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  • ‘Why bigger states attract less constituency projects’

    All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain Ganiyu Johnson represents Oshodi-Isolo Constituency II in the House of Representatives. In this interview with reporters in Lagos, he speaks on his activities in the National Assembly, Constituency projects and other issues EMMANUEL UDODINMA reports.

    What are the major challenges in your constituency?

    Oshodi-Isolo is in the heart of Lagos metropolis, but the level of development in the area is not what it is supposed to be. The constituency has suffered from inadequate representation in the past. That is why we have not had meaningful development in the area. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has a depot at Ejigbo and over 50 trucks come there on a daily basis. The road needs to be upgraded. The Okota road that was built by the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) is in need of urgent attention.

    The Kpako-Cele road from Okota is also in very bad shape. The canal in my constituency is supposed to be a very big asset to us but, today, it is a dead trap. This is because, once there is heavy rain, everywhere would be flooded. I am pushing for the canal to be dredged. If this is done, we can have water transport from Ejigbo to Lagos. The airport that is in our backyard, like the canal is also supposed to be an asset to us, but the reverse has become the case, because all that we are getting from the airport is noise pollution.

    A lot of our children are developing hearing problem, because of the noise. So, it will not be asking for too much, if the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) begins to recruit a certain percentage of our youths as a way of compensating us. They must not wait until we become militants or begin to carry placards before they would know that the people in Oshodi-Isolo need compensation, because that can be termed our own crude oil.

    As the former Lagos State Commissioner for Works, what do you have to say about the deplorable state of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway?

    Well, the road is part of the ECOWAS Highway, so that makes it a federal project. There were insinuations that it was abandoned. The truth is that it was never abandoned. What happened was that the company handling the project scaled down their staff, because of lack of money. The road started from Eric Moore and from there to Mile Two has been completed. Originally, the project was given to two companies: Julius Berger is in-charge of the road project, while CCECC is handling the rail line. So, there was problem of interface. For instance, there was a time that Julius Berger had to stop work to enable CCECC to put up the railway stations. It was the problems that arose from these interfaces that made government to hand it over to one construction company. An adage says that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers.

    So, while the interface was going on, it was Lagosians that were bearing the brunt; that is suffering the consequences of the interface. Therefore, as a responsible government, Lagos State Government decided to intervene, so as to ameliorate the suffering. It decided to build the road from Mile Two to Agbara, so that the Federal Government will continue from there to Seme.

    This is also what the Lagos State Government did with the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Road. When we noticed that the Federal Government was dilly-dallying with the project, we had to take it up, because it is Lagos State that the road is giving bad image and not the Federal Government. The Murtala Muhammed Airport road is the first thing that foreigners see when they land in Lagos and as you know, there is no second chance to make a first impression.

    Oshodi-Isolo is dominated by non- indigenes. How were you able to win?

    Well, I don’t live in Ikoyi or Lekki. I am living in my constituency with my people. So, I feel what they feel. If there is reason to cry, we all cry together and if there is reason to celebrate, we all celebrate together. So, I have a good relationship with most of the people in the constituency, because I am a home boy. I have an NGO called Ganiyu Abiodun Johnson Foundation, which I have used over the years to put smiles on the faces of the people. We buy GCE forms, we empower the widows, and we give soft loans. That is why they have no problem giving me their mandate to represent them at the National Assembly.

    Why are you not attracting many constituency projects to the area, given the billions of naira being budgeted yearly?

    Let me tell you the truth, it is not as if we lawmakers don’t want to do constituency projects. The issue is that the way the constituency funds are allocated is disadvantageous to the big states. For instance, some states have more than 30 local governments, while some have less than 20. But, in allocating funds for constituency projects, all the states are given the same amount of money.

    For example, Oyo State has 33 local governments, while Bayelsa has only eight. If N200 million is given, Oyo and Bayelsa would be given the same amount of money. You can see that if the money for Oyo State is shared among lawmakers from the state, it would amount to peanuts. That is why lawmakers from such states prefer to hold seminars, workshops and do little empowerments. That is the challenge that the lawmakers from the big states have with regard to constituency projects. You know that this is a constitutional issue. But I feel that we can come together and change this narrative.

    What informed your decision to reach out to supporters of all political parties during the recent Eid-El Kabir celebration?

    The lesson of Eid-El-Kabir is that of love and peace and there cannot be love when you are discriminating against one another. Electioneering is over and by the grace of God I now have the mandate of my constituency. It is true that I contested under the All Progressives Congress (APC), but right now I am representing everybody in Oshodi-Isolo Federal Constituency II, whether they are in the APC, the PDP, the Accord Party (AP) or any other political party. That is why I decided to extend my widows mite to them, so that all of us would celebrate together.

    I am an advocate for progress and development. But you know that there cannot be progress and development if there is no peace and if the people are not united. Since the election is over, I believe in inclusiveness representation. If I am able to bring a road project to my constituency, you cannot say that somebody in another party will not drive on it, because he or she did not vote for the APC. It cannot happen. My mission in the National Assembly is to help to attract development to Oshodi-Isolo, to make it a better place.

  • CCNN: Bigger, more profitable

    Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) Plc triples its top-line and bottom-line as the gains of recent strategic initiatives and business combination strengthen the outlook of the company. In this report, Capital Market Editor, Taofik Salako, looks at the underlying performance and outlook for the cement producer

    Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) Plc is one of the highpoints of this earnings season. With three-digit growth in all key performance indices, CCNN recorded well-rounded performance in the first half of 2019. The six-month report for the period ended June 30, 2019 showed that total turnover rose by 166.14 per cent to N32.15 billion in first half 2019 as against N12.08 billion in comparable period of 2018. Gross profit grew by 163.07 per cent from N5.47 billion to N14.39 billion. Profit before tax jumped by 165.3 per cent from N3.66 billion to N9.71 billion. After taxes, net profit leapt by 180 per cent from N2.60 billion in first half 2018 to N7.28 billion in first half 2019. Underlying performance ratios showed a generally stable outlook. Gross profit margin stood at 44.76 per cent. Pre-tax profit margin was steadied at 30.21 per cent while net profit margin improved to 22.64 per cent.

    The balance sheet also showed a stronger and better-positioned company with reduced leverage and increased working capital. Total assets rose to N356.75 billion in June 2019 compared with N347.75 billion recorded for the year ended December 31, 2018. Total equity increased from N333.49 billion in December 2018 to N340.77 billion in June 2019. Current assets had risen from N17.28 billion to N23.13 billion while non-current assets had increased from N330.46 billion to N333.6 billion.

    The first half 2019 performance places CCNN in good stead to sustain its impressive year-on-year growth and cement its leading position as the fastest growing  cement company. The company had increased total dividend payout for the 2018 business year by 235 per cent to N5.26 billion after turnover and net profit jumped by 62 per cent and 77 per cent respectively. In the audited report and accounts for the year ended December 31, 2018, CCNN’s turnover rose to N31.7 billion in 2018 as against N19.58 billion in 2017. The top-line growth was due largely to increased domestic sales and exports.  CCNN produced 0.76 million metric tonnes of cement and sold over 0.74 million metric tonnes, an increase of about 59 per cent. Sale of cement in Nigeria rose by 49 per cent to N28.9 billion while exports jumped from N0.2 billion in 2017 to N2.9 billion in 2018. Earnings before interest and taxes rose by 86 per cent to N7.9 billion profit before tax increased by 81 per cent to N7.6 billion. Profit after tax rose to N5.86 billion in 2018 as against N2.91 billion in 2017.

    New Growth Momentum

    CCNN had in December 2018 strengthened its competitiveness and laid out new strategic growth plan with the business combination with Kalambaina Cement Company, a larger and newer Sokoto-based cement company. With CCNN’s pre-merger 500,000 metric tonnes per annum capacity and Kalambaina Cement Company-‘s 1.5 million metric tonnes per annum capacity, the emergent CCNN boasts of 2.0 million metric tonnes capacity, strengthening CCNN’s dominance as North-West Nigeria’s largest cement company and giving the company the volume for aggressive expansion in Nigeria and beyond. Kalambaina Cement plant uses primary fuels such as coal, heavy oils and AGO and it is expected to help solve the power problem with limited downtime and further opportunities for growth and expansion. These competitive advantages are visible in the emerging results. CCNN and Kalambaina Cement Company had related core investor. Damnaz Cement Company Limited held 50.7 per cent majority equity stake in CCNN. Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu, who chairs the board of CCNN, held the majority equity stake in Damnaz while his company-BUA International Limited held the 100% stake in Kalambaina. The business combination not only made CCNN a stronger competition in the cement market, it pivoted its ranking at the Nigerian stock market, scaling up to become Nigeria’s 12th largest quoted company.

    Most analysts believe the business combination would further boost efficiency, productivity, output and better returns for CCNN.

    “The opportunities within CCNN’s key markets and its export potential are almost endless. Situated just about 100km from Niger Republic and as the nearest cement plant to key markets in Northern Nigeria, the enlarged CCNN is now poised to compete effectively and serve those markets better at a lower cost with more energy efficiency through our use of coal,” Rabiu said. Rabiu also hinted of plan to increase the company’s production capacity, while pointing out that the merger has led to introduction of new technology, reduction in operational costs and increase in the number of transport fleet.

    “The company recorded its highest domestic exports sale during the year (2018). This was facilitated by the additional output from the enlarged entity. In 2019, we hope to have the full combined capacity of the two entities. With the new capacity, CCNN is now the dominant player in its home market of North West Africa,” Rabiu said.

    The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BUA Group said CCNN is taking advantage of its proximity to the neighbouring West African borders, which has opened a new window for the export operations and revenue generation in foreign exchange.

    Managing Director, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) Plc, Engineer Yusuf Binji said the company will sustain its positive growth trajectory as it is now in better and more competitive position to drive growth in its home market and exports.

    He said the more benefits of the 2018 business combination and ongoing strategic initiatives will become more pronounced in the period ahead as the company continues to growth with economies of scale, enhanced operations and administrative efficiencies.

    Analysts’ opinions

    Most analysts are positive about CCNN’s outlook. On the back of the first half 2019 performance, analysts at Cordros Securities flagged CCNN as a high-return stock with potential total return of 124 per cent over the next 12 months. Analysts noted that CCNN’s half-year earnings per share of 55 kobo is tracking well ahead of Bloomberg consensus full-year 2019 estimate of 86 kobo and Cordros’ estimate of N1.01. Analysts described CCNN’s top-line performance as impressive.

    According to analysts, CCNN is an attractive buy and its three-digit operational growth could translate into similar three-digit returns. Analysts pointed out that CCNN is trading at significantly below its peers in the Middle East and Africa, making it a more attractive stock.

    In its review of the Nigerian cement industry outlook, Cordros noted that irrespective of the constraints in the overall economy, there are still strong triggers for cement producers in Nigeria, especially in the light of government’s aggressive infrastructure development and growing private sector demand.

    According to analysts, although there could be competition for cement demand growth from infrastructure development in Nigeria and neigbouring countries, CCNN tops scale of preference because of its proximity to fast growing markets.

    “From the perspective of users, CCNN’s new cement plant in Sokoto is the best cement plant in Nigeria, due to the high level of technological configurations which makes end products cure and dry faster. Beyond that, we are encouraged by the company’s potential for margin expansion over the next few years – which should drive earnings per share growth – as the company is able to optimise energy costs, increase capacity utilisation rate, and slightly increase prices,” Cordros stated.

    Analysts at Investment One Financial Services Limited also remained positive about the outlook for CCNN, citing the synergies from its recent business combination and market advantage. Analysts said the top-line growth in first half 2019 suggested the company may be recording success in its plan to expand market share to other northern regions of Nigeria, as the North-west region may not have the capacity to absorb new volumes.

    According to analysts, while the third quarter may be a tepid quarter due to the rainy season, which slows construction, the company’s top-line performance may see support from potential increase in Federal Government capital expenditure spending following the appointment of executive cabinet and implementation of 2019 budget.

    While noting the decline in margin due to increased costs, Investment One said CCNN has potential to deliver improved sales and profitability. “In addition, the cement producer should continue to reap benefits of its merger with Kalambaina Cement if its plans to enter new market and expand market share continues to be successful. We also draw attention to a potential drop in cost in the medium term as its new factory is designed to run on multiple energy sources (such as gas and coal); this is unlike its old factory which is run predominantly with Low Pour Fuel oil (LPFO) which is the most expensive of all energy sources. If a switch in energy sources is effectively implemented, we see potential improvements in margin performance of CCNN as we have previously seen in other players operating in the sector,” Investment One stated.

    With almost a consensus on the positive outlook for CCNN, the company appears to be on the right track to further consolidate its impressive growths over the years and increase returns to shareholders.

  • If Sudan and Hong Kong should visit Nigeria today…

    If Sudan and Hong Kong should visit Nigeria today, the world might not be in much shock at the outcome of the trip. I’m sure of two consequences. First, we would be unprepared for them, despite the handwriting on the wall alerting us that we’ve been found wanting in the balances. In much of our post-independence history, we were never seen to be ready for events that came calling like a ‘thief in the night’. How do we handle nocturnal robbers? We don’t cuddle them. We cull them.

    Secondly, flowing from the first, our leaders would misread the signs of the times and accord the strangers a most satanic, sanguinary and smoky reception. Ditto for the local ‘malcontents’ hosting them. Our leaders would chase them to the outermost and innermost parts of the land and mete out penalty outstripping their impudence that brought in Hong Kong and Sudan. They wouldn’t listen to the plea that nobody needed to extend them any invitation, that the world has gravely shrunk such that nations now exist like condominiums. We can hear you snore in the apartment across. We are in touch with each other at the press of a palm-size device without flying out. Though thousands of kilometers away apart from each other, separated by land and water, we still compare notes to find out what to pick from others to fill up what’s missing in our life. It’s a natural course.

    A few among us have said Sudan can’t make a landing here because over there it was an unappeasable sit-tight president who made it impossible for peaceful change to take place. Omar al-Bashir had been in absolute power for three decades. But his implacable palate for power sought more days in office. The citizens disallowed him and when he wouldn’t leave in peace in the face of worsening economic woes, a popular uprising took over and toppled him. So, Sudan was caught fulfilling the sapient saying of JF Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States of America: ‘’Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable.’’

    Now, some of us say we don’t have the same conditions to grow the discontent that threw out the ‘eternal-term’ Arab leader in North Africa. They argue we don’t have a frozen president who has repelled moves to be melted or thawed out of office. But Nigeria has had petrified existence as a result of the unbroken succession of leaders and governments that symbolize the sit-tight syndrome of the recycling of the same figures. Their names and political parties change each election season. Yet they bear the same spirit. That’s the still scene in nearly 60 years of our contemporary history. A crowd of different faces. But it’s all a going and coming of the same political and economic philosophy. The abiku or ogbanje of Nigerian politics. Let’s seek help from the epigrammatic declaration of the 19th century French critic, journalist and novelist, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. He wrote: ‘’Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’’ Loose meaning: The more things (appear to) change, the more they stay the same.

    The question is: can we spot a difference between one man who has been in office for a century flaunting the same feckless ideas about government and a changing cameo of rulers who displace each other periodically with a display of the same jejune notions over the same period? Are the choices so constricted between having one man do the bad government over a long time and having a chain of others share the long season of bad government among persons of the same destructive ideas? What’s paramount, deep-seated content and quality of governance that improves the lot of the masses or its ephemeral ‘democratic’ appurtenances that rate perpetually flawed elections and their gladiators more prized than the people?

    So Sudan has been a quest to rid the country first, of a man and his gang who prevented the people from benefiting from advantageous politics, and secondly, to deal with the military who are hijacking the liberation agenda after the removal of al-Bashir. The world is empathizing with the Sudanese nationalists as they watch them move from one phase of the ongoing struggle to another.

    Nor has Hong Kong escaped the global gaze. Hong Kongers have been holding unprecedented protests involving hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrating against a bill requiring the extradition to China for suspects accused of criminal misdeeds like murder and rape. The authorities have been forced to scrap the law, but the streets and other visible public places are not empty. The protests are spreading to accommodate comprehensive demands for ‘democratic’ changes to enable more people access political power in the territory. The point to note in Hong Kong is that the people have had their way in overthrowing a law they didn’t want. The government’s way shouldn’t count in the long run if it contradicts the yearnings of the people. Common challenge to noxious official policies like what Hong Kongers succeeded in aborting is needed to teach psychological lessons, chief being that the dustbin is the home place of a piece of legislation that is detested by the populace. Government does not need to go round in circles over anti-people decisions that draw out protesters.

    It is also a flight from reality to claim, as the amiable presidential media spokesman, Garba Shehu did the other day that ‘’the days of … revolutions are over.’’ They are not over, according to what’s going on around us.  But we won’t see it if we replay the experience of Rip Van Winkle. In Washington Irving’s fiction of colonial America setting, Rip Van Winkle falls asleep for 20 years. When he wakes up, he has missed one of the biggest events in world history, the American Revolution. The Poet Laureate of Great Britain in the 19th century, Alfred Lord Tennyson, wrote a poem, Idylls of the King, where the main character expresses the dynamics of unavoidable change: ‘’The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’’

    As long as there is secular society with manifestations symptomatic of imperfections, injustice, inequality, illiteracy, ignorance, poverty, corruption etc. all due to a baneful and godless administration of state resources, there will be demand for radical and disruptive changes. Garba Shehu can’t deny that we’ve had the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle-East and North Africa in this age. We are also ear- and eyewitnesses to the current clamor in the Sudan, Algeria and Hong Kong. A corroded structure can’t withstand a strong current.

  • Beyond Ekweremadu’s ordeal

    Condemnations trailing the humiliation of former deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu by some Igbo youths in Germany are clear indicators of public dissatisfaction with the unruly conduct of his assailants.

    As I was writing this article, I had cause to replay a video clip in which the group identified as members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra IPOB chased the former deputy senate president as he ran for his dear life. It was hard for me to control my emotion seeing how the alleged IPOB members almost tore his dress to shreds.

    It then dawned on me that the incident was anything but a civil protest. It was a violent encounter that exposed the life of Ekweremadu to mortal danger. Even the most unrepentant antagonist of Ekweremadu would deprecate the action of that mob irrespective of whatever grievances they have. There are more civilized ways of registering such grievances than the lynch mentality that hijacked the unfortunate encounter.

    Yes, the alleged IPOB members have a right to their grievances. They are also within their rights to convey their disapproval on issues they consider detrimental to the wellbeing of their people to those representing their interests at decision making levels of the federation. They may have seen Ekweremadu as one of those key leaders of substance and decided to vent their anger on him. It is not unlikely they saw him as a target of impact to most poignantly drive home whatever grievances they have against Igbo leaders and the federal government. Ekweremadu thus, denoted a metaphor of all that is wrong with the country in two respects.

    For one, they considered him a symbol of the federal government authority having occupied the number four position in the country. And since they have had a running battle with that government over their agitations for self-determination, attacking him may have been envisioned as an attack on the federal government. Secondly, and as a key Igbo leader, he may have been seen to represent all that is untoward about Igbo leadership. Hence the attack!

    And what are the issues? They were heard during the unfortunate encounter accusing their victim of sitting-by while their relations at home are killed, maimed and raped daily by the rampaging herdsmen without any concrete action by the federal government to tame the scourge. They also complained about the dire economic situation in the country and the mismanagement of our collective patrimony by rapacious and uncaring leaders. They also have issues with situations in the country that forced them out to foreign lands in search of greener pastures despite the enormous resources mother nature bountifully endowed this country.

    Ekweremadu was therefore a symbol of an incompetent federal government and an uncaring Igbo leadership. The traditional dress designed with Nigerian coat of arms he wore to the occasion and the high positions he variously occupied at the senate appeared to have reinforced this perception. These may have accounted for the tearing of his dress as a mark of protest and to make the greatest impact.  And they appeared to have achieved it. Yet, their action went beyond tolerable limits.

    It would have made better sense if they carried placards expressing their grievances. They could also have heckled and prevented him from addressing the audience without physically bullying him to the point of tearing his dress. These would have been better approaches at driving home most strikingly whatever points they wanted to register. The violent manner they went about it casts serious slur on whatever grievances they may have had.

    Yet, we run a grave risk if we ignore the overall import of the encounter. It would amount to throwing away the baby with the bath water if we fail to reason beyond the actions of the protesters or allow their faulty approach to becloud a potent danger we are confronted with. Even as it was widely reported that the IPOB is responsible for the attack, it will amount to a grave error to view the attackers solely from the prism of disenchanted proscribed members of the IPOB.

    Even when their local chapter has sought to claim responsibility for their conduct, there are no sufficient indicators that all those involved in that encounter belong to the organization. The right approach is to view the attackers as Nigerians of Igbo extraction dissatisfied with the way this country is run and the apparent inability of their local leaders to redress the situation. That is the substance of the matter.

    If we must avert reoccurrence of such disgraceful incidents, it is imperative to venture beyond their faulty approaches to the substantive issues that propelled them into such unruly conduct.  The fact remains there is a wide gamut of resentment among the burgeoning population of our youths against leaders at all levels of government.

    This feeling of resentment, despair and frustration is not peculiar to our citizens abroad but constantly fuelled by the suffocating and dehumanizing conditions in which they have had to eke out a living in foreign countries. They easily get angry when they recall the enormous resources this country is bountifully endowed with but which are regularly frittered away by some rapacious and rogue leadership. They get impatient each time our leaders jet out to foreign lands for medical tourism because they left a decrepit health care delivery system behind.

    Our citizens abroad hear of humongous sums of money stashed away in foreign banks by some of those who have had the fortune or misfortune of presiding over the affairs of the country. Some of them are even better informed about the level of stolen public funds hidden in foreign banks than those of us at home. And they get easily irritated by it.  They are piqued at the low rating of the country in all human development indices in spite of the huge earnings that should have catapulted quantum economic development if effectively deployed.

    They are no strangers to the reality that at no time has Nigeria been so divided and fragment along primordial, ethnic and religious lines than now. It worries them that the fears expressed by Chinua Achebe in his book “There was a country’ are quickly assuming the toga of a self-fulfilling prophesy as they may have no country to return. All these evoke feelings of despondency, frustration and despair. And they are spurred to hold our leaders accountable wherever they find them.

    It would be an underestimation of the matter to view the development as the mischievous escapades of a proscribed group of trouble makers. We will be oversimplifying the inherent contradictions at play to consign it to an Igbo affair. It definitely goes beyond that. The reality is that our citizens are increasingly losing patience with the wobbling and fumbling that have characterized statecraft in the last few years.

    They are increasingly getting more disenchanted with frittered opportunities and the reluctance or outright refusal by those in authority to take the right decisions to reposition this country on the path of steady development, peace and progress.  It is a wake-up call on the federal government that many of her citizens outside our shores are tired of business as usual and something urgent has to be activated to redress the situation.

    It just started with the incident in Germany. There have also been threats against other personages beyond the Igbo race of dire consequences should they venture into foreign countries. Nobody can say for certain the dimension such protests will assume in the future. Not with the common chord its message struck with the #RevolutionNow movement, protests anchored by detained Omoyele Sowore.

    More seriously, its message should not be lost on Igbo leaders whose actions, inactions and utterance have tended to compromise the collective interests of their suffering people. Those of them notorious for sabotaging the collective interests of their people for a mess of porridge have a bitter lesson to learn. Governors of the southeast seem to have quickly got the message as evidenced by their open letter to President Buhari on the difficulty in assuaging their peoples’ impatience with the rising insecurity and debilitating economic challenges in the zone. But they have their own roles to play to mitigate the situation.

     

  • ‘Overturning power sector privatisation is dangerous’

    Usman Gur Mohammed is the Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). In this interview with some energy editors in Abuja, he identified the issues in the power industry and what TCN is doing to address them. He says the generation and transmission segments of the power supply value chain don’t have much problem but the distribution arm, hence the need to recapitalise the electricity distribution companies (DisCos). He spoke on other aspects of the industry. EMEKA UGWUANYI was there.

    Some electricity distribution companies (DisCos) were suspended in recent weeks from market operation for non-compliance with the rules, how has their non-compliance with the rules affected the industry?

    Anywhere there is no rule, there will be anarchy. Any organisation or association where there is anarchy, there is no way the best can come out of such association. So complying with the rule is the most important thing . The market is said not to be at its best because people (operators) are not complying with the rules. They (DisCos) have signed an agreement that they are going to comply with the rules, so you cannot in the middle of the agreement say you cannot comply.

    That’s the reason we took a decision to enforce the rules. We would have taken that decision earlier than now but you know ‘he who goes to equity must go with clean hands.’ So we have to show some level of performance given the historical background of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) before we can enforce those rules. That’s why we started enforcement and it is yielding result. People are complying and working according to the rules. But don’t forget, it is not just that we started rules enforcement, in 2017 when we came in newly, Nigeria has never enforced the ‘Free Governor’ rule.

    What is ‘free governor’ rule?

    You know the industry is not like water where you can put tank and store it. You cannot store power.You can only generate what you can take. Even if your generation capacity is 20,000 megawatts (Mw), your transmission capacity is 20,000Mw and the distribution companies can only take 5000Mw, it is only the 5000Mw you can generate. You can’t generate more than that. Now, at any point in time, what is generated and what is demanded must be equal and that means demand and supply must balance.

    If there is disequilibrium, you will have system instability. Balancing supply and demand was done manually before. How do I mean? Somebody in a particular location will just call and say ‘run down or reduce your load,’ that’s what we were doing before now. But in 2017, we wrote to the generators and we insisted that they have to be on free governor. Free governor is what all generators have signed on and have agreed that they are going to comply with. It is a collective agreement signed between all generators and TCN. But it has never been applied.

    In free governor, all the machines will be put in a mode that if the DisCos reduce load, the generator can automatically reduce load by themselves without anybody calling them. In enforcing that, we have to shed some generators out of the grid. We restricted a particular generator to 200Mw for three months though its generation capacity is 600Mw, to force them to be on free governor. I am glad to tell you that largely all generators in Nigeria are now complying with the free governor policy. It is not easy, because they have to buy some equipment and install in their machine.

    We also insisted that the DisCos have to comply with the market rules. You know we cannot take up the fight at the same time. It has to be one after the other. Having enforced the free governor policy, we have to enforce some market discipline too, especially those within our control.

    Have you considered the effect of enforcing such rule on the people because when you suspend a DisCo from the market, people in its franchise will be in darkness?

    Where we enforce the market rule, especially where we suspend a DisCo, suspension comes with some level of explanation.  The market rule gives you power to disconnect the whole supply to that DisCo, we look at the feeder that supplies power to the offices of such a DisCo and we disconnect that feeder. We don’t disconnect everybody.

    We are also Nigerians and we are mindful of the fact that we don’t want people to feel bad about us. As we speak, no DisCo is under disconnection except Kano DisCo. All others have complied with the rule and we have reconnected them. None of them even lasted for one week except Kano DisCo. On Kano DisCo, we decided to reconnect it due to Sallah celebration but we disconnected them after the Sallah. The feeders we disconnected in Kano also feed other households, but the intention is to force them to comply with the market rule and do the right things.

    Some DisCos are of the opinion that your policy is having adverse effects on their business, what is your take on this?

    First of all, what we are doing in Nigeria is benefiting the market. All the DisCos have universal licence and not a restricted licence. It is not licence that says if you are in Lagos, leave Ajegunle out and serve only Apapa. No, they are supposed to serve everybody. Secondly, the aggregate technical collection and commercial (ATC&C) losses, based on the performance agreement they signed included poor people and rich people. To prioritise supply to some areas at the detriment of others does not make sense because their licence is not restrictive.

    We are not expanding grid based on hearsay. If DisCos tell you what we are doing is affecting their business model, also ask them which study they conducted that gave them that policy or model they are operating. We have conducted a credible study which is called 20-year DisCo-Transmission Expansion Plan. The plan looks at the needs of the distribution companies and come up with a report that says this is how you should expand.

    This is because most of the DisCos are not performing and are not even investing. To escape from their failure of lack of investment, they will say we are putting capacity where they don’t need it. We are not just putting capacity, we are also addressing redundancy for electricity to be stable. Electricity stability requires what we called redundancy which means any place where they need 60KvA, you will give them 60KvA x 2 and that is what we are doing under the programme.

    There is nothing like we are giving supply to where they don’t need it. What is happening is that some of them are gambling with the market. They refused to put prepaid meters in some places, supply them energy for few hours and charge them on estimation (estimated billing or crazy billing). All these claims that poor people don’t pay are all lies. The reality is that we have been gaming the market, people are frustrated and when they are frustrated, they can use several means to punish us including refusing to pay and tapping the meters. There is no relationship between poverty and payment of electricity bill. What the poor needs is adequate power supply, meter and give them the choice to switch on/off as they please.

    Has TCN done anything to make DisCos improve on their performance?

    We organised a workshop for DisCos across West Africa, eight DisCos from Nigeria participated and all others DisCos from West Africa were in Abuja. They all came with their KPIs (Key Performance Indexes). Their KPIs showed how much energy received and how much was converted to cash. Despite the fact that Nigeria is the only country that has liberalised its power sector, Nigerian DisCos were the worst performing DisCos in West Africa. Does this make sense?

    The best performing utility was SocieteNationaled’electricite (SONABEL) of Burkina Faso. They were the most efficient. After the training, I visited Burkina Faso to find out how they achieved this. What I realised is that they don’t connect a house unless there is a meter which means they have meters available at all times for anyone that wants to connect.

    Why is it that we don’t have meters here? If you look at Abuja, Maitama where the rich live is about 98 per cent metered while places where the poor live like Mararaba, you discover that fewer than 20 per cent are metered. If the salary of a poor man is N50,000 and for any reason, he must consume electricity and he consumes N30,000 for that month, I can assure you that he will switch it on and off at appropriate time to ensure that he doesn’t spend more than N10,000 for the next month and that’s what we are doing.

    What is your scorecard?

    We have installed over 40 power transformers in less than two years, we expanded the grid capacity from 5000Mw to 8100Mw as at December last year when we did the last simulation. You hear some associations say that we are lying, but tell them to bring their own evidence that we are lying. We don’t just announce any figure, even as the Managing Director, unless it is validated by the system planning unit with credible evidence to show that this is what is happening. But when we have several associations, there will be distortions.

    These associations are formed to create distortions and protect their own people who pay them.Under the normal rule, as a liberalised sector, we should have been seeing competition among them but you cannot hear that they are competing because the market is not at its best. Instead, they recruited some associations to defend them collectively. Does it make sense? No. We have removed 775 containers out of 830 containers that have been hanging in the ports for over 15 years.

    Some of them have been auctioned. We have expanded the grid by adding 3100Mw and we have achieved frequency control that has not been achieved in the history of Nigeria. Some mischief makers have said we invested $1.66 billion and there is nothing to show for it. Of course, there is evidence because system collapse is not as frequent as before. Abuja transmission project is the only one we have completed the procurement process which is $170million and it is supposed to put five new substations in Abuja and a new supply route from Lafia to Abuja.

    The contract has been signed, advance payment has been made, LT has been opened but I can tell you no payment has been made apart from the advance payment. So it is wrong to say we have invested, but we have attracted money from donors and we are implementing. But we have not invested. We have secured 280Mw into our spinning reserve which was the first time spinning reserve has been created. Have we deployed? No, but we have submitted it to the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) since December last year and till now, they have not approved it.

    Some stakeholders have been calling for the privatisation of the TCN. What is your take on this?

    There are different models of transmission ownership across the world. There are models that are government-owned and there are some that are privately-owned. All of them will perform if they are run properly and implemented properly. But in Nigeria, we have a peculiar problem that you have to take into account before you privatise TCN.

    The problem is that it is very difficult to get a right of way (RoW), for 330KvA, you need 25metres distance and for 132KvA you will need 15metres. If you privatise TCN today, the owner may not get RoW because this is very difficult in Nigeria. Because it is still under government control, we have been able to partner most of the state governments where we are doing projects. If it is privately owned, the state government may charge arbitrarily because private business is for profit making.

    It is left for us as Nigerians to judge whether it is the right thing to do. Some of the economies that are similar to Nigeria including the Power Grid of India are performing very well. Power Grid of India has capacity of 320gigawatts (Gw) as at now and it is still government owned. Eskom is government owned, Grid World of Ghana is government owned.

    The Grid of Cote d’Ivoire is still government owned. But if you put the right private sector people and you have the discipline to do the right thing, not that policymakers share the companies to themselves as we witnessed in the past, it is possible that it will work. But you have to look at those reasons that I mentioned.

    What measure are you putting in place to eliminate transmission losses in the system?

    Transmission loss is inevitable because if the loss is more than 8.05 per cent, we lose money, TCN loses money. It is our duty to ensure that we fix the transmission losses. Part of what we did to fix the transmission losses was that we restructured the grid metering department.

    Before now, the department was  controlled from the headquarters but we have now ceded the grid metering to the control of regional managers. Inspectors from the headquarters visit the regions from time to time to inspect them to ensure they are doing the right thing.We are also going to meter all our lines and all our substations and we are beginning with Lagos. This is to ensure that at any point in time, we will know who is contributing the highest losses to the system.

    We are starting with 200 meters for Lagos because Lagos has between 30 and 40 per cent of our transmission capacity. If we intervene in Lagos, we have intervened in about 30 to 40 per cent. We have started Automatic Meter Reading (AMR). Human interface created a lot of problems that will give us credible data to monitor our losses. As at now, we are far below 8.05 per cent.

    What are the options of funding available for your projects?

    The best option should be our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) but unfortunately it is not so because of our tariff. When we came in 2017, we made a case for tariff review, and NERC agreed that our tariff was less than what we were supposed to get. Unfortunately, they could not review the tariff. Before now, we are getting less than 30 per cent of our tariff and this is not sustainable to raise money in the industry for investment. We don’t get appropriation for our operations.

    Appropriations are for those contracts included in the National Assembly budget which are mostly tied to constituencies of members of the National Assembly. We need sustainable money to finance the network. The only option that we have is to go  to multinational donors because they have long gestation period. Most times, they have five-year moratorium period and 20 years repayment period.

    That would give us enough time to be able to do other development activities that will make the TCN to be able to pay this money by itself. And that is why we have gone to the multinational donors and we have raised $1.66billion. Those monies include World Bank’s $496million to be used for existing substation lines, targeting brownfield projects.  In terms of implementation, we have completed pre-qualification for the projects 1 and 2, project 3 is still at prequalificatio level . We have not touched the money yet. The next project is Abuja scheme and it is the only one that we have signed the agreement for the contract. The contract is effective, it is $170million sponsored by  French Development Agency (AFD).

    System collapse is still a major  issue, what are you doing to address the challenge?

    We have never told anyone that system collapse will stop because there are things you have to put in place to stop the system collapse. The decision to stabilise the grid is a journey. It is a journey that we have started and it is better right now than before. For instance, we need to have the spinning reserve. This is a must to stabilise the grid. Up till now, we don’t have the spinning reserve. As at this stage, the spinning reserve that we are supposed to have is 10 per cent. If the average generation is 4000Mw, the spinning reserve supposed to be 400Mw. What we have procured is only 260Mw which is not adequate.

    Even the inadequate one has not been deployed. The second problem is that we need to have an international SCADA so that we have register of events that will show whoever misbehaves on the grid and can adequately be punished. Our SCADA cannot see the entire system as at now, it can see some parts but it cannot see the entire grid. We are working very hard to ensure that this time around we succeed in installing the SCADA. We don’t want to rush so that we won’t repeat the same mistake we made in the past. A

    ll the things that will make us not to fail, we are doing them. And the generation is low today because that is what the DisCos are demanding. We can only transmit what the DisCos are demanding.  During rainy season, the DisCos will drop load and it will be very difficult to tell the generators to drop load. There was a time I ordered the grid should be collapsed. As that time, if we didn’t collapse the grid and stayed for additional 10 minutes, we would have had fire outbreak all over the country.

    If we didn’t collapse it, we would have had  high voltage all over the place and terminal equipment that will be shut down  and when they shut down, they will cause fire which can touch some of the bushes causing   transformers to catch fire. All over the world, there is no grid like this. 421 injection substations , 139 hybrid of injection substations and 177 feeders (interfaces) with no single injection substation which means fault in someone’s house  can go to transmission and hit our substations. Investment in TCN is not sustainable unless there is corresponding investment in the distribution. That’s why we are preaching for recapitalisation of the DisCos. Government cannot be passive anymore. Government should bring their own 60 per cent and this money should be defined not just money that comes from commercial banks that are short term, they should be long term investment.We also need to have regulatory certainty. No investor will come in who cannot recover his money.

    You have stressed the need for DisCos to recapitalise and it doesn’t seem they have the capacity to do this. Do you think the Federal Government has what it takes to take back the assets from them?

    On whether the government should take over the DisCos, I disagree. If you implement right thing wrongly, you should right that wrong instead of cancelling it.This is  because when you cancel it, you get it wrong completely. What we implemented here is what Germany is using and it is working. What we need is to correct it and recapitalisation can correct it. Generation is not our problem, many people wanted to generate but we were not connecting them to the grid.

    The issue is that when you let them and the market cannot take, it becomes a liability on Nigeria. So, if we cancel privatisation, we are going to have a contingent liability which will send a signal to the whole world that Nigeria is not private sector friendly.

    Secondly, the government does not have sustainable money to invest in the power sector. When you cancel, you will return the money of the investor, and you are going to be paying 20 per cent for five years. It is time to tell the people the truth; we have to pay for electricity. All of us are paying more than what we are supposed to be paying because all of us has generator in our house. So if the money be increased by 20 to 30 per cent so that we have stable electricity, why not; we need to have tariff that can sustain investment.

     

  • Adventures of Wadume

    He could well have been Nigeria’s equivalent of the notorious Mexican drug lord, ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, who now is cooling his heels on a life term in United States incarceration. Only he isn’t at odds with the law for drug dealing, but rather for suspicion of lucrative exploits in the trendy crime of kidnapping.

    However, Bala Hamisu, also known as Wadume, had a reputation for eelish manoeuvre through the Nigerian security setup as Guzman had in his country until his third re-arrest in January 2016, which ended his slippery duel with the Mexican law and got him delivered to the clenching jaws of American legal system.

    Wadume, a millionaire kidnap suspect, was recaptured early last week after being sprung free from an arrest on 6th of August by police personnel, who subsequently ran into a hail of gunfire by soldiers suspected to be working in the suspect’s interest while he was being conveyed from Ibi where he was arrested to Jalingo, Taraba State.

    Three police officers from the Inspector-General’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and two civilians died in the firestorm by soldiers from 93 Battalion of the Nigerian Army in Takum, with five other operatives getting injured. That incident opened up bitter acrimony between the two security services. The army explained that it was an unintended mishap stemming from mistaken identity by soldiers, who in response to a distress call mistook the police personnel for kidnappers and the arrested suspect for a victim. But the police insisted that the soldiers’ real motive was to free the arrested suspect at the cost of taking out affected lives.

    With the credibility battle waged between those two institutions, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered an inter-service probe of the incident. A joint service panel raised by Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin, has representatives drawn from the Police, Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of State Services (DSS) and the Defence Intelligence Agency. It was yet to conclude its work as at the weekend.

    The police meanwhile recorded a major feat by recapturing Wadume early last week, and the force proceeded  to publicise alleged confessions made by the suspect. Wadume, who was said to be in restraining handcuffs at the time of his escape in the Ibi-Jalingo road firefight, was re-arrested in a hideout at Layin Mai Allo Hotoro area of Kano State.

    He was shown in a police video saying soldiers took him to their base after liberating him from police personnel who had arrested him, and they had his handcuffs removed by a welder before he was let off on the run. A statement by police spokesman Frank Mba, a Deputy Commissioner, cited Inspector-General Muhammed Adamu saying the re-arrest of Wadume “will, no doubt, help in bringing answers to the numerous but hitherto unanswered questions touching on the incident and the larger criminal enterprise of the suspect.”

    With the circumstances of his escape from initial arrest, Wadume should have much to reveal about the dark underbelly of Nigerian security operatives. For instance, media reports cited him saying during police interrogation after his recapture that an army Captain and some other officers were on his payroll. He also reportedly said he paid his way with generous ‘tolls’ at checkpoints en route to his hideout.

    It should help our collective security as citizens if Wadume is made to face-tag the alleged payrolled officers, and if these are thoroughly investigated by the army and brought to justice if found complicit as alleged. Besides, it is high time all relevant security services did definitive risk mapping of checkpoints manned by their personnel, based on the susceptibility of those personnel to being blindsided with bribes by fleeing criminals.

    But then, Wadume’s ‘confessions’ further highlighted the discord underpinning Nigeria’s security architecture, with military sources reported accusing the police of scripted media trial of the kidnap suspect. A top military source was cited by the media wondering why Wadume, a subject of a presidential probe, was interrogated by the police without a representative of the army being present, and why the police appeared to be pre-empting the presidential panel’s investigation.

    The source was quoted saying: “Following the re-arrest of (Wadume) and his video broadcast that was released by the police, certain pertinent questions arise: It is no secret that an all-encompassing presidential investigation committee set up by the Defence Headquarters is currently investigating the allegations of his escape.

    Why have the police decided to come out with a statement directly accusing the army before the presidential panel, which is almost concluding its investigation, rounds up? What is the rush in pre-empting the panel’s report? And in the police statement, why was little or no mention made about the major issue – that is, the crime of kidnapping – which is supposed to be the focus of Wadume’s arrest? The re-arrested (suspect) should not have been interrogated by the police alone in a matter over which both organisations are trading blames and subsequent confession is made to only one party, and that same confession is made public by the police.”

    In other reports, a member of the joint service investigation panel argued that the media parade of Wadume’s confessions poisoned the well of ongoing efforts to smoothen the working relationship between the police and the army. “Though it is commendable that the kidnap kingpin was re-arrested, the video recording of (his) alleged confession while the panel is still conducting its investigation is quite worrisome, as efforts were being put in place to ensure smooth relations between the military and the police before the offending confession,” the panelist was reported saying.

    On this space the last time out, I linked the apparent disarray in operations by Nigerian security agencies to the nebulous architecture on which basis they operate and argued for a redesign of that architecture. Developments over the past week as afore outlined only make me restate that proposition here. Rather than random deployment of military personnel to complement the police in tackling escalating threats of internal insecurity as is presently the case, we should have a more cohesive structure for internal law keeping that intermediates between the civil orientation of the police and warfare orientation of the military. And it isn’t so far fetched, as it might seem, to implement such a structure.

    The community policing initiative already being contemplated by government could be fashioned in the mould of the United States National Guard that is community-based and reports to the governor of respective state, unless called up to protect national interests in times of conflict or natural disaster. That guard is essentially civil, but is yet so military in orientation that it gets mobilised to complement the U.S. army in combat whenever the need arises.

    Also following from Wadume’s confessions is the need to reassess the value of media parade of crime suspects by the police. Media parades are where suspects readily own up to offences, which eventually become a tall order for the police to secure formal conviction from the judiciary. Even notorious suspects like alleged kidnap kingpin, Evans, have till date grinded rather laboriously through the gritty wheel of justice when compared to the hype of their arrest and media parade by the police.

    In Wadume’s case, the parade has aggravated the acrimony between the police and the army. Meanwhile, rights crusaders have always argued that such parades shortchange suspects of their right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by the court of law. Until a competent court is persuaded to convict him, Wadume’s touted confessions may be just another preemptive but vacuous strike by the police.

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.
  • Thematic concerns of In The Name of Our Father

    Thematic concerns of In The Name of Our Father

    That humanity has arrived at a point where its existential experiences are no longer cocooned in the labyrinth of ignorance is a fact with an outright conviction. This is premised on the fact that literature has served as an indefatigable tool in chronicling the events; happenings that buffet human societies, one way or the other. Every society has its own especially unique literature; in fact, every family (unit of society) has its own literature. This is why familial experiences always affect a writer when he or she writes. Why? A writer does not write from nothingness. The world impregnates the writer and he conceives it in words.

    This is the case with the novel, In the Name of Our Father, an example of “Nigerian literature,” as it is a birthing; a dazzlingly continual birthing of the impregnable pregnancies of Nigeria’s realities. These realities are what writers now shape into written words, as it were, causing readers to perceive; emote and respond when need be. The writer (like Yishau Olukorede) becomes a “truth disperser” in that he heals his society of blindness through the words he is able to present as a letter written to hearts, in need of a reply. It is for this especially pertinent reason that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) becomes the ground on which most of the neo-Nigerian-literatures are fertilised. The novel’s prowess in projecting the mind of Africa, Nigeria’s pre-colonial era, makes it an archetype of a true Nigerian literature such that foreign readers are able to see; feel; and hear the African (Nigerian) mind. The novel is constructed in such a way that the psychological construction of characters is shaped by the society they find themselves. Okonkwo, the novel’s failed-hero, is shaped by the society he finds himself. This is why he takes masculinity as a prime factor because he has been cultured by his patriarchal society. Achebe takes his reader into the realm of orature making the Africanness in African prime. He projects the African themes; and it is for this reason that the novel, Things Fall Apart, has become asexual, in that it has been capable of generating many-sided critical views. Many thematic concerns have been expunged from the text.

    Accordingly, these living realities are what we seem to refer to as thematic concerns in the sense that they are the ink that allows the pen of a Nigerian writer to put words on paper. Many critics have attested to the fact that it is quite impossible for the African creative writer to write without the influx of African social and political realities. It is the contemporary issues in Nigerian that generate different themes such as “gender”, “politics”, “corruption”, “anti-colonialism”, “quest for identity”, “religion”, “marriage”, “ethnicity”, “racism”, “war and post-war”; and many more. These themes become a ground on which a writer’s ideology is infinitely fertilised; and as long as these Nigerian realities persist, Nigerian literature continues to exist.

    The foregoing is what informs the novel, In the Name of Our Father, as it chronicles the socio-political happenings that buffet the Nigerian society. The characterisation of Justus Omoeko is at par with individuals who stood as forces of truth in the Nigerian past to fight the deadly acts of the military government. It shows the shackles, in which change-makers are thrown, in the Nigerian cosmogony. This is why we also have the character of Alani, who changes his name to Prophet T.C. Jeremiah, abandoning his impoverished life for a business of hypocrisy and false Christianity. He oppresses his congregation with deception and diabolical power which he reinforces with 8-day old baby. His thirst for power also allures him to the incorrigible head of state who desists from handing over his government to another as he promised. The novel explicates the horrendous situation that religion and politics—two profound institutions in humanity—have caused the Nigerian society. Religion affects politics, and politics affects religion. They both work in tandem to ensuring a well-defined society. But, here, what we see is a wrongly-defined society where politics and religion foster corruption and pursuit of power; poverty and ambition; religious gullibility and hypocrisy; sexual immorality, marriage and female oppression. These aforementioned themes, therefore, will be the preoccupation of this essay.

    The novel, through the characterisation of Pastor David and Prophet T.C. Jeremiah, crystallises the multifarious ways in which people are being deceived through religion; and a belief in a man of God who is aimed at amassing wealth and fame, in the name of the father (God). Alani, a latterly poor man, abandons his family “…while he would try to start a new life afresh in a new land” (25). He seeks tutelage in the deceptive profession his friend, Pastor David, introduces to him; and as a result of his hunger for an especially different life, he indissolubly joins “The Brotherhood” to instill a magical power in him for his fake ministry. It is for this reason that he changes his name to Prophet T.C. Jeremiah. He uses religion as a mask to deceive the masses as well as men of power. It is this mask that Yishau unfurls in his novel. The prophet allures ministers to himself through a false prophecy that they were bound to die. He continues his devious act because they were not convincingly aware that “the few occurrences that looked like miracles were really not miracles. They were mere co-incidences. But since they were gullible, they could not distinguish between miracles and mere-co-incidences” (151-152). The writer evidences the social exploitation attached to a religious mask. Tosin tells Alani that “the man of God wanted a thousand naira. She pleaded with the miracle worker to accept half of the fee” (22). What this examples is the act of untruth being perpetuated by a religious institution that should stand as a pillar of truth and opposition to immoral demeanours in the society. Instead, the so-called men of God sleep with women, deceitfully; they amass wealth through people, in the name of the father. The theme expounded here is largely among the harsh realities present in the Nigerian society.

    One cannot gainsay the assumption that it is the pursuit of power in Nigerian politicians that spawns corruption. This is true in the sense that power is powerful and sweet, and no one wants to remain outside power; rather the insatiable human being wants to control power. This is the case with the Commander-in-Chief, General Idoti, in the novel, who confides in atrocious acts to remain in power. He reprimands Justus for writing a newspaper article which he thinks could usurp him. This is why he takes refuge in Prophet T.C. Jeremiah who “was more than prepared to enslave General Idoti under the guise of providing spiritual counseling. He was going to make a super-slave out of him. And in turn he would make billions of Naira” (113).  General Idoti and Prophet T.C. Jeremiah (religion and politics) are fleshed with corruption and thirst for power. The prophet’s plight is to control the decisions of the General as long as he remains gullible. He goes as far as ensuring the imprisonment of Justus who bears the archetypal image of “a hero as a saviour,” ready to bear the burden of truth. Justus becomes a scapegoat trying to salvage his nation from corruption by exposing the inane performances of the two major institutions in his society—religion and politics. Justus is sentenced into life imprisonment, at first, by fighting with his pen. This is an allusion to the person of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who fought with his pen before he became a scapegoat. General Iya who admittedly plans a coup to overthrow the power-drunk General Idoti becomes a scapegoat, too. He tells Justus about “how the Head of State had stashed money in coded accounts abroad” (216). This exposes the corrupt psychological construction that many Nigerian leaders have. This is why they desire to spend more time in office like General Idoti.

    One can assert that poverty does not only afflict the living, the unborn, at times, experiences poverty. This is at par with Tosin’s unborn child. She dies because Alani (Prophet T.C. Jeremiah) cannot endure having a child as a result of penury. She aborts the child and dies in the process. It is the psychic pain of poverty that leads Alani to the prison of Ambition. He becomes a prisoner of ambition, using certain defense-mechanisms to prevaricate his past life. It is the covering of this past life that builds neurosis in him, which later results in a psychological crisis. He kills Prophet Hezekiah whom he feels is a threat on his road of ambition. He does not wish to return to his downtrodden state. He wants to remain in his transformed status quo like Brother Jero, in Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero. Thus, one can aver that one of the thematic concerns of the text is consonant with poverty and ambition.

    It is necessary to put that Yishau reiterates situations of sexual immorality and female oppression through the portraiture of characters like Rebecca, Abeke (Alani’s wife), Georgina, female-inmates, Nkechi and General Iya’s wife. Rebecca engages in prostitution before she meets the Prophet. She becomes skeptical for a while but after several persuasions she marries the prophet who uses her as a bait to strengthen his diabolical power by entangling her with miscarriages. The prophet also initiates an affair with Nkechi, his church member, and hopes that she would birth a child for him. It turns out that the pregnancy does not belong to him but to a man that abandoned Nkechi in the past. He comes back to claim ownership of the pregnancy after he has attained a wealthy height. This connotes the subjugated state of the woman in a patriarchal society where a woman is socially programmed to be rescued from her suppressed state by a man. Rebecca is salvaged from prostitution by the Prophet. Georgina becomes a victim because she does not agree with her father’s precision that she should marry a man she is not interested in; her father murders her ambition to study Mass Communication. It is for this reason that Beauvoir maintains that women should not be content with investing the meaning of their lives in their husbands and sons, as patriarchy encourages them to do. As Jennifer Hansen observes, “Beauvoir strongly believed that marriage . . .trapped and stunted women’s intellectual growth and freedom” (qtd in Tyson, 2006:97).  Rebecca becomes a proto-feminist when she deviates from the prophet to live a different life. Thus, one can say that she becomes an archetype that would be capable of changing the girl-child’s psychic belief about gender inequality when the novel is read.

    It is also crystallises that male warders lure female-inmates to sex with the conviction that “the female would in return get some favours like permission to stay longer with visiting family members, amongst others” (196).  What is evidenced here is the entrapment of many Nigerian women in the Nigerian society. General Idoti also rapes General Iya’s wife and tries to cocoon his action. One can, thus, suggest that the author, to an extent has verifiably exposed the realities that surround sexual immorality and female oppression.

    Confessedly, one can conclude that the novel, In the Name of Our Father, unfolds the social and political realities in the Nigerian context. The themes we derive from the text are premised on these realities. It can, thus, be said that the Yishau is both a judge and a preacher. He judges the debilitating odds in his society; he also preaches the way out of the malignant sickness encumbering the Nigeria society (maybe this is why Justus Omoeko is exonerated.) It is to show that freedom can still be achieved despite the present darkness in the nation.

     

    Oso is a 400-level English language student at the University of Lagos. He is the winner of the In The Name of Our Father Essay competition for Department of English, University of Lagos.

  • Kwara ‘ll be great again – Dep. Gov.

    The Kwara State Deputy Governor, Mr Kayode Alabi, has said that the present administration will work assiduously to ensure the growth and development of the state.

    Alabi gave the assurance while speaking at a thanksgiving service held at the 2019 convention and fund raising of First ECWA, Oro-Ago, on Sunday.

    He pledged that the present administration would not engage in any corrupt practice or financial recklessness, adding that the cardinal focus of the government would be to ensure the transformation of the state.

    “I call on you our people to support the government with prayers so that we can succeed.

    “It is only God who gives power. I implore you to believe only in His wonderful ways of doing things and I believe Kwara will be great again”, he said.

    In his message, Pastor Sunday Awokoya charged Christians to play significant roles in the spread of the gospel and the building of the church.

    Awokoya, who titled his sermon “Go up into the mountains and bring down timber, and build this house”, quoted copiously from the scriptures to support his appeal for people’s financial contributions to the church building project.

    Read Also: Death of 17 Kwara admission seekers painful, preventable, says AbdulRazaq

    According to him, nothing is too small to contribute to the building of the house of the Lord.

    The cleric called on well-meaning individuals from Oro land to impact their community positively and ensure the early completion of the church.

    He urged those in the Diaspora to come home and invest in the state to ensure its socio-economic development.

    Awokoya, while praying for the success of the present administration, charged it to be upright and fight corruption to a standstill in the state.

    He urged the people of the state to cooperate with the Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq-led administration to succeed in the task of taking the state to greater heights.

    The Oloro of Oro-Ago, Oba Olanrewaju Dada, in his address, pledged the support of his people to the present administration.

    He prayed God to continue to use the governor and his deputy for the progress and development of the state.

    The royal father also called on the sons and daughters of the town in the Diaspora to contribute their own quota towards its development.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the President of Oro-Ago Development Union, Mr Tunji Kadir, presented a copy of the Holy Bible to the deputy governor, on behalf of the community, in appreciation of his visit.

    NAN also reports that the event was attended by a former deputy governor of the state, Mr Joel Ogundeji and traditional rulers from Kwara South Senatorial District, led by the Olomu of Omu-Aran, Oba Abdulraheem Adeoti, among others.

    (NAN)

  • Police says none of its stations was burnt in Enugu

    The Police Command in Enugu State said no police station was burnt in the state as being speculated in the social media.

    The Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Ebere Amaraizu, said this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Sunday.

    Amaraizu, however, said that some hoodlums that pretended to come to report a matter in Ikirike Police Station, suddenly attacked the station located within Enugu South Local Government Area at about 8 a.m.

    “It was an incident which has to do with attack by some people suspected to be hoodlums, who had come with the pretence of laying complaint in the early hours of today. Under that guise, they attacked our men.

    “Although, there was no death among police personnel on duty in the station, but our injured personnel are responding to treatment.

    “The quick intervention of reinforcement team as dispatched by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Sulaiman Balarabe, could not give the hoodlums the opportunity to have the upper hand,’’ he said.

    The police spokesman said the commissioner had directed an investigation into the incident with a view to unmasking the culprits.

    (NAN)

  • #BBNaija: Tacha and Mercy receive strikes

    Housemates Tacha Akide and Mercy Eke have been issued strikes in the ongoing BBNaija season four.

    News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the strikes, issued on Sunday night, would be Mercy’s first and Tacha’s second since the season began.

    It also came  two weeks after Biggie addressed the housemates on infringements in the house and the consequences of breaking rules.

    Mercy was issued a strike because of her acts of provocation on Saturday night towards love interest, Ike Onyema.

    According to Biggie, she went against the rule book which clearly states that provocation and violence are not permitted in the House.

    NAN reports that on Saturday night, Mercy threw plastic pieces at Ike and used derogatory words during their squabble while the latter remained calm.

    Two more strikes and she would  be automatically disqualified from the Big Brother House.

    On Aug. 13, Mercy was issued a warning for damaging the Oppo phone and as a result, got the long talk on why being Biggie’s guests involves them being of their best behaviour.

    Read Also: Gedoni, Jackye leave #BBNaija House

    On the other hand, Tacha was issued a strike for disrespecting Biggie by not responding immediately she was summoned to the diary room.

    She was also caught on camera whispering a sly comment when she was summoned, which Biggie counted as disrespect.

    As a consequence of her disregard and insolence towards authority, Big Brother issued Tacha her second strike in the game.

    According to Biggie, he found her guilty of disrespect as well as undermining the world of Big Brother.

    He also mentioned that she showed continuous disrespect and rudeness to the Authority, like when asked ‘why’ and thinking it was witty to describe the letter ‘Y’.

    NAN reports that one more Strike and her dream of making it to day ninety-nine will be cut short.

    Tacha was issued her first strike on Aug. 13 for provocation, alongside Ike who was issued his second strike the same day. (NAN)