The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • FAAC and its trillions

    FAAC and its trillions

    • With purposeful leadership, current accruals can still help mitigate some of our challenges

    If we may borrow the increasingly familiar cliché: the town is not smiling – to sum up the current situation in the country, there is, equally a lot to say of the vast improvements in the accruals to all tiers of government from the federation account that should ordinarily help to mitigate the current cycle of pains on the citizenry.

    Call it an all-too-familiar paradox: whereas the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) figures have been going up, courtesy of the oil subsidy removal and the foreign exchange liberalisation; so has been a steady downturn in the standards of

     living of the ordinary citizen.

    And whereas the Bola Tinubu administration considers the twain – oil subsidy removal and the foreign exchange liberalisation – as pivotal to the nation’s future development aspirations, it is, understandably, for the ordinary citizen a pill too bitter to swallow.

    The states have certainly been in the rejoicing mode since July, last year, when FAAC first shared a record N1.959 trillion, nearly tripling the preceding month’s allocation of N786.161 billion. Only last week, the committee shared a total sum of N1.13 trillion in December 2023 among the federal, states, and local governments.

    To say that the country has tottered towards an emergency in the aftermath is merely stating the obvious. Cost of living has grown to monstrous levels. Youth unemployment is at the highest levels ever; inflation is on the rampage even as the infrastructure gap continues to widen. With the monster of insecurity of every shape and description adding to the toxic mix, the country can truly be said to be sailing in perilous waters.

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    We do of course agree that money may not necessarily answer to all things. After all, we have seen, times without number, mind-boggling sums thrown at problems with very minimal results to show. But the hard truth is that a number of the challenges the country currently faces can be addressed with good thinking and purposeful, deliberative application of the limited funds. Whether in the upgrade of schools, basic healthcare, road infrastructure, or even in the security sector currently reeling under the yoke of criminal elements, the country cannot be said to be lacking in the resources to mitigate the current hardship in the country. What is increasingly apparent is corruption and weak governance. To say the least, there are, most certainly, ample resources for well-conceived programmes with eyes on the future as against placebos which only seek to paper over fundamental problems. The real challenge comes to getting every level of government to re-order their priorities in such a way as to put the welfare of citizens at the front burner.

    Unfortunately, whereas the Federal Government appears to have shown considerable leadership in terms of its appreciation of the imperative of the moment, state governments, save for one or two exceptions, have either been too lethargic or appear utterly incapable of rising to the occasion.

    Yet, in the current challenges lie boundless opportunities that should not be missed. While the current accruals might in fact be a drop in the ocean of the nation’s complex needs, a commitment to identified priorities, better and more judicious channelling of the appropriated funds, can only in the end offer the country a chance at a new beginning.

    Take the notorious example – the 13 million Nigerian kids said to be out of school. For how long has the problem endured? What is the share of each state in the national shame? And how much will each require to shake off the blight – in terms of the number of classrooms to be built, the soft motivators like school feeding and provision of basic items?

    How about a special programme and a federal matching grant for states wiling to pick up the gauntlet? How could the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) be made to deliver more in this particular regard?

    What of the security sector – which continues to gulp billions of naira annually in the so-called security votes – funds, which although are almost exclusively the preserve of governors, but are more than often frequently abused? Is it not now obvious that a new and different kind of paradigm is needed, both in terms of the funding and the enabling architecture? Why should the governors in particular, see the fund as entitlement with almost no strictures of oversight in place?

    The point above is to underscore the fact that whereas the times are understandably hard, challenging and so demanding of citizens’ maximum sacrifice, the issue, more often than not, is not all about money and more money; it is poor governance, particularly the proclivity of the leadership to chase shadows that have allowed the nation’s many malignancies to fester. The times are such that call for a rethinking of governance.

  • Menace of kidnapping

    Menace of kidnapping

    • Although they are trying, we need more efforts on the part of the security

    Kidnapping has become an albatross on our country’s development and urgent stringent measures must be taken to curb the menace, so the multi-dimensional poverty afflicting Nigerians will not worsen. According to a research company, SBM Intelligence, between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 persons were abducted in 582 kidnapping incidents in Nigeria, with an estimated ransom of N302 million paid. Since the new year, kidnappers have rammed up their nefarious business within Abuja, and many states across Nigeria. A top government official even called for a state of emergency in Abuja.

    So, it is reassuring that the Inspector- General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, is implementing the presidential approval to upgrade the Force Intelligence Bureau to a department, with the posting of 54 Assistant Commissioners of Police (ACP) to head Force Intelligence Departments at zonal and state levels across the country. In a statement, Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, stated: “The IG has, however, tasked the newly appointed senior officers to deploy all intelligence-based assets in combating crimes and criminality in their respective areas of responsibility.”

    No doubt, intelligence gathering is a major weapon against kidnapping and

    sundry other crimes, and we identify with the effort to establish an efficient intelligence department in all police formations across the country. We think that police area commands and divisions should also have intelligence officers dedicated principally to intelligence gathering.

    While having efficient lethal force is necessary to combat crimes, brute force without knowing when and where to deploy would be inefficient. So, intelligence gathering helps to fill that gap.

    Such a department should also collaborate with the intelligence organs of the military and quasi-military agencies like the Army, Department of

     State Security Services, and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, to synchronise intelligence gathering and uses, to stem insecurity within the country. We urge the new department to eschew any unhealthy competition with security departments of other institutions of government, but rather synergise with them for the benefit of Nigerians. Without an efficient and coordinated intelligence gathering, the security agencies would be working at cross-purposes.

    The war against kidnapping should be fought at all levels of government, federal, state and local government, with intensity.

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    Considering the epidemic nature of the national challenge, some commentators have called on the federal and state governments to provide stiffer punishment for kidnapping. Indeed, some states already have laws providing for death sentence, especially where the victim dies, or where the kidnappers used lethal weapon in their nefarious activity. Others have provided life imprisonment as punishment for kidnapping.

    According to a report, the states that have death sentence as punishment for kidnapping include, Kano, Benue, Bayelsa, Enugu, Anambra and Nasarawa. Others like Kwara, Ondo and Osun have provision for life imprisonment.

    We agree on the need for stiffer punishment for kidnappers, even

    though we won’t go as far as supporting death sentence. Some states also have laws to confiscate the properties of kidnappers, or premises used for kidnapping activities. In Anambra State, houses belonging to kidnappers are pulled down by the state.

    Those who engage in kidnapping have turned it into a huge industry, operating as a syndicate. The kidnappers allegedly work with local informants and security agencies. In some instances, with banks and money deposit institutions.

    No doubt, tough measures are required to stem kidnapping in Nigeria. Some governors have called for state police, as a panacea. Even the Federal Capital Territory is working on its own local vigilante, confirming that federal police cannot cover the field.

    If the federal police cannot provide adequate security services for the federal capital, there is no doubt that remote parts of the country, at state and local levels, need local police manpower, to stem the ugly trend.

  • Army estate kidnappers

    Army estate kidnappers

    • Another wake-up call on our soldiers

    Past administrations had set up different Joint Task Forces (JTF) headed by the army to help combat the activities of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other terror groups that have made life difficult for Nigerians. Neither travelling by road nor by rail across the country can be considered safe, especially after the attack and abduction of passengers on the Abuja–Kaduna route in 2022. The level of insecurity in the country has been on the increase and the effects on the economy is debilitating.

    Many soldiers have had to pay the supreme price at various locations in the country, either through planned attacks by bandits or in the line of duty. Nigerians remain grateful to the military for their sacrifices in the ultimate display of patriotism.

    However, the army seems to need to fix its own internal security, given that on several occasions in the past, and now with the renewed kidnappings in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), they have been targets of kidnappers. The armed forces exist mainly to enhance state and human security, and if they appear too vulnerable, the state literally loses its soul. If they cannot fulfill the prime purpose of self-defence, then the larger society becomes like sheep without shepherd.

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    In 2021, suspected bandits attacked the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Kaduna, killing two officers and abducting another senior officer. In 2022, gunmen attacked some officials and killed eight personnel and wounded three of the seven Guards Battalion of the Nigerian Army Presidential Guards Brigade in Bwari, Abuja, in what many saw as the zenith of the bravado of the bandits and the unpreparedness of the army itself at peace time.

    The abduction of two people in the Kurudu Phase 2 area of the FTC, at the estate housing serving and retired soldiers and other civilians, by 10pm just days after the nation was confronted with other abductions, including that of six daughters of a family in the same FCT that resulted in the killing of one of the girls, is an indictment on both the government and the army authority.

    The primary role of any government is to secure lives and property and that of the army is the protection of the citizens from both internal and especially external aggression. In these instances, there is trust deficit on the two institutions.

    There must be a re-evaluation of the security architecture by the military. If the NDA and the Presidential Guards could be so brazenly attacked, with no news of the apprehension of the bandits since 2021, it sends a very bad message to both Nigerians and the world, in a world where conflicts are raging in most continents. The optics of Nigerian security system is not very encouraging and we urge a re-calibration and increased vigilance/intelligence by the military.

    Government must provide the funding for better equipment and resources for training in ways that intelligence in the military can be at par with global best practices. It takes a lot to train a soldier, so losing them in this careless manner is tragic and unacceptable.

    We suggest better and deeper investigations that can bring the bandits to book. That’s the only way to stamp the supremacy of the state over non-state actors.

  • Abia police misconduct  

    Abia police misconduct  

    • Need for regular training of NPF officers and men

    For the umpteenth time, men of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) displayed familiar unprofessionalism and ironic lawlessness in their handling of a matter when they invaded Abia Breaking News Television/Radio Station in Umuahia, Abia State, and arrested a guest, Udensi Donald, during a live programme.

    On January 16, during an afternoon show, Youth Rendezvous, the police suddenly appeared, disrupted the show, and took away the guest, attributing their action to a petition against him by his elder brother concerning a family matter.

    The Director, ABN TV/Radio, Ifeanyi Okali, in a statement, said: “Despite repeated pleas by our staff to the officers to allow the programme to come to an end before the guest could be arrested, they insisted on whisking him away while the live programme was on.”  He described the action as an “invasion,” adding that it was “very provocative and indeed an act of overzealousness by the officers who obviously acted in clear contravention of the rule of engagement.”

    He said the officers damaged some of the station’s equipment, including a laptop, camera, and microphones, resulting in “huge financial losses,” and demanded the replacement of “the affected tools.” He also demanded a public apology from the Abia State Command of the NPF.

    It is unclear why the officers who invaded the broadcast station could not wait for the show to end before arresting their target. The man had not been declared wanted, and was not on the run. He could not have escaped, even if he wanted to, given the police presence at the studio.

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    Their action was rash, and they failed to show any consideration for the broadcasting station’s business. They compounded their reckless conduct by allegedly damaging the station’s equipment.

    Unprofessional conduct by officers of the state police command continued after the drama at the broadcast station. Okali said he contacted the state commissioner of police, Kenechukwu Onwuemelie, who invited some staff members of the station to the police headquarters. According to him, some officers at the police headquarters “barricaded the door and harassed, intimidated and threatened to detain them,” and they were prevented from seeing the police boss.

    It is reassuring that the Abia State Police Command has begun an orderly room trial of its personnel involved in the invasion of ABN TV/Radio station in Umuahia. Police Public Relations Officer Moureen Chinaka, in a statement, said the commissioner of police visited the station, where he conducted an on-the-spot assessment, had discussions with its director, and apologised for the conduct of the officers. She said preliminary investigations indicated that the police officers who made the arrest “conducted themselves unprofessionally.”

    “While there is no law prohibiting a police officer from making an arrest in a studio, the facts surrounding the particular case being investigated by the police officers do not warrant such actions,” the police stated, adding that if the officers involved were found guilty, they would be “disciplined accordingly.”

    Certainly, appropriate punishment for such misconduct is necessary to achieve a deterrent effect. But the police must be proactive, and focus on ways to ensure that officers do not behave unprofessionally in the first place. The point is that the police need reeducation and reorientation. 

    The police command says it is “committed to maintaining a professionally competent, service-driven, rule-of-law compliant, and people-friendly police force, in line with the vision of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun.” This is what Nigerians expect of the NPF.

    But it requires more than words to realise the vision, and redeem the image of the police.  The Abia misconduct shows that a lot of work still needs to be done to professionalise the police.

  • Ivory tower ‘constituency projects’

    Ivory tower ‘constituency projects’

    • Politicians now reward constituents with lecturer jobs!

    As the National Universities  Commission (NUC) prepares to pay programme content quality, physical facilities adequacy and academic staff sufficiency accreditation visits to different universities every year, an annual scramble for the appointment of lecturers of different cadres is set off. This was usually the case, because of the widely-acknowledged academic staff availability challenge in the Nigerian university system. It was within this precarious situation that an embargo on appointments was announced by the Federal Government in 2020, and the policy was extended to the appointment of university academic staff. Vice-Chancellors were therefore faced with the dilemma of complying with the jobs embargo and concurrently meeting very stringent NUC academic staff-mix accreditation requirements.

    With the worsening problem of unemployment in the country, it became a mark of success for legislators to indicate how many of their constituents they had found jobs for in the different sectors of the society. In fact, some legislators have posed with pride in photographs with such employed constituents. 

    An insidious development in this regard was for such testimony to be extended to the number of university lecturing jobs a legislator has found their constituents. In other words, university academic jobs became an item of legislators’ constituency projects. 

    It was possible for such constituency-project-rated jobs to exist, because the embargo allowed special waivers to be granted to universities that applied for the waivers. This left room for unethical practices such as arm-twisting respective vice-chancellors to accommodate the candidates of officials in the waiver-granting establishments. As the universities continued to be denuded of autonomy with respect to academic appointments, all sorts of aberrant practices continued to be witnessed.

    Some of the university teachers employed aberrantly are expected to leave of their own accord, having not been sufficiently prepared to cope with the quite challenging and not particularly economically-rewarding task of university teaching. But some are likely to hang on and constitute themselves into all sorts of problems to the university system, as they try to re-enact and perpetuate the perversions through which they themselves got employed. 

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    It is gratifying to note that the compromise-breeding embargo on academic and non-academic appointments has now been lifted as part of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s commitment to grant or restore robust autonomy to the universities. It is to the credit of university academic staff unions, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities and the Committee of Pro-Chancellors of Nigerian Federal Universities that they kept voicing out their dissatisfaction with the perverse academic appointments’ state of affairs while it lasted. And they must continue to resist any future attempts to hamstring the universities and compromise quality. 

    Moreover, vice-chancellors should not compromise with respect to maintaining quality service and discipline of staff, irrespective of the circumstances of the appointment of the staff. As the problem of youth employment continues to be aggravated, culminating in what has come to be referred to as the “japa syndrome” – the large scale economically-motivated emigration of, especially, young Nigerians – the question has started to be raised whether it was wise to have raised or to continue to raise the retirement age of civil servants in various sectors of government establishments, and whether a comprehensive downward review would not be desirable.

    Finally, increased operational autonomy should not be an excuse for the Federal Government to repudiate its responsibility for the adequate or optimal funding of university education. 

  • As power changes hands

    As power changes hands

    • Can MOFI save the DISCOs?

    To whom much is given, much is expected. But this saying does not appear to have any meaning to Nigeria’s power sector, particularly the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) where the Federal Government has committed huge resources without commensurate returns. The Federal Government has committed about $1.25 billion into the DisCos in the last 12 years alone. This is aside other interventions also running into billions of naira.

     These included the N300 billion power and airlines intervention launched in 2010. Another notable intervention was the Solar Connection Facility, established to equip rural communities with affordable solar power. We also have the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) aimed at tackling headlong, the longstanding issue of estimated billing by facilitating widespread meter installation across the country. The programme, started with a seed capital of N200 billion has led to the disbursement of nearly N60 billion for procuring over 960,000 meters in its initial phase.

    In spite of these colossal interventions in the power sector, not much has been achieved in terms of stable electricity supply. With specific reference to the DisCos, none of them has yielded any dividend to the Federal Government which owns 40 per cent of their shares, even as electricity supply remains epileptic. This, really, is frustrating.  

    Indeed, a Federal Ministry of Finance official put the frustration tersely 

     that the government cannot “continue pumping money into the power sector while we remain in darkness. This affects our businesses negatively.”

    We can now understand why the government is thinking along changing its approach to funding of the entities. 

    Although we were not told what the coming strategy to the funding of the 11 firms would look like, it was reliably learnt that the lack of returns led the government to strip the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) of its authority over the government’s shares in the DisCos. The function is now to be taken over by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), hopefully to improve accountability and drive reform within the power sector.  

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    We concede the right to take decisions on investments in which the government has 40 per cent stakes to the government. But then, what does MOFI know that the BPE does not? We all know what the problems of the DisCos are: billions in accumulated debts, some of which power consumers are disputing because of the rule of the thumb system of billing that is pervasive in the sector. For instance, Ajaokuta Steel alone is said to owe about N33bn. This is a firm that has been comatose for decades. There are also some other debts like those owed by ministries, departments and parastatals, military formations, etc. How would the DisCos collect even the debts that are genuine? 

    There is also the problem of generated electricity that cannot be distributed due to the lack of capacity of the transmission companies to wheel the power to the consumers.

    We want to believe that metering of electricity consumers is key in the functioning of the DisCos. The approach should however not be the same as applied in the past when both the free meters distributed by the government and those of the Discos were distributed to customers simultaneously. This left so much room for corrupt practices because the tendency would be that the free meters would not be available to the public even if they were in stock. 

    The government also has to be mindful of its intervention outside of the distribution network to ensure that there is capacity on the part of the transmission agencies to wheel what is generated to the consumers, to reduce wasting of resources. 

    Since the business of managing the government’s interest is now in the hands of MOFI, we hope the ministry would learn from the experiences of BPE  to ensure that government begins to reap the benefits of the transfer of the responsibility to it. 

    When searching for new managers for the moribund DisCos, MOFI must ensure it engages competent bidders with both the financial capacity and technical expertise to drive them.

  • Military children scholarship

    Military children scholarship

    • Age barrier for access to it must be reviewed in view of our peculiar circumstances

    Nigeria usually marks its ‘Armed Forces Remembrance Day’ on January 15 annually. This year  President Bola Ahmed Tinubu laid the symbolic wreath at the National Military Cenotaph in Abuja, in remembrance of all the fallen military heroes that had paid the supreme price in defence of Nigeria and its citizens, either locally or during international military engagements.

    Sober as such moments are, the realities of the survivors of the fallen heroes are also brought into focus during such annual rituals. During this annual national day of honour, families, dependents, friends and colleagues of the dead military heroes participate in the ceremonies. Memories are shared, government promises are either renewed or reviewed. Implementation or lack of same becomes the burden of the living, either in the military or the government.

    At this year’s ceremony, a military widow had a very profound request, “The military gives scholarships to four children per family but after 18 years, if you don’t get admitted into a university, you are dropped out…” She requested for a review of this requirement.

    Education is the best legacy any parent can bequeath any child and most parents treasure that fact that they often stake everything to achieve it for their children. We believe that military people are first humans. So, the human aspiration for the education of their children is equally valid. Choosing a military career is regarded globally as one of the most sacrificial choices of any individual, so each country goes a step higher caring for both serving ones and veterans.

    When these patriotic Nigerians die in the line of duty, the state owes them the honour of making sure that their children’s education is taken care of. No sacrifice is greater than giving their lives in service of the country. In any case, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989) emphasises every child’s right to education. So, beyond carrying on what deceased parents would have done were they alive, the state and the military as a whole have to ensure the rights are enforced fully.

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    The Nigerian educational system does not run on a defined age grade hierarchical progression due to the systemic dysfunction, especially as regards tertiary education where it sometimes takes qualified children more than two years to get admission into universities, making them older than 18 in the process. We therefore align with the widow’s plea that the issue be reviewed to accommodate the exigencies that might arise, which could be beyond the control of any military child and his or her widowed mother.

    Again, we believe that there are children whose talents can be developed through skill acquisition that must not necessarily be in an academic setting. Vocational skills can equally be sponsored in lieu of tertiary academic attainments instead of a total reliance on any child getting into university.

    Children’s education must be the priority of governments and this involves diligent planning. With the global record of the largest number of out-of-school children, we believe that all vulnerable groups like the children of fallen military heroes should not be thrown under the bureaucratic bus, as this has far- reaching implications, especially in a country with very low military enrolments. Citizens must trust that their welfare and that of their children would be taken care of should they pay the supreme price.

    Investing in the education of military children can go beyond provisions by governments. The government can set up trust funds and encourage corporate bodies, groups and individuals to contribute towards that. Some developed nations even have scholarship funds for spouses of fallen heroes. All the efforts towards a more secured territorial space must be consciously made by governments because no development can happen without the security each country relies on its military for. The men and women of the military can only be optimally functional when they understand that the country can care for them and their children if they sacrifice their lives.

    We hope the voice of that widow would be taken seriously through actions that can assuage the sense of loss victims suffer, especially the children who are assets in every country.

  • Body parts for rituals    

    Body parts for rituals    

    • There is need for sustained enlightenment to discourage the odious practice

    The use of human body parts for rituals with the aim of achieving different goals, including acquiring wealth, power and spiritual fortification is a perverse, and even criminal, act. Such body parts are sourced through abducting, murdering and removing the targeted parts. It also involves exhuming corpses from graves and removing these parts. In a recent report, two suspects arrested in connection with the possession of a human head told officers of the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), popularly called Amotekun Corps, that they cut the head from a corpse a few hours after it was buried in a cemetery in Saki, Oyo State. One of the suspects also disclosed that his expected share from the sale of the head is “between N2,000 and N3,000”.   

    According to the report, “during investigations, a search of Alli’s apartment uncovered an earthenware pot with a human leg bone, a sheep’s head, chameleon parts, alligator pepper, and eggs – all elements being burnt for a wealth ritual. Abdullahi, too, had a bucket containing human parts for alleged fortune-making rituals.”

    This issue brings to the fore the depth of the superstition of the perpetrators of these dastardly acts. They believe that using the various kinds of body parts for rituals would bring them fortune, fame and, ironically, protect them from evil forces. The worrisome thing about the devilish acts is that they are also seen by the perpetrators as a business venture, for which they have a clientele of differing social classes, educational backgrounds and religious persuasions.

    The soul-deadening acts of these ritualists also underscore the material poverty of the perpetrators and their perverse desire to break out of the cocoon of poverty through desperate means. The get-rich-quick syndrome that is created by this desire is one of the reasons for the willingness to undertake the very risky and nightmarish act of exhuming a corpse and cutting off the head or, even worse, abducting a living person, murdering them and cutting off parts of the victim’s body.

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    These barbarous acts reflect worrisome mental problems which undermine the capacity to discern the true worth of the humanity of the perpetrators as well as their victims. This may also rob the perpetrators of the sense of restraint associated with normal human beings. In societies where the mental health of citizens gets significant attention, such people would be ready candidates for mental health therapy. This would be the case, because in the Yoruba cultural environment to which the arrested suspects belong, there is the fundamental belief that irrespective of the spiritual manipulations a person may attempt, it is what they are destined to be that they will be. This belief is encoded in the proverb, “Ìc¹bÍ, ìcòògùn, bá a ti wáyé pá rìí là á rí.” (‘However much you may engage in fetish sacrifices, however much you may engage in occult practices, it is what you’re destined to be in life that you will be.’)

    In spite of this proverbial counsel about the futility of engaging in diabolical practices as a means of getting wealth, power and spiritual fortification, many people, including some sections of the elite, still believe in the insidious practices.

    The Nigerian movie industry has been playing an unsavoury role in reinforcing this deleterious belief. In the light of such chronic delusions, intense enlightenment programmes need to be mounted to disabuse people’s minds from and wean them off the trading in and buying of ritualistic human body parts. It would also be necessary to enforce existing applicable laws and sanctions against the criminal acts without fear or favour.

  • Fair probe

    Fair probe

    • Ramping up N33bn electricity debt on a cost centre calls for a drastic change in Ajaokuta Steel’s business model

    Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd (ASCL) was conceived to embed heavy manufacturing to drive Nigeria’s real sector.  But it is, at best, turning a mirage, despite the brave efforts to revive the plant by the last administration, as well as the Tinubu Presidency.

    Clearly, here is why: ramping up a N33 billion electricity debt, over numberless years, yet producing virtually nothing!  The situation was so bad that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) just yanked ASCL from the national greed!

    What did the plant do with all that electricity, when it had been near-comatose all this while?  Why did the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) — or whichever preceding agency that sold the national electricity pool — continue to indulge ASCL with more credit when the plant was not servicing its debt, until it became well-neigh a bad debt at a cumulative N33 billion? 

    What is even the integrity of this bill?  Is ASCL adequately metered, so that there was no padding of the bill?  

    But beyond debt owed to NBET, the N33 billion also included N2.22 billion owed to “service providers”, aside from the bulk of N30.85 billion to NBET.  Pray, how do you provide service to a comatose company and be sure you would be paid?  

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    Perhaps there were other under-the-table motivations beyond naked business?  Or were all of these “deals” struck with the belief that the Federal Government would always foot ASCL’s bills, simply because it was a government company?

    The interaction between Shuaibu Audu, the Minister of Steel Development, and Sumaila Abdul-Akaba, the managing director of ASCL, was even more intriguing, from the minister’s own account: “Part of what the MD of Ajaokuta told me is that most of the money is in interest payments.”  That supposes ASCL might be heavy on routine loans.  But whoever would give money to a struggling business, if they were not convinced some Father Christmas would bale it out?

    From a conceived profit — in any case, revenue — centre, ASCL has turned a sickly cost centre.  Yet, it is ill-advised to cut the loss and move on.  Too much resource had been sunk into this strategic plant for it to be abandoned — even if it had become a sick metaphor for official neglect and decay, collusion and corruption: a corruption fired by systemic conspiracy.

    All that must stop.  But it won’t if we don’t radically change the plant’s business model.  The path to that redemption is running ASCL as an efficient venture.  It should float or sink by what it generates, not by what it sucks from the federal purse. But sinking is out of the question — which is why the government must get the company’s management right.  It’s just too strategic to fail.

    We must applaud the current multi-ministry efforts to return Ajaokuta to producing light steel, to realise the current administration’s ambitious infrastructure dreams; and to enhance the production of military hardware.  Still, the minister’s comment that since one arm of the government is doing the revival, another arm should not make “things very difficult for us” would appear manifestly wrong — especially if “difficult” refers to NBET’s right to collect debts Ajaokuta owes.

    Indeed, the contrary should be the stress: ASCL should pay its debt.  NBET must collect its due.  Those hard basics, not mushy sentiments, should undergird the relationship between the two.  That is the first step to tweaking Ajaokuta’s business model;  and putting in place a more business-like corporate temper.

    Of course, the Federal Government should explore a reasonable payment plan — flexible enough and mutually beneficial to both — after a forensic audit that establishes the actual amount owed.

    That’s a logical way to recalibrate the plant and transform Ajaokuta from the cost centre of the past four decades, to the profit centre and industrial trigger it was conceived to be — and it must be.

  • Hercules C-130 widows

    Hercules C-130 widows

    • A call for clarity and closure

    Ironically, the presentation of palliatives to widows of deceased military officers in the South-South by the wife of the Chief of Defence Staff, Mrs Oghogho Musa, was marred by loud complaints from widows of military officers who died in the Lockheed C-130H Hercules military plane crash at Oke-Afa, Ejigbo, Lagos State, in September 1992, who said the Nigerian military and the Federal Government had not paid them their late husbands’ entitlements, more than 31 years after the tragedy.

     At the event at the headquarters of the 6 Division, Nigeria Army, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in commemoration of the 2024 Armed Forces Remembrance Day, Musa, who is also the President of Defence and Police Officers’ Wives Association (DPOWA), gave out cartons of noodles, bags of rice, beans and other foodstuff to the widows, saying it was appropriate to remember the country’s fallen heroes and give their families support.

    But Mrs Folake Lasisi, wife of late Navy Commander Lasisi, who spoke “on behalf of the widows of the Hercules C-130 plane crash on 26th September 1992,” dropped a bombshell. “We women have not been given our entitlements,” she lamented. “After 31 years, we want to be remembered and they should review it and do something about it. Some of us have died, and some of our children have died, so please take this message back home to our mother, the mother of the nation, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, so that the nation and the military will attend to our matter.” Her mention of Nigeria’s First Lady targeted powerful people at the highest level of governance in the country.

    She also said, “There are some of our children who are not getting their educational sponsorship,” and called on the authorities to “look at it and do something about it.”

    The Kaduna-bound Nigerian Air Force (NAF) plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Lagos, killing all the people aboard. It was said to have “nose-dived three minutes after takeoff into a swampy area.” The majority of the fatalities were middle-ranking military officers on their way to a course at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College (AFCSC) Jaji, Kaduna. There were conflicting reports about the number of people on the plane. But, according to a list, they included 104 Army officers, 17 Naval officers, 17 Air Force officers, eight foreign officers, 11 Nigerian Air Force crew and nine others, totalling 166. 

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    The complaining widows need to clarify the “entitlements” they have allegedly not been given.  It is inconceivable that the Nigerian authorities abandoned them. That would be scandalous and condemnable. 

     The September 26, 1992 HC-130 Widows’ Association, in a letter, in September 2021, to the then Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir S. Magashi (retd), routed through the then Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), shed some light on the issue.

     The association said “the promises made by the Federal Government of Nigeria to the widows and families left behind have not been fulfilled,” stating that they had made several attempts, including taking the matter to the Oputa Panel, to fight for their rights and due compensation under military and various laws in the country.

    At some point, they said in the letter, the Federal Government and the military authorities offered to make a one-off payment of N5m per family, which they rejected because they “felt insulted by the offer.”

    In the letter, they requested “a one-off payment of N100 million per family as compensation from the Federal Government” through the office of the Minister of Defence. They asked for empathy, adding that their request “be compassionately looked into and accepted.”  

    That was two years ago, and 29 years after the tragic plane crash. The recent public complaint by the alleged neglected widows at Port Harcourt, 31 years after the tragedy, further highlighted the matter.  

    The Federal Government and the military authorities need to provide clarity on the issue and, indeed, bring this matter to closure.  Whether it is about “entitlements” or “compensation,” or even both, the matter has dragged on for too long.