After weeks of being at daggers drawn over the results of the last general elections and with only days to the inauguration of a new government on May 29, one of Nigeria’s three biggest pastimes – food – appears to be bringing people together again. 

On a good day, the country swoons over football or music. In the last two weeks, however, Nigerians up and down the food chain have been flocking to the pot of 27-year-old Hilda Bassey Effiong, fondly called Hilda Baci, who is on the verge of confirmation as the new holder of the Guinness World Records for the longest cooking time. 

Nigeria’s president-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the two other leading contestants – former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) – who have not seen eye-to-eye since the February 25 presidential poll, all lined up nicely behind Hilda’s kitchen from May 11 to 15, invoking the national can-do spirit on social media. For a moment, they buried the hatchet. 

Also, celebrities riven by partisan politics, friends and family, and ordinary folks, defied at least two nights of heavy downpours in Lagos to cheer Hilda. A country deeply divided by the outcome of the elections appears to have found common ground in Hilda’s recipe. 

After four days of dicing, marinating, boiling, frying, baking and grilling, Hilda toppled the 87 hours 45 minutes individual cooking record set by Indian chef, Lata Tandon, three years ago. The Nigerian set a new record of 100 cooking hours, with 55 recipes and more than 100 meals. 

Yet, when Hilda first announced she was going to challenge the record it sounded like a joke, even to her. “I’ve been obsessed about the Guinness Book of Records,” she told TVC, a Nigerian TV station. “It was out of obsession that I randomly asked my brother about five years ago who the holder of the world’s longest cooking record was.”

In a country where four in ten are poor, attempting a record in most fields is a long shot. Hilda had seen misery upfront, especially during COVID-19 when she supported less privileged communities in Lagos with 3000 meals at her own expense and came down with the virus. She certainly does not belong in the class once controversially described by President Muhammadu Buhari as “lazy youths.”

Her mother, Lynda Ndukwe, eked out a living from selling food in open space before she later started “Calabar Pot”, a makeshift eatery in Abuja’s middle-class working area. 

Mrs. Ndukwe struggled to put her children through school and by the time they finished, she had barely enough left in the tank. All she could offer any adventurous child at this time were her prayers and best wishes, though once when Hilda competed in a beauty pageant, her mother parcelled traditional costumes to her over hundreds of miles. 

Though Hilda had tried to make a career as a supporting actor, TV presenter, restaurateur, and Big Brother Africa left-out, if she was ever going to get a shot at her dream of toppling Tandon, the cook-a-thon record holder, she needed to be in form, a far cry from where she was two years ago.

She was having weight problems and had undergone liposuction, a process which she later described as one of the darkest periods of her life. To come through that period and announce a plan to challenge the world’s record holder, a task that would test even the very fit seemed like a bridge too far.

Yet, Hilda was willing to try. Before her surgery that year, she competed in the continent’s hottest culinary warfare – that triangular title race among Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria over a dish of long-grain rice mixed with spicy stew aptly named the Jollof Face-off Competition. 

Hilda, representing Nigeria, beat Ghana’s Leslie Kumordzie to win the prize money of $5,000, which seeded her dream for a modest online restaurant service, “@Myfoodbyhilda”, with the tagline, “Made with love”.

But love alone won’t pay bills. Or make dreams happen. Hilda took her fate into her own hands and left Abuja, her comfort zone where she had been with her mother, on a journey to the unknown. 

“Moving to Lagos was definitely a turning point for me,” she told The Nation newspaper in an interview shortly before she announced her cook-a-thon date. “The challenges I faced pretty much prepared me for this point. I did a nine-to-five and worked two jobs at a point. I worked as a cook. When I quit, I started my own show on DSTV. It was called ‘Dine on a Budget.’”

Lagos, Nigeria’s hustle capital described in local folklore as the teaching place of the laggard and slothful, taught Hilda more than how to dream big. It instilled in her the appetite to pursue her dream and also opened her up to a wider network. 

After operating from a tiny restaurant for the first two years, using mainly home delivery service, she opened her first big spot in 2022 with four staff and kept her fire burning by offering online culinary lessons. She even awarded cash prizes to the best-performing students. 

By March this year when Hilda officially announced her intention to challenge Tandon’s record, she had amassed both a culinary army of supporters and some experience for the task. She also spent hours in mental and physical drills. But as she would find when the cook-a-thon started, the taste of a marathon is in the grind.

“I almost gave up six hours after I started,” Hilda told LEADERSHIP. “I was tired and couldn’t go on. But I was encouraged by my mother who stood by me for 14 hours and gave me strength.”

Her mother and the country were rooting for her. In five days, her Instagram followers grew from 50k to 1.2m. In the days after she reached the 100 hours mark, the accolades and offers of endorsement have not stopped coming. 

“One of my biggest goals is that I want Nigerian recipes to be propagated across the world,” she said. “I want it to be a normal thing to make Egusi (melon) soup in an American environment, to walk into any random supermarket and find Nigerian ingredients. I also want to inspire young people, especially girls.”

Yet, even before her dish is cold or her record is confirmed by Guinness World Records, which sometimes takes up to 12 weeks, competitors are snapping at her heels. 

Two chefs – Liberian Wonyean Aloycious Gaye, and Kenyan chef Maliha Mohammed (who twice broke the cooking marathon record), have signalled they would challenge Hilda, drawing Nigerian trolls who are angry that competitors can’t wait to rain on Hilda’s parade.

The culinary queen is obviously offering her cheerleaders what is absent in the menu of politicians. And they’re not in a hurry to leave her table.

MUHAMMADU Buhari, president of Nigeria since 2015, will leave office on Monday, May 29, after eight disastrous years. The late Chief Bola Ige famously coined the phrase, “good riddance to bad rubbish”. That, truth be told, is the best way to describe the exit of Buhari, his presidency and his government from power.

For the past eight years of Buhari’s administration have been an unmitigated failure; a monumental waste of time, of resources, and of the hopes and aspirations of a nation and a people.

True stewardship is leaving a place better than one found it. But Buhari is leaving Nigeria far worse than he found it in 2015.

On any metric, Nigeria sunk deeper into an abyss under Buhari. Without a doubt, he’s the worst civilian leader Nigeria has, so far, had! No previous civilian president showed such aloofness, such indifference, such arrogance and such utter lack of competence and vision in governing Nigeria. None!

Before becoming president in 2015, Buhari had been a military head of state. But he was so calamitous that his colleagues removed him from power within 20 months. Yet, he enjoyed the privileges of a former head of state: the highest national honour, GCFR, permanent membership of the Council of State, numerous financial and other material benefits, and the prestige of being treated as an “institution”. So, what else did Buhari want? Why did he want to inflict himself on Nigeria as president, despite his irredeemable leadership flaws and acute intellectual weakness?

A comparison with General Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s other military-cum-civilian leader, is opposite. When General Obasanjo left office as military head of state in 1979, he threw himself into policy analysis, founded the Africa Leadership Forum, a policy think-tank, engaged in international diplomacy, read and wrote. Obasanjo didn’t plan to be president. Serendipitously, he became president in 1999. With his experience and exposure, he hit the ground running, embarked on radical institution-building, negotiated and secured debt relief for Nigeria. Obasanjo had flaws, but inept or ineffectual government wasn’t one of them!

By contrast, after his failed military regime, Buhari’s consuming passion was to become a civilian president. But he did nothing to improve himself intellectually; nothing to develop a vision of governance, a vision for Nigeria. Indeed, according to the late Junaid Mohammed, an ally-turned-critic, Buhari “never read a book in his adult life”. Yet, such an intellectually lazy person wanted desperately to be Nigeria’s president.

So desperate, in fact, he entered into a Faustian pact to achieve the selfish, inordinate ambition. Buhari ran for president three times and failed! After the third attempt, he wept on national television. Bola Tinubu’s immortal words: “I told him, ‘Don’t cry. You will contest and win.’” But Tinubu had his price. If he helped Buhari to become president, Buhari would, once in power, help him to become president. Both traded the presidency of Nigeria between each other on the altar of personal ambitions!

In 1984, Buhari jailed Tinubu’s ally, Bisi Akande, for 42 years for “unlawful enrichment of his party”. If 2015 were1984, Buhari would have jailed Tinubu for hundreds of years for far worse: state capture, unexplained and inexplicable wealth. But, no, 2015 was not 1984. In the intervening years, Buhari had become a politician and desperately wanted to be president. His famed no-nonsense anti-graft zeal, as a military ruler, had gone, and he was willing to make “a pact with the Devil” and sell his soul. That’s how he became president!

But if someone was so desperate to be president and willing to compromise his values and fraternise with those he would have jailed for corruption in another dispensation, he must be pursuing power for power’s sake. And truth is, power was an end in itself for Buhari. Otherwise, why was there no fidelity between what he promised when seeking power in 2015 and what he did after gaining power?

Take the seemingly mundane: trappings of power. Buhari had a reputation for asceticism and frugality with money, but, as president, became utterly profligate, spending like a drunken sailor, including on wasteful overseas trips. Buhari vowed to sell off some presidential jets but bought more and spent billions annually to maintain them. Buhari said his wife won’t be called First Lady, yet created the Office of First Lady and lavishly resourced it.

Recently, Buhari gloated: “I got all I wanted.” Of course, he did: for himself, his family, his cronies, and his party. But what about Nigeria? What about majority of Nigerians? With N77trn or $42bn debt, 22 per cent inflation and just 1.4 per cent growth, Nigeria is economically worse under Buhari. With 63,111 killed since 2015, 133 million multidimensionally poor and nearly 60 per cent youth unemployment, Nigerians are socio-economically worse. Indeed, under Buhari, Nigeria became the “poverty capital of the world”. Yet, despite his abysmal failure, Buhari craved praise-singing, basked in dishonest adulation.

Last week, two books were launched to honour Buhari. One, by Anthony Goldman, one-time Africa Editor of Financial Times, is titled State of Repair: How Muhammadu Buhari tried to change Nigeria for good.

The author couldn’t bring himself to say Buhari “changed Nigeria”, but “tried to”, which is even false. But if Buhari hired a former Africa Editor of the FT to burnish his image, what does the newspaper’s current Africa Editor think of him? In a scathing article titled: “What is Nigeria’s Government for?”, David Pilling pilloried Buhari “on whose somnolent watch Nigeria has sleep- walked closer to disaster.”

Well, not for Abu Ibrahim, a former senator, who wrote the second book, a hagiography, titled: The legacy of Muhammadu Buhari. But what “legacy”? Buhari promised to tackle insecurity, fix the economy and “give corruption a bloody nose”. He failed woefully. His government bungled a currency redesign and conducted a sham presidential election. So, what legacy? What about infrastructure, some ask? But only the economically illiterate will hail infrastructure funded entirely with debts, still payable decades after the roads, rails, ports, etc., have become decrepit, with over 95 per cent debt service to revenue ratio.

So, as Buhari exits power on Monday, he leaves behind a far less secure, stable, united and prosperous country. That’s the legacy of his presidency, of eight wasted years. Good riddance, indeed!

The sublime and evergreen words of Williams Shakespeare “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts; a justification therefrom alludes to a man who truly, justly, consciously and genuinely in his time has played a million and one parts as a distinct Nigerian lawyer, renowned political figure who is a symbol of Nationalism. A distinctive personality, global asset in public leadership, both within and beyond the shores of this great country. A man of distinct wisdom, inquired and sought by several governments, as an official appointee and otherwise for the contribution of his esteemed quota to the development of the country, since the days of General Yakubu Gowon up till today, an unrelenting fighter and comprehensively a builder of not just men but structures as well the founder of Edwin Clark University.

Papa’s life aptly illustrates a charge made by Williams Shakespeare that ‘Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them’.

The existence of this rare gem and living legend radiates greatness that’s truly, largely and chiefly exists in his DNA, not only since birth, but as evident in his accomplishments.

This would further be appreciated looking through his enviable pedigree and intimidating profile of this man of valor who was once a Commissioner for Education, Finance and Establishment in the old Bendel State in the 70s, Federal Minister for Information and National Orientation during the civil war till 1975, when General Gowon’s regime was terminated. Also, as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1983, and today, indisputable leader of the Ijaw Nation among others.

Knowing and having a rare privilege of being closely associated with His Eminence, Senator, Chief, Sir, Dr, Edwin Kiagbodo Clark for about a score of years has not only aided in grooming me, but has laid within me an imprint of this great personality in my career as a Legal Practitioner, as some of his enormous principles and unquenchable thirsts and foresights till date still guide in some of my approaches to becoming greater daily.

Sire, on this day, of your 96th birthday anniversary, I join the conglomerate of your children, associates and the world at large to celebrate you, the man of the moment, the voice to the voiceless, the peace in the turbulent storm, the quantum of social justice and the definition of a worthy patriot.

PIn accordance to the words of the holy Bible in Psalm 90:12 “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”. I pray that your wisdom will never diminish as you age, that the Almighty who has kept you this far will further preserve you with long life, good health, continuous joy and all-round blessings in accordance to your heart desires.

Happy Birthday, G-O-G-O-R-O-G-O, may your light continue to shine!

Dated Thursday, 25th May, 2923

Signed
Dr Kayode Ajulo, FCIArb. UK

CASTLE OF LAW,
21, Amazon Street,
Maitama District, Abuja-Nigeria
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The thought alone of travelling from Lagos to Ibadan using the Expressway is nightmarish. As you get to Oworonsoki the sensing of what may lie ahead hits you, and this develops into fears as you surmount the Ojota flyover. Then comes the sight of long stretches of vehicles on both sides of the road from the old Toll Gate—heavy-duty vehicles: fuel tankers, trailers and tippers; cars of all shades and of all kinds; different models and varied sizes. The Otedola/Berger axis gives palpitations. By the time you approach the Isheri Bridge and overlooking OPIC Estate to the left, it is the face of ugliness and national shame. By the time you get into the thick of the traffic jam, the legs are already aching. When it gets to this stage, totally entrapped, you surrender and say to yourself, and loud enough to the hearing of the driver: We are in it; we have no choice. Tempers rise to your left and to your right, and there is hissing; there is foul language. It is confusion galore. And typical of Nigerians, everywhere is road. Orderliness is alien to our lexicon. A neighbour of mine, a retired school principal, almost lost one of his legs on the road. He and his wife were returning from Ibadan last year. They had sat for two hours in the traffic after the now famous Long Bridge. The man got down from their vehicle to stretch his legs. He said to the driver: “You catch up with me in front; I want to stretch my legs.” He followed a footpath. Unsuspecting that any vehicle would want to use the rough patch, he walked confidently. Alas, a commercial mini-bus we call ‘Danfo’ came stealthily behind him, no blasting of horn, nothing, pushed him down and ran over his left foot!

The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway was commissioned by General Olusegun Obasanjo in 1978, built by the Murtala Mohammed-Obasanjo Military Administration. A dual carriageway, it stretches from Apapa Port running through Liverpool Street, Oshodi, Oworonsoki off to the old Toll Gate and from there to Ibadan. By the time Obasanjo staged his second coming 21 years after, that is 1999, parts of the road had started to give way. By 2006 and 2007, he developed thoughts of fixing the road through the novel public –private partnership. When Umaru Yar’Adua came into the saddle in 2007, he took over from there. Yar’Adua’s plan was to manifest properly in 2009. Thus, 31 years after the commissioning, the civilian Administration of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua commenced moves to reconstruct the damaged road through the public-private arrangement. The expressway is 127.6 kilometres long, that is 79.3 miles. The concession bid was won by Bi-Courtney Highway Services Limited. The content of the 25-year concessionary agreement signed by the Federal Government in 2009 was Build, Operate, and Transfer. When after four years the signing of the agreement and the project could not take off, Yar’Adua’s successor, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan revoked the concession arrangement. He gave the project on contract to Julius Berger and Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) Limited in 2013 for a sum of N167 billion, equivalent to $838, 986,290 million US Dollars. Dr. Wale Babalakin as company chairman and the concessionaire was expected to source for his own funds and recoup his investment by mounting toll gates on the expressway upon completion of the reconstructuring.

Julius Berger was given the Lagos end to handle while RCC was given the Ibadan end to handle. President Jonathan promised that the work would be delivered within 48 months. Jonathan, too, did not get the contractors to deliver. The project was inherited by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. Since then he has been struggling with it, announcing delivery dates three times. He is leaving on Monday with promises made three times and three times, promises not kept. He is passing the baton to Bola Ahmed Tinubu from that date.

For 14 years, Nigerians have had to endure pains daily in untold harrowing gridlocks on the expressway that has also claimed several lives, and there is not yet light at the end of the long dark tunnel. Following are complaints uploaded and mailed to me from a platform being run by some of the people who live in areas abutting the expressway:

*I just enter office now oo… (16: 53pm) from 6.18am wey I comot house..jbn God dey o. Na so my hubby spent over 7hrs on Monday. People wey still dey road, una go land safely oo.

*“Are JBN not tired of partitioning? In short, if a genuine, effective and efficient constructing six lanes from Benin Republic to Ghana, they would have finished by now but JBN wants to incapacitate Nigerians before completion of less than four kilometre road. God will help us, but we need to shout if possible or else,the gridlock will consume road users.”

*The truth is that they care less about the wellbeing of the masses. Lives have lost in the course of this so-called road rehabilitation and the government has decided to turn a deaf ear to the cry of the people,”

*For me, I’m not happy with JB lackadaisical attitude. After about 1hour 30mins spent between Kara to Otedola. I saw LASMA officials using leg to remove blockages on Otedola Bridge around 8.30am. I think JB can do better than this.

*Three hours from Magboro and still counting. Now at Kara Bridge. If you have little or nothing urgent to do in Lagos just rest today and save your life from stress.

*Yes, the traffic from Long Bridge to Berger is thick…

*E pass thick ooo.

*Traffic starts from second Red Roof inward Lagos.

*There is a multiple accident involving a tanker truck and about five/seven cars.

*Good afternoon, JBN is working at New Garage outward Lagos; they are demarcating the road. Hmmmm, they are just compounding our stress, or have they opened any other area out of the previous demarcations?

*OPIC end of Lagos Expressway inward Lagos is experiencing heavy traffic due to diversion point at new garage as at 6.56am.

*A country full of lawlessness everywhere. Those that make the laws are seen at the fore front of breaking it. May God continue to keep us safe.

*The carnage on this their (our?) road is indescribable. Must it be this administration to commission the road? Are you commissioning the road for the living or the dead? If the tempo being used ab initio, by now we would have forgotten about the untold sufferings inflicted on us. Y are we like this as a people?”

Last year, the Federal Government announced yet another deadline for the completion of the reconstruction works on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Fielding questions on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on the way out of the perennial gridlock, the Director, Federal Highway — South-West Zone, Federal Ministry of Works, Mr. Adedamola Kuti, said: “We are working very hard to meet the December 2022 deadline for the completion of works on the road.
He added: “On the Lagos end, which is Section 1 from the old Toll Gate, around the secretariat down towards Kara, as we speak, a section up to Otedola Bridge will be completed and opened in the next few days. The OPIC Area that is just 1.3km will also be completed. On the stretch, altogether is 6.1km.

“When you go towards Section 2, we have just about 20kilometres on both sides. We are working very hard to make sure the work is completed on time, by December this year.”

Twice after Kuti’s assurances, the deadline was shifted to January and then to April 30. April ending has come and gone. This is May already running to an end. Rains have begun and meteorological service officials have alerted the nation that rains this year will be more than last year’s. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is the busiest in Africa with 250, 000 vehicles plying the road daily. It connects the East, the North, the North-Central, South-South and South-West with Lagos, the economic hub not only of Nigeria but of West Africa as a whole. By the time Buhari vacates office on Monday, the reconstruction of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway would have passed through the hands of four Presidents. And it has taken 14 years to rebuild a road of 127.6 kilometres! What further evidence is there to prove to the world that we as Nigerians are indeed a unique people? Where there is no shame, there can be no embarrassment!

THE CREATION QUESTION
I have run what now amounts to a two-part series on how Creation came into existence. I must state that I only gave hints, leaving out the details to anyone serious about knowledge of life and existence to dig out by himself. Seek, we are admonished, and ye shall find. It is a Law of Creation that he who seeks finds. This column, as has been stated a few times, is to awaken souls to seek higher knowledge; to seek what is high and noble; to ask the most important questions of our lives: Who am I? Where does my path lead me when I depart earthly life? Treating the issue of Creation, I did not, for example, mention the roles of the Four Conscious Animals at the Throne of the Most High God in creating nor did I mention at all the Queen of Heaven Whose name is Elizabeth who is eternal nor Parsifal, a unique Name that students of Literature may claim familiarity with when they recall the Parsifal legend – -in the sublimity of His unapproachable Throne. What do we men know? The vastness of Realms and Planes in Creation which vastness is incomprehensible and, indeed, inconceivable to man! Didn’t the Lord say “In my Father’s House are many mansions”? But the modern man unable to comprehend the revelation has, in some instances, changed the word ‘mansions’ to ‘rooms’ thereby distorting the essence of the pronouncement. How can there be mansions in a house? The modern man must have said to himself. Whereas, the House the Lord refers to is Creation and the mansions, Realms and Realms in Creation that is His Father’s Work. In the Realms are also planes of existence, again so unbelievably vast. The Lord Who is Perfection can never be wrong; it is man that can be and is always wrong and obstinate! We must bow our spirits in worshipful adoration of the Lord and Creator, in adoration of His Holy Name for the Grace of His Love and Mercy.

Even the most ardent supporter of the President, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) must be happy to see him pack his nuisance and return to Daura (or Niger, wherever) come Monday. If there is a regime in this world on which the sun cannot set fast enough, it is Buhari’s. He rode into the presidency in 2015 with his babariga pockets filled with tokens of goodwill and high expectations of renewal. Eight years later, he had bankrupted everything with his sadism and indolence. He came into power in a blaze of glory but his departure will be accompanied with deep sighs of “good riddance.” One good thing about his sociopathic nature is that he will not even be moved to care how much he has let down everyone who once took him seriously.

As much as the buck stops at his table, he could not have been the kind of failure he was without his enablers. They are many, but the most vociferous of these minions was his media team. For a collective that never advanced an original thought or devised any meaningful strategy of public engagement, they had a larger-than-life reach. From buffering Buhari from reasonable public opinion to obfuscating serious issues, they enabled his apathetic stance while the nation faltered under his watch. If they had summoned their will to a higher moral resolve, perhaps Buhari would not be leaving so much wreckage and carnage behind.

If there was something that quickly defined the Goebbelsian ethos of the Buhari regime at its inception, it was the number of media aides recruited. For a man who would not even appoint his federal ministers, he was rather quick to inaugurate a whole nest of media howlers. Close to hand, he had people like Femi Adesina, Garba Shehu, Bashir Ahmed, Tolu Ogunlesi, and Lauretta Onochie. Some of them were accomplished professionals before they took up the job of image laundering for the presidency, but you can hardly look back at key moments during their term and cite instances when they had a shining moment of professional management of public relations and communication. By May 29, when the sun sets on their time, they would all have been indistinguishably diminished by the multi-dimensional failings of the government they served.

At the back end, the administration also maintained a troll farm. There, they had tucked the rabble-rousers, whose job was to loiter around the highways and byways of the internet, defending Buhari against every reasonability and generally darkening counsel with words without knowledge. Partly due to the redundancy of these associates and perhaps too, because of the lack of any apparent strategic thought that went into planning the information management aspect of the Buhari presidency, what the bloated media team ended up delivering was eight years of cacophonous public communication. On his own, Buhari is sure to fail at any leadership role. With the choir he appointed, his shortcomings got more loudly amplified.

To be fair, media managers in the new media age face a peculiar dilemma in managing public relations and communication. Now that virtually anyone for whom the odds align can sidestep the traditional media gatekeepers and reach an indeterminate public directly, responding to the public can be vertiginous. Media aides to non-performing politicians like Buhari have it far worse—for good reasons. They must confront and control public perceptions and sentiments that can be so powerful they trump objective reality. Also, considering how more easily information can be released into the public sphere to stir mischief these days, media aides to politicians find themselves working in a permanent crisis zone where they are putting out either series of small fires or a conflagration (or both at the same time). Continuously being in a self-defence mode can do things to one’s cerebral capacities, and the frequent misspeaks and missteps that typified these aides’ jobs since 2015 is proof that the aides’ wit became addled over the years of managing Buhari’s crisis-prone government. The highest they achieved was a raucous and rancorous engagement with Nigerians whom—judging from their frequent putdowns—they passionately despise.

Yes, one must admit that being a media aide to a Nigerian politician is unenviable responsibility. We live in a polity where poverty is endemic, political promises are aplenty, and people confront their leaders with a sense of urgency that can be incompatible with the slow-paced nature of democratic deliberations. You cannot blame people jaded by the persistent failures of leadership for wanting quick-fire solutions. Sadly, the cohort of mostly myopic leaders that Nigeria is plagued with can hardly envision solutions to what bedevils us. Consequently, our interactions with them cannot but be defined by antagonisms, bitter exchanges, and mutual frustrations. That is why media aides to politicians turned their social media handles into workstations where they engage the public in crass and classless exchange of clap backs and other claptrap.

When leaders have nothing to show as solid achievements, their media aides must justify their existence by becoming one-trick ponies whose expertise begins and ends with fighting random people online. Aides managing a truant boss like Buhari have had it really hard. They spent the eight years inventing stories, deflecting questions bordering on accountability to the public, punching down at political opponents and their supporters, pandering to their current paymasters while putting up a grand show for prospective ones, and generally maintaining a facade of government functionality. While it must have been exhausting work for them, many of those activities are ultimately useless because neither their approach nor the substance of their communication advanced the course of democracy (or even our national values).

Our relationship with our leaders has ontologically been acrimonious, and they lack the political savviness to redefine it meaningfully. Our leaders probably cannot function without antagonising Nigerians, and their public relations managers too cannot act outside that frame. The conception of their professional responsibility is locked into that debilitating cycle such that they can hardly imagine public interaction without slap downs and punch downs. Even if they discern that the irascibility some people display online is borne of frustration with a polity where nothing ever happens, they still cannot demonstrate empathy. They must necessarily antagonise their fellow citizens. Once behind the high walls of Aso Rock, they can no longer afford to see humans whose survival is threatened by the cluelessness of their employers and who have every reason—and right—to make demands on the government. All they see are pesky irritants who will not let them eat in peace. Their revert is duplicity, deceit, and the shallow-mindedness that suffuses every part of their communication.

Looking at the spin they put out during those times Buhari was hospitalised outside of the country, you saw people in whom there is no truth. You assess how they dragged the presidency on social media like a rag cloth, and you see professional misfits. You consider the childishness of those who classified a section of Nigerians that refuses to drool before them into “wailers,” and what you see are small-minded bigots in high places. When you recall how these people poorly responded to the serious issues of insecurity that imperilled many Nigerian lives, you see people drained of their humanity. When you evaluate their double-fanged responses to the problems of corruption and its consequent denudation of the Nigerian value system, you see a bunch of frauds who add a lack of reflexivity to their hypocrisy. When your measure their dismissive attitude toward the economic hardship that Nigerians suffered under the watch of their inhumane principal, you see people shorn of their capacity to be reasonable humans.

On Monday, they will exit their respective offices (save for those lucky to be reabsorbed by the incoming administration). We will not miss them. Goodbye to their játijàti!

Since he who asserts must prove, the onus is now on the Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle to provide evidence that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, demanded a bribe of $2 million from him. “It is not just to always blame governors. It is not only governors who have treasury, the federal government also has. What does the EFCC boss do to them? As he is claiming he has evidence on governors, let him show to the world evidence of those at the federal level,” Matawalle said in a recent interview with BBC Hausa Service. “If he (Bawa) exits office, people will surely know he is not an honest person. I have evidence against him. He requested a bribe of $2 million from me and I have evidence of this. He knows the house we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me governors were going to his office, but I did not. If I don’t have evidence, I won’t say this.” 

The battle between Matawalle and Bawa is bound to be interesting, beginning from next week when the governor would have been stripped of his immunity from prosecution. I choose to reserve my opinion until the governor presents concrete evidence to back his weighty allegation, but Bawa must understand that you don’t fight corruption with street gossip or fishing for evidence. What irks Matawalle is the reported invitations to outgoing governors and their commissioners over alleged corruption and abuse of office. Targeting state governors while turning a blind eye to the misdeeds in Abuja, according to Matawalle, is unacceptable.  

Whatever his motivation, Matawalle has a valid point on the EFCC modus operandi. The idea of ‘probe’ that the commission revels in is a throwback to the military era when accused persons were presumed guilty until they could prove their innocence. Under democracy and the rule of law, the presumption is that of innocence until evidence is adduced in a court of law to secure conviction. Leaving federal officials to target governors, as self-serving as Matawalle’s argument may be, is also wrongheaded. There are several federal government agencies that manage resources far bigger than what is available to all the states combined. Yet, heads of these agencies are never subjected to public ridicule like governors routinely are by the EFCC, as Matawalle stated.  

Meanwhile, the commission should be concerned about its future under the presidency of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Two years ago, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu signed into law a controversial bill that empowers the Lagos State Anti-Corruption Commission to take over “all anti-corruption and financial crimes cases” involving the finances and assets of the state government being investigated by any other agency.” The executive bill initiated by the governor enjoyed speedy passage by the House of Assembly before being signed into law. Section 13(5) says, “The Commission shall have power to the exclusion of any other Agency or body to investigate and coordinate the investigation of corruption and financial crime cases involving the finances and assets of the State Government.” The Lagos law was meant to castrate the EFCC whose powers over states have always been in contention. We wait to see what Tinubu will do with EFCC once he moves from the passenger’s side to the driver’s seat of power in Nigeria, but the Commission’s problem goes beyond one man. 

In January this year, a former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president, Mr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, questioned the legality of EFCC on several actions, especially regarding states. Section 214(1) of the constitution (as amended), according to Agbakoba, says: “There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section, no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.” Since EFCC was a creation of the National Assembly (and none of the constitutional amendments we have had over the years has inserted it into the Constitution), Agbakoba avers that the commission does not have the powers to interfere with the activities of state governments. “The Supreme Court in many of its decisions has held that federalism means two autonomous and independent governments and if that is correct, the EFCC does not have the right to go to the state and examine their accounts,” Agbakoba argued. 

Established in 2003, there is no doubt that the EFCC has done much in the past two decades to fight corruption. The commission has secured high-profile convictions, especially of governors, and helped to raise the consciousness of Nigerians regarding the lack of transparency and accountability that defines public service in our country. But it is also evident that the EFCC is derailing, and its method is becoming counterproductive. Naming and shaming may have its use, but it is neither sustainable nor is it the right way to fight a serious crime. There are many glaring examples to cite but one stands out. 

Shortly after Mr Willie Obiano handed over as Governor of Anambra State on18^th March 2021, he was intercepted and stopped from travelling to the United States, arrested, and transferred to Abuja. While being held incommunicado, the EFCC let it filter out that Obiano was being held for fiddling with the ubiquitous ‘security vote’ and was to account for some N47 billion. Then the EFCC leaked a video of Obiano being interrogated by their operatives as well as a photograph of him in an undignifying posture. While the uproar that greeted the unprofessional conduct was yet to die down, Bawa hit the media with allegations about another unnamed governor. “Very soon, Nigerians are going to see some of the things that we are doing. I can tell you for free that the new Department of Intelligence that we have created is working wonders. They have come up with a lot of intelligence,” Bawa said. “In one of them, a governor in a Northcentral state within the last six years (one individual) has withdrawn over N60 billion in cash.”  

We hope the EFCC has a watertight case against this “N60 billion in cash” Northcentral governor. But nobody is surprised that despite the drama, the Commission has not been able to press any serious charge against Obiano. It is typical. Two years ago, the Corruption and Financial Crimes Cases Monitoring Committee (COTRIMCO) set up in November 2017 by the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, blamed delays in financial crimes cases on a combination of factors, but chiefly on poor prosecution. According to COTRIMCO, “offenders are charged to court before proper investigations of the charges are done, and afterwards, expecting the court to detain such alleged offenders till conclusion of their investigations”.   

As I have reiterated many times on this page, fighting corruption goes beyond making sensational claims not backed by evidence. What is required are investigative and legal structures that will lead to trials and convictions of those who are guilty, without tarnishing the reputation of innocent people. That Nigerans are not yet able to draw the line between when the EFCC is putting up a media show and when it is engaged in the nitty gritty of fighting corruption is the reason the Commission is fast losing credibility.  

Beyond the Matawalle and Bawa battle, there are interesting days ahead for the EFCC. Whatever happens, the Commission must understand that fighting corruption requires some measure of tact and sobriety. Investigation of such serious crimes takes time, painstaking efforts and a coherent strategy founded on due process of law. The Gotcha approach that has become EFCC standard practice, as I have highlighted on this page several times in the past, can only provide momentary entertainment. That is not what Nigeria needs at this time given how the malaise has almost destroyed the moral fabric of our society.  Not to mention the economy. What we require is a thorough, methodical, and strategic war against corruption. It is not too late for the EFCC to change their tactics. 

Dangote: Nigerian Name, Global Brand 

On Monday in Lagos, Alhaji Aliko Dangote raised the stakes higher when President Muhammadu Buhari was joined by colleagues from Ghana, Togo, Niger Republic, Senegal, and a representative of the Chadian president to commission his mega refinery. Situated on 6,180 acres (2,500 hectares) of land at the Lekki Free Trade Zone, the Dangote Refinery boasts of the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in the world (1,100 kilometres) for crude supply. And with the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels per day, it is also the largest single-train refinery in the world. 

While I join in commending Dangote for breaking business barriers on the continent, I am aware that there are people who do not share in the euphoria of the moment. I have heard the argument that Dangote enjoys enormous government patronage and support for his projects. And not all of them can be dismissed as sour grapes. When a man amasses the humongous wealth available to Dangote in our kind of environment, there will always be legitimate questions to ask, especially by competitors. But as the late global icon, Mr Nelson Mandela of South Africa, also reminded us in the counsel he gave to his country’s music star, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, “It is what we make of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”  

Former Cross River State Governor, Mr Donald Duke, once told me that he first met Alhaji Aliko Dangote in 1978 (the year he started his trading in commodities) and that he could still remember his (Dangote’s) business contemporaries at the time in Lagos. After reeling out a few names that I was hearing for the first time, Duke muttered: “only God knows where those guys are today. So, that tells you something about Dangote’s resilience”. From sugar to salt to flour to fertilizer to frozen fish to baby food to poly bag to cement, Dangote was just another trader (and importer) less than three decades ago. Today, he is a producer of some of those commodities not only for our country but also for the African market. 

Last month, at the invitation of its Chief Upstream Operating Officer, Mr Bala Wunti, I was in Lagos to speak at the Annual Value Assurance Review (AVAR) of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS). But as I recalled in a short piece that I wrote the day after, the most insightful presentation came from Dangote who shared some of the challenges he faced while trying to build the refinery. He was compelled to construct his own port at Lekki. He erected over 200 kilometres of gas pipelines across different projects. He built his own power plants. He bought his own cranes and mined his own granite. There is hardly any sector that Dangote has not had to invest in because of the absence of critical infrastructure that can support mega projects in Nigeria. What his story therefore teaches is that as tough as the Nigerian business climate may seem, those who dare still wins. 

Meanwhile, the interesting subtext to the Dangote Refinery story is the role played by three principal characters: Ibikunle Amosun, Dapo Abiodun and Babatunde Raji Fashola. The refinery was to be cited at the Olokola Free Trade Zone in Ogun State then governed by Amosun. Chairman of the trade zone at the time was Abiodun, the current governor. When the project could not fly in Ogun State after several months of negotiations, Dangote came to Lagos where Fashola (then state governor) embraced the idea. But it was a herculean task convincing Ibeju Lekki landowners and Lagos white cap chiefs to buy into the project. At one meeting in 2014 where Fashola “handed over” Dangote to these chiefs, there was open dissent. But he was determined to have the project in Lagos. Given what transpired a decade ago, if the project had failed, those who conspired against Dangote in Ogun State would probably be hailed today for their “foresight”. Now that it has worked out, the same people are reading from the Book of Lamentations while those who opposed Fashola in Lagos nine years ago are waxing lyrical about the refinery. Such is life!

I congratulate Dangote on this rare feat as I wish him success in his next frontier-breaking endeavour. 

In 2019, Kwarans turned to AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to lead the state through the worst socio-economic crisis since its inception. He promised to make government work for all, share the dividends of democracy to the remotest of communities, and make resources work for the public good. Four years later, records show that the newly-elected chairman of Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF), AbdulRazaq has created jobs, boosted enterprise and industry, and rebuilt the economy on a new foundation for growth and prosperity. 

There is, however, one more thing. Though it appeared under-celebrated, he might have pushed innovations and reinvented Government more than most governors in recent years.

From 2019 to 2023, Kwara now has added at least six new institutions with most being products of legislation, targeting far-reaching reforms in public service delivery, social development, and economic prosperity.

These include Kwara State Social Investment Programmes (KWASSIP); Kwara State Geographical Information Service (KW-GIS); Kwara State Sports Commission; Kwara Health Insurance Agency (KWHIA); Kwara Leading Education Achievement and Reform Now (KwaraLearn); Kwara Education Trust Fund (KWETF); and Kwara Residents Registration Agency (KWSRRA). 

As this article would reveal, the introduction of these institutions had a significant impact on the scope of the administration, as well as deepened reach and efficiency, and delivery of government policies and programmes in the last four years. 

Kwara State Social Investment Programmes (KWASSIP)

The establishment of this agency will never be talked about enough. So also will the impacts. 

For a state sliding down the tables on critical socio-economic indices such as poverty index, unemployment, and comatose local enterprise, a well-rounded policy had to be introduced to arrest the consequences of a failing economy and social system. 

The introduction of KWASSIP, a localised but upgraded version of the federal government's NSIP, with four components, has not only reversed the trends but also pushed Kwara further up the tables in the socio-economic ratings in the country. 

KWASSIP is the first legislated social investment programme in Nigeria. The legislation is now being emulated by the federal government. 

Unemployment in the state was 21.1% during Q3:2018. However, the unemployment rate for Kwara state improved to 13.8% during Q2:2020 from 21.1%, representing a 7.3% improvement, according to the National Bureau of Statistics Report (2020). 

Similarly, the state's poverty index rate which stood at 30.2% in 2020, dropped significantly to 20.4 as at 2022, according to the World Bank State by State Poverty Index in Nigeria -- just two years after the creation of KWASSIP. 

Under the four components, KWASSIP has about 200,000 beneficiaries including 'Owo Arugbo', 'Owo Isowo,' 'Digital Kwara,' 'Kwapreneur,' and 'Kwasupport.'

A well-run social investment scheme reduces hunger and poverty, promotes enterprise and local businesses to keep the economy running. Hence, it averts a significant shortfall in revenue generation as a result of a dearth of economic activities. 

Although the internal revenue generation plummeted in 2020, a year after it hit an all-time high, it quickly bounced back in 2021 and by 2022, it posted unprecedented records. 

It would be hard not to connect the stability the social safety scheme provided in safeguarding and protecting the people and the economy from hunger and collapse before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is equally noteworthy how it became the state's coordinating agency for national, multinational and global interventions from development partners including the federal government, Bank of Industry, World Bank, United Nations, Google and Microsoft. This expertise has reinvented key partnerships and attracted opportunities worth millions of dollars to the state. Yet, the future looks even more assured. 

Kwara Leading Education Achievement and Reform Now (KwaraLearn)

With a firm understanding of the place of education in human development, one is safe to say AbdulRazaq may become the most impactful and influential Kwara governor for many generations. 

At the center of this belief is his ambitious repositioning of basic education in the state. Although the public is quick to reference the renovations of over 600 schools, impartial employment of about 5,000 new teachers, and prompt payment of their salaries when counting his interventions in the basic education sector. The game changer in the Kwara basic education sector is KwaraLearn. It was introduced to change the system of teaching and enhance learning outcomes in the public schools. 

Prior, the reports from the State of Basic Education in Kwara State study conducted by the KwaraLearn team were disturbing. For context, data collected from 64 schools and 2,558 pupils showed that only about 1 out of 5 could solve a simple word problem using division or subtraction. Similarly, only about 4 out of 10 could study about other subjects throughout the grades, indicating weak numeracy and reading skills. 

The kernel of the issue was teachers' utility and attendance, pedagogical practices displayed by teachers, and the amount of instructional support that they received.

The introduction of KwaraLearn, a transformative programme using data and technology to implement modern approaches and instructional techniques, is leading the delivery of 21st century education in Kwara. Kwara's comes only after Lagos' and Edo's in the entire country. 

As of April 14th, 2023, the end of second academic term, the programme is now running in 10 LGAs in the state. Data released by the agency also puts the number of pupils impacted by KwaraLEARN at 125,461 in 873 public schools. 

KwaraLearn has successfully re-trained over 6,000 government teachers in line with standard pedagogical practices and distributed 5,669 tablets to guide lesson plans and assessment, eradicating perennial lack of standardisation of lesson plans and adherence to curriculum. It is also fostering work accountability and improved learning outcomes. 

With distribution of 1,184,915 textbooks and teaching aids, it is expected to enhance the reading levels in all subjects. It is good news that there have been good postings on all the key performance indicators of the programme, including teachers motivation, teachers and students attendance, time on task, and outcome of learning. But it is even better news that Kwara is tipped to be one of the top 5 subnationals in education in the country in the near future. Do you feel the immortality of AbdulRazaq now?

Kwara Geographic Information Service (KW-GIS)

The Land and Property management system in Kwara State could make use of technology and become data-driven to improve accountability and efficiency. 

Therefore, the Kwara State Bureau of Lands, Office of Surveyor-General, Physical Planning Authority and Directorate of Urban and Regional Planning ceased to exist as separate Agencies with the establishment of Kwara State Geographic Information Service (KW-GIS) by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. 

As spelt in the bill of creation, the development merged all the four (4) previous Agencies to perform their functions and duties under KW-GIS.

They are now known as Directorate of Lands, Directorate of Physical Planning and Development Control, Office of Surveyor-General/Directorate of Survey, and Directorate of Urban and Regional Planning respectively.

The four previous Agencies also come under the leadership of the Executive Chairman, Kwara State Geographic Information Service (KW-GIS).

KW- GIS' objectives were to improve land and property files, decrease data loss, preserve mutilated records, enable easy retrieval of data, receive reports and statistics, and improve long term planning. This is being run with a computerized information system for Land and Property Administration.

Before the creation of KW-GIS, land and property administration in the state was considered obsolete, bogged down by bureaucracy, and mired by unplanned physical development and lack of accountability. 

In its 2022 report, KW-GIS generated about N1bn in its operations through applications for land titles from prospective landowners in the state. 

Coming barely two years after establishment, this feat was made possible due to reforms introduced to achieve the vision of modern land administration in line with international best practices which has helped in stabilizing the service.

Admirably, the use of automated operations had also made the application and processing of a Certificate of Occupancy (CofO) possible within 30 days and prospective builders in the state could obtain a building permit within 15 days of application.

But it is all the more remarkable that Kwara State Government has not only successfully built a system to avert the loss investment opportunities which is often one of the banes of improper land administration, but it has also launched an ambitious urban and physical planning to maximise social growth and economic development in the future. 

With its unveiling of the Ilorin Urban Masterplan which is the second of its kind since the creation of the state in 1975, the state capital has been repositioned for sustainable socio-economic development in the next 20 years. It is cheery news that the government is looking into producing the same for the other two senatorial districts. The introduction of KW-GIS shows the possibilities of innovations and goodness in reinventing government. Nothing must be spared in strengthening the agency for better services. 

Kwara State Sports Commission 

Sports, despite the fact that it used to be one of the high points of the state, was in comatose in 2019. It suffered from lack of critical investments in facilities, bureaucracy, and bad management. But within four years, Kwara found national acclaim in sports development. The turnaround included the reintroduction of the sports festival in 2020– 15 years after it was last held. Afterwards, the state football team, Kwara United, returned to the premier league for the 2021/2022 season. 

To build on the achievements, critical changes needed to be made to truly open up sports development in Kwara State in line with emerging sporting realities. 

In August 2021, Kwara State Sports Commission was created to reduce bureaucracy, foster sports engagements and management, and lead reforms to enhance sports development. 

The Commission was carved out of the Ministry of Youths and Sports Development. 

As it is evident in the sports participation, promotion and developments, sports-loving states have made a trend of focusing on management of sports under a commission. Such now includes Delta, Edo, Lagos states, etc with Kwara becoming the 9th state to join the league in the country. 

In what stakeholders called an improved participation in sports, Kwara is one up in sponsoring athletes to National and International Tournaments

The Commission is also credited with leading Kwara United to the qualification for continental competition after many years. 

It is now leading the ongoing efforts to give infrastructural facelift to several sporting facilities in the state by fostering key partnerships with private bodies and philanthropists. The fruits of this include the regrassing of the Kwara State Stadium Mainbowl with the support of A.U Mustapha SAN, the remodeling of the Stadium Complex entrances courtesy of Rotamedics Pharmacy. 

This is in addition to supervising the construction and management of the following impressive government sports facilities including the soon-to-be-completed 8-wing Squash Court, new Table-Tennis Hall, renovation of the Swimming Pool complex, newly renovated baseball and volleyball park, Kwara Football Academy students' hostel, among others. These were facilities majorly left to rot out of neglect because of proper sports administration in the state. 

The creation of the sports commission is not only solving that but is proving capable of decentralising sports, building investors' confidence, and producing talents for the global scene in the next few years. It could not have come any better than now for the state to catch up with lost grounds in the sports sector. 

Kwara Health Insurance Agency (KWHIA)

Barely a year into his administration, Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq launched a health insurance scheme for residents, saying the initiative would boost life expectancy and the economy. It was another major step in Kwara’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 by 2030, which promotes access to good health and well-being. 

Quite a segment of the public has argued that it is not new. The point has been that two previous administrations headed by Bukola Saraki and Abdul Fatah Ahmed pursued community health insurance and state health insurance respectively. However, while Saraki's community health insurance scheme did work and became outdated, Abdulfatah's only existed on papers despite being launched. It was not active. 

The implementation of Kwara Health Insurance Agency (KWHIA) is officially credited to the administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq who got it funded and running.

This is a worthy addition to the achievement of the governor in the primary health care sector, together with the resuscitation of Kwara State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (KPHCDA). 

As of the official launch of Phase II of health insurance enrollment in October 2022, the scheme had over 50,000 beneficiaries in two years. 

It had earlier enrolled 29,000 Kwarans through the FG-funded Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), which the state invested in, before onboarding the 21,750 new enrollees to bring the total beneficiaries of free healthcare in the state to 51,750 for 2022 - 2023.

What is impressive is the scope of the agency in partnering with private bodies, philanthropists, and community development associations to widen the net of beneficiaries, making healthcare accessible to an average Kwaran.  

KWHIA offers three distinct State-sponsored health care plans to residents of Kwara State at subsidised rates. The Informal Health Plan which targets artisans, farmers, self-employed, families is put at N6,000/Year. The Formal Health Plan which is for local and state civil servants, private organizations go for N9,000/Year. The last package, Equity Health Plan, is available for low-Income families, vulnerable groups at rates stipulated by laws. 

The healthcare package benefits include consultation, eye care, neonatal, impatient care, chronic care, maternal care, emergency care, laboratory investigations and diagnostic tests, surgical services, among other specialities numbering over 250 scopes. 

Between 2020 and 2022, KWHIA shows that it performed 107 surgeries, including 48 cesarean sections and 138 deliveries; managed over 200 diabetic and hypertensive cases; with at least 1,324 other services during the period.

The scheme deserves a top mention in AbdulRazaq's people-driven policies and decisions in his first tenure. 

Others are Kwara Investment Promotion Agency (KWIPA) and Kwara Ease of Doing Business Council. While the former is not running in full gear yet, the latter is leading the state's reforms on Ease of Doing Business. According to the 2nd Subnational Ease of Doing Business ranking by Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), Kwara recently moved three places up to 27th from 30 in 2021. 

Although elections have been held and winners have emerged, the true winners are Kwarans who have a chance to continue benefiting from the above-mentioned institutions that were all created in the last four years in the state. But it does suffice to put the records in context for the sake of the greater Kwara story when more will be written for May 29, 2023 to May 29, 2027, by His grace.

Abdullateef is Special Assistant to Kwara Governor on Communications 

How much petrol is consumed daily in Nigeria? The NNPCL and The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) do not know. Neither does the Ministry of Petroleum Resources nor the Ministry of Finance. The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) does not know. Nobody in the Nigerian government seems to know how much petrol is consumed daily in Nigeria. Every agency has its own estimated daily PMS national consumption rate. Yet, the amount of implicit fuel subsidy paid is based on the daily volume of PMS consumed and the difference between the implicit cost of importing the PMS and its actual price at the pump. Padding the daily PMS consumption rate is the foundation of the cesspool of corruption that constitutes the fuel subsidy regime.

The daily PMS consumption rate was less controversial and more reliable prior to 2011. The daily PMS consumption rate was 21.45 million litres in 2002,  21.72 million litres in 2003 and 25.91 million litres in 2008. It was 26.74 million litres and 29.81 million litres in 2009 and 2010 respectively. In February 2020,  after a detailed study, the DPR  concluded that the national daily PMS consumption rate was 38.2 million litres. Thus, the best indicators of the daily PMS consumption rate can be obtained from the 2002-2010 trend with the February 2020 DPR rate as a control. The daily consumption rate from this trend eliminates the corrupt padding of daily PMS consumption rate data after 2010.

In 2011, the average daily PMS consumption rate was 29.3 million litres, while the government paid  subsidy of 2,110 billion Naira based on  an estimated daily PMS consumption rate of 56.9 million litres. The government claimed that the difference of 27.6 million litres per day was smuggled to neighbouring countries. However, this difference was due to companies making false subsidy claims on undelivered fuel. These corrupt practices were revealed by the 2012 Farouk Lawan House of Representative Ad-Hoc Committee investigation and report. The committee found deliberate neglect for record keeping, payments for billions of litres that were never supplied, and more than $6.8 billion refunds due to the Treasury. The Federal government’s Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede committee indicted 25 companies for  over payments of $2.5 billion and questioned an additional $1.5 billion worth of transactions. In 2012, 1,360 billion Naira was paid as subsidy based on the importation of 43.1 million litres of PMS per day. But, the daily PMS consumption rate was 30.3 million litres. The remaining 12.8 million litres per day of PMS was never delivered.

Subsidy payments of 1,320 billion Naira were made in 2013 on the basis of a daily PMS consumption rate of 48.1 million litres. However, daily PMS consumption rate was 31.3 million litres, leaving a 16.8 million litres per day discrepancy due to corrupt padding. In 2014 and 2015, OPEC data from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources showed daily PMS consumption rates of 45.1 million litres and 48.7 million litres respectively. However, subsidy payments of 1,220 billion Naira and 654 billion Naira were made on daily PMS consumption rates of 52.0 million litres and 51.8 million litres for 2014 and 2015 respectively. The daily PMS consumption rates were 32.4 million litres in 2014 and 33.5 million litres in 2015. The figures from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC and other MDA were padded for corruption purposes.

The falsification or padding of daily PMS consumption rate data for corruption purposes continued unabated during the 2016 to 2023 period. In November 2016, the NBS claimed that 51.9 million litres per day of PMS was consumed in the first 9 months of the year. The NNPC, on the other hand, claimed that 47.6 million litres of PMS a day was consumed. Subsidy payments of 240 billion Naira were made. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2016 was 34.6 million litres. The difference of 13.1 million litres per day was padding of import data and never delivered. In 2017, the PPPRA used 55 million litres a day for fuel subsidy payment of 154 billion Naira. OPEC/NNPC data was a daily PMS consumption rate of 50.2 million litres. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2017 was 35.8 million litres.  The difference of 19.2 million litres per day was padding of import data and never delivered. In 2018, the NNPC confirmed that it has “no confirmed data or statistics on fuel consumption in the country.  corporation relies on figures provided by PPPRA”.  The PPPRA assumed a daily PMS consumption rate of 53.6 million litres for subsidy payments of 1,190 billion Naira. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2018 was 37.0 million litres. The difference of 16.6 million litres per day was padding of import data and never delivered. An NBS spokesman declared, “At the moment we (NBS) do not have any reliable data on fuel consumption yet”. In order to determine the actual PMS daily consumption rate, the DPR commissioned a new technology called the Downstream Remote Monitoring System (DRMS), aimed at checking illegal activities in the downstream sector and providing accurate data.

In October 2019, PPPRA reported a daily PMS consumption rate of 57.2 million litres for subsidy payments of 508 billion Naira. The rate was so high that the NNPC set up the automated Downstream Operations and Financial Monitoring Centre (DOFMC) to determine the actual national PMS daily consumption rate. Subsidy payments of 508 billion Naira were made in 2019. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2019 was 38.2 million litres leaving a difference of 19 million litres a day due to padding and corrupt practices. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources put the daily PMS consumption rate in 2020 at 52 million litres for subsidy payments of 864 billion Naira. The daily PMS consumption rate in 2020 was 39.4 million litres. In 2021, the NNPC stated that “ import in the year 2021 was 22.35 billion litres, which translated to an average supply of 61 million litres per day”. Subsidy payments of 1,430 billion Naira were made. The daily PMS consumption rates was 40.7 million litres. The NNPCL falsely claimed that the difference of 20.3 million litres per day was smuggled to neighbouring countries. We have shown that there is little or no smuggling of Nigerian petrol to neigbouring countries. This is just an IMF myth that is not supported by petrol input-output data of these nations.

In January 2022, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, declared that the daily PMS consumption rate was 65.7 million litres. The NNPCL stated that the average daily PMS supply from January to August 2022 was 68 million litres based on truck-out data. But, the daily PMS consumption figure was 42.0 million litres. The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, argued that PMS smuggling was responsible for the discrepancy in data from different government sources. He stated, “The imported products come to Nigeria, and from there filters out of our borders to neighbouring countries. We are inadvertently subsidizing the whole of Africa.” But, smuggling the difference of 26 million litres per day across our national borders implies that 788 PMS tankers with 33,000 litres capacity illegally crossed the borders daily. This does not make much sense. It is more likely that the daily PMS consumption rates data are being falsified and padded to enable the stealing of public funds under the guise of subsidy payment. The YTD daily PMS consumption rate as of April 7, 2023 was 65.9 million litres according to the NNPCL. The actual daily PMS consumption rate was definitely lower at about 43.3 million litres.

We have shown that the difference between actual daily PMS consumption rates and the inflated or padded daily PMS consumption rates used for subsidy payment most likely captures the extent of corrupt practices in the subsidy regime rather than PMS smuggling to neighbouring countries. This is probably why the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said, “ “At this rate, I have said if anyone is looking at a criminal enterprise, look no further than the fuel subsidy,”. However, the government cannot fight corruption in the subsidy regime by increasing PMS prices. It should know how many litres of PMS is actually consumed in Nigeria daily. All offshore/onshore  export/import terminals, special purpose vessel storage, loading and discharging jetties, product depots, tank farms, production facilities and flow stations should have certified dynamic flow meters such as Positive Displacement meters, Turbine meters, Ultrasonic flow meters, Coriolis meters and Differential Pressure meters. The DPR clearly stated this in its 2019 “Procedure Guide for the Determination of the Quantity and Quality of Petroleum and Petroleum Products in Nigeria”. If this guide is updated and implemented rigorously with the aid of the latest Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, existing refineries repaired and more refineries built, there will be no need for a PMS price hike under the guise of fuel subsidy removal.

Just like with the greatness of men, the greatness of books can also come in many shades, as the bard has observed “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and others have greatness thrust upon them”. There is a new book in town that in one day of existence has done more than most books and their authors can dream of doing in a lifetime. The book is written by two veteran journalists, Wole Shadare and Gboyega Adeoye. It is titled “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” and was presented to the public in Lagos on May 9, 2023.

In just one day of existence, Wole Shadare and Gboyega Adeoye’s book did not only generate a special request by public demand for an encore and continuation but also a movement with a plan. The day of the presentation of “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” was also a day of reunion for many leading and authoritative figures of the Nigerian aviation industry. In a hall packed full of regulators, operators, vendors, leading academics, consultants and media gurus, the assembly led by a panel of discussants agreed and requested that the book was incomplete and that it should have a sequence to make up for what was left out of this edition. The topic of the panel discussion was around the “Imperatives of reward system in Nigeria’s aviation sector” and the authors, under what can be termed as “due pressure”, agreed to coordinate an Aviation Hall of Fame that will recognize the efforts of the many Unsung Heroes and Heroines of the Nigerian aviation industry. The authors also agreed to write another book that will treat the missing elements of the just published “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines”. Not a bad way to hit the shelves.

If they are roses, they will bloom, what we have today is a delightful circa 300 pages of history and sometimes hagiography, technological and operational knowledge and anecdotes as well personal stories arranged in ten chapters that can each stand and hence be read alone. Chapter after chapter, we are taking on a tour of the Nigerian Aviation industry from its development, to airline business, to the chronicles of airlines as the industry faces regulation, to the chronicles of regulators and those leading them. We are then taking on a guided visit of a gallery of images and profiles of individuals that have contributed to the industry, from those that surfaced as protagonist of privatization to those who before privatization were the icons in the air. Two separate chapters are dedicated to those termed by the authors of the book as heroes of development and aviation ambassadors. As a tribute to those that came before them, the authors dedicate a penultimate chapter in the book to the frontrunners of aviation media. “Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” ends with a chapter dedicated to those two protagonists whose earthly journeys have come to an end.

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The final out put of this book is an aviation hall of fame, the efforts that led to it are however those of two teachers disguised as reporters who give the reader lessons in aviation without saying “let me teach you”. The language is simple, clear and direct while the content is informative. In the section themed “Rocky Road to Aviation Regulations”, we are informed that for almost three decades the aviation regime in Nigeria was self regulatory and that before third party independent regulation was birthed, a seminar was held. We were also given details of how professionals were appointed and dismissed by those with political powers under the civil and military rule. It is difficult to passively read the section dedicated to the origin, development and end of Nigeria Airways, the nation’s carrier that meant different things to different people. I have pointed out elsewhere that Nigeria Airways is a good example of lessons on how much people can create if they put their mind to it and how much people can destroy if they don’t put their mind to it. This book expatiates that point in an excruciating way.

In the chapter dedicated to airline deregulation, we are treated to the appearance and performance of private aviation companies and managers, it is an interesting medley of dreams and visions, skills and chance, competence and stubbornness. The questions around why airlines fail in Nigeria are asked and some answers are provided in this book. The glance given to aviation agencies is a kind one that profiles contemporary agency managers and allows them to showcase their best behaviours.

The chapters dedicated to the heroes of privatisation, icons in the air, heroes of aviation development, aviation ambassadors, frontrunners in aviation media are celebrations of those that have left a mark in aviation. Those chapters also tell the reader what the authors consider great in aviation and how the mentioned icons made their way to the aviation hall of fame.

“Nigeria’s Aviation: Unsung Heroes and Heroines” is written as a book for anyone interested in aviation and it will certainly benefit those new to aviation as well as those that are experienced but want to reflect on the industry. Regulators and operators will learn a lot about how we got to where we are in aviation today. I am however sure that readers with no direct interest in aviation but with interest in management and business as well as politics and governance in Nigeria will learn more than a few things from reading this book.