of January 2025.

Even the tax reforms will benefit the region’s people significantly. The reforms being proposed by the President will ensure that all Nigerians earning one million Naira per annum and less will be completely exempted from PAYE tax. This is a huge deal, and tens of millions of Nigerians, including Northerners, will benefit. The reforms also include VAT exemption on transportation, rent, petroleum products, as well as a “zero rating” of VAT on food, healthcare, education.

So, in essence, the biggest items that Nigerians spend their hard-earned incomes on will see reduced tax burdens and Northern Nigeria will not be left out. As Yakubu Dogara said, it is very essential for us all to familiarize ourselves with the actual details of the reform bills, instead of listening to false and misleading claims and opposition propaganda circulating on the Internet. In the former Speaker’s very frank words, “You see, all of us operate within the available light that we have. For instance, when I first heard about these tax reforms, I was merely listening to people interpret what these proposals were.

As a matter of fact, I had not even read them myself. So in most cases, people react to information without bothering to check if those information they have had are actually true.

So you cannot blame a lot of people when they react this way, because they are listening to their leaders who are misinforming them, so to say.”

One major edge that Dogara has is that he can speak from practical experience, not just theoretically. He knows first-hand the importance of moving fast when a matter requires urgent solutions. He cited the example of the North East Development Commission Bill, which he sponsored. “I know how hurriedly we put that bill together.

And then because of the level of devastation then in the Northeast, and then the parlous nature of the livelihood of the people there, everybody understood with us.

And I believe that these tax reforms too are as important as the measures that led us to do that in the National Assembly,” he said.

As for the demand for the tax reform bills to be withdrawn, he made a most important point.

“The question of withdrawing these bills does not arise.

The National Assembly is the proper forum for debate, for contestation, for disagreement. Nothing stops the National Assembly from holding a joint public hearing on the bill between the Senate and the House of Representatives. If the Northern governors have issues, let them articulate their issues. Proffer solutions, the president has said, this is the best way I intend to achieve this.

We are free to disagree with the president and say, look, we disagree. We agree with the general principles, but instead of what the president has proposed, this is our own proposal.

All of us, if we are invited, should be able to avail ourselves as part of our civic duty to be at the National Assembly in order to look at all the issues that have been raised and to proffer solution.” No piece of legislation is indeed perfect. I would say, in my view, the Tax Reform Bills are eighty to ninety percent without blemish.

For the remaining 10 to 20 percent that might appear somewhat controversial, there is certainly room for further consultations, negotiations and compromises.

But we should not be guilty of throwing out the baby with the bath water; we should not allow a handful of imperfections to stand in the way of the greater good.

Let the consultations continue, but let us also be clear that at the end of the day, Nigeria will be better off with President Tinubu’s far-reaching tax reforms. .
- Ilallah, a public affairs analyst can be reached on @yahoo.com.
December 15, 2024
When hospitals turn slaughter slabs
- By Steve Omolale
Leonardo Da Vince, an Italian polymath, was among the first set of people who conceptualised the idea of a flying object with his design of a “flying machine”, which did not work as envisaged, but signalled the beginning of what we now know as aviation. However, another of his designs metamorphosed into the popular helicopter of today. Between da Vince’s pioneering designs and December 17, 1903, when the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, made the first attempt at flying, many individuals had also made several failed attempts at designing and actualising the idea of a flying object.

Since humans can be said to have conquered the skies, many air crashes and incidents have occurred, and will continue to occur. In fact, the most devastating aviation disaster in human history was when two aircraft, a KLM Boeing 747, which was attempting to take off, collided with another taxing Pan Am Boeing 747 at the Los Rodeos Airport on Canary Island of Tenerife, Spain, on March 27, 1977, killing a total of 538 passengers on board both aircraft.

In aviation accidents and incidents, pilot error is said to account for 53 per cent, while mechanical failure and weather conditions account for 21 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

Just like it is in aviation still considered the safest mode of travelling, so it is in the Nigerian health sector where doctor error has led to the death and permanent disability of countless number of Nigerians.

On December 31, 1983, when the then Major-General Muhammadu Buhari-led military junta kicked out the Shehu Shagari-led civilian administration from Dodan Barracks, Obalande, Lagos, Buhari told a bewildered nation in his first speech as the head of state that the “inept” Shagari government had turned public hospitals to “mere consulting clinics”. Unfortunately, more than 40 years down the lane, some of our hospitals, both public and private, are no longer “mere consulting clinics” but are now slaughter slabs with some doctors turning butchers-in-charge. Indeed, many a Nigerian doctor is now like Riva de Biasio, a psychopath, deformed and scary-looking character and serial killer in Venice, California, U.S., who gruesomely murdered and mutilated young women and children in public locations and whose heinous and heart-wrenching activities were captured in the classic novel, “The Butcher of Venice” by Irmgard Rawn.

Some of them, and their nurses, are also badly attitudinally-challenged that you will regret coming to them for treatment.

Despite this hopeless situation we found ourselves, however, a lot of our doctors are still highly professional, meticulous and very brilliant and precise in carrying out their duties.

The crass incompetence and chicanery of the guilty doctors and nurses in the Nigerian health sector did not just start today. About 30 years ago, a friend and senior photojournalist in one of the newspapers told me how his wife strongly insisted that her baby was swapped after delivery at one of the leading hospitals in Lagos, because, according to her, she knew she delivered a baby girl, but was given a baby boy when she eventually became conscious after childbirth. And this kind of evil practice still continues unabated in many of our hospitals. No wonder there has been an alarming surge in DNA crises in the country.

Also, many of our doctors and misdiagnosis are like five and six. For instance, renowned Lagos lawyer and rights activist, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), who died on September 5, 2009, after a prolonged battle with long cancer, was initially misdiagnosed of sore throat and cough in Nigeria before he was correctly diagnosed of lung cancer abroad when it was already too late and the cancer had spread all over his body. Too bad that thousands of such cases happen daily in the country and are never reported.

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Many Nigerians have died, and are still dying on the operating tables in our hospitals. May Ellen Mofe-Damijo (MEE), a journalist and publisher of Classique magazine died during an ill-fated fibroid surgery on March 23, 1996. She was just 30. Chairman of Punch Newspapers Limited, Wale Aboderin, died during a heart procedure on May 30, 2018. Recently, the then Akwa Ibom State Police Commissioner, Waheed Ayilara, passed on, on the operating table during a prostate surgery on August 29, this year.

But for providence, former Ogun State Commissioner for Information, Yusuph Olaniyonu, a journalist, would have long died after he was severally operated on for prostate issues at the National Hospital, Abuja, and left in one of the rooms in the wards to die. He was later saved at a Cairo hospital in Egypt where he was rushed. How many of our compatriots have this kind of privilege?

Pathetic was the case of a 13-year-old boy, Akin Bright, whose lower intestine was missing between two hospitals – a private hospital and a public one – and who died on September 19, 2023.

As I write this, my heart bleeds profusely because one of my wife’s nieces, a complete orphan, is lying cold in a morgue in Imo State where two hospitals could not save her life and that of her new baby during and after childbirth. Losing the baby and the mother has been too devastating for us to bear. The list of tragic and near tragic cases in our hospitals is inexhaustible in the face of our helplessness and hopelessness.

As a way out and instead of embarking on unwarranted medical tourism as government officials do at the slightest opportunity, the federal and state governments should equip all their university teaching hospitals to be able to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The goal is to ensure that they catch up with rapidly advancing technology in health service delivery in the developed countries where their officials run to for medical tourism. Those days when members of the Saudi royal family were regular patients at our own University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, which is now a shadow of itself, regularly thrown into darkness for owing electricity bills like other teaching hospitals, should be brought back without delay.

There is also the need for the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and the universities to review the curricula of the medical schools, as some of the methods adopted to train the doctors are not in tune with the current trend.

Whenever a case of negligence is reported against any medical doctor or any health worker, MDCN and other regulatory bodies have a responsibility to investigate such case and, if found guilty, discipline the erring doctor or health professional. It is partly because of the inadequate unresponsiveness of MDCN and others that some relatives of dead patients take the law into their own hands and physically assault doctors and nurses, especially when they have reasons to suspect that negligence occasioned the death of their loved ones. Collectively, we must save our collapsed health sector to save our own lives.

•Omolale, a journalist, sent in this piece via somolale@gmail.com.
December 13, 2024
Greener pastures: Navigating identity in the diaspora
- By Aisha Mobolaji-Okoya
The pursuit of greener pastures is never a straight path. It is a pilgrimage of hope, and struggle, and unexpected discoveries.

When I left Nigeria for the UK, I held onto dreams bigger than my suitcase, excited for opportunities that would transform my life, the greener grass of the west. Unknowing to me, the true transformation would not happen in the land I sojourn, but in understanding of identity, belonging and resilience

To be far away from Nigeria and her many problems; is that not the reason we japa and seek better opportunities in the UK?

My fellow Diasporans, the pursuit of opportunities come with many invisible burdens. We mustn’t be disillusioned by the so-called greener pastures. As we enter this foreign land, there is no welcome sign or information desk warning us of the not so sunny side of UK living. I’m talking about the inner struggle of retaining your Nigerian identity and yet, integrating into British culture. No one really talks about the drain of the constant culture shock! You will soon find yourself standing dumbfounded and asking, ‘Is it that I don’t know anything?’

My journey began in a small town in Kent, where the most exciting attraction was the grocery store. I arrived, bright eyed, ready to take on this new chapter in my life and experience new people and culture. I was the main character in this multicultural narrative. Me, the exciting international student, dazzling the locals with stories from my homeland. I was filled with hopeful trepidation, here to start a new and better life. Reality was not the script I signed on for!

The shock of difference

Lesson one: Life is not like the movies! Kent showed me ‘shege’.

In this small town, diversity was a rarity, with us six international students at its forefront. We were shiny object for the rest of the students to gawk at, subjects of curiosity- and often ignorance.

My first day in school was a downpour of cultural dissonance. I spent the day answering odd questions like ‘how many elephants are in your backyard?’ and ‘do you swing on trees to get to school?’ The ignorance of the locals was dumfounding, revelation of the deep-rooted misconceptions about African, about me.

It all came to head in Literature class. A classmate, seemingly innocent, asked me ‘how come you speak English so well?’ In that moment, I looked around; she couldn’t have been talking to me.

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When you leave your home, your culture and everything you know to seek opportunities, you go with hope. At that moment, when this girl asked me about my English, hope felt like a dimming light in the distance. This was a backhanded question and a micro-aggression that sobered me. Maybe I could have tolerated all the differences England showed me: the weird food, the accents that made me listen harder, the perpetual grey sky, but I knew, I wasn’t going to fit in here.

Soon enough, the interest in the ‘new kids’ stopped entirely. And the six of us -Nigerian students- were relegated to invisible bodies in the sea of Englishness.

I began to struggle with anxiety as everything I did or said, which would have been normal in Lagos, was odd. The way I pronounced ‘accommodate’ will earn me looks in class. My loud roaring laugh resulted in sneers. And my inability to appreciate the bland British cuisines made me ‘stuck up’. I retreated into myself, a shell of the vibrant Lagosian I was.

The harder I tried to understand the culture I would live in for the next few years of my life, the more marginalised I was.

So, I kept my head down, surrounded by the pain of my rejection by England.

Alas, this is not a tragic story, my people. For where there a will, there’s a way. And the way came in form of community.

We Nigerian students built our safe haven. Our games night was more than entertainment; it was our way of cultural preservation. We’d keep up with latest Nigerian trends. The night Olamide dropped ‘Science Student’, we didn’t just listen; we debated the songs’ ban from Nigerian Radios and its cultural impact.

We shared home cooked meals our parents sent us and revelled in our freedom to speak freely in Nigerian slangs and accents. We teased each other about the fake accents we had adopted, as self-preservation, yelling ‘gbagaun’ when someone stumbled on their words.

The otherness, England relegated us, created a deep longing for the motherland and we satisfied our longing by having each other’s back. Therefore, resisting forced assimilation and erasure we faced daily.

The UK taught me that greener pastures are not just geographical locations, but internal resilience. While no welcome entourage awaits immigrants at the airport, community becomes that warm reception. You may be running from the challenges of Nigeria, but you will find that running towards Nigerian people in this foreign land offers a comfort you didn’t know you needed. Our diaspora isn’t just about survival. Our diaspora is the bridge between cultures, a pocket of home. A Nigeria away from Nigeria.

To my fellow sojourners, our japa is not about escaping but about flourishing. We do not just seek greener pastures, but we cultivate our gardens of cultural awareness and preservation. The grass might seem greener on the western side, but true growth is in how we nurture our roots, no matter the soil.

•Mobolaji-Okoya can be reached via aishaokoya@yahoo.com
December 13, 2024
Delta and transparency in governance
- By Afam Nweze
At inauguration on May 29, 2023, Delta governor, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, made a solemn pledge; to use the state’s resources for the advancement of the state. He promised to keep the ledger open, to run a government of accountability and transparency.

Barely a year and a half later, it has been promise-kept. Delta State was recently ranked among top 10 states in the 2024 Governance Accountability and Transparency Index (GATI), a project developed as an annual report, focusing on the accountability and transparency perception index of each of the 36 state governments in Nigeria. Delta is in the top bracket in good company with Lagos, Kwara, Ekiti, Anambra, Enugu, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Borno and Osun states. They were all ranked in Category A, on equal Average Index Points.

Five globally- acceptable methodologies in measuring the indices, namely: surveys; document review; expert assessments; data analysis and index aggregation were used during the state-by-state scrutiny on governance with regard to accountability and transparency.

Data released on the index explained how the rankings were arrived at. States that scored between 85% and 100% are in Category A, and rated Exceptional Performance(EP); those with 65% to 84% are in Category B, and adjudged Strong Performance (SP); 45% to 64% are in Category C (Average Performance ,AP); 25% to 44%, are in Category D (Poor Performance, PP); while 0% to 24% are in Category E (Non-Performance, NP). Delta came strong in Category A, a fulfilment of Oborevwori’s pledge to demystify governance by making every Deltan count through shared and evenly distributed resources, inclusivity and openness.

The survey was facilitated by the Guild of Online Media Editors and Publishers with a team of data analysts and verifiers spanning the media spectrum, academics, and a wide gamut of civil society organisations. The exercise is in tandem with extant global best practices where states and nations are subjected to critical reviews on their performances and efficiencies using laid down parameters verging on fiscal responsibility, resource management, application of emotional intelligence, employment generation, youth empowerment and upskilling, literacy level, inflation rate, capital to recurrent expenditure ratio, wealth-creation initiatives and internally generated revenue.

It bears re-affirming that Oborevwori has never shied away from public scrutiny of his leadership and governance under him. At every forum, he openly states the policy direction of his government, all captured in the M.O.R.E agenda. He inherited a couple of ongoing projects. He promised to complete them, bucking the noxious trend among some governors who jettison projects of their predecessors to the detriment of the people. He made the development of the Warri-Sapele once-thriving district his priority. He wants to restore the lost glory of the two cities. He promised to continue with the momentum of infrastructural development in the state. Every word he utters speaks development, not fractious politics. And step by step, he has been going about the serious business of governance of one of Nigeria’s most complex and sophisticated states.

The governor’s creed is his unwavering commitment to fiscal discipline, honesty, prudence, and transparency in governance. Oborevwori is not an accidental governor. He came prepared. His pedigree in the public ecosystem as governors’ aides at various times, then as Speaker (historically the longest serving Speaker and the only speaker who transited to the position of governor of Delta state) lends him to the tough job of managing the inherent complexities of the state. Perhaps, this explains why he’s always intentional, not compulsive, in taking certain decisions.

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By far, his strength has been his unalloyed devotion to fiscal discipline. At a recent event in Asaba on Governance and Policy Direction Conversation, themed “More Agenda: Economic Dynamics of Policy Direction, Open Governance and the Youth Inclusivity Question”, the governor, for the umpteenth time, stressed his commitment to ensuring fiscal responsibility and judicious resource allocation in completing ongoing projects, and engendering youth inclusivity in governance. Oborevwori is a youth-friendly governor and this reflects in the multi-sector empowerment of youths in the state and even in his appointments. Many of the commissioners in his cabinet are below the age of 40. The composition of the State Executive Council is an undeniable proof of his commitment to youth inclusivity in governance.

He listed elements of his M.O.R.E agenda to include policy thrusts for inclusive and sustainable economic growth, private sector-driven job creation initiatives, 21st century-compliant human capital, accelerated infrastructural development and more efficient and effective governance and accountability systems.

He believes that the starting point for good governance is instituting a regime of fiscal discipline and responsibility. This is even more germane in these times when the national economy has been impaired by crushing headwinds.

“In our current operating environment of anxiety and uncertainty occasioned by the abrupt removal of fuel subsidy and continuing devaluation of the naira, the challenge for political leaders at all levels of governance is to think outside the box and demonstrate the highest levels of discipline, honesty, prudence, and transparency in government.

“To these values we are totally and irrevocably committed, and we will do everything within our power as a government to entrench them in public administration”, Oborevwori assured Deltans.

So far, his administration has demonstrated an iron-cast resolve to ensure that public funds are judiciously applied as prioritised, first to the completion of some inherited projects and initiation of new projects all targeted at improving the quality of life of the people.

In this season when some governors have gone inert on capital projects, it is the routine to see the sprouting of mega projects in Delta with contractors working ceaselessly to meet deadlines. Whether in the far-flung riverine areas or the upland fringes of the state, there is always one project ongoing, some being commissioned. All this, coupled with huge expenditure in human capital development, welfare of workers, social security support for the underclass and improved funding for education and healthcare, are made possible by the intentional fiscal discipline of the Sheriff of Delta.

•Nweze writes from Asaba, Delta State.
December 13, 2024
Africa’s worsening food crisis – It’s time for an agricultural revolution

By William G. Moseley

Rates of hunger in Africa are unacceptably high and getting worse.

The UN State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report reveals that food insecurity in Africa is the highest of any world region. The prevalence of undernourishment is 20.4% (some 298.4 million Africans) – over twice the global average. The figure has grown steadily since 2015.

Climate change and conflict are contributing to this problem. But I suggest that something more fundamental lies at the heart of the challenge: the ideas and plans used in the postcolonial period to guide how Africa produces food and seeks to reduce malnutrition. While rates of food insecurity vary across the continent, and are worse in central and West Africa, this is a region-wide challenge.

I’m a scholar of African food security and agriculture. In a new book, Decolonising African Agriculture: Food Security, Agroecology and the Need for Radical Transformation, I argue that to feed Africa better, decision-makers and donors ought to:

• Reduce the focus on commercial agricultural production as a way to address food insecurity

• Stop thinking that agricultural development is solely about commercialising farming and supporting other industries

• Adopt an agro-ecological approach that uses farmer knowledge and natural ecological processes to grow more with fewer external inputs, such as fertilisers.

Conventional approaches have failed across various contexts and countries. I look at what’s going wrong with how governments think about agriculture – and where the focus needs to be instead to tackle Africa’s hunger crisis.

Focus on production agriculture

Many of the core ideas around agriculture date back to the colonial era.

Modern crop science, or agronomy, was developed in Europe to serve colonial interests. The goal was to produce crops that would benefit European economies. Although this approach has been criticised, it still heavily influences agriculture today. The idea is that producing more food will solve food insecurity.

Food security has six dimensions. While increased food production might address one of these dimensions – food availability – it often fails to address the other five: access, stability, utilisation, sustainability and agency.

Food insecurity is not always about an absolute lack of food, but about people’s inability to get the food that is there.

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Unstable prices may be one reason. Or people may not have cooking fuel. Agricultural practices may be unsustainable. This often happens when farmers have limited control over how and what they farm.

The West African nation of Mali, for example, has focused on cotton exports based on the idea that it would bolster economic growth and that cotton farmers could use their new equipment and fertiliser to grow more food. Research shows, however, that this led to the destruction of soil resources, indebtedness for farmers, and alarming rates of child malnutrition.

Another example is South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform initiatives, which adopted a large scale commercial agricultural model. This has led to high rates of project failure and has done little to address high rates of malnutrition.

Agriculture as a first step

The second major challenge in addressing Africa’s high malnutrition rates is that many countries and international organisations don’t value agricultural development for itself. It’s seen as the first step towards industrialisation.

Commercial agriculture has become paramount. It tends to focus on a single crop, with expensive inputs (like fertilisers) and with connections to far-away markets. Smaller farms, focused on production for home consumption and local markets, are less valued. These farms may not add to national economic growth in an important way, but they help the poor achieve food security.

For example, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa funded a rice commercialisation project in Burkina Faso. Women farmers were encouraged to leave traditional practices behind, buy inputs, work with improved seeds, and sell to bigger urban markets. Sadly, research I worked on revealed that this didn’t provide great nutritional gains for the participants.

In another case, as its diamond exports boomed, Botswana largely gave up on pursuing food self-sufficiency in the 1980s. Crop agriculture was not seen as a significant contributor to the economy. This undermined the food security of poorer rural inhabitants and women.

Agroecology as the way forward

Mounting evidence of failure suggests it’s time to try a different way of addressing Africa’s food security woes.

Agroecology – farming with nature – is a more decolonial approach. It covers formal research by scientists and informal knowledge of farmers who experiment in their fields.

Agroecologists study the interactions between different crops, crops and insects, and crops and the soil. This can reveal ways to produce more with fewer costly external inputs. It’s a more sustainable and cheaper option.

Common examples of agro-ecological practices in African farming systems are polycropping – planting different complementary crops in the same field – and agroforestry – mixing trees and crops. These diverse systems tend to have fewer pest problems and are better at maintaining soil fertility.

No African country has fully embraced agroecology yet, but there are promising examples, many unplanned, that point to its potential.

In Mali, for example, farmers briefly abandoned cotton in 2007-2008 due to low prices. There was then an upsurge in sorghum production. This largely saved the country from the social unrest and food price protests that happened in most neighbouring countries.

A few land reform projects in South Africa allowed larger farms to be split into smaller plots, which had higher rates of success and more food security benefits. This suggests that a different, less commercial approach is in order.

The beginning of a revolution

Agroecology is a promising way forward in addressing Africa’s worsening food crisis.

It also has the backing of many African civil society organisations, such as the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and Network of West African Farmer Organisations and Agricultural Producers.

African government leaders and donors have been slower to recognise the need for a different approach. We are beginning to see signs of change, though. For example, Senegal’s former agriculture minister, Papa Abdoulaye Seck, trained as a traditional agronomist. He now sees agroecology as a better way forward for his country. And the European Union has also begun funding a small number of experimental agroecology programmes.

It’s time for a major shift in perspective. We will hopefully look back on this era as the turning point that ended intellectual colonisation in the agronomic sciences.

•Moseley is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, Director of Food, Agriculture & Society Program, Macalester College, Minnesota, United States. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. https://theconversation.com/africas-worsening-food-crisis-its-time-for-an-agricultural-revolution-244323.

December 12, 2024
The Kaduna tax reform dialogue

By Benjamin Samson

On Saturday, October 7, stakeholders from various sectors, including government, private sector, civil society organisations, the academia, traditional rulers, religious leaders and the media converged on Kaduna to discuss the contentious tax reform bills currently before the National Assembly.

The discourse, which was organised by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Kaduna State chapter, provided a veritable platform for the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, to mobilise stakeholders to engage in a constructive dialogue on the bills. The theme of the dialogue was: ‘The Roles of Public Relations in Fostering Constructive Dialogue for National Economic Renaissance’.

The bills facing opposition from some governors, lawmakers and CSOs, include the Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria (Establishment) Bill, 2024; Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, 2024; Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, 2024; and Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024 are aimed at revamping the country’s tax laws.

Setting the tone for the discussion, president of NIPR, Dr. Ike Neliaku, while throwing the support of the institute for the tax reforms, said it is willing to partner with the Ministry of Information and National Orientation to take the tax reform ‘gospel’ ‘to the six geo-political zones of the country.

“We saw the responsibility to provide this credible professional platform for citizens to engage with government on this issue of tax reforms. We have done research, we have followed up, we have engaged and we can really predict that unless we all sit down as we are sitting down today to discuss this matter, people might not understand where the government is going and the government might not understand the intention of the citizens,” he said.

He lauded the courage of Information and National Orientation Minister, Mohammed Idris, for attending the conference, saying it is not every government official that would agree to chair discussion on a controversial subject matter like the tax reform bills.

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In his remarks, Idris, pledged to tell Nigerians the truth about government policies at all times, assuring that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would look into all genuine concerns raised by Nigerians.

The minister, who spoke in both English and Hausa, described the bill as crucial and timely, saying that Nigeria’s tax administration system is due for reform in terms of design and implementation flaws as well as taxpayers’ attitude. He however, called for constructive dialogue on the tax reform devoid of regional, ethnic and religious sentiments as, according to him, dialogue is one of the fundamental ingredients of democracy and President Tinubu, he noted, would never do anything to undermine it.

Idris highlighted the significance of taxation, quoting Benjamin Franklin’s phrase, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.

“Taxation is a crucial source of financial power for governments to provide social services for their citizens,” he said.

The minister noted that the ongoing review of tax laws is timely and crucial, especially as part of a larger set of macroeconomic reforms aimed at setting the country on an irreversible path of growth and development.

In his presentation, Kajesomo Kehinde Victor, Deputy Director/Head, Treaties and International Tax Policy Division, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), said the bills, if passed, would be the best thing to happen to Nigerian economy.

He highlighted some of the proposals of the bills that low-income earners (N83,000 monthly) would be exempt from the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax. Similarly, he emphasised that PAYE will be reduced for those earning less than N1.7 million per annum.

Victor noted that households and individuals would enjoy zero value-added tax on food, healthcare, education and transportation as there would be VAT exemption on transportation, renewable energy, CNG, baby products, sanitary towels, rent and fuel products. He also said the reforms are aimed at streamlining the over 30 tax laws in the country into four making the tax system simple and efficient.

“What we have presently, if you are a company in Nigeria, whether you make profit or not, you pay tax. If you make profit, you pay tax on the profit, if you make loss, you pay tax on your capital,” he said.

He said the focus of the reforms is to tax profit and not capital in order to promote prosperity rather than poverty.

The lead discussant, Prof. Mustapha Bagudo, said the concern of the north on the tax reform bills stemmed from VAT and education levy. He said if NASENI and TETFUND are scrapped due to the tax reforms, it would have adverse effects on the educational sector.

“The question that we need to discuss is, what is the implication of this? When you go to the higher institutions in Nigeria today, what you can see is the TETFund structures. If you remove the TETFund structure in this institution, those institutions will cease to exist. If by 2030, you say the TETFund will cease to exist, what will happen to the Nigerian high institutions?” he asked.

Prof. Bagudo, however, declared that the north was unnecessarily overheating the polity on the issue of VAT saying “We need to talk to ourselves”.

“In the long run, if we can put our house in order, we are going to benefit from this. My concern is if the 60 per cent is based on derivation or is it based on consumption. If it is based on consumption, northerners should not panic.

“Number one, they said 20 per cent based on equity. What is our concern on that 20 per cent based on equity? We are all part of Nigeria. The concern is that if the 60 per cent is based on consumption, then why are we worried? Why are we worried? Because if it is based on derivation, now there is a problem because gradation will be affected. Maybe most of the companies are based in Lagos. That is our concern,” he said.

He also faulted the North on the issue of VAT from alcohol consumption, saying any income generated from sale of alcohol is not allowed in Islam because the religion is against alcohol consumption.

Renowned human rights activist, Senator Shehu Sani, who was one of the panellists lamented lack of courage by many lawmakers from the north to take a stand on the bills, saying majority of those opposing the bills are ignorant about its provisions.

“There is a philosophical saying that, ‘fine is something you pay for doing something wrong while a tax is fine you pay for doing something right. I am in full support of the bills because this is about Nigeria, our future, our economy, our well-beings and our lives. People have been elected into offices to either serve in executive capacity or at the legislative capacity. Unfortunately, what I have seen since the tax reform bills debate started is that the whole issue has been politicised.

“We are no more talking about the content and clauses; everything is now mired in politics. It has reached a crescendo where people are now afraid of voicing out their opinion including the senators and members of the House of Representatives.

“People from this part of the country have been intimidated not to speak in support of the bill. The governors are also evading questions and explanations on the bill. I have not seen town hall meetings organised by lawmakers to explain the bills.”

Another panellist, Prof Okey Okechukwu, described the dialogue as an institutional approach to public communication as, according to him, it is important to note that every policy of government is intended to address some public good.

“If there are issues and you don’t talk about it, there are tendencies that they will multiply. What I see emerging from this conversation is a consensus; the bill is being demystified.”

He debunked insinuations that some government agencies would be scrapped, saying, no agency of government would be scrapped, but would only be migrated to direct funding.

“What I see is a tax reform bills that would make those interested in leadership to make their states conducive for investors. The tax reform bills are going to compel close attention to development, close attention to IGR. The bills are investment focused, development focused and human capital development focused,” he said.

The District Head of Doka in Kaduna State, Alhaji Bala Tijani, in his remarks said he used to have negative perception about the bill but said through the discussion, his orientation has changed.

“I am one of those who used to think that I would pay more tax if the bills sail through. I also thought the north would be impoverished but I am now enlightened”, he said.

To another resident of Kaduna, Alhaji Ibrahim Sani: “Contrary to what we were made to believe, the bill is good for entire Nigeria including the north. I now know that those earning very little will pay little or no taxes, thereby helping them manage their finances better.”

Also, business woman Hajiya Aisha Abdul Salam said the reforms are designed to ease the burden on hardworking Nigerians while ensuring everyone contributes fairly. By supporting this effort, we can create a tax system that works for all and funds the development projects that would improve our nation.”

• Samson writes from Abuja

December 12, 2024