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  • Memo from Bonn

    After two weeks of deliberations, negotiations and meetings dragging late into the night, the 23rd session of the Conference of Parties has come to a close in Bonn, Germany. Questions linger however; questions on what took place in Bonn FROM November 6–17, questions as to the landmark decisions that were made, questions as to implementation plans over the next one year. These questions, I will attempt to answer in this memo.

    I could have been writing this from a packed press briefing room somewhere in the Bonn Zone, or from one of the meeting rooms in Bula Zone 3 or from one of the comfy rooms in Hotel Astoria in Bonn, Germany, but I am writing this from Nigeria, from a small room illuminated only by a faint torchlight positioned to face upwards to enable me see the keyboard of my laptop as I type away, trying hard to drown out the grumbling of generators.

    I am writing from this place where the Paris Agreement cries to be implemented.

    This is why the memo from Bonn means a lot to me.  I am writing first to fellow countrymen, not as the government or office holders, but as everyday people, and I am trying to let them know that what happened in Bonn is their business too.

    This year’s Conference of Parties gives us reason to re-assess our priorities, ad rethink our game plan as a country. This year was the first year the COP was chaired by a small island state- Fiji -and the push, drive and commitment of fellow small island states to see their goals achieved in the negotiations was palpable. And their goals are goals that concern developing nations, chief among which was the clamour for financing from developed countries through the loss and damage (L&D) dedicated financing mechanisms. Expectedly, developed countries antagonized the move, as accepting the concept of loss and damage would mean their acceptance of the fact that developed countries have caused major irreparable loss to the rest of the world. Germany had earlier opened the conference on the first day with an announcement of an additional €100 million to support climate change adaptation in developing countries, it is ironical then why it was difficult for a bloc of countries to which they belong to commit to financing for loss and damage? This very easily shows the rest of the world how developed countries will not accept responsibility quickly. In fact, the European Union and Australia suddenly began to raise claims of there being no scientific proof linking climate change to extreme weather conditions. What this portends for us in this part of the world, is a need to start thinking ahead; developing financing methods to cushion budget shortfalls in addressing issues of climate change, potential loss and damage, adaptation and mitigation.

    I have suggested elsewhere that the African Development Bank should fly Green Bonds which are increasingly becoming attractive in the international stock market. Also, de-risking financial instruments and generally pooling capital market investments for green development is a great way of financing climate in the Nigeria. There should also be the consideration of a regional capital market for Africa to float such bonds in order to attract private sector funding on a continental level. In order to do this, there is a dire need for knowledge dissemination on green investments to provide a repository for financial analysts, investors and private actors to properly understand the climate investment market. There is also the need to use local expertise to pool investments with a view to benefiting local communities, who are most affected by the effects of climate change. The Abidjan Declaration of ECOWAS concluded in June this year speaks to this.

    Some other very interesting occurrences at the COP this year was Syria’s signing of the Paris Agreement, something many have praised, but a few have maligned as being not well thought out for a war-torn country. Despite the criticisms, the move remains a commendable one, and one that typifies the United States as the child in the circle being taunted by other children for peeing her pants. Another development which puts the Trump administration on edge is the ‘We are Still In’ movement which was showcased at the COP by Governor Jerry Brown of California, a movement that brings thousands of US citizens together as they continue implementing the Paris Agreement, regardless of President Trump’s stance. The lesson to take away from this is that we, the citizens, are powerful, and that if we should one by one commit to taking action to combat climate change and its effects, we can do a lot of good, even more for our country that has signed the Paris Agreement.

    At the COP, the Gender Action Plan was also launched for the first time, a plan of action to ensure more inclusiveness for the female gender in climate activities; negotiations, high-level decisions, policy making, adaptation and mitigation programmes, loss and damage activities, financing etc. It is laudable because the Paris Agreement and its eventual success had women at the forefront and still does. There is no doubt that much can be achieved with more women involvement in decision making.

    The Talanoa Dialogue is a term you will hear too, from attendees of the negotiations in Bonn. The Dialogue is another victory for developing countries, especially small island states at the negotiating table. The Dialogue simply puts in place a pre-2020 plan of action. The Paris Agreement implementation is to start in 2020, but certain countries demanded that countries of the world begin to show how they are working to achieve fulfilment of the Paris Agreement before 2020. This move will indeed put countries of the world, including Nigeria, on their toes, and help Nigerian leaders have at the forefront of their minds, not just the 2019 elections, but also activities for climate action to take pre-2020, and perhaps through this, we will see more progress at COP 24 in Katowice, Poland.

     

    • Adebayo is a lawyer keen on the intersection of energy, environmental law and finance.

     

  • Falana and tort of negligence

    Falana and tort of negligence

    FEW weeks ago, Femi Falana, SAN, foremost human rights activist and legal practitioner extraordinaire who has substantially devoted his time, talent, training and treasure to fight the cause of the downtrodden, broke his knee in a manhole in front of his Abuja office. Since the incident, he has hobbled with his knee in a Plaster of Paris (POP) and a walking stick. Narrating his ordeal, Falana recounts that the manhole which appeared as part of the normal road caved in as he stepped on it.

    Expressing surprise that a road could be constructed with such a manhole not properly secured, or a notice given, Falana decided to approach the court to ventilate his grievance and seek redress. As he pointed out, the primary motive for instituting an action and seeking remedy against the road builder and the road owner is to compel them to realise that they owe a duty of care against road users. He believes that any person affected by a negligent conduct of a public authority, owe a social duty, to hold the authority accountable, which in turn compels efficiency.

    Without prejudice to the particularity of Falana’s claim and the defence available to the defendants, I will in this piece examine the basic provisions of Law of Tort on Negligence.  As posited by learned author, Professor Ese Malami: “the purpose of the tort of negligence is to identify breach of a duty of care, and offer remedy to a person who has suffered harm. In other words, the purpose of the law of negligence is to offer remedy to a person who has suffered harm, because of a breach of a duty of care.”

    From the definition, the purpose of the tort of negligence is to hold accountable any person who has the responsibility to exercise the duty of care in his conduct. Where for instance, a person acts negligently or carelessly, and a person suffers damages as a result of such a negligent conduct, the tort of negligence provides legal opportunity for the claimant to seek damages. Of note, it is not all negligent acts that give right to damages. For the negligent act to be actionable, the defendant must owe the claimant a duty of care.

    Defining negligence, Akpata JSC, in Odinaka vs Moghalu, (1992) 4 NWLR part 233, page 1, stated: “Negligence is the omission … to do something which a reasonable man under similar circumstances would do or, the doing of something which a reasonable and prudent man would not do.” In Heaven vs Pender (1883) 11 QBD 503 at 507 CA, Brett MR, held: “Actionable negligence consists in the neglect of the use of ordinary care or skill towards a person to whom the defendant owes the duty of observing ordinary care and skill, by which neglect the plaintiff, without contributory negligence on his part, has suffered injury to his person or property.”

    It will be jurisprudentially significant, if the courts begin to award damages for the varied and rampant grievous neglect of duty of care by public authorities. Travelling on federal, state and local highways, drivers and passengers are confronted with unannounced craters on the highways which have caused the loss of several lives and properties. Until President Olusegun Obasanjo brought them down, most of those death traps were tolled.

    Interestingly, the Minister for Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola SAN, has announced that the toll gates are coming back after the roads are repaired. While many Nigerians may have reservations about the return of toll gates which were sited discriminately, those who ply the affected roads will feel more offended if bad roads are also tolled. But it will open a new chapter, if persons who suffer damages as a result of the bad roads could maintain an action against the road builders and the road owners.

    But of course, the tort of negligence is not a floodgate for every loss. To successfully maintain an action, there are basic principles which must apply before a claimant could succeed. Again, Professor Malami, in his book: Law of Tort lists the conditions thus: that the defendant owed a duty of care to the claimant, that the defendant breached the duty of care and that the defendant suffered damage as a result of the breach.

    As Lord Esher MR, stated in Le Lievre vs Gould (1893) 1 QB 491 AT 497: “a man is entitled to be as negligent as he pleases towards the whole world, if he owes no duty to them.” Many Nigerians will anxiously await the pronouncement of the court, whether the builder and owner of a highway owe a duty of care to a road user, on reasonable warranty of the safety of the road? When road signs are placed on the highways warning users approaching a bend, a bridge, a hill or sharp descent, are those acts exercise of duty of care?

    The duty of care was defined by Lord Atkin, in his famous dictum in Donoghue vs Stevenson (1932) AC 562 HL, where he said: “The rule that you are to love your neighbour became in law, you must not injure your neighbour…. Who, then in law is my neighbour? The answer seems to be persons who are so closely and directly affected by my acts that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called to questions.”

    In practice, it appears the duty of care in tort of negligence is defined more widely by courts when it has to do with private persons unlike public authorities. Perhaps that explains the higher level of negligence by public authorities. But with the conduct of public institutions causing citizens grievous damages, the time appears ripe for holding them more accountable for negligent conducts. One area the law should be vigorously explored is the criminal negligence of public utility companies like electricity providers.

    It is heart-rending when an electricity surge for instance, causes heavy damage to factory machines or even home appliances. It should be unacceptable that after paying for electricity, one has no idea when the services paid for would be available, such that perishable items stored in the freezer goes to waste. It will be interesting if customers of electricity distribution companies can successfully maintain an action in Tort, against the service provider, apart from rights arising from breach of contract.

    If Femi Falana SAN can successfully maintain an action for the negligent conduct of the road builder and road owner for the harm caused him, the case will be precedence for Nigerians suffering in silence from the negligent acts of state actors. To succeed however, the limitation imposed by the doctrine of public policy which Lord Denning referred to in Dorset Yacht Co. Ltd vs Home Office (1969) 2 QB 412 at 426 must be expounded in his favour.

  • Sardauna Keremi: A decade after

    To die completely is to be forgotten. He who dies and is not forgotten lives forever.” Samuel Butler.

    Today, November 28, marks a decade of the death of Chief Sunday Bolorunduro Awoniyi, the Aro of Mopa and Sardauna Keremi (little Sardauna), in a London hospital from injuries he sustained in an auto crash on the Abuja-Kaduna road.

    Our path crossed in 1996 in the course of my journalism practice.  I was then with the Vanguard newspapers as Deputy Bureau Chief; and, later Bureau Chief in Abuja.  He was a director of the newspaper and I had to take copies of the newspaper to him every day.

    I loved to do it because it afforded me the opportunity of daily engagements with him.  He was profoundly intelligent.  Like a father, he would tell me stories about one remarkable event or the other while he was in the public service; and on each occasion, I always drew huge lessons from such narratives.

    He was a man of integrity and stickler for proper conducts in and out of public office.  He was a careful writer, a prose stylist.  Our relationship was more than the kind that is wont to exist between politicians and reporters. By his own admission, he was not really a politician, but a public administrator sucked into politics.  This, perhaps, explained why he was meticulous throughout his political engagements and later life assignment as chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the socio-cultural umbrella organisation of the north.

    We both did not abuse the privileges of our relationship.  Despite his prime position in the newspaper, he did not notoriously appropriate the platform to project or defend his positions.  He was always reluctant to grant interviews.  I would occasionally pile pressure on him to offer perspectives on some national issues.

    There were times when he would suggest to me that he would like to speak on some issues, which he would itemise; and, he would, in his quick-witted manner, ensure that his responses to questions and follow-ups were tied up with the issues on his mind.  He was fastidious when it had to do with publishing his interview and, therefore, he would always be pleased if I allowed him to go through the transcribed interview before going to press.  He would cross the “ts”, dot the “is” and make lucid, sentences that appeared tedious.

    He was a simple man.  He showed me fatherly affection.  He was at home with my family.  I remember when I travelled to Indonesia in 2000 to cover the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference, leaving my wife who was due to put to bed at home; he took it upon himself to visit her in the hospital while I was away.  He was giving me updates on mother and child.

    He was a terrific motivator, who was always on hand to provide some forms of succour in times of distress.  His interventions were great.  Above all, I cherish his respect.  In spite of the wide age gap, he never talked down on me.  He actually spoke with me and not to me.  He was always ready to receive me into his home, even at odd hours.

    I was always writing to celebrate him on his birthday.  There was a particular year I did a tribute, as usual, on him.  He called to appreciate my effort.  “Oj”, he said, as he was wont to address me, “you have done what Napoleon could not do; you have surpassed yourself.”

    He would always call to let me know that he was travelling and when he would return, just like he did on his ill-fated journey to Kaduna.  On getting to his destination, he would call to let me know how he was doing; and, by the way, the last journey to Kaduna shattered all that ritual.

    Today, 10 years after his death, I remember a man whose trajectory and track record of integrity in life has continued to interrogate the antics of a vast majority of duplicitous political actors who bestride the nation’s political landscape, spurning the base metal of the electorate by which they ascended to power.   I remember his exploits in the murky waters of Nigerian politics where his temperamental impatience with the political shenanigans and chicanery had marked him out as a rare breed.

    In his life and times, he demonstrated integrity and accountability in public and private life in the tradition of the late Premier of the northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, under whose tutelage he (Awoniyi) honed his leadership skills.  

    His involvement in politics began in the ill-fated Third Republic when he represented his people of Kogi West in the Senate on the platform of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC).  When the political transition failed and there was another attempt at transiting from military to democratic governance, he got involved in the process by first participating in the Constitutional Conference organised by the regime of the late General Sani Abacha.

    In the political process that followed the conference, Awoniyi partnered the likes of Adamu Ciroma and Bamanga Tukur, among others, to form the defunct All Nigeria Congress (ANC).  He was then the Protem National Chairman and one of the intellectual bulwarks of the most organised association that sought the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON) registration.

    But with the formation of the PDP in 1998, he played a prominent role in the election of the presidential candidate, Olusegun Obasanjo. He also wanted to lead the party as its national chairman.  But the powers-that-be conspired against him at the national convention and ensured that he lost the intra-party election through the “transparent rigging” that took place at the Eagle Square.

    And for leading a protest against the chicanery of Obasanjo and the PDP leadership, the same powers also plotted his ouster from the party. Awoniyi celebrated his expulsion in the following words: “This is my own democracy dividend.  In the words of the Negro Spiritual: I am free at last, free at last.  From now on, I am blessed in that I do not need to sit in the assembly of the ungodly nor walk in the path of the unrighteous, political infidels and duplicitous electoral manipulators.”

    From then on, Awoniyi recoiled into his shells from where he defined a trajectory for the ACF.  He became chairman of the ACF Board of Trustees in 2000 and chairman of the forum’s Central Working Committee (CWC) in December 2004.  He played a fatherly role in the forum, stepping in at some critical times with wise counsels that helped in defusing tension.

    Awoniyi was zealous about the late Sardauna of Sokoto, on whom, in 2000, he delivered the spellbinding 5th Arewa Lecture.  It was touching as Danladi (Sunday), as he was always addressed by the detribalised Sardauna, declassified his late mentor to the audience; it was therefore understandable why many people in the north found it easy to refer to him as Sardauna Keremi (little Sardauna).

    On this tenth anniversary of his demise, I am inclined to say a final good bye to a profoundly good man through the medium of the written tribute.  Even if I do not write this kind of tribute any more, he will live “forever” in my thought and the thoughts of those who interacted with him.  But I make an appeal here that those who crave the culture of decency in politics should continue to recall S.B. Awoniyi’s peculiar genre.

     

    • Ojeifo is an Abuja-based journalist.

  • 100 Days with MA Abubakar

    Time flies. Rapidly, especially when you are constantly engaged mentally and physically. Time just  whizzes. And this is even more so when you are working with a goal getter like Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar, Governor of Bauchi State. It is a whirlwind. The word “impossible” doesn’t exist in his dictionary. Once he sets his mind to a goal, there is no stopping him.  May be his training as a lawyer, made him both a dreamer and a realist. He dreams of   a competitive Bauchi that is ranked among the   best in the country. He is real enough to invest in education as the surest bet to achieve the dream.

    His election as the fifth civilian chief executive of the state, against daunting odds, testify to his “can do” spirit. Odds don’t scare him. They inspire him. He was the underdog in a race some considered exclusively theirs. The underrated. He was like a political midget in a combat designed for   giants. The faint-hearted will scamper to safety at the sight of a scary scenario like that. Not M.A as he is fondly called by admirers and detractors alike. And he has both in disproportionate quantity.

    Stiff challenges, I have come to appreciate, working with this unassuming   leader, these past 100 days,  are  the   tonic that galvanize him to life and action. He walks his talk. He keeps his promises. He calls when he says he will-unfailingly. He communicates. He delivers, the impatient may say, nay.

    His strategy is simple-always. He confronts challenges, headlong, with the single-mindedness   of changing the narrative. He doesn’t circumvent them. He incinerates them.

    His sojourn into the not-so-cosy chambers of power where political decisions are hammered on the anvil of necessity again, testify. The   depressing state of affairs in Bauchi State was the cry for help he hearkened to. All the indicators pointed at an imminent shipwreck. Workers were owed a backlog of salaries. Public sector education in the throes of death. Though the state is agrarian, agriculture has suffered great neglect in the past. And even more worrisome, was the heightened insecurity in the state caused, in the main, by a devastating insurgency, and to a lesser extent, poor governance at all levels. This was the legacy bequeathed to MA 30 months ago.

    Before now, he was the top dog in his own law chambers, flourishing, by all accounts, with offices in key state capitals. An accomplished legal luminary, attained maturity early. At 34, he was Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General. Excellent manager of men and materials; widely exposed and travelled. At various times, he was Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC and later national commissioner in charge of legal service. The list is long.

    “So why jettison all these and join politics?” I pointedly asked him, before I was appointed Adviser on Media and Strategy – ‘’I wanted to serve and salvage the situation. I wanted to give back what my state has given me” he said frankly, with no airs.

    For the 100 days we have been working together, I have seen how much service the man has rendered.

    His austere lifestyle, testify. No fancy motorcade. All the vehicles in his very austere convoy are inherited and old. Trips to Abuja are either by road or scheduled flights in neighbouring Gombe State, 150 kilometres away; and certainly no fancy hotel accommodation in Abuja for all personal aides including those in cabinet position. He sleeps in his personal residence located not in “choice” neighbourhood of Maitama or Asokoro.

    MA had since “disrobed”.  He   exchanged his wig, gown and dog collar for a mechanic’s overalls and got down and dirty in the huge workshop that is Bauchi. If it were a car, the first thing he did, to my mind, was to stop the massive oil leak and fuel consumption. There was huge haemorrhage. It manifested in a humongous workforce, 92,000 and even a more humongous wage bill, a staggering N5.1 monthly. That takes all of the state’s FAAC allocation, which hardly goes beyond N5bn.

    Stopping the leaks served notice that it was not going to be business as usual. Scavengers of the status quo, expectedly,   were incensed.  Since then, they have been running from pillar to post, running their mouths, bellyaching.

    No minute is wasted. Every second matters. It is always a whirlwind with MA. No dull moment. These past 100 days have been action packed. The man is always in ‘over drive’ fixing the sea of problems, anxious to reposition the state, desirous of making it more competitive.

    In the first 100 days of his leadership, he set the tone of his administration. He cleared the backlog of salaries. Labour was ecstatic. It hailed him. Today Bauchi is one of the few states that pay salaries unfailingly every month. Beyond labour, accolades and recognition poured in these past three months. One was an honorary doctorate degree by a foreign university based in Benin Republic.

    With thrift bordering on ‘tightfistedness’, MA is reforming all sectors   and renewing urban and rural communities. Over 400 kilometres of roads are being constructed or rehabilitated across the state. For two consecutive years’ budget, education takes the lion’s share of 20%, 6% shy of the target recommended by the UN. This wise investment has seen the rise of the percentage of passes in WAEC and NECO from a dismal 3% in 2015 to 27% in 2017. Over 10,000 classrooms constructed and rehabilitated, a similar number of classrooms furniture supplied. The state fertilizer blending company, hitherto, comatose resuscitated and given life. Ditto the state run furniture coy. This year’s farming season saw farmers from neighbouring states trooping to Bauchi to buy cheap fertilizer. His reforms extend to housing, rural water supply and improved security.

    Bauchi is now relatively peaceful. Insurgent elements have lost their potency. Thanks to the counter insurgency administrators and the government of the state. Improving IGR has seen the state’s hidden treasure as a tourist heaven, the Yankari Game Reserve given a new least of life.

    MA is deep. Intellectually profound and powerful communicator; he could hold his audience spellbound by his oratory in the audience’s given language. I have seen him address an exultant bunch of grateful Bauchi State students who converged on Government House in appreciation of changing their fortunes. Amid thunderous applause, he spoke their language.

    Two interactions lately told me a lot about the man. He reads every line in any correspondence to him. In matters of funds, he scrutinizes every word. And if he is not convinced, he tarries and queries. There the whirlwind stops. Still these past 100 days were like a whirlwind.

    Ali is an aide to Governor Abubakar .

  • Obasanjo’s makeover

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo posted an epic switch in political ideology lately when he advised power actors that elections in Nigeria needn’t be a matter of life or death. But you might miss the significance of this counsel if you didn’t know just where he was coming from.

    The elder statesman, arguably a legacy ruler of the present republic, admonished that politicians’ pursuit of power through elections ought not be all-consuming as it typically gets, since there are multiple options for rendering service to fatherland. “If you cannot be the chief servant, you can be the assistant chief servant. This is because the chief servant cannot do it on his own, he has to work with others,” he was reported saying.

    Speaking in Calabar at the public presentation of a book on the paramount ruler of Obudu, Cross River State, the ex-president enjoined politicians who failed in elections to help winners succeed in office. His striking counsel: “Politics should not be about life or death. Politicians should learn to tread with caution as the 2019 elections draw closer.”

    Host state governor at the event, Professor Ben Ayade, backed up what Obasanjo advised by underscoring the transient nature of power, saying: “Power is like the wind that blows away. In (exercising) power, one must do so with the fear of God.”

    By all reckoning, the former president has impressive credentials to dish out from personal experience beneficial codes of political behaviour. He had been at the pinnacle of power in this country both as military head of state and a two-term civilian president. But going by the new creed he postulated, his conversion couldn’t be more drastic if he was the biblical Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. What was not too clear is the exact point of his transforming encounter, like what we know of the flashing light that brought feisty Saul down and blinded from his marauding horse on Damascus road.

    It was Obasanjo who vocalized and gave imperial assent of some sort to the deeply ingrained streak of nihilism in Nigerian political culture by declaring the 2007 elections a ‘do-or-die affair’ for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of which he was at that time standard bearer. Speaking in the heat of electioneering at a parley with party stakeholders in Abeokuta North council area, a couple of months before that year’s general election, the then president had declared: “I will campaign. This election is a do-or-die affair for me and the PDP. This coming election is a matter of life and death for the PDP and Nigeria.”

    He made clear though that the poll was ‘do-or-die,’ so to block persons he perceived potentiated to drag the nation backwards from getting into power. In other words, it was beyond contemplation for him to leave that determination to the electorate, who ideally should just be empowered with useful information and allowed ample berth to freely exercise their franchise; and thereafter, whose choice, no matter what, must be respected and given unmediated effect. After all, voters deserve the leaders they freely choose. But all that seemed like idle talk to the then president, who revved up all levers of incumbency to craft the political field in his own image, code-naming the general election ‘operation totality’ and charging party members to snatch victory at all levels.

    That was the political ideology the ex-president professed in 2007. And the result? That year’s poll hugged perhaps the lowest point of credibility ever in Nigerian electoral history: an infamy that no one – not even beneficiaries of the outcomes – could in good conscience live with. Wasn’t that the reason the late President Umaru Yar’Adua couldn’t wait to hustle in a programme of electoral reforms after he took office?

    Well, it was the same Obasanjo who sang a new and profoundly edifying tune at the Calabar book presentation penultimate week. His words again: “Politics (in Nigeria!) should not be about life or death.” He is, without doubt, reputed for pushing doctrines that sum up to that ideology in his sundry election observation and truce mediation missions across the world as an international statesman, since the time he effluxed from the Nigerian presidency. But thank Heavens we live to see the day he openly recanted on the ruinous world view he elevated to state policy as leader of his home country; and really, we must acknowledge it was gracious of him to have outed with that self-overriding declaration.

    Still, it appears that the underlying assumptions in Obasanjo’s articulation of his helpful ideology misses some fundamentals of the bedeviling zero-sum disposition by Nigerian politicians towards electoral contests.

    The ex-president seems to presume, for instance, that the political elite, in seeking public office, are keen on rendering service to this country; and as such, he advised that there always would be other openings for service if one loses out on an office being sought in a particular poll. Experience shows however that a negligible few, if at all, among contenders in Nigerian elections seek public office to render service. Hence the idea of ‘chief servant’ or ‘assistant chief servant,’ as the ex-president teased, does not genuinely resonate.

    Truth is, the intention of most Nigerian politicians in seeking public office is never to serve, but rather to profiteer from those offices. The bloated returns – licit and illicit – that attend political offices in this country are more than sufficient motivation for the unbridled desperation we see. In the familiar parlance of politics, public offices are ‘captured’ (Obasanjo himself used that word in regard of the 2003 poll), not won by way of uninfringed pleasure of voters. And to a typical politician, electoral contests are concerted heists by another name; against which the election management body must continually wage a counter-battle to the extent of its integrity quotient.

    Meanwhile, it isn’t that the governance model we have adopted and the statutory framework for its enactment really help the zero-sum political culture. For instance, the winner-takes-all endgame of the presidential system we run on first-past-the-post track rules cannot but fuel raw desperation in power predators, much unlike the everyone-gets-a-pie outcome of the proportional representation model. You could argue, of course, that the winner-takes-all model works perfectly well in the United States from where it was copied. But also bear in mind the sophistication of that country’s legal architecture and the norms enshrined through centuries of unbroken practice, among other things.

    So, what do we make of Obasanjo’s new ideology? My view is: the ex-president did great service by pointing out the path of rectitude for political culture in Nigeria at the cost of tacit self-repudiation. He is like a prodigal returnee speaking out to the following effect: ‘Track back from that ruinous road you are committed to; never mind that I have not myself been a good example of what is right to do!’ He should by all means be heeded and his wise counsel taken to heart by his addressees, that is politicians, like it is scripture.

    But the point must also be made that the infamy of our political culture in this country will not end in self-willing morality. There is a crying need to rework the governing statutes, and no time seems more opportune than now, with the ongoing review of the electoral laws. We could well begin by taking out the perks that make political offices so attractive.

     

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • “Change” for the FGN Budget funding approach

    The 2018 Budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN, is well articulated and aimed at continuing the effective delivery of the election promises of the Buhari Administration. However, as previous well intentioned Budgets of the past, the challenge is ensuring adequate funding for the Budget, an unlikely assurance due to the volatile Crude Oil Market.

    I have maintained that a major shift in our funding strategy is critical. Currently, the Ministry of Finance (MOF), borrows piece meal, providing general support to the annual Budget Deficits and Capital Investments. My new approach requires removing certain Capital Expenditure/Investments from the FGN Budget and transferring it to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and other FGN owned financial institutions, for example, Bank of Agriculture, Bank of Industry, Bank of Infrastructure, Bank of Development, etc; and specifically aligning borrowed funds to Capital Projects. This will be a radical departure and new experiment for rapid, simultaneous, multi-Sector real economic growth that will greatly reduce corruption and facilitate implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This radical new approach will give impetus to the “Change” mantra, while creating new avenues for the simultaneous implementation of the much-needed Capital Investments and firing up the entire economy.

    The direct revenue of FGN from Crude Oil and Taxes, should be applied directly to social services and non-profit making Sectors, such as Administration, Capacity Building, Education, Health, Security, Foreign Affairs and National Re-Orientation. Targeted borrowing for Infrastructure (Airports, Roads, Seaports, Rail, etc.) and Industrial development should be in multiples of Billions (USD30 – 100 Billion) over 10 – 15 years, repaid over 20-40 years and obtained by FGN Institutions and Agencies (Bank of Infrastructure, Bank of Industry, Bank of Development) under their various Acts and guaranteed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, not by the Ministry of Finance or directly by the FGN. The CBN would host all Loan proceeds, obtained at very low interest rates and released only in Naira to the FGN Banks and Agencies, while it sells the FOREX and FGN revenue earned, FOR ALL REQUESTS, without exceptions, through the Commercial Banks and Bureaux De Change, BDC’s, at market rates, thereby creating a sustainable FOREX Market. The CBN would maintain a low single digit interest rate to expand investment credit, while the increased production from the real sectors will control inflation. The Naira would convert directly to the currency of each Lender, without any other intermediary currency and repayment shall also be transacted in the same manner. The FGN Budget and Ministries would deal with only administration, capacity building, monitoring, policies, regulation, standards, supervision, welfare, rural, research and development. The Ministries would award Social/Welfare Support Contracts and Contractor Financed Concession/Projects. Finally, the misappropriation or embezzlement of these borrowed funds would be treated as Treason and would attract a sentence of Life Imprisonment without an option of parole.

    I will like to illuminate this radical new approach with an example: The construction or rehabilitation of a Federal Highway that attracts high vehicular traffic shall be awarded by the Ministry of Works to a Contactor, as a Contractor Financed Concession, and recovery shall be from Tolls, Rents from Service Areas, etc. The Contractor will have the responsibility of securing its own financing from either an FGN owned Bank, or any other alternative they might have. The role of the FGN will be to protect the Concession, respect the duration as agreed and ensure the delivery conforms to specifications and deadlines. The maintenance of the road and repayment of the Loan shall be the responsibility of the Contractor. This approach will absolve the FGN from direct liability and the Loan will only be applied for viable Projects. Furthermore, the Loan will be repaid as at when due, because the Private Sector Borrower will apply it for a specific purpose. Furthermore, as long as vehicles are plying the road, funds will be generated for repayment, without the need to mortgage the lives of future generations in a possible Debt Trap, as is presently the case.

    I wish to note that no Country has developed by merely depending on their limited annual revenue or monetary policies that involve double digit interest rates, which constrain real economic growth.  For example, after World War II, Europe was rebuilt under the United States (US) Marshal Plan, which involved massive borrowing of Billions of US Dollars at concessionary rates. These funds were used to set up the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD, now known today as The World Bank. The Loans were repaid by Europe from the revenues generated from completed projects, individual and company taxes from jobs and industries created, infrastructure built – Seaports, Airports, etc. Both the Lenders and Borrowers benefited immensely and Europe was modernized within a few decades.

    It is important to note that during this period, the Total Debt over the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, of most European Western Countries that were the beneficiaries of the Marshal Plan, were several notches higher. However, this high Debt to GDP ratio did not constitute a problem, as the Debt was properly targeted to Projects, Programs and Sectors that were expected to have positive multiplier effects on the entire revenue base of the borrowing Countries, which enabled them repay the Loans. The ingenuity employed in the designing, sourcing, application and utilization of those Loans, eventually formed part of the Body of modern Economic Theories, as that period produced many Economists, some of whose concepts were successfully implemented.

    After the European experiment, came the rapid development of the Asian Tigers: Japan, Singapore, South Korea, etc. who developed their own unique economic template, extensively utilizing World Bank funds, but rejecting their template for implementation, as they believed the Bank’s proposition would fail in their Countries. Their unique templates succeeded and the World witnessed their unprecedented growth, which took them from third to first World Nations, within less than four decades. The concept of incubating Cottage Industries, Micro and Small Enterprises was one of their indigenous solutions for rapid economic development.

    As the World was reeling at the performance of the Asian Tigers, China exploded onto the scene and defied most Economic Theories, by successfully combining Communist Economic concepts with pragmatic Capitalism, to produce the World’s greatest economic growth phenomenon to date.

    In like manner, our Economists have to conceive theories that synthesize various successful economic concepts from other climes, with our own original ideas, to produce practical and unique applications to stimulate our economy and set us on a sustainable path of development.

    I have given these real life examples to remind our Policy Makers that many Nations have been where we are today, and their solutions emerged from a combination of borrowed and original economic concepts. We have to take bold decisions in order to make giant strides!

    Finally, this new budget approach would greatly accelerate our pace of development, create jobs and reduce the political wrangling that holds up our economic progress due to vested and corrupt interests. It is time for us to determine our own home grown economic strategies that will create a multi-dimensional, multi-sectoral, simultaneous thrust. The effects will be glaring within a year, creating varied types of job opportunities, reducing corruption and setting us on the path for rapid economic development. We need to re-ignite our smoldering economic fires, so that the “Change” mantra will not only resonate in tangible terms in the short term, but it will lay a solid, sustainable foundation for our future national development!

    • Aniagolu is Managing Partner, F.I.T, Consult Limited
  • Blaming Buhari

    Blaming Buhari

    There are people dying – if we care enough for the living – MICHAEL JACKSON (Heal The World)

    All across the face of God’s good earth, it is, that every good thing under the sun is for the good of the living.  Except in Nigeria.  Here, all good things are for the dead or the (political class) dying.

    And so on hearing of the death of the ex-Vice President, I mourned.  Many other bigwigs mourned; mine was for a different reason.  I MOURNED FOR THE LIVING, for the channeling of vast sums, unbudgeted funds towards his certain befitting funeral; starting from the “befitting” airlifting from Nigeria to a top London hospital – at  point of death.  The rest, in Nigeria continue to live ‘un-befitting’, very degraded lives.  My case is different I know, I would be flown out, in the unlikely event that I should suddenly slump.  I’ve been on medical tourism to Dubai and India.  Thank God I have a clean bill of health, and do not even need it!

    But what of most other Nigerians, what is their fate?  It would have been understandable if the vast majority were well and healthy in the main.  Or if, upon falling ill, BASIC medicare was available to others.  In that case it would have been tolerable, I guess to devote huge government resources to foreign medicare for a very old sick man, IN COMA; just because 40 years ago he stumbled into political office.

    This past Monday afternoon, I heard the announcement on NTA news that retired soldiers should go out for yet another round of ‘verification exercise’.

    Each time that happens, how many of those poor, sick old men and women slump on the streets of Abuja?  Or at the verification exercise centres, How many of them get even First Aid treatment, we don’t talk of airlifting any to London? THERE THEY SLUMP, THERE THEY DIE.

    They go; and the living remain on in human degradation.  I’m saddened no-one else seems to be shouting about it.  Too scared to ‘annoy’ the government; or something?

    I will yet speak on our lamentable state from my humble premise that government cannot know EVERYTHING going on; I will therefore do my best to bring it to government’s attention.  They could choose to do nothing.  They could even choose to witchhunt!

    I will NEVER choose to be silent when I see people in so much suffering.  Look again at a copy of The Nation 19th November on page 7.  The big story there is of a youngster living in a house with decomposing corpse, in Calabar.  The deceased’s granddaughter there is too poor to have the body buried or moved to a mortuary.  What a life for young girl!  And the hapless neighbours.

    This is not an isolated case.  Sometime ago something like that happened to an erstwhile very committed elderly woman in my church.  Upon noticing her absence I had asked after her only to be told she had died.  Has she been buried then; I asked rhetorically (I grew up in the North so I will NEVER understand the practice of burying dead people long after their death, as is done in the South).

    This case was even worse.  The roof of her old house was leaking and whenever it rained, the rain fell and beat the corpse there INSIDE the house. Her teenage daughter there had fled to their village.  I wrote a letter to my church.  I said if I lived in that old woman’s neighbourhood and such a church came to evangelise me, I would never go!  That was how arrangements were made for her corpse to be moved.

    So what is happening now is that the living are dying of the stench of the dead.

    Their young dependents are forced to live on with stinking corpses; bad enough they would have lost their sole providers.

    The pensioners who should be enjoying are falling and dying on our streets – How Is This A Life For The Living?

    PDP TO APC, FROM JESUS TO SATAN

    When the former Senate Deputy Whip, Gbenga Aluko (Ekiti South) told newsmen last Sunday that the Ekiti Governor, Mr. Fayose was making plans to leave the PDP for the APC my stomach churned.  I was disgusted at the thought that anyone who had spent nearly three years railing non-stop at the APC would be so shameless as  to want to join it!

    But in a swift reaction from the Fayose camp same evening, the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary issued a statement refuting the claim.  He said Fayose leaving PDP for APC was like leaving Jesus Christ for Satan!  I saw this on Monday morning and laughed until tears rolled out of my eyes.  In fact I wiped my eyes, looked at the picture and write-up again, and laughed and laughed some more.

    Fayose! I tell you I was in the hall at the Yar’Adua Centre a couple of years ago with the then presidential hopeful Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.  The lights were dimmed and we were shown a video of Fayose ‘negotiating’ for the outcome of his governorship elections!  It was Fayose who introduced the military dimension to our otherwise regular money politics/rigging Voting System.  Even if you weren’t there, that conversation was transcribed in some papers (Ekitigate 2014).  That saga cost the soldiers who spoke up his career – he had to flee to the U.S for his dear life.

    That is what Mr. Fayose is calling Jesus?!!!  To further give flesh to this saga; Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, former Defence Minister of State was in charge of channeling the ‘funds’ to the uniformed men deployed to Ekiti for the election.  He later returned a small portion of the money under the Buhari anti-corruption campaign.  He is living large today on the greater chunk of the loot which he was allowed to keep.

    All that is Jesus Christ! Concerning the same Jesus he’s talking about, the scriptures in John 11 verse 35 says JESUS WEPT!  So I could not but laugh!!

    That the APC is Satan?  I laughed again so hard my sides hurt.  And a thought occurred to me; if a questionnaire was given out to the public and people were asked which of the 2 mentioned parties is Satan – what would the answer be?  Well your guess is as good as mine!

    BLAMING BUHARI

    There is a shop around me where the woman sells groundnuts from Edo.  These are big nuts, quite tasty unlike the smaller local variety and that’s what takes me to her shop.  One day a delivery boy brought her some packs of sachet water, (I feel sachet water ought to be banned like it is in Lagos State.  Also, the movement of the crazy deliver vehicle should be greatly restricted.)

    The boy asked the shop owner if she had been informed of the price hike on the water.  She said yes, but asked why – promptly, the boy replied; Its Dollar Ma, Dollar!  What concerns the dollar with wholly locally produced sachet water!  But you find people extending the argument to end in: blaming Buhari.  Yes there is galloping inflation currently; no official flowery language can mask that.  But blaming Buhari for EVERYTHING, including the greedy profiteering we create is not right at all.  I have watched a TV market survey where even garri sellers hiked prices, and when asked why, they said, IT IS CHANGE GOVERNMENT OH, IT IS BUHARI.  Haba!

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  • Olanipekun: Tribute to a life of legacies 

    One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind, particularly those who are extraordinarily kind. There fore, there cannot be a celebratory staleness regarding his selfless contributions to the society, for his,  is a life that touches the lives of many others. This perhaps, explains the consistent celebration of Chief Oluwole Oladapo Olanipekun, Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)  who is a year older today.

    Chief Wole  Olanipekun , a great man who carries greatness lightly is certainly among the men of immense means in Nigeria specially gifted with the spirit of benevolence. While those who are familiar with his narratives may be nodding in agreement with this postulation, clearly thousands of families who have benefited from the immenseness of his philanthropy will be struggling to be counted for this patrician-looking man remains a rainbow in many people’s cloud.

    Having witnessed many ‘’miracles’’ he performed while he was the Pro Chancellor and Chairman of Governing Council at the University of Ibadan (UI),  between 2009 and 2013, this writer is shocked by the fact that Chief Olanipekun is repeating the same altruistically inspired benefaction at Ajayi Crowther University where he is the current Council Chairman. Since 2014 when he was so appointed, he has assisted the University with many magnificent structures and fantastic projects that have greatly lifted the faith-based university. For instance, Chief Olanipekun, together with his wife, Lara, has donated a multimillion-Naira  Vice Chancellor’s  Lodge to the university which the Oyo state governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi described as ‘’a rare donation from an individual’’.  This same Chief who is Asiwaju of Ikere -Ekiti has also assisted the university in building and roofing a hall. Recently, about thirteen projects , costing over Three-Hundred  Million Naira have been commissioned , courtesy of the managerial acumen of this legal luminary whose preoccupation is the betterment of the society.

    For the sake of recollection, all he is contributing to Ajayi Crowther University today are similar to many legacies he left behind in UI. It is on record that he got substantial amount of money from the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua  to open up the second phase of UI at Ajibode. He made a personal donation of Ten Million Naira to UI in the wake of the flood disaster in Ibadan in 2011. He built and donated a gigantic Law Lecture Theatre at Ajibode. These are only  a few among his notable deeds of substance.

    More strikingly, about 22 years ago,  Chief Olanipekun established the Wole Olanipekun Scholarship Scheme through which many indigent students have been able to achieve their academic dreams. From secondary schools to higher institutions of learning,  students all over Nigeria have been benefitting immensely from the wealth of Chief Olanipekun, and this has evidently made him a beacon and blistering light in usually impossible tunnels.

    It was against this background that I asked him for an interview to commemorate his birthday this year. Shockingly, Chief Olanipekun refused. He told me that he believed “every day is  a birthday”, therefore there was no need for that. But I insisted that , given his huge generosity to the society , he must be celebrated. Chief stuck to his gun even as I devised plots to catch him unawares. What did Ido? I stormed his office in Lagos and I was very lucky to meet him. Dazed by my determination, he couldn’t resist me any longer. He wanted to know why I deemed it necessary to write about him. I put it back to him that his contributions to the society were newsworthy. He then fixed a gaze at me as I picked my pen to jot every word that would proceed from his mouth.

    “Do you know that I have got to a stage that I feel it is unnecessary to be talking about all these things?”, he asked, as I surreptitiously admired his expensive wrist watch and other accessories he wore! “Sunday, many people, even in my legal profession, are envious and angry at what God has done with my life. They don’t know me. They blackmail me because they don’t understand the grace of God upon my life. Look at my office address, God’s House, where I stay, God’s Grace Villa. I am astonished by what they write about me. Out of envy,  they are working round the clock to tarnish my image.’’

    Chief Olanipekun further revealed, ‘’ I take this legal profession as a Ministry. I don’t mix my profession with any other thing. No politics, no business, no contract.. And I will never compromise the integrity of my clients. I will never compromise the interest of justice. My clients cut across all strata of society. But if I defended you yesterday and you won, and I am defending your opponents tomorrow , you will now be insulting me because you want to monopolise my service. Law is not practised that way’’.

    When asked why he is so much given to philanthropy, the legal giant replied ‘’I am appreciating God by engaging myself in assisting institutions and individuals. When God has blessed you, you want to key into humanitarianism and charitable services, after all, God says “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing unto others”. God has blessed me, therefore I should be able to bless others. God’s blessings are never meant to be monopolized by any beneficiary.”

    Naturally, Chief Olanipekun is a refined gentleman who believes that forgiveness frees , while bitterness binds. This is well conveyed in his comportment. He neither bluffs nor brags about his importance and greatness , just as he is always found in a whirl of work. According to him, when I leave my office, I go to my house. I belong to Ikoyi Club, but I hardly go there. I have sports kits, I don’t use them. It is my work I face all the time” . Chief Olanipekun  that I know, in all of these years of his stainless and selfless services to humanity, treats everyone with politeness , including those who are rude to him, not because they are nice, but because he is.

    Obviously, he is a fellow who does things that count, but doesn’t stop to count them. For instance, this writer is aware of a story of an ingrate law graduate who was recommended by the Head of Department for financial assistance. The indigent but brilliant graduate wanted to go to Law School in Abuja,  but had no money. Chief Olanipekun paid for his wig and gown, air ticket to Abuja and school fees. Sadly,  the young man disappeared from the radar after completing his legal training, failing to come back for gratitude. Yet this act of ingratitude has never stopped this legal colossus from assisting people thereafter.

    However, as opposed to the young man who ran away from his benefactor, one Izuchukwu Oziogu and another Blessing Osato who were both unknown to Chief Olanipekun , but benefitted from his Scholarship Scheme wrote via e-mail,  thanking the legal luminary for assisting them to become lawyers. According to Oziogu ‘’in a world where the norm is to think of one’s family, tribe, religion, colour as the case may be, I was amazed at the generosity of a learned silk, Chief Olanipekun who sought to ensure that I achieve my dream of being called to the Nigerian Bar. I am eternally grateful.’’

     

    • Mr. Sannu wrote in from Ibadan
  • The violence of love works!

    The violence of love works!

    When a dog bites a man, it’s no news but when a man bites a dog, that’s a breaking news. Some women have turned their husbands into punch bags, they are professional men-beaters!’ This was the reaction I got from an elderly man during a discussion on the international day for the elimination of violence against women. The United Nations observes international day for the elimination of violence against women on 25 November. This observance raises awareness of the continuing toll of gender-based violence. According to research, violence against women and girls is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world. Globally, it is estimated that one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime. Back to the conversation, at a point I was speechless, my mind was agog with bewilderment. The reality is that some women are highly insensitive, of course there’s no tenable excuse for such  but what bothers me is why would a man engage in a physical combat with a woman? I got the answer from the book; Art of War written by Dr Cindy Trimm, a best-selling author, key note speaker and former senator of Bermuda. ‘…I recently had a friend tell me about something he had read in an essay about ‘Seeing’. The essay told about operations in the 1950s that were giving sight to individuals who had been born blind.

    These people were various ages, from small children to people in their fifties and sixties. The operations had surprising results. While they enabled the eyes of these people to operate normally for the first time in their lives, the people did not immediately begin walking around as any other person might. Instead they saw everything as color splotches and light and dark places. Everything appeared flat, they had no depth perception, and anytime something went out of sight behind another object(a dog going behind a chair for example), they were initially shocked. The world they had known over the years was very different from what they now perceived’’. Oh I see!!! What I saw was that in the world of the blind, light is abnormal. The way we see or perceive things/situations is largely based on what we are familiar with especially our environment. An abuser sees his victim as worthless and weak and desires to take advantage of such a person. I wonder why men who commit such dastardly act of beating a woman, don’t beat their mothers. You may agree with me that in this clime it is an abomination for a man to beat up his own mother but why is it not an abomination to beat up any other woman? What is the difference between the woman you inflict pain on and your mother?. You need to see every other woman out there as your sister and mother.

    At the root of every violence is uncontrolled anger. In reality anger is nothing but an emotion however a lot of people have not come to terms with the fact that anger has a positive side. It is an emotional outburst that signals dissatisfaction or disgust for a thing/somebody. Every human being experience anger. We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world, God alone is perfect and even God the Almighty gets angry but biblical principles admonish us; Be angry but sin not! We need to learn to consciously seek positive ways to utilise anger and take positive steps to address the things or people that makes us angry. I believe that while it is okay for government to establish drastic measures to punish men and women who take laws into their own hands by inflicting pain on others, I am concerned for the next generation. We need proactive mediation. Research has proven that most abusers were also victims of abuse be it sexual or physical, they suffered neglect and the only language familiar to them is violence as a self defense. Violence of love can quench the fire of gender violence ravaging our world.

     

    • Continued online

  • Jonathan & the bastardisation of our currency

    When we were growing up, there was this popular refrain in the community, to wit:  “eni f’owo kan’yan, apo kan abo,” meaning “touch the boobs and pay £1.50p (N150) as fine.”

    It was a huge sum of money then, and it made men with itchy fingers to restrain themselves from playing pranks, fiddling with gals’ breasts in their neighbourhoods, lest they risked arraignment in court and getting fines imposed on them as a result.

    I recall this ‘1960-ish’ era with profound amusement but great pity, hearing in a TV news broadcast a fortnight ago that Nigeria’s immediate past president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan asked the troubled publicity secretary of his party, Chief Olisa Metuh to pay him a whooping one billion naira (N1 billion) before he could come to court to testify in his favour. The money is to cover security, transportation, publicity and other inconveniences of the ex-President for leaving Otuoke in Bayelsa State for an Abuja court. That was his best way to show gratitude to the party’s spokesman who did his damnest, in the typical Goebell’s style, to project his sinking party and its presidential candidate when, in fact, it had become fait accompli that most Nigerians had already made up their minds to turn their backs to the liquidator-government of the time.

    If anyone is surprised at this, I am not, considering the fact that money had become so bastardised in the Jonathan era that it seemed naira was printed by some of the Somolu or Rumuomasi printers that it was issued and spent recklessly in the dying months of that administration in a desperate bid to resuscitate it and bring it back to life through re-election.

    If not, how can someone who had occupied the highest position in the land be so comical and unserious as to trivialise a serious issue of state in that cavalier manner? I don’t know what lawyers will ascribe that to, but to many laymen and women like me, the Jonathan action is a joke taken too far, by a shoeless teenager who had, by fortuitous circumstance, grown to lead the federal government of his country.

    Shagari’s regime that ended abruptly on December 31, 1993, was undoubtedly profligate. Or how does one explain top government officials in the executive and legislative arms, commandeering and filling up Nigeria Airways commercial planes with themselves and their horde of harlots and flying free to London for weekend frolicking and parties and nothing more?

    Yet, put on scale, this squandering of scarce resources then now pales into insignificance when compared to Jonathan’s regime, which, to date, has the infamous, if not criminal, distinction of being the worst spendthrift government in Nigeria’s history.

    I suspect the man Jonah no longer harbours any serious aspiration to lead Nigeria again because his N1 billion demand, if the truth must be said, has put the final nail on his political coffin as an insensitive politician and arguably the worst product to emerge from the PDP camp. No matter, he may have some excesses in his vault he may want to waste or donate to hungry and lean pockets

    He’s welcome to the ring.

    ‘Marto’ flies away against our wishes!

    Death! Who the hell do you think you are?

    How audacious can you be to snatch away our own Funso Martins, the genteel Lagos guy who made a career in the Air Force and rose to become Air Vice-Marshal before he retired into a quiet life of business and leisure.

    He had the uncanny ability of making friends across board and was never obstructive in his ways to anyone. He earned his place well as a gentleman and an officer. Whatever he achieved and acquired in his life, were products of his sweat and decent and diligent disposition.

    While on this, I do not know who was closer to Olagunsoye Oyinlola’s heart when the Army Colonel was the helmsman in Lagos between Funso and another military colleague of theirs, then Navy Commodore Babatunde. But when some history of certain things in Lagos of Oyinlola is written, ‘Baba T’ or ‘T Baba’ and Funso will take their places in the single-digit category.

    I commiserate with Funso’s wife, our Erelu; their children; his legion of friends in the military, in the social circuit, sports and in politics, though he loathed partisan politics and avoided it like a plague.

    As a golfer, I’m certain he, a good and gentleman through and through, has ‘tee-d’ his way to God’s bosom. May he find eternal peace in His kingdom.