The Nigerian Senate elevated its leadership profile in the country last week when it opted to pass the second reading of a bill which seeks to ban open grazing and establish ranches for herders in the country. The bill was passed by a clear majority of the senators when their President, Godswill Akpabio, put it to vote. All well-meaning citizens ought to commend the senate on the development which no doubt represents the first major pan-Nigeria attempt to address the interminable conflict between farmers and herders in the country. A few legislators who spoke against the bill were able to fulfil the democratic precept that although the majority must have its way, the minority must also have its say.

It makes ample sense to imagine that this is solution-time for the problem as the present administration positions itself to fill governance gaps which its predecessor neglected to accomplish from 2015 to 2023.The anti-open grazing policy ought to be at the front burner of issues requiring the attention of Tinubu’s government because of the capacity of the subject to massively disrupt national integration. Government needs to be sensitive to the ease with which the centrifugal factors of heterogeneous societies can dismember Nigeria. Never again should our politicians play politics with boiling issues such as ethnicity and religion. No one should support or oppose a destructive issue such as open grazing just to satisfy the emotions of their constituents.

Legislators have a primary responsibility to be on the same page with their constituents, but they must also be ready to give way where the contending perspectives may not be in the overall interest of society. Thus, political leaders should not stand rigidly behind primordial issues just to please their local segment of citizens. Instead, leaders must be flexible enough to embrace a broader perspective when it is appropriate. During the political campaigns leading to the Second Republic, Alhaji Shehu Shagari originally a senatorial aspirant decided to, in line with the choice of his constituents, publicly support population as a basis for revenue allocation; but when destiny pushed him to become a presidential candidate, he became an astute advocate for derivation because the entire nation had become his constituency. 

It is patently wrong for leaders to use freedom of movement in our constitution to support open grazing without remembering that the freedom granted by the constitution does not extend to the discretion to commit crime. Every freedom is expected to be enjoyed responsibly without disrupting the freedom of other people. Accordingly, herders or any other group can move freely nationwide but cannot in the process destroy other people’s businesses. More importantly, every citizen must realize that the same constitution validates any law which curtails freedom in the interest of the general public. Indeed, Section 45 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 specifically provides that a law can validly curtail any person’s freedom “for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.”

What this suggests is that there comes a time where certain groups may lose their freedom for the general good. For those of us in the media and communication sector, the law of defamation effectively stops us from defaming any person on the ground that we have freedom of speech. Unfortunately, no one in Nigeria is more discriminated against than media professionals because even when they publish the truth about leaders, they are arrested by law enforcement agencies and detained without trial. Yet, Section 22 of our constitution mandates the media to make government accountable to the people. In line with the current anti-open grazing posture, the senate should emulate Malawi, Ghana and others to enact laws stopping agencies of government from undue harassment of media professionals in Nigeria.

A major reason we expect our legislators to be more dynamic in deploying the instrumentality of law to correct several abuses is because much is expected from whom much is given. With all the allowances that our legislators allegedly commandeer, they must be forthcoming in using law to develop our democracy. An APC Senator, Titus Zam, Benue (North-West) who moved the discussions on the anti-open grazing bill accepted this much when he said:”the Senate cannot afford to look on while the country burns into ashes as a result of violent clashes between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders.”Zam insists that to do otherwise would amount to abdication of statutory and leadership responsibilities by legislators who are prime stakeholders in the Nigeria project and elected representatives of the people. 

Certainly, the adverse effects of open grazing far outweigh its benefits. Cattle rearing does not only degrade the environment, it also depletes the soil and forests, just as it pollutes clean water. It provokes clashes with other groups, disrupts agriculture and displaces farmers thereby contributing largely to food insecurity. But the most serious effect as earlier stated is the daily killings of citizens which no one has been able to halt for an entire decade. The need to call attention to the situation is more understood when it is realized that for several centuries, cattle herders and other farmers had lived peacefully in the same communities. History even records circumstances where herders voluntarily compensated farmers whose crops were destroyed by their cattle making it obvious that regulation of the subject is overdue.

The way forward is to endeavour to comprehend how other countries have handled the subject which has overwhelmed Nigeria. Here, we must return to the sermon of best practices and global realities which our nation often conveniently ignores. We cannot continue to talk about old grazing routes the way our politicians who cherish election rigging hang-on to analogue electoral processes. The popular view is that cattle ranching can drastically reduce the negative effects of open grazing yet, no one seems ready to embrace it. In 2019, Nigeria launched a ten-year National Livestock Transformation Plan that can help to stop the indiscriminate movement of cattle and reduce the nation’s existential herder-farmer conflict. The plan like some other public policies died on arrival with many people arguing against government’s involvement in the subject which they categorized as essentially a private enterprise.

If the truth must be told, the lack of political will to sustain the plan is an error of judgment. Government cannot pretend that its interest was really dissuaded by the private enterprise criticism. Politicians who always support open grazing should not restrict their support to mere talks, they should help to organize herders to embrace the system and lobby governments and private donors to see to the realization of ranching.  But then, how can our government that subsidizes pilgrimages and occasionally aids private airlines as well as failed banks not do same for ranching? It can however not be a burden for the federal government alone. States with many herders should be more forthcoming on the subject. 

It is obvious that the real problem is not land but funds and structures that can sustain the business. Government needs to intervene even if it is in the form of loans. To prevent further conflicts between ranchers and wolves and create a conducive environment for peace, the United States government spent huge sums in 2023, to help ranchers in locations such as Colorado to “put up fences, remove carcasses from landscapes and hire range riders to watch herds more closely.”Every government ought to secure its nation from all types of challenges especially those of intractable nature. This is why we praise the positive take-off stance of the anti-open grazing bill in Nigeria and the progress so far recorded which shows it is a popular bill.

The senate should keep up the momentum and ensure that the debate does not become that of “they versus us” where one group opposes whatever the other appears to support. The few law-makers who spoke against the bill must not see themselves as losers because the real significance of their contribution lies in their desire to canvass the other dimension of the subject. But more importantly, it is time for our legislators to articulate a robust solution for a problem that has refused to go. If they fail to seize the golden opportunity to make history, they will end up in boring sessions everyday observing a minute silence for the dead; and thereby engaging in legislation by condolence.  

By the time you are reading this on Saturday morning, Nigeria would have played the match that would mark Finidi George’s real baptism into the world of Nigerian football.

The long-awaited confrontation between Bafana Bafana of South Africa and the Super Eagles of Nigeria after AFCON 2023 would have been settled on the Uyo Township Stadium ground last night. I hope that the Super Eagles won because no explanation would be acceptable for not winning. That is the lot of coaches – the moment they are hired, their records of success and of failure start to count. Finidi George’s cannot be an exception. No excuses for failure are acceptable.

This morning, the outcome of the match would be front-page, setting the foundation for the relationship between Finidi George and the Nigerian sports media. I am still baffled that in this 21st Century, drawing from history, developments in the world, and the place of the African on earth, there could still be many Nigerian sportswriters that think that indigenous coaches lack the capacity to manage the country’s senior national team despite the abysmal showings of the third-rated, unknown, overrated and overpaid foreign coaches that come and fail to deliver or add any substance to the country’s football.

So, Finidi carries a new banner with responsibility to justify the confidence many of us have reposed in qualified, knowledgeable and experienced Nigerian coaches drawn from amongst ex-internationals (as is the practice everywhere else in the world outside Africa) to take charge of Nigeria’s senior national football team.

This first match is a litmus test and provides an early indication of how rough or smooth Finidi’s romance with the Super Eagles will be for the next few years.

I sincerely hope that as you are reading this, the Super Eagles have managed to secure a win in Uyo and eased the difficult passage to the 2026 World Cup.

I do not envy Finidi at all. He is sitting on a time bomb even if I firmly believe that he deserves his new position and should be given the chance to garner the needed experience, by winning and losing matches whilst becoming a better coach, and kick-start an era when Nigerians will accept to sink or swim with their indigenous coaches.

For some unfathomable reason, for the first time, on the eve of yesterday’s crucially important football match that will determine Nigeria’s as well as Finidi’s fate, my crystal ball is blank. I saw nothing! I could not foretell how the pendulum of fate would swing.

So, I get into the mode of prayer. I pray that the Eagles win, somehow, anyhow.

I pray that Finidi finds a way, somehow, to defeat the South Africans with a ‘new’ team that should provide an indication of the new Super Eagles under him.

I listened to Finidi in several interviews. He talked glowingly about his time under Jose Paseiro, and gives the man plenty of credit. I hope he is only being diplomatic. My humble advice is that he leaves Paseiro completely alone. He should not make Paseiro’s era and ‘success’ at AFCON the barometer, or model, or foundation for his own team. The truth is that,  Paseiro, even during his best moments at AFCON 2023, was never convincing.

The Super Eagles were not brilliant. They were lucky. Their performance left 6 Nigerians dead, from anxiety and tension generated by the hypertension-laden style of the team.

Nigeria was fortunate, riding on the back of, with plenty of luck. She survived and got away with it till the final match.

Finidi should approach this assignment with a slate full of his own ideas born of his knowledge, vast experience and deep understanding of Nigerian football and Nigerian footballers. Their effective deployment will make defeating African teams more routine.

The return of Ndidi – a stronger Eagles!

The good news is that Nigeria’s midfield ‘giant’ is back in the ‘new’ team. I believe that his absence was badly felt and could have made a big difference to the Eagles’ final game at AFCON 2023, Wilfred Ndidi, is back.

In Finidi’s ‘new’ team, I believe that Ndidi will close up some of the weakness and porosity in Nigeria’s defence, by providing an additional layer of cover for towering Semiu, a very vulnerable player in the centre of Nigeria’s defense line. Semiu is only very effective in aerial battles. On the ball he often looks lost, not knowing what to do with it.

In the absence of team leader, William Troost Ekong, Ndidi must rise to the occasion to strengthen the Nigerian defence, link the defence and attack, and also launch fresh attacks.

Eagles attack…. without Osimhen

Nigeria parades a formidable frontline led by ‘born-again’ Ademola Lookman.

This strength on paper must translate into action on the field of play. In the absence of Osimhen, Finidi may have been presented with the opportunity to adopt a new strategy for scoring goals outside of the long balls hauled upfront to a lone Victor Osimhen scrummaging for a goal.

The front line of Nigeria is made up of players who do best when they have the freedom to express themselves on the ball, dribbling past opponents with speed and panache, and creating goal-scoring chances all the time.

Hauling all balls to Victor Osimhen up front did not work well during AFCON and must be changed to allow for front runners run at the South African defence all night, and create ceaseless wahala for them

So, I hope the Eagles won last night.

I also wish the team and Finidi George the best of luck going forward.

Bereavement in the Green Eagles

The past week was littered with sad news.

Two of our colleagues in the Green Eagles of the mid-1970s passed on, days apart.

‘Hard man’ and supreme left-back for Vasco Dagama, Rangers International and the Green Eagles, Harrison Mecha died.

A few days later, stylish player, tall, handsome and elegant mid-field player for Rangers International and the Green Eagles, Stanley Okoronkwo, embarked on the inevitable journey of no-return.

Both news were numbing, sad reminders again of the briefness of life, and our mortality.

Meanwhile, writing tributes has become more painful and difficult for me with the deaths of an increasing number of players of my generation and even younger.

I am drawn again to dust up my intention many years ago to sue the federal government and demand a welfare policy for retired athletes as well as some ‘reparation’ for retired athletes who pay with a life of poor health, poverty and early death for the ‘sacrifices’ they made in ignorance whilst representing Nigeria in their youth. We played without fully grasping the health and social implications and consequences, until at the evening of life, we are confronted with the devastating reality.

The statistics are frightening.

Almost two thirds of the football players that represented Nigeria and won the Gold medal at the Second All-Africa Games in 1973, are dead. Most of them before turning 60!

Almost half of the team that won the Africa Cup of Nations for Nigeria in 1980 are also dead, most before turning 60.

With the recent deaths of Mecha and Stanley, I am reminded that more than half of the players that won the Africa Cup Winners Cup with Rangers International FC in 1977 have passed on. And that those still alive are mostly suffering the pain of debilitating arthritis, and other ailments directly related to health conditions that derived from their playing football without proper guidance and information by experts in the field, to enable them be prepared for the consequences in the evening of their lives. Something must be done.

Death is turn-by-turn, and inevitable.

Yet, we mourn the exit of Harrison Mecha and Stanley Okoronkwo from the earthly theatre. I wish them peace on their journey back home to Our Creator.

•‘I didn’t know I will come out of detention in Kebbi alive’

•Says Tinubu not exhibiting the values of democracy

•‘Beko and I warned Saro-Wiwa not to return to PH’

Of momentous events that have shaped the Nigeria we know today, the June 12 presidential election, of 1993 stands out for good and not for worse or bad. The significance it embodies accounts for why the event still resonates 31 years later.

Reflecting on the import of the poll, which was won by the late Chief MKO Abiola, Prof Odion Akhaine, who was detained for fighting for the revalidation of the election, laments that the ethos of June 12 is not being displayed by the current crop of leaders in Nigeria. He also shares his June 12 story, which explains the price some patriots paid to birth democracy in the country.

Within the context of the significance June 12 has assumed in Nigeria’s history, do you think June 12 has been substantially immortalised?

I think the best way to imortalise June 12 is to actually practice what June 12 represents. It was a day Nigerians voted in a free and fair election. If you look at Nigerian elections from 1999 to date, we have never had free and fair elections. All elections have actually been disputed. If you recall, in 2007, the elections were brazenly rigged, making the Commonwealth observers say that Nigerians went below standards.

And they observed that there were unique ways of rigging that had never happened before. It means that in terms of what June 12 represents, we have observed it in breach. And every attempt to nudge us towards free and fair elections is often subverted by state actors, especially politicians in the country. That is a tragedy.

But it has another symbolic significance, which is the fact that it reminds us that military rule is not an alternative to democracy. And if we had survived military rule, it reminds us that we have to practice our democracy according to the rules. As Nigerians observe the ritual every year now that June 12 is now the Democracy Day, it throws up all the contradictions of the process since 1999. And we have to resolve these contradictions.

Last polls

In the last elections, Nigerians voted and expected that results would be transmitted from the polling units, which was what the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IREV, represented, but that was not to be. We need to work on those recipes by making votes count and not alienating voters. These are the things I think we need to do if we must value June 12 for what it represents.

We have observed June 12 in breach because elections are not free and fair. Even when you organise talk shows, it is significant. If you ask me, the way to mark it is to shame political actors for their non-performance. None of the current actors apart from the President was around when we engaged the military.

All the so-called beneficiaries of June 12 today were nowhere to be found when we fought the military. They were not there, but they are the elements who have perpetuated themselves in power, subverting the proper way of leadership recruitment and nudging our democracy into a kind of dictatorship of a clique. We should remember the veterans, who fought for this democracy and underscore those things they agitated for.

And if you ask me, we haven’t achieved many of those things. What we have is electroless, which means going to the polls at the end of every four years to elect news actors who have already subverted the will of Nigerians. When we were fighting the military, we were talking about restructuring the military and that hasn’t been done.

What the current state actors are doing because they are so ignorant of statecraft, they are even deepening the contradictions of the Nigerian state. For example, the so-called local government autonomy they are talking about, it is true the governors at the level of the state have subverted local governments in terms of financial autonomy. But the way to do it is not to revive local as state structure, because people don’t understand the difference between local government as a tier of government and tier of the state.

A tier of government is different from a tier of the state. What they are doing now is to reinforce local government as a tier of the states. Nigeria is a federation and it is a covenant among people. It meant that people came together to say they wanted to build a state to advance their mutual interests. Local government is an administrative unit within that context. So, it is the state government that ought to create local government. 774 local governments were created by the military. Now, they are trying to refer to them as a tier of the Nigerian state and not the government. That is what the autonomy bill seeks to achieve, therefore, deepening the contradictions of the Nigerian state and further units arising from the states.

The first thing to do is to ensure that the local government should remain within the jurisdiction of the state government. The idea of allocating resources to local government from the state account is an anomaly. The revenue at the centre must be shared between the federating states and the centre. It is left for the federating states, within their local parliament to allocate resources to the local governments, outside the resources that local governments can generate within the schedule of the 1999 Constitution. They have to be aware. But the current Attorney General of the Federation is looking for an activity hype, to be seen to be doing something.

Unfortunately, the state governments do not understand the issue. They look at it from the point of view that they want to block their access to local government joint accounts. That is not the issue. You don’t resolve a contradiction with another contradiction. For me, these are some of the issues the June 12 struggle represents. We must not forget that the Nigerian state must be restructured from the current skewed federation. The National Assembly has tried to do a few things, but they have also misplaced priorities. We all saw how they reverted to a colonial anthem they could hardly sing. It is a shame for the nation.

There were issues thrown up by the National Conference, which they have refused to review. For instance, one way of deepening our democracy, if we want good people in government, is by legalising independent candidacy. I think the Ninth Assembly passed that bill but it hasn’t been assented to. Tinubu should assent to the bill on June 12. Nigerians with integrity should stand for elections whether they have a party or not.

The Buhari administration went a step further by declaring June 12 Nigeria’s Democracy Day. Do you think that is substantial enough and puts an end to the immortalisation of June 12?

I think the argument we should be making is that June 12 must represent substance. If you declare a day as Democracy Day, that is significant enough except people will now say that Abiola should be recognised posthumously as President.

I am not against it if they want to resurrect it. What is more significant is that June 12 has been recognised as Democracy Day. In the country, it is historical unless the lawmakers develop a brainwave and decide to revert it. People who could revert to an old anthem can do anything.

June 12 has its own life now. In America there is something called the Spirit of 1776, which guides Americans on the path of patriotism. Do you think Nigerians can rightly say there is this spirit of June 12 in how democracy is practiced in the country?

All we have analysed so far shows there’s a vacuum and we are yet to value June 12. If you look at it from the point of view of other sections of the country, you will see Buhari’s action as being driven by national reconciliation. A section of the country was denied the presidency and we needed to right the wrong. In righting the wrong, I have not seen that nationalist vibe to it. For instance, the North, even though some were part of the struggle, did not see it as a national issue the way people in the South-West see it. For them, it is a reconciliatory gesture, but it has yet to assume that position like the Spirit of 1776 in America.

Most of the current practitioners hardly know anything about June 12. I have not seen any of them who were deeply involved in the struggle. However, we have the current Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani, who worked with Shehu Sani, who was the Vice President of Campaign for Democracy, Kaduna Zone, at the time. President Tinubu was there before he went into exile. All those making noise now were not there. That is why they don’t value democracy. It is also the reason they only line their pockets while the Nigerian workers can barely feed themselves.

You have a country that produces oil, but citizens cannot access petrol. Now, they are talking about compressed natural gas, CNG. If they do that, who says there won’t be scarcity of gas like petrol? The current state actors do not have a bearing. To make June 12 have a national spirit is to ensure that whoever comes to power must know the direction of the country.

President Tinubu and a few others in this administration were also involved in the June 12 struggles. But there is this feeling out there that these people who were supposed to be the beacons are not living up to the June 12 creed now that they are in government…

When we talk about June 12, we have a way of describing many people as being part of the struggle. Who are those in government who were part of the struggle? Maybe Bayo Onanuga, who was an Editor at The News. Dele Alake just happened to be in Concord at the time, and Concord belonged to Chief MKO Abiola. That doesn’t make them June 12 activists. All Nigerian journalists at the time were at the barricade. Some journalists like Nosa Igiebor were clear about June 12 and what it represents.

Unfortunately, the President who was there is not exhibiting the values of democracy as far as I am concerned. He needs a think-tank. His policies so far haven’t shown that he has a think-tank or a team that is thinking. It will be a disaster for all of us in that struggle to see a president, who was part of that struggle, derail and engender dictatorship in the country.

The civil society played a major role in the June 12 struggle. When you look at the role of today’s civil society given the perceived maladministration in the country, what comes to your mind?

The point to make is that in terms of the conceptualization of civil society, we often miss the point. When you talk about civil society, there is a difference between social movements and Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs. What we have today are NGOs with a remit that is often dictated by the funders. Social movement could be a coalition of groups like market women associations, professional associations and others, who come together to pursue basic causes about the transformation of society. That was what we had when we were fighting the military.

People didn’t know the Campaign for Democracy, CD, didn’t receive any funding from outside during that period. People funded the organisation through their personal pockets. Beko Ransome-Kuti gave us his house to use as an office. We all know what happened to Beko.

He was detained severally and he eventually died. You need a life and death matter to wake people up from slumber to come together to fight bad governance in the country. The NGOs that are also funded by donor agencies and democracy promoters have their agenda. When Nigeria began the democratization process in 1999, these funding agencies directed their funding to government through the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

The funds were not given to the civil society to the extent that the civil society was directed to apply for funding through the ministry. Hardly can you point to any NGO in Nigeria today that has an independent source of funding. We need to rebuild the civil society as fighting organs and not NGOs that are doing creative accounting to their funders.

You were detained severally for the sake of June 12 and had a close shave severally. Can you share your June 12 story?

June 12 reminds me of the crisis of governance in this country. And like veterans, when you look back, you just thank God that you are still alive to even talk about it. I wasn’t sure I was going to come out of detention alive, particularly when I heard that Ken Saro-Wiwa had been hanged by Abacha. I was in Birnin Kebbi Prison at the time.

Beko Ransome-Kuti and I met Ken Saro-Wiwa on the evening he was returning to Port Harcourt. And we were telling him not to go back and that he would be picked up. He was a stubborn man. He went back and they picked him up. That was the last time Saro-Wiwa saw freedom until the day he was hanged. I knew that Ken Saro-Wiwa wasn’t in Port Harcourt the day the killings he was accused of instigating took place. When I learnt he was killed, I lost hope because I was accused of seeking foreign assistance to form an army.

I felt that if that was my accusation, mine was finished. What I did was that I started learning Hausa so that in the event that I decided to jump the prison wall, I would be able to speak with the people. The pain is that I haven’t seen all the values we fought for and represent. In fact, the current elite treat people with integrity as lepers. They are frightened when they see us.

During those periods that you were detained, did you ever think of quitting the struggle?

The reason I am alive was because I was completely innocent. I was committed to the struggle. At the time, I wasn’t afraid of anything. When you get to that point, you don’t consider death as something you could be scared of. I was driven from Lagos with three armed men to Kebbi. I was first taken to Anka and Arugungu. For six months nobody knew where I was until the late Chief Anthony Enahoro filed a suit in Lagos, asking them to release or charge me to court.

It was within those six months that I managed to smuggle a letter out of the prison, which got to Femi Falana Chambers. That was how the world knew I was in Kebbi. The journey itself was a journey of death. If you believe in a cause, you don’t have a reason to regret it. It is more painful today when you don’t see that kind of commitment anymore.

We were young men at the time who were fresh from school. When you look back today, you don’t find that kind of spirit anymore. Our role now is to inspire hope in Nigeria, and hope is possible. History moves irrespective of our will. The direction this current President is headed, which is impoverishing Nigerians, will lead to a change, but I may not know the colour of that change.

Yesterday, General Sani Abacha clocked 28 years in the grave. Abacha’s sudden expiration at the thick of his maximal and maniacal rule reminds Nigerians, especially those who were old enough in 1998 when he died, of how human beings should never play god. Abacha ruled with an iron fist after he seized power.

He summarily executed dissidents and political opponents while those who held other views disappeared without a trace. A very interesting equation was when he ordered the deaths of Generals Oladipo Diya and Abdukareem Adisa for plotting to sack him. As Epo Akara, the Ibadan Awurebe musical lord, sang, death will kill the chanter and the enchanter. The three of them died their own deaths and alighted from life’s moving bus immediately after they got to their bus stops. Abacha was however credited with several economic feats, especially his standing up to the IMF and other Western power blocs. He also filched Nigeria of billions of dollars which he kept in Switzerland and other jurisdictions like Lichtenstein, the United Kingdom and the United States.

After Abacha’s death, many other Nigerian leaders have been playing god. Post-succession battles in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic between governors and their successors are battles of men who play god. Their exploits can best be depicted in anecdotes. Those battles have thrown up more moral than political questions. Should successor governors be loyal to their predecessor benefactors at the expense of the people? Today, a post-succession battle is raging in Kaduna state. It is between El-Rufai and his anointed successor, Uba Sani. Whether muffled or loud, post-succession battles can be found in many one-year governments that took over from incumbents in 2023. From Rivers to Akwa-Ibom, Cross-River to Zamfara, protégés are becoming the falcons that have refused to hear the lullabies of falconers.

In pre-and post-colonial Yoruba society, folklores, and fables, among others, helped to tame the greed, as well as any tendency within it to play god. Such stories helped to shape the moral man in Africa. His cosmology was governed by anecdotes, lore and mores, which prescribed moral codes. For centuries, folklores sustained the associational and moral forte of Africa. Anecdotes that restrained a potential emperor from treading the path of ruination were told to children, even in their infancy; the same about petty thieves who came to ghastly ends. For instance, the destructive end of greed was foretold in pre-colonial Yoruba society in the emblematic story of Tortoise and the scalding hot porridge. He had cupped the porridge while it was being cooked and covertly put it on his head which burnt his scalp.

An example is the anecdote told of a young wretched fisherman called the Ap’ejalodo. Set in an African Yoruba village, the fisherman was ravaged by failure on all fronts. He was unable to catch enough fish over the years to rescue him from the pangs of lack. One day, however, as he thrust his fishing hook into the river, it caught one of the largest fishes he had ever seen. Excited, Ap’ejalodo pulled his awesome catch up to the river bank and proceeded to yank it off the hook. As he attempted to carry it to the basket, the fish began to speak like a human being. Ap’ejalodo was at first afraid and ran away from the river bank. He however eventually pulled himself together, approached his queer hunk of a catch and listened to the sermon of the strange fish. Singing “Ap’ejalodo, mo de, ja lo lo, ja lo lo…” (Fisherman, here I come…) the fish pleaded to be rescued from the harrowing pain of the hook by the fisherman. It promised that if he spared its life, in lieu of this rescue, the Ap’ejalodo should ask for whatever he wanted in life. Excited, Ap’ejalodo lets it off the hook, having asked for wealth. Truly, by the time he got home, the ragged clothes on him and his wife had become a very big damask agbada and aran respectively. The couple’s wretched hut had also transformed into a big mansion. Both of them subsequently lived a life of unimaginable splendour.

After a few years, the couple was however barren. The wife entreated Ap’ejalodo to go fishing again and ask his fish friend to rescue them from the social shame of non-procreation. As he thrust his hook into the river, Ap’ejalodo caught the strange fish again and the earlier process was repeated. This time, he asked for a child and the strange fish granted it. Over the years, Ap’ejalodo magisterially summoned the fish through the same process and the fish kept bailing the couple out. Then one day, as Ap’ejalodo and his wife were waking up from their magnificent bed, a blinding and intruding ray of the sun meandered into their bedroom. Enraged, Mrs. Ap’ejalodo couldn’t understand the diffidence of the Sun. Couldn’t it respect the privacy and majesty of the richest couple in the land? She angrily entreated Ap’ejalodo to go meet his fish friend and ask that they be given the power to control the Sun and the insolent temerity of other impertinent celestial forces.

Off Ap’ejalodo went to the river bank, thrust his fishing hook into the river and again invoked the strange fish. And Ap’ejalodo made his plea. The fish was peeved by the fisherman’s greed and audacity: “You were nobody; I made you somebody and you now have everything at your beck and call. Yet, you want to compete with God in majesty and you will not allow even a common Sun to shine and perform the illuminative assignment God gave it on earth!” The fish angrily stormed back into the river and as Ap’ejalodo, downcast, walked back home, his old torn and wretched dress suddenly came back on him, his mansion transformed into the hut of the past and the couple’s latter wretchedness was more striking than the one of yore.

Make no mistake about it: Nasir El-Rufai is brilliant and bold. He matches his heart of a lion with the cold calculation of a deadly viper. Ever since he surreptitiously gained public attention as General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s economic adviser in 1998, up to being the DG of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in 1999, the god who sat by the furnace to cook the broth of Nasir’s destiny didn’t appear ready to leave the furnace. The short-statured Nasir rose to become one of the most powerful Turks in the current civil experience, leaving no one in doubt that he would play consequential roles in the then-emerging Fourth Republic. He later became Minister of the FCT. As FCT Minister, Nasir was unorthodox. He was profiled as cold-hearted as a cobra. Decisions that scared the rest of humanity were his forte. He mowed down thousands of houses and evicted landlords in the neighbourhood of 800,000 from their homes. He however restored sanity to an otherwise chaotic Abuja master plan. One of his demolitions that marked him out as fearless was the house of his party’s national chairman, Senator Ahmadu Ali, which he brought to its knees. Nasir was dead to adversity, cavalierly dismissed court suits, and the tomes of blackmails and threats to his life that were as rife as mushrooms in a farm plantation.

As governor from 2015 to 2023, clips of his infrastructural Midas-touches in Kaduna state surfaced as commendable examples for the republic. International organisations commended him for adhering to due process. But Nasir’s heart was sculpted with pebbles. As his power assumed limitless proportion mounted and majesty quadrupled his height in power calculus, he acquired the powers of gods. Like a god that he thought himself to be, Nasir determined who lived and who deserved to meet their creator. He made seismic social and political pronouncements capable of ruining national edifices, especially on religion. He demolished thousands of houses of friends and foes, the most notable being that of Senator Othman Hunkuyi who represented Kaduna North in the senate.

In what was seen as power audacity, Nasir disengaged over 21,000 school teachers after they failed a competency test that his government set. In one fell swoop, he showed the door to 4,000 local government employees, a figure perceived to be high in a slightly over 100,000 staff council. These were the tip of the iceberg in tough, brutal, brave and suicidal decisions Nasir made in public service. Many claimed he made those decisions due to ego and a sense of personal consequence. To show how much grip he had on the governance structure in Kaduna state, notwithstanding these deadly decisions he took, Nasir still succeeded in producing a successor in Senator Uba Sani who, it will appear, is his nemesis in power today.

Succession politics in Nigerian states has always been chaotic and a deadly battle. It seems to have taken its cue from coups de’tat planned by military despots. Nigeria’s earliest encounter with succession politics was the self-succession bids of military rulers. And it happened on October 1, 1974. On that day, Yakubu Gowon, who emerged as Nigeria’s military leader after the July 1966 coup which ousted the first military regime, said the handover date to civilians he earlier offered was unrealistic. He announced an indefinite postponement of the handover. This became one of the justifications for his overthrow on July 29 1975. Then came General Ibrahim Babangida. His self-succession bid has been likened to a woman who periodically changes her mind about going to the market. Babangida deliberately scuttled his transition to civil rule programmes, altering the calendar and sacrificing huge national resources in the process. He engaged in a roulette of banning, and unbanning politicians and finally annulled the June 12 election.

His military successor, General Abacha, also romanced self-succession by sponsoring groups underground like the Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) to covertly campaign for his presidency in 1998. In the current Fourth Republic, a civil government that toyed with self-succession was that of President Olusegun Obasanjo who, in early 2005, got his supporters to move to amend the Nigerian constitution for an extension of presidential and gubernatorial term limits to three, from its present two. Though opposed to it in the open, Obasanjo was said to have bribed legislators to vote for the alteration of the constitution. However, on May 16, 2006, the federal parliaments effectively nipped it in the bud.

In this republic, the graveyard of governor godsons fighting their godfather-successors to a standstill is filled with carcasses. They enter Government Houses hunchbacked by their predecessors but, no sooner than they enter governmental palaces than these anointed godsons shut the gates. And the bubble bursts, while the cookies begin to crumble. Some of the cookies were immediate while many took longer time to get shattered into smithereens. In Lagos, the Tinubu-Raji Fashola experiment, what many saw for almost four years as matrimony worthy of example, exploded towards the end of the first term. The godfather was the de facto governor, determining the political barometer of politics, its finances and what prebends to give to political hirelings in the distribution of the largesse of power. Not until the re-election campaign of Fashola in 2011 did the cracks begin to be noticeable, revealing the godfather/godson as proverbial seeds in a walnut pod. Do you remember the cryptic phrase, “may your loyalty never be tested…”? The godson was between the devil and the deep blue sea.

In many other states at this time, the matrimonies suffered ruptures almost immediately. James Ibori succeeded in making his first cousin, Emmanuel Uduaghan, his successor in Delta. The godfather continued to reap dividends of his ‘investments’ in the godson. I am told that Uduaghan surreptitiously did in his cousin, Ibori, even while serving his term in the UK slammer. In Enugu, Sullivan Chime was still governor-elect when he started to undo all that his mentor and godfather put in place. He spent eight years trying to pull down the Ebeano political structure that midwifed him. Orji Kalu suffered the same fate in Abia, where his erstwhile chief of staff, T. A. Orji, who was in EFCC custody while his election was taking place, eventually emerged as governor. Orji spent his years in government firing ballistic missiles at Kalu who spent billions of state funds to skew the process in his favour.

This was replicated in virtually all the states, even in the 2015 and 2019 elections where anointed godsons, having mutated to become godfathers themselves, attempted to foist their own godsons as successors. For example, Chime’s godson, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, eventually turned out his political pallbearer. In Anambra, Peter Obi, while shopping for a godson, sidestepped the generally accepted skewer-minded political class, and walked into the supposedly sane banking hall in search of an urbane, corporate world executive. He got Willie Obiano. Less than a year after, the strange, sombre-looking Obiano had transmuted from the gentleman who couldn’t hurt a fly into a stone-hearted political principality who strenuously presided over Obi’s political funeral and nunc-dimitis. The same is replicated in Kano where Umar Ganduje, erstwhile Rabiu Kwankwaso’s lickspittle, became a hydra-headed monster who eventually swallowed his ex-boss. The story of political betrayal, otherwise known as attempts by political godsons to be men of their own, has mutated dangerously ever since.

The two examples that are shattering the roof of political discussions today are those of Nyesom Wike/Fubara and El-Rufai/Sani. After openly announcing that his government met multiple billions of debt in the state, Sani held a town hall meeting where he announced that he inherited a lean treasury which made payment of salaries herculean. In April, a 13-man ad-hoc committee of the State House of Assembly, headed by the Deputy Speaker, Henry Danjuma, to probe El-Rufai’s administration began to investigate all finances, loans and contracts awarded under El-Rufai. Last Wednesday, that committee submitted its report and indicted El-Rufai and a few of his appointees of siphoning N423 billion in state funds. El-Rufai, however, described the outcome of the probe as false and scandalous. What may however be troubling is the allegation that Sani is merely the fly dancing on top of the river. And that the one beating the drum may live in Aso Rock. This will be disturbing because El-Rufai deserves his comeuppance from inside the Kaduna where he played god and not from external manipulators. In Rivers, Wike met his match in a deadly power user, Fubara, who seems to have exorcised the ghost of Wike’s flippancy and public irritancy.

Many people have falsely looked at the spats in post-succession governors’ battles of the Fourth Republic from a moral lens. Which it is not. The spats arise simply from the fact that governors, who ab initio were themselves bereft of power like Ap’ejalodo who lacked money, play god. The common people of Nigeria must continue to pray that the Wikes and El-Rufais will continually meet their Fubaras and Sanis waterloos. It is only in this that the governors will learn their bitter lessons. Except in Lagos where succession politics is sustained with huge miasma of metaphysics and corruption, there is scarcely any state of the federation where predecessor godfather governors are not regretting their choices today.

This Wednesday also marks the 31st anniversary of the June 12 struggle. The present inheritors of the struggle must step back and rethink June 12. How much of the life abundant which MKO Abiola envisioned are the people in Aso Rock bringing the way of Nigerian people? Would MKO have reserved a “bragging right” in the thick of a weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth economy that we have today? If Abiola looks back from the grave, would he be happy with those who claim he was their democratic progenitor? A government that is almost a coalition of NADECO activists and Abacha progenies is an odd assortment. Will Abiola be happy that the Lagos Landlord is waking Abacha from the dead by making Atiku Bagudu, Abacha’s bagman and the Chagouris, the goggled General’s financiers, the main engine room of his government? Perhaps, Colonel Frank Omenka will soon become the Chief of Army Staff?

In a country and a season in which candour is not always seen as a virtue, those who make it the currency of their daily lives are either idolised, endangered or idolised into endangerment. On the Nigerian streets, a person who addresses issues of public significance with candour can be described as having “broken the table”. As a figure of speech, this usage is a back-handed compliment for bucking a national habit of dressing up reality as a bodyguard of avoidance.

Tables, however, can be useless without a chair or a bench. When the table gets scattered, the bench that accompanies it can suddenly become of limited utility. To default to Nigerianism, lawyers and benches are like five and six. Judges and magistrates are referred to as members of “the Bench”. When lawyers have to discuss a matter confidentially in court with the judge in some countries, they “approach the bench.”

Even before that, upon becoming eligible to enrol into the vocation, their admission into the profession is overseen by a “Body of Benchers”, comprised as required by the Legal Practitioners Act of  “legal practitioners of the highest distinction in the legal profession in Nigeria.” The self-designated “vision” (sic) of the Body is “to be the beacon of legal professionalism, setting the standard for legal education, qualification, and conduct worldwide.”

To accomplish this, the least the Body of Benchers must do is embody the highest standards of the profession themselves. Many years ago, that could have been said of them.

These days, it seems, benchers are the ones at war with tables. In Nigeria’s Body of Benchers currently, tables are scattered in a manner that exposes how the standards of the legal profession have become hostage to a capricious entitlement mentality of its leadership. Amidst the daily dose of drama that defines Nigerian life, the spectacle unfolding in the Body of Benchers has been largely shielded from public attention. It is time to redress that neglect.

There is one other reason why this matter deserves attention. Over several weeks now, the current leadership of the Body of Benchers has sought to intimidate journalists, reporters and platform providers, threatening them with unspoken consequences if they much as dared to publish material on the current crisis in the Body. For those who had already published, instructions to take down the material were transmitted, accompanied similarly by threats of malign consequences if they failed to comply. This degree of investment in suppressing and attacking the legitimate pursuit of a lawful vocation is both intolerable and unlawful. It could even be criminal. It would not be charitable to believe that this has anything to do with the fact that the current chairman of the Body of Benchers is said to be someone who departed the Police in yet unascertained circumstances before becoming a lawyer.

The Body of Benchers is a statutory body. Any status enjoyed by its members is conferred by law. As a result, citizens must hold the feet of the Body and its members to fire.

Since the current crisis in the Body of Benchers has its origins ultimately in issues of membership, it is essential to dwell a little on the matter of its membership. The Body comprises two categories of members. Life Benchers enjoy membership for life. They can attain that status either by office or from dutiful longevity in membership after a minimum of five years. There are also ordinary members of the Body whose membership is not for life. Members include both lawyers and judges. For equity, leadership rotates on an annual schedule between the judges and the lawyers such that if a judge chairs the Body in one year, then a lawyer chairs it the following year.

Membership of the Body of Benchers used to truly hew closely to the requirement of the law limiting it to persons of “the highest distinction.” Today, aspects of the Body have degenerated somewhat into influence-peddling. For instance, they have extended automatic membership to senior federal legislators who are lawyers, such as the presiding officers of the two chambers of the National Assembly; and some significant committee chairs too. Indeed, a former governor and current minister with a reputation for “generosity” is one of the best-known Life Benchers. At the instigation of the Body, success in the bloody art of election rigging in Nigeria now counts as the attainment of “the highest distinction” in the legal profession.

We digress though. Among the committees established within the Body, an Appointments Committee vets nominees for membership, presumably to ensure that they comply with the threshold requirement of the law. That Committee is headed by a Chair whose tenure lasts for three years. In the last week of March 2024, Augustine Alegeh, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and one of the most consequential presidents of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in the last three decades, formally accepted the nomination to lead the Appointments Committee.

The week thereafter, the Body elected a new Chair, one of whose first acts was to issue an edict dissolving the existing committees and re-constituting them. The problem is that under its regulations, the power to constitute committees belongs not to the Chair but to the Body of Benchers as a whole. The Body, for the avoidance of doubt, is constituted for this purpose by a quorum of at least 50 of its members. Many of the members of the Body rightfully saw this claim of unilateral power by the current Chair as a descent into rule-free autocratisation. The decision of the new chair to ignore their protests strengthened this fear.

The matter is now in court in a suit instituted by Alegeh against the Chair and the Body of Benchers as defendants. The real issue before the court is one of high significance. According to a letter by one member of the Body, “the Chairman took umbrage at the Appointments Committee because his wife’s name was on the list that we did not approve.” The member feared that the chairman’s action in claiming non-existent powers to dissolve and re-constitute the Appointments Committee was “fuelling suspicion” that all he wanted to achieve was to ensure that he made his wife a Bencher during his tenure.

In this case, the claim is that the Chairman of the Body of Benchers has sought to ransack the governance of the Body generally and the composition in particular of its Appointments Committee to secure by any means necessary membership of the Body for his wife. This may make him a truly doting husband but the Body is not a connubial resort. The resistance from within the Body protests not merely the evident breach of rules by its Chair but even more viscerally also the suggestion that the “highest distinction” in the legal profession can be attained through pillow-talk or connubial propinquity between husband and wife.

The logical fear must be that if qualification for membership of the Body can be transmitted in this way, then, surely, eligibility for its membership would become an STD (sexually transmitted distinction). This question as to how far attainment within the legal profession in Nigeria can be reduced to an STD is ultimately what confronts the Federal High Court in the case now pending concerning the actions of the current chairman of the Body of Benchers. It is an important question and, for the sake of the profession, one that merits the keen attention of all persons affected by institutions of the law in Nigeria.

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.

The federal high court sitting in Abuja has ordered the final forfeiture of NOK University and all of its assets said to be linked to one Anthony Hassan, a former director of finance and accounts at the federal ministry of health. 

In a 2022 ruling on an ex parte motion marked FHC/ABJ/CS/688/2022, and filed by Ekele Iheanacho, counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the federal high court had ordered that the institution be temporarily forfeited to the federal government.

The commission had alleged that Hassan diverted public funds with which he acquired the identified assets.

The EFCC also alleged that the former director diverted the funds running into billions of naira through the government integrated financial management information system (GIFMIS).

GIFMIS, an IT-based system for accounting and budget management, was designed by the federal government to actualise integrated and automated information systems and promote modernised fiscal processes.

In a statement on Saturday, the EFCC said it had filed an order of final forfeiture of the said properties.

The statement said Iheanacho established before the court the fact that Hassan built NOK University using proceeds of unlawful activities traced to him.

Physical assets of the university forfeited include the senate building, ICT building, faculty of medicine building, science deanery building, two academic buildings, a faculty hall and other buildings.

The judge also ordered the interim forfeiture of Gwasmyen water factory, Gwasmyen event centre and Gwasmyen international hotel, all said to be linked to Hassan.

“The Commission, had, through its investigative Officer, Adaora Asabe Oragudosi investigated some verified intelligence bordering on criminal conspiracy, stealing, abuse of office and money laundering against some staff of the Federal Ministry of Health where the properties ordered forfeited were traced to the defendant,” the statement reads.

Delivering judgment on the matter on Friday, the court held that the respondent failed woefully in tilting the scale of evidence in his favour.

[TheCable]

The labour unions went on total strike on Monday, paralysing economic activities, stopping domestic flights and switching off the national power grid. The economic impact, especially on private businesses, are still being calculated. The Africa Association of Professional Freight Forwarders and Logistics of Nigeria (APFFLON) alone said over N200 billion was lost to demurrage and storage charges because of the lockdown. The losses may pass the N1 trillion mark when we factor in other sectors and subsectors, lost opportunities and the costs of running generators. The non-financial losses are usually difficult to estimate, like people missing visa or job interview appointments.

The strike was called by the unions to push for a new minimum wage. The current N30,000/month was fixed in 2019, up from the N18,000 that was set in 2011. The unions pushed for N615,000 which it says is in consonance with the current economic realities, more so with the devaluation of the naira, the increase in petrol price and the attendant inflation. By implication, a cleaner or driver in the civil service and the organised private sector (OPS) will take home at least N615,000/month. That also means salaries of workers on higher levels will have to be adjusted as well, even if not proportionately. That is quite an addition to the wage bills of government and companies.

After a lot of back and forth, the federal government has proposed N62,000 while the unions say they are now ready to accept N250,000. Governors are insisting that even N60,000 is unsustainable. Many states currently spend up to 70 percent of their income on wage bills. Doubling the wage bill will create a bigger hole in their finances. Some are not even paying the current N30,000 while many owe arrears. When wages are adjusted, there are other costs that come along, such as employers’ contributions to pension. Private companies are already struggling as a result of the double whammy of naira devaluation and sky-high energy costs, with many folding up or laying off workers to survive.

In truth, every one naira added to salary has implications, whether in the public or private sector. If a private company pays a fresh graduate N100,000, for instance, and now has to pay N250,000 to a cleaner as the unions are demanding, the salary of the graduate will have to move up as well and it cannot be N250,000. Give or take, the salary of the graduate will have to go up to way above the N250,000. Where is the income to pay? It is either the unions cannot be bothered by economic facts or they do not understand the math. If the union leaders will set up their own businesses and implement the wage rise they are advocating, then we can have a more productive debate.

In reality, even the public sector that is not run like a business cannot handle the proposed wage increase. Nigeria is permanently running on deficit which keeps increasing every year. We owe more than we can pay in the next 50 years, except there is another monumental oil boom from which we will actually benefit — not that we will spend the windfall to import subsidised petrol. We currently borrow to do most things. While naira devaluation has increased the bulk of revenue shared by the three tiers of government (because of exchange rate differentials), the benefits are being drained by deficit budgeting, debt repayments and inflation (and, yes, corruption and wasteful spending).

Am I saying minimum wage should not be increased because of the pallid state of public finance? No. I am saying Nigeria is not as rich as we assume. Agreed, if the waste and corruption in government can be reduced to a reasonable level, it will help significantly in creating room to accommodate a sensible adjustment to the minimum wage. Nevertheless, even if no kobo is stolen or wasted, Nigeria still does not earn enough to make everybody happy, just that waste and corruption have combined to worsen the sad reality. I do not think any worker should go home with that miserable N30,000 a month in these harsh times but there are many matters arising that we need to address as well.

One, it is wrong to say the average Nigerian worker takes home N30,000 a month. That is certainly not the average salary. It is the minimum allowed by law, applicable to the civil service and employers with a minimum of 25 workers. It does not apply to the informal sector, which employs an estimated 92 percent of the Nigerian work force. In a typical organisation or government agency, those on the N30,000 minimum wage are a tiny minority. Minimum wage is usually the starting point for those with the lowest qualifications. I know that we like exaggeration a lot in Nigeria, but there are facts we don’t need to sex up except we want to pursue the path of insincerity and deceit.

Two, someone said since Nigeria operates a federal system of government, every state should be allowed to fix the minimum wage it can afford — that there should be no national scale or compulsion. However, the power to set the minimum wage is exclusive to the federal government under Nigerian laws. In the US, states and municipalities can set their own minimum wage but it must be above the national scale set by the federal government. In Canada, provinces (that is, states) set their own minimum wage while the federal government only fixes for federally regulated employees. As I often argue, no two federalisms are the same: there is no true or fake federalism.

Three, I must necessarily touch on the dollarisation practice, which is not limited to the minimum wage debate alone. There is this widespread practice of converting the naira to the dollar to make an economic argument. There is a big case to be made for the need to improve wages but we don’t have to use the dollar analogy as is our wont. We say N30,000 is equal to $20 just to dramatise how poorly Nigerian workers are paid. Aside the high probability that most eligible workers earn more than N30,000/month, there is something called “purchasing power parity” (PPP) used to calculate the absolute purchasing power of a currency rather than just benchmarking it against the dollar.

If we say our minimum wage is $20/month as against $7.25/hour in the US, it does not paint the complete picture. The question is: what can $1 buy in Nigeria compared to the US? That is the PPP. A crate of 12 brown eggs is N1,800 (about $2.67) in Nigeria but goes for $6 (N9,000) in the US. A litre of petrol is roughly $1 (N1,500) over there, compared to N650 down here. A three-bedroom apartment in a medium income area of Atlanta goes for about $1,800/month (N2.7m) — probably a year’s rent in Ikeja, Lagos. Many Nigerians who recently relocated are complaining about the cost of living. The good thing, though, is the peace of mind — with no worries about kidnappers and NEPA.

Four, I suspect that what the unions want is a general wage review and not a review of the minimum wage as they have been saying. Minimum wage and wage review are conceptually different. Minimum wage is the lowest any mandated employer pays the lowest ranking employee. In the UK, it is set annually by the Low Pay Commission, an independent body of employers, unions and experts. It is a form of cost of living adjustment, aka COLA. In Nigeria, some companies implement COLA yearly as a percentage of wages. Wage review, on the other hand, is to improve the “quantum” of salaries across board, perhaps because an employer wants to be competitive or reward its staff.

My first suggestion, therefore, is that we need to address the minimum wage issue in a more scientific and predictable way so that all these strikes can be avoided. It should be routinely reviewed, like a yearly COLA, and proportionally related to the annualised inflation rate. The current five-year review period is too long because things are changing — and very fast. The National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) has to revamp its tripartite arrangement involving the OPS, labour unions and the government, represented by the establishment department, to address this issue. Going forward, COLA should be a routine exercise without all this drama.

In the private sector, wages are reviewed regularly without fuss or headlines. Companies like Globacom, Nigeria Breweries, Dangote, BUA and banks constantly improve their minimum wage as well as implement wage review without strikes. I am sure MTN pays more than the current N30,000 minimum wage. There is typically an internal mechanism of collective bargaining with the local unions. It doesn’t have to be a major national event. We will only get to hear of it when there is a dispute that cannot be resolved internally. But anything that has to do with government in Nigeria must be chaotic. A major lesson from the latest crisis will be for us to revamp the tripartite arrangement so that there is consistent engagement and adjustments can be routinised.

My second suggestion is that beyond the wages, we need a productive and befitting public service. In an average government office, whether state or federal, service is appalling. I once went to the Lagos state secretariat to process a document. They were busy watching African Magic. When the small fridge in the  office was opened, I saw a bundle of fresh fish inside. Someone had brought fish to sell in the office. They did not care that an outsider was present. I had been told the officer in charge of my file was not around. I said I would wait. After wasting precious hours, I left. In some agencies, offices are empty by 2pm and on Fridays. You hardly miss those people when they are on strike.

That the Nigerian worker deserves better remuneration is indisputable. It is the quantum of the wage increase and the means to pay that we have to address in a systematic and sensible way. I admit that some civil service salaries are appalling. But we need a comprehensive reform of the entire system: get rid of the dead woods, do meritocratic recruitment and pay workers decent wages. Recruitment into civil service is usually political and that is heavily implicated in all these issues. The public service must be worth every kobo that we spend on it because it is the engine of government. Wage review is just one of the myriad of issues we need to address. We need to take a global look at the situation.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

JUDICIAL VICTORY                                                          

Nigerian judicial officers are about to hit a bonanza, with the senate passing the bill to increase their salaries and allowances by 300 percent. The bill is the baby of President Bola Tinubu. The chief justice of Nigeria (CJN) will earn N64 million annually when the bill is signed into law. I do not have anything against people getting good salaries, but I have been wondering about the implications for other branches of government. I will not be surprised if others are now asking for 300 percent pay rise. They will say: why judiciary alone? Why not us too? You may argue that the pay rise does not amount to much in the entire budget for the judiciary, but who has the time for maths? Trouble.

KILLING SOLDIERS

There is a disturbing trend which some people seem to be celebrating, particularly on social media: the killing of Nigerian soldiers. It is becoming a sport. Five soldiers were killed in Aba, Abia state, most recently while we were still trying to recover from the gruesome ambush and murder of 17 soldiers, including senior officers, in Okuama, Delta state, in March. Two soldiers were beaten up at the Banex Plaza in Abuja. These things were unthinkable decades ago but they are now commonplace. I agree that military involvement in civil conflicts has led to unpalatable consequences for both civilians and soldiers, but there still should be a line no one should cross. Alarming.

POLICE DEATHS

Nigerian policemen and women have been losing their lives to criminals and this really worries me. I do not know of any other African country where this happens so often. But there is even another major issue that the police must deal with urgently: sudden deaths. Abubakar Mohammed Guri, a deputy commissioner of police, slumped and died in his Abuja office on Monday. This is clearly a medical issue. Sudden deaths in the police, not limited to senior officers, have become regular. I read of them all the time. Does the force prioritise the health of its officers? Is there a policy for comprehensive checkups at least yearly? Mental health checks should also be a priority. Essential.

NO COMMENT

In the wake of the minimum wage war, the House of Representatives accused labour unions of spreading “persistent misinformation and disinformation” about the salaries of members of the National Assembly. “Organised labour has for years contributed to false narratives about the remuneration of members of the National Assembly, exaggerating figures to stoke public resentment and undermine the credibility of the Legislature,” the house said in a statement. “It is crucial for all parties to engage in an honest and transparent dialogue rather than resorting to the spread of inaccuracies for political leverage.” Still, no mention of how much they actually earn. Wonderful.

I was in South Africa from May 16 to May 23 to deliver two talks on theory and social communication at the Nelson Mandela University in the city of Port Elizabeth (which has been renamed Gqeberha). It was my first time in this country of remarkable contrasts, which birthed apartheid and inspired righteous rage in the consciences of all who love freedom, justice, and equality.

More than 20 years before this visit, I had made the acquaintance of a South African journalist of Indian descent by the name of Venilla Yoganathan. We met in June 2003 here in the United States. While I gushed about the architectural and infrastructural sophistication of Washington, DC, where I am incidentally writing this column from, she wasn’t enthused in the least. She bragged that there was nothing in America that would make a South African envious.

That encounter endured in my mind for more than two decades. Visiting South Africa two weeks ago confirmed what she said. South Africa is an incredibly beautiful country with solid infrastructure that can compete with any in the world. It is basically Europe on African soil. I guess we might call that one of the few benign legacies of apartheid. But there are other lingering malign legacies I’ll come to shortly.

In the one week that I stayed in the country, I’ve had several moments when I forgot that I wasn’t in the United States, not only because of the similarities in the landscape, weather, and infrastructure of the two countries but also because of the contagious friendliness of the people in the city where I stayed. Like in the American south, where I’ve lived for two decades, almost everyone I met in Port Elizabeth wore a smile, which they beamed at strangers liberally. A few people even mistook me for a native and spoke Xhosa to me!

I also encountered in the country the kind of deep, overpowering, and infectious patriotism that I first saw in my South African acquaintance more than 20 years ago. She radiated immense pride in being South African. She even said she was thankful that her ancestors were uprooted from India to South Africa. I saw that same sense of profound emotional investment in the country among Black, Colored, and White South Africans I had a chance to interact with.

Being born and raised in Nigeria where subnational loyalties trump national identity, where democracy manifests as ethnocracy, where fissiparity and interminable ethno-religious feuding perpetually push us to the brink and back, this was refreshingly different for me. Although racial and ethnic divisions persist two decades after the dislodgement of apartheid, there is unmistakable commitment to the nation from most strata of South African society.

Using my own Nigerian frame of reference, which I’d imagined was true of most African countries, I asked a South African professor of history about how ethnocracy (i.e., supposed democracies where ethnic groups whose member is the president dominate the apparatus of the state to enhance their interests) manifests in South Africa. She couldn’t relate to the concept.

The Zulu enjoy numerical dominion in South Africa, but out of South Africa’s five post-apartheid presidents, they’ve had only one president, and that is Jacob Zuma. Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki are Xhosa. Kgalema Motlanthe, South Africa’s third president, is Sotho-Tswana. Cyril Ramaphosa, the current South African president, is Venda, which is an ethnic minority.

From my conversation with my South African colleague, it dawned on me that ethnic identities don’t have the same primacy in South Africa as they do in West Africa. Because of their experience with a viciously racist white settler colonialism, identities are constructed mostly in racial terms. I get the sense that people see themselves first as Black, Colored (i.e., mixed race), and White people before they see themselves as members of ethnic groups, at least in national discourse.

That is why the ethnic identity of presidents is immaterial, and why ethnocracies of the sort that dot the political landscape in the rest of Black Africa can’t thrive in South Africa.

Nonetheless, in spite of the country’s superior infrastructure and the impressive patriotic fervor of its citizens, the legacies of apartheid still linger. Although White people constitute less than 10 percent of the population of South Africa, they still control more than 70 percent of the country’s land. And although a robust Black middle class has emerged and is growing, the condition of Black people in urban ghettos called “townships” is still dire.

My host, Professor Uchenna Okeja, a globally garlanded professor of philosophy who is Nigerian, drove me through a “township” that adjoins the city of Port Elizabeth, South Africa’s fifth biggest city where the Nelson Mandela University is located. It’s a grubby, poverty-stricken, soul-depressing, crime-ridden colony of shacks that isn’t worthy of human habitation. But that is where the urban Black underclass live amid the spotless prosperity in the urban areas of the country, which is mostly controlled by the white minority.

The Colored dwelling on the immediate edge of the Black ghetto is cleaner, more affluent, but still light-years behind White residential areas. Although there is no longer legal segregation of the races, economic factors still sustain racial segregation. Maybe I am being impatient, but this disturbed me deeply.

By the way, even immigrant groups, including Nigerians, tend to be self-segregated. And I found that Nigerians don’t have a flattering image there because of the participation of some of our compatriots in drug pushing and other crimes, even though our people do really well in the professoriate in South African universities.

Well, although middle-class Black people own homes in predominantly White neighborhoods, most of the Black people you see there are non-resident (or live-in) domestic servants performing basic, menial tasks that people in Euro-America do by themselves. A South African told me Europeans who want to experience the sensation of being treated like kings and queens go to South Africa. The weather feels like Europe and the infrastructure is European-quality, but they also get worshipful tending from grinning and grateful Black servants for peanuts.

I first noticed the association of whiteness and wealth among lower-class Black South Africans in Johannesburg. At the airport, I noticed that the only people who airport hucksters solicited to buy anything were white people. I hate unwelcome solicitations, so I was delighted to be spared the torture of continually saying I wasn’t interested in buying anything.

I initially thought the Black hucksters at the airport ignored me because I was dressed informally, but I later noticed that they made no attempt to sell anything to even formally attired Black people but chased down every White person irrespective of how they were dressed. This may be a mistaken, surface impression that misses certain subtleties, but after becoming familiar with the de facto economic apartheid that endures in South African society, I think my snap judgment isn’t entirely misplaced.

In spite of everything, though, South Africa still leads Black Africa in most indices of human development. Its universities have emerged as the leading centers of knowledge production on the continent. They attract the best teachers, have excellent, world-class facilities, are at the cutting edge of research in all areas of human inquiry, and have some of the most dedicated and engaging students you will find anywhere in the world.

The quality of infrastructure and scholarship I saw at the Nelson Mandela University competes favorably with any you would find in Europe, America, or Asia. Someone told me South Africa now occupies the position that Nigeria occupied in the 1960s, 1970s, and parts of the 1980s as the Mecca of Africa’s knowledge production.

…..says that it’s a diverse and inclusive collective

Against the backdrop of a Political Party creating a directorate for the Obidient Movement, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general elections and the Principal mentor of the Obidient Movement In Nigeria, Peter Obi has said that the group is beyond a political party and cannot be cubbyhole into one.

Obi explained that membership of the Obidient Movement cut across a political party, sex, tribe, religion or geopolitical area pointing out that the driving force of the body is rescuing and building a new Nigeria that is POssible.

Explaining further the size, scope and nature of the Obidient Movement, the LP standards bearer wrote in his X platform on Wednesday “I like to categorically state that the Obidient Movement is not a directorate in any particular political party. Any individual or individuals claiming to be leaders of this non-existent directorate are simply not members of the broader Obidient Movement.

“There may be a youth mobilization directorate in political parties but the Obidient movement is far beyond a particular political party. The Obidient Movement is a diverse and inclusive collective that transcends traditional political, religious, and ethnic affiliations.

“It is not domiciled within any particular party or headquartered in any particular part of the country. Its membership spans across Africa and the globe, comprising individuals from various backgrounds, including rural communities, and public, private, and corporate entities, united by a shared vision for a New and better Nigeria. Guided by the principles of adaptive and transformative change, progress, discipline, and democratic values, the Obidient Movement advocates for fairness, equity, inclusivity, and justice.

“It is committed to a strictly accountable and responsible code of government. Our members are committed to contributing to the realization of a better future for Nigeria through the New Nigeria project, anchored on loyalty, integrity, and democratic values.

“The Obidient Movement seeks to foster positive change through a commitment to integrity, honesty, and accountability, rejecting deceitful behaviours.

“We serve as a beacon of hope for a reimagined Nigeria, where leadership is grounded in character, capacity, competence, compassion and the well-being of all citizens.

“Let this serve as a clarification that the Obidient Movement operates independently of any political party, and its membership is not limited to any particular affiliation.

“Our focus remains steadfast on driving positive change and promoting a New Nigeria for all. This is who we are and will remain for all time.

The Nigerian workforce eagerly awaits an increase in the national minimum wage, as they struggle to cope with the country's economic challenges. The Federal Government has taken a step in the right direction by approving a salary increase for civil servants while promising that a new minimum wage will soon follow. However, the current minimum wage of thirty thousand naira falls significantly short of meeting basic needs and has plunged many workers into a life of absolute poverty.

To put this into perspective, the World Bank sets the poverty threshold at individuals living below 1.9 dollars per day. With a minimum wage equivalent to roughly one thousand naira per day, Nigerian workers find themselves well below this line. Sustaining oneself, let alone supporting a family, on such meager income is a daunting task, making it nearly impossible to fulfill even the most basic needs and aspirations.

Fairness in Employment Practices

When evaluating the fairness of employers in Nigeria towards their workers, the situation reveals a nuanced landscape. In the private sector, compliance with the national minimum wage is relatively common, as most employers adhere to legal requirements. However, some exploit the low minimum wage by offering salaries just above this threshold, taking advantage of the high unemployment rates in the country. Consequently, highly qualified individuals often find themselves receiving inadequate compensation for their skills and contributions.

On the government's front, there is ample room for improvement. Recognizing workers as the backbone of society, the government should establish a reasonable national minimum wage. Inadequate compensation not only affects the welfare of workers but also carries widespread societal implications. Therefore, there is a clear expectation for the government to prioritize fair wages and working conditions for Nigerian workers, acknowledging their indispensable role in maintaining the nation's prosperity.

Consequences of Neglecting Worker Welfare

Before the current administration, instances were rampant where state governments failed to pay workers' salaries on time, with some only providing partial payments. Such neglect towards worker welfare has led to tragic consequences, including reports of workers resorting to suicide out of frustration and children dropping out of school due to financial strain. These outcomes underscore the severity of the situation, highlighting the urgent need for intervention.

It is possible that research could uncover a connection between the neglect of worker welfare and the rise in levels of insecurity. While this is not meant to justify criminal behavior, it is important to note that financial pressure is a major factor in the "fraud triangle" and can significantly contribute to fraudulent activity. Addressing issues related to worker wages is crucial in reducing financial burdens and mitigating associated societal impacts, such as increased insecurity.

Determining a Fair Minimum Wage

While advocating for a minimum wage of four hundred and ninety four thousand naira by the Trade Union Congress and Nigerian Labour Congress might seem ideal, determining the appropriate minimum wage is a complex task. It involves considering factors such as the cost of living, inflation rates, and the financial capacity of employers, including governments at all levels.

Pushing for a substantial increase in the national minimum wage is appealing, but acknowledging economic realities and feasibility is crucial. State governments, often citing limited funds, must prioritize workers' welfare while maintaining fiscal responsibility and sustainability. Boosting internally generated revenue through initiatives like enhancing tax collection, investing in infrastructure, and promoting entrepreneurship could address this challenge.

Conclusion: A Vision for a Prosperous Nigeria

Achieving a fair and sustainable national minimum wage requires collaborative efforts among the government, businesses, and labour unions to establish an equitable and sustainable minimum wage for all stakeholders involved. It is essential to establish a robust mechanism for enforcing the national minimum wage to ensure that workers' rights are protected and upheld. As Nigeria navigates its economic challenges, prioritizing fair wages and worker welfare is not only a matter of social justice but also a crucial step towards building a prosperous and stable nation.

Author: Kenechukwu Aguolu   FCA, PMP, FCIA