Human rights advocate, Femi Falana said official negligence led to death of Nasarawa State University students, who died in a stampede incident that occurred in the institution.

Falana stated this in a statement he made available to Vanguard on Sunday.

The statement reads, “Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nassarawa State was reported to have ordered the distribution of two 7.5 kg bags of rice and N5,000 to each student of the State University at Keffi.

“The distribution of the palliative was scheduled to hold at the state university’s convocation square last Friday morning. As the distribution exercise was not well organised, there was a stampede of thousands of students at the venue. The stampede led to tragedy as many students were injured.

“As the university health centre was ill-equipped to treat the injured students, they were rushed to the Federal Medical Centre in Keffi, Nassarawa State.

“As the injured students were not promptly attended to, two female students were pronounced dead while at least 17 others were left with varying degrees of injuries arising from sofocation at the venue of the distribution of rice. Our thoughts and condolences go to the families and friends of the deceased students.

“According to the state government, the tragic incident occurred “when suspected hoodlums and some misguided students forced their way into the school’s convocation ground to cart away the rice kept at the venue meant for distribution as palliatives to students.”

“But the Vice-chancellor of the University, Prof Suleiman Bala decided to blame the tragedy on the victims of the official negligence. He was reported to have said that “our students were not patient enough to follow the process of accessing these palliatives.”

React to the development, Falana described the death of the students as unfortunate, noting that the authorities of the University failed to draw any lesson from the recent stampede which claimed the lives of seven persons during the distribution of 25kg bags of rice in Lagos by the Nigeria Customs Service.

Falana, the Chair, Alliance on Surviving Covid 19 and Beyond (ASCAB), stated, “No doubt, the tragedy would have been averted if the University management had distributed the 7 kg bags of rice to the students through their departments. Indeed, there was no justification to have assembled thousands of students without a standby ambulance.

“As if that was not enough, the university health centre was not equipped to attend to the injured students. Hence, they were rushed to the Federal Medical Centre in Keffi where two female students were certified dead.”

Falana, however, said, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the tragic incident, the Nassarawa State police command should be directed to investigate the allegations of criminal negligence which led to the unfortunate death of the two students.

He said, “The culprits should be prosecuted without delay. In view of the official statement that hoodlums hijacked the distribution exercise the state government and the university management are required by law to compensate the bereaved families of the two students.”

[OpinionNigeria]

People often ask me, ‘Will, where do you get your jokes?’ I just tell ’em, ‘Well, I watch the government and report the facts, that is all I do, and I don’t even find it necessary to exaggerate. ~ Will Rogers

On an average Nigeria is good, her people are a bunch of good Bananas, only a few rotten, gives the whole bunch a bad look and that particular rotten smell. Nigeria, ideally is one of the best places to live in, it is not a Police State like so-called Western Democracies…In Nigeria you can urinate anywhere and not get fined or arrested, you can get a ladder and climb the Power poles and effect a change of power phases, that is if the problem is not from the nearby power transformer which anybody can repair with dry wood.

In Nigeria, you can set traps inside your compound and catch birds and roast them to taste and not be afraid that you are at Piccadilly Square in the UK and some stern looking cops will harass you for animal rights violation. We still beat kids with cane despite parents that want to be more European than Europeans…

We as a nation need to restore national pride, a lot of us have lost hope in the system, the structure, the leadership, with each passing day, it is becoming obvious that Nigeria may be just an empty plastic cup, too light to hold a cup of coffee cold or hot.

I am rewriting this essay about my beloved nation that I originally wrote 15 years ago because lately I have discovered that I have tried hard to write nice stuffs about my nation but each time I try the truth hits me and I never end up, I criticize a lot and hardly give solutions…my reason, simple…there are enough solutions to Nigeria’s multi-dimensional and hydra-headed problems, enough to fill an American Congressional Library, well prepared by committees, panels, commissions and bodies of experts. Name the field or area and I will refer you to a paper, a report that should ordinarily have solved that problem a long time ago. For example, how many times have we removed subsidies without removing subsidies or is it the Orasanya Report on merging and reducing government bureaucracy by shutting down some ministries and parastatals?

For avoidance of doubt, what happened to the Vision 2010, I was writing this in 2008, by then we were working on a vision 2056 for constant power electricity and it is 2024 now, how time flies and alas we still lack vision of who we are and what we want to be in terms of electricity.

I remember one committee like that with a long name that was supposed to provide palliative measures due to the rise in petroleum prices, till date it died a

natural death. It is another 15 years and we are not only discussing palliatives but looting it with reckless abandon that our students die in stampedes for them.

There have been reports upon reports that if properly handled would have made Nigeria number one in most things if not everything, because if despite all the ills of our society we are still thus there as the most happiest and religious in the world…Then there is a problem.

In recent times, I have watched us be reminded of the successes of Malaysia, a success that was championed and achieved simply because of purposeful leadership, leadership that had the confidence of the governed. That leadership brought about economic prosperity, industrial strength, intellectual pride and dynamism. We have discussed Singapore and for us the only thing that has poured is how our best brains and not so best have become caregivers in the UK and pouring into Canada and other places that were nowhere in the map of economic discussion only two/three decades earlier.

It was only expected that when a nation barely commits one percent of its GDP on education, we would have a collapsed Unity school set up, a crazy university system. We all weep at the situation but no one really thinks how we can have national competitiveness when the level of investment in human capital is abysmally low.

A new Nigeria cannot unfold, with fast paced infrastructural development, rapid push in human resource development, healthcare delivery, when of the approximately Universities and polytechnics enrol almost 2 million students yearly and graduate around 600,000 people, of which barely 5% had a chance of a job, the remaining 95% slowly became an unemployable bunch with redundant qualifications and there is no plan to put a halt to this because truth be told they are formally educated but informally employed, too many graduates fighting for few jobs.

Today’s Nigeria lacks education, health and development with all the wealth, we are breeding terrorists, frustrated young men, sad mothers, senior citizens that daily curse the nation because we have refused to give them their dues.

Isn’t it intriguing and excitingly Nigerian, that this is Nigeria, the rich, poor, and everybody cries and laughs almost at the same time; the difference is the swing of the pendulum.

Being a Nigerian requires a tricky trait, despite the Woles, Achebes, Anyaokwus, Maitamas, Balewas, Ziks, Awos, Sardaunas, and many too numerous to call, there is a distinction to being a Nigerian and wanting to be a Nigerian. The Nigerian big man makes a law, those wanting to be Nigerian or already big men proceed immediately to look for a way to break the law, he explores loopholes and escape clauses, like the Immunity clause used for stealing.

Ordinary Citizens would do it their own way, they would jump queues with no excuse, they would do u-turns on an expressway, stop in the middle of the road to say hello to a long-lost friend without parking…correct them, and they will abuse your dog.

Who wants to be a Nigerian, it takes a lot, you have to be noisy, music is not danceable if it is not loud, big is sweet and good.

How can one understand the Nigerian and want to be one, when in power he loves affluence and will do anything to stay-put. In religious matters, he will fake it; in business, his cheques will bounce. In the civil service forget the noise of ‘servicom’, your files will miss and only reappear at the right price. A Nigerian will ban the importation of lace fabrics, yet his wives, concubines and mistresses will die the day they cannot wear one.

In Nigeria, you need to understand how a complainant can suddenly become a suspect and in the end a witness, yet still land in jail for a crime that was committed against him.

The pain of this essay when it was originally written is that despite all the exhaustive bad traits that we battle every day, Nigerians abound in their millions that want to be Nigerians for the right reasons. And it still has not changed…Those Nigerians are not easily understood because they will not give bribes, all their actions are in line with tradition, society’s good norms and rationality.

They largely are old now and most times reside in rural areas, although a few still stay in urban areas. They are generally good and untribalized, they believe in the principles of live and let live. These Nigerians are neither the bottom power women nor the moneybag men. They strive daily to remain patriotic and committed to the Nigerian dream despite the reality, they are disciplined and are hardworking, and they battle the stark reality that as patient dogs they may never have any bone left.

These sets of Nigerians suffer from the Nigerian experiment because of the larger majority’s inability to curb greed, inability for us to be fair and rational towards other people’s perspectives, opinions, positions and interests. The continuous inability to make sacrifices for the common good, an unwillingness to respect our institutions…like, the abuse of our health and educational institutions in the name of na government property and so it’s nobody’s own.

Our monetized society too has been of more harm than good to us. Do you now understand Nigeria, are you a Nigerian, do you want to be a Nigerian… Almighty Allah You are a God of purpose…why did You create this nation—May Nigeria Win

—

READERS of my columns would by now be familiar with my advocacy for State Police. I have said ad nauseam ad infinitum that it is an idea whose time has come. State Police, no doubt, will come with its challenges – is there any idea without its own specific challenges? But the imperatives of the moment necessitate that we give it a try. The security challenges that the country faces have become like the proverbial coconut leaf, the more you cook it, the harder it becomes. Such that, whatever reservations we may carry from our past as a country against State Police, the worsening security situation commands that we give State Policing a trial. This is another instance where the doctrine of necessity should be brought to bear, as was the case when a constitutional crisis steered us in the face as a result of the failure of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua to transfer power to his deputy, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. Hopes that the exit of Muhammad Buhari, seen as benevolent to the malevolent forces of Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen and bandits, would bring relief to Nigerians on the security front have been dashed; and expectations that the new broom of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would sweep better than Buhari’s having gone unrealised so far, then, taking a gamble with State Police – even if that is what it is – becomes a viable option.

I was old enough to learn of stories of the excesses of State Police in the First Republic firsthand from eyewitnesses, some of them victims of the political victimisation that the Native Authority policemen of those days were used to perpetrate and perpetuate. Corruption was rife in the rank and file of those policemen. They were tools of oppression in the hands of the powers-that-be against political opponents. A political opponent could wake up a few days before an election to find a corpse in his backyard, planted there, of course, by his opponents. Pronto, the Native Authority policemen of those days would arrest and charge him to court for murder. He would be denied the opportunity to campaign or stand in that election. He would be denied bail and would be in custody when the election is held and, of course, his opponent would coast home to victory unopposed! After the election, the case would deliberately suffer diligent prosecution and he would be discharged by the court – but the intended deed had been done!

In those days, payment of taxes was a must. You carried your tax card everywhere you went, even to the beer parlour or your rendezvous with your concubine. Failure, you could end up in custody, especially if you were a difficult political opponent that refused to defect or cross-carpet to the party of the day. I heard from my father that there was “Government of the Day” and there was the “Opposition Party ‘’ To be in the opposition was like a death sentence in those days and the Local Police were the instrument of oppression readily at the command of the party in power. I heard countless stories of prominent personalities in the opposition who were framed up on the flimsiest of excuses. We read stories of traditional rulers whose salaries were reduced to One penny because they refused to abandon the opposition party and team up with the party in power or Government of the Day. There were cases of political assassinations in those days, too. These and many other stories of blatant repression of political and other opponents were the reasons while many are opposed to the resurrection of State Police, desirable as the arguments for it may seem.

But are the Federal Police insulated from any of the shenanigans of State Police? The answer is a resounding “No!” There is no crime that the Native Authority policemen were guilty of that has not been traced to the door mouth of Federal Police. In fact, more than the Native Authority policemen of your, today’s policemen, and not just the policemen but also the other security agencies under the armpit of the Federal Government, have been at the FG’s beck and call, doing their dirty job – be it election manipulation or repressing and suppressing the citizenry at the command of Federal authorities. Experience, they say, is the best teacher; had Native Authority policing been allowed to learn the ropes, make its mistakes and learn from them, the likelihood is that it may have, by now, outgrown some of its excesses. That is one argument in its favour.

It is the same argument that has been employed to justify the need to give democracy a chance to take root here, rather than to throw it overboard and bring the military back at the flimsiest of excuses. Besides, Fourth Republic Nigeria is not the same as First Republic Nigeria; as people will say, the people’s eyes of understanding have opened more, their senses of what is right and what is wrong, and their ability and resolve to fight for their rights are far better than what they used to be in those days of yore. Nigerians today are better educated, more urbane, and better organised to fight for their rights. Just imagine the sheer number of civil society and human rights organisations that we have today; not to talk of the avalanche of new media organisations and the intimidating array and influence of social media. This is the age of the Citizen Journalist, as they say!

Unlike its predecessor, the Tinubu administration is well disposed to the idea of State Police. According to reports, 16 State Governments have also already given a nod for it. Twenty other States are being expected to send in their own take on the idea and the Presidency has said it expects all of them to support the idea. I dare to say that there is no alternative! If there is any State that kicks against the idea, it should not be allowed to hold the others to ransom. Those who want to try the idea should be allowed to do so and those not willing to should be allowed to remain within the ambits of the existing Federal policing structure. The security situation of the country is so dire that something drastic has to be done to contain criminality running riot all over the country. If nothing urgent is done, then, it will not be long before we arrive at the bus stop of a failed State. Which State will say, of today, that it is satisfied with the security architecture of the country? And which governor will say it is not worried by the plight of the citizenry: of farmers driven off the land; of students/pupils driven away from school; of citizens who cannot move from one point to the other; and, worse still, of the young, elderly, pregnant women, name it, who cannot sleep with their two eyes closed? A desperate situation, they say, demands a desperate solution. If State Policing is that desperate solution, so be it!

The existing Federal security structure is overwhelmed; State Policing will help relieve it of some of the pressure mounted on it all over the country. The Federal system that Nigeria purports to operate necessitates the decentralisation of the policing system. Over-centralisation that the military foisted on the country since they interfered in its governance is not only an aberration, it also arrested its development in the real sense of the word. Nigeria’s top to bottom development model imposed by the military since 1966 has failed woefully; the bottom-up approach or the pre-1966 era has fared better. Have we ever waited to ask why it has always been very easy for militants all over the country to confidently and easily ambush and worst our military men, as was the recent case in Okuama, Delta State? It is because the military men so sent to those terrains were not familiar with them. We have witnessed similar problems in other flashpoints all over the country. Those familiar with a terrain or community are better able to defend it.

Another good thing I expect from State Policing is that state governors now have a good place to spend the humongous amount of money they cream away every month as security votes. They must now account for this money which, to all intents and purposes, has operated as slush funds. Let the State governors now bear part of the responsibility for the security of their own people and community. Besides, the contradiction of State governors who are the touted chief security officers of their states but have virtually no powers to act will be addressed once State Policing becomes a reality. We shall then be able to separate the men from the boys. The alibi of  “it is the FG”will no longer exist! I have said it before and it bears repeating here that the time has come for us to begin to hold the feet of our governors and local government chairmen to the fire. Too much attention is devoted to the FG while the States and LGs are allowed to escape with blue murder in broad daylight. Stae Policing should put an end to that.

We must, however, begin to think about how we are going to contain the excesses of State governors when the “eku ida” (the sword) of State Police gets into their hands. I need not tell you that many of our governors operate as tin-gods who do not brook any opposition from any source. How do we contain such elements? If we do not, then, State Police may fail to achieve its objectives. Before long, we may begin to yearn for a return to the status quo of Federal Police all over the country! What must we do? First, we must understand that some governors will like to abuse State Policing and we must be ready to combat them. Two: Opposition parties must become more vibrant than they are at the moment. As we speak, there is no difference between the leading political parties as they are different fingers of the same leprous hand. No ideology or principles separate them. Real political parties, properly so-called, are needed to checkmate governors that may want to abuse State Policing. We also need strong institutions, especially the judiciary, to keep such governors in check. The citizenry themselves must become active and alive to their responsibilities. Only they can defend their fundamental human rights. If you give politicians an inch, be sure they will take a mile! The price of liberty is said to be eternal vigilance. The currency has not changed!

0:1 Appreciation/Introduction 

It is imperative for me to start by expressing my profound appreciation and admiration for the author, Baba Basorun Seinde Arogbofa, OFR, PEN, who, at 85, found the time and strength to craft this diamond of a book as a worthy legacy to people across generations. Not a fiction but a factual compendium fertilized by personal experiences that shine through its 166 pages like diamond, the author, in every chapter, proves that old age and, indeed, ageing is not about rickety bones, disappearing muscles and sunken eyes, but also the summation of how an individual spent his adolescence, youth and adulthood. 

This fact is attested to by another living legend of our time, Chief Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti (leader of Afenifere).

In his beautiful piece on pages vi-viii, entitled: “A Centenarian on the Marble,” Fasoranti concurs that:  “I see the book as a vade mecum (always be with me) for all grades of life-young and old. It is not tied to only old age; it argues however that what we become in old age is largely a reflection or a continuation of what we started as young people. The seeds of old age, according to him, are sown during our younger days.”

0:2 The Review:  

Aptly titled: The Philosophy of Growing Old-A Personal Experience for both Young and Old,the book, published by John Archers (Publishers) Limited, Ibadan, richly recommends itself as a necessary companion for all ages, beautifully taking off in Chapters 1 and 2 with the definition of old age and its onset.

The author, in subsequent chapters, devotes copious pages to comprehensive examination of the process of growing old, as well as the fears and myths that drive most people, including young people, to scary limits in their dread of ageing.

As the author explicitly discusses in Chapters 7 and 8, the fears include sliding from vibrancy to redundancy, demure disposition to most issues of life, fear of failing health (pages 90-103), cognitive decline, dwindling finance and associated problems (pages 81-89), shrinking population of friends and acquaintances, goals, responsibilities, and societal impacts often associated with ageing. 

But Baba, in this great book, does not leave the reader without hope.  He discusses extensively how people can find and sustain happiness at old age (Chapter 6). In 13 pages in Chapter 9, the author also proffers ways people can develop the courage to accept and deal with old age.

He also explores the legacies people can bequeath to family and humanity, and the fulfillment old people must seek before theirinevitable encounter with death. But he submits that old age and ageing need not be all gloom and doom, emphasizing, however, that all depends on how the individual laid his bed in his/her youthful and adult years. 

As in everything, the author underscores the significance of positive attitude, discipline, adaptation, meaningful lifestyle, effective time management, socializing, worship, showing love, and more love,  among others, as sine qua non(necessary condition) for enjoying the twilight of age.

On page 120, the author highlights the importance of working to bequeath worthy legacies noting that, “…as an elder in the family you must strive to leave something worthwhile…..It could be a good name, which, people say, is better than silver or gold, a good name that can open doors for your relations, and not close doors against them…” 

On page 123, Baba Basorun Arogbofa succinctly delves into various sectors of the society and lists the necessary virtues or legacies that could be left behind.

The author reflects on his own journey through life and shares the principles and steps he embraced to navigate the challenges of aging. The book encourages readers to embrace these principles and incorporate them into their own lives, as they shape personal growth and determine how well the individual copes with every stage of aging.

The author drives the point home on Page 102, citing one touching event that occurred when he author was 77, and he had to be operated on.“Just before the operation started,” he reminisces, “I took time off from them, looked up to God, my Creator for a communion, and went into a reverie. My action was infectious and everybody appeared silent for a short time I was in communication.”

The import of the above event, a core principle in navigating through life is: God is the author and the finisher of our faith. This Biblical principle, which the author’s father imbibed and stoutly believed in, pops up in the second paragraph of the book’s prologue of the book (page xv) wherein the author reveals how he envisaged the values passed on to him and his siblings, and soon naturally lived by them as he once hoped. The principle, he notes, is essential and will serve every ma/woman well throughout life-as toddler, adolescent, young adult, adult, middle age, old age and growing old.

One notable aspect of the book is its well-structured chapters, although I personally feel that the question of “when” should have been addressed before discussing “what is in old age.” Nevertheless, the author’s thought process is excellently presented in each chapter, with a particular focus on five cardinal values associated with old age.

These cardinal values include honour and respect, outstanding wisdom, discipline, high values ystem, accord, as well as proper care and kindness. The book emphasises the importance of these values in old age and how they are passed on from generation to generation.

03: Conclusion:

As already established, Baba Arogbofa’s book,The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for Both Young and Old, is a valuable read that provides real-life experiences and serves as a guide to sustainable living and financial security. The book highlights the bright sides of old age and underscore the avoidable challenges of growing old. Though the advice comes so early in the book, Chapter 3 to be precise, it gives a sterling conclusion and golden advice on the subject matter, when he quotes the saying that “as one grows older the sky gets darker slowly’,  and counsels that, “every wise person must prepare for this critical stage of life, so as to meet its challenges. As in the philosophy of the scouts, the wise must always be prepared, and the preparation must begin by the age of 40, so as not to belong to the fabled fool at forty who becomes a fool for life.”

And to truly enjoy old age, the author recommends the timeless ideal of devoting time to inspiring things in the environment, things that promote happiness and increase prosocial emotions (like generosity and kindness), accepting death as inevitable and developing the right attitude towards that stark reality (Chapter 11), worship God and love all that is good and noble. 

Overall, the book: “The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for both Young and Old,” is a great intellectual work brimming with wisdom. It is well researched, spiced with true life anecdotes, and written in elegant prose. The writing is as compelling as the message. The book recommends itself as a necessary companion for all men and women that desire a happy old age regardless of the challenges; it is a precious resource for researchers on quality and purposeful living, geriatrics and gerontology.

The book is also an excellent gift to those of us in leadership positions as the issues espoused by the author comes with the cryptic message that the state must pay more to the welfare of the elderly. Though some states are doing excellently well in making ageing easy for the senior citizens, more states need to execute policies that improve the living conditions of the elderly in the areas of geriatric care, medications for the aged, transportation system that make commuting for the seniors enjoyable, as well as monthly allowances necessary to meet their most basic needs.

In my years of service in the temple of justice, I have been an advocate of better life for the vulnerable. And senior citizens, people who have given the best parts of their lives in dedicated service to Fatherland, have become not only vulnerable but are fast becoming endangered species of homo sapiens; suffering crippling deprivations, ill-health and poverty. 

Therefore, time is NOW for us to show love to the seniors by executing policies and programmes that make old age not to look like a curse or plague. And on this note, let me use this opportunity to acknowledge the Government of Ondo State for their consideration and inclusion of the elderly and physically challenged persons, as at today, the state has taken care of 12337 elderly from the Social Registry across the 18 Local Governments in Ondo State, I will however and nevertheless further ask that much more should be done by our governments, corporate entities and spirited individuals. 

I humbly and most respectfully urge all Your Excellencies here present to please, give a deep thought to this humble hint. Gbogbo wa ni a maa dagba, ti a si maa darugbo ni agbara Edumare. (We shall all grow old by the power of the Almighty).

In closing, and like I have said unequivocally, The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for both Young and Old, by Baba, Basorun Seinde Arogbofa, is a great literary work by all standards. (I think Baba deserves a loud ovation). However, since there is nothing perfect under the sun, even the best of men, I would encourage the editors to be a little bit more thorough in their editing to avoid the minor typographical and punctuation errors observed in a few instances. I offer this advice because I am convinced this gem of a book will be a best-seller and it would compel reprinting over and again. 

The author’s use of deep Yoruba proverbs is excellent, especially with the accompanying transliterations. This should make readers from other cultural backgrounds comfortable and very much at home in absorbing and interpreting the message. A little improvement could be useful. For instance, it would have been more beneficial to include references to other regions and cultures to enhance understanding and inclusivity. Even without this, the book is still worth a timeless offering to all those who seek knowledge.

Nobody must leave this hall without grabbing copies for self, family and friends.

The late philanthropist, businessman and politician, MKO Abiola, is by all standards an unforgettable person and personality in the post-independence modern history of Africa. In his native Nigeria, he ultimately became unforgettable as a billionaire that won what is regarded as the fairest and freest election of a complex and chaotic State struggling and, perhaps ultimately, incapable of becoming a nation. Abiola is now linked to June 12, a date that refuses to go away, in spite of all past attempts to demystify and devalue its importance. About thirty years after the dramatic and eventual tragedy of the June 12 saga, his country, Nigeria, has been compelled to yearly exhume the spirit and ghost of that event that has become a personal tragedy for families that lost their dear ones, a collective sacrifice that stood up to tyranny and a national symbol for those that stand for democracy. June 12 is a Nigerian story that Africa and the rest of the world can learn from.

MKO Abiola is a story about humanity. In remembering him, we cannot but notice that in one man and in one life lies a full life with all the complexities and contradictions of humanity. Just like in a book on humanity, the life of Abiola is made up of chapters about most of the fragments of humanity. From cradle to grave, the man’s life had outstanding episodes about humanity and each episode is presented in contradictory terms.
As if to teach all a lesson about how nothing is absolutely certain and how everything is possible in life, MKO Abiola left the world as President that did not preside, a known winner that was not declared thus, after convincingly winning right in front of the whole world. To become such a winner, he ticked all the proverbial boxes, dined and wined with all the right people and made friends in high and low places and his web of connection covered every corner of his country, but alas his friendship and connection were not enough to give him his ultimate desire, rather he got death.

In life, Abiola was also popular for his wit. Associates, adversaries and the general public remember MKO for his witty now memorable quotes such as, “You cannot shave the head in the absence of the owner” or his, “If you want something from a dwarf, stoop low to his level. It does not reduce your own height. Whenever you rise up, you will be taller than him.” A philosopher you would think, maybe, but certainly not by training. The man was trained to count, he studied accountancy. That is not even the icing on the cake: the man was a stutterer! Think about it, even God had to give the great Moses an Aaron for speaking; and by so making Aaron perhaps the forefather of spokespersons.

In his life, MKO was a man of the establishment, a dealer and an inside man. He was one of the favorite targets of the legendary singer, songwriter and instrumentalist, Fela Kuti, who openly helped to popularize the idea that MKO was a CIA agent and collaborator of imperialist power. Yet, the man is known to most American activists and Africanists as a leader and major financier of the Reparation Movement. He was the billionaire that stood on a Social Democratic Platform where he showed deep understanding of the yearning of the poor and cogent solutions to their problem. What a mix.

The London based editor of Inside Nigeria sent me a clip of MKO singing at a party he hosted in Ikeja, Lagos. Yes, MKO was a party man and a healthy hedonist that was the soul of any party he attended and yet, when it came to professional affairs MKO’s contributions were deep, detailed, innovative and his arguments convincing. Those that worked with him describe him as a workaholic with no sense of what should be done at night or day, let alone recognize the 9 to 5 mindset.

He was a lady’s man who got away with getting more and more of the most of gentle sex. The inclusive fertile generous lover spread his care and conquest to everyone’s religion across the globe and he was known as such. Yet, till date, there are no known stories of women that totally rejected him. His many children were offered the best education money could buy or at least went to the best schools. Let us face it, few men can manage such a feat. I will not stop here to probe if you are envious or curious.

It is difficult to talk about MKO without talking about money, he had a lot of it and he spent in a way few can do. He effortlessly gave to churches and mosques and he was at home with traditional leaders and priests. To date, it is difficult to think of anyone that has amassed so many chieftaincy titles like Abiola did; it does not get more royal than that and yet, MKO Abiola was not born into royalty or wealth. In fact, he was not only born poor, but typical of MKO, he was exceptionally poor. Like in a fable he truly came from rags to riches. The was the wood seller that became bank owner and telecoms mogul, publisher, shipping magnet and so on and so forth.

The lofty heights he attained in life before he died in July 1998, in circumstance many still consider suspect at just the age of 61, look even higher when we remember that he was not given much chance when he came to the world on Tuesday 24th August 1937: Seven days after he was born, one of the names they gave him was Kashimawo, translatable as, “let’s wait and see”.

As a fellow Abiku, let me say for MKO that we have seen and we continue to see.

Join me if you can @anthonykila to continue these conversations.

Anthony Kila is Centre Director at CIAPS Lagos. www.ciaps.org.

(Being Address at the Maiden Edition of the FCSC Monthly In-house Seminar Series held on Thursday, the 21^st of March, 2024 at the Commission’ Premises)

On the 13th of December 2023, HE President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inaugurated the newly reconstituted Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), and gave a marching order to the Commission to “competently facilitate the transformation, reorientation, and digitization of the federal bureaucracy to enable, and not stifle, growth and enhanced private sector participation in the development of the Nigerian economy, in full adherence to the renewed hope agenda of his administration.” The FCSC has since interpreted this mandate as a charge to interrogate a fundamental question: What has the FCSC failed to do to institutionally gatekeep the federal civil service and safeguard its professional integrity, dynamics of efficiency and structural parameters despite many years of consistent and sustained administrative reforms in Nigeria?

To answer this question in a resolute way demands first the admission that given the institutional degeneration of the FCSC itself in the wake of the system-wide decline of the public administration system in Nigeria, it does not have the requisite structural and institutional parameters, to complement any forthright system-wide reform to reform the civil service reform and thereby participate in bringing to fruition the Renewed Hope Agenda of HE President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. This therefore requires a concerted reflection outside the box in measure that will instigate the critical injection of fresh and innovative ideas, insights and models of performance that are potent sufficiently, to compel the repositioning of the federal civil service in terms of its operational capability readiness, redoubled managerial acumen and policy professional policy professionalism that could add up to become a game-changing event for the successful implementation of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Federal Government. This is the mandate of the renewed FCSC.

And in pursuing this fundamental mandate, we must never forget to situate the FCSC within the context of the ongoing service-wide reforms, especially the performance bond-enabled central policy and service delivery coordination framework of the Presidency and the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. The FCSC reforming the reform mandate is essentially a complementary task whose significance adds to the overall health of the federal public service system in Nigeria. And in complementing this ongoing reform, the FCSC is compelled to focus on the broader picture of reforming the reforms to encompass the rehabilitation of the public service in Nigeria. To clarify: this larger challenge faced by the FCSC involves answering the loaded question: Who is a Nigerian public servant? This of course looks like a very simple question. However, we begin to see how complex it is when we place it in the context of how majority of Nigerians see the public service and public servants—politicians, the police, immigration and customs, the fire system, national electricity, education boards, and many more.

How have a large majority of Nigerians encounter public servants in these ministries, departments and agencies? The answer is simple: Nigerians encounter bureaucratic inefficiency aggravated by bureaucratic corruption. And the Ease of Doing Business Index demonstrates this from year to year. It is difficult to clear your goods at any of Nigeria’s ports. It is a traumatic experience to get the police to be your friend. Nigerians pay for electricity they do not enjoy, and they are even bullied by overzealous officers in the process. Let us not even talk about the police and the politicians. Long story short: the perception of public servants by Nigerians is bad. The public service has become bureaucratic because there are so many impediments and obstacles that have prevented the system from becoming creative and innovative in rethinking its own internal operations, processes and procedures that would have made for optimal functioning.

When any ordinary Nigerian visits the federal secretariat in any state of the federation, the lack of inter-sectoral collaboration, for example, or the near-absence of technology-enabled system’s capability ensures that such a Nigerian is frustrated in making simple administrative transactions. And that terrible perception reflects badly not only on the capability readiness of the FCSC to efficiently gatekeep the professionalism of the system, but also the systemic efficiency of the public service to backstop the government’s policies that lead to good governance. And so, attending to these institutional debilitations demands a focus on three general and systemic components around which reform reflection and action must converge.

First, there is the urgent need to challenge and reengineer the traditional Weberian— “I-am-directed”—bureaucratic tradition which essentially rides on outdated administrative practices, analogue operating system, red-tape bureaucratic culture and poor stewardship with regards to the consideration given to, and the rights of the citizens as the customers who consume public services. In other words, the old Weberian system around which the Nigerian public service system still revolves crucially undermines bureaucratic efficiency. It will therefore be a wrong choice of operational mechanism to hinge the success of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Tinubu administration. Reforming the reform of the Nigerian public system therefore implies rethinking the basis of its institutional efficiency to get service delivery done effectively.

Second, reform must confront the low organizational intelligence quotient (IQ) of the public service workforce and especially its top echelons. This has not only impacted on the essence of public spiritedness and professionalism of the public servant, it has also triggered the breakdown of public service values that makes the public service all over the world a noble calling. The root cause of this decline in the vocational spirit of a public servant can only be redressed by a consistent, coherent and strict metrics of re-professionalization.

Third, bureaucratic efficiency must be connected with the ultimate objective of achieving an effective and efficient democratic service delivery that defines what good governance is for Nigerians. And this demands that the public service must be compelled to become a performing and productive institution that holds its workforce to metrics of performance accountability. And a culture of structural performance can only take off when reforms reduce the series of systemic constraints that limits the effectiveness of the system to deliver public goods to Nigerians. We have a good example in how the President himself has got all the key governance players in the government to sign on to a performance bond with a dedicated policy coordination backend. 

Fourth, a key component of performance management for productivity is a functional competency-based human resource management practices which, in the case of the Nigerian public service system, are already compromised. Two structural issues are responsible for this compromise. The first is the collapse of internal control mechanism, and the second is the rampant bureaucratic corruption aggravated by the lack of the culture of deferred gratification.

The consequence of all these institutional weaknesses is the bloated and inefficient status of the administrative system that allows it to keep generating redundancies and ad hoc structures and units of government agencies that compete with the existing bureaucratic structures in order to achieve what is often taken to be a flexible administrative arrangement unencumbered by administrative codes, rules and regulations. There is also the unfortunate replication of these parallel structures across each state of the federation. The result is the explosion of the cost of governance in ways that burden the capacity to allocate needed funds to critical governance projects to speaks more to the infrastructural needs of the citizens than mere overheads.

Records and information management controls have also become so porous that they are routinely manipulated to perpetuate bureaucratic corruption and the offloading of undesirable elements on the system. This is where the FCSC itself becomes a significant part of the general problems of the federal civil service in Nigeria. This is because the vision of the competent, patriotic, efficient and productive public servant comes from a rigorous determination of that administrative persona by the institution charged with the responsibility of gatekeeping public service professionalism. The FCSC remit is to gatekeep the sustenance of a meritocratic public service system that is founded on a strategic and competency-based human resources management that replaces 1000 mediocre officers as is, with just 100 competent self-motivated public managers with the knowledge and expertise to get the work done. To transform the public service into a meritocratic institution and re-form its professional standard and value orientation therefore demands a cultural adjustment programme and attitudinal change through putting in place due process, rules and regulations that privilege compliance and value-based strategies. All these could then be deployed into the series of entry level processes and procedures that are meant to safeguard the quality of those to be saddled with the responsibility of transforming Nigeria’s productivity profile and the performance of her democratic governance.

I need to add quickly that public service meritocracy as a diversity management strategy must be institutionalized in a manner that is able to undermine the tendency of the federal character policy to allow unqualified candidates from slipping through the cracks into the system. Employing civil servants on the basis of ethno-cultural diversity of Nigeria is not tantamount to employing just anyone to fill up quotas. This is where the FCSC and its competency-based HR practices steps into the breach to counter these tendencies. However, restoring competency-based HR practices and the merit system will eventually be meaningless if the intended reforms fail to address the wage and compensation policy dimension of meritocracy. This is one of the crucial sources of bureaucratic corruption. This consideration led to a very robust conversation with the Chairman, National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission, whose insights during the meeting, was not just reassuring but also seminal in its solution contents.

Thus, once these entry-level requirements are undermined by corrupt practices, from patronage to nepotism, it becomes very difficult to control the influx of newly employed officers who are in the civil service, for instance, because there is no employment elsewhere for them, and whose attitudes are circumscribed by political arrogance and whose objective is to engage in transactional practices that profit them at the expense of the system. Reforming the reform of the Federal Civil Service therefore commences at point of putting in place a more rigorous, firm and incorruptible entry-level assessment tests and integrity screenings. The reform vision is that the FCSC will deploy the tests to pre-screen new recruits into the workforce in ways that increase the integrity of the system and its professional capacity.

This is just the first in a long series of reform efforts targeted at challenging and transforming the current perception of who a civil or public servant is and who she should be. The FCSC is therefore saddled with the objective of reprofiling the professional status, ethical character, and administrative competence of who is eventually recruited to the civil service in a way that fast track the fundamental goal of building a new generation of public managers that Nigeria urgently requires to jumpstart the optimal performance of democratic governance. It could only be terrifying that as the entry procedures stand at the moment, that our background check on new entrants in the civil service does not scrutinize them for any criminal tendencies or activities.                 

It is then the intention of the FCSC to translate these series of testing, due processes, and regulations into a streamlined digitized standard operating protocols which will be deployed to recalibrate the mainstream structure of the overall processes that attend the career and professional growth and progression of civil and public servants, like staff induction, confirmation of appointment, promotion exercises, disciplinary procedures and appeals, and the general enforcement of the codes of conduct and of ethics. In this regard, one of the most immediate courses of reform actions that the FCSC is commencing is the modernization and digitization of the core operations. The most obvious will be the transition from the existing analogue testing mechanisms to the computer-based tests (CBT) to manage the forthcoming 2024 promotion exercise that will hold in the third quarter of the year.

The Commission will be rolling out several other technology-enabled innovations that harness digital technologies to facilitate effective due processes, from recruitment to promotion exercises. For instance, there is already in the works the installation of an online recruitment portal that will be accessible to all Nigerians, and which will enable eligible candidates to pre-fill recruitment form and update same from time to time ahead of advertisement for recruitment into the Federal service. In addition, eligible candidates will henceforth undergo computer-based tests (CBT) and oral interviews with results collated and released real-time. The FCSC is currently negotiating an outsourcing contract with the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and JAMB as technical partners with a view to taking advantage of their infrastructure, networks and experience to enable online accreditation, CBT examinations and promotion interview for officers in the Federal service starting with the directorate-level officers. Other reform packages, like those that will deal with the FCSC’s need for an enhanced staff capacity and an institutional capability, will be unveiled at the right time consequent on getting the buy-in, sign-on and endorsement of the FCSC’s principal, HE, the President of Nigeria. 

And this brings us squarely into the significance of this maiden monthly seminar series initiated to constitute a space for sustained learning and sharing discussion that open up contributions, from experiences and practices, on how key reform issues and problematics could be interrogated and benchmarked for their functional deployment in Nigeria. This is why today’s topic is important: “The Institutional Framework and Procedure for the Conduct of Directorate Level Exercise: Guaranteeing Integrity, Transparency and Accountability of Standard Practices.” It jumpstarts our discussion into how FCSC could itself be made ready, in operation and practices, for the mandate that was set for it by Mr. President. And it seems only logical to commence with a deep analysis of some of the critical first-level issues and risks that could be anticipated in the planned transition from an analogue to an online and computerized assessment processes and procedures. This will then eventually be followed by further technical conversations, I mean both those dealing with the transitioning of the due processes, and those articulating and interrogating further reform issues.

I have no doubt that the FCSC is a critical player in the efforts of the Federal Government to deliver on its mandate to make every Nigerian enjoy the dividends of democratic governance through a Renewed Hope Agenda anchored on the capacity readiness of the federal bureaucracy to achieve efficiency in the implementation of the government policies. However, the efficiency of the public and civil service depends solely on the reprofiling of who a meritocratic, efficient and patriotic public servant is. This is where the FCSC fulfils its constitutional mandate, and the hope reposed in it by Mr. President, to articulate and emplace a reform architecture that repositions the federal civil service as the engine room for making the public service an effective instrument for service delivery to Nigerians. The FCSC mandate starts with the collective and committed efforts of all members of the Commission to first reflect on the ideas, models, insights, paradigms and direction of the proposed reforms before they are implemented and monitored for successes. And that begins with this monthly seminar series as one of the measured mechanisms that will restore the lost glory of the Commission.      

So much is happening in Nigeria today. One does not need to be an admirer of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to recognize the apparent departure from the past where the nation was virtually moving one step forward and two backwards. It is easy to perceive the take-off of several development projects.

As the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is beginning the construction of at least 2400 housing units, beneficiary institutionsof the Tertiary Education TrustFundTETFUND are positioned to benefit from N683 billion allocated to the sector in the 2024 budget. Already, the Fund’s Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono has announced the commitment of his agency to provide hostels for students in 36 tertiary institutions across the country this year. Thus, amidst the pains imposed on the country by an exceedingly poor economy, many are praying for anticipated projects to materialize.

Some people are however still bothered about the numerous challenges which have always hindered the excellent performance of the nation’s public institutions. One obvious challenge is the visible lack of capacity of our societal institutions which in the last 2 decades or so has been exacerbated by excessive distractions which policy actors are subjected to. President Tinubu last week identified at least two of such major distractions which he attempted to summarily redress. The first has to do with self-induced distractions by actors who are fascinated by foreign trips. Concerning this, the President immediately placed a 3-month ban on activities of his officials outside the country. A government statement explained that the ban will take effect from April 1st 2024 while all officials who have genuine business transactions abroad must first seek and obtain presidential approval.  

The second distraction is attributed to the summoning of public officials by the National Assembly. Recognizing the ego connected to this, Tinubu employed an appropriate political language and a conducive opportunity to address the challenge.  The President, says he would appreciate a reduction in the excessive summoning of heads of agencies by the National Assembly so as to allow them ample room to plan for and execute projects. Tinubu spoke in Abuja last Wednesday while breaking the Ramadan fast with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, and the leadership of the House. Now that the observation has been made by their political leader, it is hoped that the nation’s legislators would appreciate the concerns of analysts who had earlier made the same call but perhaps through a critical diction.

As the president conceded, everyone is aware that the legislature is empowered to summon relevant actors to explain certain actions and decisions concerning any public policy. But such powers should not be used to distract the same policy actors who are agents of development. Unfortunately, the distraction has become the norm in our clime. The legislators spend too much time sitting like a court to receive evidence and more often than not threaten invitees with warrants of arrest.

Yet, the well-planned out schedule of those summoned is never put into consideration while fixing the time of the summons. Of course by drawing such immutable timelines for policy actors without their own inputs, the legislators virtually turn such actors into robots especially as they are not allowed to be represented at any such sitting that is guarded by warrants of arrests. This has over the years subordinated service delivery to the task of appearing at the sitting of any of the two chambers of the National Assembly.

Quite often, the actors are required to present reports that are still at the preparatory stages where the management groups working-out the best modalities for effective implementation are yet to conclude. The immediate implication of the distraction is that the relevant agency becomes incoherent while presenting an inchoate submission. Let’s recall January 2021 when the late General Ibrahim Attahiru who was yet to fully take-over as the new Army Chief of Staff was summoned by the legislature. He eventually appeared with a distracted body language which the legislators saw as Attahiru’s refusal to subordinate the military to civil authority. With due respect that was not the case, rather it was a clear case of frustration caused by an over-active busy body who was playing to the gallery on the delicate subject of insecurity.

Whereas the objective of President Tinubu in discouraging agencies from being distracted makes ample sense, there is the bigger issue of ensuring that government agencies are strong and viable ab initio. The prevalent weakness of societal institutions in Nigeria is an old testimony where recruitments and postings to public agencies in the last 2 decades have been abysmal. Many heads and top officials are posted to agencies in breach of the enabling laws of such agencies.

It is practically impossible for example to attain a credible and impartial electoral body if it is run by partisan officials. When this government came on board, many appointees were replaced even where their tenures were subsisting. The wrong signal portrayed by this was for every Nigerian to prioritize politics rather than project execution as it was partisan officials that were retained or reappointed, just as well-meaning actors were prematurely eased out irrespective of their memorable contributions to the survival of their organizations.  

In many agencies, it has become the practice for ministers to usurp the powers of chief executive officers of agencies that they were to supervise. Yet the law places the day to day running of the agencies in the hands of their heads. Under the circumstance in which the supervisor takes over the implementation of the activities of agencies, supervision is technically scrapped at the risk of quality control. No one is bothered thereafter about hard work, dedication, commitment or diligence.

Instead, the key terms change to such prescriptive criteria as partisanship, ethnicity, religion and connection which countries desiring growth and development do not subscribe to. At other times, mundane directives are issued to agencies as if those manning such agencies have no initiative and or discretion. How for instance, can a body like the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA be directed to send relief materials to an attacked community, when that is the main purpose for establishing the agency? 

The luck of the moment is that many boards of agencies are yet to be constituted. When that is done, the predominant activity would become a search for funds and fake contracts for board members who make it clear that they have no other business in the organizations. This leaves our agencies in unstable hands making it easy to understand why our weak agencies are always unable to efficiently serve society. It also explains why our legislators are always able to induce heads of our agencies to compromise the execution of constituency projects.

Therefore, if President Tinubu really wants to put an end to the daily distractions to service delivery arising from incessant summoning of agency heads, he needs to start from the starting point. There is a place for different categories of actors in a public agency. We need to return to the old order where politicians were usually restricted to part time members of boards. In addition, posting a well-connected but unqualified person to head an agency or a technical directorate immediately introduces crass indiscipline to the entity.  

For a country to evenly develop, everyone must be allowed to exercise his expertise. This will assist each institution to become strong enough to hold the nation together. A responsible political class that leads the nation aright is good; so is a strong team of technocrats and professional experts that can build solid structures. We can be strong like the Unites States of America because we have the human and material endowments to achieve that. 

The 2020 American presidential election took out Donald Trump from office because American institutions were strong enough to stand their grounds and reject the plan of the incumbent to operate against the run of play. It would have been a different story if the location was Nigeria or some other countries with feeble societal institutions. This is why President Tinubu must help to solidify Nigeria’s polity so that our nation would not just be viable but be strong enough to stand the test of time. This cannot be achieved if our country continues to water-down the professional strength of its public institutions.

With less than 24 hours to Senegal’s March 24 Presidential election, the race has become more interesting with former President Abdoulaye Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party, PDS, joining the main opposition Coalition’s candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

The Constitutional Council had disqualified Karim Wade, the PDS’s flagbearer and the former President’s son, from the presidential race over his dual citizenship.

The Supreme Court also rejected his bid to cancel or delay the presidential vote beyond March 24.

But the PDS in a surprise move on Friday declared its support for Faye, whom popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has chosen as his preferred presidential candidate following his disqualification after conviction for “misleading” Senegalese youths.

Both men are beneficiaries of a recent general amnesty announced by out-going President Macky Sall, whose ruling Alliance for the Republic, APR, is fielding former Prime Minister Amadou Ba in the presidential contest.

With new political alignments developing, Faye could clinch the presidency in the first round with the 50% + 1 vote required by the constitution.

Otherwise, the two frontrunners will go into a run-off.

After months of political uncertainty and tensions following President Sall’s defeated tenure elongation plans and the rescheduling of the presidential vote from February 25 to March 24, Senegal’s estimated 7.4 million registered voters are eager to put the presidential election behind them.

Reports from across the country of an estimated 18 million population indicate that all is set for the crucial election which has attracted great international attention.

The contestations and street protests that killed at least 20 people, had threatened to dent Senegal’s record as a bastion of stability in the politically restive West African region.

There have been more than a dozen military coups and the toppling of elected governments by soldiers in four of the 15 ECOWAS member States from 2020 - Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

The last three countries have served notice of their intention to quit ECOWAS altogether, hereby throwing into crisis the lofty regional integration goals set almost 50 years ago by the organization’s founding fathers

Curses and magical beliefs are woven together in African politics. A study found out that virtually all African leaders come to power emboldened by beliefs in local magical spells. Francisco Macias Nguema, first president of Equatorial Guinea from the time of the country’s independence in 1968, till 1979 when he was overthrown, was a perfect fit of this. A strongman and one of the most brutal dictators in human history, Nguema reportedly killed between 20,000, to 80,000 out of the total Guinea population of about 200,000 to 300,000 people. This led to his country being nicknamed the Dachau of Africa. The Dachau Concentration Camp, built by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in March, 1933, is located in the medieval town of Dachau in Bavaria, Southern Germany. It was where Hitler’s hounded political opponents were warehoused. Nguema was perceived, as Nigerians perceived General Sani Abacha during his reign, to be mentally unstable. Medical reports that backed this up emerged even from his early career. For instance, a report in 1968 by the French foreign intelligence service, SDECE, claimed that Ngueman suffered mental disorders and venereal diseases. Claims of this ruthless dictator’s mental situation were further compounded by his rumoured addiction to regular usage of drugs like cannabis. This, he was said to consume through its edible drink derivatives of bhang and iboga which have strong hallucinogenic effects.

More importantly, Nguema believed strongly in magic. While he was president in the 1970s, he openly advertised steep romance with sorcery. For him, voodoo was a vehicle of instilling fear in the people of Equatorial Guinea. He often dropped the narrative at public events that his occult powers were drawn from a collection of skulls he arrayed in the presidential palace. The belief that Nguema was as well a sorcerer permeated the nooks and crannies of Guinea. He also flaunted frequent conversations he claimed to have had with the dead, most especially with the same persons he had ordered their execution. To reinforce the narrative of his spiritual invincibility and supernatural reputation, Nguema arranged his own escape from sponsored assassins. Thus, in 1979, upon his ouster in the coup masterminded by his nephew, Teodoro Obiang Ngueman Mbasogo, Nguema was ordered to be executed by firing squad. However, it became a herculean task sourcing his executioners. No one dared volunteer to execute the old sorcerer. The belief which permeated the whole of the minds of citizens of Equatorial Guinea was that Nguema was a mythical shapeshifter. He had the powers to make a return journey from the land of the dead in the form of a tiger and thus seek vengeance from his executioners. It was so bad that the government of Mbasogo had to import Muslim executioners from Morocco who eventually carried out his death sentence. As the last breath escaped his nostrils, Nguema was rumoured to have cursed Morocco. In a country plagued by belief in sorcery, sympathetic magic and witches, Morocco’s crisis which came later were attributed to the tiger, Nguema, which laid curse on Morocco for lending Mbasogo the sharpshooters who brought his life to an end.

In the light of this, how powerful are curses, or how effective is their perception? In the killing of 17 soldiers of the Nigerian Army in the Okuama Community of Delta State on March 14, 2024, discourses on the curse of oil came to the front burner. Oil resource, generally held to be a blessing to nations, is in the same mould believed to be a curse to them. Nigeria and Venezuela took their rightful positions in that narrative. Were the soldiers martyred in Okuama part of the curse of oil on the Nigerian soil?

Discourses on the link between resources and curse gained currency in the early 1970s. The proposition put forward was that, countries that are richly endowed with natural wealth are most times plagued by violence, do not do well economically, politically, and socially when compared to poorly endowed countries. Two scholars, Paul Collier, a British development economist and Anke Hoeffler, German economist, political scientist, were known for their pioneering works on resource curse. They concluded that resources directly invite loot-seeking rebellion, as well as sociopolitical and institutional decay. Indra de Soysa, (2015) too, in “Oil and the ‘new wars’: Another look at the resource curse using alternative data”, Development Studies Research, 2:1, 64-76 argued that there were empirical evidence which supports the ‘resource curse’ argument in that oil abundance raises the probability of political violence.

This can only be the explanation of the gory scene in Okuoma community in oil-dominant area of the Niger Delta where seventeen soldiers which included a commanding officer, two majors, one captain and 12 soldiers were brutally murdered. The troops from the 181 Amphibious Battalion deployed in the Bomadi region were reportedly ambushed after they heeded calls to maintain peace between two communities who were locked in skirmishes over land. After their killing, the soldiers and officers were said to have been maniacally decapitated and butchered in the most horrendous manner. While some had their hearts ripped out of their chest cavities, others’ bodies were thrown into the river. Reports claimed that some of the recovered bodies had their stomachs ripped out. Incessant clashes over land, many a times deadly and requests for compensation for oil spills by energy companies in the Niger Delta are singsongs. None of these compares to the inhuman killing of these soldiers and officers which has raised critical questions in need of straight answers.

The question that agitates the minds of many compatriots is whether and how an innocent and dispassionate intervention to keep peace among two fighting communities could have earned the soldiers this level of beastly killing. While many have volunteered tongue-in-cheek analyses of the most logically coherent thing that could have led to the horrendous killing, perhaps the most profound of such was offered by former editor of The Guardian newspaper and Niger Delta leader of thought, Abraham Ogbodo. Ogbodo granted Arise TV interview last week. And he said: “It is not true that a misunderstanding between an Urhobo community and an Ijaw community could actually bring that level of crisis, that level of tragedy that we witnessed. It is not true. It’s not about communal crisis. What level of communal crisis? The combined population of those communities will be less than 2,000 human beings. Where will they get the capacity to wreak that level of havoc? To deliver that degree of tragedy, where will they have the capacity? It’s not possible. It’s like a crime taking place in all these drug enclaves in Latin America, and you will be looking for something else other than drugs. There is no crime that happens in Niger Delta that does not have crude oil and the arising benefits, and how those arising benefits can be allocated,” he said.

A very critical issue raised by Ogbodo was the nature of the military intervention. “What was actually compelling about a peace mission in that place that will require the strategic team going for a tactical mission? So, it shows that there are so many things underlying that we are not talking about. If it was actually for a peace mission, wouldn’t it have been for those community leaders to be summoned to the base in Bomadi for discussions to be held? This was not done – instead, the entire leadership of the battalion went to Bomadi and be so exposed, and if a mission like that was being carried by the strategic team, why was there not enough tactical cover that they were just gotten and taken out like that so cheaply? The Nigerian military! That is uncalled for. So, you will see that there are so many things that are wrong.”

Those rhetorical questions are key to resolving the fog that surrounds the killing of the soldiers and officers. To be sure, their loss has bored a huge crater on the heart of the country. From whatever prism one may look at it, Nigeria and, especially, their immediate families, may never recover from the losses. Apart from the huge investment Nigeria made into their trainings, many of their family members may never be the same again after the departure of these breadwinners of theirs. Having once suffered the death of a loved gallant soldier, it is easy for me to decouple the nature of the grief that envelopes the families of those slain military men. The goriness of their deaths makes the need to unravel the crime urgent. Doing so will also bring closure to agitations that lead to life-threatening incessant violence that happens in the crime scene, apologies to Ogbodo, that the whole Niger Delta region has become.

We have heard, since the agitations from the Ken Saro-Wiwas, of how resource-wealthy states like Nigeria are perennially enmeshed in provision of lower levels of public goods in terms of education, health and general wellbeing of the oil-producing communities. Researchers of resource curse have also found out that there is a general malaise among governments of resource-rich countries which reflects in their neglect of citizens and institutions of the oil-bearing communities. There is a growing intensity of social anger accruing from communities like Okuama against the operators of state. It is anger at how their nature-endowed resource has given access to easy money and unearned income by undeserving buccaneers in Nigeria. The truth is, if successive governments had prioritized the peace of oil-bearing communities and had taken a more than casual interest in it, the officers barbecued like chickens for a festival in Okuama may be alive today.

The truth is that, soldiers and policemen posted to oil-bearing communities are not innocent peace-keepers. They are grossly enmeshed in the crude craze that is the daily existential pursuit of Niger Delta communities. It is not news that soldiers deployed to oil-rich communities are alleged to be heavily enveloped in the oil-bunkering trade. Some of them even possess their own bunkering crew. This is a pestilence in the Niger Delta. Indeed, illicit trade in crude oil and violence are said to be the only thriving industry in Nigeria’s oil-producing communities. In the words of Ogbodo, “everything is subordinated to oil.” This is in agreement with scholarly arguments which say that resource wealth gives birth to weak institutions that are lax in maintenance of peace and security. Groups within the state then capitalize on this weakness to organize armed violence which they deploy to capture rents. The result is that a resource-dependent state like Nigeria is landlord to persistent violence in its oil-bearing communities. This is because institutions that are expected to bring peace and harmony like the army and police are either too weak to monopolize violence, cannot stop the oil resource itself from inviting looting or have become part and parcel of the problem. In the process, the financing of gory violence by individual state actors like the one in Okuama becomes a fait accompli.

There is also the resource jealousy and resource monopoly angle to the killing of the soldiers in Okuama. The resource-bearing communities see the rest of Nigeria as parasites reaping where they did not sow. On visits to Abuja, the communities see glittering streets paved by their oil money, compared to the despoliation of their lands and the crude-smeared waters they drink. They also know that fat leeches in power and their accomplices from other parts of Nigeria acquire toad-like stature from the wealth of their oil. Niger Deltans thus naturally develop a revenge complex against these Nigerian bugs. Take a look at the list of 17 soldiers killed in Okuama. You will discover that a particular section of the country takes a giant share of the fatalities. None of them is from the Niger Delta. This reflects how the Nigerian state sucks the nectar of Niger Delta while leaving its withered land to its fate.

The macabre manner in which those soldiers and men were murdered was not ordinary killing. It bears the traits of a revenge killing, or a Muti murder. A widespread killing tactic in South and Southern Africa, Muti is a form of human sacrifice. It is meant to achieve power, energy or good fortune and undertaken only after body parts have been precisely harvested while the victim is still alive. The aim is to allow the victim’s shrill cry go up to the sky, in the belief that it would summon deities. Only yesterday, a media report said the Defence Headquarters had confirmed recovering decomposing hearts of some of the soldier victims of the Okuama tragedy. Gouging out hearts, if not for ritual purposes, is a sadistic revenge method that is not undertaken by run-of-the-mill criminals. Could the murderers have been allies of the soldiers and thus saw them as betrayers?

It must be said that some other scholars have said that it is not wholly true that all oil-rich countries suffer the curse of chronic instability and violence. Nor that these countries’ resource opens up warfare in the oil-bearing communities. And that, like the rumoured curse placed by Nguema on Morocco, is a figment of imagination. This was the path trodden by Ross Michael (2012) in The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. While Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria affirm the greed thesis of oil resource, states and countries like Texas in America and Saudi Arabia show that the thesis may not be entirely true. These are countries not fraught with Nigeria and her allies’ oil curse manifestations.

The way out of the curse of oil is effective practice of federalism. States where oil resource is found should be allowed to administer it while they pay royalties to the federal government. If we do this, militancy and crises over land which necessitate soldiers being drafted to make peace would be a thing of the past.

Nigeria must unravel the killing of the officers and men of the Nigerian Army who met their untimely deaths in Okuama. Unraveling it will need openness and getting to the brass-tacks of the matter. It must be done by an independent entity, independent of the military. The military cannot be the accuser and judge in its own case. The first thing to examine is the claim of the peace mission that the felled soldiers were alleged to have come to Okuama for. There are claims that the Urhobo and Ijaw that make up the community were not at war with each other; at least not to the level that could warrant “a peace mission”. So if this is the case, why would a whole battalion invade a community that is not at war, with the most plum of its officers? Second, did the “peace-keeping force” fire first at the members of the community, as claimed by some of them? At what point were the officers and men ambushed? In answering these questions, we would be drilling into the base of the issue. It must be done for the sanity of the country.