Category: Editorial

One highlight of the latest sectoral audit of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is its finding of indebtedness by 51 oil and gas companies to the federation account to the tune of N1.32 trillion. Although said to be a vast reduction from the 2019 figure of N2.6 trillion owed by 77 companies, the ordinary citizen cannot but wonder how the debts, supposedly collectible revenues due to the Federation Account by the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) have remained a perennial feature of the public accounts system, and even more so now that the government, in the words of NEITI, “is in dire need of revenues to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and improve the investment climate in the country.”

To begin with, this would not be the first time such grave issues of non-remittance of due revenues would be made against the major oil companies. In fact, those who believe that the country has no business going on a borrowing binge, have a fresh but compelling argument on why the country should rather look inwards. The argument has always been – and it remains plausible – were our officials to deploy a fraction of the energies junketing in search of new loans in seeking not only to block all avenues for revenue leakages but ensuring that due revenues are promptly paid to the federation account, the nation’s finances ought to have fared comparatively better by now.

We recall a similar issue cropping up in 2019, when the Federal Government, through the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, accused International Oil Companies (IOCs) of denying the country of a whopping $62.1 billion accruals under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC). Whereas the joint operating agreement had envisaged a review of the profit-sharing formula with Nigeria’s partners once crude oil prices at the international oil market rose above $20 per barrel, it turned out that our officials chose to look the other way from October 1998 when oil prices rose above the agreed threshold while the oil companies conveniently kept mum. By the time the books were finally opened in 2018, some $62 billion was found to be outstanding. Till date, the status of that debt remains shrouded in utmost secrecy despite the avowals to collect same.

Among the many questions that pop us this time around is whether the collecting agencies – notably the FIRS and NUPRC are themselves even aware of the liabilities; or if they are, whether adequate or even effective mechanisms currently exist to ensure their prompt remittances. In other words, are there serious measures in place to go after the debtors? And who are these debtors by the way? For far from being matters for routine reconciliation, they touch upon the fundamentals of the sector’s accounting practices right up to issues of corporate governance, global best practices as indeed compliance with the laws of the country. They highlight the disturbing but nonetheless notorious fact about the lack of integrity in the nation’s public finance system. It explains the relative ease with which these could be manipulated by unscrupulous international oil companies. It is high time the country found a way to deal with such untoward practices permanently.

It is trite to state that the country desperately needs the money at this time. But even if the situation were not as bad, the liabilities being inextricably linked to the operations of these entities are mandated by law. Such malpractices, were they to have been done in the home countries of the offenders, would have attracted severe penalties. A strategy of ‘name and shame’ would therefore seem in order for the time being; even as the relevant agencies take necessary steps to recover every kobo owed.

The intention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to play in the power sector is not so outlandish. NNPCL is Nigeria’s oil and gas giant.  Statistics show that some 81 per cent of Nigeria’s electricity is by thermal plants, powered by gas.  Only 17.59 per cent electricity in Nigeria is by hydro.

With a core competence in oil and gas — and gas being the main driver of Nigeria’s electricity — NNPCL has clear synergy with electricity power generation, which it now eyes as a growth area.  Indeed, the gas-NIPP plants linkage, and its clear economy of scale advantage, can’t be dismissed.

NIPP — National Integrated Power Project — a brainchild of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency, are all gas-driven.  The Federal Government has put them all up for sale, in a privatisation binge.  NNPCL has intimated the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the institutional hawker of the plants, of its intention to buy.

For sale are Afam IV Power Station, (Rivers), Alaoji Power Station (Abia), Calabar Power Station (Cross River), Egbema Power Station (Imo), Geregu II Power Station (Kogi), Ihovbor Power Station (Benin City, Edo), Olorunsogo II Power Station (Ogun), Omoku II Power Station (Rivers), Omotoso II Power Station (Okitipupa, Ondo), and Sapele Power Station (Delta).

All of these stations are powered by gas.  NNPCL has supreme advantage in oil and gas.  So, its bid should be a shoo-in?  Not quite — and that doubt comes ironically from NNPCL’s supposed strength: the mess it has made of its current oil and gas core competence.

NNPCL’s laggardly state is so befuddling in comparison to its counterparts elsewhere — say Saudi Arabia Oil Company (ARAMCO), Malysia’s Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), for instance.

This trio have engineered their countries’ transition from raw crude to massive oil wealth, with blue chip global investments to the bargain.  Here, our NNPCL after eons still struggles to make routine local refining a reality.

Now, if NNPCL has fared not so well on a core national competence, why should its bid to play in power, another core national imperative, be taken seriously just because it has towering advantage in oil and gas?  Indeed, the very thought of NNPCL annexing electricity power to its parlous oil and gas record silently rankles!

What would that be?  The monopoly of the crippled?  How competitive will the Nigerian economy be, with vital sectors — oil, gas and electricity — in the clamp of a body that has not shown much competence, not to talk of penetrating brilliance, in its present assignment, after too long a period?

That general Nigerian worry greeted the NNPCL bid.  Yet, the investment pitch on the road, by Mallam Mele Kyari, NNPCL managing director, was rather arresting.

“As an oil company and enabler organisation, NNPCL is determined to boost power generation and supply to Nigerian homes,” he said in a media release after his management’s foray to BPE in Abuja. “This can be achieved through increased investment hence it has signed a contract with China Machinery Engineering Company and General Electric (GE) to provide 50 megawatts of electricity to Maiduguri.”

From this statement, NNPCL’s strategy appears playing the enabling company, which has the cash to recruit and buy core expertise to run its electricity business line, while it continues concentrating on its core oil and gas.

That makes sense.  Still, what does the firm do with its cumulative negative and crippling image, no thanks to its poor record?

At the end, the buck stops on the table of the sales umpire: BPE.  Nobody can tell NNPCL not to bid.  It’s an open economy, so let it bid with the other interested firms, local and foreign.  But it’s the onerous duty of BPE to vigorously vet every bid; and sell the plant to companies it adjudged likely the most competent.

Nigerians surely cannot afford an encore of the living mess of the electricity distribution companies (DisCos).  This abiding mess issues from allegations that the old Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was carved out to incompetents with neither the cash nor the technical savvy to run electricity distribution.  It was a policy hors de combat that has birthed nothing but chaos and paralysis at the retail end of the electricity power market.

Nigeria — and Nigerians — cannot afford the repeat of this bitter tale in the electricity downstream sector in its generation upstream.  Which is why BPE must take the NNPCL bid with extreme caution — without prejudice, of course, to the quality of the bid.

Whoever buys the NIPP plants, BPE must assure Nigerians it did its due diligence; and that we are not bracing for additional fiasco on the power front.

It is not surprising that some patriotic lawmakers irked by the sorry state of medical facilities in the country by both public and private hospitals introduced a bill seeking to curtail access of public officials to foreign treatment, sometimes for common ailments. A 2016 report by Price, Waterhouse, Coopers indicates that Nigeria loses about one billion United States dollars annually to medical tourism. Another survey indicates in similar manner that about $21 billion was spent on treatment abroad between 2011 and 2021, but the Lagos University Teaching Hospital puts the figure at $2.1 billion annually. This is at best a conservative figure given the proclivity of the elite to seek evaluation by foreign experts, especially in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany and India, for even diseases that could be treated locally. They have often attributed this to poor diagnostic equipment as well as inadequate specialists.

In a bid to curtail the capital flight from Nigeria that is cash-strapped, the House of Representatives is attempting to come up with a law that would ban public officials from travelling abroad for treatment. While some of them are proposing a total ban as a means of ensuring that the local public facilities are upgraded, others think it should be moderated to ensuring that public fund is not deployed for such fancy treatment. As such, the latter think certain conditions should be included for a public official to travel out when local expertise and equipment cannot cope with such treatment. These are loopholes that Nigerians are known to have abused in the past.

We agree that the proposal is an indication that the lawmakers mean well, but it may not work as presented. The punishment of seven years jail or N500 million fine is too draconian, especially if the officials had to be flown abroad in emergencies. Besides, the definition of public officer in the 1999 Constitution would include certain judicial officers at the federal and state levels. If the intendment of the law is to compel members of the executive, and probably the legislative arms of government who have the charge of improving public health facilities to pay adequate attention to them, how does this apply to judges who are only charged with adjudication of disputes and interpretation of the laws?

At the moment, it might be unfair to abruptly prevent people who might have been consulting foreign doctors for their health concerns before coming into office from doing so. Such doctors already have their medical history and are conversant with the state of their bodies; what we can do for now is stop the approval of public funds for all categories of public officers to treat themselves abroad. What is available at home should be adequate for them if they cannot privately source the fund.

Besides, there are poor people who are referred abroad for expert treatment by hospitals in Nigeria. Many such people go to hospitals in Egypt, South Africa and India for diseases in such areas as cardiology, oncology, orthopaedics and nephrology. For such patients, it is a matter of life and death, and it is common these days to see relations turning to media organisations to solicit funds from well-meaning Nigerians. This is the more reason why something must be done urgently to improve the state of healthcare delivery in Nigeria. It is a shame that while we need so many specialists to attend to people’s needs, our doctors are fleeing abroad daily to provide such services there. There have been reports of Nigerians referred to hospitals in developed countries only to be treated by highly recommended Nigerian specialists. The government should urgently come up with policies that would address this ugly trend in the interest of the people.

The authorities at the federal and state ministries of health should sit up to plug the holes in the administration of the system. Whatever it takes to halt the drift of health professionals abroad and the groaning of the people should be done.  It is a shame that no serious policy to upgrade the system has been introduced since the return to civil rule in 1999. It is a direct challenge to the people, the electorate, to ensure that only men and women of ideas are elected in 2023. We have been adrift for so long that the people must wake up to keep their leaders on their toes, even after election.

It is on record that a minister, himself a medical doctor and former director in the Federal Ministry of Health, said he saw nothing wrong in Nigerian doctors and nurses taking up appointments in other countries, choosing to rather see it as endorsement of the quality of men trained locally. He did not even consider the heavily subsidised cost of training of medical specialists in the country.

The House bill is a rude awakening, an audacious wake-up call for the political elite and  Nigerians to face the emergency of healthcare in the country. It is tug at our egalitarian impulse for Medicare. It should stir debate and trigger funding for a revolutionary approach for the domestication of good healthcare for our citizens as 2023 is around the corner.

If you seek and don’t find me someday and they say I am gone, know that I am still ready to perform,” he said in an interview, underlining his deep passion for acting. He made a name for himself as a polished performer, and was regarded as one of the pioneers of Nollywood.

Chief Lari Williams, who died on February 27, at the age of 81, was well trained for his vocation. His enthusiasm for drama grew while he studied at the London School of Journalism. “I took English lessons at Molly College in London to improve my spoken English. I later joined the college drama group for evening classes,” he said.

“It was while there that I met the late veteran actor Jab Adu who encouraged me to enroll for full professional training in acting at the Mountview Theatre School. I finished in 1974 and had time to establish a small African theatre ensemble, which I called ‘The Calabash Artistes’…

“That was when we produced my first full-length play Kolanut Junction. I wrote a few other plays, got a number published and I was doing all that until I got the invitation to return home for FESTAC, which Nigeria hosted.”

He stayed back in the country after performing as a musical poet at the 1977 Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), a major international festival held in Lagos.

In a career that spanned about five decades, he earned a reputation for excellent acting, both on stage and screen.  One of his sons described him as “a determined perfectionist.”  He sparkled as lead actor in Mirror in the Sun, a popular soap opera that aired on the Nigerian Television Authority network service every Sunday from 1984 to 1986.  He also starred notably in other screen productions, including For Better for Worse, Village Headmaster, Adio Family, and Third Eye.

A quality actor, he demonstrated the value of training and showed that acting is a serious activity that requires know-how.  He was the first national president of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) and emphasised professionalism.

Interestingly, he was reported to be the first actor to perform on top of Zuma Rock, one of the country’s tallest rocks located near the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, where he did a rendition of a poem by Mamman Vatsa titled ‘The bird that sings in the rain.’ He published his first book, a collection of poems called ‘Drum Call’ in 1976.

Also, he went to great lengths to enrich his stage productions, including, for instance, featuring a real-life awe-inspiring masquerader ‘Egun Lapampa’ in his play Awero.

He founded the Lari Williams Playhouse, ‘theatre of Edutainment,’ which focused on music, poems, dance and acting; and also established the Academy of Dramatic Art and Music (ADAM) that provided training and mentoring for mainly young people.

He taught Theatre Arts at three Nigerian universities, the University of Lagos, Lagos State University, and the University of Calabar. He also taught at the National Theatre, Lagos.

His weekly column in Vanguard newspaper, ‘Stage and Screen,’ which he reportedly ran for almost three decades, was a vehicle for the advancement of the country’s entertainment industry.

It was a testimony to his social consciousness and concern for social development that he entered politics and in 1983 was a vice presidential candidate. In a fascinating combination, he was the running mate of the legendary activist musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Their political party was called Movement of the People (MOP).

The first Nigerian artiste to be honoured by two successive Nigerian presidents, he was a recipient of the national honour  Member of the Order of the Federal Republic  (MFR)  in 2008 under President Umaru Yar’ Adua and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013 under  President Goodluck Jonathan.

He spoke about “the satisfaction of doing what I enjoy doing best,” underlining the importance of professional passion. He will be remembered for being true to his calling.

The story of Adebolu Adepoju brings empathy to a cold and cynical society. Yet it is as universal a tale as it is a peculiarly Nigerian one. He emerged the top student of the West African School Certificate Examination at his school in Lagos State. That in itself should be a distinction that should bring pride to any parent.

But Adepoju is suffering from cerebral palsy, and he rode it to glory. He, as the cliché goes, showed the ability in disability. The young man said at his graduation that his childhood and growth did not point to any progress but for the fortitude and care of his parents and his gigantic self-belief. He then said that his neighbours told his parents to use him for rituals in order to enrich themselves.

The father, Israel Adepoju, is a shoemaker. He could have fallen to such a temptation in the habits of the perverted in this society. He could have gone that primitive route of trying to use his child’s body parts for self-enrichment. He ignored the advice and chose the noble path of nurture.

The young Adepoju’s confession reflects a very dangerous trend in the country today. There have been many reports of travellers being stopped and kidnapped by hoodlums and other forms of never-do-wells for the sole purpose of butchering the innocent and cutting off parts of their bodies in a cold and brutal slaughter. They have turned the bushes and highways to traps leading to human abbatoirs. This is a trend that must be addressed with clinical investigation and punishment. Recently, the nation witnessed the saga of a young lady killed for boarding the Lagos State BRT bus, an otherwise safe and dignified means of transport.

The story of another young Nigerian, who was at a hotel in Ile-Ife, is in the courts. There are some who suspect too that he was murdered for ritual purposes. While there is no proof that a human body will transform into human wealth, science has failed to convince the barbarisms that bloodthirsty cults cannot make wealth.

But it is thanks to the compassion and enlightenment of the Adepojus that they chose nurture and education over slaughter. But even then, it was a path of torture for the parents, especially for the crippled child.

“I suffered a lot of discrimination as a child,” said Adebolu Adepoju.  But before he knew discrimination, he had to rise out of bed. He lived a life of stagnation and vegetation, covered in a cloth. But he was not born disabled. He turned a cerebral palsy patient when a hospital administered an injection to the child, according to the parents.

This again reflects the incompetence and the irony of care turning into a peril in Nigerian hospitals. That is what has turned him into a different person today.

His father said he was mocked for fathering such a child, and nicknamed “Baba Julius Berger,” for making the boy exercise his limbs in walks and making him stretch his body on motorcycles. He said he never ate at home but after he stretched his body, he would develop an appetite and thirst.

The mother, Toyin, said it was difficult to secure a school for him. He had to be taken all the way to Ekiti State to Tolu Vick Nursery and Primary School at Efon Alaye. He completed his secondary school at Ajayi Crowther in Lagos.

“I am very proud of my disability,” said an upbeat Adepoju. He can be a poster child of the disabled in this society. The wife of the Kogi State Governor , Yahaya Bello, set up a foundation because their child, Hayatula Bello, suffered from cerebral palsy.

We need cheery stories of triumph like this to let everyone know that we are all human.

He entered sports journalism as Sunny Ojeagbase (SO).  Later, he signed off as Sunny Obaju-Ojeagbase. Finally, he became Emmanuel Sunny Ojeagbase, which boasted the prefix of Dr. and Pastor.

Same man. But different stops in a colorful, eventful and fulfilling career.  Each name could track the different spots on his life’s journey: from the humble beginnings to its towering and victorious end.

Exit a distinguished trail-blazer, in Nigeria’s sports journalism; and an entrepreneur that kept on renewing his niche and mentoring others till he drew his last breath.

SO had done sports stringing for Herald (Ilorin, Kwara State) and New Nigerian (Kaduna), as a career soldier.  But he joined Daily Times after he quit the Nigerian Army in 1979 as a corporal, after 10 years as a serviceman (1969-1979).  In 1980, he would join Sunday Concord (now defunct) as sports editor.

But it wasn’t until 1983, when he joined The Guardian, that not a few noticed his talent in delightful prose, gifted to the service of radiant sports reporting and analyses.  Indeed, though The Guardian itself was something new and fresh, not a few confessed SO’s crisp-and-sweet prose, on the sports pages, often determined how far they would plough into the other sections.

He was The Guardian sports editor, yes.  But under his charge was a constellation of star writers, who would later go on to make own marks: Michel Obi, Chris Okojie, Trigo Egbegi, Sam John, Ikeddy Isiguzo, among others.  SO and crew must have positively rubbed on one another!

But the restless entrepreneur in SO would too soon quit The Guardian to set up Sports Souvenir (SS) in 1984. The earliest memory of SS was a brood of youths hawking this all-sports paper with reddish logo, during popular matches at the National Stadium, Lagos.  There were even claims that SO was among the hawkers of its earliest editions!

SS, Nigeria’s first truly all-sports weekly, was no soaraway success.  It wasn’t Nigeria’s first sports weekly per se: that glory belonged to Sporting Record of the Daily Times stable.  The key difference, however, was that SS reported sports qua sports (with an overwhelming local content to boot) while SR reported sports only as adjunct of pools betting.  It took a hard-headed entrepreneur to figure out that sports journalism niche and effectively plug it.

But SS would pave the way for the Complete Communications Ltd (CCL) sports titles, where SO came into his own: Complete Football (a monthly sports magazine, later all gloss and colour), Nigeria’s first all-football magazine; Complete Football International (another monthly that tracked the exploits of Nigerian pioneering professional footballers in Europe and South America), International Soccer Review (ISR).  

In 1995, SO would introduce Complete Sports, a sports daily that blazed the trail for other competitors, including major newspaper stables.  Again here, SO opened another vista in the Nigerian newspaper market: daily sports splashes, as competition against their mother stables, which nevertheless still retained their tiny sports sections.

Kunle Solaja, another Nigerian sports journalism great, in a most fitting obituary tribute, named many others that SO mentored, during his CCL season: Mumini Alao, Simon Kolawole, Tunde Sulaimon, Ehi Braimah, Ejiro Omonode, Taye Ige and Frank Ilaboya — all of them powerful voices in Nigerian journalism, in sports and outside of it.

Without junking his sports niche, an older Ojeagbase would found the Success Attitude Development Centre (SADC), which published Success Digest.  In his new role as business coach, he would mentor hundreds of other compatriots, showing them the way to success in business, via ethical and clean practices.  He ran SADC with his widow and life-time business collaborator, Pastor (Mrs) Esther Ojeagbase.

SO himself would later be ordained a pastor.  He would also be honoured with a PhD, on account of SADC and his entrepreneurial coaching.  In his younger days, he had attended the University of Lagos, Akoka, where he had earned a diploma in Mass Communication.

The lesson from SO’s life is clear: with focus and diligence, a humble birth is no barrier to greatness — and you need not be crooked to soar and succeed.  That sweet memory should comfort his family and friends, even as they deeply mourn his sad passage.

From the Executive Secretary of the National Board For Technical Education (NBTE), Professor Idris Bugaje, came a passionate appeal to governments in the country to stop converting polytechnics into universities, a thing that is now becoming fashionable. Prof Bugaje made the appeal at a retreat for the governing councils and principal officers of federal polytechnics organised by the NBTE, in collaboration with the Committee of Federal Polytechnic Rectors. He spoke on the theme: ‘Improving Polytechnic Administration; The Role of Governing Council And Management’.

Prof Bugaje who lamented that the country was still converting polytechnics into universities despite having over 200 universities said “If you convert a college of education into a university, you are upgrading it. If you convert a polytechnic, you are degrading that institution. So we need to stop this craze of converting polytechnics into universities.”

We agree with the NBTE boss. Polytechnics are established to train technical middle level manpower while universities are degree awarding institutions. There are about 152 polytechnics in Nigeria, owned mostly by the federal and state governments, as well as some individuals and organisations, as against over 200 universities that are owned likewise. We also have many monotechnics.

Of course, we cannot dispute the probable need for more universities despite what seems a mushrooming of universities in the country. But then we do not have to kill polytechnics to achieve that objective. Both serve different, even if complementary purposes.

Perhaps we need to take a cue from China that converted about 600 universities to polytechnics in 2017 because, as Prof Bugaje noted, “China knows the value of technical education and the value of skills because they want to be on top.” This was just some four years ago. Yet, China’s economic transformation began specifically in 1978.  The country must have observed some lacuna in its educational system, despite its greatness and opulence, to take a decision to convert universities into polytechnics, so as to position itself for even greater accomplishments.

Apparently, this decision must have been the product of some research efforts. Whilst some people may argue that  we don’t have to copy China blindly, yet we need to interrogate the basis of the craze in Nigeria for converting polytechnics into universities. We know we are a nation that does not value research. So, the only plausible reason is just the need to have universities for the paper certificates that we so much cherish but which has not helped us much as a nation.

We must retrace our steps to change the narrative. According to the NBTE boss, “If Nigeria wants to lead Africa and wants to be among the top 20 countries in the next 20 to 30 years, we must change our attitude towards Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).” The way out is not to convert polytechnics into universities. As a matter of fact, what we must do is to strengthen polytechnic education by addressing the major factors inhibiting its effectiveness and efficiency. These include, corrupt practices, poor corporate governance, governing council and management power-play, conflict of interest and dearth of local and multinational manufacturing industries to employ TVET, among others.

There is no doubt that the state of many polytechnics in Nigeria today is depressing. But that sorry state is not peculiar to the polytechnics; it cuts across all facets of our lives, including education generally. As a way out, Prof Bugaje has recommended allocating at least 20 per cent of the country’s budget to the education sector. Even though this falls short of the 26 per cent recommended by UNESCO, it is still an improvement on the present paltry allocation of about 10.79 per cent of federal budget in 2015, about the highest until then. Even then, 50 per cent of whatever is allocated to education should go to TVET, up from the present 20 per cent, because of its capital intensive nature.

The government would do well to look into these suggestions with a view to adopting at least some, if not all of them. This may be a tall order for immediate implementation, though, given competing demands for available resources. Perhaps the place to start is in the prompt release of the N15 billion the Federal Government promised for the revitalisation of facilities in the public polytechnics and judicious use of same.

For Nigeria to take its rightful place in the comity of nations, we must reposition the education sector generally, and particularly the polytechnics, as quickly as possible. It is by so doing that we can rewrite the narrative of the country’s technological development and make up for lost time.