A paramount ruler in Kogi State, the Ohinoyi of Ebira land, Ado Ibrahim, has joined his ancestors

He died in the early hours of Sunday after a brief illness.

DAILY POST gathered that the prominent monarch, who died at the age of 95, will be buried according to Islamic rites.

It could be recalled that the late Ado Ibrahim was coronated in 1997 as the Ohinoyi of Ebira land by the then-Governor of Kogi State, late Prince Abubakar Audu.

He took over from the his predecessor Alhaji Sanni Omolorim who reigned between 1957 and 1997.

Born on February 7, 1929, late Ado Ibrahim attended both western nursery and Quranic schools, and went on to conclude his primary education in 1940 at the Native Authority (NA) primary school in Okene, Northern Region (now Kogi State).

He, began his secondary school education at Ondo Boys High School and later on moved to Oduduwa College, where he graduated in 1949.

In 1954, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and a master’s degree from Harvard Business School in 1959.

[DailyPost]

• Kogi Central stands still for APC as massive crowd converge on Okene
• We’ll deliver en bloc for Ododo – Ebira indigenes promise •Uzodimma promises to hand over to Owerri zone in 2O27

Less than 14 days to the off-cycle elections in three states, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is still at the mercy of the court in Imo and Bayelsa states.

The polls will hold on November 11 in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states.

But two outstanding cases in Bayelsa and Imo states have created anxiety for political parties and propped up last-minute logistic challenges for INEC on the printing of ballot papers.

Following a court order on the inclusion of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in the poll in Imo State, INEC has had to destroy 2.4 million ballot papers.

The ballot papers were printed a month ago and kept with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

It was learnt that a case on the last governorship election in Imo State was still pending before the Supreme Court.

It could not be immediately ascertained if the apex court will deliver its judgment on or before November 11.

In Bayelsa State, INEC is still awaiting the decision of the Court of Appeal on the fate of the Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Timipre Sylva.

A reliable source, who spoke in confidence, said: “INEC is set for the off-cycle elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, but the commission is at the mercy of court decisions.

“For instance, INEC had to destroy about 2.4 million ballot papers in order to abide by a court judgment which directed it to include the PRP governorship candidate in Imo State.

“INEC had a month ago printed and kept the ballot papers for Imo Governorship Election with the CBN. Imagine the loss to the nation with the destruction of the ballot papers.

“Again, there is an outstanding case in the Supreme Court on the last governorship poll in the state.

“Concerning Bayelsa State, INEC is waiting for the verdict of the Court of Appeal on APC candidate, Timipre Sylva, to wrap up its final preparations.

“In obedience to the order of a High Court, Sylva was removed from the list of governorship candidates pending the final judgment of the court.”

Responding to a question, the source said: “Unless there are new amendments to the Electoral Act, INEC will continue to be on the edge.

“Most of the cases involving INEC arise from pre-election matters of parties, including eligibility of candidates and the conduct of party primaries.

“We are handicapped; we have to obey court orders.”

Last week, while defending the credibility of the 2023 elections, INEC, in a statement by its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr. Sam Olumekun, indicted parties and their members for resorting to litigations.

It said:  “It is pertinent to note that the grounds for challenging the outcome of an election as provided in Section 134 of the Electoral Act, 2022 are not limited to the conduct of election by the commission.

“An election may be questioned on the grounds that the winner of the election was not qualified to contest the election by virtue of his academic qualifications, age, etc.

“Many of the petitioners did not challenge the conduct of the elections by INEC but the eligibility of candidates or their nomination by political parties.

“Under the law, INEC has no power to screen candidates. Similarly, only the courts can disqualify candidates.

“A report blames the pre-election cases arising from the conduct of primary elections by political parties on INEC.

“These are intra-party cases involving party members in which they join the commission and seek for reliefs binding on it.

“As everyone knows, INEC does not conduct primaries for political parties.

“Thirdly, in pursuit of their right under the law, many litigants in Nigeria unfortunately file election petitions over the most improbable cases and later withdraw them or they are dismissed by the tribunals.”

Kogi Central stands still for APC as massive crowd converge on Okene

The people of Kogi Central Senatorial District yesterday trooped out from all corners of the zone to declare their total support for the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Usman Ododo ahead of the November 11 governorship poll.

The unprecedented crowd that converged on Agassa Junction, Okene, some indigenes said, was a clear sign that Kogi Central would deliver votes en bloc for the ruling party in the election the state governor, Yahaya Bello, says will be free, fair and peaceful.

Various speakers at the rally described as the most attended in the history of the state, stressed that the massive turnout was an indication of pending resounding victory for the ruling party.

Addressing the excited supporters made up mainly of Ebira indigenes, the Minister of Steel Development and Director General, Kogi State APC Governorship Campaign Council, Shaibu Abubakar Audu, said: “The crowd gathered here today is unprecedented in the political history of Kogi State. In my years of following the politics of Kogi State, without mincing words, this is a game changer, a final nail on the aspiration of the opposition political parties in the state.

“The vision of Alhaji Usman Ahmed Ododo, which has attracted this crowd, is to provide agricultural revolution across the state with massive crops produced across the senatorial district.

“We are here to pursue a Kogi agenda and not an ethnic agenda. The incoming administration will build on the legacies of Governor Yahaya Bello in massively providing infrastructure and empowerment for the people.”

Audu said the Federal Government led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is interested in the revitalisation of the Ajaokuta Steel Plant.

“He has asked that Ajaokuta be declared an industrial park. The President is also interested in ensuring that the free trade scheme across Nigeria is reviewed so that Ajaokuta can be declared a free trade zone.

“Once that is done, it would create massive jobs; 500,000 direct and indirect jobs will be created for our teeming youths. This is the reason the President is concerned and has said we cannot afford to outsource a critical State like Kogi State to a hostile opposition party.

“Kogi State will remain an APC state,” he declared.

In his remarks, the Chief of Staff to the governor, Mohammed Jamiu Asuku, said the people of Kogi Central had, by the mammoth crowd, testified to the great achievements of Governor Bello.

“The mammoth crowd is a testimony that indeed Governor Yahaya Bello has done more than enough for the people of the state. The mammoth crowd is a testimony that indeed the APC has chosen an acceptable candidate.

“The people of Kogi Central have, by today’s turnout, resolved to vote massively for Alhaji Usman Ahmed Ododo and Comr. Salifu Joel,” he said.

One of the key stakeholders of Kogi East Senatorial District, Hajia Halima Alfa, commended Governor Bello for bringing a new dimension to politics in the state, describing the governor as a prophet well respected at home.

Alfa said: “I have never seen this kind of crowd in Kogi State in my entire political life and since I started attending rallies in 1999. Kogi Central is no doubt APC. History will no doubt be made come November 11, as the district will produce the highest vote for the APC.” 

Mohamed Idris, son of a former governor of Kogi State, Ibrahim Idris, who publicly declared his support for the APC candidate, urged the people of Kogi Central and the state at large to follow the man and party that know the road, insisting that there was no vacancy in Lugard House for opposition political parties.

Governor Yahaya Bello, who was visibly elated by the unprecedented turnout, described the sea of heads at the rally and the acceptance displayed as a show of love for the APC and appreciation of the party’s achievements under his watch.

He thanked President Bola Tinubu for his quality leadership and for his unflinching support for Kogi State, assuring that the party in the state would not disappoint the President and would win by a landslide in the coming election.

He said: “This unprecedented crowd is an indication that the APC has won. We have no opposition in Kogi Central and in Kogi State. We did it before, we will do it again come November 11.

“As an administration, we have done our best by uniting the people of the state. We met, on assumption of office, fault lines of disunity, ethnicity and injustice. But under our administration, we have been able to mend all the fault lines and Kogi State is now united.

“We have created employment. We built infrastructure. We empowered our women and youth like never before under any administration in the state since creation. We have made fairness, equity, justice our priority.

“I can assure you that we are leaving Kogi State better than we met it for the incoming administration. Alhaji Usman Ahmed Ododo is a capable hand. He is competence personified. Let’s support him to build on the legacies we have created.”

The governor assured the people that the elections would be violence-free, noting that the APC governorship candidate was not coming to learn on the job, not promoting ethnic agenda, and would hit the ground running with visible results in terms of building on the achievements of his administration.

He called on security agencies to continue the good job they had been doing in the state and clamp down on criminals before, during and after the elections.

The APC governorship candidate, Usman Ododo, expressed confidence that Kogi would remain an APC State after the November 11 governorship election.

“I will continue to deliver on the mandate of our party for the development of Kogi State and the wellbeing of our good people.

“We are serious about meeting the yearnings and aspirations of our people. We have been doing that under my mentor, Governor Yahaya Bello, and we will continue to do so,” he said.

The high point of the rally was the massive defection of members of the SDP, PDP and other political parties to APC.

Uzodimma reveals plan to hand over to zone in 2027

Imo State Governor Senator Hope Uzodimma has challenged the leaders in Owerri Zone of the state to unite and forge a common front to enable them succeed him in 2027 when he would serve out his second term.

The governor reiterated his determination to hand over to Owerri Zone at the end of his second term in 2027 based on the Imo Charter of Equity and the overwhelming support his administration has enjoyed from the zone for his re-election.

Governor Uzodimma gave the assurance at the Owerri Zone youth and women endorsement rally held at Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu Square, New Owerri, on Friday.

He recalled that the Imo Charter of Equity is for unity, peace and fairness to all the zones, adding that he will use his office and political networks to implement it.

Uzodimma urged the zone to unite for peace to attract local and foreign direct investments to the area, noting that “unity will bring prosperity, cure poverty, provide jobs that will engage the youths and reduce violence in the zone and Imo State in general.”

He called on the youths to shun violence, vandalism and destruction “because such behaviour will not bring anything good, rather it will bring destruction and stigmatisation to them.”

The Governor appealed to Owerri zone leaders, youths and women to tell those sponsoring violence in the state to stop and allow peace to reign.

“The youths should shun violence and those engaged in it because they are not our friends,” he said, pledging to continue to uphold the Nigerian project “because Nigeria is our heritage and Imo State will not abandon her heritage.”

He pleaded with everyone to unite in order to reap the gains of bigger Nigeria.

The governor recalled how he met the state in a shambles when he took office, “devastated and in turmoil” in 2020 before he “recovered it from the cemetery, revived it and today the narrative has changed.”

Governor Uzodimma further recalled how he recovered the state secretariat, reconstructed Owerri Relief Market Road in addition to the reconstruction of the three main road corridors leading in and out of Imo State when there was scarcity of funds to do that.

The governor hinted that his administration has reduced the debt profile of Imo State from N320 billion to N148 billion as well as increased the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from N600 million to about N3 billion per month.

The Governor said he had discovered that the major problem of insecurity and youth restiveness was unemployment. Hence he decided to create both skilled and unskilled jobs for Imo youths.

He said that the first set of 15,000 unskilled jobs and 20,000 digital skilled jobs through the Cohort 1 and 2 Skill-Up Project had been created.

He also said his administration has transformed the health sector by rehabilitating the 305 primary healthcare centres, acquired mobile health clinics and built three brand-new general hospitals in the oil producing local government areas of the state.

He decried the reckless way land grabbing has been elevated to a religion and promised that by the end of the month, the IGIS will be activated and people whose lands were wrongly taken away would have them returned.

The governor thanked the people of Owerri zone, especially the youths and women, for their enormous support and appreciated them for coming out en masse to show their solidarity for his re-election.

Earlier, the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo State, Dr  Macdonald Ebere, said that the “Governor has done well in all sectors of human endeavours in the state,”  adding that “all local governments in Owerri Zone are standing up in his support because already, God is with the Governor and nobody will take it away from him.”

The Chairman of the Organising Committee, Chief Henry Njoku (Haritex), told the governor that all youths and the women in Owerri Zone were with him, “especially as they have firm belief in the implementation of the Charter of Equity, which will guarantee the zone the Governor of Imo State by 2027.”

World heavyweight champion Tyson Fury beat mixed martial arts fighter Francis Ngannou in a split decision after their boxing bout went the distance in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

Ngannou knocked Fury down in round three but the 35-year-old British fighter, though shaken, was able to continue.

The undefeated Fury earlier this week laughed off his opponent as a “big fat sausage” but afterwards acknowledged that the 37-year-old Cameroonian had effectively kept him off-balance.

“He’s a very awkward man, and he’s a good puncher and I respect him a lot,” Fury said of Ngannou, adding that it was “probably one of the toughest” fights he has had in a decade.

Fury was the overwhelming favourite against boxing novice Ngannou.

“This was my first boxing match, great experience –- I’m not giving any excuse,” Ngannou said in a ringside interview.

“I know I come up short, I’m going to come back and work harder… now I know I can do this.”

Fury’s WBC heavyweight belt was not on the line in the “Battle of the Baddest” in the Saudi capital Riyadh, but Saudi officials nevertheless hoped it would further boost the Gulf kingdom’s reputation as a top-flight boxing destination.

With all parties desperate to lend the contest some sporting legitimacy, the WBC had fashioned a “Riyadh Champion” belt to allow the winner to strut around the ring at the end with something other than a big, fat pay cheque.

Fury has been linked with a £50 million ($60.6 million) payout from Sunday’s exhibition bout, while he has said in the British press that Ngannou will earn £10 million.

[Vanguard]

One narrative of the last few years that has refused to change is the argument that Nigeria is not just a poor country but the poverty capital of the world. Last week, I learnt a lot about the subject at an exciting school’s debate where speakers argued for and against the topic, “Nigeria’s poverty is artificial.” The position of the winner of the debate was that Nigeria’s alleged poverty is fake news.

To establish that the country was truly not broke, he counted as many as 47 countries in the world that are poorer than Nigeria. Indeed, for the African content, he quoted several sources including the World Bank which confirm that Nigeria is not as poor as several other countries, especially Burundi, Somalia, Central Africa Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Mozambique, Liberia, Malawi, Madagascar and Chad.

A cursory look at many events in Nigeria would readily show that the country is always able to execute any project that its political leaders support. What is not done is usually also the choice of leadership, hence we could construct a rail line beyond our borders to a neighbouring country. For the 2023 elections, Nigeria was able to afford 200,000 devices of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) at a unit cost of $795. Whether the same BVAS turned out to be useful or not at the end of the exercise is not our immediate concern here, the point to note is that a poor country could not have been able to procure such devices. Again, in only one of the political parties, 28 people were able to pay N100 million to procure the party’s presidential elections nomination form.

To better understand how wealthy Nigeria is, the debaters insisted that we should avoid the temptation of federalizing the subject because many state governments and individuals do also meet the cost of huge projects. It is an open secret that although the results of local government elections are usually fabricated in government houses ahead of the event, stategovernmentsdo vote and actually expend huge sums on the logistics of elections as well as voter suppression. In the private sector,some people had thought that atrociousairfares would scare away prospective passengers, but in reality many people are still able to meet the new rates and quite often pay more than the high figures to secure seats in over-booked flights. Land travels supposedly meant for the poor have also moved from N5,000 to as high as N30, 000 notwithstanding the great discomfort to passengers. Can this happen in a country that is truly poor?  

No poor country can even conceive of the idea of spending N5.5 billion naira to buy luxury cars for its federal legislators. But the current budget of the Nigerian National Assembly reportedly provided for such humongous expenditure. To many pro-assembly people, there is nothing wrong with the purchase of the vehicles within budgetary approvals. On national television,Sunday Karimi, chairman services of the 10th Senate told the nation that it is not only federal legislators that enjoy the same privilege. State legislators according to Karimi get theirs even before inauguration. In fact, the chairman of his own local government in his state, Kogi, has the same vehicle as his official car. Is it not funny that the people of Nigeria are hoodwinked by their leaders into believing that their country is insolvent? 

Poverty cannot be measured by available cash only. A country that can raise huge sums of money through loans cannot be described as poor. Those opposed to the purchase of SUV cars for federal legislators are ignorant of how the National Assembly always handles the subject. As senator Karimi testified in his television interview, vehicles and a few other items accounted for a liability of no less than N16 billion left behind by the 7th, 8th and 9th Assemblies. If our federal legislators have in the last 12 years bought vehicles without paying fully for them, the 10th Assembly cannot appreciate why its members are so heavily criticised for merely following an established tradition. They believe that the hyper-critical stance of the Nigerian population towards them is unfair.

The legislators have clearly avoided ruffling other people’s feathers. We now know for example that oversight functions notwithstanding, ministers and heads of agencies are not challenged for allegedly having a fleet of the same vehicle that the legislators demand. According to senator Karimi’s school of thought, ministers have up to 3 SUV cars; yet, no one talks about that, it is only legislators that everyone criticises. In which case, people have forgotten that in Nigeria, any breach can be washed clean if the wrong-doer is able to identify other people who are known to commit the same infractions without sanctions.  Legislators therefore want critics to learn to be less discriminatory and get to understand better why our legislators often over-look wrong doings in the executive arm of government.

Understandably, our legislators know more than the rest of us that our country is really not broke because they know where public fund is hidden. To our legislators, since our roads are never in good condition, the provision for road construction can be justifiably diverted to purchase SUV cars for them. They want us to know that legislators cannot visit their constituencies if flamboyant but rugged vehicles are not purchased for them.

In other words, Nigeria is wealthy enough to provide for the cars because some other projects such as road construction are always experimented upon. Nigeria also has enough wealth to pay prices higher than the figures advertised by the vendors because although the subject is usually budgeted for, payment is never expeditiously released. As a result, the bureaucracy adds a certain percentage to meet the vendor’s inconvenience plus several charges such as value added tax and withholding tax. What is poor in a country that can meet all these?

Another incontrovertible evidence that Nigeria is not poor is revealed by the appointment of 48 ministers by the new administration. With 3 new nominees sworn-in a few days back, no one is sure if more may not come. Considering that ministers in the United States government are just 20, is Nigeria not richer than the US?If it is true that Nigeria is really broke as our leaders want us to believe, won’t the priority for now be directed at quick strategies for reducing the mandatory 37 ministers provided for in our constitution?The federal government of Nigeria cannot add more than 10 to the mandatory figure of ministers and turn around to continuously sermonize on the so-called poor economy of the nation. Again it is not a subject to be federalized. At state level, Niger state has 131 Special Advisers/Assistants, while Yobe has 642, many of whom have no identifiable work schedules.

Interestingly, well before now, many patriots had arguedthat no modern society still embraces bloated government. As far back as 2012, former Commonwealth scribe, Emeka Anyaoku said so at the formal presentation of a book, “Reforming the unreformable: Lessons for Nigeria” by Ngozi Okonjo Iweala. Alas, Nigeria appears too wealthy to listen or to hear. Perhaps the last to hear the sermon would be senators who in their comfort zone, do not only earn inexplicable salaries, that are reportedly the highest in the world but also travel occasionally on recess with spiritual anointing of their leadership plus a token of N2million travelling allowance. Those of them who are used to earning retirement allowances from sundry sources have since become victims of selective hearing. Asranking senators all they can hear from whatever is said is that it is time to get new luxurious SUV cars to be added to what they got 4 years ago.

From the above submission, it makes sense to agree with the side of the debate which described the tale of Nigeria’s poverty as fake news. Nigeria is not a poor country. If its timid civic society can wake up soon from their slumber, the hidden wealth of Africa’s most populous nation will surface. There is a difference between a naturally poor nation and a wealthy one whose resources have been misapplied. Nigeria is economically viable; her dilemma is that her wealth is continuously stolen. 

I am a Christian. I was born one and I will die one. I take my faith very seriously and I count it as being more important to me than anything else in life.

Despite that, I supported and campaigned vigorously for a Muslim/Muslim ticket in the 2023 presidential election because I believe that religion has no place in politics and that competence is the relevant factor when it comes to leadership rather than faith.

That does not however mean that as a Christian, I will stand by quietly and allow anyone to denigrate my faith.

I believe that both Christians and Muslims should and must be given their due respect in this country and that the adherents and leaders of both of these two great faiths must let love guide their every word and action and strive to live together in unity, peace and harmony.

I also believe that where we see danger signals and identify circumstances and individuals that may threaten that peace and harmony, we must challenge and expose them, call them to order before it is too late and bring them to the attention of the authorities.

It is for these reasons that I have made the following well-researched and detailed contribution about a man that I believe can best be described as the Cleric of Blood.

We saw the face of hate & the spirit of ISIS manifest itself in the most barbaric & profound manner when Hamas unleashed its unadulterated savagery on the people of Israel on October 7th.

Inciting, provocative, insulting words

On that day the Jewish State experienced its darkest hour.

Sadly that face is raising its blood-lusting & bloodthirsty head in Nigeria today.

The inciting, provocative & deeply insulting, words, which I shall quote in this contribution, from a man that hates Christians, Middle-Belters & Southerners with what the Holy Bible describes as “a perfect hatred” & a man that is a vicious psychopath, a dangerous, subversive & an unrelenting & insidious religious & ethnic bigot, will prove it.

He is indeed the Cleric of Blood, destruction and carnage & his name is Sheik Ahmad Gumi.

I am constrained to begin this essay with a link to his sermon (as repugnant as it was) which was delivered in a Kaduna mosque a few days ago.

The words were translated from Hausa & here is the link of the FULL text:

I suggest that readers trace the link on Google and go through it carefully so that they can fully appreciate the gravity & depravity of his dangerous allegations and perverse assertions.

It is clear that there are some hidden yet sinister and dark forces both within and outside Nigeria that are behind this evil man and that are encouraging him to continue to tread this reckless and dangerous course.

He is a believer in the doctrine of ‘Taqfir’ and a committed adherent of the hardline Salafist ‘Wahabi’ philosophy which forms the bedrock and foundation of the evil organisation that the Arabs describe as ‘Daesh’.

His late father, Sheik Abubakar Gumi, was an equally controversial cleric with a massive following and a committed hard-line Islamist.

Such was the senior Gumi’s zeal for Islamic fundamentalism and obsession for our country to be transformed into an Islamic state that he once infamously proclaimed, before a massive congregation of his followers and disciples, that a Christian would only rule Nigeria “over his dead body” .

It is instructive to note that the man died not too long after that and a Christian by the name of Chief Ernest Shonekan became Head of State in what was then described as Interim Government.

The dark forces that Ahmad Gumi, his father Abubakar Gumi and those that think like them represent have little to do with the great and compassionate faith of Islam which insists on equity, justice, tolerance, submission to the will of God and peace.

The fact that they are unable to accomodate and live peacefully with others, including real Muslims and Christians, in a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic nation like ours makes them enemies of the Nigerian state and the Nigerian people.

Unislamic, anti-Christian, intolerant, aggressive, delusional, stubborn, intemperate, intransigent, uncompromising, ignorant, blind, deaf, dumb, intellectually deficient and wholeheartedly relentless in their arrogant assertions and archaic proselytising, these extremists are not only a danger to all but they also present an existential threat to our nation.

When he was confronted with a barrage of criticism & outrage from Nigerians after his sermon, Ahmad Gumi expressed no remorse & instead he said, “I will not respond to irritants in democracy!”

What an insensitive & arrogant soul he is.

This is the kind of man that would have been celebrating and having multiple orgasms whilst watching the slaughter and massacre of innocent and helpless Jewish women and children by the beasts of Hamas on CNN on October 7th.

Saving grace

The only saving grace in this whole ugly episode is the fact that some Northern elders have displayed true leadership & commitment to the peace & unity of Nigeria & disowned Gumi over his threats.

Again, the Chief E. K. Clark-led PANDEF, who spoke for the people of the South-South & Niger Delta, & the Middle Belt Forum, which spoke for the people of the Middle-Belt, also put him in his place.

Bishop El Buba, Sunday Igboho and Asari Dokubo have also spoken out against him and his divisive rhetoric on behalf of the Church, the South-West and the South-South respectively.

This is commendable and encouraging.

For the record, my response to his malodorous & repugnant diatribe is as follows:

The scripture that came to my spirit after reading his dangerous and utterly outrageous incitement was Psalm 59:2 which says, “May the Lord deliver us from bloodthirsty & evil men”.

I am simply astounded by the hateful disposition, poisonous venom, putrid verbiage, puerile assertions, malicious deceit, perfidious falsehood & divisive rhetoric coming from a man who lays claim to being a pious & peaceful religious leader!

Gumi is clearly a man that delights & revels in carnage, butchery, bloodshed, strife, war & perpetual & never-ending conflict.

He is also the face of hate & the full embodiment & living manifestation of the spirit of ISIS.

Thankfully, he does not represent the Muslim community in our country: he only represents Daesh, ISWAP, ISIS, Al Shabab, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas & Boko Haram.

He does not represent reasonable, rational, peace-loving, pious and serious-minded Northern Muslim leaders like the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Kano, the Shehu of Borno, Sheik Dahiru Bauchi, Professor Isa Pantami, Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima, Sheik Muhammad Sani Yahaya Jingir Jos, Sheik El Zak Zaky and so many others that we know and whose integrity and commitment to the peace and unity of Nigeria we can vouch for: he only represents the violent, extreemist and murderous beasts that are on the lunatic fringe.

Religious, ethnic war

Yet, whichever way you view him, one thing is clear: Gumi is attempting to ignite a religious & ethnic war in Nigeria & someone needs to call him to order before it is too late.

When he says Southerners & Christians “cannot be trusted with security”, that the FCT Minister is “satanic” simply because he received the Israeli Ambassador in his office & that those of us that supported a Muslim/Muslim ticket are worthless hypocrites, money-mongers & accursed citizens who chased dollars for pleasure & worldly purposes, it is clear that he has lost touch with reality & that he is looking for trouble.

Someone please tell this dangerous, deluded, malevolent, mendacious & misguided little creature that there is no longer any place for religious or ethnic politics & bigotry in Nigeria.

He dismisses the fact that the President, the Vice President, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of State of Defence, the National Security Advisor, the DG of DSS, the DG of NIA, the Chief of Air Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Staff to the President, the Speaker of the House of Reps & the Chief Justice of the Federation are ALL Muslims & insists that Muslims must also be in charge of the command & control structures of ALL our security & intelligence agencies & the three arms of the military, namely the Army, Navy & Airforce.

Of course he was ecstatic when under the Buhari administration every single one of Nigeria’s 17 security agencies & branches of the military were under the command & control of not just Muslims but Northern Muslims.

That arrangement, despite its blatant disregard for the principles of Federal Character & ethnic & religious balancing gave him joy.

Clearly he wants us to return to that unjust, unacceptable & dangerous arrangement.

Better still, given his words & by his warped & asinine logic, he would prefer us to remove ALL Christian personnel from our military, intelligence & security agencies, ban them from joining & allow only Muslims to serve.

Yet, his nonsense did not stop there.

Demands

He went on to say that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not be allowed to remain in power for the next four or eight years unless he met their demands.

Finally he made his most absurd & asinine point when he ended his sermon by saying that because Nyesom Wike, the Minister of FCT who happens to be a Southerner & a Christian, received the Israeli Ambassador in his office it meant that the Tinubu Government are planning to turn Abuja “into Tel Aviv where Muslims would be targetted & killed”.

Two questions are relevant here.

Do Christians & Southerners have the right to be Minister of the Federal Capital Territory & does Nigeria have diplomatic relations with the State of Israel?

If the answer to both are in the affirmative then I really do not understand what all the fuss is about.

I do not believe or subscribe to the erroneous notion that the Minister of the FCT is the exclusive preserve of Northern Muslims & neither do I believe that Nigeria, a nation with over 120 million Christians should EVER sever its diplomatic ties with the State of Israel.

A Christian cannot head the FCT because it is in the North but a Muslim can head NNPC whose oil is in the South?

Is this not warped logic? As a Pastor friend of mine asked “are we not mad in this country?”

Gumi also said Christians always kill Muslim leaders when they are in power and when they have the opportunity to do so.

He said that power should not have been given to the South earlier this year and expressed the view that if this had to be so there should have been concrete security guarantees from the new order that all Northern Muslims would remain safe and not be butchered.

This assertion betrays the fact that he and those he represents do not regard our President as a Muslim. That is the implication of what he has said.

Worse still, deep down, those that think like him do not regard any Yoruba or Southern Muslim as a real one.

That is the pitiful and shallow level of their ignorance, bigotry and effontry.

Wild, inaccurate claims

He went on to indulge in a mischievous & nonsensical journey of historical revisionism making all sorts of wild and inaccurate claims.

He said Nigeria was safer when Muslims were in power & when they controlled the guns & that Christians cannot be trusted with power.

At this point I really do wonder whether this man is above the law & I am amazed at the fact that he has not been arrested.

Can any Christian leader talk to his flock from the pulpit like that about Muslims without being arrested?

He said so many other explosive & provocative things which can be seen in the full text of his sermon including the absurd, wild and unsubstantiated allegation that President Goodluck Jonathan, a man that is regarded by many as one of the most restrained, gentle, kind, compassionate and rational Presidents that Nigeria has ever had and one who simply refused to abuse power, had planned to murder him when he was in power simply because he was a Muslim!

Quite apart from that he alleged that President Jonathan was responsible for the brutal murder of General Mohammed Shuwa who was gunned down in his own home by Boko Haram and that he was in full control of the terrorists and responsible for all the atrocities they committed when he was in power.

Those who managed to stomach reading his nauseating gobbledegook can testify to its toxiticy & subversive intent.

The question needs to be asked: is this man well in the head? Is he mentally stable? Is he suffering from mental illness?

Are his crumbling mental faculties still intact or has he totally lost his already fragile mind?

Needless to say I have always despised him & I have always known that there is something dark & sinister about his more than cosy relationship with the bloodthirsty & heartless ISWAP & Boko Haram terrorists that have plagued our nation but now I have cause to question his sanity as well.

This is a man who, a few weeks before the 2023 presidential elections, said “Don’t vote for those who will fight bandits. The fighters (bandits) are our people. So please vote for those who, after attaining power, will call & negotiate with our people (bandits) so as to give them what they want for peace to reign”.

Swap the word “bandits” for “terrorists” and you will really appreciate what this deluded and dangerous man represents & stands for.

Attempting to draw from his shallow knowledge of the military & its history as an unaccomplished & sacked Major from the Medical Corps of the Nigerian Army he made reference to Christians killing Muslim leaders in various military coups.

He mentioned the fact that Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Tafawa Balewa & other Muslim leaders were killed by mutinous Christian soldiers on the night of January 15th 1966.

He conveniently forgot to mention the fact that Chief S. L. Akintola, Brigadier Ademulegun, Colonel Unuigbe, Chief Festus Okotie Eboh, Colonel Yakubu Pam, Colonel Sodeinde & many other Christian political leaders & military officers were killed by the same people on the same night.

He failed to mention the fact that the mutinous soldiers, led by Major Emmanuel Ifejuana & Major Kaduna Nzeogwu murdered BOTH Christian & Muslim leaders on that terrible night.

He refused to acknowledge the fact that it was not only Muslim leaders that were targetted.

Even though it is true that the Jan 15th 1966 coup was primarily a Christian one it is also true that it was crushed and aborted by primarily Christian officers like Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, Captain Paul Tarfa, Lt. Col. T. Y. Danjuma, Lt. Col. Martins Adamu and so many others.

In the Northern Officers revenge coup of July 29th 1966 which came 6 months later, 300 Christian Igbo officers were killed together with a Christian Head of State, General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi & a Christian Governor of the old Western Region, General Adekunle Fajuyi.

This “revenge coup” was led by Northern officers of both Christian & Muslim extraction like Lt. Col. T. Y. Danjuma, Lt. Col. Martins Adamu, Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed, Lt. Ibrahim Babaginda, Lt. Muhammadu Buhari, Lt. Col. IBM Haruna, Lt. Ibrahim Abacha & others.

He said Christians killed the Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, in the 1976 Dimka coup but he forgot to mention the fact that Lt. Col. A.R. Aliyu, Lt. Col. T.K. Adamu, Lt. A. B. Umaru, Capt. A. A. Aliyu, Lt. Mohammed & a number of other Muslims were also involved in the execution of that coup & that Christian officers like Lt. Akintunde Akinsehinwa were also killed by the plotters.

However if he insists on arguing that the 1976 coup was a Christian coup then he must conceed the fact that the officers that thwarted it were also mainly Christian & were led by General T. Y. Danjuma, the then Chief of Army Staff.

He said only Christians are involved in coups in which blood is shed forgetting that the 1983 coup which removed President Shehu Shagari from power & brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power & in which one of the master minds, Brigadier Ibrahim Bako, was mysteriously shot in the back of the head by one of his own fellow coup plotters whilst attempting to arrest the President was not planned, organised, led or effected by primarily Christian officers.

Most of the key planners and senior officers involved in that mutiny including General Ibrahim Babangida, General Sani Abacha, General Tunde Idiagbon, General Muhammadu Buhari and many others happened to be Muslim and sadly during the course of the event blood was shed.

Coming to the April 22nd 1990 coup which was led by Major Gideon Orkar, Lt. Col. Tony Nyiam, Major Saliba Daddy Mukoro, Captain Victor Tolofari and others and in which they attempted to remove the Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, from power there is no doubt that it was indeed a Christian coup and indeed much blood was shed.

However it must again be conceeded that it was also foiled by primarily Christian officers led by Major General Joshua Dogonyaro, Brigadier General David Mark, Brigadier General Tunde Ogbeha, Brigadier General John Shagaya, Colonel Ishaya Bamayi, Colonel John Yahaya Madaki, Lt. Colonel Gideon Zidion, Major Jonathan Temlong and so many others.

Somebody please make it clear to this meddlesome and confused despot that religion and matters of faith are never a factor when people are plotting coup d’etats and military insurrection. Anyone that thinks otherwise is clearly blinded by his own bigotry.

He says Christians like to kill but can he tell us if it was Christians that killed over 100,000 innocent Igbo Christian civilians in 3 months of genocidal pogroms in core Northern Nigeria in 1966?

Butchered

Was it Christians that butchered hundreds of thousands of Christians over 50 years all over the North and specifically in places like Plateau, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, Borno, Sokoto, Yobe, Southern Kaduna, Zangon Kataf, Numan, Nassarawa, Niger & even in parts of the South?

Are the footsoldiers of ISWAP & Boko Haram Christians? Were the members of the murderous Maitatsine cult in Kano Christians?

Are those that have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their fellow Muslims all over the North & in parts of the South over the last 10 years Christians?

Are those that have wiped out entire communities in the name of ethnic cleansing & stolen their land Christians?

Are those that bomb and burn down Churches & burn Christian clerics & their congregations alive Christians?

Was a Christian in power from 1994 till 1998 when thousands of innocent June 12th footsoldiers and NADECO leaders were viciously persecuted, jailed, tortured, maimed, bombed, slaughtered and driven into exile simply for standing up for Chief MKO Abiola and his June 12th 1993 presidential mandate and opposing military rule?

Was a Christian in power in 1998 when Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the 1993 presidential election and the symbol and hero of Nigeria’s democracy, was poisoned with Abuja tea and brutally and callously martyred whilst he was in the custody of the military Government?

Did Gumi ever complain about or make any reference to this great injustice done to a fellow Muslim or is it that Southern Muslims are not Muslim enough?

Was a Christian in power when Mrs. Kudirat Abiola, Chief MKO Abiola’s wife, was brutally gunned down in the streets of Lagos by officers of the Armed Forces for fighting for her husbands rights and opposing military rule?

Was a Christian in power when in 1997 General Shehu Musa Yar’adua, the older brother of President Umaru Yaradua, was forcefully given an Aids injection whilst in prison and murdered in cold blood?

This is a road we must never go down because it is known as the road to Kigali.

Bitter truth

The bitter truth is that Gumi’s attempt to depict our peaceful Christian faith into one which takes pride & relishes in taking life & shedding human blood is unacceptable.

There are good Christians & there are evil ones just as there are good Muslims & there are evil ones.

No-one should attempt to demonise or paint ALL of the adherents of either of these two great faiths in the colours of psychopaths & cold-blooded murderers.

More often than not both Christians & Muslims manifest & display love & kindness to others.

The fact that some do not is not a reflection of their faith but rather a reflection of their personal disposition, human failings & character.

This is the point that men like Gumi fail to appreciate & conveniently ignore and we will not sit by silently & allow them to do so.

Anyone, no matter how powerful, influential, wealthy, well-connected, loved, reverred or highly placed, that tries to use religion or ethnicity to divide our people, trouble our peace, undermine our security or destabilise our country will not only face the full wrath of the Living God & the Nigerian people but will also be brought to justice.

Nigeria is a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic secular state & therein lies our strength, pride & joy.

There are Nigerian Muslims and Nigerian Christians & each of these groups have every right under our constitution to express their views, practice their faith & aspire to man any public office in the land.

We do not practice racial segregation, racism, religious bigotry or apartheid here & we do not harbour slaves & slave masters.

By the grace of God our nation & our people are ONE & nobody, not even a self-seeking, self-obsessed, vicious, divisive, destructive, fiendish & mischievous little rabble-rouser & ethnic & religious bigot like Ahmad Gumi can divide us!

Worse of all is the fact that during the course of his sermon he referred to Christians as “infidels”.

Call to order

This provocative & incendiary rhetoric must stop before it ignites a full scale religious & ethnic war in our country!

I call on the DSS & the NPF to call this reckless malefactor to order before he sets Nigeria on fire.

Permit me to conclude this contribution with the following.

Sadly, most of those that constitute the Nigerian elite & ruling class, including politicians, clerics on both side of the religious divide, intellectuals & professionals have chosen to ignore this cantankerous & utterly insidious little man over the years & allowed him to get away with his evil out of a sense of political correctness, fear & cowardice.

This has emboldened him & strengthed his leperous hand & I consider it to be unacceptable.

I refuse to be counted amongst those who remains silent in the face of such tyranny & evil.

Unlike others the man has not died in me & I fear none but God.

This is why I can confidently make bold to say that the creature known as Ahmad Gumi’s evil has no limitation & knows no end. He is the darkness that seeks the darkness.

Permit me to share just a few examples of his perfidy here.

During the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo it was this same Ahmad Gumi that introduced & recruited young Omar Mutallab, the underwear bomber, into Al Qaeda whilst in Saudi Arabia.

He also facilitated meetings between him & Anwar Al Awlaki, the Yemeni leader of AQIAP who was later eliminated by the CIA.

Omar, who later became one of the world’s most notorious & dangerous suicide bombers, tried to blow up a plane filled with passengers in America & was caught in the process.

Today he is in an American prison serving time & he will be there for the rest of his life.

On his part Gumi was caught, arrested & deported from Saudi Arabia & banned from ever going back there due to his links with terrorists & jihadists.

He has not been there since. Instead of him to live his life quietly & consider his good fortune at not being hanged or jailed for his crimes whilst in Saudi Arabia he came back to Nigeria & after a few years set up a dangerous network of questionable individuals who prided themselves on negotiating, fronting for & collecting ransoms on behalf of terrorists, murderers & kidnappers that have killed & tormented our people over the last 15 years.

His spokesman, one Tukur Mamu who is the publisher of the Desert Herald, was arrested at Cairo Airport just over one year ago for being involved with terrorists & extremists, deported back to Nigeria & has been in the custody of the DSS ever since.

It has been estimated that hundreds of millions of naira were collected from the families of kidnap victims over the years by this network of serpents & at least 400 million of that money was channelled back to Gumi’s aide & used for all manner of sinister & evil purposes.

Hate speech, inflammatory utterances

That is the measure of the man we are dealing with & no-one should be surprised by his hate speech & inflammatory utterances.

His intention is to assist the terrorists, provoke a religious & ethnic war, destabilise our country, bring down the Federal Government & establish a new order in Nigeria where Christians, Middle Belters, Southerners & Muslims that do not share his world view are subjected to the worse form of humiliation, oppression, torture, murder & disgrace & are considered as nothing but slaves.

May God deliver our nation & people from such men.

For now I will sheath my sword & go no further. Peace be unto Nigeria.

Now that the the Supreme Court has confirmed the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s President from May 29, 2023 to May 29, 2027, we have a responsibility to take back our humanity and our country we almost lost to the complex politics of our controversial electoral justice system. What is more urgent, we need to advise the president’s men and women to cut short their celebration and return to governance of the disappearing value of the national currency, energy price crisis and imminent food insecurity. It is urgent. The time of celebration should be over by this weekend because there are weightier matters of the law of survival. Wait a minute, I hope the duty bearers realised too at the weekend that most of the more than two hundred million people of Nigeria weren’t rejoicing with them. And they should decode why.

So, let’s begin to face the brass tacks of governance. And I would like to deconstruct the points at issue by returning to what I usually call my organic beat, Abuja, where I think something significant has been happening even if we aren’t noticing because of the election petitions distractions at the apex court. I mean to draw the attention of the nation to the fact that the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike is living up to the billing I deconstructed when I commented here on the ‘Significance of Wike As FCT Minister on Sunday August 20, 2023. Let’s recall some excerpts from the article then:

‘…And so the most precious gift the Generals’ rule donated to the(ir) Federal Republic of the Nigerian Army as General Chris Ali succinctly puts it in his classic on Nigeria, Abuja has been there as “their capital” until this month and last week when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took two significant steps to restore confidence in the national capital Hurricane Murtala sold to us 47 years ago as a “symbol of our unity”. And here is the thing, since inception of the administration of the capital, Nyesom Wike would be the very first Minister of the Capital of the Federation from southern part of the country. Before you shout, what of the late Ajose Adeogun (1976-1979, here is the fact file: the late Adeogun (who died on Saturday July 1, 2023 at 96) was widely reported as the first Minister of FCT. He wasn’t.

He was actually designated as Minister of Special Duties with additional responsibility to supervise Abuja to from 15B Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos as there was no structure yet on the 8,000 square kilometre FCT then. He was operating from a Field Base in Suleja in Niger State, a border town to the FCT. All other Ministers appointed since then from the South – from Mark Okoye 1980-1984) through Professor Ikejiani Clark to Jumoke Richard Akinjide have been Ministers of State. What’s worse, President Muhammadu Buhari who didn’t care a hoot about federal character in all his appointments for eight years desecrated the Territory as his last two ministers of FCT hail from the North (Adamawa and Kogi states).  In other words, the first organic Minister of FCT was John Jatau Kadiya (1979-1982).

And so there is a sense in which we can report that President Tinubu has broken a 47 years old jinx. Just as he did the other day when he obeyed a 2018 Court of Appeal’s declarative judgment that an indigene,(original inhabitant) of the Federal Capital Territory should be appointed as a member of the Federal Executive Council (a Minister). The Indigene will be sworn in tomorrow. That was how in a twinkling of an eye, President Tinubu restored confidence of Nigerians including the original inhabitants (of Abuja) in the Capital of the Federation. We will no longer call it “Their Capital”. It is now “Our Capital”. In the same vein, the Niger Delta people who have been lamenting absence of their people in the mainstream political leadership and bureaucracy of the Capital despite alleged huge allocations from oil resources from Niger Delta spent so far on the capital project, can now relax their agitation for inclusion in the political leadership and bureaucracy of the FCT. Which reinforces the ancient word that only justice can guarantee peace and stability in any system.

It will be recalled that I had also then advised that the FCT Minister should not be distracted by the convoluted political and administrative structure that he had inherited. He was advised to act boldly: some of my words then:

‘…And so as President Tinubu has begun restoration of stakeholder confidence in the Capital of the Federation, Wike should be bold enough to study the present convoluted political and administrative structure of the Federal Capital Territory. Most of the structures of governance are neither state nor federal. Some of us have written so much to sanitise, de-ethnicise and neutralise the Capital of the Federation to reflect federal and global character, but there has been too much of ‘anyhowness’ and indeed the core North in it. This northernisation agenda began even while the Chairman of the Panel, who recommended the site to General Murtala, Justice Timothy Akinola Aguda was still alive. The governance absurdity had then led the iconic Aguda to write an Op-Ed article, which the resourceful Editor of The Guardian then Mr Emeka Izeze considered a front-page lead, titled, ‘My Regret About Abuja’. Justice Aguda died since September 5, 2001. How would he have felt were he alive up and until May 29, 2015, to May 29 2023 when President Buhari disrespected the letter and spirit of the constitution, which makes Abuja a classic case of how to respect federal character in terms of federal and presidential appointments. Throughout his eight-year tenure, the Minister of the FCT and the Executive Secretary of the FCDA are from the North. The insensitive Buhari never listed to any criticisms about his destructive bigotry, ethno-centricism and parochialism nurtured by provincialism.

As of May 28, 2023, the Minister of the FCT for eight years who hails from Adamawa State was made to appoint four Executive Secretaries of the FCDA from Niger State, Adamawa, Nasarawa and Gombe States. The current Executive Secretary of the FCDA hails from Gombe State. The grave implication of the widespread northernisation policy of the political structure is that as it often happens here, bigotry begets more bigotry: almost 92% of the political heads (mandate secretaries) and heads of agencies of the FCT are of northern extraction. That is one critical challenge that Wike will inherit the morning after tomorrow when he is sworn in. He should hold aloft the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as it affects the Federal Capital Territory. Besides, he should study the Mission statement Murtala advertised to the nation 47 years ago. He should study all the extant laws and restructure the FCT to reflect our national character. Abuja isn’t like any other state. The nebulous provision in the Constitution that Abuja should be regarded “as if it were one of the States of the Federation” should not be read politically as politicians and their lawyers are deploying it as a weapon to win presidential election petitions at the moment. Abuja should be run as our ‘symbol of national unity’ as the Founding Fathers clearly declared to the nation 47 year ago. That is the Capital of the Federation that has been destined to lead the black race with pride and dignity’.

This review is therefore a sense in which we can claim that Wike is living up to the significance of his appointment as Minister of the Unity Capital, Abuja. And so good people and owners of Abuja, the Nigerian people, should continue to encourage him (Wike) to administer the national capital in public interest. It is our capital. It isn’t their capital.

Within three months, Wike has galvanised extant laws and policies to run the Territory as a sustainable National Capital where all the over 200 million owners can feel free as citizens. Besides, Wike has shunned political opportunism and correctness to ensure that even the heads of the three arms of government and all the heads of the institutions and agencies of government resident in the capital aren’t above the laws of the federation governing the urban and regional planning segments of the government. What is more important, he has raised consciousness about the expediency of raking in remarkable revenue through an aspect of property tax, the ground rent to raise enough revenue to develop the national capital into a Smart City. Within two weeks of publishing names of defaulters, billions of naira have been statutorily paid into the FCT account and that can be accessed to sustain and reconstruct the capital that previous administrations almost destroyed. He has obtained permission to be excused from this blight called Treasury Single Account (TSA, which has strangulated development of capital projects in the Territory. The President who is the Governor of the FCT, according to the Constitution, has removed that hurdle for FCT to prosper.

Apart from strategic commitment to preservation, (not restoration) of the Master Plan, which Malam Nasir el-Rufai remarkably began from 2004-2007 as FCT Minister, Wike has also established the FCT Civil Service Commission, legalised since 2018. Recall that this column touched off the question a few weeks ago with a question: ‘What happened to FCT Civil Service Commission? https://guardian.ng/opinion/columnists/what-happened-to-fct-civil-service-commission/September 17, 2003…

It is gratifying to note that the Hurricane Wike has responded to the question by complying with the law signed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo since 2018. Public Service Journalism is remarkable when public officers and institutions of governance respond to issues raised in the news immediately and follow-ups trigger public policy reform orientation. Wike has set machinery in motion to set up structures for the FCT Civil Service Commission. He has announced the approval by the president. And FCT civil servants who are already celebrating freedom from the TSA stranglehold are also smarting from the bruises of the no-status- civil service in FCT. Now they can rise to the summit of any cadres in the federal public service since the organic structure, the Civil service Commission is there as in the federal, state and other structures of governance. Now a Head of the Civil Service of the Federation can emerge from the FCT Civil Service as in any of the states of the Federation, according to our constitution.

*Let’s continue next week with the dynamism that Hurricane Wike has brought to bear on governance of the FCT even as we disregard the gripes of a few disgruntled elements who have continued to criticise the systemic revival of Hurricane Wike on grounds of religion and ethnicity. That is a distraction President Tinubu and Wike should ignore. Reason: It is our capital, after all, not theirs…

They both claim Abraham as their progenitor. Physically alike to the outside eye, it is difficult to tell one from the other but for ethnic differences such as shape of beard, Muslim skullcap (Taqiyah) or Jewish kippah, and other cultural peculiarities. They are cousins, but can hardly tolerate each other. Providence has fated them to co-exist side by side. However, a seething revulsion has been existing between both parties since present day Israel was carved out of Palestine after World War II. Now, the world is treating the current war between both brothers as a spat between a cobra and a mongoose.

I am involved in humanity. I cannot look away. It is not convenient for me to simply buy the loads of propaganda designed to justify genocide. Granted that the whole world is aware of the horrendous apartheid system forced down the throat of Palestinians by Israeli forceful occupation, I cannot justify the savage attack launched by Hamas against Israelis living in the occupied territory. I have read many op-ed pieces which tend to use the pre-existing undercurrents to justify the killing of 1,200 people in the Hamas raid, but I say killing of innocent people under any circumstance is condemnable.

In the same vein, Israel’s attempt to seize the opportunity of the Hamas attack to punish all Palestinians cannot be right. No life is more sacred than another. When we speak or act as if one particular life is more precious than another one, we commit a grave error which leads us to reduce the object of our hate to a thing and not a person.

Hitler did not suddenly wake up overnight to order the extermination of six million Jews. No, he started by disrobing them of their humanity in word and deed. Nazis referred to Jews as rats. In a similar fashion, Hutus who participated in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Throughout history, slave owners considered slaves subhuman animals.

When photos of American troops posing with dead Afghans recently surfaced online, in connection with ongoing court-martial cases of soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, it became clear that the Afghans were seen as things, not humans. According to Smith, “The US soldiers also took body parts as trophies”. He further argues that, ”When people dehumanise others, they actually conceive of them as subhuman creatures”.

The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s characterisation of Palestinians as animals and the comparisons of Palestinians to “rats or snakes” on Israeli social media are an effort to “dehumanise” them and “legitimise civilian deaths”, says Israeli professor of international law and human rights, Neve Gordon.

These children of Abraham on both sides of the conflict are equally villains and saints, depending on where or when you want to start tracing their history.

Their circumstances and pathological short fuse have over the ages ensured that they remain perpetual enemies sworn to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) while insisting on a revised standard version of when and where the rain started to beat each tribe.

As always in such circumstances, the truth has taken a bashing in this conflict with both sides employing vile propaganda.  The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week rejected accusations by Israel that, in a statement to the Security Council, he had justified attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel.

“I am shocked by the misrepresentations of some of my statements … as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite,” he told reporters. He told the 15-member UN Security Council that it was vital to be clear that war has rules, starting with the fundamental principle of respecting and protecting civilians. “It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” Guterres said. “But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he said.

The balancing act failed woefully because as far as Israel is concerned, there can be no middle course in this war; he who is not expressly for them is against them.

The Palestinians, too, have been accused of using their civilian population as human shields and locating their assault weapons in civilian areas. Their supporters say where else could Hamas have located their weapons when Israel has forcefully annexed most of their land.

Fact-checkers from French news agency AFP debunked videos of the initial Hamas attack, which turned out to be clips taken from the military simulation game Arma 3, clips from a concert in Tel Aviv, footage from Mexico and footage of paragliders in Egypt. Before facts had been established about the hostages taken by Palestinian group Hamas, social media accounts posted footage of hostages in Turkey in 2016, and photos of troops in Gaza in 2022, claiming they were from the Hamas attack, AFP said.

Remarkably, both sides have been playing the religious card in order to win the sympathy of Muslims and Christians. Hamas propagandists initially gave the impression that Israel had destroyed part of the walls of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It was not true.

Israel, too, started distributing videos showing an Israeli commander marking his troops with signs of the cross to give the impression that they were Christians. It is well known that about 73.8 percent of the Israeli population is Jewish, 18 percent Muslim, 1.9 percent Christian, and 1.6 percent Druze. The internet is rife with videos of Jews denouncing Christianity and expressing their preference for Islam over Christianity which they see as idolatry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPzjvmFZ1B4). Rabbi Yosef Misrachi is not alone in thinking that six billion people (including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists etc) ought to be summarily executed.

Many Africans have misguidedly thought that the Jews were fighting for Christians just as many Muslims had been deceived to think that the Palestinian war is about religion. No, it’s all about land and the struggle for possession among extremist cousins. There is plenty of racism in Israel just as Arabs have been known to enslave black people over the ages. Only recently, Israeli police arrested five Orthodox Jews for spitting at Christian worshippers, priests and pilgrims in the Old City of Jerusalem. They call black people Schvartze (their own N-word) while Arabs routinely use words like ‘abid’ and ‘kafir’.

We don’t have a dog in their war. America is free to back whoever it wants while the backers of Palestine are also within their rights to do so.

Palestinians deserve to have a country they can call their own. And Israelis deserve to have a homeland too. I believe there is enough land to share if real humane humans were to arbitrate. Labels won’t do the trick. Mandela was called a terrorist by the West but when he became the president of South Africa, they were all over him as if he was their ancestor. Hypocrisy is the way of the world!

I pray that these children of Abraham will, someday, devise a way to live together in peace.

With the verdict, on Thursday, by the Supreme Court of Nigeria confirming the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the winner of the Saturday, 25 February, 2023 presidential election and the duly elected President of Nigeria and the Commander-in-Chief of its Armed Forces as declared by INEC, those challenging the outcome of the said election came to the end of the road. As the apex court poignantly declared, there must be an end to litigation. For PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi, that end came last Thursday as their appeal, declared frivolous and vexatious, was dismissed in its totality. The court echoed what many commentators have said of Atiku’s foray at Chicago as a fishing expedition. It also took the court just one sentence and less than five minutes to dismiss Obi’s appeal. For a serial presidential contender – and loser – like Atiku, this may not be the end of the road since 2027 is just around the corner!

There is no age barrier or limit to presidential contests but the dent already made in Atiku’s armour as regards the inconsistency of names on his secondary school certificate and of a Master’s degree that rests on no first degree, will dog his feet in the next Election cycle should he decide to throw his hat in the ring one more time. For Obi, his best chances may already be behind him as a phenomenon mismanaged has now turned into a phantom phenomenon. Now that the distractions are behind him, Tinubu has to, with single-mindedness of purpose, address the Nigerian conundrum and bring succour very fast to the people. Time is of the essence. The expectations of the people must not be cut short. Delay, as they say, can be dangerous.

Critics have pointed attention to Tinubu’s bloated Cabinet at a time when the cry is that the cost of governance be pruned, more so with the parlous state of our finances. That is well said. The other side of the coin, however, is that if every appointee adds value, it may in the end result in money well spent. I think it is to ensure this, that the President has given his Ministers six months to prove their mettle or be shown the exit. The idea behind this is fine but I think one year should be given to the appointees to study their environment, settle in and begin to perform. This is not to say that we cannot have some of them who will – or who actually have – hit the ground running.

One such Minister is that of the Interior, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo. The backlog of international passports that he has cleared in a few months has endeared him to Nigerians. If marks are to be awarded to the Ministers in their first four months in office, I will not be surprised if this Minister comes first. Kudos, too, to the Acting Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mrs. Adepoju Carol Wura-Ola. The Minister that will come second will be none other than the immediate past governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike. Nigerians have not forgotten the theatrics of Wike as governor of the oil-rich state and the role he played in frustrating Atiku’s presidential ambition. What of his song: As e dey pain them/E dey sweet us/As e dey sweet us/E dey pain dem? No ministerial office would have fittingly suited Wike as that of the FCT where he hit the ground running. He has vowed to revisit the FCT’s master plan. He sure will have a mountain to climb there. Already, opponents have started wielding one of Nigeria’s most potent weapons – religion – to unhinge Wike. My advice to him is to stay focused.

One Minister that brings up the rear, for now, is Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, the Minister for Women Affairs. In September, she was accused of threatening a student of the University of Calabar who, together with others, was protesting sextual harassment by their Dean of the Faculty of Law. Very embarrassing! A woman (and mother?) for that matter! And a Minister of the Federal Republic! Well, she has apologized and the said Dean has reportedly been investigated, found guilty and axed. As if that was not enough, the said Minister reportedly demonstrated unpardonable ignorance and lack of tact when she threatened to deal with an agency of the United Nations! A professor of Political Science and International Relations, Babafemi Badejo, of Chrisland University, Abeokuta, lays the facts bare. Titled

“The promised Nigerian suit against the United Nations: A case for the proper socialization of Cabinet members”, it reads: “On October 17, 2023, it was widely reported in the media that Ms. Uju Kennedy-Ohaneye, Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs… in an unexpected, haphazard manner gave the United Nations (UN) a one-month ultimatum from October 16, 2023 to November 15, 2023 to render published account on all the monies received in the name of Nigeria from donors. The Minister promised to proceed to file a suit on November 16, 2023, against the UN if the accounts are not rendered. But can an international organization like the UN be dealt with in such a cavalier manner?

“Asking for accountability and transparency is very proper. The spirit of seeking answers to lighten up grey areas that may be indicative of corruption is a great idea. Experience shows that some UN officials are corrupt, and some have accordingly been jailed. However, there are laid down procedures for such requests by a sovereign nation. Not following the laid down procedure and embarking on media grandstanding can only portray Nigeria in bad light. Nigeria is telling the world that it lacks the requisite leadership and structures for appropriate operation in the community of nations.

“The United Nations system’s counterpart in Nigeria is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Even, if the Minister of Foreign Affairs, after exhaustive dialogue within his Department of International Organizations, has decided on the need to request for transparency from the UN, it is expected that he would take the case to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) before articulating, if at all, such a weighty position at a media show.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu addressed the UN General Assembly… and met with the UN Secretary-General. He was not reported to have indicated that Nigeria was experiencing a lack of accountability and transparency with the UN entities working in Nigeria. So, it is a shock that a Nigerian Minister is so amateurish in diplomatic relations. Our inadequacies from lacking the appropriate arrangements for the necessary training and socialization of new entrants into office are being shown to the world.

“In addition, one expects that a Minister of Nigeria would have been apprised of the importance of diplomatic and functional immunities that the UN and its officials enjoy. In which court is our Minister of Women Affairs intending to embark on her frolic? What would be the charges? What is the expected outcome of such a litigation process? Would a more organized strategic follow-through reporting of officials through diplomatic channels against a media-inspired, arrogant, poorly thought-out litigation choice not yield a better outcome?

“President Tinubu needs to have his Ministers coordinated and appropriately socialized into their respective duties. The UN must readily support anti-corruption, including allegations against its own staff members, when evidence is adduced through appropriate mechanisms…”

Prof. Badejo said a lot more but I chose to edit those out. I have three reasons for publishing this part here today. One: Badejo is not just a university egg-head in the relevant field of political science and international relations, he also has had vast practical experience working at high levels within the United Nations system. Two: To alert the government that top political office-holders need on-the-job training and synchronization so they do not work at cross-purposes and or embarrass themselves as well as the country. Three: The Minister in question needs to learn useful lessons so she does not repeat this mistake. Importantly, media reports should form part of the assessment of Ministers by Mr. President.

FEEDBACK: Calling out NIMC, Akure Office

An ardent reader of this column called last week to express his frustration with the Nigeria Identity Management Commission, NIMC Akure, Ondo State office over the National Identification Number (NIN) of his son. Below is the unfortunate experience of Dr. Bode Olagunju, a lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University:

“When the identity management service was introduced some years back, every Nigerian was mandated by the government to register and a large number of people did the registration. After the initial registration, a lot of changes were needed by previously registered people at one time or the other, especially in the names or some other particulars. Attempts to change the particulars are usually difficult in some centres across the country. I am particularly dissatisfied with the NIMC (NIN) centre in Akure, Ondo State.

“My son did the NIN registration a long time ago and needed to do some corrections on his particulars since May this year and that has been a problem. We have approached the NIMC office for this as expected but the office has not been very responsible in this regard. We encountered an obstacle each time we tried to do the change. We tried getting to know someone in the office to facilitate the change as Nigerians but despite getting to know the head of the office, nothing has been achieved as they keep complaining of no network for the past five months in the office to effect the change online!

“We went as far as providing all the information needed for the change via the WhatsApp number of the head of the office but nothing has been achieved. The funny thing is that there is usually no response to calls and messages to the head of the office. I want to ask if there is something the supervising Ministry can do to stem this rot in the NIMC like was done with the Passport Office!

“We are tired of calling and messaging people who consider us as distractions to their daily life…I want to plead with the government to look into this matter urgently so that people will not be denied opportunities, all due to failure of not having the required changes done on the NIN platform”

Years back when I, too, needed to complete my own NIN registration at the NIMC office at Alausa, Ikeja (opposite Ikeja Shopping Mall popularly called Shoprite) it was helluva of a battle. The very first day I got there with my family members, the crowd there was like that of three markets combined, as our people would say; so, I quickly beat a retreat and put a call through to my former colleague at the PUNCH newspapers, Mkpe Abang, who helped wonderfully. Even at that, it was still “coming and going these repeated times”, like Wole Soyinka’s “Abiku”. And when, eventually, I got my NIN number, I was told months later that it had issues! I had to start the process all over again!

Why is it that systems and technology that are meant to make administrative operations easier and faster and our lives more comfortable end up piling more misery on us? How come that technology and processes that work seamlessly elsewhere are nightmarish and hellish here? So, over to you, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo! This is another task that must be done!

The subdued public anxiety over the final outcome of the 2023 presidential election petitions has ended. Predictably, the Supreme Court has acted faithful to what has become its extant tradition. It has done the obvious and predictable. It simply just turned its back on the minutiae of evidence and went straight to ultimate classical jurisprudence. It simply avoided waste of time and reaffirmed the legitimacy of the incumbent sovereign order. While democracy feeds on the rule of law, order precedes law. The state must exist as an orderly sovereignty before we can all step forward to assert and claim our legal rights and citizen entitlements. So, the argument goes, guarantee the legitimacy of the existing sovereignty according to law and let the nation move on.

Therefore, in affirming Mr. Bola Tinubu’s electoral victory, the Supreme Court side-stepped all the political and legal booby traps. In order to arrive at its verdict, it went the lazy route. It did not need to wade through a deluge of facts and figures all over again. The lower court has done that heavy lifting. Supreme Courts are about the absolute principles of the law and justice.  It is fair to assume that the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) has done all that. It just went straight to the domain of ultimate justice and constitutional finality.

In keeping with what has become its extant tradition, the Supreme Court, like all Supreme Courts,  was doing the duty of national preservation. Any outcome that could undermine the incumbent order would inaugurate instant anarchy. No need to go that route. Instead, it is safer to protect the fragile state and its democratic promise so that the aggrieved can fight another day in the future. Implicit in that verdict, the court had done some of the homework for Mr. Tinubu himself.

It would be foolish for him to ignore the contents of his opponents’ contentions. There was a bus load of problems with the 25th February presidential elections. Yes, there was rigging in abundance. There was voter intimidation. There was , in places, the invocation of primordial divisions to profile voters and deny them the franchise. INEC betrayed public confidence in its own impartiality. As an institution, it eroded its own confidence in its adopted BVAS technology. The technology itself exposed INEC’s own human frailties. There was complicity on the part of some INEC and security agencies. Some vote counts were dodgy at best just as the IReV reportedly uploaded pornographic images in place of election results in a few places! Admittedly, these grainy details were beneath the remit of a Supreme Court properly defined.

Mr. Tinubu would be missing the boat if he allows the euphoria and triumphalism of his judicial victory to shut his eyes to these pitfalls. They are the hard work that he needs to do in order to strengthen the foundations of Nigeria’s creaky democracy. His responsibility in that higher regard is above his own immediate personal benefit from the verdict of the Supreme Court.

Above all, the aftermath of the Supreme Court verdict places a reorientation burden on the Tinubu administration. The president must quickly retire and restrain his campaign ‘attack dogs’.  People like Fani-Kayode, having earned their copious keep, should go home and remain silent or only speak if they have something sensible to say. Similarly, Mr. Festus Keyamo should face the many challenges of our dying aviation sector and quit his insulting habit of abusing his superiors. The Minister of Information and presidential spokespersons should now step forward and be the ones speaking for the government and the president.

Government must quickly exit the campaign propaganda mode and slide into a factual strict governance and accountability mode. Partisan affray is over. Responsible governance is in. The nation is no longer a political battlefield but an inclusive and united nation. We are all Nigerians now, not APC, PDP or Labour or whatever other partisan acronym there may be out there.

In a fragile polity such as ours, a hard fought and vicious presidential election campaign divides the nation. The mob sees political partisanship as warfare. In the aftermath, the task in hand is to reunite the nation through acts of supreme statesmanship. That is Tinubu’s task and the hour is now.

Above all else, Mr. Tinubu and his team have a nation to govern. That nation is broken and bruised all over. Our nation is in economic ruin and social desperation. Our people are in the depths of poverty and the edges of desperation and unparalleled distress. The poor are merely holding on to a thin thread of survival. A bad economy is at the risk of upturning the nation in violent protests. If the dam breaks, it will not be because of political differences but a desperate urge to live. Our insecurity remains unaddressed. In the words of Mr. Tinubu himself, “let the poor (majority) breathe.”

The task of rescuing the economy from collapse is urgent and demands our very best. Propaganda is no substitute for sound economic policy making. The current flip flop approach will not help. Serious thinking by experts needs to replace sporadic guesswork and knee jerk actions. Sustainable social alleviation policies and sustainable programmes must now replace populist palliatives.

There is an obvious slide that Mr. Tinubu must halt. In the choice between running a slimmer government and a large one, our current situation should have dictated a choice for reduced government. Tinubu seems to have opted for a large government. A cabinet of 48 ministers with a reckless splintering up of ministries is hardly the way to go. Already the cost of government has been compounded by the inflationary trend sparked off by the devaluation of the Naira. Legislators and cabinet ministers are spending billions of Naira in new SUVs priced at stratospheric costs. Other costs are bound to ensue. Foreign travels with large entourages of officialdom have taken place and may continue.

Most importantly, the politics of incumbency should not be used to undermine opposition political parties. Political parties are institutions of the democratic state. Their health and competitive presence and virile existence is the highest indication that a democracy is alive and well. President Tinubu must resist the pressure from the hawks in his ruling party and h is government to weaken or ‘kill’ the main opposition parties to strengthen his ruling party. A predominance of an all conquering ruling party is a route to autocracy and absolutism. That will endanger democracy and further divide the nation along dangerous lines.

INEC must now discharge its constitutional responsibilities to the parties. It needs to review their internal mechanisms and levels of compliance with the requirements of the electoral law. It must hold the parties to accountability for  failings experienced during the last election season.

More crucially, the president must enlarge and expand his conception of the diversity of the nation. Reservations are currently being expressed about the increasing lopsidedness of his key appointments. That is negative and must stop and be quickly remedied. He must reach out and feel the pains of all sections and segments of the nation. Acts of inclusive statesmanship have become imperative and urgent.

Although the apex court has ruled on the contentious presidential election, that verdict merely helps to calm the nerves of a troubled  nation. It does not wipe away some of the reservations that informed the challenges of Tinubu’s election by the opposing parties. This is the time to soberly reflect on the pitfalls of that election. We need to see the task of perfecting our democracy as a national priority, one that transcends individual incumbents and their partisan affiliations. This is the hour to heal the nation. Nigerians are easily the best followers if they can find a capable, credible and visionary leadership. Reuniting the nation and giving it direction is a service to the nation as a perpetual patrimony.

The two most important contenders, Mr. Atiku Abubakar Our public deserves

The two most important contenders in this race, Mr. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), have earned commendation as mature politicians and exemplary citizens. They followed the path of legal redress in line with the laws of the land and the dictates of the rule of law. They meticulously followed due process and eschewed a recourse to violent alternatives in spite of public pressure from their followers and partisans. No one can underestimate their restraint on their followers in the aftermath of an election that was closely fought and fraught with heightened emotions. Their resolute commitment to democracy must be saluted and recommended to future aspirants to high public office.

In the overall calm disposition of our public to the verdict of the Supreme Court, we may be witnessing a gradual maturation of our public in their response to democratic outcomes. The implicit respect for judicial outcomes indicates a gradual absorption of the finer points of democratic culture. No effort should be spared in strengthening our fledgling democratic culture.

In a way, last Thursday was Judgment Day for Nigeria in many ways. For the political gladiators, it was judgment day as the end of their quest for legal justice over the 2023 presidential election. The road ends there. It time dust up and hang your gloves to fight another day perhaps in another four years. For the Nigerian judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, it was another judgment day, perhaps another squandered opportunity to assert some independence and reclaim its credibility in the eyes of the ordinary people.  For the masses of ordinary Nigerians, this Judgment Day was yet another day to reconfirm our faith in our nation as a resilient and indestructible patrimony.   

Phew, what an escape! Senior officials of the federal ministry of justice must be thanking their stars by now. As the Commercial Court of England and Wales prepared to deliver its verdict over whether or not to set aside the $11 billion arbitration award against Nigeria, agents of P&ID Ltd reportedly reached out to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to arrest the judgment and enter a settlement agreement. With the way the Nigeria legal team, led by Mr Mark Howard KC, had argued its case before The Hon Mr Justice Robin Knowles — and with P&ID failing to dispute the corruption allegations or even prove the honesty of its witnesses — the pendulum was swinging our way.

It looked like a scenario of “all or nothing” for P&ID, with things tending towards nothing. The only way to get any monetary compensation was the mooted settlement agreement. The details were not very clear but having initially proposed $2.5 billion in 2015 before agreeing to $850 million in the dying days of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government (before it was rejected by President Muhammadu Buhari), P&ID would expect a delicious figure from Tinubu. And the Nigerian traitors putting the agreement together were already calculating, as it were, their thirty pieces of silver. The settlement scam had almost been successfully sold to Tinubu. Pray, who will love this country?

In the absence of a substantive attorney-general, the lot fell on officials of the ministry of justice to give legal advice to the president on the proposed scam. They reportedly made a passionate case to the president that the judgment should not be arrested and that Nigeria had a solid chance of winning based on how the court proceedings went. Thankfully, Tinubu listened to them and made up his mind that P&ID should go to blazes, despite the pressure from the buccaneers. Now, just imagine what would have happened to those ministry officials if Justice Knowles had ruled against us and upheld the $11 billion award. They would have been roasted, or, in the least, skinned alive.

To be honest, when I first read up on the P&ID award, my initial proposal was an out-of-court settlement. The case looked bad. I did not see a way out. Nigeria had entered into a gas supply and processing agreement (GSPA) with P&ID in January 2010 and defaulted. In my article, ‘That $9bn award against Nigeria’ (August 18, 2019), I argued that Nigeria could not hope to escape liability by claiming sovereignty. Such rights are waived when a sovereign entity enters into a business venture. The redeeming feature, I argued, was that P&ID itself did not fulfil its part of the GSPA: that is, to build a gas processing facilities (GPF). How could Nigeria have built a pipeline to an invisible GPF?

After Nigeria repudiated the GSPA in August 2012 under a new government headed by Jonathan, P&ID went to the London Court of International Arbitration and won two awards: one, affirming Nigeria’s liability; two, getting a final “quantum” fine of $6.6 billion plus seven percent interest — about $1 million a day — backdated to March 2013. Nigeria’s argument that P&ID did not do any work to warrant the $6.6 billion liability failed. Our position that Nigeria’s assets could not be “attached” because of its sovereignty did not hold water either — with Justice Christopher Butcher of the English Commercial Court ruling in August 2019 that P&ID could enforce the judgment.

At this stage, it had become hopeless based on available evidence. But God loves Nigeria. An investigation ordered by Buhari and led by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) uncovered several corrupt payments made by P&ID to some Nigerian officials who worked on the GSPA. The officials had, not surprisingly, skewed the agreement against their own country. The MoU that transformed to the GSPA had been altered to give P&ID an incredible advantage over Nigeria. In short, Nigerians worked against Nigeria. People who became billionaires courtesy of their “service” to Nigeria did not have any scruples betraying their fatherland. Pray, who will love this country?

The discoveries by the EFCC helped Nigeria enormously as Justice Ross Cranston of the English Commercial Court granted us respite in September 2019 — meaning the enforcement of the award was put on hold. Nigeria got an extension of time to challenge the decision of the arbitration tribunal based on previously undiscovered evidence of corrupt payments. The case was thereafter referred to trial before Justice Knowles. But there were more miracles on the way. During trial, it emerged that P&ID’s lawyers and officials were (unethically) in possession of several of Nigeria’s confidential internal legal documents, which gave away our strategies as well as our underbelly. Nigerians!

Some Nigerian officials were actually selling out their country to P&ID by leaking these critical documents for a mess of pottage! Copies of the confidential documents ended up in P&ID’s custody the moment they were shared by government officials. That was an ultimate betrayal of fatherland, but this appears to be a culture in Nigeria. After all, in one of the American cables that were published by Wikileaks in 2009, an official of Shell boasted that within minutes of any decision being taken in Aso Rock Villa, the information was always leaked to them. Up till tomorrow, there are Judases in the corridors of power. Their God is their bellies. Pray, who will love this country?

Things got better for Nigeria when it turned out that the evidence given to the arbitration tribunal by Mr Michael Quinn, co-owner of P&ID, was full of lies. It is called perjury. Quinn, who died in 2015, had claimed that P&ID had already obtained finance for the project, that it had done 90 percent of the engineering design, and that it had expended $40 million before the default. In fact, the engineering design was not financed by P&ID. It was for another project and was unfit for the GPFs under the GSPA. And even though P&ID was allocated land for the project in Calabar, Cross River state, it didn’t pay for it and never acquired it. In essence, there were no processing facilities.

Justice Knowles, relying on section 68 of the English Arbitration Act 1996, said he was satisfied that the awards (liability and quantum) were obtained by fraud and contrary to public policy. He made some barely disguised uncomplimentary remarks about the arbitration tribunal. He wondered how the tribunal identified “the sequencing of obligations with the apparent confidence it did”. The tribunal had concluded that it was impossible for P&ID to build the GPFs when Nigeria had not made arrangement for gas supply — but ignored the reverse fact: could Nigeria have built a gas pipeline to GPFs that did not exist? Clearly, both parties defaulted but the tribunal chose the sequence it liked.

P&ID had argued that “…any perjury that took place did not cause any substantial injustice within the meaning of s. 68 as it did not bring about the Awards (or any of them)”. In his judgment, Justice Knowles said: “I respectfully disagree. The Awards were the result of the Arbitration that happened. There is no question to my mind that the Arbitration would have been completely different, and in ways strongly favourable to Nigeria, had the fact of bribery of Mrs Grace Taiga when the GSPA was being made been before the Tribunal. It would have brought in the issue [of] whether the GSPA was procured by fraud, and as a result voidable.” The tribunal had relied on Quinn’s perjured evidence.

With Knowles now setting aside the enforcement of the award, I would say the rest is formality. In deciding the way forward, he wants to listen to both sides. Section 68 gives three options: (1) remit the award to the tribunal, in whole or in part, for reconsideration; (2) set the award aside, in whole or in part; (3) declare the award of no effect, in whole or in part. Having fully established that the awards “were obtained by fraud” and were procured in a way “contrary to public policy”, Justice Knowles knows there is only one option left: to set it aside in whole. The foundation is fraudulent. The GSPA is a “poisonous tree” — as Americans call it — and its fruits are automatically poisonous.

I am taking many things away from this judgment. First, this is good news for Nigeria. Many agreements are foisted on us by traitors who hope to benefit through judgment debts. Nigeria has now secured a leeway for judicial intervention over agreements obtained through corruption or under fishy circumstances. This has raised my hope on the $2.3 billion arbitration filed against Nigeria by Sunrise Power over Mambilla hydropower. How was the contract awarded a day after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had stepped down the memo? What work did Sunrise do? How could Sunrise have spent millions of dollars, as it claims, when its declared total assets was N1 million?

Second, government officials who collude to skew agreements against Nigeria should be on notice that even decades after — when they should be enjoying retirement and playing with their grandchildren and great grandchildren — they can be called upon to answer embarrassing questions. Nigeria is generally a society where there are no consequences for bad behaviour, but I am sure some of those called to answer questions on P&ID did not find it funny. A Pharoah who does not know Joseph will arise one day and the privileges and protections enjoyed by these Judases will be taken away. I hope traitors in Tinubu’s cabinet who are already cutting deals will understand this.

Finally, I am happy that there are still government officials who love Nigeria — never mind the sad tone of this article’s title. They could have colluded with P&ID agents, got the judgment arrested and shared from the blood money. It is easy to cite the example of how a whole former chief justice helped P&ID secure the award against his fatherland and conclude that every Nigerian is like that. But there are still a few people who do not worship money and would not sell out their country. They may not be in millions, as we wish, but they exist. I know some of them. No, they are not perfect. But, yes, they are decent. Their consciences are not so dead that they can no longer differentiate between what is haram and what is halal. And this makes me believe Nigeria is not finished.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

SUPREME VERDICT

For practical purposes, the 2023 presidential poll is finally over — with Thursday’s verdict by the Supreme Court affirming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner. Some precedents have now been set. One, when it comes to the 25 percent threshold, FCT will be regarded as one of the states. Two, failure to use iRev does not invalidate an election. The court also ruled that any evidence that exists during trial cannot be introduced on appeal. It further ruled that only a certified true copy of a deposition is acceptable in court, and warned litigants against holding roadshows in a case that is sub judice. Not that there will now be peace, but at least this piece of business is concluded. Officially.

REALITY BITES

To put it mildly, Nigerians are having it rough. Prices of goods and services are heading for the skies. The naira has continued its downward journey since the ill-thought-out and poorly implemented unification policy of the Tinubu administration. Things are all over the place. I admit that the current economic hardship is global — even rich countries are battling with the cost of living crisis. I also admit that the problems of Nigeria did not start today and we are partly paying for key decisions we failed to take years ago. But this only reinforces my point about election promises: anybody who claims to have a quick fix for Nigeria’s problems is lying. Things are simply too complicated. Reality.

LAW AND ORDER

Abdulrasheed Bawa, former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), have finally been released from DSS detention after several months. No matter what their perceived offences might be, there is no doubt that the government could have handled this matter much better than it did. If there were legal grounds to keep them for so long, the government should have made them clear to the public. Nigerians should not have been left guessing. This is a democracy and under no circumstances should we create the impression that our laws can be applied as government pleases. Imperative.

AND FINALLY…

Whether we like it or not, our federal lawmakers will still buy the multibillion naira “committee cars”, although their monetised benefits already make provision for personal cars. I won’t be surprised if state lawmakers are also giving themselves a similar treat. Those ones always get away with murder as we focus all our attention on Abuja. The choice of luxury cars, we are told by the lawmakers, is because they are durable — at a time millions of Nigerians are struggling to feed. Reminds me of what Senator Chuba Okadigbo said in 1999 when we complained about their (then) huge allowances: “We’re here to alleviate poverty, not spread it.” Someone will soon say the “good old days”. Nigeria!