Category: Editorial

The death of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Abolade Oladigbolu while taking a commercial motorcycle ride is saddening. Until his death, Oladigbolu was serving with the Kwara State Police Command as the Area Commander, Alapa Police Command. According to the state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Okasanmi Ajayi, ACP Oladigbolu was a fine officer who died while on duty. He said the officer hopped on a motorcycle to continue his journey, after his car broke down.

While we commiserate with the family and the police over the sad loss, we wonder what a senior police officer was doing on a motorcycle while on official duty. Of all means of transport, an ACP should not be on a commercial motorcycle, out of respect for the dignity of his office and his own safety. In the line of duty, there could be persons who harbour ill-will against such a high ranking officer, and riding a commercial motorcycle could provide a veritable opportunity to harm him.

Although the report did not indicate, it would be a disservice to his office if he was riding on the motorcycle in official uniform. And there are some pertinent issues to raise for the sake of his colleagues who are still serving.

As an area commander, shouldn’t Oladigbolu have had a service vehicle attached to him? And if there were issues with such vehicle, shouldn’t a back-up have been deployed to ferry him to his destination? Such basic provisions would not be for his personal comfort, but to aid the efficiency of his office. Furthermore, considering of his position, shouldn’t he have been in company of junior colleagues, unless he was on covert operation?

With his demise, while the family is mourning their personal loss, the country is also mourning the loss of a well-trained officer with much experience under his belt. To attain the level of an ACP is not a mean achievement, and the fatal accident has claimed all that. That is why an interrogation of what happened is necessary to prevent a recurrence. Perhaps the most likely contributing factor is the lack of infrastructure for the police.

There is clearly a need for more funding for the police, so that they can be more efficient in discharging their responsibility. Unfortunately, the Federal Government has shown a lack of capacity to effectively fund single police force for the entire country. While many state governors have called for decentralisation of the police, presidents since Olusegun Obasanjo have opposed it. And even more unfortunately, the call for state police has been ignored by the National Assembly in all constitutional amendments so far.

On our part, we have canvassed for decentralisation of the police; after all, most states are the ones funding physical infrastructure of the police within their states. A good example is Lagos State, which has a dedicated intervention fund for the police. It is from such fund that operational vehicles and gadgets are procured for the police. A similar arrangement exists in some other states, and the earlier the police is decentralised, the better funding it would have.

Finally, the police should investigate the death of ACP Oladigbolu to ascertain there was no foul play, so that justice is meted out where necessary.

I can tell you that Nigeria is broke. There is no money to fund capital projects next year. As you can see, the dollar that has been hovering around N500 and N600 is now above N700. The truth is that there is no money anywhere. The money that the FAAC (Federation Account Allocation Committee) has been sharing is money from taxes, customs and other revenue-generating agencies… The lack of money to fund capital projects would have implication on capacity to create jobs. If jobs are not created, poverty will increase in the country.”

That was Minister of Labour and Productivity Chris Ngige at a press briefing to commemorate the 2022 World Day Against Child Labour last Thursday in Abuja. Although sobering, the minister actually said nothing that Nigerians are not already familiar with on challenges facing the economy. For instance, it is already public knowledge that that the Federal Government, for the first time ever, spent N1.93trillion on debt servicing, which is 20 percent higher than the retained revenue of N1.63trillion in the first quarter of the year. Even that – the retained revenue, that is –fell short by some 51 percent of the projected target of N3.32trillion in the 2022 Appropriation Act.

Consider also that while the economy limped, debt service would still take as much as 41 per cent of the total spending. By the time personnel cost (including pensions) of N1.26trillion is added, which comes to approximately 27 percent of the budget, what is left is a meagre N773.6billion for capital expenditure, representing 16 percent.

All of these are in addition to the economy’s albatross – petrol subsidy expected to gulp N4.19trillion, going by 2022 budget projections and N6.72trillion by 2023.

This is the poignant reality that confronts the country. From the foregoing, it would seem apparent that revenue is central to the problem. Even here, the underlying factors have been variously dissected. Theft of crude oil, the nation’s leading export earner, has by government t’s own admission continued to thrive, with one report suggesting that Nigeria may have lost a staggering $1billion in revenue in the first quarter of the current year alone. The manufacturing sector has long been endangered with energy and logistic costs spiralling out of control at a time access to forex has remained a big issue. And the option of borrowing seems increasingly out of the question – at this time.

To say the country is in a Catch-22 situation is an understatement. Hard pressed for cash, the government, the finance ministry and the Nigerian Customs have proposed a 5 percent excise duty on telecommunications services including calls, SMS and data services – said to be part of the new Finance Act signed into law by the President in 2020. This ironically has been rejected by Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Pantami. To him, the sector, even without the latest proposal, is already overburdened. The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has in similar vein argued that with a plethora of taxes already numbering 39 being forced on operators, the latest proposal portended a death knell.

We admit, of course, that the economic terrain is bad enough without the burden of additional tax in whatever guise; but so also could the compelling argument be made that government will not be able to discharge its basic responsibility without adequate revenue. In other words, neither argument could be said to lack merit.  The challenge is to find the middle ground. Indeed, with a tax to GDP ratio of about eight percent, Nigeria not only ranks among the lowest in tax performance in the world, there is a lot to be said of the need to overhaul its taxation system to make it not only efficient but equitable.

Having said that, what must be of concern at this time is the apparent lack of amity between different departments of the same government, and with it the lack of will to push those measures considered necessary to get things back on track. Rather than populist posturing by officials, what the situation demands is proper engagement with a view to arriving at a compromise among the stakeholders.

And while government is at it, it must urgently focus on one other area that Nigerians have long demanded tough action but where government has opted to act soft: the issue of wastes in government – a derivative of the current hopelessly flawed budgetary system under which billions are not only frittered away in frivolous expenditures but are actually stolen.

It looks like the kind of scenario in a third-rate movie: a group threatening to kidnap a president. For a first-rate movie, it will dramatise a commando action, thrilling with stealth and bravado, to snatch the president away from the eyes and brawn of the guards.

But the bandits, as we have known them in this country, did threaten to abduct the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State.

It was not only the audacity that struck the citizens of Nigeria, but also the revelation from the lips of Governor El-Rufai to the effect that President Muhammadu Buhari was not aware of the threat until he informed him over the phone.

What? The president was threatened and the whole country knew of it before the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces? It is the sort of theatre that the absurd is made of. We do not think that the governor of Kaduna State lied, or exaggerated. He was not trading on hearsay because he reported his phone encounter with the president. Again, since his revelation, no one in government, not the president, neither of his spokesmen or the minister of information has denied or confronted the governor on his claims.

In his response to the threat, presidential mouthpiece Garba Shehu delved into generalities. The upshot of his response was that “terrorist activity using propaganda and the use of violence to force governments to accept or submit to political demands is not new all over world.” He did not even inform us of the attitude of the president to the threat. It was more of an essay than an update on the mind of the president.

This raises a question, is the president surrounded by silence while the nation burns? Have the security services built a sanctuary around him? As the nation crawls daily under the shadow of the hoodlum, we expect the president to get daily briefings on the state of the nation. It appears this is not the case.

Even if he does not get reports, is it not his duty to be curious? After he knew about it, we have no evidence of any act of indignation. Someone ought to pay with his job for this criminal negligence. The office of the number one citizen is too symbolic to be subjected to any sort danger. The nation was scandalised when the news broke that the advance convoy of the president met with the firepower of bandits. We also read of similar encounters around Abuja. That is why the importance of daily briefings cannot be played down. In the United States, presidents get daily briefings on the nation. Barack Obama showed how he took them seriously, as he noted in his latest memoirs, A Promise Land, and these briefing apprised him of the conditions not only in America but across the world. It informed his decision to order the execution of Osama Bin Ladin.

Other presidents, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, the father-and-son Bush, Ronald Reagan received the briefings. It is the first work of a president in the heady schedule of the day. It is also the first responsibility of the president to secure its citizens because out of it flows the prosperity of their lives. Even in the heat of campaigns, the nominees of both parties also get it. Because of the glib lips of Donald Trump, the controversy rippled in the media when some security officers wondered if the boisterous Trump would not reveal state secrets.

Indeed, we need the candidates of the major parties to get the same. It will help shape their campaign strategy and bring robust intellectual air to the rhetoric in the coming months. Yet, the terror threat to our number one citizen goes beyond a routine briefing. it is a special one. Yet, we did not seem to get when the traditional and social media were already awash with it. Does it mean that he, too, does not read the newspaper. Or he does not even get media briefing as well? It is a scandal.

The threat to the president may have compelled him to hold a security meeting recently with the service chiefs, and he said he was giving them free hand to go after the terrorists. We wonder what he meant by that assertion. Who was stifling the service chiefs? Was it the president himself? Was it the sponsors? Was it the fears that collateral damage may not be worth the effort?

We have noted in this newspaper that the armed forces have all the resources in men and materials to quash the criminals in short order. What has been missing is the will. We note with cheer that after the meeting, the army combed the Kuje forest and dispatched the bandits and liberated a market. They also made some arrests. We hope this will enjoy momentum.

The role of technology cannot be overstressed. We witnessed as a world how the United States destroyed Al Qaeda kingpin Ayman Al-Zawahiri in his verandah in Afghanistan. The U.S. had no troops or weapons on the ground in that country. But it sent a smart missile to flush him out of this world. They unleashed what is called the hellfire missile. It was one shot, and the man fell. There were no other casualties. This is the sort of attitude we can employ to down the bandits who huff and puff. A recent BBC video showed how the men act as though Nigeria has no government. We know they are accessible, and we can dispatch them in a few months.  We also saw how a bandit, Ado Aliero, who had a bounty of N5million on his head in 2019 was legitimated as the Sarkin Fulani in a Zamfara community. It is a metaphor for surrender and official impotence.

With each success, they grow defiant and the lives of citizens are more in peril. It will make citizens to tremble for their lives if the president does not know that he is threatened, because it means he may not know that the rest of us are in danger. He is in charge of his life and all of us. If he does not know, why is he the commander-in-chief?

In his active years as a journalist, he was regarded as the doyen of Nigerian tabloid journalism.  It was respect well-earned.  The success story of pioneer editor of Weekend Concord and pioneer managing director/editor-in-chief of The Sun, Mike Awoyinfa, who turned 70 on July 23, is the stuff of news.

As features editor of National Concord, he had introduced a fresh approach to features writing. “I changed the paradigm in National Concord,” he recalled in an interview. “Their orientation towards features was hard stuff, analysis and all that; but when I came, I humanised the whole feature thing and turned it into human angle, which is exactly what it is supposed to be – stories that are emotional, stories that evoke pity; that evoked joy.”

This gave a boost to sales, he said, adding that people “would buy and pull out” the paper’s features section. His participation in a three-month training programme in the UK for Commonwealth journalists, in 1985, had equipped him for the game-changing role. He had a stint at the Sunday Sun of Newcastle. “Having worked in a home of tabloid journalism, UK, you came back brimming with confidence,” he stated.

Revolutionising the features department brought an opportunity that changed his story dramatically. In 1989, he was appointed editor of Weekend Concord, a trail-blazing Saturday tabloid. He was the paper’s editor for 10 years. “My goal was to one day be the editor of a newspaper,” he said, describing the accomplishment as “my Olympic gold medal.” His work was an eye-opener as it inspired other papers in the country to launch Saturday editions.

His achievement was no fluke. He proved this at The Sun. Moving from editorship of a weekly tabloid to running an all-week tabloid, in 2003, was a challenge that not only tested his expertise but also his professional reputation.

He said: “We succeeded in creating a paper that became acceptable in the market… it’s not easy to start a newspaper and sustain it. It’s not about money; you can pump in all the money in the world, but if you do not have the right leadership, the right creative persons, and the right strategy to come into the market, you won’t succeed.”

The Sun was tagged ‘Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids,’ and lived up to its billing.  Awoyinfa described it as “a roaring success.”  His succession of successes in the tabloid world enhanced his professional standing.

He studied Mass Communication and graduated from the University of Lagos in 1977. He then worked in Jos as a reporter for the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). When he joined National Concord, he was appointed its chief correspondent in Kaduna.

He has also made a name for himself as an author. Indeed, he advocates that journalists should write books. He co-wrote The Art of Feature Writing with his bosom friend, Dimga Igwe, a fellow journalist who died in 2014. They also wrote 50 Nigeria’s Corporate Strategists, about top managing directors and CEOs, who shared their experience in managing businesses in Nigeria. “We struck gold with the book. It was proceeds from the book we used to build my house and that of Dimgba,” Awoyinfa said.

They wrote another book, Nigeria’s Marketing Memoirs, in which marketing directors talk about their brands. After his friend died, he wrote 50 Nigeria’s Boardroom Leaders. He also wrote 50 World Editors: Conversations with Journalism Masters on Trends and Best Practices.  He plans to write a book on the art of headline writing. Headlining is considered to be one of his strong points.

His friendship with Igwe was remarkable, even exemplary.  He is Yoruba, and Igwe was Igbo. But they rose above ethnicity, and their bond expressed unity in diversity. Igwe was his deputy at Weekend Concord and The Sun, and many Nigerians admired their winning partnership.

As Awoyinfa enters his septuagenarian years, his legacies in journalism and writing are unmistakable and applaudable. We wish him many happy returns.

Since his demise was announced on July 26, there has been an outpouring of encomiums on the late Ambassador Blessing Akporode Clark. He was many things in his lifetime, and it’s no surprise that, like the elephant, he has been described differently by different people. He made his mark essentially in the Foreign Service of Nigeria. He rose to the very enviable rank of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He especially had a distinguished service in the diplomatic community where he represented Nigeria in Ethiopia, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and Switzerland, among others. The height of his service was his appointment as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, where the Nigerian state benefitted from his wealth of experience.

As a distinguished alumnus of the Nigerian diplomatic service, he remained useful in shaping the country’s foreign policy until death came calling. He was a member of the Presidential Advisory Council for more than two decades. Ambassador Clark was at the University College, Ibadan at the same time with the late Chief Bola Ige, the late Gamaliel Onosode and Professor Wole Soyinka, among others.

Till date, his contribution to the fight against apartheid is recognised as he, at the United Nations, headed a Special Committee against Apartheid at a time when the horrible discrimination against blacks in South Africa was an opprobrium that had to be eliminated at all cost. He also served as chairman of the global body’s Committee on Peace-Keeping, thus ensuring that Nigeria’s voice was heard loud and clear at the international level in matters regarding enforcing peace in many parts of the world.

It is to his credit that, despite his wide connection locally and internationally, he refused to be tarred with the brush of partisan politics. He served under many administrations and various political parties as an official and unofficial adviser on foreign policy to the Presidents. And, despite the involvement of his elder brother, Chief Edwin Clark in partisan politics, he refrained from being drawn in, believing rather that the Nigerian image must be preserved among the comity of nations.

He came into the Foreign Service at a most inauspicious moment in 1961 when Nigerian students in the United Kingdom were up in arms against the Tafawa Balewa administration for tying Nigeria to British apron strings with the infamous Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact. He came in after a distinguished spell with the Western Region Public Service that was the envy of others as the late Chief Simeon Adebo, largely regarded as cerebral, professional and committed was fully in charge.

In spite of the circumstances in such giddy moments, he joined in quickly rallying the diplomatic service to recover from the blow. The diplomats had to find a way of shielding the politicians who, soon after independence were at war.

Clark worked, he worked for Nigeria. He also lived a full and fulfilled life. The people of Kiagbodo will miss his presence at social and development circles. Old students of Government College, Ugheilli will miss his wise counsel. The Ijaw who have long been engaged in a tough battle with governments that have failed to give them their due will miss the standing of Ambassador Clark as a shining light. But, perhaps the Nigerian state more than any other has lost a giant in the departed diplomat.

As all men, Ambassador Akporode Clark has departed this side of the Great Divide. His footsteps will however remain visible in the sands of time. Julius Caesar’s statement, ‘I came, saw and conquered,’ fittingly applies to the late diplomatic giant.

If it gets proven that some firms diverted the intervention fund they received from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide meters for Nigerian electricity consumers, it would be a most cruel diversion.

The apex bank lately approached the Federal High Court in Lokoja, Kogi State, to freeze 157 accounts of Meter Asset Providers (MAPs) over alleged diversion of a N37billion grant it provided for supply of prepaid meters to electricity consumers under the Federal Government’s National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP). With electricity supply in the country acutely fitful already, it was an unkind cut to compound the woes of consumers with alleged diversion of funds meant to meter them so they pay for only what they consume.

In the suit it instituted on 20th July, the CBN sought an order on commercial banks to freeze for 180 days the accounts of 10 companies that received power sector intervention fund under the NMMP, pending the outcome of its investigation. It listed the affected firms as Mojec Meter Asset Management Company Limited, Integrated Power Nigeria Limited, Holley Metering Limited, Protogy Global Services Limited and Turbo Energy Limited. Others are G Unit Engineering Limited, Koby Global Engineering Services Limited, FLT Energy Systems Limited, Smart Meters Asset Provider Company Limited and Cresthill Engineering Limited.

In its suit, the Central Bank stated that it reviewed the activities of 12 firms alleged to have diverted the intervention funds, including the ones being litigated against. “The review was aimed at ascertaining the flow of the funds made available to the MAPs covering the period between January 1, 2020 to March 15, 2022. The preliminary review revealed that the defendants diverted a substantial portion of the funds for other uses through related entities and individuals/companies connected to the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) and the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN),” the apex bank said, adding: “The diversion of the power sector intervention funds under the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) provided by the applicant’s banks has further occasioned grave instability in the power sector and sustained the estimated billing regime which the Federal Government is making frantic efforts to make a thing of the past.”

The CBN further stated: “The diversion of the said funds through the bank accounts of the defendants has continually undermined the applicant’s bank intervention system of supporting various sectors of the Nigerian economy. The diversion of the said funds and sustained instability in the power sector is capable of causing significant economic and financial loss to investors, as well as the entire systems and the Nigerian economy in general, if not curtailed.”

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had in 2018 introduced the MAP programme by which DisCos engaged third-party investors to provide electricity consumers prepaid meters at a cost. That programme managed to reach only about 4,000 homes by 2020 when government rolled out the NMMP to bridge the wide metering gap in the electricity supply industry. ‘Phase 0’ of the NMMP, by which consumers got prepaid meters at no cost, reached more than 800,000 homes before it was pulled. NERC Chairman Garuba Sanusi announced late in June that free distribution of meters will resume under ‘Phase 1’ of the NMMP scheduled to begin late August. Meanwhile, the 2021 third-quarter report of the agency showed that of more than 11million registered electricity customers as of September 2021, only 4.7million (42.93 percent) had been metered.

It was in aid of the NMMP that the CBN granted the intervention fund alleged to have been diverted. And the apex bank specified that the diversion occurred through complicity of individuals and corporates connected with the DisCos and the defunct PHCN. This underscores the tendency whereby some interests would just milk this country dry, even amidst the gravest of bedevilling crises. We urge that CBN’s investigation be carried through and heavy recompense of the law dealt culprits. It should be ascertained whether there was due diligence undertaken before those firms were picked as beneficiaries of the intervention fund. Any firm found not to have the competency purported while seeking the grant should be prosecuted for false claim. Much of the time, funds like this are accessed by nepotistic connection; hence, complicit insiders should also be prosecuted if we would plug the drainpipe on national commonwealth.

The Kaduna State government recently ordered the closure of Ffad Goshem Academy on Zonkwa Road, Kachia council area of the state, over alleged defilement of a four-year-old deaf and dumb girl by a yet-to-be-identified individual. This comes about six months after two Islamiyah schools were shut after a 12-year-old pupil was raped and impregnated by a teacher, and another 6-year-old was defiled.

Kaduna State has in recent times been in the news for the wrong reasons. If it wasn’t for arson and killings by terrorists, it would be for kidnappings of residents from their homes, or students from schools, or clerics from their homes or worship centers.  These do not allow for effective development to take place in the state, or indeed in the larger Nigerian nation.

While we understand the outrage over alleged conduct of pedophiles, who possibly have been having a field day and might go on perpetrating their evil if not apprehended, it must be noted that sexually predatory behavior by adults is not a natural disaster: it is not beyond  man to prevent . We see recurrent closure of schools as an ad hoc and knee-jerk reaction to a disaster of monumental proportions.

While pedophiles are all over the world, and by implication across Nigeria,  the culture of child marriage and failure to swiftly prosecute people who violate the UN Child Rights Act and other child protection treaties and agreements, to which Nigeria is a signatory, contribute in no small way to little girls being abused.

Nigeria has about 18.5million out-of-school children, with about 69 percent of that number in the northern areas of this country and a majority of them girls. We wonder if leaders concerned fully appreciate the myriad of consequences illiteracy has – more so, that of young girls who would grow to become mothers. An illiterate population is a disaster to any nation, and to harbor millions of illiterate girl-children is a veritable nursery bed of underdevelopment.

Closing down schools where young girls are sexually violated is throwing out the baby with the bath water. Why would other children (and workers) in a school be punished for an action that could be prevented in the first instance? The Kaduna State government has a Schools Quality Assurance Authority. What exactly are their duties? How come pedophiles have access to children sent to school by parents? What do the schools do with security and due diligence?

It appears states like Kaduna aren’t taking a cue from the Ekiti and Lagos model of naming and shaming sexual offenders by establishing agencies to prosecute offenders and list them in a Sexual Offenders Register in ways that after serving jail terms, the public would avoid them and they would live forever with the stigma. We are yet to see such steps being taken – not just for cases of frontal rape, but rape dissembled as child marriage, which the UN and Nigerian laws frown at.

The spate of rape cases in schools and abduction of school girls, among which the cases of the Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu stand out, have further dampened the enrolment of girls in schools in the North. This portends doom for generations in decades to come in a world ruled by ideas, technology and innovation.

We condemn in very strong terms the negligence in supervision of schools and their operations, such as have made room for atrocities to be committed repeatedly in different schools. We also think that closing schools cannot be the solution. There must be  more tactically viable measures that would compel schools to be more vigilant about activities in their environment. There must be steadfastness in prosecuting the suspects and letting the law take its course. If nothing drastic is done to reassure parents of the safety of their girls in schools, the region might suffer the ugly consequences of illiteracy – especially of women, the hands that rock the cradle. The world is leaving Nigeria behind.