The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Threatening trajectory

    Threatening trajectory

    • Rising youth involvement in crime must be addressed without delay

    Although it turned out that the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Olanipekun Olukoyede, was misquoted regarding a comment linking Nigerian youths with criminal activities, there is only a minor difference between what he reportedly said and the misrepresentation. And his observation is serious enough to demand attention.

    Olukoyede ran into trouble when he reportedly said “it is worrisome that seven out of 10 students today are involved in cybercrimes.” A post on the anti-corruption agency’s X page had credited him with the comment. He was speaking with a delegation from Daar Communications Plc at EFCC headquarters in Jabi, Abuja.

     ”These are the youths we are preparing to be leaders of tomorrow. The media should not relent in enlightening them on the evils of such criminal practices,” the EFCC boss was quoted as saying.

    This is ordinarily candid talk. But it apparently did not go down well with some people, particularly the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), which promptly demanded that the anti-graft agency boss must provide verifiable proof to support his claim or retract his statement.

    Clarification from the EFCC calmed the brewing storm. The commission’s spokesman, Dele Oyewale, in a statement, clarified that Olukoyede’s observation was misrepresented. According to him, the EFCC boss had expressed concern about “the rising incidence of internet-related crimes involving youths across the country.”

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    He said Olukoyede “did say that reports and intelligence available to him indicated that, unless this trajectory of youth involvement in internet fraud is addressed and reversed, the future of their leadership of our great nation may be threatened, and if it continues in the next 10 years, 7 out 10 of our youths may be getting involved in cybercrimes.” He described the misinterpretation as “needless.” Perhaps the commission should have communicated what its boss said in a clearer way.

     Nobody should castigate the EFCC boss for his candour. As the anti-corruption czar, he must know what he is talking about.  Nigerians are regularly bombarded with news of suspected internet fraudsters rounded up by EFCC officials all over the country. Most of those involved are youths. We also have an increasing number of youths involved in cultism, armed robbery, ritual murders, etc.

    We understand the reaction of NANS, among others. But this is not about sentiment. We expect that by virtue of his position, the EFCC boss can speak authoritatively on crime, particularly escalating youth involvement in criminal activities. Even if 70 percent of Nigerian youths or students are involved in internet frauds, it means that not all of them are involved. But, as the saying goes, one bad egg could spoil it all.  What Olukoyede has done is to warn of the consequences, if those that would inevitably pilot the affairs of the country in the future are involved in crimes.

     Rather than NANS getting angry with the EFCC boss, the association should look inward. After all, at its last election, guns boomed.  That was condemnable. Definitely, not all Nigerian students or youths would sanction such conduct.

    Olukoyede’s statement should be seen as a clarion call to address the worrisome trend before it snowballs into something worse.  Indeed, according to the EFFC’s clarification, “Olukoyede is doubly committed to the progress of Nigerian youths and this underscores his calls for collaborative interventions in offering them more productive and sustainable alternatives.”

    Governments at all levels too must be involved in seeking solutions to the challenge by way of job creation and empowerment programmes to keep the youths productively engaged so that they can put their creative energies to productive use rather than getting involved in criminal activities.

  • Cocktail of quackery

    Cocktail of quackery

    • It’s time to step up the fight

    The media recently reported, with pictures and videos, the array of fake products, including wines, soft drinks and other consumables, discovered at the Eziukwu market in Aba, Abia State, by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration (NAFDAC). Ten suspects were reportedly arrested and the NAFDAC’s Director General (DG), Mojisola Adeyeye, told the media that the market would remain closed until the agency and the market operators reached an agreement that they would henceforth checkmate criminals who fake food and drugs in the market. Police had arrested about ten suspects from about 240 shops-turned factories that were raided.

    Also, two men, one Imo Lawrence, aged 35, and his accomplice, Magnus Nwonka, aged 42, were recently arrested in the Ojo area of Lagos, where they were allegedly faking and bottling drinks. After the shocking discovery of fake drinks in Aba, the Lagos discovery reinforced the possibility that the production of fake drinks happens nationwide.

    NAFDAC’s list of adulterated drinks in circulation includes Seaman Schnapps, Henessy, Four Cousins, Carlo Rossi, Jenney, Chelsea London Dry Gin, Schnapp Dry Gin, McDowells, Black Labels, Gordons, Martell, Campari, Smirnoff Ice, Eva Non-Alcoholic Drink, Evra Non-Alcoholic Drink, Cartel.

    We are glad that NAFDAC raided the Eziukwu market,  also called ‘Cemetery’ market, where they destroyed some of the fake products worth about N750m.  Lamentably, the agency seems to have become lethargic since the tragic death of Prof. Dora Akunyili, its former Director General. Akunyili took the fight to the enemy. She even confronted countries producing adulterated drugs or serving as conduits for export to Nigeria and other West African countries.

    The fight against fake and adulterated products is a serious fight because criminal gangs do everything to protect their criminality. Therefore, NAFDAC and other agencies of government charged with gatekeeping, investigations and policing must continually review their methods.

    The NAFDAC DG, while commenting on the effects of consuming fake alcoholic drinks, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) says claims up to 3million lives annually, listed the side effects such as nausea, abdominal pains, pale skin, irregular and slow breathing, dizziness, drowsiness etc. but she failed to catalogue the effects on human organs of the consumption of fake and adulterated foods and drugs.

    We believe that the increase in kidney and other sensitive organs’ ailments can be partly blamed on the consumption of fake foods and drugs.  As she observed, those involved in the criminal activities are mostly hidden in very dirty and unhygienic buildings, and use harmful chemicals, cheaper sources of sugar, colouring, saccharin and starch. Many of those involved are not well trained, many are semi-literate and possibly employ the trial-and-error approach to production. They have no brand pride; they revel in faking other people’s popular brands.

    Serious countries take the food and drug sector very seriously because fake products in the sector can take people’s lives.  For instance, a pregnant woman who ingests any fake or adulterated drugs or food endangers both her life and that of her baby.  Children are known to have died in large numbers due to fake baby food or drugs like cough syrup.  The bad effects of fake and adulterated foods and drugs are unquantifiable.

    However, while we blame NAFDAC for some of the lapses that make these quacks thrive, we also know that there is a cocktail of quackery in the country: fake doctors, fake soldiers, fake journalists, fake police, fake schools, fake orphanages, fake lawyers, and quackery in almost all sectors in the country, which obviously points to a crassly dysfunctional system.

    If those quacks in Aba had products worth N750m, that means they have been long in the business of quackery. Why is it that NAFDAC, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Department of State Services (DSS), and other relevant agencies did not bust them earlier?

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    We wonder why NAFDAC does not do random searches in shops and supermarkets because those are the points of sale for those fake products. The criminals don’t supply straight to the consumers. Again, why does NAFDAC unilaterally close a market where other Nigerians doing their legitimate businesses earn their living just because some are dubious? That is impunity, and unjust.

    We commend NAFDAC for promising that the arrested suspects would be prosecuted, and for giving consumers clues to the identification of fake products, such as the quality of the packaging, spelling mistakes, unusual bottle shapes and the smell of the products. 

    We believe that the agency or the government should be concerned enough to pay for ‘whistle blowing’ services by people whose identity must be protected by the government to save them from the criminals. There must be incentives for citizens to report any fishy movements because these products are done in compounds where other people live. In this respect, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has its job cut out for it.

    Again, many foreigners are in Nigeria, taking advantage of the weak institutions, and faking or importing fake and adulterated products. Some Chinese, Lebanese, Indians and other nationals allegedly hide in factories, and use Nigerians for production of such products.

    The Nigerian government must wake up and do due diligence diplomatically. Most of these foreigners invest hugely in technology used in faking products to the detriment of the people and the economy. Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment must do their work and get the bad ‘foreign investors’ arrested and prosecuted.

    Nigeria must be ready to invest in its citizens so that a valued sense of citizenship can propel a sense of patriotism to save lives. Communities can, in addition to agencies like NAFDAC and SON, monitor fake products marketing to save lives, and improve the economy when real manufacturers are able to sell their own products. Unfortunately, most of the fake products are consumed by those whose job is to stop them from thriving in the first place. We hope the arrested suspects would be prosecuted and severely punished to serve as a deterrent.

  • Bloody Plateau

    Bloody Plateau

    There should be no hiding place for the killers in the search for peace 

    Mindless murderers, in an orgy of barbaric bloodletting, attacked several communities across two Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Plateau State, in the North-Central region of Nigeria, on Christmas Eve. At the end of an obviously well-planned savage onslaught, said to have lasted three hours, and which saw no less than 20 villages under sustained attack, large numbers of innocent Nigerians, including children, women and the elderly, had their lives snuffed out.

    While the Police Command in Plateau State reported that 96 persons were killed and hundreds injured, the chairmen of the two Local Government Areas where the carnage took place, namely Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi LGAs, claimed that 155 people were killed and no less than one thousand injured. Going by the police report, 221 houses and several vehicles as well as motorcycles were burnt by the invaders. To underscore the seriousness of the situation, residents of the affected villages were said to have combed the bushes several hours after the violence had abated, and discovered bodies of those killed by the assailants while trying to escape. 

    To destroy lives and disrupt harmonious communal living on such a scale in a territory not known to be formally at war is indicative of an alarming degree of degradation and erosion of the power, authority and coercive potency of the state. It is difficult to fathom how these criminal elements could have operated for such a considerable length of time and across such a broad expanse of space without any discernible countervailing response by the country’s myriad security agencies to safeguard lives and property of endangered citizens.

    Here we saw, once again, a glaring failure of the Nigerian state to perform a fundamental duty for which citizens willingly submit themselves to its authority – to create the necessary conditions for the latter to pursue their legitimate business without fear of harm.

    That those who perpetrated this dastardly act could so easily plan and actualise their satanic objectives yet again is particularly amazing because this is the umpteenth time we are witnessing this kind of sordid, disconcerting mass murder. Could it then be that the relevant security agencies learnt nothing from past occurrences, such that they could not have put in place effective measures to check and neutralise the latest occurrence?

    This exposes once more the vulnerable underbelly and weakest link in Nigeria’s ongoing efforts to check assorted terrorist crimes and enhance security – the lack of adequate infrastructure, personnel and skills to gather, analyse and utilise intelligence. If this loophole is plugged, it will become much more difficult for terrorists and insurgents to plan the kind of large-scale bloody operation just witnessed in Plateau State, without the enterprise being nipped in the bud before actualisation.

    We recall that just in May this year, gunmen stormed the Mangu area of Plateau State, attacking and burning several houses with initial fatalities estimated at over 20, including women and children. The death toll resulting from this savagery was later put at over 60 by the local authorities. So frequent have these gruesome incidents become in a once famously serene and scenic Plateau State that both residents of the violence-prone areas of the state and those of other parts of the country have become largely desensitised to the scale of atrocities, the statistics of fatalities or the degree of cruelty.

    Over the last two decades, the conflicts mainly between nomadic ethnic Fulani herders and indigenous farmers from such ethnic groups as the Berom, Anaguta and Afizeke ethnic groups have become almost routine and seemingly normal in Plateau. At times, the conflict is over the use of scarce land for grazing or farming. Sometimes, the grievances have to do with proprietary rights by contending groups over space to dwell in and earn a living. The clashes often take the shape of indigenes up in arms against non- indigenes, and the cost in human lives and erosion of civilised values has been colossal.

    In 2001, for instance, no less than 1000 persons were believed to have been killed in Jos and its environs in the course of these ethno-religious conflagrations. At least 700 persons were estimated to have been killed in communal clashes in Yelwa, southern Plateau State, in 2004. Again, in January 2010, several scores of people were reportedly killed in sectarian clashes in and around Jos, with nearly 150 Muslims reportedly murdered in the nearby town of Kan Karama. And in December 2010, Christmas Eve explosions in two Christian neighbourhoods in Jos, followed by several days of sectarian violence, reportedly left at least 107 persons dead.

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    It is inexcusable that this seeming vicious cycle of violence has been allowed to persist as if it is inevitable and no enduring solution can be found. The governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang, has decried what he described as the “lack of political will” by relevant authorities over the years to flush out terrorists from the state. He particularly lamented a situation in which arrests are hardly ever made by security agents to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice.

    Speaking on national television, he said: “In Barkin-Ladi Local Government Area, schools have been occupied by terrorists for some years now. Not less than 64 communities have been displaced and the lands have been taken over by these marauding terrorists.” He added: “People who want land on the Plateau are free to approach the communities, negotiate and settle in those communities. I don’t think people will refuse but when they resort to violence to take over those lands, you will be sure that this is a time bomb because it will reach a time when people react and we are going to have a large-scale conflict.”

    We agree that those responsible for these acts must be vigorously pursued, apprehended and made to face the law. This is why President Bola Tinubu’s directive to security agents to fish out the killers, with the promise that when they are found they will not be spared, is appropriate. All those whose hands are tainted by blood must be punished. That is the only path back to sanity.

    To his credit, the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Simon Lalong, sought to rise above the fray, transcend the contending factions, and adopt a statesmanlike approach to solving the problem. He developed a template of cooperative stakes of all the major ethnic and religious groups. It provided avenue for grievances to be addressed prior to any bloody outburst. It was a delicate arrangement that held the state together, if imperfectly. But in such an arrangement with improvements is the path to peace.

  • Dejumo Lewis (1943 – 2023)

    Dejumo Lewis (1943 – 2023)

    • He personified the thespian virtue

    He was well on his way to priesthood but changed his mind. After making an unlikely switch to acting, he not only made a name for himself as an actor but remained relevant till his exit.

    Dejumo Lewis, who died on December 23, aged 80, was a study in professional longevity. In 2022, after a 34-year break, he radiantly returned to the notable role that catapulted him to thespian glory about 55 years earlier.

    Famous for his role as Kabiyesi, the traditional ruler of the community, in The Village Headmaster, Nigeria’s longest-running TV drama series shown on the national television network from 1968 to 1988, he was back in the spotlight playing the same role when the programme returned in April 2022. Lewis started as an actor in The Village Headmaster and became producer/director. 

    The Village Headmaster, created by Olusegun Olusola, now deceased, was a must-see television drama series across the country in its heyday. Set in a fictional Yoruba village called Oja, the show dealt with a variety of subjects, including social problems and the effect of government policies on the community. The cast reflected different ethnic groups in the country, and communicated in Nigerian Pidgin, Standard English and Yoruba language.  It was a studio-based programme that promoted unity in diversity. 

     The revived and reinvented programme returned as a result of collaboration between the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Wale Adenuga Productions (WAP) and telecommunications service provider Globacom. It was taken out of the studio, and the outdoor setting gave it greater realism.  

    Lewis, who still attracted attention through his gripping performances as Kabiyesi after The Village Headmaster returned, said during the long break, people still called him Kabiyesi, and some even treated him like one. That showed his high-grade acting skill, and the power of attention-grabbing acting.

    He said in a published interview: “I started as a freelance in The Village Headmaster cast… I did not get the role of Kabiyesi immediately…It was after six months of production of Village Headmaster that the role of King was created. It turned out that when it was created, I was invited to play the role.” He got the important role of Kabiyesi without formal acting training, which was a testimony to his acting talent.

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    Born in Lagos, he attended the Holy Cross Primary School, Lagos.  After his primary education, he wanted to be a priest. He spent six years at St. Theresa Catholic Minor Seminary in Ibadan, and four years at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Major Seminary, also in Ibadan, where he graduated in Philosophy.

    After 10 years of seminary studies, he decided to, according to him, “end it all, leave the school and start living a normal life.” “The same year I left the seminary was the year production of The Village Headmaster drama began,” he recalled.

    He later worked in the television industry as a programmer, and then, he said, “trained to become a producer/director, both here and abroad. I studied Celluloid.” He received a master’s degree in Communication Arts from the University of Ibadan.

    At NTA, he moved from programme planning to production, and was trained in Holland, England and Germany. After the series was stopped, he did television movies, and was posted to NTA Ibadan as manager, programmes. He held the position for five years, and was posted back to Lagos, where, according to him, “I was forcibly retired in 1999.”

    In retirement, he remained active, “writing books on culture and communication,” and participated in films about “four times in a year,” to show that “I am still interested in acting, which is like a hobby for me.” He performed in some acclaimed films, including A Place in the Stars (2014), Power of 1 (2018), and Crossroads (2020). He was a seasoned actor, who left a legacy of professionalism.

  • Rotimi Akeredolu (1956 – 2023)

    Rotimi Akeredolu (1956 – 2023)

    • He was a front foot for justice and federalism

    Ironically, his Yoruba nickname was Aketi, meaning, one who cannot be cut down. But in a malevolent twist of fate, the charismatic governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, died from cancer on December 27, aged 67.   

    He was an activist of the first rank. He had a position on any issue, and as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu pointed out in his tribute, he was “a fearless defender of truth and the masses.”

    As a top lawyer and activist, he fought for the enthronement of true federalism, a fair electoral system and balance in the realm of justice. As governor, he did not only pursue infrastructure and welfare programmes before poor health stalled him, he was at the forefront of the fight for Amotekun that put him on a collision course with elements in the Buhari government who supported herdsmen encroachment over the assertion of the southwest’s rights to defend itself within a federal framework.

    He studied at the former University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, where he earned a degree in Law, and also attended the Nigerian Law School.  Thereafter, with a determination to succeed, the man from Owo, in present-day Ondo State, settled down in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, to use Law as an instrument to fight societal ills and defend the vulnerable. He would not allow any oppression to go without a fight. The man fought until he drew his last breath, “peacefully in his sleep,” as his first son, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu Jnr, said in the statement that announced his passing.

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    In his chosen profession, he achieved distinction, making the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) rank in 1998. Before then, he had been appointed Attorney General of his state. He went on to become the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) with a clear agenda that he fought to accomplish.

    His service as Attorney General and President of NBA launched him on the path of partisan politics. He was a prominent member of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and ran for governor in Ondo State in the 2012 election, but was defeated by Dr Rahman Mimiko of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was also one of the founding members of the All Progressives Party (APC), on which platform he contested and won the 2016 governorship election and was reelected in 2020.

    His virtues included forthrightness, sagacity, and integrity. At difficult moments, he demonstrated these qualities, notably when, as chairman of the Southwest governors, he had to lead the battle to rid the zone of murderous herdsmen. Also, he championed the establishment of the Amotekun Corps, and equipped it to take the battle to all undesirable elements. 

    Importantly, when it was time to prepare for the 2023 general elections, he was saddled with the duty of leading all Southern governors as they demanded that the political parties should zone the presidential ticket to the South. He never backed off even when some of the governors repudiated the agreement.

    However, as a result of his failing health, he gradually lost his vigour and capacity to govern early in the year, and was thus forced to take a medical leave in June. On his return in September, it was apparent that he was not ready to continue with governance as friends and family members ensured that he was confined to his Ibadan residence, which generated avoidable controversy on his fitness.

     An attempt by those believed to be loyal to him to get his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, impeached failed as the President had to step in. The truce that got power transferred to the deputy as Acting Governor was also brokered by President Tinubu. This is one development all politicians and leaders should learn from as no one is indispensable. The deputy to whom he was reluctant to transfer state power was inaugurated as his successor.

    Akeredolu, a former Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Owo and recipient of the Nigerian national honour, Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), was perhaps more successful as a social critic, activist, and fighter for justice. As a politician, he was possibly faced with unfamiliar challenges in a strange sphere. He came to power with the image of a performer, but his governorship years, perhaps owing to his health, did not live up to the promise of markedly progressive governance.

  • Swindled and stranded

    Swindled and stranded

    • Government and citizens have roles in tackling migration-related swindlers

    A striking number of desperate Nigerians fleeing their country in search of greener pastures have fallen prey to racketeers.  The United Nations agency on migration affairs, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), lately said more than 1,000 Nigerians were deceived by fraudulent job offers in the United Kingdom, on which basis they obtained work visas out of Nigeria, only to get stranded in that foreign land. IOM Chief of Mission Laurent De Boeck, speaking at a news conference in Abuja, advised Nigerians to seek genuine and accurate information before migrating.

    Boeck said: “There are some of them who lost over $10,000, only to be given fake employment letters, which allowed them to get visas. They get there, present the letters, and the organisations tell them that the letters did not emanate from the organisations. Over a thousand people are affected.”  Those Nigerians are consequently stranded, he added, because some of them lack the means to return to Nigeria, while others are ashamed of going back defeated.

    The IOM chief further disclosed that over 260,000 Nigerians approached the agency in 2023 seeking guidance on how to migrate through regular or approved routes. He also said the migration agency was working with partners to repatriate thousands of people, including Nigerians, from Tunisia, which recently placed a ban on migrants.

    The alarming picture corroborated a report, in August, that scores of Nigerians had fallen into destitution in the UK after leaving their native land on skilled worker visas with which they had hoped to make a living abroad. Many of them emptied their savings to pay ‘agents’ who promised them job placements upon relocation; but contrary to their expectations, these Nigerians ended up on UK streets begging for food, shelter and other basic needs.

     A Sky News report showed Nigerians who said they paid agents – effectively, visa middlemen – who got them skilled worker visas and documents indicating job offers that they found to be phony upon arrival in the UK. With no job, they have no means of sustenance, and are struggling to survive by sleeping rough and begging for food from humanitarian food banks.

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    A victim who spoke to Sky News said she relocated to the UK after paying an agent £10,000 to get her a job as a carer, which, upon arriving in the country, she found to be non-existent contrary to assurances by the agent. Another victim, who said she was destitute in the UK, showed her passport and other documents proving her claim of having been offered a job that she eventually found to be phony. She was advised against taking the matter up with the agency that swindled her for fear of legal repercussions. “Their pathetic stories attest to how agents or middlemen are manipulating Nigerians desperate to travel out of the country with the skilled worker visa system, who have been promised opportunities only to find out that such do not exist,” the report had said.

    As we argued concerning the Sky News report, Nigerians getting stranded in foreign lands should serve as a warning against the blind flight – known as ‘japa’ syndrome – of compatriots from their country owing to prevailing anomie at home. Migration should happen after fully ascertaining the prospects ahead. In other words, whatever may be the motivation, risks involved in leaving one’s country must be well calculated and prepared for. And migration must be by official channels and procedures only, not by use of middlemen or other illegal routes.

    But it is also high time the Nigerian government engaged its UK counterpart in tackling the swindlers. It is curious, for instance, that UK consular officials failed to detect documents making fake job offers in their country before issuing work visas on the strength of such. Internally, the Federal Government, through the Foreign Affairs Ministry and National Orientation Agency, among others, should intensify public enlightenment on the issue.

    The ultimate solution is for the government to make living conditions conducive at home so as to render the allure of greener pastures less potent, and desperation for migration less intense.

  • Bank robberies

    Bank robberies

    • Ikere-Ekiti and Lagos prove that different approaches to security have different consequences

    Coincidentally, the recent daylight bank robberies in Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti State, happened as Lagos State made the headlines for zero bank robbery in the last four years. The coincidence provided a context for comparison.

    About 20 masked robbers armed with dynamite and sophisticated firearms had attacked two banks in Ikere-Ekiti, broke into their vaults, made away with unspecified sums, and killed at least seven people in operations said to have lasted about 45 minutes. The presence of military checkpoints and Police Area Command in the town was of no consequence.

    The robbers were reported to have attacked the Ikere command of the Amotekun Corps, a state-owned security outfit, before moving to the Wema Bank and Access Bank branches located in different areas of the town. Two members of Amotekun were killed. The attacks on the banks were carried out simultaneously.  

     A briefing by the state Commissioner of Police, Dare Ogundare, indicated that the robbers were still at work when men of the Tactical Command and nearby divisions of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) were deployed to back up those in Ikere to overpower the criminals. It is puzzling that they failed to apprehend the robbers. All the police could do, with support from soldiers, was prevent them from moving their vehicles.

     The Ekiti State Command of the NPF said it had stepped up investigation of the robberies, but there has been no update about two weeks after the incidents. The police in the state must ensure that the bank robbers are brought to justice.

    It is a markedly different story in Lagos State, where Governor Sanwo-Olu attributed the non-occurrence of bank robberies in the last four years to the continuous review of the state’s security architecture. Sanwo-Olu made this linkage at the 17th Town Hall Meeting on security organised by the Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF), where stakeholders met to evaluate security in Lagos between October 2022 and September 2023. This is a testimony to the state government’s focus on security.

    He said: “LSSTF, fuelled by voluntary donations, has significantly strengthened our security architecture, providing essential vehicles and equipment. While challenges still persist, our state’s security landscape is notably more stable than many other parts of the country.”

    He also unveiled security-related plans for 2024, saying the state government, in collaboration with local government authorities, would provide 300 patrol vehicles through the LSSTF at the beginning of next year. He added that Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps (LNSC) had been repositioned to gather actionable intelligence to support security responses.

    Read Also: Akeredolu was a patriot, Mimiko mourns

    Although Lagos recorded 189 cases of residential robberies under the year in review, 172 of them were foiled by security operatives and 257 suspects arrested. This is another testimony to the state’s security capacity.

    Other significant details regarding security in Lagos were presented at the meeting, including information that the Lagos State Police Command received only nine patrol vehicles from the Federal Government within two years, and the Fund used donations it received in the last 10 months to bridge the equipment shortfall within federally controlled security agencies operating in Lagos. The Fund received N318.75m in cash donations this year.  Notably, Lagos is the only state in the country with 28 functioning bullet-proof vehicles.

    The sum of N2bn raised at the event, through voluntary contributions, showed that the stakeholders, from both the public and private sectors, recognised that security is a serious issue. Indeed, it is too serious to be left to the federal authorities.

    The Lagos approach to security is innovative and exemplary. Other states in the country should learn from it, and devise their own arrangements to complement the Federal Government’s security architecture. That way, at worst, incidents like the Ikere-Ekiti bank robberies would be rare occurrences.

  • A ticking bomb

    A ticking bomb

    • Decisive action necessary to tackle out-of-school children population

    Again, the bloated rank of out-of-school children in Nigeria – in the northern area of the country in particular – has been red-flagged. Minister of State for Education Yusuf Sununu described the ballooning number of out-of-school children as a time bomb that requires urgent remediation. He said the swelling rank of such children in Nigeria, especially in the North, was not only unacceptable but also disheartening, and there must be concerted efforts to address and reverse the trend.

    Speaking at the 2023 Bauchi Education Summit lately held at Dr Saad Abubakar Hajj Camp in Bauchi, with the theme, ‘Nurturing a flourishing future: Improving access to quality education in Bauchi State,’ the minister said the Federal Government had taken steps to address the challenge with the newly established National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children. The commission, according to him, is set to commence activities and will address issues pertaining to, and develop mechanisms for integrating Tsangaya/Madarasa schools into Basic Education. He added that his ministry recently developed a road map captioned ‘Education for Renewed Hope,’ which is a document aligned with the eight-point agenda of President Bola Tinubu.

    The minister solicited the support and cooperation of Ulamas and proprietors of Tsangaya/Madarasa schools. He also called on authorities at the sub-national level to establish a similar agency, backed by state laws, to serve the same purpose. He said such a move would ensure better collaboration and synergy in addressing issues of out-of-school children and grant Tsangaya schools the necessary recognition and status they deserve, adding that the challenges confronting the education sector could be best addressed only through collaborative efforts of all stakeholders.

    Sununu spoke against the backdrop of a recent disclosure by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that one in three children in Nigeria is out of school, summing up to 10.2 million children at the primary school level and 8.1 million at the junior secondary school (JSS) level.  The reality also is that those children are not just out-of-school. Of the nearly 20 million population of affected children, those engaged in the ‘almajiri’ culture are a considerable majority.

    The ‘almajiri’ is a system of Islamic education practised in northern Nigeria whereby kids are sent by their parents to live with, and study Quranic education at a teacher’s place. Most of these kids miss out on formal education as they are often deployed to beg on the streets. Besides the environmental menace of legions of child-beggars on the prowl, the syndrome has turned into a breeding ground for religious extremists and easily impressionable materials for recruitment by insurgents.

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    A top government official in one of the northern states was once reported saying the system had evolved into a “negative phenomenon where the under-aged who were sent to read the Holy Book are recruited to do all sorts of criminal activities like insurgency, armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping and sodomy, among other crimes.”

     Many states in the North, including Kano, Nasarawa, Niger and Kaduna, have formally outlawed street begging, but the syndrome persists. In the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, governments of all the northern states, by mutual agreement, repatriated the ‘almajiris’ within their respective domain to the states of origin, but that measure succeeded in merely moving the children around rather than upend the syndrome.

    Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, while meeting with senior citizens on the activities of his administration last October, put the number of out-of-school children in the state at 680,000. His Gombe State counterpart, Governor Inuwa Yahaya, on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly session in September, said his state had over 500,000 out-of-school children as of 2019, and that the number had risen to over 600,000.

    Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III of Sokoto has been a strong voice against the out-of-school children syndrome. He once affirmed that Islam was not against formal education and that parents of out-of-school children should face the full wrath of the law for refusing to send their children to school. And at an event in 2021, he said the begging syndrome that characterised the ‘almajiri’ system as pervasively practised in northern Nigeria was un-Islamic and should rather be replaced with a chemistry of proper Islamic as well as western education.

     The Sultan, who is the head of the Muslim faithful in Nigeria, argued that begging is not integral to the traditional ‘almajiri’ system of which he himself and many others in the northern elite were products. Speaking at the closing of a two-day workshop on modernising the Almajiri-Nizamiyya education system in Sokoto State, he said: “Parents must be sensitised against allowing their children to resort to begging. We were not encouraged to beg in any guise (during our time), but to strictly seek knowledge.” He urged the northern elite to unite for the success of initiatives aimed at ending street begging in the state and northern Nigeria as a whole, adding that all hands must be on deck to deepen awareness and sustain advocacy against the begging culture.

    Another vocal personage in the North against the region’s poor human development indices is former Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II. At the 60th birthday celebration of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufai in 2020, he warned that the North might self-destruct unless its leaders tackle the myriad challenges, including mass poverty, millions of out-of-school children, high levels of illiteracy, malnutrition and drug addiction, as well as the Boko Haram insurgency, that hobbled the region.

    Sanusi, a former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, warned against continued reliance by the North on quota system and the federal character principle prescribed in the Nigerian constitution in getting jobs for its youths at the expense of other parts of the country fielding better qualified youths. He said: “We need to get our northern youths to a point where they don’t need to come from a part of the country to get a job. And believe me, if we don’t listen, there will be a day when there will be a constitutional amendment that addresses the quota system and federal character. The rest of the country cannot be investing, educating their children, producing graduates; and then they watch us, they can’t get jobs because they come from the wrong state, when we have not invested in the future of our own children.”

    Besides the religious factor wrongly emblematised by the ‘almajiri’ syndrome, the feudal divide in the northern Nigerian society fosters the out-of-school children phenomenon. Whereas the elite have the resource, and typically send their children to high-end institutions, many outside of this country, the poor who happen to be in overwhelming majority cannot afford formal education for their own children and habitually dump them on Quranic teachers as ‘almajiris.’ Meanwhile, the cultural context is one where high fertility rate is regarded as a virtue, not a function of procreative indiscipline that it is. Unrestrained siring of offspring that people have no resources to cater for has resulted in a huge population falling outside the welfare safety net and, by extension, out of the basic education system.

    In his presentation, Sanusi canvassed the need for governments of northern states to be deliberate in staking huge investments on education, and we totally agree with him. Besides, there is a need for intense cultural reorientation of the populace to promote responsible parenting, demonstrated by frugal siring of broods. Such reorientation is largely the call of the leadership elite – religious leaders and political rulers – who must collaborate.

     The 2021 intervention by the Sultan fell into that mould and needs to be intensified. In particular, Islamic clerics must join efforts by different state governments to dissuade parents and religious faithful whose abdication of parental responsibility has largely fuelled the syndrome. But there is also a need for the power elite, at all levels of government, to tackle the root causes, including mass economic deprivation, through delivery of good governance.

  • Non-performance unacceptable

    Non-performance unacceptable

    • NNPCL board must heed the President’s emphasis on performance

    When he swore in members of the new board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) at the presidential villa in Abuja, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was obviously in a no-nonsense mood. He told the new appointees to immediately go to work as non-performance on their part would not be tolerated. He warned that the board could be dissolved for non-performance without prior notice to members.

    President Tinubu has always stressed the imperative of productive and exemplary performance by his appointees at all levels since his assumption of office. At the end of the maiden retreat for members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), for instance, he tied the continuation in office of ministers to their demonstrable output in the handling of their portfolios. To demonstrate his seriousness in this regard, he has appointed a Special Adviser, Hadiza Usman, whose office is to oversee the implementation of Performance Bonds signed by each minister, which will be the basis for a quarterly assessment of members of the FEC.

    Understandably, the President’s strong demand for performance by the new board of the NNPCL, and by implication the management of the organisation, has to do with the critical role of the oil conglomerate in the country’s search for urgent economic recovery and sustainable development.

    Nigeria’s finances are in pitiable shape as a result of, among other factors, the sharp drop in oil exports due to pervasive large-scale oil theft, non-functional refineries that has led to dependence on importation of refined petroleum products with negative implications for the country’s foreign exchange reserves, and the vagaries of the international crude oil price regime exacerbated by wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

    Even as the Tinubu administration continues to implement difficult economic reforms such as the removal of fuel subsidy and the merger of parallel exchange rate markets, it is urgent for the NNPCL to quickly ramp up its performance so that the country can begin to experience the benefits of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

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     Beyond asking the members of the board to perform or be fired, the President gave some indications of the parameters to be used in assessing the appointees. For instance, he wants an improvement in the quality of the company’s corporate governance, which is critical for the efficiency and efficacy needed for its objectives to be met. In this regard, he warned that conduct indicative of a sense of entitlement by members of the new Board would be unacceptable.

    He also charged the board to prioritise corporate social responsibility concerning the people of the Niger Delta whose land produces the country’s economic mainstay with destructive consequences for their environment and livelihood. His words: “Niger Delta must be seen as the goose that laid the golden egg and we must treat that region with the deserved respect and care. It’s not asking for too much to ensure quality and constant water supply, schools, medical facilities and roads.”

    While promising to optimise Nigeria’s security architecture to aid the performance of the board, Tinubu wants more attention given to gas as Nigeria seeks to transit to cleaner energy, and also urged that close attention be paid to the PIA to address identified pitfalls with a view to increasing production, enhancing profitability as well as improving governance.

    Despite his charge to the board on the imperative of performance, Tinubu acknowledged that they are people of integrity whose competence he has no cause to doubt. Although he commended the performance of the management team led by Mr Mele Kyari, it is important that both the board and management be kept on their toes as regards the demand for excellence in performance.

  • Unviable states?

    Unviable states?

    • Lax approach to revenue generation more to blame  

    Although the Economic Confidential, in its Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) 2022 report, found that six states – Bayelsa, Kebbi, Katsina, Akwa Ibom, Taraba and Yobe – cannot survive without the allocation from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), what is evident in the entirety of the report is how very little has changed in the states in terms of their disposition to internally generated revenue. The six – the so-called basket cases – are said to have stood out because their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) in 2022 fell below 10% of their receipts from FAAC.

    “The index carefully and painstakingly computed proved that without the monthly disbursement from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), many states remain unviable, and cannot survive without the federally collected revenue, mostly from the oil sector”, the report stated.

    Lagos and Ogun remain the clear leaders, with their IGR surpassing their shares from the federally distributive pool. In fact, Lagos’ IGR of N651bn is higher than that of 30 other states put together. As against a federal allocation of N370bn, it netted N651bn in IGR (176%). Ogun was no less impressive: with federal allocation of N113bn, the state netted N120bn in IGR (106%).

    The modest performers are: Rivers, which prides itself as the ‘Treasure Base of the Nation’ but has only N172bn IGR, representing 48% of its FAAC allocation of N363bn; Kaduna State, with N58bn IGR, representing 37% of its FAAC allocation of N155bn; Kwara, with IGR of N35bn compared with its FAAC allocation of N99bn, representing 36%; Oyo, which generated N62bn but took N181bn from FAAC, representing 34%; and Edo generated N47bn IGR compared with N147bn FAAC allocation, representing 32%.

    Of the six cases, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom, two foremost oil producing states, best exemplify the paradox of wealth without work, blessings without value addition, even as the other four – Kebbi, Katsina, Taraba and Yobe – stand apart on the nation’s totem pole of leadership surrender or utter lack of imagination.

    The ASVI report is as commendable as it is instructive. Unfortunately, the very notion that some states are unviable misses the very important point, which is that none of the states in question could be said to be poor in natural endowment terms. Most of them literally sit on top of gold but which, no thanks to our warped federalism, are under exclusive control of the Federal Government. But the reason they are ‘unviable’ is because successive leaderships, once guaranteed the regular flow from the federation account, have no incentive to complement this with an aggressive tax drive.

    In fact, there have been reports of some state governors only showing up in their state capitals days after the monthly FAAC meeting, only to return to Abuja after dishing out instructions on how the allocation would be spent. Even their bureaucracies are said to be little more than ghost towns soon after the sharing is done. In many of the states, the internal revenue agencies, neither primed for efficiency nor with a clear target set for them, exist only in name as an extension of their indolent, unproductive bureaucratic setups.

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    Surely, the states could do a lot more. Clearly, the Lagos example has proven that this is doable. A good way to start is for the affected states to overhaul their revenue collection agencies for greater efficiency, transparency, and results. While there is a lot to say about the need to review the current skewed arrangement under which the Federal Government retains both the larger share of the national revenue as well as exclusive control of all minerals, it goes without saying that the states also need to prove their mettle in the collection of all legitimate revenues.

    Ultimately, without incentives of sorts in place to reward star performers, and sanctions for the laggards, it seems unlikely that those states would ever sit up.