Category: Editorial

• It is soul-lifting that people wasting the time of our courts through frivolous applications are being punished

What started as an aberration soon turned to a fad, as busybodies offered, and senior lawyers accepted briefs to file frivolous applications before the court, to stop the presidential inauguration which held successfully last week. Thankfully, the courts, including the apex court of the land rose up to the occasion and hammered the finances of those wasting the precious time of the courts. On Thursday, four days to the inauguration on Monday May 29, one of such frivolous applications was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

The claimant, one Chief Ambrose Owuru, a lawyer, filed a suit seeking to stop the inauguration, on the ridiculous claim that he won the 2019 general election. His application had earlier been dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2019, and recent effort to resurrect same resisted at the Federal High Court. So the appeal court slammed him with fine of N40 million in favour of the four respondents, namely, former President Muhmmadu Buhari, attorney-general of the federation, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and President Bola Tinubu.

We hope the beneficiaries will take steps to recover their entitlements, if Chief Owuru fails to pay. The day after the appeal court dismissed the case, Federal High Court presided over by Justice James Omotosho, sitting in Abuja, also dismissed the application of Praise Ilemona, Pastor Paul Isaac Audu and Dr Anongu Moses, who jointly instituted a suit praying for an order of court to halt the May 29 swearing-in of Tinubu as President, and imposed a fine of N17 million on them.

The applicants filed the suit to halt the inauguration on the grounds that President Tinubu supplied false information about his age and citizenship status, when petitions by those who participated in the presidential election were pending before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT). Justice Omotosho dismissed the suit as frivolous, and abuse of court process. He held that the plaintiffs lacked the locus standi to file the suit, which relates to the presidential election dispute pending before the PEPT. Many such frivolous suits were filed against the election.

Those engaged in these flagrant abuse of the court don’t seem to care about the damage they are doing to our legal system. Many innocent citizens who rely on the social media which slants the news to suit their ill-motives suffer emotional torture as a result of avoidable apprehensions. Those hell-bent on eroding the integrity of our courts also give the false narrative that justice is not served when the applications are dismissed, as they should. The frivolous petitions also clog the courts, while more serious cases suffer delay.

We condemn the litigants, and particularly the lawyers who accepted these briefs, and support the hefty fines imposed on them by the courts. While access to court is a basic necessity in a democracy, it amounts to abuse when a citizen files frivolities and vexatious applications to annoy another citizen and waste the time of the court. We urge lawyers to resist the temptation to file election-related cases outside the provisions of the 1999 constitution and the Electoral Act 2022 just to earn litigation mileage.

Clearly the extant laws of the country provide grounds for pre-election and post-election applications before the ordinary courts and electoral petition tribunals. The general principles of law also provide for locus standi and what constitutes a cause of action, which are basic requirements to justify the filing of action in court. But it appears some persons blinded by prejudices and self-serving interests disregard these principles in their quest to truncate democracy.

We urge the courts and even the Nigerian Bar Association to monitor those who engage in these shady practices and where possible sanction them as provided by extant rules of professional practice.

Read Also: FEC meeting helped me survive PEPT ruling – Buhari

• We support IPMAN but subsidy withdrawal cannot wait till this is concluded

Last week, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), urged the Tinubu administration to probe the management of the subsidy fund if only to put his administration in a pole position to know how much can be truly saved for infrastructure and education from the subsidy scheme.

The issue, according to the body’s national vice president, Debo Ahmed, is that the N13 trillion saving being bandied around by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), as the amount to be saved from the removal of the subsidy (apparently based on its projection of 60 million litres per day consumption), has no basis in reality and so banking on it could pose a challenge for the administration.

His words: “This is because people will be expecting that he has N13 trillion to come to the government purse for infrastructure. He has to study it a little to know the rigmarole of everything because the former subsidy is full of corruption. This is because we are not consuming the 60million litres per day…” adding that the president may be disappointed if he cannot save N13 trillion from subsidy removal.

As an important player in the sector, IPMAN’s perspective on the matter is certainly important and so deserves to be taken seriously. In fact, we recall that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) had long before now, canvassed the same argument that the 60 million litres per day being bandied around by the NNPCL as representing the country’s petrol consumption is baseless. 

Customs comptroller-general, Hameed Ali, had during a session with the House of Representatives’ Committee on Finance in September 2022, not only questioned the company’s claim of 60 million daily petrol consumption but also its astounding claim of actual 98 million litres daily lifting.

He had raised the poser to the NNPCL: “So, how did you get to 60 million litres per day…? The issue of smuggling, if you release 98 million litres in actuality and 60 million litres are used, the balance should be 38 million litres. How many trucks will carry 38 million litres every day? Which road are they following and where are they carrying this thing to?”

The poser has remained unanswered till date.

Read Also: Subsidy removal painful surgery to save economy, says Olawepo-Hashim

Fundamentally, we do agree that the Federal Government needs to get to the root of the matter. In fact, the current climate makes such an accounting imperative. We dare say that such investigations are neither difficult nor rocket science. Only that the measures being canvassed by IPMAN are not mutually exclusive from those already taken by the government. The Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), after all, has the records of the ships said to have brought in the consignments of fuel; same with the global body of shippers, the Lloyd’s with their register just as the Central Bank of Nigeria has the records of all claims processed for payment. Anti-graft bodies could be brought in to help crack the riddle. Some examples should be made of the callous people who are punishing the people that they are supposed to be servicing through subsidy fraud.

Our point of divergence with IPMAN however is the suggestion that the government wait for the outcome of such probes before taking action. Of course not. To the extent that majority of Nigerians are finally one with the Tinubu administration on the whole gamut of the subsidy question, which is that the country, as it is, cannot even afford the subsidy burden even if it wanted to; and that many are its variegated, in-built perverse rewards that make its retention iniquitous, if not entirely catastrophic, the mere suggestion from any quarter that the new administration continues to dig itself further and further into the fiscal hole defies any logic.

The argument surely goes beyond the current fixations with the NNPCL arithmetic. At stake is the survival of our political economy. Here, the argument, which bears restating, goes that with the subsidy out of the fuel-price template equation, there would be no basis for any fuel importer to pad up any import bill since nothing is expected from the public till; and that those unscrupulous players given to smuggling refined fuel across the borders would have no incentives to undertake the business.

In the end, the country can look forward to a more stable regime of fuel supply, while the government is allowed the freedom to deploy those resources hitherto used to defray the subsidy to government business, including those that concern the poor.

• The NSCDC initiative for safe schools gives some hope for boys and girls

It is a score for education and for the nation’s children. The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has created what it calls Safe Schools Special Response Squad (SSSRS).

The main idea is to enhance education without fear in primary and secondary schools across the country.

It is a cheering piece of news as, finally, the nation can rest assured that the children in our schools will enjoy peace of mind while they learn.

“The new squad will undertake regular patrol and response to distress calls from schools and the host communities and their duties have been clearly spelt out in the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP),” noted Dr. Ahmed Audi, NSCDC Commandant-General.

The country has been at the mercy of bandits for the past few years as children have been carted away to unknown spots in forests and other hideouts. This has brought anxiety to parents and teachers. It has created trepidation in the political elite who have clutched at straws for solution as news of the bandits continue to embarrass them.

The main targets have been schools in northern Nigeria, especially in Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger states. These main culprits have been boarding schools. The nation also watched with benumbed eyes as boys were whisked out of the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State. It is a drama no one will forget of boys compelled into a long trek through forest trails with nothing to eat but a diet of unknown vegetables.

The story of the Chibok secondary school still jars our national imagination. At night, hundreds of girls were heaped on the back of trucks and taken across our national borders and held hostage for years, some of them returning as mothers and ostracised from their roots and removed in time from their families.

Leah Shaibu still haunts us. She is said to be a wife by coercion and also a mother of at least one child. The boys lose all focus, and the girls lose their pride. Most of them are victims of rape, cut out of their prime by the impunity of lusts from men who hide under God to own other mortals. The name of the town Jangbebe wore a national resonance when over 300 boarding school girls were whisked away a few years back.

Some students are still under captivity in parts of the north. In places like Kaduna and Niger states, counting of the missing has not stopped.

The NSCDC had earlier set up all female squads in the states, and the purpose was to focus more on the girls. No clear reason was given for collapsing it into the new squad. Perhaps it was due to the male victims. When it was set up, Ahmed Audi laid out the objectives.

“This squad is to combat kidnapping, banditry, and terrorism in our schools and across the state.

“The squad is an initiative of the corps to curb attacks on the vulnerable, especially schools.”

Audi said members of the squad were trained in combat strategies, as well as rigorous training in line with internal security to fight against all forms of insecurity,” Fasilu Adeyinka said this on his behalf when the Osun State squad was set up in 2022 in Osogbo.

Whatever the reason for consolidating the squads, the new SSSRS is welcome and it shows there is serious thinking about keeping children safe in schools. Boarding schools have become rare in the north because of this uncertainty. The immediate past governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, reorganised boarding in schools to ensure that they are closer to their real homes and they were mostly day students.

We hope that implementation does not belie the noble intention.

• The Tinubu era starts with a storm.  Will it attain eventual calm and joy?

The sweet and the sour, in the inaugural presidential speech which set out the general  policy direction of the Bola Tinubu Presidency, is the removal of fuel subsidy.

It is sweet as honey to the economists of the rarefied suites of Broad Street, Lagos, and policy analysts nationwide.  They shout, with almost one voice, that oil subsidy is at best economic haemorrhage, at worst organised crime.  

Both benefit only the elite fat cats but leave, in the lurch, the poor masses that oil subsidy was designed for.  For this, statistics abound.

But it is bitter as gore to organised Labour — the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and  Trade Union Congress (TUC) — that  greeted it with hypocritical hostility.  Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd’s release on May 31, of new pump prices for petrol, ranging from N488 a litre in Lagos to N557 in Borno (with other pricing differentials in-between), further threw the atmosphere into a whirl, with the Labour movement declaring their beloved masses in mortal economic danger.

Oil subsidy removal is one grand disruptor that could make or mar, for it harbours humongous social costs that must be adroitly managed.  Yet, its long-term resolution lies in vibrant local refining which would guarantee the fairest set of pump pricing; yet free scarce resources for critical physical and social infrastructure.

Another grand disruptor is the hint at collapsing the official and street forex market rates into one unified window.

Sweet: everyone probably would buy at the street Naira/US dollar exchange rate, thus ploughing back the differential into the Naira common purse for sundry investments, economic or social.  That should end eons of criminal arbitrage and soulless round-tripping.

Bitter: critical national priorities, for which the official forex window was designed, would lose their priority status; and slug for forex in the open market.  

As on the fuel pricing front, initial headwinds, no matter how violent, should coalesce into a market-determined Naira-forex parity: at the very start, higher than the present official rate but lower than the street market rate, other things being equal.  

But again, the stiff challenge before the Tinubu administration is carefully managing the immediate storm before the anticipated mid and long-term calm — and gains. To stay the course would take immense policy courage. The administration is demonstrating this so far.

Still, if this is any consolation for the angst to come  — which the Labour movement will milk to the full in populist campaigns — every major presidential candidate swore selves to fuel subsidy removal during electioneering.  Nevertheless, that could still be cold comfort when the pocket hurts, providing avenues for cheap blames.

Despite these tough initial challenges, however, the Tinubu plan appears to hold a lot of promise, especially on the socio-political front.

The most re-assuring, from that inaugural presidential speech, was the promise — and prospects — of a truly inclusive government.  That the new president hailed the right of rivals to approach the courts against his election is a reinforcement of the ethos of democracy, which crux is due process.  That he also pledged himself to the service of all, from fawning friends to implacable foes, was a nice byte to soothe nerves and lower post-poll temperature.

But beyond these civic “good tidings” are even putative better economic deals, which could be socio-economic game-changers, leading to sustainable development and eventual mass prosperity.

He committed to regular, sustainable and affordable electricity.  That alone, if consummated, could near-magically transform the core economic landscape, aside from adding priceless value to living.

Apart from creating one million new jobs in the digital economy, he spoke of putting in place commodity boards to guarantee farmer-herder incomes from wild fluctuations, stem perennial wastes at crop harvests and birth a vibrant national grains reserve.  

Throw in agricultural processing and creation of light industries to provide jobs, and a new credit culture to boost mortgage and mass consumption of hard-to-buy products (autos, furniture, kitchenware, etc) as a means of fighting corruption, and Nigerians could well be proud beneficiaries of a re-modelled economy that the new president promised.  That should stimulate re-industrialisation, which could make Nigeria a truly competitive economy.

But crucial to all of these is the new government’s pledge to further drive investment in critical infrastructure.  This is one area the Buhari Presidency achieved a lot and it is heart-warming that the new government won’t just take its foot off the pedal.  It is the sound and logical thing to do.  None of the promised reforms is possible without support infrastructure.

The Tinubu plan is both a promise and a challenge.  To surmount the challenge, in order to reach the promise, the new government must walk its talk. But citizens too must contribute own serious quotas. That’s the logical way to navigate the initial headwinds, tap into the promise and drift away from the present manna economy to a real sector, driven by quality manpower and hard work.

• We suggest that expunging “minister of state” aligns with the law and the federal system

The idea of parity of the constituent parts is central to the definition and workings of a federal system. When it is skewed in favour of one part or a set of citizens, it comes across as an unfair arrangement.

This matter rose to the front burner of national discourse in the wake of the speech by the former Minister of State for Labour under the Buhari administration, Festus Keyamo. He noted that it is not only an anomaly but unconstitutional that we should have ministers and ministers of state in the cabinet of the president. He made this point as his last offering at the Federal Executive Council before the Buhari administration bowed out.

He can be flayed for having accepted the job and operated in that capacity for about four years, only to do so as he was walking out the door. He has been tagged a hypocrite. That is not the worry of this editorial. The substance of his delivery takes precedence over anyone’s personal peccadillos. It will be red herring to focus on that fact rather than the rigour and illuminations of his assertions.

Having the position of minister and minister of state is one of the creative failures of our leaders who have tried to accommodate ministers from all states and also answer the call of political patronage over the years. We had it in the First Republic when we ran the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. In the name of including the opposition, the tag, minister of state, was born. As Keyamo noted in his delivery, they were essentially sinecure. In the United Kingdom today, they are designated as shadow minister. The name itself reflects their role as insubstantial.

In the Second Republic, it was a butt of ridicule when the Shagari government differentiated “minister of” and “minister for.” They became mocked as prepositional ministers.

As Keyamo noted, the constitution is clear on the designation and status and even source of all ministers. The 1999 constitution is the oracle.

Read Also: Adebayo backs Keyamo on Minister of State unconstitionality

According to section 147 (1), “There shall be such offices of Ministers of the Government of the Federation as may be established by the President.

“(2) Any appointment to the office of Minister of the Government of the Federation shall, if the nomination of any person to such office is confirmed by the Senate, be made by the President.

“(3) Any appointment under subsection (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provisions of section 14(3) of this Constitution:- provided that in giving effect to the provisions aforesaid the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each State, who shall be an indigene of such State.”

What is at stake is not the perquisites of office, or the glory and ego of individual ministers. It is the question of the equality of states. So, if the constitution says a minister at least must represent each state, it means all the states are created equal. When, as the former minister asserted, each minister represents their states in the presence of the president, also noting that  “There are no different Oaths for “Minister” and “Ministers of State”. They all take the same Oath of Office.

Keyamo hails from Delta State and his fellow minister, Chris Ngige, hails from Anambra State. On a practical level, if he had an original idea and if he wanted to operate a project, he would require the approval of Ngige. It is like asking Delta State to seek the approval of another state, in this case Anambra. It subjects, even if on a symbolic level, a state to another state.

He said, “Files are passed to them to treat only at the discretion of the other Minister and the Permanent Secretary.”

He also said, “parts of the Schedules of Duties seem to suggest that the Ministers can delegate functions to the Ministers of State. This is a constitutional impossibility.”

The issue of cost of government has always been a hobgoblin in this republic. His take? Why not break the ministries. It does not affect the budget. For instance, if a minister is appointed for primary and secondary education and another for higher education, as we have seen in some states, the education budget is only split between them.

He also notes that the allowances, cars, personal aides between minister and minister of states are the same and would not be affected.

On another practical level, it will not create redundancy in office and stifle the imagination of so-called subordinate ministers and would avoid bureaucratic intrigues where ministry staff are caught between loyalty to the “main minister” or “senior minister” on the one hand and the “junior minister.” At a function recently, a former minister referred to the minister of state as his deputy. There is no room for that in the constitution.

Hence, it makes sense that the Tinubu administration takes notice of this as the president cobbles together the august persons who will inhabit his cabinet.

• We salute the efficient ex-NSA and spymaster

In a career that has seen him rise to the apex of his chosen martial profession over a period of three decades from 1964 to 1993, he has acquired a reputation as one of the finest and most accomplished military intelligence operatives of his generation. When General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau enrolled at the Nigerian Defence Academy ( NDA) as a fresh officer cadet in 1964 and was commissioned into the Nigerian Army as a Second Lieutenant three years later in 1967, his future still lay ahead of him and hardly anyone could guess what he would make of it. But today, even as he recently joined the privileged octogenarian club having clocked the age of 80, he can look back with justified pride at an action packed career path that flourished admirably and witnessed many moments of high achievement.

Born on May 18, 1943, General Gusau never looked back once he put his hand on the plough, having decided to take on soldiering as his profession. A combatant during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-1970, the several sensitive commands and leadership positions he held after the war suggests that he must have acquitted himself meritoriously in that conflict. At various times he had served as Director of Personnel Services, Army Headquarters (October – November 1979), Adjutant- General of the 2 Mechanized Division of the Nigerian Army (July 1978-September 1979), Commander, 7 Infantry Brigade, Abeokuta (April 1976 – July 1978) and Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, (NDA), from February 1992 to January 1993.

Reputed to be one of the most successful ‘spymasters’ Nigeria has produced, Gusau is reputed to be taciturn and self-effacing, yet highly efficient and effective in the discharge of his duties. It is surely impossible to write the history of the evolution of Nigeria’s intelligence agencies without assigning a prominent place to Gusau. He served as Chief of Defence Intelligence from January to August 1985 and Director of the National Security Organization (NSO) between September 1985 and July 1986. As Coordinator of National Security from August 1986 to December 1989, he reorganised and unbundled the NSO into three autonomous intelligence agencies which were the State Security Services (SSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA).

It is a testimony to the widespread trust in and respect for his expertise that he served as National Security Adviser (NSA) under three different administrations in this dispensation, namely those of President Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Dr Goodluck Jonathan. His tenure as NSA spanned the periods from January to August 1993, May 29, 1999 to June 1, 2006 and also from March 8, 2010, to September 18, 2010. He held the Office of Chief of Army Staff from September to November, 1993 while he served as Minister of Defence from March 5, 2014 to May 29, 2015.

General Gusau’s career progression spanned a period when military coups were still a fashionable way of changing governments in Africa and there were high hopes in several quarters that soldiers in government could help remedy and correct the failures and excesses of civilian politicians; an optimism that has now proven to be completely misplaced. Thus, he is widely believed to have been an active participant in the coup that toppled the Alhaji Shehu Shagari administration and terminated the Second Republic in December 1983, as well as the palace coup that dislodged the military regime led by General Muhammadu Buhari and brought General Ibrahim Babangida to power in August, 1985.

Given the large numbers of officers and men that lost their lives in the various coups, counter-coups and aborted coups during this period, General Gusau has every reason to be grateful to God for keeping him alive to a ripe old age. Ironically, however, he is reputed to have also played an important role in the retreat of the military from the political terrain and the restoration of democratic governance in 1999.

Read Also: Let’s back Bago for better Niger, says ex-Governor Aliyu

On his retirement from the Nigerian Army, General Gusau founded the Alpha Public Affairs Consultancy firm of which he was chairman and chief executive. His attempts, however, to contest for the presidency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) failed on two occasions. In 2006, he participated in the PDP presidential primaries but lost just as he did once again in 2010 when he announced his desire to contest the 2011 presidential elections. In spite of these setbacks, he continued to wield considerable influence within the PDP and in the polity as a whole.

Although he had scant formal education until he joined the NDA as a cadet and had further training at the Royal College of Defense Studies, General Gusau is known to have cultivated a vast appetite for acquiring knowledge through a voracious reading regimen. In addition to speaking seven languages including Hebrew, French and German, he is a reputed bibliophile with one of the best stocked private libraries in the country which houses his collection of rare books as well as archives and records deriving from his over 40 years of public service.

The decision of the General who hails from Gusau in Zamfara State to establish the Gusau Institute based in Kaduna as a research centre to promote national development is indicative of his patriotic inclination and a desire to bequeath a befitting legacy to posterity. He has also donated his Aliyu Mohammed Research Library to the Institute and he deserves commendation for the public spiritedness that inspired this gesture.

• Jumbo package for political office holders highlights inequity in socio-economy

Legislators and their members of the staff are set to share N30.2billion as severance packages when the curtains fall on the ninth National Assembly (NASS) in the coming days, according to a report by The Nation. The amount represents 12.6 per cent of the N238.78billion appropriated for the national legislature in the 2023 appropriation passed by the NASS and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Severance package is the money paid to lawmakers and their aides at the end of their four-year tenure. The two presiding officers of the Senate reportedly will share N14.38million between them, and their House of Representatives counterparts N14.29million. Each of the remaining 107 senators will go with N6.08million, while each of the 358 other representatives will get N5.96million. The severance package of each of the 6,375 legislative aides depends on their salary grade.

Besides the cash, the 469 lawmakers, including those re-elected, and some of their aides will go with their official vehicles estimated at about N5.5billion. They are also entitled to go home with some of their office equipment and consumables, including refrigerators, laptops and personal computers, among other items.

The eight NASS took out N23.678billion in severance packages for members of that legislature, and it might well be argued that inflationary factors informed the N7billion increase for the outgoing assembly. Besides, during the consideration of the 2023 budget in both chambers of the national legislature late last year, the presiding officers had explained that the N30.2billion vote would as well cover the inauguration of lawmakers into the 10th NASS.

Since severance pay for political office holders typically get captured in legislations like the Appropriation Act and, in some cases, ad hoc legislations, the ground for contesting the legality of the benefit may be tenuous. Not so the morality.  In a verdict delivered in 2019, the Court of Appeal declared that payment of severance allowances to elected or appointed public office holders is morally wrong. The court, in a judgment on an appeal marked CA/A/810/2017 filed by the Kogi State Government, held that the fact that elected public office holders and political appointees were paid huge sums as monthly salaries and other allowances while in office makes it morally wrong for them to demand gratuity or severance allowance for holding such an office for just certain number of years.

The background to that verdict was litigation by some members of the Kogi State Local Government Service Commission (KGSLGSC), who served from 2013 to 2017, against the state government over their severance benefits. The former council officials had filed a suit before the National Industrial Court (NIC) in Abuja against the state governor, secretary to the state government, attorney-general and commissioner for justice and the Kogi State Local Government Service Commission. They claimed that N55.4million ought to be paid them as total of various sums due to them as arrears of salaries for 17 months, leave bonuses for four years and severance payment for the end of their tenure; and they asked the court to compel the state government to pay them the severance package.

Rather than deliver judgment in that case after taking arguments on the originating summons and preliminary objection by the defendants, the presiding judge of the NIC, Justice R. B. Hastrup, ordered the parties to file more pleadings. This made the Kogi State government to approach the Court of Appeal. In its verdict, the three-member panel of the appellate court faulted payment of severance allowance, pension or gratuity to political office holders and political appointees, saying the practice was morally wrong, amounted to gross social injustice and could not be justified in the context of the nation’s socio-economic realities.

In the lead judgment, Justice Emmanuel Agim said it was unjust for political office holders who helped themselves to public funds while in office to claim entitlement to pension and severance allowances. According to him, it is unjustifiable for few politicians who hold office for not more than eight years to allocate huge public funds to themselves in the name of pension and severance package, whereas civil servants who committed most of their active years to the service of the nation are denied their retirement benefits. Justice Agim said inter alia: “The fact that elected pubic office holders and political appointees are paid huge amounts of money as monthly salaries and other forms of allowances while in office is common knowledge in Nigeria and is not open question…Meanwhile, career civil servants who have served this country or their states or local governments all their life can hardly collect their pensions and gratuity when retired. They are subjected to contributory pension schemes in which they contribute part of their meagre monthly salaries that are always paid in arrears while in service to be able to earn pension and gratuity upon retirement. Political appointees and elected public office holders who do not work as long and as hard as career civil servants quickly get paid huge severance allowances upon leaving office in addition to the huge wealth they acquired while holding such offices and without having been subjected to contributory pension schemes.” His lordship added: “It cannot be justified in the context of our present social realities; it amounts to gross social injustice.” Other members of the judicial panel namely Justices Abubakar Datti Yahaya and Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson concurred with the lead judgment.

There are no records indicating that this verdict has been overridden by the Supreme Court, hence it should be the extant position of law in this country today. Huge severance packages are an extension of excessive reward attached to political offices in Nigeria and can best be redressed by downsizing the reward system, or building up economy so more people can get a lot more than they do presently from the common wealth. After all, as they say,’ what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’.

• The need to balance school curriculum with s3x education

The Buhari administration’s education minister, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has a long list of missteps but his recent admission that he knew little about the education sector before he was appointed minister jolted many Nigerians. If anyone had a doubt about the reason his tenure possibly presided over the most unstable academic calendars in Nigeria’s education history, his recent confession provided some insight. Merit and experience must guide appointments.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and even the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and other ancillary education services had embarked on strike, sometimes for months, in recent times. The most recent lasted for eight months from February – October 2022.

It was somewhat of a scary scandal that an administration could allow for such a lengthy period of total shutdown of academic and research activities in the nation’s tertiary institutions, with the attendant socio-economic implications. The minister in the period appeared totally helpless, giving vent to his recent proclamation about his ignorance about not just education in our view, but the value and place of education in national development.

So, when the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) wrote a letter to the Federal Ministry of Education complaining about the disturbing and morally reprehensible s3xually explicit content in a Mathematics textbook where an addition example of “20 condoms +5 condoms – 2 condoms equal…” was used, attention again turned to the ministry that oversees the education of Nigerian children in a 21st century world.

While we agree that at some point in our children’s lives, they ought to be availed some sort of s3x education for their own health and the health of others and deeper knowledge about s3xual health, we believe that the lessons must be well-timed and the medium more appropriate. The age of the children must be taken into account to allow for a better assimilation and presence of mind to process the information.

That kind of example in a mathematics book is totally inappropriate as other examples could have sufficed in the circumstance. The age of the students using the textbook is equally important because children are known to not only be curious but can be victims of half-processed information. This example could be distractive.  Authors whose books are recommended in schools must be sensible and sensitive to the terrain they are operating in.

The MSSN complaints must not be waved off because a lot is going on in the country and even globally. The lives of our children must be guarded for value. The Federal Ministry of Education and the supervisory departments seem to be reneging on their responsibilities. The MSSN is calling for the books to be recalled but we know that the Nigerian socio-economic system is flawed in a way that such actions cannot be comprehensively done to avert the feared consequences. There is no data, those who bought the books might not want to give them up and even the action can lead to panic and more publicity for the error in publication.

We wonder the arm of the education ministry that approved the textbook and the others being referenced by the association. The societal morality is gauged by traditional and religious leaders. Even some Christian associations and traditionalists have issues with some content and educational materials, but more often than not, their voices are muted. In other jurisdictions like the United States, s3xually related content like gender/transgender and s3xual orientation issues are slowly being introduced to junior grade schools and some Christians and even non-Christian parents are protesting through every civil and legal means.

Nigeria must therefore be in tune with the world and understand that there must be order and rule of law and moral rectitude, especially for our children. There must be a conscious effort not to misguide children through the introduction of sundry inappropriate materials in books or through instructions. We approve appropriately timed and situated s3x-education by parents and in schools but more emphasis should be in guiding the children through good moral upbringing and discouraging things like early s3xual behaviour through child marriages. Religious and moral sensitivities must be considered before certain items are introduced into the curriculum or allowed by supervisors who approve the textbooks.

While we believe in s3x education, it must be well-structured not to do more harm than the intended good. We commend the MSSN for raising in a very civil way its observations on the matter and we hope the ministry would be responsive and responsible enough to act swiftly and be more alert to prevent future occurrences. It should as well caution the offenders.