The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Memo

  • A memo and a casualty

    A memo and a casualty

    By suspending the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, President Bola Tinubu reinforced Section 713 (under Chapter Seven) of Nigeria’s Public Sector Financial Regulation Act (2009), which seeks to prevent fraud. 

    It states: “Personal money shall in no circumstances be paid into a government bank account, nor shall any public money be paid into a private account.” It adds: “Any officer who pays public money into a private account is deemed to have done so with fraudulent intention.”

    Whether this regulation is dead or alive became an issue following a leaked memo, dated December 20, 2023, from Edu to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), saying N585.2m earmarked for vulnerable citizens in Akwa-Ibom, Cross-River, Lagos, and Ogun states be paid into “the project accountant’s details,” the United Bank for Africa (UBA) account — 2003682151— of one Oniyelu Bridget Mojisola.

    “These are payments for programmes and activities of the Renewed Hope grant for Vulnerable Groups,” Edu said in the memo, adding that the payment should be made from the National Social Investment Office account.

    Read Also; Tinubu appoints Hajj Commission Board

    Was she aware of the regulation, and that her memo amounted to a violation?  Her media aide controversially declared that “it is legal in the civil service for the project accountant to be paid and use the same funds legally and retire the same with all receipts and evidence after the project or programme is completed.” In a statement posted on her official Facebook page on January 6, Edu said claims suggesting fraud in her ministry “are baseless.”

    The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Oluwatoyin Madein, needed to clarify the situation. She explained that her office did not process the payment.  In a statement, she said Edu’s memo had “specified an individual bank account as the recipient,” but the OAGF’s response was to advise the ministry on the proper procedures for disbursing such funds according to established financial regulations.

    According to Madein, when it comes to projects and programmes implemented by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), “Bulk payments to individual accounts, even designated as ‘Project Accountant,’ are not permitted. Instead, verified individual bank accounts of programme beneficiaries must receive the allocated funds.” In other words, it was illegal to pay such beneficiaries through the private account of a so-called project accountant. She added that self-accounting MDAs, like the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, should handle such payments directly.

    No doubt, Edu’s memo was suspicious. It is noteworthy that she is also being investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in connection with the memo.  Defending herself, she stated her “commitment to transparency, accountability, and eradicating corruption.” But actions speak louder than words.

  • Memo to the President-elect

    A law teacher at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and a leading prosecutor for the Federal Government Mr Wahab Shittu writes on how President Muhammadu Buhari can bring prosperity and greatness to Nigeria in his second term.

    The Presidential and National Assembly Elections have come and gone; and the results are known (thanks to the
    electoral umpire – INEC). President Muhammadu Buhari (GCON) has been declared the official winner of the presidential election.

    Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar (GCON), his closest rival in the race, has challenged the results, informing the whole world that he intends to challenge the results in court.

    This intervention is borne out of patriotic intentions, not necessarily out of professed loyalty to the President-elect but more out of patriotic concerns for the project Nigeria.

    I had predicted before the elections that President Buhari is likely to emerge not because he is the best material available in our country, but given the circumstances, he represents the viable choice among the contending candidates largely on account of his strong moral authority and mass appeal.

    The other compelling reason is his choice of running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who like the president-elect, is incorruptible.

    In my view, the administration in the last three and half years has recorded modest achievements on anti-corruption, security and the economy. These achievements are not without numerous challenges plaguing the country presently.  This is the thrust of this intervention.

    May I recall that nearly a year ago, I wrote a piece in The Nation where I appealed to Nigerians to give President  Buhari a chance for a second term.

    My argument at the time was informed partly because of the modest achievements of his administration and more fundamentally, on account of the unity and cohesiveness of the country.

    I had argued that there are presidential materials in all the six geo-political zones of the country and if power is to return more quickly to the South, it is better to allow President Buhari exhaust the Northern slot for another four years and subsequently pave way for a Southern President to emerge.

    The reasoning is that any other northerner apart from President Buhari may have to insist on another eight-year tenure and this will delay the options available to other geopolitical zones of the country.

    This in essence was the thrust of my thesis and I am happy that the results of the recent presidential election may have vindicated my position.

    I have decided to write the president this public memo deliberately after the results of the presidential election has been announced and when it is clear to all at least, to majority of Nigerians that he is the president elect.

    The first point to make to the president elect is that the elections having been fought and won, the president elect should institutionalise a policy of no victor no vanquished believing that the real winner of the election is neither the president elect or any of the contestants but Nigeria and fundamentally, Nigerians.

    The president elect must now work the talk that he is the president of the entire country and not the president of a section of the country or a particular party or any such primordial sentiments. I look forward to see the president of Nigeria and Nigerians.

    This is very important because in the build-up to the elections, Nigerians were sharply divided with many expressing strong reservations about this administration particularly the intentions of the president elect.

    Please let me illustrate this position by several exchanges I had with some of my friends and colleagues across Nigeria on the positives and negatives of the current administration. In one of such exchanges on social media, one of the respondents (name withheld) volunteered this comment:

    I long decided not to contend with anyone. None would shift from his, or her locked-in-position. Our arguments and pontifications, no matter how true, strong or vehement would not translate into a single vote on social media; nor would it alter results favour of any particular candidate.

    I have always known that those initial unofficial results from polling units were not the final results. Recall, in the Second Republic, the UPN normally sweeps the entire Western States, while the NPP would sweep the East. 

    These results, for whatever reason are usually the first to be announced, by which time their respective party adherents go into a frenzy, believing that their party has won the federal elections across Nigeria, conveniently ignoring that the North and South South are yet to be announced. 

    Suddenly, when those results start trickling in, it is then realized that the NPN has won the centre.

    I’m not sure in which order the results would be announced now. I’m also not unaware of the power of incumbency, or how the security forces, especially the Army has been used to frustrate elections in Rivers State, in particular.

    But, you see, irrespective of how many times INEC cancels the elections in Rivers State, whenever it is held, PDP will win! you can take this to the bank!…My silence stems from the fact that it is not over until it is actually over!

    Ultimately, I will live with whoever is declared President, not having much choice over the matter.

    It would however not change my view, which I express, with due respect, to those who hold a contrary opinion, that PMB’s Presidency has been a monumental disaster – clannish, highly divisive, very pretentious in the fight against corruption, compromised in its fight against insurgency, bereft of ideas on how best to propel our economy to greater heights, just to mention these, which are altogether compounded by the illness our President suffers.”

    In reply, I had said to my colleague:

    Prof, you have raised serious issues that should not be ignored – reflecting a damning critique of the present administration. No one intends to wish these issues away as they impact on the unity and cohesiveness of Nigeria. However I plead with you to balance these negatives with other positives of this administration for a fair and balanced assessment.  We all share in the dream of a better Nigeria.”

    Not satisfied, I got a damning response from my colleague as follows:

    Fair point, my learned friend and colleague, Viscount Shittu Esq. I agree with you that, I should try to be fair and balanced to a regime that is neither fair nor balanced to those, who hold a contrary view, especially of the Southeast and Southsouth (the 5 per centres)!

    I should try to be fair, I agree, to a regime that justified its lopsided appointment into the Heads of security agencies and other federal parastatals and agencies from a particular region and religion on grounds of ‘competence’; and, by implication suggesting that there are no competent Nigerias from other parts of the country, especially in the Southeast and Southsouth. 

    No doubt, I should be fair, I agree, to a regime that absolves its party members of corruption, even  when the EFCC has actually indicted them, while simultaneously and contemporaneously going after those of opposition party members with expeditious dispatch! I think it was the late Prof. Olaide Adigun of blessed memory, who taught us that “He who wants equity must do equity”!

    When we gleefully tag every Nigerian, who insist on the most basic constitutional rights and procedures a “Looter”, or “thief”, it is not difficult to see why the victims of such erroneous categorisation react in equal measure to those whom they perceive as being unfair to them!

    Mr. President, the above exchanges may have shown the extent of deep seated grievances by some Nigerians across the land and if you ask me, these concerns ought to be addressed and taken very seriously.

    I agree that Nigeria is a very difficult country to govern. Niyi Osundare in his book ‘Dialogue with my Country’captures this scenario vividly when he wrote:

    “Nigeria is both a large country and a huge problem: the world’s number seven producer of oil, yet its citizens rank among the poorest on earth; boasting one of the highest church/mosque per person ratios in the world, yet rated the world’s second most corrupt country; blessed with abundant rivers and minerals, yet unable to generate enough electric power for its own use, even in this first decade of the 21st century; the country of a Nobel Laureate for literature, yet a land of resurgent illiteracy…

    “But it is also a  country full of bounce and bravado, brain and brawn, science and insight; a country capable of the fanciest and loftiest, but whose dreams hardly go beyond the slumbering stage. It is a country which permits a window of laughter on its dungeon of  tears. Which is why some of the pieces here were written to tease and taunt, driven by a mission to ridicule us out of our bad ways. In seasons of anomy, satire comes in handy as an excoriative.”

    This is the country our President-elect has been presiding over and in respect of which he has been offered a second term to govern.

    It is important that the President elect changes this narrative and position our country to prosperity and greatness. How can the President elect achieve this objective?

    First, he needs to deliver on his promises of anti-corruption, security, economy much more effectively and efficiently, far more than he has previously achieved in these areas.

    Secondly, as the President elect has indicated, he must form an all-inclusive government drawing to his cabinet and other sensitive areas of his administration men and women of great talents across board.

    These excellent materials must be sourced across parties, across ethnicities, across religions with the intention of attracting only the best for our country.

    It should not matter to the president who voted for who with the only agenda being to serve Nigeria with its best eleven. T

    hirdly, the President must spread even development across the country based on a carefully reviewed needs assessment strategies to meet expectations.

    Fourthly, the security of our country should be treated with utmost priority and all without exception should be whipped into line in the objective to secure the country.

    There should be no sacred cow and no group or individuals should be allowed to take the country to ransom. The President elect must be firm, resolute and determined in applying the law without discrimination.

    Fifthly, it is important to respect the rule of law in the conduct of governmental affairs. The truth is that to act otherwise is also tantamount to corruption.

    Mr. President-elect, I think I speak the minds of most Nigerians if I say, majority of Nigerians are hungry as poverty ravages the land.  This is the time to change the narrative.

    People are no longer comfortable with the slogan of fight against corruption in the midst of empty stomachs.

    Food should be made available everywhere; jobs should be created for majority of Nigerians. Nigerians generally are yearning for better living standards.

    Stolen wealth recovered must be deployed for the provisions of critical infrastructures. Nigeria deserves good governance.  This the President-elect must ensure if his name is to be engraved in letters of gold.

    Mr. President, I believe that you have won the popular votes in the last election.  Many of those who voted for you did so out of great sacrifices and patriotism believing that you stand on a higher moral ground than many of the other contestants.

    In doing so, many of the voters rejected attractive and tempting offers choosing instead to pitch their tent with your seemingly altruistic intentions.

    These Nigerians must not be disappointed and your second coming offers this majority of Nigerians an opportunity to be happy as you deliver development oriented policies.

    I urge you to seize the moment and bring happiness to the faces of majority of Nigerians.

    Mr. President-elect, I believe you stand a shoulder high above some of your co-contestants in the Presidential race.  First, you had the opportunity of governing this country as a Military Head of State, secondly, you returned as a democratic president years after you had left office.

    Thirdly, before all of these, you were part of those who fought a bloody civil war to keep this country as a single entity and fifthly you have just been given another mandate to run this country for another four years.

    Sixthly, more than fifteen million voters lined up in polling booths across the country to ensure you were re-elected.

    This was achieved without you spending one kobo from the federal treasury to execute your campaigns. Nigerians simply voted for your discipline and integrity.

    Mr. President how will you pay back this uncommon goodwill, love and affection shown to you by Nigerians?

    The answer is good governance. The answer is justice and fair play to all segments of Nigerians.

    The answer is equal opportunity to all Nigerians. The answer is reflecting public appointments across the geopolitical entities that make up Nigeria.

    The answer is making the entire Nigeria your constituency. The answer is listening to Nigerians and meeting their expectations.

    The answer is being tolerant of constructive criticisms. The answer is putting a stop to needless killings of Nigerians.

    The answer is uniting the entire country around government policies. The answer is winning the trust of every segment of the Nigerian society.

    The answer is building solid and permanent legacies that would engrave your name in letters of gold.

    The answer is protecting the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians at all times.

    The answer is putting food on the tables of majority of Nigerians, putting roof above the heads of Nigerians, creating jobs and employment opportunities for Nigerians. The answer is taking Nigerians to the next level of happiness and prosperity.

    I am positive that Mr. President elect will deliver on all of these expectations.

    In summary, this is my memo to the President-elect as I offer my congratulations!

  • Memo to IGP

    SIR: In Nigeria, policing is interwoven with politics.  While the pressure of the elections are there, keep in mind that you are being faced with the challenge of managing a police force that is plagued by poor conditions of service, deplorable work environment, lack of incentives and motivation, corruption, low level of public confidence and serious lack of expertise in some specialized fields.

    Nigeria Police needs total overhaul and this can be grouped into three core areas- leadership, methodology and, culture and attitude. The Nigeria Police has witnessed  various changes since its inception in  1861 when it began with a 30-member consular guard formed in the then Lagos Colony. From 1964, the NPF has had 20 IGPs, with each coming with his own transformative ideas. However, if the NPF must be responsive to modern public policing standards and demands, reforms in the three areas mentioned above is imperative. For reforms to create desired change, all strategies and goals must be communicated and a buy-in among officers created – especially junior officers. Reforms cannot be imposed on the police. However, the urgency of these reforms cannot be over-emphasized.

    The police under you can rejig the mentality of ‘absolute hierarchical superiority’ by giving junior officers who are always on the field the chance to weigh in their views. The public expect you to look at things ‘off-the-police-shelves’ to see what the public expects and needs from the police. This will bring imaginative ideas to strike a new resonance among the officers of the police and also bring visible functionality and efficiency in police.

    The public expects the police to prevent crime, and maintain peace and public order. However, job of the Nigerian police is dangerous, with high rates of on-the-job injury and death. The police operate without up-to-date and high-tech policing equipment- you cannot fight crime with only guns, broken batons and jalopy pickup vans. The police should be armed with modern firearms and protective equipment, in addition to small tools like tasers, incapacitant spray, telescopic and expandable batons, etc. Communication is vital for modern policing. Thus, any existing police radio spectrums which are subject to serious interference should be gradually replaced by a new spectrum of superior quality. The police should have their entire vehicles and posts/stations installed with Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) system for effective communication, as well as for data and voice transmission. TETRA is encrypted to prevent interception.

    The general management of policing equipment by the Nigerian police is very poor. For instance, most of the vehicles used by the police are in bad states. The processes of vehicle purchase, fuelling and maintenance should be redesigned- outsourcing and workable decentralization are the best options. The Police Service Commission should commission competent automobile firms to supply and maintain for the Nigerian police vehicles which are built to police specifications in factories. Fuelling of vehicles and other policing equipment should also be contracted out to responsible fuel marketers. This will eliminate corruption and usher in easy administration.

    The biggest problem facing the Nigerian police is culture and attitude. The police need to create and cherish a strong culture among its rank and file. The Nigerian police should seek the services of Public Relations experts/firms to develop a modern PR plan for it- one that should go beyond the traditional police’s PR method- public display of achievements.

    Above all, as a matter of urgency, you have to get your team well prepared for the forth coming elections which are about a month away. The police have a huge role to play in the elections if it must be successful. The time is short but in colloquial parlance, it is the baptism of fire for you.

     

    • Zayyad I. Muhammad,

    Jimeta, Adamawa State.

  • Memo to the President

    For many years, Nigeria’s hospitals, for example government owned hospitals, and especially University Teaching Hospitals all over the country, have become death traps, which is precisely why government officials abandon Nigerian hospitals to go abroad for treatments that have cost this country billions of dollars in foreign exchange.

    There are renowned consultants in all our teaching hospitals. But all of them wallow in abject disillusionment. No modern and efficient equipment. No reagents for medical tests or investigations. No oxygen tanks to save lives. For lack of electricity, doctors make do with torch lights while performing operations in the theatres. And where electricity supplies are needed for serious operations, lack of it results in deaths of patients. I do not think that there are many parts of the world where doctors, who are very competent and devoted as Nigerian doctors, suffer from lack of equipment to carry out their duties in accordance to their Hippocratic Oath. Working under stress and poor condition of service when compared to their colleagues abroad, they suffer in silence. Now, under these cruel and mad conditions, why should the president not abandon his country to escape from the very sorry condition of hospitals in his country?

    Sir, you did so because you did not want to die, like all of us, and Nigerians do not want you to die, and so you must leave the shores of Nigeria for London to save your life, though at an astronomical cost to the Nigerian taxpayers, about 95% of whom do not, and cannot, have the means of bypassing Nigerian hospitals for treatment abroad!

    Now, the critical and crucial issue of drugs. God bless President Obasanjo for introducing the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), a wonderful and godly innovation, into our health system. But the NHIS is only useful where there are drugs. But what do we get? You go to the hospital, get your prescription, take it to the pharmacy and you are told that this and that drug is not available, and so you have to buy it outside at a high cost. What I cannot understand is why essential and life saving drugs, like those for hypertensive and diabetic patients whose lives are sustained by these drugs for life, are sometimes not available even in teaching hospitals and pharmacies. One interesting thing is that most of the expensive drugs are usually not available on NHIS. Whether this is deliberate or not, I don’t know. What I know is that when a drug that costs N65,000 on NHIS is unavailable, only the rich can survive in this country, as many poor people and pensioners die every day because they cannot buy drugs that cost N2,000, not to talk of N65,000! Observations in some teaching hospitals show that their drugs are usually awaiting clearance but no money to clear them as a result of Treasury Single Account or other stupid constraints that have prevented hospitals from paying for the drugs on their own and on demand as soon as their orders are available for collection. So, here we go again. No sufficient equipment in the hospitals and not enough drugs! The combination of poor equipment and lack of drugs in Nigerian hospitals make our hospitals veritable death traps that send people to the mortuaries, the ultimate destination of people who die from government’s neglect of Nigerian hospitals. The scenario in the teaching hospitals, therefore, is that living patients are not happy, doctors are not happy and pharmacists are not happy! Even the present high profile corruption in the NHIS may have affected the ready flow of drugs for the NHIS scheme.

    Perhaps a research should be carried out to know how many patients die daily in Nigerian hospitals – in the operation theatres, emergency units, intensive care units, in ambulances, patients waiting to see the doctors, from lack of drugs, and patients who cannot afford the cost of drugs like poor young and elderly people like the pensioners. Most of the people who die on a daily basis are elderly pensioners because the federal and state governments have refused to pay their pension arrears. The case of pensioners is a unique and pathetic one. The governments know that some of these pensioners, most of them in their 70’s and 80’s, die on a daily basis while waiting for payment of their pension arrears which ought to be paid in bulk, for the few years they have to live on earth. They cannot meet hospital bills or afford drugs, if available, that they need to keep them alive. Yet, the governments – states and federal – out of their selfishness, cruelty, wickedness and ungodliness always delay payment of gratuities and pension arrears for no just cause. It is instructive that the president said sometime last year that he did not know how state governors could sleep while owing salary and pension arrears to their workers and pensioners to meet their daily needs. He saw this as unacceptable. This certainly was a hypocritical statement as the federal government itself is owing arrears of up to 30 months to federal pensioners all over the country, including universities, and it was only last November or so that a paltry six months of the outstanding arrears were paid (probably reluctantly) while leaving a balance of 24 months unpaid till today! What an ungodly and wicked act!

    People ask the pertinent question: What is really wrong with our governments? Are they perpetually asleep or unaware of the non-payment of pension arrears to old citizens who, in civilized countries, are given special treatment, with free transportation, subsidized housing and food items, free medical care and special treatment in public places? But in Nigeria, to be a pensioner is to be already sentenced to untimely death, as it has happened to thousands of pensioners who today are not alive to collect their hard earned pensions. However, it has been rumoured that the non-payment or scattered payment of pension arrears is because the officials like to fix the pensioners’ money in banks for a certain period for illicit and wicked financial gains while pensioners are dying on a daily basis. I think the federal government should disabuse people’s minds about this cruelty against poor pensioners, and even workers.  Actually, government should pay INTEREST on pension arrears for the number of years or months of default of payment!

    Nigeria is a country full of sins, probably worse than those of Sodom and Gomorrah! Perhaps we need a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer for deliverance, forgiveness and restitution, turn from our evil ways and seek the face of God so that He will heal our land, as Abraham Lincoln directed the people of United States to do in his proclamation for the last Thursday of September, 1861, and the subsequent answered prayer, by faith, that led to the US creed ‘In God we trust’ that adorns the face of their currency till today.

    Because of the many curses rained on successive Nigerian governments and their officials for many years by Nigerians, dead and alive, the nation may never get it right, as the forces of potent curses may always prevent Nigeria from getting the Messiah that would take us to the Promised Land instead of the desert in which we have ever been, if care is not taken.

     

    • Makinde, FNAL is a retired Professor of Philosophy.

  • Memo from Bonn

    After two weeks of deliberations, negotiations and meetings dragging late into the night, the 23rd session of the Conference of Parties has come to a close in Bonn, Germany. Questions linger however; questions on what took place in Bonn FROM November 6–17, questions as to the landmark decisions that were made, questions as to implementation plans over the next one year. These questions, I will attempt to answer in this memo.

    I could have been writing this from a packed press briefing room somewhere in the Bonn Zone, or from one of the meeting rooms in Bula Zone 3 or from one of the comfy rooms in Hotel Astoria in Bonn, Germany, but I am writing this from Nigeria, from a small room illuminated only by a faint torchlight positioned to face upwards to enable me see the keyboard of my laptop as I type away, trying hard to drown out the grumbling of generators.

    I am writing from this place where the Paris Agreement cries to be implemented.

    This is why the memo from Bonn means a lot to me.  I am writing first to fellow countrymen, not as the government or office holders, but as everyday people, and I am trying to let them know that what happened in Bonn is their business too.

    This year’s Conference of Parties gives us reason to re-assess our priorities, ad rethink our game plan as a country. This year was the first year the COP was chaired by a small island state- Fiji -and the push, drive and commitment of fellow small island states to see their goals achieved in the negotiations was palpable. And their goals are goals that concern developing nations, chief among which was the clamour for financing from developed countries through the loss and damage (L&D) dedicated financing mechanisms. Expectedly, developed countries antagonized the move, as accepting the concept of loss and damage would mean their acceptance of the fact that developed countries have caused major irreparable loss to the rest of the world. Germany had earlier opened the conference on the first day with an announcement of an additional €100 million to support climate change adaptation in developing countries, it is ironical then why it was difficult for a bloc of countries to which they belong to commit to financing for loss and damage? This very easily shows the rest of the world how developed countries will not accept responsibility quickly. In fact, the European Union and Australia suddenly began to raise claims of there being no scientific proof linking climate change to extreme weather conditions. What this portends for us in this part of the world, is a need to start thinking ahead; developing financing methods to cushion budget shortfalls in addressing issues of climate change, potential loss and damage, adaptation and mitigation.

    I have suggested elsewhere that the African Development Bank should fly Green Bonds which are increasingly becoming attractive in the international stock market. Also, de-risking financial instruments and generally pooling capital market investments for green development is a great way of financing climate in the Nigeria. There should also be the consideration of a regional capital market for Africa to float such bonds in order to attract private sector funding on a continental level. In order to do this, there is a dire need for knowledge dissemination on green investments to provide a repository for financial analysts, investors and private actors to properly understand the climate investment market. There is also the need to use local expertise to pool investments with a view to benefiting local communities, who are most affected by the effects of climate change. The Abidjan Declaration of ECOWAS concluded in June this year speaks to this.

    Some other very interesting occurrences at the COP this year was Syria’s signing of the Paris Agreement, something many have praised, but a few have maligned as being not well thought out for a war-torn country. Despite the criticisms, the move remains a commendable one, and one that typifies the United States as the child in the circle being taunted by other children for peeing her pants. Another development which puts the Trump administration on edge is the ‘We are Still In’ movement which was showcased at the COP by Governor Jerry Brown of California, a movement that brings thousands of US citizens together as they continue implementing the Paris Agreement, regardless of President Trump’s stance. The lesson to take away from this is that we, the citizens, are powerful, and that if we should one by one commit to taking action to combat climate change and its effects, we can do a lot of good, even more for our country that has signed the Paris Agreement.

    At the COP, the Gender Action Plan was also launched for the first time, a plan of action to ensure more inclusiveness for the female gender in climate activities; negotiations, high-level decisions, policy making, adaptation and mitigation programmes, loss and damage activities, financing etc. It is laudable because the Paris Agreement and its eventual success had women at the forefront and still does. There is no doubt that much can be achieved with more women involvement in decision making.

    The Talanoa Dialogue is a term you will hear too, from attendees of the negotiations in Bonn. The Dialogue is another victory for developing countries, especially small island states at the negotiating table. The Dialogue simply puts in place a pre-2020 plan of action. The Paris Agreement implementation is to start in 2020, but certain countries demanded that countries of the world begin to show how they are working to achieve fulfilment of the Paris Agreement before 2020. This move will indeed put countries of the world, including Nigeria, on their toes, and help Nigerian leaders have at the forefront of their minds, not just the 2019 elections, but also activities for climate action to take pre-2020, and perhaps through this, we will see more progress at COP 24 in Katowice, Poland.

     

    • Adebayo is a lawyer keen on the intersection of energy, environmental law and finance.

     

  • Memo to El-Rufai

    Memo to El-Rufai

    With the hoopla for restructuring amidst the misery ravaging ordinary Nigerians, the dominant faction of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) has reacted predictably. It has put the solution ‘in the pipeline’, by setting up a committee chaired by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State to determine the nature of restructuring the party wants. Yet, few weeks previously, El-Rufai had made sarcastic remarks about the call for restructuring.

    Such a committee obviously is to buy time and give disillusioned Nigerians the impression that the party is doing something. But I doubt whether the party has the luxury to shadow-box. If the party continues to treat the threats facing our country in this cavalier manner, is the dominant faction not worried that it could lose the next general election? Is the faction not worried that the statistics are not looking up in the economy, infrastructure, cohesion, and even security of our country?

    Agreed that the government inherited a gang-raped nation as the war on corruption is showing, what measures has this government put in place to forestall a reoccurrence?  What measure has it taken to expand the nation’s resource base which the Minister for Finance Kemi Adeosun recently confessed is minuscule compared to the challenges facing our country, apart from the clamour for taxes? Does El-Rufai with all his brilliance not appreciate the urgent need to effectively create new economic centres across the country to harness the wasting energies of our teeming youths?

    Even the old Apapa and Tin can ports in Lagos, has remained virtually inaccessible in the past two years. Again, just like under the discredited previous governments, fuel is still hurled from Lagos ports to other parts of the country by road with all the dire consequences for the roads and travellers. With the nation surrendering to the Dangote refinery, what plans is being put in place for evacuation from that refinery?

    To show the huge challenges facing our country, a Bridge in Niger State recently collapsed and the entire north-western part of our country was cut off from the south-west and the sea-ports, necessitating the intervention of the acting President. While waiting for El-Rufai and company to determine the meaning of restructuring, I hope that the federal government realises the security implication that an attack on the bridge portends.

    Similar challenges face the south-east with respect to the Niger Bridge at Onitsha, not to talk about several highways across the country like the Port-Harcourt-Enugu highway, abandoned over a decade because of ‘lack of funds’. Yet, the federal authority through a dubious exclusive legislative list appropriates the majority of the nation’s resources, with the excess available for unprecedented grand larceny, as Diezani Alison-Madueke and company’s alleged acts show.

    When something as ordinary as the registration of a business name, not to talk about a company registration, is made a constitutional affair and is listed in the exclusive legislative list, anybody who says he does not understand the meaning and the urgency for restructuring is fundamentally duplicitous. In essence, before you engage in buying and selling of farm produce in Kafanchan with a business name, you must kow-tow to a federal bureaucracy, the Corporate Affairs Commission, with its head office in Abuja.

    Of course, the ownership of the more serious factor of modern production – electricity, is securely in the hands of a leviathan far removed from the farmer in Kafanchan. While Nigerians are asked to await the sagacity of El-Rufai and company to determine the meaning of restructuring, the same El-Rufai, with all his intellect, industry and perspicuity is prohibited from devoting his energy to solve the electricity needs of those that elected him.

    So, while El-Rufai is recruited by the party to devote his energy to do what he is not elected to do, he is estopped by the constitution which makes electricity the exclusive preserve of the federal government, from effectively serving the people of Kaduna State that elected him. Again, while he rakes in billions of naira every year from oil resources far removed from his territorial domain, for which he suffers no environmental challenges, he can’t use it to provide something as ordinary to modern life as electricity.

    Furthermore, while El-Rufai cannot mine the minerals in his state because he is not the statutory owner, the owner, federal government, is busy drinking the oil resources in the Niger Delta. Instead of being aggrieved at this anomaly, he has been recruited to obfuscate the call for return to sanity and common-sense. Even more debilitating is El-Rufai’s ‘helplessness’ in effecting the arrest and prosecution of those who from his state capital threatened the Igbos with mass expulsion, even when he had openly made the promise.

    Assuming El-Rufai was playing politics with bringing the so called Arewa Youths Coalition to account, is he not ashamed that he needs the intervention of the national army to bring to account, the perpetrators of the killings in southern Kaduna? Is he not worried by the structural incapacitation that renders him criminally negligent for the re-occurring killings of those who elected him into office?

    While El-Rufai and company are buying time defining restructuring, his failure and that of his colleagues to live up to the constitutional responsibility of ensuring the security of lives and property is defining their tenure. All cross the country, basic police responsibility has been appropriated by the military, while some states have resorted to quasi-police agencies, with all the limitations. Yet, El-Rufai and company accepts the ignoble responsibility to engage in subterfuge, instead of offering solutions to a nation bleeding profusely.

    Under the watch of President Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, the Boko Haram crisis assumed a frightful dimension, with the country forced to fight wars to reclaim its constituent parts. While President Muhammadu Buhari has successfully degraded the insurgency it inherited, it has succeeded in creating new tension centres, particularly in the south-east and south-south. Whether it is poor governance models or opposition methodology that is responsible, the fact is that our national cohesion is again dishevelled.

    Some commentators erroneously equate the clamour for Biafra by a sizeable number of disillusioned people of old Eastern Nigeria, particularly the younger generation, with the success or failure of Nnamdi Kanu’s group, which bears the fanciful name of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). While I believe the Igbos will thrive better in a restructured Nigeria, I am not misled that Biafra or similar agitations will die, without restructuring.

    How can Biafra or other variant symptoms of a dysfunctional federation die, when one beautiful lady and her consorts could under the guise of public serve garner for their personal use, humongous portions of our common resources, and our nation will rely on foreign intelligence to fully unravel the scam? How can insurgency die, when our duplicitous constitution gives the president and other federal officials untrammelled excessive powers? Of course Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

     

  • El-Rufai and his disruptive memo

    Asked to substantiate his allegation that some Senators demanded gratification from him to approve his appointment as minister in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s cabinet, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai had said God was his witness. Not a few wondered at the time if God would come down from heaven to testify in his case. It was around year 2000. El-Rufai had appeared before the Senate Ethics Committee, which summoned him over the allegation. Some Peoples Democratic Party leaders, particularly then Vice President Atiku Abubakar, had to intervene in the matter to pacify the Senate before el-Rufai was cleared for the ministerial job. He was subsequently appointed Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister by President Obasanjo. He did not leave that office without leaving behind some footprints. El-Rufai did some remarkable things in that office quite alright, but as is his tradition, he ended up a baggage for the Obasanjo government, destroying and demolishing the houses of mostly his critics and political foes under the guise of restoring Abuja master plan.

    The ways of el-Rufai, now Kaduna State governor, have always been puzzling. Attempting a de-construction of the governor in his memoir, ‘My Watch (Vol.2),’ President Obasanjo said el-Rufai was loyal to nobody but himself. “Very early in my interaction with him, I appreciated his talent and brilliance. At the same time, I recognised his weakness,” the former president wrote in the book. “The worst is his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir el-Rufai,” he added.

    Nothing can be more accurate than that Obasanjo’s categorization of el-Rufai. This classification of the Kaduna governor has been further exemplified by the way he treated President Buhari recently. Though he called the president his leader and mentor, yet he fired a damaging memo to Buhari, where he took his administration to the cleaners. He said Buhari had failed to meet the expectations of Nigerians and that the nation was drifting away under his watch. Since he had access to the president, would it not have been better for el-Rufai to have sought audience with him and communicated his views directly to Buhari? But that was vintage el-Rufai. That memo was to become a ready tool in the hands of critics and opponents of the Buhari administration to launch a blistering attack on the regime. That move by the Kaduna governor also seemed to have exacerbated the division and dysfunction in the presidency. I shall return to this shortly.

    In the 29-page memo, el-Rufai scoffed at the president, saying he surrounded himself with inexperienced and clueless officials. After the memo went public, the Kaduna governor claimed his secret correspondence to the president was leaked ‘from the Villa,’ apparently suggesting that the same people he had labelled inexperienced had leaked the memo. With that squabble, the battle line seems to have been drawn between those ‘inexperienced’ officials and el-Rufai and the Kaduna governor appeared to have been crushed by the same ‘inexperienced’ men in the seeming power tussle at the Villa.

    El-Rufai’s memo reeks of hate. He claimed the memo was not ill-motivated but he gave himself away when he cast aspersion on the group he called the Lagos group led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. He claimed the contribution of the group to Buhari’s victory in the 2015 election was exaggerated. This is how he put it on Page 23 of the memo: “The Lagos group more or less led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is the most organized and proactive. This group made a key contribution in our electoral success, but like all groupings it naturally exaggerates its role in order to increase its influence in the coming administration”. To put down such in a memo to the president clearly reinforces the depiction of el-Rufal as a disloyal, divisive, ungrateful and unappreciative person who recognises only himself and his interests in the scheme of things.

    El-Rufai was being mischievous when he sought to create the impression that Tinubu’s only contribution to APC’s victory at the centre in 2015 was in influencing the party’s victory in the South-west. Yes, this was crucial, indeed vital, to the outcome of the election. This is because in Buhari’s three previous failed attempts at the presidency, he never enjoyed the support of a South-west mistrustful of his perceived ethno-regional parochialism and Islamic extremism. But the truth is Tinubu’s contribution to the displacement of a sitting president at the centre goes far beyond what el-Rufai describes as the South-west support. Tinubu and the South-west galvanised the entire nation to back the candidacy of Buhari, leading the way for others to follow.

    The former Lagos governor has one of the strongest relationships with key elite groups across the North. It is on record that he criss-crossed the North and worked hard to win over many influential elites in that region who were suspicious and distrustful of Buhari to support him in 2015.  In his three previous abortive attempts at the presidency, Buhari had considerable grassroots support in the North but at best only very lukewarm acceptance among the region’s influential elite. Jagaban Borgu was a crucial factor in helping to build the very vital support for Buhari among critical power centres in the North that also played a major role in the outcome of the election. This is not to mention Tinubu’s ceaseless and clearly incomparable intellectual, tactical, strategic, organizational, logistical and material contributions to Buhari’s victory. And of course his leading strategic and organizational role in moulding the APC into the awesome political coalition that it became.

    Ironically, the same el-Rufai was in the fence-mending delegation led by Buhari to Tinubu’s Bourdillon, Ikoyi home to plead for another alliance with his ACN after the CPC bungled the earlier one in the build-up to the 2011 election. Buhari’s arrogant CPC had unilaterally picked Pastor Tunde Bakare as presidential running mate without consultations with the then ACN with which it had an alliance. Of course, ACN opted out. The result: Buhari lost to President Jonathan with all the states in the South-west except Osun voting for Jonathan.  At that fence-mending meeting at Bourdillon, which also had Bakare in attendance, el-Rufai was on record to have said that the delegation knew that without Tinubu, Buhari was going nowhere with his presidential ambition. The former FCT minister specifically told Tinubu that “you have been proved right too many times for us to refuse to listen to you”.

    Therefore, to insinuate that Tinubu- led ‘Lagos Group’ was exaggerating its contributions to Buhari’s victory in the 2015 election and on that basis seeking to clinch plum and financially-viable positions in the Buhari administration also shows that el-Rufai is one of those principally responsible for poisoning relationships within the APC and sowing the seed of the mistrust, disharmony, fractionalization and ill-will that has plagued the party till date. This perhaps must have been responsible for the way Buhari constituted his cabinet alienating key groups responsible for his victory in the election particularly Tinubu and his close supporters. It is obvious that even beyond not rewarding Tinubu’s nominees in his cabinet, Buhari also ensured that the Tinubu group had no meaningful influence or input whatsoever in the policy direction of the administration. Buhari’s stance towards the Tinubu group, after that el-Rufai’s memo, became markedly different from his attitude both after the presidential primaries in Lagos and after his victory in the election proper. In the immediate aftermath of the primaries, during the campaigns and after the election, Buhari, on several occasions, publicly acknowledged Tinubu’s invaluable contribution to his victory. That he could be so easily swayed to adopt a thinly-disguised hostile attitude to Tinubu appears to be a reflection of the quality of Buhari’s leadership and character trait.

    El-Rufai’s memo to Buhari also betrays the fact that he has been the arrowhead of the ceaseless and vigorous efforts to create a wedge between Tinubu and Buhari within the APC and whittle down the influence of Asiwaju within the party. This obsession with marginalizing Tinubu’s group in the APC first manifested itself in the fiasco that was the National Assembly leadership elections, with the then el-Rufai-led Abuja cabal of the party spearheading the bungling of the process with the Buhari administration shooting itself in the foot with negative and costly implications for the cohesion of the ruling party in the National Assembly, for harmonious Executive-Legislative relations at the centre and particularly for the president’s anti-corruption war. This ultimately self-defeating anti-Tinubu obsession also played itself out in the Kogi governorship election impunity that has done incalculable harm to the moral integrity of the APC as well as the controversial and fraudulent handling of the APC governorship primaries in Ondo State.

    El-Rufai’s all too well-known opportunistic antecedents make it obvious that his mischievous antics have absolutely nothing to do with any genuine affection for President Buhari as a person or interest in the wellbeing of the APC as a party. All that el-Rufai cares about is el-Rufai’s selfish interest. Unfortunately, this exceedingly egotistic politician, whose extremist belief in Fulani supremacy compounds the intractable crisis in Southern Kaduna, has been caught and incapacitated in the web of his own intrigues. El-Rufai has been outwitted and sidelined by a far more wily inner power circle around Buhari, thus utterly neutralizing his subtle and insidious agenda of exploiting his purported closeness to Buhari to surreptitiously build up a power base around himself within the APC with which to achieve his now clearly-doomed higher political aspirations. Those who know him so well have seen between the lines and have openly lambasted him for his infantile memo. His seeming smartness has caught up with him. But if truth must be told, the frustrations he so bitterly and desperately expressed in the memo suggest that his assumed political astuteness and sagacity are even far less impressive than his diminutive physical presence.

     

    • Balogun, a public relations expert, writes from Abuja.

     

  • A Christian and People’s Memo to the Chairman: for Yemi Ogunbiyi @70

    A Christian and People’s Memo to the Chairman: for Yemi Ogunbiyi @70

    Earlier this week on Thursday, April 13, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, former Head of the Theatre Arts Department at the University of Ife and former MD and CEO of Daily Times of Nigeria, turned 70. He is quite possibly the biggest producer and distributor of textbooks in Nigeria. He not only has knowledge of that trade as much as any other person in the country does, he is the profession’s best example of conscientious, indefatigable and sophisticated practice. Since he left academia more than two decades ago, he has succeeded superlatively in everything he has done. For a man who is neither a politician nor a self-promoting socialite, he is widely known and admired by the public for his professional abilities, and for his uncanny ways of bringing people of all stations in life and of diverse social, ethnic and religious backgrounds together. When, some months ago, he was appointed the new Chairman of the governing council of the University of Ife, the acclaim that the announcement generated was near universal. More on this point later in this tribute. Thus, Dr. Ogunbiyi is a man of great accomplishments and in all likelihood, a man of still greater things to come.  He is also, of course, Yemi, one of my three closest friends. This is the vantage point from which I am writing this tribute because, quite literally, much of what life and the world have meant for me has come mostly from my very close friends among whom Yemi is quite distinctive.

    It was in secondary school thatYemi and I first met and became, instantly and forever, friends who are very much like brothers. In the long period of more than a half century since then, Yemi has remained the same in the things that make him so uniquethat all who know him seem agreed that he is truly one of a kind. These things include a generosity so unstinting, so limitless that it has become the stuff of legend to all who know him; a gregariousness that is so capacious, so elemental that he is always the centre of interest, the heart and soul of any gathering in which you find him; and a kindness that is so unlimited that it makes no distinction between family members, friends and complete strangers.On this last point, I often tell our mutual friend and acquaintances that unlike most people we know who became “generous” when they became rich, Yemi was the essence of generosity long before all of us became who we are today in our late adulthood. For instance, in our boarding house in high school, Yemi was the only student in the entire school who shared his provisions liberally with everybody, to the point where half-way through nearly every term, he would have become “provision-less”! As anyone who has ever been a resident of a boarding house knows, this is nothing short of disastrous. But to Yemi, it was nothing at all. I was personally greatly impressed by this otherworldly generosity of my friend, so much so that I tried to follow his example. Well, l had better keep silent about my failure in the effort lest some mischievous people retroactively use this confession to query the genuineness of my socialism!

    I do not wish to mythologize my friend in this tribute. He is not entirely who he was in our teenage years going to the period of our young adulthood. Who among us is? For instance, there is one quite remarkable change in Yemi that strikes me as nothing short ofa sea change. What is this change? Well, he now has a very sharp and deflationary sense of humor that we his schoolmates, did not associate with him in secondary school. Yemi did not exactly have a saintly, altar boy personality, but it was very rare indeed to find him corrosively, if also good-naturedly teasing anybody. But now, he is the Balogun of playful, teasing apara dida! I think this serves him as a sort of tonicor tactic for negotiating those unexpected turns to negativity and unpleasantness that suddenly spring up in human interactions and affairs. The world is a hard, hard place and as Sigmund Freud demonstrated in his classic monograph, Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious, humor, sharp-edged humor, often helps to negotiate moments of tension and or unpleasantness. In drawing attention to this factor, I am, I hope, rendering my friend a service because from now on, anyone who gets a sample of Yemi’scaustic, teasing “awada” or “apara” will be obliged to go and read Freud in order to appreciate the usefulness of the sting in his mischievous his jokes!

    Beyond this basically blameless and harmless teasing habit, there are two big things in which, over the years, Yemi has changed significantly. Because he will probably be surprised by my identifying and even making much of these two changes, I wish to make them the pivot around which I will weave my thoughts, my wishes for my friend on this occasion of his 70th birthday anniversary.

    The first of these two changes pertains to attitude and predisposition toward religion in general and Christianity in particular.I could express this simply by saying that Yemi has become more religious, more of a practicing Christian than he was in the long period that spans our teenage years in high school, through our undergraduate years at UI, to the time of our young adulthood as graduate students at New York University and young lecturers at the University of Ife (OAU). But this does not adequately express precisely what I have in mind. After all, these days, people in all stations of life in our country are turning to religion in mighty wavesof new converts every day. In such a context, to say, simply, that someone has become more religious is to say something quite banal. What I find in Yemi is different from this phenomenon. I can think of no better way of expressing it than to say that he has become a real true believer, a practicing man of faith fired by the moral and philosophical tenets of Christianity, without however clothing his Christian activism in the cheap and showy garb of thereligiosity that is the defining mark of Christianity in our country today.No, Yemi is a man who serves God with genuine but unostentatious rectitude.

    Here, I must make a “confession” of sorts. Many times, as I have watched Yemi unfailinglygo to church every Sunday and on special occasions, and as I have observed him spend huge chunks of his time, his energies and his material resources in furtherance of good deeds promoted by his church, it has crossed my mind to ask him exactly what religion, what his Christian faith means to him. But we have not had that discussion because I have not posed the question to him. Perhaps in this tribute lies the beginnings of that conversation? I do not know. What I do know is that his birthday immediately precedes Easter which, as we know, is the central cycle of symbolic ceremonies in Christianity. The cycle starts with the Lenten period of fasting and deep soul searching and ends with Easter Monday that is laden with the symbolism of renewal and regeneration attached to the resurrection of Christ. Since my friend has become a faithful and committed Christian, that is one of the two major things that I wish to reflect upon in this tribute.

    Concerning the second big change, I am not exactly sure what kind of a change it is, even as I am certain that it is a big, big change. To put it briefly, here is what it is. Believe it or not, at one time, Yemi was an avowed socialist like many of us who still remain socialists whilst he has “moved on”, so to speak. Yes, he was not one of the so-called “hard” Left. But he was a member of the editorial board of our journal, Positive Review, a journal that was unapologetically socialist and Marxist. He was one of the socialists whom our elder and mentor, Wole Soyinka, savagely attacked and derided as “Leftocrats”. The term “Leftocrat”, in Soyinka’s bitingly sarcastic coinage, conjoins “Left” and “autocrat”. Thus, by the term, Soyinka meant a hard and dogmatic Left. For this reason, the fact that Yemi was one of the principal targets of Soyinka’s ire in that attack against us meant that the Nobel laureate not only saw Yemi as one of us, he saw him as an essential member of our group. But gradually, from that location in the storm centre of the maelstrom of Leftist ideology and politics, Yemi “moved on”, so to speak. But then, it is at precisely this juncture that I locate Yemi’s movement to Christian social activism. Is there a link between the two? Is there a connection between moving on from socialism and moving to Christian activism? Does one “moving on” reflect the other, no matter how obscure or incommensurable this might seem?

    Since the abstract theological, ideological and philosophical dimensions of this question are much too big for the present discussion, I will not deal with them. Instead, I go back to the earlier mentioned symbolism of Lent and Easter: after fasting, after chastening hardship and soul searching comes renewal and regeneration. I see the widespread praise for Yemi’s appointment as the Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Ife as symbolic of the long and interminable period of Lent in the experience of the University of Ife itself and most of the public, state-financed universities in Nigeria. It is impossible to overstate the depth of hardship, confusion and misdirection in OAU, the depth of a Lenten mortification of spirit, soul and mind that the university has undergone, with particular reference to the students and the faculty. I can testify as his friend that Yemi has been deeply, deeply moved by the outpouring of sentiments of goodwill and expectations of renewal and regeneration that have been expressed to him. No one has expressed this in the specific idiom of Christian symbolism, but the resonance is unmistakable. I cannot imagine that in his moments of reflection and insight meditation, Yemi can fail to see the intimations of this Christian symbolism.

    Christianity has deep, formative theological and cultural roots with socialism. The early Church was the religion of the poor and the oppressed; it was openly and doctrinally socialistic. Organized Christianity became the religion of the wealthy and the powerful when Emperor Constantine made it a state religion. Christ himself was deeply averse to usurious capitalism. And throughout history, some of the most humane and lasting effects of Christian social activism have been directed at the liberation of the poor, the downtrodden, the neglected. Thinking of these buried or forgotten aspects of the history of Christianity, I draw your attention, Yemi, to the fact that just as you were once a socialist, your religion also has an honorable and proud history of socialistic humanism. This is thus both a Christian and People’s Memo to you as the new Chairman of the Governing Council of our beloved OAU. It comes with fervent wishes for long life, health, and great success in the next ofthe many great challenges you have faced and mastered in the course of the last four decades. The rich, the powerful, the well-connected will flock to you in your new assignment. In their memos to you, they will lay emphasis on big, heavy capitalization, with much of the contracts of course going to them. And so of course will the marginalized, the excluded, together with their leaders and representatives, come to you with pleas for cooperation, fairness and accountability. May the Easter of unprecedented renewal and regeneration follow the Lenten tales of hardship and crises that you will no doubt hear daily as you move to start the great work ahead of you.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Leaked memo: El-Rufai is disloyal, disrespectful – Sen. Sani

    Leaked memo: El-Rufai is disloyal, disrespectful – Sen. Sani

    Sen. Shehu Sani (Kaduna-APC) has urged the party to penalise Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State for allegedly leaking to reporters a memo he wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Sani, who is the Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, called for the punitive measures in a statement he released in Abuja on Saturday in reaction to the alleged leakage.

    It will be recalled that media reports had alleged that El-Rufai told Buhari in a memo, that he was losing the vision and the momentum with which APC started the change campaign.

    The governor was alleged to have called on the President to communicate constantly with Nigerians, so they would know the plans of his government.

    The reports also claimed that El-Rufai acknowledged that a cabal was working hard to alienate the President from those, who even worked hard to secure his victory during the 2015 election.

    Sani said it was ironic that while El-Rufai could not stand constructive criticism, he had the audacity to criticise the President.

    “The governor always recommends that our party should punish me for criticising him.

    “Now that he has fired a cruise missile at the President through a deliberately leaked memo, he should also be treated the same way.

    “He accused me of being disloyal and disrespectful to the President and the party for speaking my mind.

    “Now he has done his own cunningly by criticising the President and the party, disguised it as a memo and leaked it out to the press.

    “If our able party chair would give me five strokes of the cane for speaking out, the governor (El Rufai) should be given thrice that for ‘leaking out’.

    “It’s often said that look at the message and not the messenger, but there are times when you can only decipher the message by looking at the messenger,’’ he said.

    According to Sani, while Gov. El-Rufai is entitled to his opinion and perception, the contradiction and irony is that he carried out an action he always stood against when criticised.

    He described the governor as disloyal and disrespectful, saying: “the difference is that while mine is blunt, his is dubious.

    “Secondly, for all the issues he raised against the President, his own is worst in his space of governance both in the existence of cabal or politics of exclusion, incompetence or public perception.

    “The difference is that the President is tolerant of criticisms and alternative views.’’

    He said the leakage of the memo to newsmen was an evidence that ‘‘logically he is leaking memo to rouse popular sympathy and create the image of ‘a competent alternative’ to ‘Baba.’

    “The memo suggests he is trying to do what he recently accused me of.

    “He said that I am in the habit of criticising him because I want to become Kaduna State Governor,’’ Sani said.

    He advised President Buhari to be cautious, saying: “he who keeps a scorpion in his pocket must always watch his groin and he who inherits a cobra should know that it’s not a pet.’’ (NAN)

  • Akenzua’s memo on Aburi

    When on March 15, last year, the Secretary of the Benin traditional council, Frank Irabor announced that “the leopard is ill in the Savannah bush”, we knew exactly what has happened to the Omo N’oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Erediauwa (CFR), the 38th Oba of Benin, who was born on June 22, 1923 and ascended the throne on March 23, 1979.

    The Oba of Benin is the traditional ruler of the Edo people and head of the historic Eweka dynasty of the Benin Empire.

    The services of Oba Erediuwa are well valued and will not be forgotten. Before becoming an Oba, as Prince Samuel Aiseokhuoba Igbinoghodua Akenzua, he was an outstanding civil servant. He in fact rose to become the Federal Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health before he retired in 1973.

    Along with others, he attended the Aburi meeting held at the Peduase lodge where the conflict of Nigeria was discussed from January 4-5 1967. Aburi is a town in Ghana. It is forty-five minutes’ drive from Accra, the capital of Ghana.

    Those who attended the meeting were Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, Colonel Robert Adebayo,Lt-Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu, Lt-Col David Ejoor, Lt-Col Hassan Katsina, Commodore J.E.A. Wey, Major Mobolaji Johnson, Alhaji Kam Selem and Mr. J. Omo-Bare. Others are Prince S.I.A. Akenzua (Permanent Under-Secretary, Federal Cabinet Office.), Mr. P.T. Odumosu (Secretary to the Military Government, West.), Mr. N.U. Akpan (Secretary to the Military Government,East.), Mr. D.P. Lawani (Under-Secretary, Military Governor’s Office, Mid-West) and Alhaji Ali Akilu (Secretary to the Military Government, North.) The Chairman of the Ghana National Liberation Council, Lt-General J.A.Ankrah, declared the meeting open in his capacity as then the head of state of Ghana.

    The following was agreed upon – that Army to be governed by the Supreme Military Council under a chairman to be known as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Head of the Federal Military Government, establishment of a Military Headquarters comprising equal representation from the Regions and headed by a Chief of Staff, Creation of Area commands corresponding to existing Regions and under the charge of Area commanders, matters of policy, including appointments and promotion to top executive posts in the Armed Forces and the Police to be dealt with by the Supreme Military Council, During the period of the Military Government, Military Governors will have control over Area Commands for internal security, Creation of a Lagos Garrison including Ikeja Barracks. In connection with the re-organisation of the Army, the council discussed the distribution of Military personnel with particular reference to the present recruitment drive. The view was held that general recruitment throughout the country in the present situation would cause great imbalance in the distribution of soldiers. After a lengthy discussion of the subjects, the council agreed to set up a Military committee on which each Region will be represented, to prepare statistics which will show: Present strength of Nigeria Army; Deficiency in each sector of each unit; the size appropriate for the country and each Area command; Additional requirement for the country and each Area command.

    The Committee is to meet and report to council within two weeks from the date of receipt of instructions. The Council agreed that pending completion of the exercise in connection with re-organisation of the army, further recruitment of soldiers should cease. The implementation of the agreement reached on 9 August 1966, it was agreed, after a lengthy discussion, that it was necessary for the agreement reached on 9 August by the delegates of the Regional Governments to be fully implemented. In particular, it was accepted in principle that army personnel of Northern origin should return to the North from the West. It was therefore felt that a crash programme of recruitment and training, the details of which would be further examined after the committee to look into the strength and distribution of army personnel had reported, would be necessary to constitute indigenous army personnel in the West to a majority there quickly.

    As far as the Regions were concerned, it was decided that all the powers vested by the Nigerian Constitution in the Regions and which they exercised prior to 15 January 1966, should be restored to the Regions. To this end, the Supreme Military Council decided that all decrees passed since the Military take-over, and which tended to detract from the previous powers of the Regions, should be repealed by 21 January, after the Law Officers should have met on 14 January to list out all such decrees.

    The decisions at Aburi amounted to, in terms of political and military control of the country was that the country should be governed as a Confederation.

    Prince Akenzua along with top permanent secretaries including Alhaji Yusuf  Gobir, Phillip Asiodu, Eme Ebong, B.N. Okagbue and Allison Ayida deconstructed in Lagos, all that was agreed in Aburi.

    On arrival in Lagos, Prince Akenzua discussed with General Gowon and raised objections to what was agreed in Aburi. Gowon asked him to raise a memo which he did. I am sure a copy of the memo is with General Gowon today while a copy is in the archives in the presidency. Civil servants are to be seen and not to be heard and that is why Prince Akenzua never released a copy of the memo to the world. The memo dated January 8, 1967 began with “Your Excellency, in view of my discussion with you last night, I am raising this memo in the interest our fatherland-Nigeria”. Prince Akenzua traced the long hard road that Nigeria has travelled and stressed on the need to keep a United Nigeria.

    In his view, Gowon has given too much away in Aburi and that it will lead to the destruction of the country. He further added that Gowon has “legalised” total regionalism which “will make the centre very weak.”  Prince Akenzua alluded in his memo that a weak centre will lead to confederation and total disintegration of the country. The memo prompted Gowon to summon a meeting of the Secretaries to the military governments and other officials which was held in Benin City between February 16 and 18 1967. The minutes of the Benin meeting presided over by H. A. Ejueyitchie, Secretary to the Federal Military Government, was a total rejection of what was agreed upon in Aburi. The Benin meeting interpreted in its own way the agreement reached in Aburi. After the Benin meeting, Lt-Col. Ojukwu started the “on Aburi I stand” slogan. Thereafter the Federal Government promulgated Decree No. 8 of 1967 which gave total powers to the centre. It has been so since. We shall continue to argue and debate the full implications of decree 8 which was promulgated on March 10 1967. The ghost of that decree still haunts us today.

    On February 16 1967, Colonel Ojukwu wrote to Gowon: “At Aburi, certain decisions were taken by the Supreme Military Council – the highest authority of the land under the present regime. For my part, I became dedicated to those decisions, only to discover soon that you and your Civil Service advisers, along with selfish and disgruntled politicians in Lagos, and perhaps elsewhere as well, did not feel the same. As a result you have seen to it that the decision taken at Aburi are systematically vitiated or stalled.”

    In his own broadcast, the then military governor of Western Region, Colonel Robert Adeyinka Adebayo on May 3 1967 said, “We tried at Aburi to find the basis for a solution but there was not enough confidence to build upon that basis. As a result, follow up action was slow and argument developed which further impaired confidence. When at last decree No. 8 was passed by the Supreme Military Council, we could not carry the Eastern Region with us.”

    In his broadcast to the joint meeting of the advisory committee of the Chiefs and Elders and the Consultative assembly of Eastern Nigeria on May 27 1967, Colonel Ojukwu said “In Lagos, the Permanent Secretaries there studied the recommendations and, to their credit, brought out clearly and unmistakably their meanings and implications. Having seen these, however, they unfortunately went beyond their rights and duty as civil servants to advice against the implementation of the Aburi agreements. From there our difficulties started and have taken us to our present stalemate”.

    Till today both sides (Gowon and Ojukwu till he died) interpreted what was agreed upon in Aburi in their own way. One of the problems at Aburi was that a portion of the meeting was not recorded. The military excused the civilians at a certain stage during the meeting and it was alleged that during this informal chat that Gowon made certain commitments to Lt. Col. Ojukwu especially on full regionalism.

    Even till today judging by the decisions reached at the last National Conference, we are still arguing on confederation or federalism.

    As long as Nigeria remain one under federalism, the memo of Prince Akenzua which was a wakeup call on General Yakubu Gowon and his efforts later will continue to be appreciated in no small measure.

    The nation remembers and the nation appreciates.

     

    • Teniola, a former director at the presidency, stays in Lagos.