Mohammed Idris, minister of information and national orientation, says Nigerians can now apply for and obtain visas to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Idris said the federal government has reached an agreement with the UAE to allow Nigerian passport holders to obtain visas for travel to the Arab nation starting today, July 15.

More to follow…

[TheCable]

I was one of the 102 senior journalists invited from all over the country to tour the Dangote Fertilizer and Petrochemical Refinery Complex last Sunday and it turned out to be an unbelievably humbling and revealing experience. Unmistakably visible to us was the power of vision, determination to succeed in the face of many hurdles one man’s love for country. We were reminded that it is only we, Nigerians, that will develop our; but not some mythical ‘foreign investors’ that our leaders have been looking for. The visit lasted 11 hours during which we went around every corner of the massive complex, occupying 2,635 hectares of land (seven times the size of Victoria Island, Lagos). It is located in the Dangote Industries Free Zone (different from Lekki Free Zone which is owned by the Lagos state government). In all, we probably covered most of the 112 km of road network crisscrossing the vast compound (some journalists termed it ‘The Dangote Planet’), walking and being driven. On hand to lead the tour were Aliko Dangote himself (Group President); Edwin Devakumar (Group Vice President, Oil & Gas) and Fatima Dangote (Group Executive Director, Commercial).

Dangote informed us that the fertilizer, petrochemical and refinery business would be quoted on the stock exchange on or before the first quarter of 2025 in what could be one of the biggest IPOs in recent years; that the NNPCL has only 7.2% stake in the refinery, not 20% as stated previously ‘’Although we had offered them 20%, they could not pay for all of that and so we had to reduce it to 7.2% which they paid for’’, he said matter-of-factly. He spoke on the politics and economics of crude oil supply from the NNPCL; the $100 million payment to Lagos state government; his encounters with shrines during construction and the role of Ooni of Ife; why he did not build the refinery in the Niger Delta region which is the nation’s hydrocarbon base and why Ogun State lost out as the initial location choice; why he has no home outside Nigeria and his plans to reconstruct the Lekki expressway. He also announced that the company will soon move into its 18-storey towers on Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, not far from its current location.

We arrived the refinery complex about 9.30am after a two-hour ride from the corporate headquarters of Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Falomo, Ikoyi. The first port of call was a facility called Land Fall Point (LFP). ‘’Twenty-five kilometers from here into the ocean, we have our three single point mooring (SPM) where ships discharge crude oil into our subsea pipes’’, Devakumar said. An SPM is a floating buoy anchored offshore that allows the handling of liquid cargo in areas where dedicated onshore facility for loading and unloading cargo is unavailable. From LFP we went to the port and quays constructed by DIL with a load bearing capacity of 25 tonnes/sq meters to bring heavy and large cargoes close to the site to handle liquid cargoes. Soon, we were off to the fertilizer plant where the pungent smell of urea welcomed us. The plant has an installed production capacity of three million tons/yr, but it’s currently producing at half the capacity due to inadequate gas supply - the same problem that is plaguing Nigeria’s electricity supply and impeding production at NLNG.

The fertilizer plant is the largest in Africa and the second largest in the world. Nigeria consumes one million tonnes of fertilizer per year; meaning that Dangote is able to meet local demand and while excess is exported to USA, Brazil and other places.

From the fertilizer plant, we dashed to the conference room where Dangote gave detailed and comprehensive briefings on his businesses, right from its inception, detailing his transition from commodity trading in 1978 to a well-diversified conglomerate comprising cement, crude oil and gas exploration, agriculture, fertilizer and petrochemical refinery. He appeared disarmingly simple; mild-mannered and convincing. His voice was gentle and there was no iota of indication that this was Africa’s richest man. I sat close to him, with Kayode Komolafe of Thisday (we call him KK), sitting between us. Even though I knew what the answer might be, I asked Dangote why he didn’t site the refinery in the Niger Delta. He said that would have made the investments less expensive, but he was frightened away by the volatility in the region. ‘’But Sir, Akwa Ibom State is peaceful. There’s no violence there. You should have come Akwa Ibom’’, I pushed. Others chuckled, but Dangote contemplated my pitch briefly and said, ‘’Yes. I know your governor. I saw him last week in Lagos …’’.

We left the conference room to tour the refinery, the labs and the control rooms. I didn’t know what to expect, but suffice it to say that the refinery is just a labyrinth of big pipes, running overhead in the open skies, without roofs, and on the ground and beneath the ground. It is a network of big and small pipes bending, twisting and contorting all over the place from its beginning at the Single Point Mooring 25 km offshore to the loading bay where refined products are pumped into tankers. As we walked around, I tapped Mr. Devakumar at a point and asked, ‘’Do you have an idea of the total lengths of all these pipes. I’m sure they’d run into thousands of kilometers. ‘’Yes’’, he answered. ‘’We are inviting Guinness World Records to register it’’. Dangote chipped in, ‘’They will have to come and audit it before they register and announce it’’. We continued walking. This is the world’s largest single-train refinery with capacity to process 650,000 barrels of crude per day. It will meet all of our needs for refined products with enough for exports. ‘’It is a game changer’’, exclaimed Devakumar.

After the refinery, we returned to the Conference Room for more briefing, Q & A and lunch. There were questions on varied topics, including impact of energy transition on the sustainability of the refinery; title documents from Lagos state and NNPC shareholding. One cheeky journalist asked if the Dangote Refinery will also undergo the kind of turn around maintenance that government-owned refineries have been experiencing and another queried if Dangote knew why the Port Harcourt refinery has refused to work despite the billions of dollars pumped into its overhaul. The underlying mischief behind the two questions were obvious and we all had a good laugh. I asked two questions on the politics of supply of crude oil to the refinery by the NNPCL and whether he will take the refinery to the capital market. I had earlier made a note to ask Dangote about his relationship with the Tinubu administration given the dramatic and embarrassing visits from the EFCC last year. But I changed my mind and dropped the question. Dangote addressed the questions one after the other. He said fossil fuels will be around for sometime to come despite the drive for renewable energy and explained that the need for NNPCL to supply domestic refineries with crude. He is optimistic that the guidelines recently announced by the NNPCL on crude supply will make a difference, adding, ‘’I hope the IOCs will respect the guidelines. Right now, we are paying $6 premium on every barrel we buy from them, but luckily, our refinery was designed to refine different grades of crude and so we can actually buy from everywhere. But importation brings in poverty and ships out jobs’’.

He said that Lagos State government had insisted on being paid for the land in dollars and he willingly paid the $100 million price. Although the government promptly issued the title documents, construction was delayed because of community issues. ‘’You know they have a lot of shrines here…’’, he said. We laughed heartily. ’But I must thank the Ooni for his kind interventions which quickly resolved the issues’’, he added. The delay cost him $60 million in interest charges from the banks. The refinery was initially scheduled to be sited in Ogun State, but the state government had delayed in providing the land because the governor then was making unethical demands. Dangote walked away and approached Lagos State government. But the delay cost the company about $500 million in interest payments. That’s one of the negative outcomes of corruption.

By now we were all tired, but nobody complained. The mood was convivial and the conversation was interesting. The refinery currently employs 30,000 people, of which 97% are Nigerians. The figure will go up to 100,000 as productions ramps up. The plant will meet all of our domestic demands for liquid products (gasoline, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel). Currently, it is producing diesel and aviation fuel; petrol will be pumped out next month, Dangote assures. The Group President says his refinery has been able to bring down diesel price and may also moderate petrol prices at the pump, depending on variables like source and price of crude and exchange rate. The event closed with a passionate vote of thanks from Ms. Fatima Dangote. She praised her father’s energy, commitment and love for Nigeria and thanked Nigerians for their unceasing love to daddy. We rushed back to our hotels to watch the England-Spain Euro final football game!

US President Joe Biden has condemned the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, his predecessor and presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. 

In an address from the Oval Office late Sunday, Biden harped on the need “to lower the temperature” in politics.

“We are not enemies, we’re neighbours, we’re friends, co-workers, citizens, and most importantly, we are Americans,” he said.

“Yes, we have deeply felt strong disagreements. The stakes in this election are enormously high. The choice we make in this is going to shape the future of America and the world for decades to come.

“But politics must never be a literal battlefield, or God forbid, a killing field. I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate.

“We stand for an America not of extremism and fury, but of decency and grace. All of us now face a time of testing as the election approaches.

“The higher the stakes, the more fervent the passions become. This places an added burden on each of us to ensure that no matter how strong our convictions are, it must never descend into violence.”

Biden said he spoke with Trump last night, who “thankfully… is not seriously injured”.

“I’m grateful he’s doing well. Jill and I hold him and his family in our prayers,” the president added.

Biden called for differences to be settled at the ballot box, not through bullets.

The president also offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

Hours after the assassination attempt, Trump said the “bullet pierced the upper part of my right ear” after he felt it ripping through his skin.

The former president said he has shelved plans to speak on how bad the current US administration is at the Republican national convention scheduled for Thursday.

Trump said he now wants to speak about overcoming the political divide in the country.

[TheCable]

Last week, Nigeria’s Supreme Court took a fundamental step towards dismantling the grip of state governors on the local government(LG) system and local government funds. The Supreme Court ruling on a suit filed by the attorney general of the federation, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, pointedly said the governors were undermining the functionality and operations of the LG system. They stretched it further by inferring that the governors were hell-bent on destroying democracy. In this landmark judgement, the Supreme Court made it clear that it is unconstitutional for state governments to control, withhold or tamper with funds meant for local governments and prohibited any further allocation of LG  funds to state governments or funds to councils without elected officials. Even with the best of intentions, the judiciary exercised legislative authority and redefined the fundamental concepts of federalism. With this move, Nigeria’s 774 local government councils will receive allocations directly, circumventing State-LG joint accounts prescribed by the constitution in Section 162(6) and governors’ interference. This decision aims to ensure that state governments do not misappropriate LG funds and provide financial independence for LGs. The court further directed that governors cannot dissolve democratically elected LG officials because it violates our 1999 constitution. 

Presently, LGAs are provided for and captured in the constitution, but they are just extensions and appendages, in fact, at the mercy of state governments. Governors and regional leaders have consistently opposed any attempt to provide LG autonomy from the post-independence days (1960-1966). The subordination of that level of government and the alleged embezzlement of its finances reached a fever pitch in 1999.  At some point, governors elected on the APC platform cautioned the National Assembly in 2013 to focus on their business and forget local government autonomy. The governors contend that other presidential-style federations, from which we derived our model, all have two tiers of federating units. The LGA system in all such two-tier federations is entirely and discretionarily the responsibility of the state government. 

Governors perceive local government autonomy as a danger to their power and influence at the grassroots. They want to maintain a firm grip on LG politics and administration. Governors believe state autonomy and local government autonomy as congruent and not separated. These ruling challenges this assumption and tries to establish LG autonomy and financial independence from the state. However, some have argued that it affects the balance of power between the federal and state governments when the federal directly funds the local governments and may use it to control or challenge the state power or other political leverage. 

For decades, governors have been seen by the populace as meddling in the smooth functioning of LG councils, especially tempering the funds allocated to that tier of government. The trust of the Supreme Court ruling, which evidently was influenced by popular yearning, is on the issue of financial autonomy and did not extend to other fundamental issues affecting local government functionality in Nigeria. It is a no-brainer that the fight to liberate local government from the shackles of control by different tiers of government may have started with financial independence; much more needs to be done.

Like most Nigerian institutions, the most significant reason why the LGA system is functioning sub-optimally is the complete absence of free, fair, and credible elections. Without free and fair elections, accountability and transparency are just wishful thinking. Leaders at that level, or any other level for that matter, do not owe their emergence to the power of the people and, therefore, have no sense of responsibility. The creation of state independent electoral commissions, practiced in other federal systems  , has become our albatross in Nigeria. Except for a few states, abusing that constitutional provision merits an award for infamy.

Related to the abuse of the electoral process, which is widespread and deeply rooted in the country’s political landscape, is the issue of the quality of persons “elected” to that level of government. The dearth of capacity is not limited to elected officials but is also established in the LGA civil service. The outcome is disastrous when charlatans and political jobbers are forced on the people in local governments with little or no capacity to lead or even manage resources. The practice is that governor’s gift local government chairman positions to their cronies and touts who are experts in rigging elections but have no modicum of decency, leadership capacity or intellectual dexterity needed to lead LGs.  

Another reason LG autonomy is a mirage is the recruitment, discipline, and appointment of top LG civil servants by the state government through the LG Service Commission. This is where political interference is most located, and we have given the least attention. There is often a need for more qualified and motivated personnel in local governments. This shortage of skilled workers affects the quality of services provided and the implementation of development projects. Bureaucratic inefficiency, red tape and slow administrative processes hinder the effective delivery of services and the implementation of development projects.

We have been seduced to believe that financial autonomy is  the only pathway  for LGs to define their own development priorities and implement them independently. This can be compared to giving you a coin in one hand and taking it from another hand. The devil is often in the details. We must dig deep to evaluate the quality and capacity of the human resources needed for effective and modern local government governance. 

The institutional frameworks within which local governments operate are often weak and poorly enforced. This results in a lack of accountability and transparency in the management of local government affairs and that is the greatest problem of a financially independent LG system. Weak institutions and poor oversight are the other stumbling blocks to LG system that can achieve a modicum of results or development. The legislative councils, where they exist, are comparable to living furniture in the chairman’s office or a waiter for the most powerful state-level politician in the LGA. Annual audits from the office of the auditor general of LG and internal auditors in the Council are more of a ritual than any serious assignment of examining and verifying financial transactions.

Corruption has since been democratized in LGs. True, it is rampant at all levels of government in Nigeria, including the local level. Funds meant for development projects often get siphoned off by corrupt officials, leaving local communities needing more resources for growth and improvement. Also, in many parts of Nigeria, local governments face significant security challenges, including insurgency, banditry, and communal conflicts. These security issues divert resources away from development projects and create an unstable environment for effective local governance.

Finally, there is high public apathy and low civic engagement in LGs. The populace are too distant from the LG administration to insist on accountability . Many citizens need to be more engaged in local government activities. This lack of public involvement and oversight allows dysfunction and corruption to persist unchallenged. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive reforms to improve governance, increase transparency, ensure adequate funding, and foster greater civic engagement.

Beyond these anchors on the neck of LGs, the Supreme Court verdict is a starting point for a long-drawn process. It will help the LGs in three ways. First, the  profound constitutional change by the Supreme Court  will put them on a journey of financial independence and accountability. Second, this ruling may become the catalyst for the further reform of the LGs to become fit for purpose. It will help set the agenda of having a holistic look at LG to make it more functional and purposeful. Third, we must decide whether to take LGs seriously as the third level sub sovereign  with attendant functions and responsibilities or to scrap it and have proper two level federating units. Some have argued that it does not help to have a superstructure that recognised LG as micro sovereign tier of government  on paper and not in practice. 

Aside from financial autonomy, LGs  must achieve administrative and political freedom to foster grassroots growth. They exist as separate legal entities free of state government apron strings or should be removed from the constitution to create a two-tier structure. Free, fair, and credible elections are the most critical step towards genuine LG autonomy without contestation. We must revisit this and decide how best to achieve this, either through the existing state Independent Electoral Commission (state INEC) or by allowing the Federal INEC to conduct all elections in Nigeria.

Nigeria is held down by economic losses and threats to lives due to the perennial insufficiency in public power supply. According to a report, “what Nigerians spend on self-generation of power – on fuelling and servicing their generators – is N16.5 trillion” yearly. Imagine the economic outcomes of investing this sum elsewhere. Yet, the federal government is seemingly indifferent.

Though there have been successive attempts the power sector is still yearning for robust interventions.

The latest was the privatization of the generation and distribution segments of the electricity value chain with Nigeria retaining the transmission component. It was designed to last for 10 years, from 2013 to 2023, for possible renewal.

Presently, the 10th Senate is investigating several messy deals perpetrated in the last administration which cumulatively heightened the debt profile of the country.

One of them is the Make-Up Gas (MUG) transaction involving the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited and the Calabar Generation Company Limited.

Nigeria recorded a scandalous loss in this project.

Going by the preliminary outcomes, Nigeria cannot attain availability and affordability of electricity except decisive actions are urgently taken.

Establishing the overall ineligibility of NDPHC, the panel, through its vice chairman, Senator Lola Ashiru, retorted that “looking at all these things, there is issue of capacity to enter into contract. When there is no capacity to enter into contract, what it means is that the existence of your business is in doubt. The only way we can get out of this is a total renegotiation and when you are doing total renegotiation, you must be sure of your own capacity to do business. If you are not sure of it, we will just be going round and going deeper into debt”.

The committee further lamented that “now we are talking of our own GenCos and every day of our lives we are going deeper and deeper into debts. I don’t know what we should do at this stage, but I think it is important for you to carefully restructure your business, to carefully restructure yourself and repackage all these indices into a new contract renegotiation”.

This is just a reinforcement to the persistent outcries that the licensed operators lacked the integrity, competence and capacity to discharge their obligations.

But sadly, political expediency and sundry narrow interests would not allow for necessary actions.

According to Senator Ahmad Lawan, sitting then as the president of the Senate, “the federal government in recent years has invested billions of dollars in this sector, most of which money appear to have gone down the drain as the problems of inadequate power supply continue to plague Nigeria. Even the subsequent privatisation of the sector has had no visible impact. In fact, many Nigerians believe that we allowed ourselves to be further defrauded through the privatisation of the sector”.

Continuing, “the truth is that we all know what is wrong. What we really need to do is to have the political will to take on the challenges generally. From the electricity power reform of 2005 to the privatisation of GenCos and DisCos and to what is happening today, we know that everything is a fraud”.

Fraud?

He therefore warned that “if we play the ostrich, in the next 10 years we will be talking about the same things. I think the time has come for us to have courage”.

Elsewhere, he stressed that “the distribution companies have no capacity to supply us power. We shouldn’t continue to give them money. They are private businesses. We need to review this whole thing”.

Note: “We shouldn’t continue to give them money”. Also, this was a verdict by the head of a crucial arm of the federal government which was unchallenged, even to date.

So, what happened afterwards, one may rightly ask?

Lawan’s 9th Senate investigated “all federal government interventions in the power sector since the privatisation of the sector with a view to ascertaining the adequacy of such interventions and their desired impact”.

But while Nigerians were feeling upbeat, the Senate handed down two directives.

The first was for “the Ministry of Finance to include the Nigerian Electric Power Sector in the disbursement of the proposed N500bn COVID-19 Crisis Intervention Fund in order to ameliorate the financial hazards and operational challenges” while the other was for the Central Bank of Nigeria “to allow operators in the power sector access to foreign exchange for procurement and materials”.

Nigerians were taken aback at this display of inconsistency. Rather than dealing with the identified “fraud” the government kept empowering these private investors in their desperation to milk the already ailing economy, in addition to subsidy payments.

How time flies!

Exactly four years after Lawan’s outburst there was yet another subtle threat of imminent calamity in a 10-year interval. The minister of power, Adebayo Adelabu, stunned Nigerians with the revelation that “for this sector to be revived, the government needs to spend nothing less than $10 BILLION ANNUALLY IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS”.

He had earlier justified the outrageous electricity tariff increase with the claim that the federal government owed N3 trillion to the operators in addition to about N1.5 trillion for the 2024 subsidy.

For the record, the 10th Senate twice opposed the hike without success because with the weak constitution, the legislature has its say but the executive has its way.

Meanwhile, the privatisation terms provided that Nigeria would generate 40,000 megawatts by 2020. Yet, 10 years later, it remains a herculean task exceeding 3500 despite all the successive noises about economic prosperity.

Just recently, Aliko Dangote reminded us that “nobody can create jobs with an interest rate of 30 per cent. No growth will happen. NO POWER, NO PROSPERITY. No affordable financing, no growth, no development”.

But the craving for political correctness would still not allow for the acknowledgement that the inefficiency of the regulator, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, catalysed the “fraud” in the first place.

Realizing that the operators lacked the financial capacity and convictions to invest, but were only out to make profits, a patriotic regulator would have saved Nigeria the harrowing experience.

Bola Tinubu is the third president in the lifespan of the ill-fated privatization. His first five months in office were coincidentally the last five months of the deal.

He admitted that “10 years on, I believe it is fair to say that the objectives of the sector privatisation have by and large, not been met”.

But moving forward, “the poor performance must not continue to drag the sector down. All licensees must not only have the technical capacity to deliver on their license but must also have the financial muscles to invest to improve their operations”.

Supporting Mr President, the power minister emphasized that “10 years down the line the licenses are expiring, and it is high time for renewal. Renewal is not automatic. Any of the privatized companies that have not lived up to expectations will not have the license renewed. We have to consider whether you have complied with the terms and conditions of the licence you were given. We will look at the technical capacity of the GenCos and the DisCos. We will look at the financial credibility”.

What a reassuring presentation!

But right away, both Tinubu and his minister were mercilessly punctured with the revelation that the failed operators’ licences had since been renewed.

According to NERC, “it has been rumoured that the licenses of the DisCos will expire this year, but the truth is that the DisCos were given a 10-year license, but AS THEY TOOK OVER, the commission extended their license by five years. So, the DisCos have 15 years license. So, their license will expire five years from now which is 2028”.

This is enough proof that somebody is not actually in charge!

Who says that Adams Oshiomhole was not right in his assertion that the people driving governance are the ones sabotaging the economy?

However, Tinubu has fairly demonstrated a sense of commitment.

Within his first week in office, he exhumed and signed into law, the Electricity Bill that was passed by the 9th Assembly but was not processed. Ideally, this legislation holds a great future for the power sector, especially in the areas of empowering the states and other independent entities to produce electricity as well as the vast opportunities in the Green Economy. Again, he approved the settlement of the debts owed to the operators and exempted them from paying “withholding taxes” and also, removed the electricity subsidy, albeit, ill-timed.

Then, he created the Presidential Economic Coordination Council to among other targets, achieve “energy security”.

But respectfully, Mr President, there are already, sufficient policies. Implementation is the issue. You can only extract views from critical stakeholders to enrich the existing frameworks for purposeful implementations. Rather than billions of naira, it is better to inject discipline and efficiency in the power sector, primarily, to diminish the ‘saboteurs’. Nigerians are eager to know what informed the questionable renewal of the operators’ licences.

To fully unleash the inherent potentials of the Electricity Act, the headship of the MDAs should be about competency and capacity rather than political patronage. The minister should embody the policy direction, key performance indicators and operational framework for productivity.

Finally, Your Excellency, please, further demonstrate that yours is a forward-thinking government. Restore and renew citizens’ hopes with available, accessible and affordable electricity towards revamping the economy. It is only in this that Nigerians can believe that truly, the era of playing politics with the power sector is now buried with a genuine commitment.

Egbo is a parliamentary affairs analyst.

There is palpable fear and confusion in the camp of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as another party bigwig at the weekend rejected appointment into the party’s campaign council for the Edo governorship election taking place on September 21, 2024

In a statement, a former deputy Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Hon Pally Iriase, declined the party's nomination into the membership of the National Campaign Council of the APC released on Wednesday.

Iriase’s name had appeared as a member of the Campaign Council but in a statement at the weekend rejected the appointment.

The statement reads, “My attention has been drawn to the fact that my name is included in the list of appointees into the National Campaign Council for the gubernatorial election in Edo State by the All Progressive Congress (APC).

“I appreciate the National Working Committee (NWC) for finding me worthy of the appointment.

“But, I hereby reject the appointment for the following reasons:

“I was never consulted. I have for several years stepped away from partisan politics and I do not intend to change my mind.

“I do not want my associates, friends, admirers, and family to see me as a hypocrite.

“While wishing them a successful campaign and a peaceful election, I strongly urge everyone to respect my desire to be excluded from partisan politics.”

My Dearest brother & Publisher

Your life's journey has been a testament to innovation and passion. Your contributions to the media industry and beyond are a lasting legacy.

May this milestone birthday be a celebration of your achievements and your unwavering commitment to making a difference. May your day be filled with joy, love and the knowledge that your impact has touched countless lives.

?Here's to many more years of inspiration, leadership, and making a positive impact on our world! Congratulations, my dear brother!

Segun Awolowo

Treacherous was the moment. Most editors got a whiff of the story but were either afraid or reluctant to publish. Meffy (Godwin Emefiele, then CBN governor) had gone rogue in a perfect depiction of either state capture or paralysis.

Unfolding before the nation was a farcical drama in which Meffy, long declared wanted by DSS for a raft of alleged weighty felonies against the fatherland, had not just continued to disobey Supreme Court ruling against the Naira freeze but added the novelty of being chaperoned around Abuja by a battalion of troops of the Nigerian military whose Chief of Defence Staff, Lt General Lucky Irabor, had his spouse, Victoria, planted as a director in an agency reporting directly to the errant CBN governor.

In ordinary times, only the commander-in-chief is considered worthy of such significant deployment of soldiers. The second round of the 2023 general polls, already touted as the most consequential in two decades, was only days away.

The pervading suspense in the land could, therefore, only be imagined given that the results of the presidential polls in which a toxic combo of region and religion was weaponised were still being collated across the country.

The lead floating in the media was a plot for an encore. That is, a repeat of a not-so-secret release of hefty tranches of banknotes to certain candidates a few days before the first election at the expense of other contenders. Even as the rest of the populace roiled in an induced fiscal pestilence in which Naira notes were clinically drained from circulation.

Lagos, the nation’s economic nerve centre, was particularly targeted for “hostile takeover” by the Abuja power cabal in cahoots with Meffy now leaving no one in doubt he had descended into the political arena.

At Matori (The Nation newspaper’s headquarters in Lagos), the customary bolt and nut of the big story had been tightened, with discreet help from Tunji Bello leveraging his vast network of contacts in the intelligence community to double-check the facts.

Regardless, as the production deadline approached, a big dilemma seized the newspaper’s Editor-In-Chief, Victor Ifijeh, whether to approve as the lead story for the next day, considering its “high sensitivity”. At such dire moments of clouds, The Nation newspaper customarily never looks up to another oracle other than Dr. Olatunji Dare for direction.

So, a frantic call was made to his base in the United States. In this particular case, without hesitation, the old journalism professor gave unqualified approval “however the risk, if only in the defence of truth and democracy”.

On account of the dramatic turn of events thereafter, The Nation’s lead story on the Monday preceding the state elections in March 2023 could then be described as the tie-breaker in a perilous season of power abuse at the highest level in the land, all obviously calculated to force the outcome of a national poll in a certain direction.

For the heat it generated right from the break of dawn the next day was so earth-shaking, was sufficient enough to force the hitherto vacillating presidency — conspiratorially silent, some said — to finally issue a clear statement disowning Emefiele in his continued disobedience of the Supreme Court that hoarded Naira cash be released to suffering bank depositors across Nigeria.

The recourse to Dr. Dare in faraway United States by The Nation, it bears restating, is a measure of the absolute trust reposed in his professional and moral judgement.
Indeed, as the exemplary teacher turns 80 (July 17), there can be no better time to celebrate a life dedicated entirely to the pursuit of the very symbiosis intended in the conceptualization of the idea of town and gown on the one hand, and an unstinting exhibition of the nobility of spirit and moral purpose at a personal level on the other. And one who, with the force of personal example, demonstrated professional courage at a dangerous hour in Nigeria’s history.

As philosophers already postulated, the ivory towers should serve as the nursery of ideas that nourishes and regenerates society.

As the first-ever first-class graduate of Mass Communication at UNILAG at a time when tempting offers awaited those in such an elite academic category in the job market, Dr. Dare deliberately chose the far less materially rewarding but socially sacrificial: teaching.

Though most professorial in thoughts and articulation (having bagged the much-coveted President’s Prize for Meritorious Service from the prestigious Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, and long been proclaimed a full professor until August 2015 when named Professor of Journalism, Emeritus following retirement), Dr. Dare still prefers to be addressed simply as “Dr. Dare” till date.

Thus affirming the aphorism that empty vessels make the loudest noise. Certainly not when the title is increasingly bastardised by just any quack and con artist now also prefacing their cognomen with “Professor”.
In nearly five decades, he has taught and practised journalism at the elite level and is widely acclaimed today more as a master satirist, bagging coveted medals along the line, too numerous to list here.

He has reported from more than a dozen datelines on three continents and interviewed several statesmen of global stature. His professional journalism has appeared in West Africa, Newsday, and The Seattle Times.

His popular and respected weekly column, “At Home Abroad”, is in its fourteenth year in The Nation.

Literary scholars will compare Dr. Dare to Charles Dicken, often acclaimed as one of the greatest British writers of the 19th century, in terms of this inimitable facility to command words to inflict otherwise lacerating blows with the most insidious guile. In Nigeria’s contemporary media space, his is now regarded as the gold standard in satire writing.

In fact, his satire has been the subject of two M.A. theses in Nigerian universities and articles in learned journals. It has also been featured in courses on Stylistics in programs in the English Department of some universities.

However, faced with clear death threats in 1996 under Abacha’s military despotism, he had to flee Nigeria through the fabled “NADECO route” and had no difficulty in picking a ready faculty position at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, U.S on account of his academic reputation.

A year earlier, he was awarded the Louis M. Lyon's Prize for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, recognising his steadfast commitment to journalism’s best practices.

In 1994, when compromise was quite profitable in Nigeria under a military dictatorship intent on silencing dissent, Dr. Dare, as editorial page editor, conscientiously objected to joining The Guardian mission that went to Abuja to beg Abacha as pre-condition to re-open Rutam House following the sweeping clampdown on media houses with the resurgent agitation for June 12.

To the bitter pain of the Nigerian dictator, exile only seemed to have further energized Dr. Dare’s satirist sorties against the evil rule at home at the time.

When they could not get him, the evil men on a rampage in Nigeria soon pounced on his younger brother in the Army and retired him prematurely. Years earlier, the Dare family had another illustrious son, a promising officer in the police, reported dead in suspicious circumstances.

A conscientious detective, he had bumped on probable leads to unmasking the faces behind the 1986 murder, via letter bomb, of journalist Dele Giwa. He would not yield to threats from anonymous callers to back off the investigation of a murder in which circumstantial evidence clearly established a prima facie case against Babangida’s ranking intelligence chiefs.

Then, one day, the police told the Dare family their son had died in a motor accident without any convincing proof. So much for one family to bear in the search of truth and defence of liberty.

As a Mass Comms tutor at UNILAG for ages, Dr. Dare was directly involved in nurturing of minds and moulding the character of generations of media practitioners who have excelled in the outside world. By their fruits, says the holy Bible, you shall know them.

Today, you don’t have to look too far or think too hard to identify products of Dr. Dare’s sterling pedagogy. Among them is John Momoh, now an icon of broadcast journalism and founder of Channel TV. Another is Azu Ishiekwene, winner of multiple awards and arguably Nigeria’s most syndicated columnist.

Not forgetting Victor Ifijeh, the self-effacing prodigy who has steered The Nation from a rather small beginning to its present Olympian height in Nigeria’s print media space within a record time.

Despite a colossal record of accomplishments, Dr. Dare remains a study in modesty. Whenever home and he chooses to stop over at The Nation‘s Lagos office, there is hardly any trumpeting to herald his coming. If he were to meet you at the opposite side of the staircase, there is a high probability that Dr. Dare would be the first to concede the right of way to you. Such is the intensity of his humility.

But don’t be fooled.

The saunter of a lion at leisure is starkly different from its ferocious leap when enraged or in offence. An experience perhaps best described by another senior columnist from Arewaland who once found himself in a literary cage-fight with the ordinarily gentle warrior from Kabbaland in Kogi state over a decade ago.

The equally respected writer had made an innuendo in a piece. But as they say in Dr. Dare’s native Yorubaland, only a coward afraid of the fight will conveniently choose to misinterpret a poignant innuendo to be a compliment. The ink of that insult had barely dried when Dr. Dare responded in kind.

Here is wishing the king of satire a happy 80th birthday.

Coping with Lufthansa’s racist discrimination

Travelling surely comes with its own vicissitudes: fun sometimes and nightmare at another. But one’s recent experience with Lufthansa, a German airline, was worse than a nightmare.

First, the flight from Lagos to Frankfurt was delayed more than six hours!

When we landed in Frankfurt, my connecting flight to Texas, U.S., had departed. Long story short, I spent 48 hours in transit on a journey scheduled to be less than 24 hours. Worse still, it took bouts of epistolary hell-raising before my two luggage were delivered 96 hours after departing Lagos!

But that was even a child’s play compared to my ordeal on my return trip a week later. Again, the trip was delayed by almost four hours from the take-off point such that by the time we arrived in Houston, the connecting flight had again gone. Eventually, I spent four days in transit, missing an important meeting in Lagos!

Annoyingly, on arrival, I left the airport empty-handed. It took another 48 hours to receive my luggage.
Worse still, it turned out that one of my bags was completely destroyed. When I lodged a complaint demanding compensation consistent with international best practices, Lufthansa would not accept liability. Hear their apology:
“Kindly note that Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004 applies to flights departing from EU member states and flights arriving in EU member states from third countries. As your journey starts in Nigeria and ends in the United States of America, we cannot accommodate your request for compensation according to Regulation (EC) No. 261/2004.

“We would appreciate the chance to earn back your trust in our service and hope to welcome you on board again soon.

“Sincerely, Yogesh Umarani”

President Bola Tinubu extends his congratulations to Prince Nduka Obaigbena, CON, on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

President Tinubu notes the enterprising spirit of the former President of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association of Nigeria (NPAN), who founded ThisWeek Magazine, and later, THISDAY Newspapers, Arise Magazine, and The Arise News Channel.

The President prays for greater achievements for the renowned publisher, whose philanthropic efforts, especially in education, have demonstrated his passion for human development.

Chief Ajuri Ngelale

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)