The Nation Newspaper

Category: Yomi Odunuga

  • Now that dog don dey eat dog…

    Now that dog don dey eat dog…

    In those early days in the newsroom at the Onipetesi office of The PUNCH newspapers, hardly would a day pass without one of the ‘veteran’ reporters muttering the time-worn phrase that, in journalism, dogs don’t eat dogs. As a rookie proof reader then, it sounded like an unwritten code of conduct meant to bind journalists to the ethos and norms of journalism practice. It was nothing different from what was then a regular feature in the activities of the men in uniform in which, except in rare cases within the lower ranks, they would rather settle disagreements outside the view of the general public than expose the rottenness within. In other words, no matter the grievances, what was termed then as espirit-de-corps became a password for cover-up and the legitimization of certain criminal activities and the externalization of the spirit of togetherness in the security community; some sort of Public Display of Affection spiced with hidden plastic laughter. At that time, it was so strong that those involved could practically walk away with murder if they play their cards right. For example, a ‘bloody civilian’ could purchase a ‘brand new tokunbo’ car in Cotonou and pay practically next to nothing in bills and charges should he engage the services of an officer to drive the car through the borders. The common practice then was that these officers would identify themselves as “officers of the state” and they would drive through different border posts easily until they deliver the vehicle or goods to the owner. Of course, it wasn’t as if it was free as they still drop something for the boys on the road. Just that it was way cheaper than paying the due charges to the government coffers. Though a criminal act, smugglers relied on this method to bring in different contraband into the country. Many other examples abound but that is not the focus of this piece today. It is also important to know that, in journalism then and now, the concept of dogs don’t eat dogs was employed as a safeguard to shield professional colleagues from public odium and ridicule especially in cases where there had been serious lapses in the reportage of a story or related matters. Rather than join the fray, practicing journalists in other media outlets would rather turn a blind eye to the brewing controversy than aggravate it. With that, the controversy wouldn’t take long to die a natural death. And the groove moves on to other matters.

    However, it didn’t take long for me to know that there were exceptions to the rule in actual practice when I was deployed to the State House as a correspondent of The PUNCH. There, dogs don’t just eat dogs; they push them under a moving train, watch them writhe in pains and, sometimes, get crushed into pieces. If there was any rule that was on display, it was the rule of the jungle. In the few years that I spent in that cubicle called “The Portacabin”, I learnt the hard way that not everyone that picked interest in the draft of your story was doing so for altruistic reasons. There were those who were monitoring your work and they were always giving timely feedbacks to the authorities on the slant of your story and the ‘wicked’ headlines that you crafted from an ordinary statement issued by the presidential spokespersons. And therefore, for doing your job diligently, you automatically become a person of interest and men of the secret service would begin to keep tabs on you.

    I recall the countless times I had to make a dash to the Area 11 office of the newspaper then just to write an important story, away from the intrusions of these so-called colleagues whose duty, it appeared, was to set traps for others. At a point, I had assumed that these persons were undercover agents because it was unbelievable that whilst others were scampering to beat deadlines, all they were adept at doing was to wait for the final draft of whatever we came up with, remove bylines, inscribe their own and send the story unedited to whosoever their bosses were then in the newsrooms. It wasn’t a shock to us that these persons were the first to get unimpeachable information about presidential movements, tours and assignments. On the list of those travelling with the president, either local or foreign, they were always first among equals and it never mattered if they file stories on the tour or not. Those realities and the occasional drama playing out in which an unknown person from within would make a call to a particular journalist and command him to ‘drop whatever story’ he was writing at that point in time fortified my belief that the dogs don’t eat dogs rule was being applied mostly in the breach. Bad eggs are in every profession and they are only waiting for the opportunity to pounce on their victims at their most vulnerable moment! That is the reality of life.

    Be that as it may, the developing stories in the past few days in the political circles remind me not just about the dearth of the espirit-de-corps mentality within the coven of politicians but also the betrayal of trust that continues to define seeming, impenetrable political affiliations. Let me start with the dirty dog fight between former Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, and his estranged political son and successor, Siminalayi Fubara. It is bizarre that, few months after emerging victorious from a fiery furnace that the Rivers State political environment had become due to Wike’s romantic entanglements with both the Peoples Democratic Party on the one hand and the All Progressives Congress on the other hand, Wike and Fubara would be engaged in a bitter, almost deadly, battle for the soul of the Rivers State Government House. And when you ask why the immediate past governor and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory would get himself locked in such battle with his chosen successor, no one seems to be equipped with the facts that would justify such. Instead, they would embark on a merry-go-round, dribbling round the issue. They will never break it down to us in the simple mathematical language that is at the heart of the do-or-die angst in naira and kobo so that we can understand. They would, instead, be talking about rights, freedom and constitutionality which merely detours from the main issue.

    Yet, we live in denial if we think this is about the rights of the people of the state to life, liberty and security. Most often, the bust up is always about how one of the feuding parties is holding down the hand of the other to allegedly free the citizens from being subjected to a life of torture, cruel and inhumane treatment and degrading punishment. If that were to be the case, the shackles would have been removed long before this time. But, unfortunately, the people are still roughing it through the long way to perdition. Nothing has changed. In plain street lingo, it is all about ego tripping and the existential right to have access to the public till. What confound really are the shamelessness with which they trudge on and the determination by both parties to self-destruct. Then you ask, what agreement did they reach and who was trying to play smart? Wike or Fubara? Again, you are likely to hit a brick wall. Silence becomes golden. Yet, as the crisis deepens and anger rages, no one seems to give a thought to the collateral and incalculable damages being inflicted on the state and its citizens. As supporters from both sides giggle at the slightest edge recorded in the dog fight by any of the principal characters, hardly do they know that the greatest joke is on them. If they must know, agreement is agreement and dey your dey make I dey my dey are not veritable templates for real development. They are proclamations that are, at best, self-serving. And, to my mind, it is important to admonish those who think eating crumbs is worth sacrificing an arm and a leg for. They need to retrace their steps before it is too late. Rivers State deserves better. It has the potential of being a reference point for development without the top dogs engaging in a dog eating dog contest. What it needs is the right mentality to governance. As for those who want to cling to power, let them come to terms with the fact that power is transient. No mortal being is blessed with the authority to wield power in perpetuity. It is a soldier go, soldier come  scenario. Know this and know peace.

    Now, let’s look at another dog fight situation currently trending in Kaduna State. Personally, it would be interesting to see how this particular kerfuffle between Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and his erstwhile political son, Senator Uba Sani, would end. By the way, let me say from the beginning that I do not envy Sani at all. The incumbent governor must have an ace up his sleeves before deciding to take on El-Rufai who is no stranger to this kind of stuff. Anyway, that’s just my assumption. If my memory hasn’t failed me, El-Rufai was the only person that was probed by the Senate among the many ministers that served under the Presidency of President Olusegun Obasanjo. I still remember some of the caustic responses he threw at members of the Senate Committee then. At the end of the day, he ended up turning the whole probe matter into some sort of witch hunt and even dented the political careers of some lawmakers along the way. So, I assume that Sani, who was involved in all the political battles that El-Rufai have had to fight, truly knows what he is getting into. I still recollect vividly how El-Rufai told a stunned audience in 2008, during the Senate probe of his activities as Minister, that if he hadn’t allocated choice land to his wife and children, would the senators prefer a situation where he had allocated the land to his enemies and foes? Would that make them happier?

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    For clarity sake, Sani may well need to go back and study what his former boss spewed during that probe to enable him have a firm grip of what should be done in the latest move by his supporters to pitch him against his former boss and political ally with the setting up of a 13-man adhoc committee to investigate financial transactions, loans, grants and project execution under El-Rufai as Kaduna State governor. I also hope that Sani is coming into this dog-eating-dog contest with squeaky clean hands? At least, as a once-dependable ally of El-Rufai, he should know that the former FCT minister is not only a meticulous data analyst and record keeper, he is not one to spare throwing deadly punches when the chips are down. Even if, like I said before, this may not be about changing the narrative of a scandalously raped state, people must know the kind of battle they want to fight and the ones that would not end up indicting them as accomplices in what has become the collective maladies of a failing state. Meanwhile, let the fight continue.

    Interestingly, the one that shocks me is the current travails of former Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, and some of his family members. Was I surprised that the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) led Kano State Government had perfected plans to file criminal charges against Ganduje, his wife, Hafsat Ganduje; his son, Abdullahi Umar; and five others with eight counts including $413,000 bribery allegation as well as the diversion and misappropriation of funds amounting to ₦1.38bn? No. After the brutal battles at the courts and on the streets of Kano for the control of the Government House between Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf and the Ganduje gang, it should be expected that the NNPP government would exact its pound of flesh from the APC. Of course, with Ganduje being the National Chairman of the APC, Yusuf knew there was no better time than now to make a move for his jugular. So, there was no surprise whatsoever in exhuming an almost-forgotten bribery episode popularly known as “The Gandollar Video Saga” to ensure that Ganduje has his days at the court and, possibly, in the prison. The surprise, in all this, is that otherwise loyalists of Ganduje are at the forefront of those seeking an end to the Ganduje political dynasty built over many years. Just like it happened when the plan was hatched to remove Senator Adams Oshiomhole as the Chairman of the APC, it was shocking that Ganduje’s alleged removal started at the ward level with his suspension being announced by one Laminu Sani and Haladu Gwanjo who identified themselves as Assistant Secretary and Legal Adviser in Ganduje’s ward. Wonders, they say, will never cease!. When did Ganduje leave office that even members of his ward are already pointing daggers at his back? And, as if that was not enough, his ‘men’ at the national headquarters of the APC are also cooking something bad against a man that one had thought had overcome his political battles.

    Still, it is the same issue of dogs eating dogs and the purpose is not that far apart. It is all about personal aggrandizement. In achieving this aim, the espirit-de-corps mantra is the first casualty. Here, the end simply justifies the means in the brutal fight for relevance where loyalty counts for nothing. At this point, the words of the former governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatubde Fashola, poignantly sticks out when he said, in response to a question regarding his relationship with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that: “May our loyalty not be tested.” In these days where the hounds shamelessly bay for the blood of their benefactors at the touch of a button, shouldn’t we give plaudits to those who refuse to take the bait? Fashola’s words are, indeed, quite deep. And so, as the drama continues from one state to the other, I ask: who is going to be the next victim that would be eaten by the dogs he, single-handedly, nurtured into political relevance? Who knows?

  • Minister Adelabu and our megawatts of darkness

    Minister Adelabu and our megawatts of darkness

    Authoritative sociologists and urban planners will readily tell you that with a few exceptions, virtually every city in the world has a slum. However, in Abuja, Kaduna, Ibadan, Aba or Port Harcourt, household or slum dwelling is elevated to electricity tariff Band A , even when the circumstances of life have relegated most people to being part of the statistics feeding on less than one dollar per day. You just wonder how they come about the queer stratifications followed by benumbing justifications.

    Sometimes last year, Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, breezed into ministerial office with all the excitement and panache that one should expect from anyone, especially a relatively, young man posted to one the most sought after and lucrative ministries. He didn’t just come into office brimming with confidence, he sounded like someone who understood the ancestral maladies plaguing that sector and gave those who cared to listen an assurance that he would, bit by bit, fix them with the aim of ensuring that Nigerians have the privilege of enjoying uninterrupted electricity supply in their homes.

    You see, the phrase ‘uninterrupted power supply’ has been a regular refrain on every politician’s manifesto in Nigeria from time immemorial. It became so common that even those contesting for councillorship in the local government areas across the country never hesitate to tell their gullible followers that they do have the capacity to provide portable water, roads, quality education and reliable electricity supply for everyone. We all know that what they parade was a lie-laden manifesto but the masses hardly interrogate those promises because we know the Federal Government would eventually bear the brunt of the citizens’ anger with the kind of queer federalism that we pretend to be running.

    And so, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Adelabu dared to paint a spectacular picture about his determination to unlock the economic potentials of Nigeria with the injection of constant electricity into the system. His words, on resumption, were long on promises as he set targets which, he noted, would be adhered to in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s vision for the country. He said he would ensure that his team would be at the forefront of providing optimal solutions for the country’s power needs; leverage the new Nigerian Electricity Act to open new avenues for power provision in addition to paying more than a passing attention to renewable and alternative energy sources to fast track access in rural areas. And, more importantly, he said that “in the next couple of years, it will be something of the past because Nigeria needs 24/7 electricity supply and anything short of that performance is not acceptable to Nigeria.”

    When a new man at the helm of affairs utters tough words like the ones above, the public expects nothing but intentional actions that would drive the vision in that sector. Even when we all know that Adelabu was not the first person to offer such seeming hollow promises without requisite delivery, one had thought that the youthful vibrancy and the drive to stand out – considering his political ambition in the nearest future – should propel him into walking his talk. Besides, it would be a huge plus for the youth if Adelabu and his other colleagues in the cabinet can be at the top of the ratings of the Hadiza Bala Usman led ministerial performance unit.

    For example, this writer had taken the time to listen to Adelabu prior to the Friday, April 5 Ministerial Briefing in Abuja and he never failed to hit the right chord. Where some have questioned the rationale behind sending a financial guru to the power ministry to superintend, I belong to the group that believes that the job of a minister in that sector should be administrative. If he gets it right, the professionals under his authority have no reason than to perform. It was the same belief I had when the former Governor of Lagos State, Raji Fashola, was deployed to the same ministry. The only concern really was that Fashola, with all the confidence reposed in him and his track records as a goal-getter, cannot be said to have achieved anything worth writing about as the Minister of Power. What this means, to laymen like us, is that something is fundamentally wrong somewhere. The power sector in Nigeria has become a big clog in the wheel of progress, no thanks to many years of maladministration and, if we must put it bluntly, corrosive corruption. After years of pillages, it remains one huge drainpipe that has never produced any light at the end of the tunnel. The ministry is a national disgrace and a poster for incompetence. From his previous statements, it didn’t look like Adelabu was unaware of these problems and he never looked like someone who would gloss over them. And that was why some of us were waiting with bated breath to see how he would go about changing the narrative of a sector known for allocating billions of dollars annually only to end up supplying the hapless citizens with megawatts of darkness in proportions that amount to a national tragedy.

    While I confess my inability to understand all the technical postulations of the Adelabu team and the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Musiliu Oseni, at that Friday briefing held to address concerns raised by Nigerians over the 300 per cent tariff hike for what the minister described as Band A customers, it was clear to me that Nigeria’s dream of realising steady electricity supply for every household will remain a mirage for a long time. First, I was shocked that some sort of Orwellian methodology is at the heart of the country’s energy imbalance as exemplified by the band hypothesis.

    Until that revelation, after the tariff hike, many Nigerians did not know that privileges are attached to how they enjoy electricity supply. And so, in a country where some city dwellers can hardly boast of three hours of uninterrupted power supply, fellow Nigerians classified under Band A, B and, sometimes C, do have the privilege of having supply for between 15 hours to 22 hours. Isn’t that wonderful? This set of people, the minister noted, had been the major beneficiaries of the government’s electricity subsidy totaling over N2.9 trillion as at March, 2024. He said without the tariff hike which automatically translates into the removal of subsidy on the electricity bills of these persons, the subsidy could have cost the government a whopping N3 trillion which cannot be sustained by any serious-minded government that has development as a core strategy . Despite criticisms from many quarters, Adelabu said the ‘pro-poor’ tariff hike only affected 15 per cent of electricity users while the government, for now, still subsidises 67 per cent of the cost of transmitting and distributing electricity in the country. If the government had wanted to be brutal, Adelabu said, it could have opted for a wholesome removal of electricity subsidy from all the bands thereby aggravating the already parlous state of quotidian living in Nigeria.

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    Listen to him: “Two things and lessons we must achieve. Number one is achieving operational sustainability of operators on cost recovery. Anybody that goes into any business, the first intention is to recover cost, then if possible make some profit. The moment you cannot cover your cost, the sustainability of such business is doubtful. It will be run aground. But this cost recovery can either be through commercial pricing or a subsidised pricing. Commercial pricing is when the entire cost of producing power is transferred 100% plus the profit to the consumers of power. Subsidised pricing regime is when the consumers are not allowed to pay the full cost of production and government has pledged to pay a portion of this on their behalf. That is the regime that we are in Nigeria.

    “We are in a subsidy pricing regime, whereby government provides a large portion of the cost of producing, of transmitting, and of distributing power. And I must tell you that as at today, before the introduction of the tariff increase, government is subsidising nothing less than 67% of the cost of producing, transmitting, and distributing electricity in Nigeria. At the current exchange rate, this is going to translate into N2.9 trillion for 2024. This is more than 10% of the national budget. Power sector is just a single sector out of so many sectors that government has to attend to. We have Works, we have Housing, we have Education, we have Health, we have Defence and so on and so forth that are all competing for this meagre revenue from the government. So, it will be very insensitive on our part to compel government to continue to subsidise at that rate of almost N3 trillion for the power sector alone. We just have to be realistic and considerate,” Adelabu said.

    On this tariff matter, there is big question hanging on what truly constitutes electricity subsidy. This is because no one has been able to explain where this particular subsidy removal is coming from as the Federal Government had earlier in March, 2022 told the world that Nigeria has “quietly succeeded in the removal of electricity subsidy”  and would soon move to what it called an incremental removal of fuel subsidy. This revelations were made by the then Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed.

    She said:  “We are cleaning up our subsidies. We had a setback, we were to remove fuel subsidy by July this year but there was a lot of pushback from the polity.

    We have elections coming and because of the hardship that companies what the citizens went through during the COVID-19 pandemic, we just felt that the time was not right, so we pulled back on that. But we have been able to quietly implement subsidy removal in the electricity sector and as we speak, we don’t have subsidies in the electricity sector. We did that incrementally over time by carefully adjusting the prices at some levels while holding the lower levels down.”

    The question should then be: why is the FG still talking about electricity subsidy in 2024 if the same FG, under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, admitted that it was able to remove electricity subsidy in March 2002. And if it was about percentages, can anyone tell us what percentage was removed at that time and what was held down at the lower levels of the electricity ladder?

    However, on the surface, Adelabu’s well-tailored analysis is compelling, He was appealing to our conscience and was nudging us to understand why government had to go that route again as it did when it removed fuel subsidy in one fell swoop. He said the rich were just milking the poor who were on other bands. Now, the rich would have to pay through their noses and boost the revenue drive by the Federal Government. How I wish it was that simple. Shouldn’t someone have learnt from the fallouts of fuel subsidy removal? So, a manufacturer or business person on Band A would pay 300 per cent hike in his electricity supply at N225 per kilowatt per hour and the eggheads behind the hike expects him to bear the cost without forcing it down the throats of the consumers of his end product? Is that how it works? If that is the case, why are we then the collective victims of the fuel subsidy cancellation and not the extremely rich who were said to be the ones milking the system dry? Is the minister even sure that there is anyone – and that includes Aso Rock residents – still enjoying uninterrupted power supply for 10 hours in this country? Have they really carried out an audit of those on Band A to be sure that they are all rich and capable of paying the new rate?

    If there is any uncomfortable truth that Adelabu must be told, it is the fact that NOTHING has changed in the operational manual of the power sector under him that should give one the confidence to predict a brighter future. In fact, electricity supply across the nation has gone from bad to worse. Those who had the privilege of intermittent supply of about 12 hours can hardly boast of 6 hours daily. That is the sickening reality in most areas. The so-called DISCOS, despite the huge investment, still parade obsolete equipment. Consumers are daily being exploited to buy one needed electrical spare parts or the other even when they lay legitimate complaints before the authorities. When transformers pack up, residents are coerced to contribute money to buy new ones. And amid all this, the DISCOS seem to be in a contest as regards who can breast the tape in the supply of megawatts of darkness. It’s a crazy race that has further stagnated development and personal growth in the country. The pain and anguish Nigerians pass through daily can only be imagined as the drama continues. It is one thing to theorise about supplying hours of electricity to customers, but the practical reality is that it is hardly the case. Nigerians are just resilient in coping with the darkness as they forever hang on to a forlorn hope. Will Adelabu pilot the end of the endless wait for Nigerians to exhale and have a glimpse of the economic possibilities that uninterrupted power supply can engender? Or will he, like many others before him, be another underperformer in that power sector? Only time will tell.

  • Segun Olatunji’s abduction and the loud silence in high places

    Segun Olatunji’s abduction and the loud silence in high places

    I was having conversations with a retired senior military officer last Wednesday and I sought his opinion as regards the insecurity situation in Nigeria. Now, this man was someone I had earlier worked closely with in Aso Rock during the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo between May 29, 1999 and May 29, 2007. Though a top intelligence officer with track record of achievements, he was one officer that knew how to work closely with a select group of journalists covering the State House then and he was always there to defend us even when some power-wielding colleagues made attempts to harass us at the Villa’s Officers’ Mess, which was a popular gathering point in those days.

    Of course, he made spirited efforts to avoid the barrage of questions,  my persistence paid off eventually. He was clear that, without the political will to implement the measures that have been, severally, tabled before the authorities, Nigeria may as well continue to “regale in the tragic impulses that are the hallmarks of the bandit economy” that we have unfortunately succumbed to. I noticed that his countenance changed as he gave this heavy verdict. He said after years of appearing as guest speaker on popular breakfast shows to contribute his quota and advise the leadership on how best to approach the festering and dangerous insecurity situation across the nation, it dawned on him that the seriousness being paid to sophistry and political correctness appear to have gained more traction than the application of the right methodologies. He said he was at no time in doubt that the various security apparatchiks have the capacity to reduce to the barest minimum criminal activities like kidnappings and banditry. The only clog to achieving this, he noted, is what he described as the unmitigated gangsterism and brazen mercantilism of the insecurity situation in Nigeria.

    Even without mentioning it, I knew the man was drawing a correlation between the daylight abduction of the Editor of First News Media, Mr. Segun Olatunji by a combination of unknown soldiers and intelligence officers from his Lagos home and the cold-blooded manner the same gangsters ‘released’ him in Abuja penultimate Thursday after being incarcerated for 14 days of torture and indescribable trauma. Perhaps, the last time Nigerians witnessed such display of reckless authoritarianism by the state was during the draconian rule of the late General Sani Abacha.

    As I write this, I am still trying to figure out the real motive behind Olatunji’s abduction and under whose authority the operation was carried out. It is even more confounding that this matter happened under a democratic system that has lasted for over 24 years and still waxing stronger despite some challenges. In fact, members of the pen community and other well-meaning Nigerians should be concerned that a matter that could have been resolved amicably with an official invitation to Olatunji became what the aggrieved big guns in the Office of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) handled in such a despicable Gestapo style. More troubling was the fact that, after the Nigerian Press raised the alarm on the whisking away of one of their own, those who did it for whatever reason were not courageous enough to honestly admit that the journalist was in their arbitrarily-enforced custody. Perhaps, they considered the outcry as the rants of bloody civilians that amount to nothing in Nigeria’s delicate power maze.

    By now, one had thought the DIA or, by extension, the Federal Government would have come out with a statement condemning the treatment of citizen Olatunnji whose only crime, I reckon, was his commitment to carrying out his duty as a watchdog in the drive to curb the excesses in governance and ensure that the dividends of democracy trickle down to all citizens in a just and equitable manner. Instead, some 10 days after he was dumped into our ‘safe’ hands under a non-descript bridge somewhere in Asokoro, Abuja, Nigerians appear to have moved on. After all, Segun Olatunji was even lucky to have been released by his powerful abductors without needing to pay any ransom and also there was no visible signs of physical harm when he was flung back into the society. My gosh! Is it that simplistic? Do they think they have done the rest of us a huge favour by locking up a man in a solitary, dingy underground cell for 14 days and then releasing him like a common criminal? Do they really think this act of state terror should attract a thunderous plaudit? In their hearts of hearts, do they truly believe that Olatunji was into terrorism or was that a conflated charge meant to drum fear into him and also get his professional colleagues to surrender to the dark forces who relish applying the pangs of state torture? What exactly could have angered the sadist clique  so much that a military aircraft (when they say that the military lacks enough of such) was dispatched to Lagos to freight the human cargo who had already been humiliated in front of his close family members and neighbours by fully kitted, intimidatingly armed, hooded men serving a duty of personal hatred?

    For us to have a deeper understanding of the emotional, physical and psychological tortures that Olatunji went through in those 14 harrowing days, let me try to paraphrase what he said about his travails under the full power of these goons. Apparently, he could have been wasted if that was the ultimate goal within that period. Thankfully, it was not. And so, after about one week of tracking him with state resources and trailing him to his hometown in Ogun State and subsequently, to his house somewhere in Lagos, the goons swooped on him by first getting his wife who was captured in her shop and made to lead them to the house. There, Olatunji was graciously allowed to wear something to cover his boxers and begin an ordeal that lasted 14 days. He said that by the time he got thrown into the underground cell, an officer added a leg cuff to the hand cuff which was never removed throughout the forced journey to Abuja. Not just that, the same officer ensured that his right hand was tightened firmly to the cuff on the left leg and that was how he slept for about three or four days in the cell before his first interrogation. And rather than bring up evidence linking him to terrorism, he was merely asked about some stories he wrote about a top military officer and another one big politician in the corridors of power.

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    Strikingly, he told them that the story relating to the military top gun was a general story and he wondered why he was being singled out for interrogation and torture. It was after then that the name of the politician came up and he was accused of writing falsehood about the politician’s dealings. That done, he was returned to the cell and forgotten there until the relentless outcry by the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), the International Press Institute (IPI) which insisted that its findings showed that Olatunji was with the DIA in spite of the denial, the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), his family members, friends and employers forced the DIA to admit to ‘holding” Olatunji in their custody after allegedly lying barefacedly to the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and the Minister for Information and Orientation, Mallam Mohammed Idris. I still can’t believe that these guys actually lied to their superiors. What could have warranted such unprofessional and arbitrary use of coercive power if their victim was being held within the ambit of the law?

    In another interview on Kakaaki, the AIT’s breakfast programme, Olatunji said he was treated like an animal in captivity. He could barely use the toilet as there were no provision for any form of toiletries even if he did. And to ensure that life was hellish, food or something close to it was hardly served. Having been cuffed for days, his right leg and hand were numbed and he could barely tell the difference between day and night in the torture chamber. It was almost enough punishment to deal with the ubiquitous bands of armed terrorists, bandits and kidnappers operating wantonly across the Nigerian landscape, but that was a journalist’s punishment for penning a story about some of the movers and shakers of our collective destiny. These are the men who deploy hooded hirelings to inflict injuries on fellow humans just because they are in positions of authority. These are the ones who abuse power and are corrupted by its absolutism. Have they forgotten so easily that history has shown us, over the years, that power is transient and that, sooner rather than later, the cookie will crumble and power will change hands? Haven’t they read about the men of power who died on the seat and still ended up with records of infamy being the only memories people recall today?

    Talking about bandit economy, my friend, the General, said it is only in a bad system that agents of the state would behave like bandits and walk away without any consequence. He said there are lines of authorities and that it is worrisome that, after admitting that Olatunji was seized by the DIA, he was released to two of his professional colleagues, Dr. Iyobosa Uwagiaren and Mr. Yomi Odunuga, at a location under a bridge as if a kidnapped victim was being handed back to the family after the payment of ransom. Scary?

    In any case, isn’t it a tragedy that the same security agencies that have repeatedly failed to deploy tracking gadgets at their disposal to apprehend known bandits, terrorists and kidnappers daily messing up the lives of Nigerians could easily track every movements and calls that Segun Olatunji made two weeks before his eventual abduction? What does that say about a bandit mentality anyway? Does it mean swift and urgent action can only be taken when the interest of the high and mighty individual is at stake? Personally, I am worried by the criminal silence from us all after Olatunjii was released by these dark forces operating freely within the system. To my mind, this seems to put the current administration of progressive ideals to question.  And that is why this matter cannot simply be wished away as if it were one of the military adventurism where lives were randomly wasted and pains wantonly applied on the defenseless without anyone questioning them. If they say Olatunji is a terrorist, wouldn’t it be nice if they can charge him before a court of competent jurisdiction? And if it turns out to be a false allegation based on wrong intelligence, shouldn’t the authorities tender an unreserved apology and duly compensate him for the 14 days of official intimidation and vain power show?

    In this matter, silence is not golden. Today, it is Segun Olatunji. With this conspiracy of loud silence, it could be another innocent citizen tomorrow if we allow this banditry mentality to thrive under this democracy of ours. And so, we ask again, who will take full responsibility for the abduction of citizen Segun Olatunji? After rummaging through his phones without a court order and without his permission, and after turning his house upside down, is his life safe amidst this criminal silence by the state?

  • Random musings…

    Random musings…

    In the past two weeks or so, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has, in speech and action, shown Nigerians, at least those who have not completely lost hope in his administration,  something to cheer about. He is beginning to walk the talk of a man who is genuinely serious about changing the narrative that the country cannot continue to swallow the undisguised insults as the tragic capital of bad governance blessed with the highest gathering of incompetent leadership in the grip of power. For, if we must say the truth, the slow start by the Tinubu administration in the last ten months have raised deeper frustrating questions than soothing answers as regards its policy objectives. Of course, this is not helped by an economy that daily takes staple foods off the tables of the poor and the middle class. We do not need to regurgitate how it all started with the President’s declaration, shortly after taking the oath of office, that the hydra-headed monster called fuel subsidy, which is a euphemism for official larcenies and the callous rape of the national treasury at the highest level, would no longer exist. Commendable as the move was, it became obvious that not much had been put in place to ameliorate the projected spiraling effects of such a bold move.  And so, instead of getting plaudits for his first state policy directive, what Tinubu got and still continues to get is a harvest of critical umbrage. And that was not helped by the fact that every average family in the country is now left to devise a means of surviving the hard pummeling by an economy that seems to be in a haste to enter into a recession. It was one hell of a journey for a government whose trajectory into Aso Rock was without its history of bitter struggles with rival politicians baying for its blood while, in words and action, indicating that they who would stop at nothing to pull it down.

    Ten months on, can one say the Tinubu government is now getting its mojo?  Well, maybe the sparks that we are seeing in the last few weeks are pointers to what is to come. Maybe not. But one thing is clear, the narratives and optics are quite encouraging. We were here when the exchange rate was playing a yoyo game at the detriment of our currency and prices of items became unbearable for many. And we are also here now that the naira is regaining its strength and some form of monetary stability is being firmed up by the Central Bank of Nigeria. But then, the question remains: how would all these sparks impact positively on people’s lives? And that is where the ubiquitous slang called the Nigerian Factor comes in. When prices go up in Nigeria, history has taught us that they hardly come down when every economic indices point to the   fact that they should naturally reflect the global practice. That is why, for example, I find it curious that even the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) didn’t waste time in debunking the rumour that it has reduced the prices of petroleum products following the impressive gains the naira has made against the dollar. Why did I find it shocking? It is simply because it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever that agencies of government that are expected to comply with simple economic flows are the ones lagging behind and thereby making it easy for those in the private sector to continue raping the populace in this unregulated mercantilist economy. It is for the same reason that the Nigeria Customs Service would refuse to comply with the CBN’s directive to adjust its charges for cargo clearance at the various ports in accordance with the prevailing exchange rate. Yet, the Customs was more than willing in its haste to increase the same charge some weeks ago. Like a friend of mine who is into the import and export business at the Tin Can Port in Lagos puts it, the impunity with which the NCS ignored the directives of the CBN should be a cause for concern for anyone who has the interest of the Tinubu administration at heart. He said: “The Nigeria Customs Service is still charging us N1405 to a dollar for cargo clearance on a day when the naira has strengthened to less than N1300. They were quick to increase the rates but slow in reducing it. The rate is even higher than that of the black market! When the rate was jumping, they were changing it every day on their site. Now the rate has dropped and, suddenly, they are not effective anymore.”

    Why are we always the architects of all the self-inflicted wounds in policy and politics? Do we even know the damage this attitude has on the image of the country and how it trickles down the socio-economic train? If these key agencies cannot adjust to simple stuffs like the ones enunciated above, where would the government have the moral fibre to wield the big stick on the private sector’s mercantilist draining the system? Do we even have an effective price regulatory system in place? It is rather unfortunate that both regulatory agencies and the appendages tend to sleep on their arms in moments of national emergencies. Let me ask, what exactly would the NNPCL have lost if it had adjusted the prices of its products to align with the exchange realities in the last week or so? Rather than inspire the public’s confidence, the statement issued by the oil oligarch and signed by its Chief Communications Officer, Mr. Olufemi Soneye, was verbose on sophistry and dry on pungent information dissemination aside the intensity with which it vehemently deny the rumour of downward price adjustments. The statement reads: “The Company asserts that these reports are false and urges Nigerians to disregard them entirely. NNPC Limited reaffirms its commitment to sustaining the current sufficiency in petroleum products supply across all its retail stations in the country.” As we normally ask in my hood, na dat one we dey talk? Do we then take it to heart that the NNPCL also subscribes wholeheartedly to the maxim out there that whatever goes up in prices in Nigeria hardly comes down? If an oil giant like the NNPCL can engage in a maradonic tactic to shirk this simple responsibility of pandering to the dictates of economic flexibility, where do we then turn to for a reassurance that things can surely turn better without us needing to flex some muscles in a bid to arm twist the government to walk its talk?

    Talking about good news coming from the Presidency, I cannot fail to notice that, in line with his promise to revamp the economy for the collective good, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has raised two critical teams with a mandate to monitor and evaluate key economic policies of the government. On the surface, I had assumed that it was one of those needless efforts whereby jobs are just distributed to the boys as part of the largesse of political patronage. But a closer scrutiny shows that, with Tinubu chairing the 31-member Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC) and the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Olawale Edun, heading the Economic Management Team Emergency Taskforce (EET), Nigerians may be in for a pleasant shocker. This could be indicative of the fact that, after months of peripheral gestures that had yielded little or nothing, Asiwaju Tinubu is now more than determined to sit his bum down and take a firm grip of the nation’s affairs. One can only hope that the President, as an active participant in such teams,  is fed with timely reports and accurate information on the progress of the economy. What this means is that rather than being told the pleasurable news that he would want to hear as feedback from his aides, the President should be told the crying truth about the harsh realities out there. For example, the optics may be encouraging signs to those in power. But, down the street, Nigerians are not laughing yet. The suffering still continues as those saddled with the responsibility of providing electricity do nothing other than dishing to the hapless citizens palates of darkness daily! Telling the President the absolute, uncomfortable truth with real data is the only way meaningful success can be recorded and the right adjustments can be carried out in affected areas. Already, the public’s eyes are on the two teams and, sooner rather than later, the activities of the members would be put under the searchlight.

    On a good note, let me also acknowledge the maturity and controlled calmness employed by the President in handling the murder of 17 officers of the Nigerian Army in Okuama, Delta State by yet-to-be arrested gun-toting thugs. Nothing could justify the beastly callousness with which these heroes were sent to their early graves and the leadership of the Army is justified in seeking revenge. It is the height of disrespect for anyone to turn the gun against the men and women who had sworn to sacrifice their lives to protect that of the citizens. Personally, I am shocked at the audacity and the brazenness exhibited by those criminals. Be that as it may, kudos must go to the President for avoiding a repeat of the Odi and Zaki Biam bloody massacre in Okuama and the other community in Ohoro forest where six police officers were allegedly ambushed and killed while six other officers remain missing as I write this.

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    Sometimes, you wonder how we regress to this level of bestiality where youth that should still be under the tutelage of village elders would be the ones barring arms and killing recklessly. Those living in these communities should thank their stars that a lot of a restraint has been employed by the authorities in handling this matter, despite the unmitigated provocation. That the security agencies affected had maintained discipline and toed the line of the law shouldn’t be taken for granted. The Army and the Police do have the capacity any day to get their own pound of flesh. But without the approval of the Commander-In-Chief in a democratic setting, what could they have done? It takes a lot of discipline to remain calm, cool and collected amid the provocation. The security agencies deserve all the honour and respect.

    It is an irony that, in the search for peace in the creeks of Delta State, our gallant officers ended up paying the supreme price in a most despicable manner. And, in spite of the rewards for gallantry as announced by the President and Commander-In-Chief on Wednesday during the heroic burial of the 17 slain solders, it should count for something that the President said the ultimate desire is to ensure that they get justice in accordance with the laws of the land and that the cowards, who perpetrated the act and are now hiding in the creeks, would be fished out to have their days in a court of competent jurisdiction. It is soothing that, aside the national honours bestowed on the fallen soldiers, their families left behind would benefit from the gifts of houses and scholarships to the children. As the nation mourns, we wait for the day when the killers of our brave and courageous officers would be officially sentenced to gnash their teeth in hades! When this is done, maybe the other repugnant irritants toying with the idea of wasting our officers would think twice before embarking on such foolish ventures. Well, that’s my wish anyway. May Nigeria succeed.

  • Of culpable lawmakers and Senate’s banana peel (II)

    Of culpable lawmakers and Senate’s banana peel (II)

    Unless we want to live in perpetual denial, we all know that there are fundamental problems with our budgets’ clearing mechanisms. Where Nigerians had expected the National Assembly to wield the big stick and stop the excesses of the executive, what they get yearly is an annual budget stuffed with all manners of sub-heads that often take care of the interests of members of the legislative arm. This was the reason why former president Umar Yar’Adua threatened to take the National Assembly to court over budget padding which they normally force down the throat of the leader to sign and complain later. It happened under Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan and even Muhammadu Buhari. It is repeating itself under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. At least, we have all agreed that the 2024 Budget, as signed, was padded with nothing less than N1.2 trillion and not N3.7 trillion as alleged by Ningi. Is that how things should be? Can’t the lawmakers, for once, save itself from this national shame of self-aggrandizement whilst on national duty?

    The truth is that Jarigbe was dead right when he said, if they were to throw a searchlight on the financial discontent in the National Assembly, all the lawmakers would be found to be culpable as active participants in the bleeding of the nation. Shrouding their dealings in secrecy hasn’t in any way helped in fixing the problem. Ningi asked Akpabio a direct question in the chambers and the Senate President quickly dodged the bullet. He knew that an attempt to answer the question would put him in further trouble. What was the question? Mr. Senate President, we are all entitled to five legislative aides, how many aides do you have working for you presently? Simple as this question may sound, it is a loaded one. It is one of the most guarded secrets in the hallowed chambers. Let us just say that core leaders in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have a coterie of aides serving at their pleasure. It is left for the nation to decide whether this does not constitute a huge drain pipe in the allocations of a legislative body that takes its allocations from the Direct Line Charge without any obligation to give details on how it spends the money. What kind of budgetary system is that?

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    If I were Akpabio, I would begin to tread softly and be wary of the famed banana peels’ allegory in the National Assembly. Many had been consumed in the past and others took over their seats with rapturous felicity. And so, let Akpabio think deeply as regards these statements by Ningi: “We discovered, some senatorial districts in these documents have up to N120 billion and my senatorial district has just N1.2 billion. Mr President, in this budget presented to you, I have facts, constituency by constituency. Some N120 billion, some N50 billion; some N30 billion. Some have less than N1 billion. Mr President, as I speak to you, I don’t know your take-home pay, you know my own. I don’t know the take-home pay of any of the other principal officers. My President, I know within budgetary provisions, you made available funds for purchase of cars. Mr President, I don’t know how much you made for your cars and that of your principal officers. I know how much was made for individual senator’s cars. As I speak to you, people are calling me names, I didn’t receive a single car.” You needed to see Akpabio’s countenance as Ningi reeled out those figures. He was numbed into unconsciousness.

    Those nuggets offered by Ningi are banana peels that could ultimately lead to the ‘civilian coup’ that Opeyemi said he assumed was the ultimate goal of Ningi and his northern friends. Let no one bank on it that it is a northern agenda. When the lawmakers start getting uncomfortable with the revelations that some senators are living large and getting fed while they can hardly impact lives in their communities, the geo-political zone where the first shot would be fired becomes irrelevant. That is how the banana peels principle works and the leadership ought to be properly guided.

    It is clear that Ningi’s suspension cannot put an end to the discourse despite Senator Solomon Adeola’s yeoman’s defence that nothing was wrong with the packaging of the budget as the faults identified by Ningi were traceable to the fact that “Ningi and his consultants did not take into account that the budgets of some bodies are not captured in the summary of the Appropriation Act as passed.” Until such a time when everything is put out in black and white for the general public to dissect without the vicious maneuverings, Nigerians will never have a belief that what goes on during budget defence in the National Assembly is not transactional in nature.

    As far back as 2017, Obasanjo called for a thorough investigation of a budget padding scandal in the National Assembly. He said: “Budget padding must not go unpunished. It is a rarity which is a regular and systemic practice. Nobody should throw wool over the faces of Nigerians. Ganging up and intimidating the lives of whistleblowers is deplorable and undemocratic. What of the so-called constituency projects which is a veritable source of corruption. These constituency projects are spread over the budgets for members of the National Assembly for which they are the initiator and the contractor directly or by proxy and money would be fully drawn with the projects only partially executed or not executed at all. The National Assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system.”

    That was in 2017 when Obasanjo said the mouths of the lawmakers were stuffed with “rottenness and corruption” as they go home with millions of naira in the ‘DEN OF CORRUPTION’ manned “by a gang of unarmed robbers.” What would Obasanjo say today when senators declare, with their full chests, that they allocate billions of naira to themselves and even get N500m for some privileged members as constituency projects’ funds? Has anything changed? Can anything change with Ningi’s suspension?

  • Of culpable lawmakers and Senate’s banana peel (1)

    Of culpable lawmakers and Senate’s banana peel (1)

    The Nigerian Senate which houses 109 self-styled ‘distinguished’ senators was at its dramatic best last Tuesday in Abuja. At the end of plenary that day, the action and inaction that played out during that special session of self-interrogation merely gives credence to the general suspicion that the National Assembly is a safe haven for those who superintend over the criminal pillage of our national patrimony. It also explains why they do such with irreverent disrespect for the millions of Nigerians that are daily being deprived of humane existence in a country flowing with milk and honey. It exposes another level of banditry and audacious abductions of our collective inheritance by those whose sole mandate, as guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution as emended, is to make laws for the good governance of the people—a people suffocating under the intense pummeling by the harsh realities of quotidian living. Unfortunately, it gives a discomfiting credibility to the narrative that Nigeria seems to enjoy a warm embrace with self-deceit and grandiose ululation. Whilst the senators immerse themselves in a deceitful nay adulatory aplomb of having succeeded in suspending Senator Abdul Ningi, who had attempted to impugn their integrity by alluding to a padded 2024 budget, the fallouts from that session paint a grim picture of a cultic band of systemic looters in the hallowed chambers regardless of the pretensions and impetuous braggadocio on display.

    Like many have pointed out in the past, as long as the National Assembly bureaucracy and the over 460 lawmakers continue to treat issues of full financial disclosures as a top secret item, the general public will not relent in throwing shades at them and a big question mark will forever hang on their true intentions in politics. That should be clear to them by now. And it is exactly for this reason that many are surprised that they didn’t seize the opportunity presented by the Ningi budget padding claim scandal to, at least, address the lingering matter of financial recklessness and legislative malfeasance even when the matter was raised by one of them, Senator Jarigbe Jarigbe of the Peoples Democratic Party, Cross River State. For those of them celebrating the suspension of Ningi as some sort of victory and the restoration of the intrinsic values and ethos that should ordinarily define a gathering of dedicated lawmakers who have decided to sacrifice precious time and resources to the advancement of the general populace, I can only wish them a quick recovery from what can best be described as hollow triumphalism. The conversations have since moved from the ‘Ningi bombs’ to something deeper. While no one can deny the fact that Ningi’s revelations, disjointed as they were, set the template for the discourse on the crying loopholes and the multiple gaping holes deliberately left for those involved to use as avenues for larcenies and rape of the national till, Jarigbe’s Freudian slip while attempting to justify Ningi’s angst against the leadership of the National Assembly, no doubt, gives fillip to the fact that legislative heist, rather than reduce, has taken a life of its own. Listen to Jarigbe: “If we want to go into this issue, all of us are culpable. Some senators here, so-called senior senators, got N500 million each. I am a ranking senator. I didn’t get. Did I go to the press? We don’t have to go into those issues.”

    If the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, had succeeded in muting Jarigbe’s microphone before he unleashed that bombshell, we wouldn’t have known how deep the animosities are within the ranks and file. This writer was privileged to have watched that particular proceedings live and he couldn’t help but notice the derisiveness with which he spewed out the words. Of course, he knew that the session was being covered live by various media houses and his statement that he never bothered to go to the press even after Ningi confirmed that he was a beneficiary of the uncommon largess was a clever attempt to drill the final nail on the coffin. It was also a way of sending a signal to the press that what was on the table was bigger than Ningi’s allegation of N3.7 trillion budget padding claim. It was more about how those who consider themselves privileged either due to their positions as leaders in the red chamber or as ranking senators having spent more than the initial four-year tenure; use the opportunity to allocate humongous figures to their constituencies via the budget’s transitioning process in the National Assembly. In the lay man’s language, sans the diplomatese, what Jarigbe has done was to confirm the general belief by discerning Nigerians that the lawmakers do nothing other than pad the annual budgets with the connivance of the executive after which the budget is deemed ready to be signed into law. It is the annual ritual that has taken Nigeria to nowhere since May 29, 1999. This unholy alliance continues to yield failed promises and dashed hopes in the nation’s quest for national growth and development.

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    Although the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, made spirited efforts to douse the tension that was already brewing after Jarigbe’s revelations, his defence was, at best, laughable and did little or nothing to the reputational deficit that has been the lot of the lawmakers from time immemorial. While I understand Bamidele’s brazen resort to emotional blackmail in insisting that Ningi’s ultimate goal was to ensure that Akpabio was disgraced out of office in less than a year in the saddle, I find it jejune and unconscionable that he would rather wave off such a serious allegation by an equally ranking senator with a tendentious excuse that, “but we have 12 months to implement this budget and see whether any of these senators will not implement boreholes, enough solar street lights, road construction, training and empowerment that will not be up to N500m.” It is bad enough that, at a period when Nigerians are groaning under severe hunger and untold hardship with the constant plea by the government for them to make further sacrifice before the economy can pick up, their representatives in high places do nothing other than lay siege on budgetary allocations and rape it callously. The last time I checked, each lawmaker was entitled to N100m for constituency projects. We were also told that while they could decide on what projects to locate in those constituencies and ensure the delivery, they would not participate in picking the contractors or get involved in the financial dealings regarding the projects. And since it was agreed that each member would have an equal share of N100m each, how and when did the lawmakers agree that some heads deserve more projects in their constituencies than the others anyway? How did this anomaly transform into the norm in the National Assembly as being espoused by Senators Ali Ndume and Eyinnaya Abaribe in different interviews on the matter during the week?

    The leadership of the Senate and the bureaucracy would be making a grave mistake if they think that the germane questions raised by Ningi and Jarigbe had been dealt fatal blows with the expeditious, albeit illegal, three-month suspension clamped on Ningi and the obvious hushed command that was whisked at the direction of Jarigbe. The fact is that it is the beginning of the problem. Some senators are watching with keen interest and they would soon start asking questions. How, for example, did some leaders and ranking senators get allocations for projects worth billions of naira in their constituencies while many others only got the usual allocations? What is special about the leadership that, for example, Akpabio was able to inject projects worth N18.5bn into the line items of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security for his Akwa Ibom North-West Constituency while Senator Gbenga Daniel of my Ogun East Constituency and a two-time governor of Ogun State to boot, could not attract such laudable projects to his constituency? Is it because he is a fresh member of the Senate and he is still learning the ropes about the dynamics and the manipulative tendencies in that place? Is it true that while some senatorial districts got allocations totaling N120bn, some others, including Ningi’s, only got N1.2bn total allocation in the same 2024 budget proposals sent to the president to sign into law? Why can’t the leadership be fair to each and every one knowing that it is presumed to be a gathering of equal members who have a mandate to deliver dividends of democracy to their people regardless of wherever they come from? How can Akpabio justify the allocation of a whopping N2.8bn for the purchase of deep freezers for women in Akwa Ibom North-West Constituency when his colleagues cannot even get allocations to buy farm tools for their suffering constituents? Is that how to be distinguished?

    …to be continued next week

  • Benjamin Kalu: Fiscal accountability and need for lawmakers to sacrifice (II)

    Benjamin Kalu: Fiscal accountability and need for lawmakers to sacrifice (II)

    In periods like this, businesses boom in Abuja especially for those operating at the various black markets where dollars is the transactional currency. It is also a yearly ritual. And there is no indication that this has stopped anyway.

    Of course, there were occasions where some lawmakers had fallen short of the secret code and they were squirreled out as scape goats. But the question is: has that stopped anything? Does the fact that one of them was caught in a sting operation asking for millions of dollars to cover up an alleged oil theft case mean that others are not engaged in acts of economic sabotage from their privileged position? No. If these guys could, with brazen giggle, ignore Nigerians’ admonition that it was unpatriotic for them to collect multi-million naira SUVs when they could have gone for made in Nigeria cars to boost the local economy, then they could do anything as long as it would satisfy personal desires to acquire more and more. The good thing is that none of them is being sanctimonious or pretentious in this drive. Money is good. And access to government money is even sweeter. That is why it is not surprising that they became one big political family immediately issues of personal logistics sent directly to ‘mailboxes’ are mentioned. Isn’t it funny how these guys take an entire nation for a joke?

    By the way, it is absolutely untrue that what the National Assembly takes from the annual budget couldn’t take it home. That is a white lie and it is deceptive. Since 1999 up till the present moment, the National Assembly has creamed off trillions of naira as allocations. Eyebrows would not have been raised if the lawmakers had spent most of the time drafting laws that would force the executive arm to sit on their butts and truly change the narrative of perennially fallen short of the people’s expectations.  Instead, the opposite is the case. They are simply feeding fat and maximizing the benefits in that office for their personal peccadilloes while, occasionally, throwing crumbs to the people through so-called constituency interventions. How has that elevated the mass poverty and atrocious hunger in the land? When you ’empower’ gullible people with tools that can hardly fetch them a take home pay, is that not another way of spreading mass poverty with plastic laughter? The other day, we read about how lawmakers empower some ‘lucky’ constituents with wheelbarrows and other ancient stuffs. It’s not even funny again.

    A May 18, 2015 report published in Premium Times and written by Ibanga Isine exposed the hidden wealth in the National Assembly and the money gets spent lavishly. According to that publication, the N130bn allocation to the National Assembly that year, after the leadership was cajoled to take a N20bn cut, “still outweighs the individual budgets of 19 states in Nigeria. The report further states that: “Only 17 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory Administration have budgets that are equal to, or above that of the National Assembly. The federal legislature consisting of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the National Assembly Service Commission and the Legislative Institute of Nigeria; has just over 2,000 persons. The National Assembly has 469 members in addition to legislative aides and other support staff which are less than 1, 600 persons. On the contrary, every state of the Federation has the full complements of the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, a robust civil service, and of course millions of citizens to care for. Some of the states with smaller budgets include Ebonyi (N80 billion), Yobe (N80.6 billion) Niger (80.8 billion), Ekiti (N80.9 billion), Gombe (N86. 8 billion), Zamfara (N92.8 billion), and Enugu (N96.7 billion). Others are Taraba, Benue, Jigawa and Adamawa. (See full list below). Currently, the national lawmakers have been found to be paying themselves salaries and allowances outside the recommendations of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC. A former RMAFC’s Chairman, Hamman Tukur, had publicly accused the legislators of paying themselves illegal salaries and allowances.”

    That was in 2015 when Dr. Bukola Saraki ‘obtained’ the seat of the President of the Senate. Today, the same National Assembly with almost the same faces and serial legislators not only increased the 2024 budget from N27. 5 trillion presented by President Bola Tinubu with about N1.2 trillion, its leadership in its wisdom raised its budgetary allocation by a whopping 74.23 percent and therefore plans to spend N344.85bn! By the way, findings show that this allocation “will be the highest-ever allocation to the National Assembly whose initial allocation in the 2024 budget proposal was pegged at N197.93bn.” So, what else is there to say again? If you ask Kalu to come clean with the actual figure in personal salary and allowance accruable to each lawmaker, he would probably dribble round that question and feign ignorance of Tukur’s allegation. Yet, this is the same National Assembly which, like other elected officials, appointees and judicial officers got a 114 percentage salary increase as recommended by the RMAFC if the President had not refused to sign it into law. It is the same National Assembly that parades lawmakers as contractors of government projects including constituency projects. The same National Assembly whose members shortchange their aides and deny them of certain perks and perquisites spelt out in black and white in the letters of appointments. The same National Assembly whose members get allocated land in choice areas every four years. The same National Assembly whose members cash out whilst on routine oversight visits. What exactly has changed that the budgetary allocation skyrocketed to N334bn in a year when the government is spiritedly urging Nigerians to open another hole in their serially-abused economic belt-tightening strategy?

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    Indeed, the call for less opacity and more fiscal responsibility at the National Assembly extends beyond mere salary cuts. It encompasses a broader demand for transparency in budgetary allocations and expenditure. The staggering increase in the National Assembly’s budget allocation from N125 billion in past years to N334 billion in 2024 raises eyebrows – particularly at a time when the government emphasizes austerity measures and economic belt-tightening. While Kalu dismisses calls for salary cuts as impractical, many Nigerians view it as a necessary step towards fostering accountability and fiscal prudence. The sacrifice demanded of the electorate amidst economic hardships must be reciprocated by elected representatives who should lead by example. The urgency for reform within the National Assembly cannot be overstated. It requires a concerted effort to dismantle entrenched systems of patronage and cronyism, replacing them with a framework grounded in transparency, accountability, and public service. Lawmakers must heed the calls for self-abnegation and demonstrate a genuine commitment to the welfare of their constituents.

    In conclusion, the discourse surrounding lawmakers’ compensation goes beyond mere financial considerations. It speaks to the fundamental principles of governance, accountability, and ethical leadership. As Nigerians navigate through the complexities of economic challenges, they rightfully demand transparency and accountability from their elected representatives. It is incumbent upon lawmakers to heed these calls and embark on a path towards genuine reform and national renewal. Since we have all agreed that the country is bleeding and a lot of sacrifices would have to be done in a bid to heal it, shouldn’t those feeding fat on it over the years bring something tangible to the table of recompense? Or would this singular gesture of self-abnegation impoverish our distinguished and honourable representatives?

  • Benjamin Kalu: Fiscal accountability and need for lawmakers to sacrifice

    Benjamin Kalu: Fiscal accountability and need for lawmakers to sacrifice

    • By Yomi Odunuga

    The recent statements made by the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu, have ignited a crucial debate regarding the perceived financial privileges of lawmakers in Nigeria. In a televised interview on Channels Television, Kalu vehemently opposed the widespread notion that legislators are solely motivated by financial gain within the hallowed chambers. He argued that the prevailing assumptions regarding lawmakers’ extravagant salaries and allowances are grossly exaggerated and fail to capture the realities faced by elected representatives in the two chambers of the National Assembly.

    Nothing could be farther from the truth in Kalu’s humble estimation. In fact, from records available to the ranking lawmaker and tested politician from Abia State, what Nigerians misconstrue as huge pay packets for the 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members are mere peanuts that shouldn’t be elevated to the level of ‘take home pay’. It is, therefore, preposterous if not exasperating for our ‘Honourable Representatives’ and ‘Distinguished Senators’ (as they prefer to be called), that most Nigerians are calling for a slash in the salaries and allowances of these hard working lawmakers who are already sacrificing more than an arm and a leg to make laws for the good governance of Nigeria since May 29, 1999.

    Of course, trying to get the actual salaries and emoluments due to each lawmaker in the National Assembly has remained a needless task regardless of what the Freedom of Information Act stipulates; Kalu insisted that the figures flying around were ‘far cry” from what they get paid eventually. However, he was smart to make a clear distinction between ‘salary’ and ‘allowance’, another sub-head that is shrouded in utmost secrecy. Listen to him: “At the moment, talking about the salary of the National Assembly. I have said this over and again, it is not as much as people think. Salary is different from allowance, which is meant to do the jobs our constituents have sent us to do. Nobody is allowed to touch allowances. It is the salary that belongs to you. Allowances have no subheadings for which they are made for. If you use it wrongly, when you are retiring it, you will be sanctioned for that. So talking about the salaries of the National Assembly, it is a far cry from what is supposed to be. And I can assure you that even if we reduce it by 50 per cent or 80 per cent, it will not really impact what the Nigerian lawmakers should be earning, which does not go in tandem with the economic situation of the country. I can assure you that based on economic indices at the moment, inflation rate and the rest of them, the amount members of the National Assembly receive cannot actually take them home to do their jobs in their various constituencies. Considering the cost of transport, running constituency offices and the number of maintaining aides who are supposed to have you achieve what the mandate of that office demands, it is not a discussion that will add value to the crisis we are faced with. But I can assure you they will be willing to adjust. If that is what will move Nigeria to the next level, why not? After all, we did not send ourselves there. We were voted in by the constituents.”

    Kalu’s assertions shed light on the intricate complexities surrounding the opaque range of benefits for our lawmakers in the National Assembly. While acknowledging the public’s right to transparency, he emphasized the crucial distinction between ‘salaries’ and ‘allowances’, underscoring their intended purpose in facilitating lawmakers’ constituency obligations. He stressed that allowances are strictly designated for specific duties and any misuse would result in disciplinary measures. However, he lamented the pervasive misconception that lawmakers’ earnings are excessive, highlighting the inadequacy of their compensation in light of economic factors such as inflation and rising living costs.

    Yet, amidst Kalu’s defense lies a deeper concern regarding accountability and transparency within the legislative process. The opacity surrounding the allocation and utilization of funds within the National Assembly has long been a subject of scrutiny and public outcry. When concerned Nigerians raise eyebrows about the incredulously huge financial allocations to the National Assembly yearly and the lack of transparency in the disbursements of the funds, it is not because they anticipate that lawmakers should live a Spartan life and get impoverished on the job.

    Perish that thought. No one in his right senses would expect our distinguished and honourable patriots to live like paupers. It is just that people are concerned because the business of lawmaking is often jeopardized at the behest of a seeming financial inducement and lack of transparency. Nigerians begin to see their lawmakers’ larger-than-life posture immediately  they get sworn-in and they hardly see or experience their legislative interventions impacting quotidian living. Over the years, Nigerians observe a strange romance between our federal legislators and the executive arm and perceive a symbiotic relationship that tends to give aplomb to executive recklessness in policy initiatives. For instance, it is public secret that many of the so=called ‘oversight’ visits to various parastatals as well as summons of ministers and government agencies are sometimes more about legislators’ interests than anything else

    When citizens demand accountability from their representatives at the National Assembly, they get fed with the same excuse that what the National Assembly takes annually from the budget is an abysmal five percent which is used to service the needs of the lawmakers as well as a bloated bureaucracy. Oftentimes, the NASS leadership gives the impression that the funding was so infinitesimal that important business of lawmaking even gets badly hampered with lawmakers just scraping by and, by so doing, making a huge sacrifice in other to make Nigeria great. The ‘sacrifice’ being made by our ‘Honourable members’ and ‘Distinguished Senators’ include cruising around in brand new vehicles costing far above N100m each, or more than N50 billion collectively.

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    But, I ask, when Kalu says salaries and allowances are hardly enough to fund the enormous tasks before each lawmaker, what exactly does he mean? When he says that the paltry allocations have also been drastically affected by economic indices like inflation and hikes in prices of goods and services, does he think that a little cut in such allocations would be tantamount to asking our pampered legislators to embrace self-immolation? Has he done a mental calculation of what would be saved by the system if, for example, the lawmakers decide to cut down their monthly expenses by 20 percent? If not, how did he know that  a 50 or 80  percent cut would not significantly boost the economy or cut down the waste that everyone sees daily on display with the affluent lifestyles of his colleagues? In any case, how does this illogic sound in the conscience of any lawmaker who truly has the wellbeing of the people at the core of his presence in the hallowed chambers? In a situation where the vast majority of an impoverished populace (the electorate) is being asked to make huge sacrifice and suffer through the drill of an unbelievable economic quagmire, how can an elected and privileged officer of the state flippantly wave off a suggestion that the sickening profligacy daily on exhibition in the National Assembly should stop? And let no one pretend here that Nigerians are merely talking about salaries and allowances when they ask for a change in how billions of naira are being frittered away annually in the National Assembly. No, it is much more than that. A system that lacks transparency like ours is open to excessive abuse and the National Assembly is not any different. Right from inception, the issue of budget padding with the active connivance of the executive has not abated. If anything, it has been firmed up in such a way that the under-the-table dealings have ripped Nigeria off. That is why the budget bleeds despite the pretentious rounds of budget defence by Ministries, Departments and Agencies. In the past, a sense of seriousness and professionalism were accorded these budget defence sittings because they were held in the open and reporters were allowed to cover the sessions. Today, that narrative has changed drastically. Agreements are now reached in conclaves attended by heads of these MDAs and chairmen of the committees concerned in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. What then follows is a cosmetic gathering of like minds with all the melodrama playing out for the cameras.

  • Our bottomless pit of heists

    Our bottomless pit of heists

    Is there truly anything novel left to articulate about the pervasive corruption saturating our nation that could still jolt any Nigerian? I dare to question. Save for those domiciled in the diaspora or those who purposefully cloak themselves in ignorance, shielding their ears and eyes from the ceaseless tales of gargantuan thefts unfolding daily in Nigeria, there seems scant new ground to tread. Even dating back to the days when it was in vogue to discuss the wholesale embezzlement of funds within ministries, departments, and agencies, it is universally acknowledged that the discourse has shifted. It has morphed from the transport of slush funds overseas to an entrenched pattern of pillage and despoliation, a veritable rape of the national treasury orchestrated by a consortium of power-wielding figures and their shadowy counterparts. What we confront is a swarm of ravenous, unscrupulous locusts – individuals poised with bated breath, for the chance to sink their fangs into the vaults of our endangered national economy.

    As the weakened coffers teeter under the ceaselessly innovative and rapacious onslaught of this cadre of greedy plunderers, the looting of our country’s riches persists, adapting and morphing in form, scope, and targets with each passing government, heedless of the yearnings of well-intentioned citizens for good governance and a corruption-free society. The singular focus of these voracious few remains fixated on the urgent craving to ‘make it big’ the moment one is beckoned to ‘come and partake’ (as the politicians of yesteryears would jest) in any government position.

    On another plane, it appears that all enduring safeguards, which have nurtured other democracies into their current form, either falter here or are rendered impotent by corruption. Criminal enterprises, particularly white-collar crimes, are exhibited with breathtaking ingenuity. The concept of checks and balances, even when powers are ostensibly separated, becomes compromised, existing merely in theory. Such checks are nonexistent in our version of democracy, where a handful of buccaneers, spanning the executive, legislature, and to some extent, the judiciary, coalesce to raid the national coffers and shatter the national dream. When they engage in petty squabbles, brandishing threats of fire and brimstone, it’s largely a theatrical performance for the cameras. They understand that the impoverished populace revels in the spectacle, oblivious to the hollow nature of the theatrics, perpetually longing for a semblance of earnestness.

    Since May 29, 1999, when this grandiose spectacle commenced its convoluted narrative under civilian rule, nothing substantial has shifted. And it is abundantly clear that nothing will change as long as the subjugated citizenry continues to condone the malaise and sheer buffoonery unfolding before their eyes. Why do I make such a claim? Allow me to elucidate.

    Beyond the sporadic cameo appearances and star-studded media trials of alleged kleptocrats, cunning tax evaders, and billionaire plunderers, can we honestly assert that Nigeria is making headway in the fight against corruption? We once believed that nothing could surpass the plunder of our commonwealth under the watch of General Sani Abacha, whose singular heist continues to stupefy even those born long after his demise on June 8, 1998. Yet, we may have erred in that assumption, particularly when not a single former leader, deceased or alive, has been indicted for corruption. While all these former leaders departed office enriched, only a handful of their loyal lieutenants have faced scrutiny, indictment, or trial for dipping their filthy hands into the public coffers with the intent of illicit self-enrichment.

    For example, three ministers – Chief Sunday Afolabi, Mahmud Shata, and Husseini  Akwanga were once charged with corruption offenses relating to a multi-million dollar contract awarded to a French firm, Sagem SA. These ministers, along with a former National Secretary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo, and a former Permanent Secretary in the Interior Ministry, Turrie Akerele, were accused of accepting hefty bribes to facilitate the $214 million contract for the execution of the national identity card project. Later, during his second tenure, President Obasanjo made a public spectacle of his resolve to combat corruption when he, in a national broadcast, sacked the Minister of Education, Fabian Osuji, for allegedly bribing lawmakers with over $400,000 to expedite the passage of that year’s budget without scrutiny. Although Obasanjo claimed the money had been recovered from the implicated lawmakers, including the then Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, he lamented that their actions not only “violated all known norms of good governance, progressive leadership, integrity, and credibility” but also risked undermining Nigeria’s plea for a $35 billion debt relief, given the perception of rampant corruption within its legislative apparatus.

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    Some may dismiss these actions as the pot calling the kettle black. Yet, it should trouble us that many years after Obasanjo’s minuscule display of anticorruption fervor, not a single blow has been dealt to the rampant corruption that continues to metastasize. There is scarcely a sector in the national economy untouched by the blight of corruption. This pervasive corruption is why the country’s security architecture flounders daily, grappling to address our nation’s security challenges, despite the resolute vote of confidence it receives from an equally corrupt and patronizing legislature, more focused on securing a larger slice of the annual budget than holding itself accountable for its ineptitude and failures.

    How can they hold themselves accountable when they know the charade they engage in during scheduled and unscheduled oversight visits to various MDAs and closed-door budget defense sessions? Years after Obasanjo’s broad indictment of the entire National Assembly for corruption, leading to a change in leadership, has anyone endeavoured to alter the narrative? Is it not even more dire in the state assemblies, where lawmakers prostrate themselves as stepping stones for governors to trample upon at will? Is this not why, despite the increase in revenue allocation following the removal of fuel subsidies, state governors continue to line their pockets with lucre while citizens languish in poverty? Which lawmaker has deemed it a key duty to summon state chief executives to account for their stewardship in the past decade? I struggle to recall even one.

    The crux of the matter is that we will continue to bear witness to ever more staggering instances of corruption as long as we turn a blind eye to institutional malfeasance or fail to penalize proven cases. Just this Wednesday, a former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was handed a one-year sentence with a six-month suspended sentence for “illegally funding his 2012 re-election campaign.” While Sarkozy maintains his innocence, an appeal court in Paris upheld a lower court’s judgment that he had indeed enlisted a PR firm to conceal the excess funding lavished on extravagant campaign rallies and events. His UMP party had reportedly doubled the 22.5 million euros (money that is just used as occasional gift to Oga’s wife here) cap approved for the presidential campaign. For this, he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, later reduced to six months on appeal, pending confirmation by France’s highest court, potentially subjecting him to electronic monitoring, community service, or a fine. Such is the operation of justice in other climes.

    Here in Nigeria, cases involving politically exposed persons accused of siphoning millions of dollars for personal use are either dismissed for “lack of diligent prosecution” or shelved when the Attorney General submits a Nolle Prosequi, effectively halting the trial. There are even instances where the accused secure perpetual injunctions against prosecution for corruption by any federal, state, or government agencies empowered to carry out such responsibilities. Before long, society bestows chieftaincy titles and national honours upon these sons and daughters who, oftentimes, resort to plea bargains, where the culprits return an agreed sum to the national treasury and walk away with their ill-gotten gains. What an ingenious approach to combating corruption.

    As ludicrous as it may sound, no one can definitively state whether the billions of dollars recovered from the Abacha loot were utilized as intended. What is known is that a portion of the funds was either re-looted or distributed among a select few in government circles at some point. Tales abound of recovered funds from these unscrupulous individuals, including the sale of properties worth millions of dollars. Some were purportedly sold, while others were allocated to government agencies for use as office spaces.

    Yet, concerns linger regarding the manner in which these properties were disposed, amidst whispers of backdoor deals and underhand transactions. To this day, no comprehensive records exist detailing the properties sold or allocated to specific persons or agencies. The relentless rumor mill churns out a myriad of speculations concerning clandestine arrangements in the disposal of these assets, including luxury vehicles and more.

    In Abuja, on Tuesday, an audit report submitted to the National Assembly by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (OAuGF) provided a stark illustration of the extent of decay within our institutions. The report unequivocally stated that the Central Bank of Nigeria failed to furnish records of funds recovered between 2016 and 2019, despite that period coinciding with the time when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) were proudly announcing the recovery of millions of dollars from alleged economic saboteurs nationwide. This was also a time when images of opulent structures seized from politicians, dubious contractors, and indicted civil servants were circulated, followed by court orders forfeiting these properties to the Federal Government. Given the ostensible incorruptibility of President Muhammadu Buhari, one would have scarcely imagined that institutions such as the CBN would flounder in their duty to account for these funds. How did this lapse occur, and what steps can lawmakers take to rectify this egregious anomaly? Answers to these questions may elude us. It has always been the case anyway. But one thing is unmistakably clear: Nigeria’s entrenched history of official graft and the perpetrators’ escape with nominal repercussions shows no signs of abating in the foreseeable future.

    This is not a curse; it’s a chilling reality. It stares us in the face with revelations that someone purportedly received a staggering $6.2 million directly from the CBN’s coffers via a forged letter bearing none other than the signature of the President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria! It’s utterly ludicrous that the funds were purportedly meant to pay foreign election observers, who historically had been the ones supplementing our election budgets. Now, those who orchestrated this heist are likely chuckling somewhere, mocking our collective folly for perpetuating a system that has elevated corruption to a national ethos. What a disgrace.

  • Odolaye Aremu and the songs of yore…

    Odolaye Aremu and the songs of yore…

    •  Yomi Odunuga

    Growing up in Itire/Ijesha in the then Surulere Local Government Area of Lagos State did have a significant influence on the genre of music that some of us embraced. We were what you could call the street boys and the way we lived and played together in those days could hardly be replicated anywhere in this age. We were a community of different tribes bonded together by an innocent grip of a fated form of quotidian living that was never corrupted by the gated lifestyles of the middle-class inhabitants of Aguda/Ikate. Even with a crying difference in class, there was this general aura of mutual respect. As kids, we just knew about the class stratifications between the ‘ajebotas’ and the ‘ajepakos’ of Surulere. But we were happy. We were hopeful that, with determination, quality education and luck, it was only a matter of time before that gap would be bridged. Most importantly, our optimism was boosted by the kinds of musical genres that were pervasive in our neighbourhood. Here, I speak of those kinds of musical renditions that admonished us to stay by the long, arduous and narrow path to wealth and fame; that chastised the government of the day, be it military or civilian, to live by the creed and ethos of good governance; that preached against indiscipline, corruption, greed and all forms of social malaise.

    Those were the days when our indigenous bards and poets were not just doing it for the money. They were socio-political commentators who never failed in their responsibility to tell the truth to power. They sermonized about family values and the dignity of labour. They cite examples from folklores, cultures and beliefs to drum home their points. I still recall that my late father had those songs on vinyl, both small and big. In his collections were the labels in LPs by Chief Hubert Ogunde, Ayinla Omowura, King Sunny Ade, Chief Ebenezer Obey, Alhaji Ligali Mukaiba, Comfort Omoge, Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde, Alhaji Kollington Ayinla, Alhaji Wasiu Ayinde, Alhaja Salawa Abeni, Dele Abiodun, Prince Adekunle, Segun Adewale, Emperor Peters and a host of others. The lyrics of those days were not just strung together to lubricate the egos of the scattergoods of that time; but they were also compiled to mitigate the excesses in governance. Where they identified wrongs within the populace, these musicians never, for once, wavered in pointing out these things. Oftentimes, they were the barometers through which both the governed and the government do some sort of self-critiques. In extreme cases, some intolerant regimes come after these musicians to take their pound of flesh for being criticized either through innuendoes identified in their musical renditions or directly like what the late Afrobeat musical icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was known for. In fact, it was public knowledge that, under the jackboot of the military, Fela’s mum paid the supreme price when a band of ‘Unknown Soldiers’ invaded his house in Ojuelegba. Some others had other sad tales to tell.

    Why the story, you ask. Well, it just occurred to me that music still remains a potent tool through which the real feelings of the impoverished mass can be passed on to the authorities. Legendary Fuji musician, Dr. Sikiru Ayinde (Barry Wonder) was adept at doing this. In fact, one of his evergreen songs titled ‘Nigeria’ and released over 40 years ago still stands as veritable words of wisdom to those in authority today. In that record, Ayinde Barrister, as he was popularly called, dissected the contemporary issues of those days and, with the deployment of wise Yoruba sayings, admonished the government on the simple things that can be done to put smiles on the faces of the masses, especially at a time when the prices of foodstuffs and other essential items were skyrocketing at a speed faster than the average income. It was in the same record that Barrister warned the government of the day that it shouldn’t allow the country to degenerate into the gripping realities that confronted Ghanaians in the post-Kwame Nkrumah regime, when the economic turmoil forced them into becoming pitiable refugees in sister West African countries, with the attendant sufferings and dehumanization until the Captain Jerry Rawlings’ military junta imposed some sanity in the country. Of course, that sanity was not without bloody consequences. Ayinde was pleading with the leadership then to cast a retrospective glance and learn from the Ghanaian experience.

    Listening to that particular album recently easily reminds one that Nigeria’s perilous leadership ineptitude didn’t start today. Ayinde Barrister’s music, done forty years ago in its simple rendition, could as well be addressing the government of the day. His nuggets for good governance and social wellbeing were delivered with poignant appeal to the conscience of the men of power to stop feasting on the carcasses of the poor; to stop living large and frittering away the common patrimony while cajoling the citizens to tighten an economic adjustment belt that has no more hole for further readjustment. Barrister’s shekels of advice can be summarized as follows:

    “As a raconteur, I’ll rather say the truth now and damn the consequences; our politicians (the old NPN/UPN, old breeds) should expedite development action by providing uninterrupted electricity, dependable water supply in every household, healthcare that is second to none, essential education for all. The gains from the petroleum industry should be spread to every community through the provisions of infrastructure; politicians of whatever hue need to understand that we voted for them before they got into power and we were not stupid in doing that; what we expected was for things to get better and that we be taken off the poverty train; unfortunately, the reverse has been the case, rather, prices of staple food items have tripled shortly after they came into office; if we decide to keep quiet, it is not because we are dunces; we have the sense but we don’t have the power entrusted to you; so Nigerian politicians, fear God and do the right thing all the time. The world has seen princes who became slaves and we have seen someone born in abject poverty who became wealthy – just remember the last days because you shall reap what you sow!!!”

    Now, you ask, 40 years on since Barrister waxed this weighty song, has anything changed? Some people say it has been a motion without movement forty years on. But that is putting it mildly. It is worse than that. Forty years back, the heists of those days were not proudly executed in billions of dollars. That was before the likes of General Sani Abacha and a host of other military top guns perfected the idea of freighting billions of dollars from the national treasury for ‘safe keep’ in opaque bank accounts domiciled across Europe and the Americas. That was before the ones that replaced the khaki looters started using the starched agbadas to pack loads of dollars to their houses – storing proceeds of kleptocratic practices and graft in ‘safe houses’ and bank accounts in places across Abuja and the entire globe. And that was before being stupendously rich after a few years in public office became the real definition of politics – an era in which the mantra of ‘what money cannot buy, more money would definitely buy’ gains national prominence. And to them, it doesn’t matter how you get the money. Or does it?

    Interestingly, Barrister was not the only musician whose works stood out in those days. There was Mohammodu Odolaye Aremu who, according to Wikipedia, “was an Ilorin-born Dadakuada artist who sang in many Yoruba cities and recorded many albums until his death in 1997.” Though based in Ibadan, Odolaye did not restrict his musical prowess to the usual praises of notable politicians and famous people in the society; he understood perfectly that music can be used not just as socio-political commentary but also as veritable tool of admonition in a society where leaders are drunk on power and trample on the people with reckless abandon. Rather than being confrontational, Odolaye would rather take you through the many journeys of failed expectations and failed transition to greatness and genuine nationhood that Nigeria has become largely due to bad leadership. He would rather plead with those involved to turn a new leaf instead of listening to the perfidious advice offered by hypocritical hangers-on.

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    Listening to one of Odolaye’s songs about the Nigerian situation many years ago, you will hear:

    “Nigeria, and we have been instructed not to cry, yet you hit us on the head

    You hit us with a cudgel, yet you request we don’t murmur

    Humans and their hypocritical ways— they would betray you and commiserate with you at the same time

    It is in the complex traits of character that humans, as God’s creatures, possess that you will appreciate the majesty of God

    It is us, the elders, you should question, for we have come a long way in this tortuous journey

    Regarding Nigerian songs of lamentation, you should make inquiries from us

    If you want to know who has become successful in Nigeria, ask us

    The one who has the genuine intent to restructure Nigeria, ask us

    The one who wants to destroy Nigeria, ask us

    The covetous ones in Nigeria, ask us

    The greedy ones, ask us…

    To the one who arrogantly asserts, “My houses, landed properties and bank accounts are innumerable; I have stupendous wealth in this Nigeria of ours— all the power in this country belongs to me,”

    I am sorry for you. A reasonable fellow would ponder on it

    Truly, you have the wherewithal to make a lot of things happen, but you have to recall that nothing lasts forever

    Everything will come to an end

    I would always sermonize to the enemy that no one should mock another for death

    As both the hunchback and the crippled would eventually die

    The same challenges that the poor experience will be experienced by those in power

    At a point in time, when you saw a number displayed in the sky, it was believed to be written by the late Obafemi Awolowo, illustrious father of Layinka

    A redoubtable man whose vacuum is yet to be filled in the Nigerian socio-political space

    God has yet to create an entity that outlives existence

    Even before our very own eyes, the Sobi Hills grew tired and grew green grass

    The airplane gets tired and crashes

    Our leaders fall and spend more government money

    In his time, when Obafemi Awolowo fell ill, he was requested to step aside and relax

    When the minister was sick, he was impeached

    May God not allow us to fall sick, and when it happens, may it not be beyond what we can bear

    As noted earlier, if you want to know the righteous one in Nigeria, ask us

    If you want to know the compulsive liar, ask us

    The one who wants to take care of the people of Nigeria, ask us

    We are the ones who go out and about in the town

    We know the ongoings in Nigeria.”

    And, I ask, don’t we know what is happening in Nigeria today? Is the narrative changing for the better or are things becoming too hazy for our understanding? Are people not singing dirges already? And like Odolaye pointed out, has Nigeria found an answer to the perennial situation whereby it continues hitting the citizenry with cudgels while at the same time asking them not to cry? Are those in authority listening to the songs of lamentations that are eerily creeping into our national consciousness with the aim of fixing the problems? Or are they dancing to the ‘dance on, I’m watching your back’ hypocritical lullabies produced by those who arrogantly assert the infallibility of the Emperor? In times such as this, leaders cannot afford to turn deaf ears to songs like the ones above. The situation is dire such that the country’s Bureau of Statistics puts the figure of multi-dimensionally poor Nigerians at over 160 million. So, what exactly are they doing with the so-called abundant resources and human capital? Why should a country so blessed be draped in a garment of ancestral curses, treading the footpath of perfidy? Well, the Yoruba say the Agidigbo drummer carries out his craft in the best tradition of wisecracks and adages. Let the deep talk to the deep before it becomes too late.