General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the Dean of Coups in Nigeria, finally staged a coup for himself on August 27, 1985. The veteran coup plotter could sniff coups years away. On December 17, 1985, he rounded up over 100 military officers for allegedly conceptualising a coup. Some, including his childhood friend, Major General Mamman Vatsa, were sentenced to death.

When it was announced that the ruling military junta was to meet in the evening of March 5,1986 over the death sentences, Nigeria famous literary triumvirate: Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark and Chinua Achebe, rushed to meet Babangida in the morning. The dictator vowed to them: “I wish to give you my word of honour – I shall go into the crucial meeting determined to do everything in my power to save them. I assure you, I shall not be party to their execution. That I can promise you.”

But as soon as the trio left, the meeting was convened so that by the time Soyinka got to his Abeokuta home, Vatsa and the other military officers had been executed. So, when on Sunday April 22, 1990 an actual coup attempt, called the ‘Orkar Coup’ was carried out, Babangida and his gang went into frenzy. Hundreds of military officers were arrested with an unknown number murdered before they could get to trial. The junta also used the opportunity to shut-down some newspapers and detain 19 senior journalists, accusing them of participating in the coup.

It then turned on lecturers whom Babangida for years had accused of “teaching what they are not paid to teach”. The Gestapo on May 2, 1990 descended on the Obafemi Awolowo University. But the philosopher, Dr Dipo Fashina, escaped the dragnet. Then they abducted Professors Toye Olorode and Idowu Awopetu. As the convoy sped off, the alert students of the campus gave chase, caught one of the abductors, a secret service officer, whom the students detained for 12 days despite threats by the regime to invade the campus.

The Gestapo also went to Ibadan where they abducted famous historian, Professor Obaro Ikime of the University of Ibadan. While the OAU lecturers were unapologetic radicals, Ikime, who was also a well-known sports administrator and Anglican priest, had no such inclinations. So his abduction came as a surprise.

In Lagos, Olorode was detained at the Security Service detention centre on Awolowo Road; Awopetu at the centre on Kingsway Road; and surprisingly, Ikime was taken to the notorious Inter Centre, built into the Ikoyi Cemetery where the most ‘dangerous’ elements and many of the alleged coup plotters were kept. In the 95 days he spent in detention, he was allowed to wear just a pair of clothes.

The three professors were reunited at the Military Tribunal chaired by Brigadier Rufus Modupe Kupolati where they were charged as conspirators in the Orkar Coup. Olorode and Awopetu were jointly charged. The ‘evidence’ against them were that a conference against the World Bank was planned for the day of the coup attempt and that the duo belonged to a radical organisation called the Ife Collective which had produced a publication on ‘Alternative to SAP’ (Structural Adjustment Programme). Both defenders said they were opposed to coups and did not believe in replacing one set of coup plotters with another. Rather, they wanted the military’s exit from politics and the enthronement of ‘Peoples’ Power’.

The case proffered against Ikime was that he provided the intellectual basis for the Orkar coup, including campaigning for a religious upheaval and ethnic division which saw Orkar purporting to excise part of the country. In 1990, Ikime who was the Chairman of a committee on the Chapel of Resurrection, had read a communiqué to the church in which he warned those talking about dipping the Quran into the ocean in Lagos, advised against religious war and entreated the church to pray against it. The prosecution brought some members of the church, including an organist, to testify; but once they came face-to-face with Ikime, they buckled, and the case collapsed.

In order to avoid this type of collapse, the prosecution in the case of inciting ethnic hatred and conflict, decided to use Ikime’s published works against him. It produced his Keynote Address delivered at the National Seminar on the National Question held in Abuja on August 4, 1986. In the paper titled: “Towards Understanding The National Question”, Ikime had submitted that Hausa, Yoruba, Ijaw and other such nationalities did not exist before the 17th Century, so they were recent creations. Secondly, that unlike Islam and Christianity, traditional religion often serve as integrative forces and were accommodative.

Thirdly, that while Islam brought Islamic culture and made no separation between the state and region, Christianity brought Western European culture and education and secularism. So, while the Jihad created a religious and political entity in the Sokoto Caliphate resulting in a greater Northern togetherness, there was no such cohesion in the South.

Fourthly, that the colonialists in 1939 deliberately broke the South into two regions but left the North intact, thereby not just creating Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani majorities, but also giving the impression that the North was larger than the South and awarded it double the seats than the South. He argued that if it were based on population -there was no national census until the controversial 1952/53 –the East and the West would not have been awarded equal number of seats. This colonial legacy, he said, led to politics being conceptualised as largely a trade-off among the three, while the other nationalities were “treated as mere pawns”.

  Fifth, that contrary to Bala Usman’s claims that the lines between the Hausa and Fulani had become blurred, the Hausa elites are conscious that following the Jihad, they lost the top political positions to the Fulani.

Sixth, that in appointments, lower qualifications were required from candidates from the North rather than promote greater equity.

  Ikime’s solution was that in a federation, there must be equal ownership and greater equity for all. In the argument before the tribunal, the intellectual took the prosecutors to the cleaners. On August 1, 1990, Ikime was released but compulsorily retired on October 15, 1990. Professors Olorode and Awopetu were similarly treated. Their retirement was illegal and they challenged it in court. But the state approached them informally that if they withdrew the cases and appealed to Babangida as the Visitor, they would be recalled. While Ikime seemed to have fallen for this ploy, Olorode and Awopetu refused and Justice Moni Fafiade ordered them recalled. Thus, the country lost the active services of a father historian who still had 26 years in the university where retirement for professors is 70.

On Thursday, April 25, 2023, at 86, the mobile African library departed on a one-way flight.

Twenty-five members of the Rotary Club of Lagos in District 9110 embarked on a Friendship Exchange visit to the Rotary Club of Marrakech-Menara in Morocco from April 23 -29, 2023. The trip had all the trappings of fun, excitement, adventure, cultural exchange, hospitality and friendship. In the past, our members had also visited Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, Togo, Senegal and Benin Republic for the same reason.

On our delegation were two visiting Rotarians: Francis Nwankwo, of the Rotary Club of Festac Central and Eniola Elegushi, a member of the Rotary Club of Admiralty whose charter was recently sponsored by the Rotary Club of Lagos. Eniola is the daughter of Saidat Olayinka Oladunjoye, a former Commissioner of Education in Lagos State and member of the Rotary Club of Lagos.

Saidat chaired the Friendship Exchange Committee that was responsible for planning the trip: flight tickets, accommodation, and tours. She was actively supported by Rotarians Abayomi Adeyeri and Adenike Iyelolu. By all accounts, the committee’s performance was impressive. There were many Instagram moments depicted by photographs shared instantly to tell the story. To sum it up, the Marrakech trip created an unforgettable experience for the delegates.

The president of our club, Joe Akhigbe and the immediate past president, Babawale Agbeyangi, got to Marrakech in two separate flights before the delegates. Past assistant governor Gbolahan Ayodele was appointed by the president as leader of the delegation based on his experience on similar visits in the past and for being the most senior past president.

We flew out of Lagos at 5.10 am with Royal Air Maroc, the national carrier of Morocco, and touched down in Casablanca after four hours and 30 minutes. The connecting flight to Marrakech was ready when we landed and the flight lasted for 30 minutes.

You need a paper visa or e-visa for $100 before you can travel to Morocco. Some of our delegates were delayed by immigration officials on account of visa verification but they were cleared after a few minutes.

Marrakech is an exotic destination and tourists flock to the ancient city in much the same way bees are attracted to honey. With several hotel options to choose from for a population of roughly 1.5 million people, according to our guide, Azeez, Marrakech is known as the “Red City” because their buildings are covered in clay.

But the weather was hot, very hot when we visited, with temperatures as high as 42 degrees Celsius. From any corner of the city, the Moorish minaret of the 12^th century Koutoubia mosque is clearly visible and unmistakable. This is why no building in the city has more than five floors.

Members of the Rotary Club of Marrakech-Menara waited at the airport to welcome us and we posed for photographs with the Rotary wheel. A bus ride took us to our hotel. We stayed at Riu Tikida Palmeraie – an upscale and all-inclusive 4-star hotel on several acres of landscaped grounds dotted with palm trees that are surrounded by lush gardens.

Riu Tikda is an enchanting resort offering three restaurants, three bars, a fitness centre and spa plus indoor and outdoor pools; it became our home for the next six days – a shouting distance from the medina; you can get there after driving for 30 minutes.

The outdoor swimming pool was permanently brimming with visitors from around the world, sun tanning and generally enjoying themselves. A major attraction in Marrakech is the Jardin Majorelle Garden, a one-hectare botanical garden, designed by French artist, Jean Majorelle, in the 1920s when Morocco was a protectorate of France.

The medina is a mazelike medieval quarters built with clay walls stretching for more than 16 kilometres dating to the Berber empire. It is a densely populated fortified city within Marrakech with alley ways and thriving souks (markets).

All the markets in Marrakech are known for their vibrancy and brisk sales. In the heart of medina, you will find the famous Djemaa el-Fna market square where you can shop for brass wares, ceramics, handicrafts, traditional textiles, pottery, jewelry, metal lanterns and herbal remedies.

Marrakech is a former imperial city in western Morocco famous for its mosques, palaces and gardens. Tourism is big business in Marrakech with an incredible value chain and the cultural influences from Europe on the Berber and Arabian communities are evident.

If you want snake charmers or fortune tellers, you will find them. But don’t miss out on the camel ride, hot-air ballooning and riding in carriages propelled by horses.

Casablanca, on the other hand, is a port city and commercial hub of the country fronting the Atlantic Ocean. You can describe Casablanca as “their Lagos” while Rabat, the capital of Morocco, is “their Abuja.” Other notable cities are Agadir, Fes and Tangiers.

A train ride from Casablanca to Marrakech will last for two hours but a road trip will take up to three hours. Part of our itinerary was a road trip in a coach to Casablanca on the second day. It was a smooth ride all the way and I struggled in vain searching for potholes.

I was captivated by the picturesque landscapes flanking the highway and breathtaking view of large swathes of plains. On our way back, you could see the golden colour of the sun cast a wide blanket on the sky – a mixture of grey and royal blue – but it gradually disappeared behind the clouds as it began to set.

On the third day, we joined members of the Rotary Club of Marrakech-Menara in District 9010 for their meeting at La Mamounia – a luxurious, vibrant, mythical, authentic hotel and celebrity hangout with enchanting gardens regarded as one of the best hotels in the world.

Our friendship partner-club was chartered on March 14, 1998 and it has 26 members comprising Muslims, Christians and Jews. Morocco was grouped alongside Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania to form District 9010. There are over 530 Rotary districts in the world.

At the end of our meeting, a partnership and cooperation agreement for mutual benefits was signed. Thereafter, we drove to the home of past president Jalal Zemmama where he hosted us to a lavish garden reception that will not be forgotten in a hurry.

The next day, it was a long drive for about an hour with members of our host club to Douar Ougog, one of the rural communities, to meet with children in a prep school (5 – 6 years old) built by the club. The same road leads to Ouarzazate, another suburb. In the last three years, our host club completed five schools and they are currently building the sixth school.

Initially, the kids were shy, as we had “invaded” their privacy but they loosened up and chatted with their visitors. When it was time to go, they stood up and sang the Moroccan national anthem with pride.

Jalal told me he would be attending the next Rotary International Convention from May 27 – 31, 2023 in Melbourne, Australia. It is the greatest gathering of Rotarians in the world at the same venue.

In his appreciation note, Khalid Bounouis, president of the host club, said they were honoured to host us and share precious moments during our stay. “The visit was one of our goals this year to strengthen the relationship of our club with other clubs in the continent,” he explained.

We made new friends and it was an opportunity to learn new things about the people and their culture. Dr Amre Mouabad is a medical doctor who told me French was the language of instruction in the medical school he attended; Jalal Haddouchi is their president-elect while Ilham El Yacoubi runs a kindergarten.

Throughout our stay, electricity supply was constant; it means the Moroccans do not have any need for petrol or diesel powered generators. Fatima Zaha El-Allaoui is a Moroccan and member of our Rotary Club in Lagos but she is married to a Tunisian and they live and work in Nigeria.

Fatima also served on the Friendship Exchange Committee, making sure we had a wholesome experience in Marrakech. She travelled ahead of us to prepare the groundwork with members the Rotary Club of Marrakech-Menara. She was also helpful as an interpreter.

When I asked her about the electricity situation in Morocco, she told me the light is very steady. “I have never experienced blackout since I was born,” Fatima, who is over 40 years old, said confidently. Water supply is also regular. We were shocked to learn that petrol cost N1, 225 per litre. When compared to the pump price in Nigeria, it is quite expensive.

But context in terms of GDP per capita of both countries is important. Available 2021 data indicates that Nigeria was 2,065.75 USD while Morocco was 3,795.38 USD but this does not mean Morocco is not struggling with its economy; all that glitters is not gold.

However, the three leading exports of Morocco are agricultural produce (citrus fruits and market vegetables), semi processed goods and consumer goods (including textiles) and phosphates and phosphates products. One US dollar is exchanged for 9.8 Moroccan Dirham.

Morocco has a population of about 40 million people but Casablanca with a population of about 7 million people is the country’s largest city. The Atlas Mountains – a series of mountain ranges – is dotted with Berber villages and covers a large area of Morocco. It stretches across northwestern Africa, also spanning Algeria and Tunisia, separating the Atlantic and Mediterranean coastline from the Sahara Desert.

Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary national legislative system (bicameral parliament) under which ultimate authority rests with King Mohammed VI, who presides over the Council of Ministers. The Monarch is the head of state and he appoints the prime minister who serves as head of government

Riu Tikida Palmeraie hotel workers were very polite which should be the standard protocol for a tourist city. The rooms are spacious, designed in rectangular shapes with mainly twin beds for $180 per night, but the housekeepers struggle to speak English.

In the absence of interpreters, I used sign language to communicate with them as I could neither speak Arabic nor French.

Although alcohol sales are restricted as you would expect in a Muslim country, you can drink in licensed bars, restaurants and tourist areas. However, if you want a Moroccan wife, you must be a Muslim.

Our return flight from Marrakech to Casablanca was cancelled for reasons the airline refused to disclose even after we asked their representatives. Our president-elect, Abiodun Role and his wife who left the day before, had a similar experience.

A coach was provided which left Marrakech airport at 6.00 pm. We got to Casablanca airport at 8.45 pm under a flood of street lights and arrived in Lagos in the wee hours of the following day.

The Rotary Friendship Exchange is an international exchange programme for Rotarians and friends that allow participants to take turns in hosting one another in their homes and clubs. Rotary International says friendship exchanges should be organised around at least one of three themes: culture, service and vocation.

Participants may travel as individuals, couples, families or groups and may be Rotarians or not. Some of the benefits of friendship exchanges include the opportunity to broaden international understanding, explore profession or job in a different context, build enduring friendships, establish a foundation for peace and service, gain opportunities for active project involvement and support; learn about a region’s people, food, languages, customs and history and finding partners for grants.

Braimah is a public relations strategist and publisher/editor-in-chief of Naija Times (https://ntm.ng)

Education is a critical priority for Nigeria, as it is for any nation serious about growth and development. Unfortunately, in the past ten years, we have not seen any focus on or dramatic improvement in education. Our best efforts at addressing education have put us steps behind our peer nations in all key development indicators. We inadvertently signal to the world that we do not care about the future. Education is a fundamental human right that should be available to all citizens, regardless of socio-economic status or background.

This is different in Nigeria. Nigeria’s literacy rate, put at 62% by Globaldata does not make us competitive among nations and shows the dysfunctional state of our primary schools . At this point, we do not need talks, sound bites, and pretensions. We need radical reforms backed by action to change the status quo. The Nigerian government needs to take a holistic approach to education reform that focuses on improving the quality of education, increasing access to quality education, and promoting innovation and technology in education. Acknowledged , education is on the concurrent list and Local Governments have a pivotal role to play . The federal government still has a responsibility to set policy direction for the nation. 

As a first step, it may be necessary to establish a “Special Office on Education Reforms  at the Presidency”, working with other levels of government and  stakeholders, to fashion out a 25-year ‘Marshall plan’ to reposition education and follow up the plan with a measurable implementation strategy. It must establish policies and regulatory framework  to increase literacy rates and encourage gender equality in education. While the federal government should strengthen regulatory regimes for standards nationwide, state  and local governments should establish their competitiveness standards to be measured by academic performance in public examinations and evidence of high levels of numeracy and literacy skills among the children. 

State  and Local Governments’ proactive actions are desperately needed given the cultural dichotomies and multiplicities of geopolitical differences in both access to education and quality of education in Nigeria. There are by far too many differences in standards in the Nigerian system, and state-by-state differences, regional geopolitical differences, and differences between public and private institutions exist. The education challenges in the Muslim North are peculiarly different from those of the South. Insecurity in the North has compounded the problems.

Education statistics in Nigeria are frightening, as it faces many challenges in providing quality and inclusive education for its large and diverse population. Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children, with about 10.5 million children aged 5-14 years not attending school. Nigeria has a low literacy rate of 65.1% according to World Bank data with significant gender and regional disparities. It has a low gross enrolment rate in primary schools of 68.3%, with 22.4 million children in public primary schools and 4.2 million in private primary schools. Nigeria ranks 124th out of 137 countries in terms of quality of primary education according to World Economic Forum . It has a low school completion rate of 63% for primary education, 44% for junior secondary education, and 17% for senior secondary education. 

It allocates only about 5 to 6% of its federal budget to education, far below the recommended 15-20% national budget by UNESCO. The expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP is also low at 1.95%.

Furthermore, to underscore the crisis in our education sector, only 450,000 to 550,000 applicants who sit for JAMB out of 1.761 million in 2022 were admitted to universities. These 450-550,000 persons are 0.013% of 40 million youths aged between 15 and 24 (2020 data) eligible for university education. This lag in tertiary education opportunities is part of the reasons we are crawling as a nation. The astronomical rise in private universities from 3 in 1999 to 30 in 2009 and 111 in 2022 is evidence of the gap in university education but not necessarily about quality or affordability . 

Apart from the issue of access, Nigerian Universities are plagued with poor quality of instruction and learning, leading to a generation of unemployable Nigerian university graduates because they need more skill, cognitive ability, and critical thinking capacity.  This gap  can be traced to the quality of our basic education which is under the purview of local governments. Research output, which is the main criterion for ranking universities globally, of Nigerian universities and Nigeria academics is comparatively low behind countries like Botswana and South Africa. And knowledge accumulation, which leads to social and human capital formation and economic development, gives developed countries an advantage over developing countries. Our low research output partially accounts for why our growth is stagnated and the rentier economy is thriving.

Conversely, estimated 5-7% of our seasoned Academics leave Nigeria annually to go overseas because of a better research environment. Several special NUC intervention schemes started earlier are either abandoned or discontinued. Such innovative schemes as Linkages with Experts and Academics in the Diaspora Scheme (LEADS) designed to attract Nigerian academics in the diaspora, Presidential Scholarship for Innovation and Development (PRESSED) for first-class graduates, and Transnational Education Scheme (TES) to boost foreign investment and partnerships between Nigerian universities and their foreign counterparts have not made the intended impact on our tertiary education sector.

The education infrastructure in Nigeria is old, decrepit, poor, and sometimes abysmal. Successive governments have failed to build new public schools commensurate to the community need, or where they do, no real investment is made in infrastructure and facilities. Most public schools’ conditions are terrible, and no one wants to study there. The school buildings and premises are “not fit for purpose”. There is an extreme level of negligence towards education. The teachers are neither well-trained nor really motivated. Private schools are personal businesses and are squeezing the living daylight out of most parents who struggle to pay the cost of private education. The curriculum emphasises cognitive knowledge (memory-oriented learning) aimed at passing examinations instead of skill base, analytical and independent thinking needed for mental and economic progress. The theory is emphasised more than practice. Education technology is significantly unavailable in most schools. 

Neglect of education by government at all levels is a critical indicator of a failing state. When a state fails or is failing, the effective educational systems are privatised, or the public facilities become increasingly decrepit and neglected. Teachers and others who work in the education sector are ignored or relegated to the background, and reports to the relevant ministries are ignored. 

I must acknowledge the effort of Dr Oby Ezekwesili as minister of education under Obasanjo’s presidency who embarked on comprehensive education reform, but this was dumped as soon as the government wound down. At the sub-national level, attempts by Ekiti State under Fayemi, Edo under Oshimole, and Kaduna under El- Rufai to kick start the reset of education by improving the quality of teachers was resisted by the organised labour and other entrenched interest. This, unfortunately, is the dilemma. 

Recently, the  federal government has devised various initiatives to deal with the education problem in Nigeria. These include Universal Basic Education (UBE) Programme, Education Tax,  Safe Schools Initiative, Teacher Professional Development (TPD) Programme, National Education Policy, and the Private Sector Participation Programme. These initiatives, at best, had minimal positive effects on our education sector. Little wonder the education statistics still evoke horror reading. No doubt our education sector is broken. 

I call for a state of emergency and a complete reset in education. This means a holistic education reform that will position our education sector as the social and economic growth engine. Asian Tigers, referring to Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea, amongst others, can attribute their success to the fact that they scaled up investment in education, as well as research and development, that enhanced human capital development to improve the productivity of the workforce across all sectors. Nigeria needs to do the same. It behoves the new administration to restructure the whole education system on a priority basis and align it with modern education techniques. 

Improving education in Nigeria requires a multifaceted approach that involves the government, businesses, educators, parents, and the broader community. Government should first devise a means of sustainably funding  education and allocate a significant portion of the national budget to the sector. Second, improve teacher training and professional development to ensure teachers have the skills and knowledge necessary to teach in a 21st-century classroom. Third, prioritise expanding access to education, especially in rural areas. Fourth, prioritise  science , technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), then invest in vocational and technical education to equip students with practical skills relevant to the job market. Fifth, champion  curriculum reforms by reviewing and updating the curriculum to ensure that it is appropriate and responsive to the needs of the country and the global economy. Sixth, embrace digital learning and promote the use of technology in education. And finally, improve monitoring and evaluation to assess the quality of education and track progress in achieving academic goals.

The benefits to Nigeria of a robust education sector providing good access, high quality, and skill and practice-driven education are evident. A good education sector can contribute to economic growth by producing a skilled workforce better equipped to meet the job market’s needs, attract foreign investment, and boost economic productivity. Quality education is a powerful tool for poverty reduction, promotes better health outcomes, and promotes social cohesion by fostering a sense of national identity and shared values. Education can also promote understanding and tolerance among different ethnic and religious groups, therefore reducing ethnic and religious tensions and insecurity. It fosters innovation and entrepreneurship by providing individuals with the skills and knowledge necessary to start businesses and develop new technologies whilst enhancing Nigeria’s global competitiveness by producing a skilled workforce that can compete in the worldwide marketplace. We, therefore, implore the new administration not to play Russian Roulette with our education sector. They must remember that a robust education system catalyses sustainable,  social and economic development.

As Nigeria wraps up its election, attention shifts to the judges. With over seven hundred cases filed at the tribunals, the judiciary will be overworked. Yet we expect wisdom, courage, and intelligence to correct all errors, deliberate or otherwise, made by the political branches of government. We rest our hopes on the judges, and their power of judicial review, to rebuke impunity, reverse error and strengthen us toward electoral justice.  

It is ironic that whilst we think that increasing involvement of judges in determining who gets elected as political leader is inimical to consolidating democracy, we are forced to continue to call on judges to intervene in electoral matters for the sake of justice. Of course, courts are called temples of justice because they are fit and proper to receive the intercessions of a people who are brutalized, oppressed, and deprived of justice. So, the irony is not so depressing because when we beckon on judges to act in the name of justice, we are giving concrete expression to the expression that courts are temples of justice.

The conventional theory of constitutional democracy holds that there are two political branches and one non-political branch. The political branches are the executive and the legislature. Members of these two branches are elected by the people and have the liberty to act in furtherance of their interests. The theory of representation by foremost parliamentarian and jurisprudent, Edmund Burke, is that legislators are trustees of the people. As trustees, they are free to decide public interests according to their own understanding of what is in the best interests of the people. A contrary theory of representation argues that the legislator is but an agent of the people: he must do what the people want him to do, not what he thinks is best for the people. Whether legislators are agents or trustees of the people, the common logic is that the legislator act politically. To act politically is to advance the interests of one group notwithstanding that such interest is not rationally compelling. That is why we do not excoriate legislators who fight to ensure that projects are sited in their constituencies notwithstanding that economic rationality does not favor those places. We consider them good representatives. But we shame a judge who delivers judgement in favor of his relatives because of consanguinity.

So, the judicial branch is not so designed. Judges are not representatives of the people. A judge does not represent his family, his friends, or his constituency. He represents God in the religious sense, or rationality in ultra-rationality. Judges do justice. And justice is giving people what they deserve, not what they desire. We can see from this social portraiture that judges have more gravitas and bona fides to act as statesmen in times of troubles than representatives and executives. As we say, politicians care about the next election, but statesmen care about the nation. Judges ought to be statesmen.

The concept of judges as statesmen has a strong implication for sustaining democracy in difficult times and places.  In good times and places democracy is safe even with interest-based politics. The foundations of democracy rest on the rule of law. The rule of law means that all persons and authorities are subject to the law; that the law respects basic equality of all persons and the law is executed without deference to prerogatives and merits, apart from the merits of justice. Overlaying the foundations of rule of law is accountability. There is no exemption from the rigor of the law because the institutions of law enforcement are professionally commitment to fair and equitable implementation. In such a society where justice is routinized in administrative practices, the court plays a passive role and is self-restrained. Judges merely adjudicate in matters where vagueness obscures fair and equitable administrative of justice by the political branches.

But in a society where justice is not routinized as administrative practices become of political capture by a powerful minority or a numerical majority, the court moves from passivity to activism to reestablish the rule of law. The legendary Justice Oputa put this pointedly thus: “Whenever the law is used to foster social, racial, economic or sex oppression, the judiciary should quickly intervene to redress the imbalance and thus restore justice”. The court does not act when justice is routinized. The court acts when justice is denied, especially when it is structurally denied.

This articulation of judicial activism bodes well with a powerful theory about the judiciary propounded by Harvard professor Abram Chayes. It is the ‘governance’ theory of the court. Chayes argues that the court has a right to govern just like the other branches of government when the other branches fail to do the job. Ordinarily, the court forebears to govern trusting the more ‘political’ branches to govern. But where the two fail to govern, the court steps in. Then, judges become statesmen. This explains the various curves of judicial activism.

US Supreme Justice Stephen Breyer traces the context of judicial activism in the constitutional history of the United States. He shows different periods when the US Supreme Court shifted the gear to promote justice or to disrupt structural violation of the people’s rights. For example, he argues that before Justice Warren, the US Supreme Court “overly emphasized the Constitution’s protection of private property ‘as against rights of political participation. In the Warren era, the Supreme Court interpreted the constitution to move away from the logic of property right in the Lochner v. New York case and find a basis in the constitution for ‘active liberty’ for citizens to govern themselves through the principle of ‘one man one vote’. By so doing, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren reconstructed the United States away from the legacy of Jim Crow.

The court is a political institution. So said Robert Dahl. The court is a political institution because of the role that it plays in the political management of the society. In his book about the Nigerian Supreme Court. Professor Isa Sagay paints a picture of the Nigerian Supreme Court that rose up to defends fundamental rights against the corrosion of military dictatorship. That heroic Supreme Court of Eso, Obaseki, Oputa, Uwais and others understood that in times of crisis the court become a political institution that defends the rule of law from new threats. The Uwais court would not have done such if the structure of justice had not been eroded by military dictatorship.

The greatest seduction today will be to believe that we are now an entrenched democracy and therefore the court should carve for itself a routinized retail work that does not override the iniquities of the political class. That is a recipe for disaster for the commonwealth and irrelevance for the court. The true description of Nigeria today is, as the University of Guttenberg’s acclaimed ‘Verities of Democracy’ report 2022 puts it, ‘an electoral autocracy’. Nigeria is not yet a democracy by the evident capture of state institutions by ruling elites. The 2023 election has further cemented this reputation. The election has seen the recklessness of Nigerian politicians who refuse to respect the most fundamental tenets of electoral democracy.

We have always had electoral irregularities and frauds. But we have never had this level of criminalization of elections and wanton collapse of regulatory oversight. The election manager, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) refused to apply its own electronic safeguards in a bewildering capitulation to political banditry. Even the basic regulatory tasks like determining the eligibility of candidates to stand for elections and whether candidates have multiple nominations, regulatory oversight that could be established without expending resources, were abandoned. The regulator did not bother to apply simple rules, even rules that it made pursuant to its statutory powers.

The Supreme Court has inherited the regulatory failures of the election manager. It has been saddled with correcting the impunity of the political class. It beholds that the country is disintegrating on account of reckless disregards for basic rules of justice. It sees the continuing immiseration of the people whose anger is boiling over. The judges know that unrebuked impunity has established a powerful incentive structure that will inexorably lead to the total collapse of the rule of law. In such situation, judges must become statesmen to save their beloved country. They have many things challenging them. They will contend with fear for their lives. They will contend with favors from corrupt politicians. But they should brush aside all these and do justice, even if the heavens fall.

All eyes are on the judges. 

Cast your mind back to your secondary school days. English was the only legitimate language of communication. There were students from the hinterland who couldn’t measure up to the requirement and so had to run afoul of the law and face the inevitable sanctions. 

There was the case of one such student who had a problem with pronouncing any word with the fricative sound, ‘sh’. So, he would pronounce education as educasonn and attention as attensonn. Only God knows how many times he had been made to pay fines for expressing himself in  ‘vernacular’, as the local language was derisively tagged. 

On this fateful day, the long-suffering teacher decided that he would do whatever it took to cure our friend of his phonetic disability. He wrote ‘tion’ on the blackboard and ordered the student to say ‘shun’. 

The student said, ‘Tayon’

The teacher wondered if the student had gone bunkers. “Where did that come from? Where did you get ‘tayon’?” He asked the distraught boy.

“Sir, t-i-o-n is tayon. Sorry sir”. 

The teacher hit the ceiling. He called down all the terrors of Hades on the hapless native at the end of which the boy’s problem had become compounded with terror-induced stuttering. “Ta-ta-ta-yon!” 

Wherever he is today, I’m sure he wouldn’t be giving his grandchildren the full details of his linguistic apprenticeship. Suffice it to say that he graduated with his fricative affliction and went on to make something admirable of his life.

Today, the raging discussion in many intellectual circles, especially online, is how to deploy more native resources into the development of our children with the ultimate aim of producing surefooted achievers who can hold their own against the best from other parts of the world. Would it be worth our while to try to implement Prof Babs Fafunwa’s recommendation of using our various local languages as the medium of instruction in schools, especially at the primary level?

Fafunwa actually conducted an experiment to validate his thesis that the use of mother tongue in the education of young people is necessary for cognitive, cultural and nationalistic reasons. His famous Ife Six Year Primary Project (SYPP), carried out between 1970-1979, established that the Nigerian child will benefit immensely if schooled with mother tongue. Fafunwa’s findings ran against the accepted wisdom of the times that the English language was the only possible language that could handle the sophisticated process of imparting education.

When he was appointed as Minister of Education during the Babangida years, Prof Fafunwa tried to practice what he preached by encouraging the use of the mother tongue for teaching in primary schools to enable the children glide painlessly from the local language they were used to, and the colonial one they were being forced to assimilate. The issue was beyond patriotism, explained the celebrated don. It was how nature had ordered cognition. If children are taught in the same language their parents speak to them at home, they learn in a relaxed atmosphere without the obstacle of transliteration.

Several other scholarly studies have since been conducted to validate Fafunwa’s postulation. The renewed interest in the subject will further help in redefining our approach to education and the cognitive tools we deploy. 

Patrick O. Akinsanya and Damilare G. Tella, in their scholarly presentation quoted Fafunwa as saying that since the English child still had problems in understanding his or her language, the Nigerian child suffered double jeopardy because he or she had to learn the second language first, before using it as a tool for learning, and this hampered his or her mental and social development. 

When you separate home language and school language you trigger what has been described as an “epistemological torture” for the African child who is first exposed to his mother tongue at the early stage of his education, whose in-built learning mechanism is internalizing and structuring the grammar and technique of his mother tongue, but he is all of a sudden introduced to a foreign language as he begins schooling. This will  maim him emotionally and have ripple effects on his mental and social development.

I once had the privilege of asking Prof Fafunwa about the feasibility of his campaign for the use of the mother tongue in education. Ever genial and ready to share ideas, he asked if he could shock me. I told him to try. He then said, “Do you know that those village children you’re talking about will learn English faster if English as a subject is taught to them in their mother tongue?” That shocked me. How do you learn English from a Hausa-speaking teacher, for example? But the good professor went on to explain the results of his experiments which had been replicated by other scholars with similar results

The first nine years of formal education (Primary 1-JSS3) are crucial for the educational development of a child. The problem in Africa is not just the structures established by the colonialists to serve their own purpose during colonialism but the sustenance of such archaic structures by African political elite who erroneously think that multilingualism is a weakness rather than a strength.

All that could be traced to inferiority complex or the black-skin-white-mask syndrome which makes the African elite deify the chains that have been holding him down for centuries while despising his own umbilical linguistic ties. According to T. Ngugi, colonialism taught African children “to associate their mother tongues with stupidity, barbarism, humiliation and low status, and the language of the colonisers, English, with intelligence and success. This has made the educated African think that only the language of the colonisers is strong enough for imparting knowledge.”

A further development of this faulty thesis is the contention that African languages are not sophisticated enough to convey scientific ideas. That is a fallacy that should be laughed at, as evidenced by Leopold Senghor’s translation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity into Wolof, a lingua franca of Senegal. Other African languages which have a long history of orthography can easily be used for teaching the most complex of concepts.

Another expert, Prof Bamgbose, believes that one of the reasons for lack of belief among Nigerians is the failure to implement the three years use of indigenous language policy, as most people have never witnessed or experienced the use of mother tongue in instruction in a formal setting and have unconsciously downplayed it in the informal setting where they have witnessed it. “Whereas, they entrust their vehicles, electronic appliances and gadgets to artisans who have acquired the skills through the use of mother tongue and purchase furniture, shoes, etc, made by these sets of people with their money. Yet, they argue vehemently against the use of mother tongue in class…”, he notes.

In 1953, UNESCO endorsed he use of mother tongue, stating that, “It is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue. Psychologically, “It is the system of meaningful signs that in his mind works automatically for expression and understanding. Sociologically, it is a means of identification among the members of the community to which he belongs. Educationally, he learns more quickly through it than through an unfamiliar linguistic medium”.

There is now a treasure trove of literature on the similarity between Ifa divination of the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria and the computer. Ifa predated Christianity, Islam and the computer age by thousands of years. Although the alienated modern African may treat it as an obsolete relic of our savage past, its relevance to modern technological advancement is now being propagated by outsiders. If foreign languages can be used to explain Ifa’s binary system and geomantic revelations, why can’t Yoruba language be used to teach Chemistry?

The Chinese, Indians, Japanese and others in Asia have shown us that there is no single route to development. They unashamedly use what they have to navigate their way to their developmental destination. Nearer home, Ethiopia and Eritrea are two African countries noted for their own alphabet which predates many civilisations. If Russians can educate her children in Russian, why can’t the Ethiopian use Amharic? 

I suspect that our reluctance to take the first meaningful step in liberating our future generations from the shackles that have held their forebears down can be traced to a lack of political will. There will be challenges, not least among which are the battle against the mono-lingual tendency of the central government, perception of English language as the global language; inadequacy or lack of trained teachers in the use of indigenous languages; under-development of orthography of some Nigerian languages; etc.

But, firstly, you have to believe in the dream. You won’t know that science can understand vernacular until you summon the political will. 

Often people ask me why I write on certain topics and issues all the time, like bashing the government, and seeing very little good in people in government and government actions and my takes on education, health and power, conflict, politics of ethnicity and more.

My answer is that I do because I believe that such subjects are important for Nigeria and Nigerians as they are for other nations, but when it appears to me Nigerians and our leaders particularly do not react to these topics the way they should, I repeat them in new essays to remind old readers and recruit new ones to participate in the continuing dialogue.

Like we say in local parlance the May 29 don nearly reach, except events of seismic proportion happens, and I know it won’t happen at the court, Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be President. He comes on board with so much expectation and with so many problems, such is the fundamental nature of the problems that they have become part of us. However on many occasions we have been provided with the opportunity to get it right but many times we let go of such moments.

The just concluded Presidential polls, presents such moment again, while I have refused to discuss the elections, not as an act of cowardice, but truly, who am I, to discuss, an election many think was fairly accurate despite all the controversies, and many others see as having further divided the nation, or one that has realigned the nation.

There was this young, poor and wretched hunter. His family was nothing to write home about. He was very poor and miserable.

One day, the king of his village died and when they consulted the oracle, this young man was picked to be the next king despite the fact that his lineage has nothing to do with the kingship.

On the day of coronation, he wept so bitterly as he could not imagine the crown being put on his poor head.

After the coronation, he asked that an extra room should be built in the palace compound and the things to be kept in that room are just his catapult, hunting boots, hunting dresses and all his hunting instruments.

Anytime, he is tempted to be proud, arrogant, think too highly of himself or talk rudely to his subjects, he will go into that room and once he sees all his hunting instruments and dresses; they remind him of his humble beginning and make him humble the more.

He said that the room was the most beautiful room in the whole palace.

Though what was in that room was not beautiful, they helped him remain humble before GOD and men. In addition, it also gave him a beautiful and peaceful reign, and perspectives.

Already there is a call for time and patience, how much of it, we have only time will tell, our experience is that the government has to start all over again and the same old music is remixed and a few months after we notice the same old thread in action.

And fearfully, the same issues that the last administration sought to solve or made comic off, are the same ones we will face again.

Bola Tinubu has to, not just by his will but by his powers, thread a new path--or else we may still tow the known path. It is the only road we know for now...road contracts that will be abandoned, commissioning of hospitals without facilities. Schools that would be neglected, strikes within various sectors of the economy amongst many short and longfalls will characterize the administration with a couple of its own fair share of 'elephant and hippo' projects.

As Tinubu is sworn in, and he prepares his cabinet, I am not one of those that will really bother about whether he has a kitchen cabinet or even has a kitchen in the first place. The fact is that one; the kitchen belongs to his wife, whether as wife of the president or first lady...so I would concern myself to his ministers and yes men, and of course women.

The incoming president must stand his ground, we already are starting on a combination of contradictions, whether it is the people’s mandate, with all the ranting and noise, or INEC mandate only posterity will judge.

The fact is that Mr. Bola, will be in the first line of offensive, he will be between making sure it's not business as usual and settling politicians with aggrieved pockets on one hand. Mr. Bola will have to resist the temptation to be Minister for Petroleum, or give Mr. Shetima his veepee the power to be this or that, he should be wary of the politics of senior special assistant or some commission or body doing something and nothing about one industry or sector.

Whoever he picks, or someone suggests and demands, or the party hierarchy nominates, for whatever position, the administration is already faced with a conglomerate of jobless politicians, jobbers and ex-this and that, who require settlement of one form or the other. Can Bola damn them?

There will be a need to create a balance with intellect, hard work and patriotism in the zoning thing that has led us nowhere. How Mr. Bola is able to come out with any fascinating cabinet that will thrill Nigerians is a big question. For example, the questions to be answered will be what will the Ministry of water resources do differently, as many Nigerians would want to see water run from a tap courtesy of their effort.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu is going to be faced with giving or sharing the bounty for very mundane reasons. Ministers who failed as governors, legislators who contributed nothing and persons who lost elections and others whose father and mother was former this, and former that will be everywhere.

Mr. Bola must stop sharing the cake; he needs to shock Nigerians by his appointments. This is my admonishment, Mr. Bola…does not have an enviable job but with passion he can make it a worthwhile one and start to leave a legacy. Get off all the talk, because it is cheap and could come back to hunt and haunt him.

Nigerians want Ministers, advisers, and aides, legislators that will perform miracles. For a nation that has a very low expectation ratio, for sure we are ‘not’ asking for the impossible from Mr. Bola considering the rot he has to contend with, but he must importantly often go into that room, seek inspiration from that room, he must tell the truth…he must be transparent, and accountability to man and God, and Nigerians, how it will end—only time tell!

On New Year’s Day in 1991, 81-year-old Siad Barre, Somalia’s third (and last) president, fled the capital city, Mogadishu, under assault from the combined forces of a prolonged insurgency. 16 days later, in a supposedly unrelated development, President George Hubert Walker Bush of the United States of America launched Operation Desert Storm against the occupation of Kuwait’s oil fields by Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein. Four months later, in May 1991, Siad Barre went into exile in Nigeria where he lived until his death in 1995.

Back home, the vacuum created by General Barre’s departure in 1991 triggered a messy contest between various warlords and militias for control of the country, which posed a grave threat to both Somalia’s neighbours in the Horn of Africa and to the strategic maritime theatre of the Gulf of Aden.

Somalis are not only found in Somalia. They are also in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. Siad Barre was initially committed to a policy of uniting all Somali populations under one territory. In pursuit of this ideology, he invaded Ethiopia’s Ogaden region in 1977, triggering a war in which Ethiopia eventually prevailed with support from the Soviet Union. Somalia, which had until then proclaimed itself Socialist, thereafter shifted its strategic orientation towards closer cooperation with the United States.

The cost of the degeneration of Somalia into a messy gang-land war was heavy. By the beginning of 1992, one year after Siad Barre’s departure from power, “as many 350,000 people in Somalia died from starvation, with another 80,000 people having fled to neighbouring countries”. Somalia’s biggest neighbour on its western borders, Ethiopia, which hosted the headquarters of the then Organization of African Unity, OAU was itself preoccupied with a political transition after the ruinous misrule of Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Dergue regime, and its main priority was to prevent a Somali contagion on its territory. Still reluctant to abandon its foundational commitment to non-interference in the affairs of member states, the OAU could not mobilise consensus on how best to respond to the Somali meltdown. Within Somalia itself, there was no leader who could invite international action with legitimacy.

In that season of the brief interregnum of the unipolar world, there was much talk of humanitarian intervention. Somalia was seen as a good case for it and the United States, fresh from what was seen as the diplomatic and military success of its campaign in Iraq, was under pressure to act. On April 24, 1992, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 751 which deplored “the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the conflict” in Somalia, formally declared it a threat to international peace and security and established the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM).

The best efforts of the limited UNOSOM team were, however, no match for the menace of the Somali militias. So, on December 3, 1992, the Security Council adopted Resolution 794, which complained about the “continuation of conditions that impede the delivery of humanitarian supplies to destinations within Somalia, and in particular reports of looting of relief supplies destined for starving people, attacks on aircraft and ships bringing in humanitarian relief supplies” . It, therefore, authorised member states to “use all measures as may be necessary to ensure” effective humanitarian operations in Somalia. Six days later, on December 9, 1992, a contingent of US Navy SEALS landed on the coast of Mogadishu at the beginning of Operation Restore Hope under considerable media attention.

In March 1994, Operation Restore Hope ended in disarray. One outcome of Operation Restore Hope among many was to force the OAU to urgently re-evaluate its doctrinal commitment to non-interference. At their meeting in Cairo in June 1993, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU agreed to establish within the organization, a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Resolution, and Management, effectively bringing to an end the fiction that instability in a given country was of no consequence to its neighbours. Sudan’s then ruler, General Omar Al-Bashir, and Eritrea’s Isaias Afewerki were the two voices of dissent against this decision.

From this tentative beginning, the OAU evolved rapidly in seven years to the point of its own replacement in 2000 by the African Union (AU). At its adoption in 1963, the founding charter of the OAU complained of subversion by neighbours against one another and prohibited interference by one African country in the domestic affairs of their neighbours. It was not a very African approach to coexistence in a continent in which looking out for one another had for long been an axiom of good neighbourliness.

In a dramatic departure from this position, the African Union’s Constitutive Act, which was incidentally adopted at the turn of the Millennium, commits the continent’s rulers to “respect for the sanctity of human life” and recognizes a duty and a “right of the Union to intervene in a Member State…. in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”. To supervise this new commitment, the AU, as the successor to the OAU would become known, established a Peace and Security Council to “promote peace, security and stability in Africa, in order to guarantee the protection and preservation of life and property, the well-being of the African people”. It comprises 15 African countries elected by their peers and represented at the highest levels by their presidents, prime ministers, or kings.

Underlying the mission of the AU supposedly is a commitment to a different and united way of addressing the continent’s security crises. In a contemporaneous retrospective on the failure of Operation Restore Hope in 1994, Ghanaian-born economist, George Ayittey, deplored the contest over super-power control of Africa’s destiny. Cautioning that durable solutions to the continent’s myriad problems can only come from Africans themselves, he launched the now popular mantra of “African solutions to African problems”.

With the persistence of a multiplicity of foreign stakeholders in many of the continent’s problems, however, the challenge always was with figuring out what kinds of problems could be described as African and at what point the solutions could be seen as African. In any event, this doctrine implied that African leaders had a responsibility to take initiative and provide leadership in the search for solutions to the continent’s problems. This has been missing in the three weeks since the mutual antipathies between Sudan’s implacable generals descended into urban warfare in Khartoum.

The result is that the AU has abdicated both initiative and ideas. With nearly 1.2 million refugees before the onset of these hostilities, Sudan housed the second largest population of refugees in Africa behind only Uganda, and the seventh largest in the world. Setting them to pasture is not going to be cost-free to Sudan’s neighbours nor is that merely a humanitarian occurrence. It is also a profound security concern. Equally, the AU does not appear to have heard that some Western countries willfully shredded the passports of African nationals while evacuating their missions in Khartoum.

With over 400,000 internally displaced, nearly 150,000 dispersed across Sudan’s borders into neighbouring countries in Chad, Central African Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and South Sudan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated an exodus of over 860,000 people from Khartoum and its neighbourhoods, the leaders of the African Union have not seen fit to meet at any level even for symbolic purposes other than half-hearted meetings convened on Zoom at almost risible levels. Separated by over three decades, the response of the AU to the unfolding crisis in Khartoum reprises in slow motion the self-inflicted incapacities of the OAU in Somalia.

In the face of arguably the continent’s most serious crisis since the Rwanda Genocide, the AU’s response has been inexplicably somnolent. It has no plan. Chad’s former foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, who heads the Commission of the African Union in Addis Ababa, appears to be slow-walking the organisation to considerations determined by the imperatives of his home country (which shares borders with Sudan) rather than the collective wellbeing of the region and the continent. Under him, the promise of the Constitutive Act is being squandered; over two-thirds of the AU’s budget is funded by non-African countries and nearly half of the member states are unwilling or unable to pay their assessed budget contributions. Under Moussa Faki Mahamat, the AU increasingly acts neither African nor like a Union.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

It is no longer news that Hudu Yunusa – Ari, the suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Adamawa state who has been in hiding has been found. A statement last Tuesday by the Police Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, confirmed that Yunusa-Ari was undergoing interrogation in police custody over his illegal declaration of the results of the last Adamawa state governorship election. The news now is that the man has been granted bail amidst continuing investigation. But with the high level of public interest generated over the illegal declaration, it would certainly irritate those who suspect that delay tactics may be used to sweep the case under the carpet. To start with, a few issues about basic facts on the subject are hazy. Who arrested the suspended REC and where, when, and how was he arrested?

If Yunusa-Ari was the one who gave himself up to the police as he allegedly promised in an interview with the famous BBC Hausa service, it is only fair for the public to know that no concrete effort was made to arrest the man who was in the company of top security officers at the point of making the illegal declaration. In addition, considering that the declaration was televised for public viewing and that the man admitted in his BBC interview that what he did was within the law, it is difficult to comprehend what the police is investigating now. Having helped to secure the alleged offender, the police should immediately hand him over to INEC which is statutorily mandated to prosecute electoral offenders.  This position had been determined as far back as 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled in the case involving Gani Fawehinmi SAN, that a body which has powers to prosecute a case is also inherently empowered to investigate the case. What is more, between INEC and the police, who is better positioned to identify a breach of any guideline, rule, regulation or enabling law of the same INEC?

In the celebrated case of the manipulation of election results brought before the court during the 2019 general elections, INEC promptly and successfully investigated and prosecuted Professor Peter Ogban, the then Collation/Returning Officer for Akwa Ibom North-west Senatorial election.  The court rejected the argument of the defence that the Professor had not been investigated by the police. By simply following the ruling in the Fawehinmi case, Justice, Augustine Odokwo who presided in the Ogban case jailed the Professor for 3 years, while holding that INEC did not require police investigation. The same approach is what INEC ought to follow now in the Yunusa-Ari case. If it does otherwise, it could be accused of having a hidden agenda in the instant case. In fact, it is not in the interest of INEC to allow further delay or to do anything to suggest a contemplation of abdication from its responsibility in this particular case whose outcome is eagerly awaited by all lovers of Democracy, home and abroad.

There is indeed a school of thought that believes that the illegality that was perpetuated in the Adamawa governorship election could have been prevented if INEC had promptly handled reports that Yunusa-Ari was visibly partisan in his disposition during the election.  The Peoples Democratic Party PDP had publicly appealed to INEC to redeploy the man after a few provocative partisan activities. Whereas INEC may have rightly ignored the appeal on the ground that Nigerian politicians have an inclination to raise false alarms, it was unwise to have retained Yunusa-Ari to handle the run-off election which followed the inconclusive main election in which a leaked audio had been circulated to suggest that the REC instructed some specific staff of INEC to work for the election of the APC candidate.

An electoral body ought to be conscious and sensitive at all times that it is not enough to seek to be above board; ensuring that people can easily perceive INEC as above board matters more. Even if the allegations against Yunusa-Ari appeared baseless, it would have been safer to rest the REC and replace him with another person of the commission’s choice. For failing to do that, some superior officers at the top now stand the risk of being pulled down by the embattled REC in the coming days. If by sheer luck that does not happen, the huge image problem which Yunusa-Ari’s behaviour has bequeathed to INEC would for a long time to come be hard to repair in a society that is largely dissatisfied with the conduct of the last general election as shown in the about 800 election petitions currently before different election tribunals nationwide. Are all the aggrieved petitioners bad losers?

The case of the suspended REC of Adamawa State was particularly scandalous. First, it amounted to usurpation of the powers of a returning officer for him to take over the duty of announcing an election result. Second, as if he was assured of security cover, senior security officers were with him during the fake declaration of results. Third, both the REC and all those present at the ill-fated gathering knew as of fact that the declaration was premature as it was made about 2 hours before the scheduled time for the continuation of the collation of votes preparatory to the declaration of a winner. In which case, total votes cast at the election had not been determined at the point the REC made his declaration. The implication of what has been said so far is that efforts at arresting Yunusa-Ari would naturally have been less than feeble; and so it seemed.

It is doubtful if the whereabouts of the REC were really unknown to security agencies. As one investigative newspaper revealed, immediately after announcing the fake winner of the election, Yunusa-Ari was flown to Abuja from Yola in a private jet with registration number – (NG) 5N-IKO. The newspaper even published the model and serial number of the aircraft which reportedly landed in Abuja 40minutes later.  It can therefore be argued that the illegal declaration was a well-organized plot which included the charter of a private aircraft to provide a safe escape for the fugitive REC. The owner of the aircraft which is registered in Nigeria for aviation services could have been reached to unravel the person or organization which entered into a contract with his company to fly out the REC.

The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) which broadcast the declaration can also be helpful in identifying the sponsors of the illegal event. I do not however subscribe to the calls on the broadcast regulator to sanction the station. Those calling for sanctions are only interested in underscoring the double standards in broadcast regulation in Nigeria in which the reaction of the regulator would have been drastically different if the broadcast was done by a private station. Certainly, the NTA broadcast was not the handiwork of a roving reporter who just ran into the event. It was a scheduled coverage for which the station must have been given the details of the event including take-off time, duration and sponsor who ordinarily would be charged millions of naira. I hear that these days the NTA is occasionally coerced by persons in the corridors of power to cover certain events pro bono unlike my days as DG of NTA where even the presidency had to pay ahead of coverage.   

If the coverage was free of charge, then the case of Yunusa-Ari may be far more complicated than the ordinary person can see.  Anyone who imagines that it was a project of the ruling party may not be too far from the correct answer. This is because history has shown that ruling parties in Nigeria do everything humanly possible including illegalities for its members to be re-elected. When the PDP was in power, it did all it could to frustrate the Card Reader. On its part, the APC has not only sought to emasculate the BVAS, it has gone into history as the party that has imposed the highest number of partisan electoral commissioners on INEC. Whatever is the case, the prosecution of the Adamawa case and others should not be further delayed if INEC is interested in bringing to book the sponsors of electoral malpractices in Nigeria to pave the way for better elections in the future.

I was very pleased to receive, on a recent occasion [that accidentally happened to be my birthday!] a document sent to me by email, that told me (in so many words) that someone had been so inspired, or impressed, with my use of such devices as folk tales, in my columns that he had subjected the columns to serious study, in an M.Phil thesis, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
He conveyed to me, the happy news that he, "had passed with a mark of 75%!"
To imagine that someone had gained an MPhil as a result of studying my writing, when I never went to University myself! If I don't admit that it made me feel very good, I shall be a liar!

The MPhil scholar is called Nate Glover-Meki, and his thesis is entitled: "JOURNALISM, LITERATURE & CURRENTS OF THOUGHT IN MODERN GHANA - A CRITICAL STUDY OF CAMERON DUODU'S COLUMNS".
I am, (I say again) quite chuffed by this. If any publisher — or institution (such as the Ghana School of Communications at the University of Ghana, Legon) — is interested in publishing it so that it can be made available to a wider student audience, they can contact me. I shall be glad to put them in touch with the author."
I use story-telling (mostly about Gold Coast days) in my columns, not always consciously, but often vaguely, in order that the young people of today will be inspired to help make Ghana regain its affections in the hearts of its people.

Now, I have been labouring under the belief that, as the Twi proverb says, "It's the good thing that sells itself" (Ade pa n'eton neho.) In other words, one does not dissect something that is inherently self-elucidating; it does not need to be explained any further.
However, I got a letter the other day that clearly demonstrates that the letter writer has not understood the purpose of why I do this.
This is sad for a writer to admit, but I have been at this writing game for so long that I have come to realise that it isn't always the writer's fault if he's misunderstood. Some people are just — ahem! — thick/ For instance, one letter writer complained that I "bore" him with the stories I tell about my school days.
Now, I don't mind the fact that he doesn't like my stories, for there is no way that one can please everyone who reads what one writes.
But I do need to explain the idea behind the story-telling, so that in case others entertain the same idea, they might be put right.
You see, whenever I tell a story dealing with the past, I intend to use it to take my readers back, in their own minds, to their own school days. What my teachers did or did not do are meant to trigger stories of the "Me too!" type.

I can't help it because, in effect, that practice comes out of my natural culture: in a Ghanaian village, you cannot sit under, say, a neem tree and tell stories without inspiring — or even provoking — others to tell their own stories.
That is the whole purpose of people gathering under the tree in the first place, or if the story-telling occurs at home, gathering around the open hearth in the family yard at night.
As soon as one storyteller finishes his/her narration, someone else comes in with a story that might be as interesting, or (so the new story-teller hopes) more interesting, than the one just told. It is a competition for bragging rights, no less.
"Ei, as for so-and-so, his stories are awesome!" is not a reputation that everyone can build for himself/herself. Yes, in all reality, such story-telling sessions constitute an undeclared contest.
"Interruptions-by-song" are particularly welcomed. These songs known as mmoguo, make story-telling more interesting than would otherwise be the case, and also help the story-teller to obtain whispered corrections from members of the audience, in case a faulty memory is making him tell parts of the story wrong.
A Nigerian contemporary, Reuben Abati, has developed this idea of story-telling beautifully in an article in the Nigerian Guardian, "One of the most basic rules of writing and journalism [Abati wrote] is that human beings like to read about other human beings — their lives, successes, failures, pains and pleasures, doubts and anxieties, affairs, and occasions and as they read about others, people see their reflections in a hall of mirrors; they relive their own anxieties, and hopefully, they are entertained, or shocked beyond belief, or taught a lesson or two about life, society, being and nothingness."

My friend, the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, also once used this "mirror-to-society" metaphor to explain why he often used satire to communicate his ideas.
My school mates are fond of saying to me, "But how come you still remember these things? I swear, if I hadn't read what you wrote, I would never have remembered that funny incident, ever!" Others take great delight in contradicting my recollections.
School days are simply incomparable in terms of stimulation and enjoyment: you enjoy leaving home and going out to meet loads of strangers, some of whom become 'enemies', but others among whom become new and, occasionally, life-long friends.
(Incidentally, talking of school days, what happened to the story our media once carried, telling of the little girl who sadly died, after being caned by her teacher? It is so typical of the Ghanaian media that I can't remember reading of what happened after the teacher was arrested and taken to court.
This lack of interest in following up their own stories really demeans our media, I think.)
The report of the girl's death conducted me into the "hall of mirrors" inside my head, where some bitter encounters with the cane were waiting to be 'screened'.

One of the sources of the culture of caning in the Gold Coast of my early years, I regret to say, was the Presbyterian Teacher's Training College at Akropong, Akwapim.
Although it was a very good institution (the teachers there included the famous composer and musicologist, Ephraim Amu, who refused to wear European clothes to preach in church and was censured as a result — a very daring as well as talented man- as well as that wonderful teller of stories, Clement Anderson Akrofi. Akropong was nevertheless notorious for inculcating the idea of caning and harsh punishment into the teachers it trained.
The teachers who created its traditions were Swiss/German Calvinists, most of whose "hair-shirt" aspirations bore no relationship whatsoever to the Ghanaian's freewheeling ethos.
(By the way if you follow the link I have given above, you will find that the biography of Akrofi does not mention his most enjoyable book, a collection of delightful stories entitled Mmodenbo By Mmusu Abasa So.)

Most of the pupils who were at the receiving end of the policy of caning now hold the view that caning can be stupid and sometimes, quite sadistic.
I personally knew a girl who was clearly dyslexic but was continually caned by my grossly ignorant Class Three teacher (who, of course, was trained at Akropong!)
Caning her was an exercise in futility.

Indeed, if any teacher caned a pupil in England today for being unable to produce good work, because she suffered from dyslexia — an illness that can be easily diagnosed and cured with skill — not only would that teacher be considered woefully "uneducated", but he would probably be sent to jail.
Sir Jackie Stewart, three-times World Motor Racing Champion, is dyslexic. But see what he achieved.
I realise, of course, that dyslexia may not have been discovered in those days, but what about the common sense of the teacher? He whipped her; but her work never improved; and yet he whipped her the more.

Bloody stupid, if you ask me. And a shame on Akropong as an institution, for not teaching child psychology to the teachers it was training.
One other device I like to use in my writing is the Akan proverb, which I try to explain to enable anyone reading to understand it. Such proverbs strike a special chord with readers who do understand the original language, because it gives them an extra insight into my meaning.

Although election consequences aren’t over until the courts say they are over in Nigeria, this is a time to advise our political leaders who are taking over from Buhari and co; on May 29, 2023 that they need to begin to manage priorities and expectations the morning after May 29, 2023. Specifically, we need to restructure our mindset to be able to reform the public sector for real service delivery and public good. Those who have promised to consolidate on Buhari’s achievements should note that we only regarded that provocative campaign strategy as politics of succession because the Buhari’s eight years should just be regarded as the years that the locusts ate from us. From the economy through critical infrastructure to national building and security, the lanky General from Daura, we all trusted in 2015 disappointed us. And so Buhari’s successor and other leaders from subnational governments and the National Assembly should note that if they assume duties with the food-is-ready mentality, they will begin to manage crisis within the first 100 days in office. This is, therefore, a time to compile some of the institutional weaknesses of the outgoing administration so that they can leverage on revival of existing public institutions and public policies to take the country away from the brink of collapse. Here is the thing, there are enough laws, institutions and policies to run the country in a way that the world will begin to respect us again. And as I have noted here several times in recent weeks, the first focal point should be how to revamp the federal civil and public service for impactful service delivery. Security and welfare of the people as the primary purpose of government cannot be met unless there is an efficient civil service. Doubtless, most of the public service reform gains from Obasanjo through Yar’Adua to Jonathan appear to have been ruined by the ineptitude of the outgoing administration. Even the Oronsaye Report that the Buhari administration touted several times as a policy option to cut the cost of governance has become a mirage, after all.

And so the procrastination spirit that has been the bane of the Buhari administration should not be allowed to creep in at this time that people are saying blessed are you if you are hopeless for you will not be disappointed again.

I would, therefore, like to chip in this one as part of the low hanging fruits a new administration can pluck to begin restructuring of the public sector without setting up another White-Paper panel. As I was saying, a solid presidential bureaucracy will know what to do immediately.

Now to the brass tacks, there is a public media issue that shouldn’t be delayed within the construct of innovation for development we need now. It is the expediency of merging the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture with the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy. This isn’t strange.

And it is not about anybody or the outgoing Minister of Information and Culture or anyone in particular. It is about “innovating our way into the future,” borrowing from the brilliance of the theme of Poju Oyemade’s Platform on Channels Television on May 1, 2023. It is about Africa’s most populous country and anchor of hope of the black nation, Nigeria. It isn’t about a new job or portfolio for a party supporter or a journalist or a public relations guru who helped someone to power in a food-is-ready era. It is about learning, unlearning and relearning at this time. It is about lean government to reduce cost of governance without compromising efficiency and effectiveness at this time. It is about innovation for efficiency in service delivery. It isn’t complicated at all. In this age of digital media technologies that daily disrupt journalism and public relations practice, what is needed is a strategic merger of the old Information Ministry with Communication Ministry. There is no need to keep so many ministries doing the same job. Just like the Ministry of Police Affairs and Interior Ministry. Why do you have Agriculture and Water Resources separately? There are more duplicates listed in the Oronsaye Panel Report since 2011. After all, Dr. Goke Adegoroye’s 2015 classic (book) on reform agenda in public service posits that the federal bureaucracy can’t take more than 29 ministries, after all. We have about 48 ministries now with so many otiose agencies. This is part of the bane of government in Nigeria that is now borrowing to pay civil and public servants. Let’s be innovative now: in all modern economies, there is no separate ministry to manage public relations and spokespersons. This is also applicable to state governments. What is expedient at this age that digital technologies daily disrupt is communication and information technology ministry or Department. That can take care of all information and information technology issue. A ministry of communication and information technology can be charged with communication responsibilities, which include regulating communications, postal services, broadcasting and print media – for the purpose of even regulation. What is the purpose of today’s Information and Culture Ministry? Culture is too important to be merged with Information that isn’t necessary at this time. Check even South Africa, they don’t have any Ministry of Information. That country, South Africa, a member of G-20 and BRICs, an emerging market cartel, boasts of eight of the 10 best universities in Africa in all ratings of global standard. All chief executives from the president to the subnational powers called governors and CEOs of other arms and agencies of government have their communication officers. The intelligence and security agencies including the police service have their public information managers. There is no need for Information Ministries in 21st century Nigeria. I haven’t heard of Information Ministers of different countries meeting anywhere to discuss how to promote the image of governments. There is no room for such management in this age when propaganda can’t be taught in any mass communication schools now unbundled as part of innovation and growth in the information (technology) sector. The only source of unnecessary visibility for the Information Ministries is ‘supervision’ of radio and television stations at federal and state levels. That too has over the years distorted and diminished the role of public broadcasters in Nigeria.

That is why I would like to suggest too to the New Sheriff that will come to town in Abuja from May 29, 2023 that they need to restructure the three federal public broadcasters, namely, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Voice of Nigeria (VON) into one Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). This is the structure of most public broadcasters in global context. Again, South Africa leads the way here with South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC, Africa). The same goes for the powerful and very British, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). These stations in South Africa and United Kingdom are very commercially viable. They practice robust journalism but they are not tied to the apron strings of any ministries of information. The Culture Department, which has marginal oversight function on the BBC rarely reports the public broadcaster to the Parliament when they feel that the public broadcaster, BBC errs in judgment. But then although they have broadcasting codes, there is no central agency that acts as a regulator to accuse, judge and impose arbitrary fines and fees on BBC as we often have in Nigeria. In Nigeria, there is always a regular amendment of the very voluminous ‘Nigerian Broadcasting Codes’ book, which is being regularly criticised for attacking press freedom. The Information Minister can always amend and update the Codes to attack a section of the private broadcasters, especially for political reasons. That is also why the existence of the office of the Minister of Information is inimical to the growth of robust journalism in a democracy.

ON February 4, 2018, I raise this same issue here in an article titled, ‘A Time To Restructure NTA, FRCN, VON.’ In the article, I had pointed out that one of our best journalists here, Ms Kadaria Ahmed had been resourceful because she had a solid career with BBC for 13 years before returning home. In the same vein, I had then drawn attention to the fact that Ms Toyosi Ogunleye, an award-winning Editor at The Punch then could also find it worthy to join the BBC from The Punch because the BBC has a brand reputation that our local brands do not have and may never have as long as they continue to work in bondage of the Information Ministry, even as they (NTA, FRCN and VON) have some of the best trained broadcasters in the country. Read the link below for the details: https://guardian.ng/sunday-magazine/a-time-to-restructure-nta-frcn-and-von/

This is the conclusion of the 2018 suggestion on the point at issue:
‘…So, as the wind of restructuring is blowing even in Abuja now, I would like to advise Nigeria’s Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed to lead the charge to restructure the public broadcasters – NTA, FRCN and VON in public interest. After all, the tone for the re-engineering of the three separate organs was thankfully set in 2011 when the Stephen Oronsaye Panel report and White Paper (2013), which recommended rationalisation of numerous government agencies, also suggested a merger of the three organs to be Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) under one national executive management.

But for the national broadcasters, this is a time to restructure with a view to privatising them ultimately. What good do the NTA, FRCN and VON still serve the Federal Government that underfunds and mismanages them? Don’t get it twisted, the ruined broadcasting corporations, still keep some of the brightest and the best broadcasters who have ironically been working in bondage.

What is more, technology has disrupted the dubious national security fear the military authorities used to hold on to the organs. First, the authorities can muster some robust political will to sell their major shares (of NTA, FRCN and VON) to the members of staff and some interested Nigerian investors. Yes, I mean resourceful investors who can rebrand the broadcasters into a truly African Voice that can also project the culture of the black race in global context.

That radical move will be a reassuring signal that indeed the presidency and the ruling party are irrevocably committed to restructuring of the troubled federation. This certainly is a time for the Federal Government to free the long-suffering NTA, FRCN and VON and let them go and prosper in the field where Aljazeera too, owned by Qatar (through a public trust), is serving the interest of the Middle East….’

The conclusion of the whole matter is that for the new administration to set the tone for restructuring of the federation within the construct of Open Government Partnership (OGP) the Federal Government signed up to in 2016 and expediency of cutting cost of governance, they should begin by merging Information (and Culture) Ministry with the Communication and Digital Economy Ministry. Besides, they should immediately merge NTA, FRCN and VOA into a world-class Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS). All other concomitant reform issues will follow this innovation for our great country.