I remember, with nostalgia, our secondary school days when the James Hardley Chase novels were such a delightful companion. Even though it was not a recommended text, it was difficult to find a peer or cohort unfamiliar with the thrillers. In the ‘Tiger by the Tail’ Chase told the story of Kenway Holland, ‘a respectable, married bank official who jeopardises his happiness and his future by one night ofmidsummer madness. The sudden temptation to kick over the traces while his wife is away lands Holland up to his ears in a vortex of political intrigue and murder. Set against a background of gangster politicians, blackmailers, gunmen and hard-boiled characters, the action of this explosive thriller takes place over a period of only thirty hours!’

‘Tiger by the Tail’ is also a metaphor commonly used to describe a situation where someone puts himself in a dangerous or difficult situation, often unwillingly or without fully understanding the consequences’. The applicability of the ‘Tiger by the Tail’ narrative to contemporary Nigeria is that when Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu became president, he was confronted with two options. Both of which are fraught with danger with equal potential to bring him down. One is to go down doing the right thing or go down doing the wrong thing. Realising he was handing over a lemon, could this be the reason why former President Muhammadu Buhari suddenly chickened out on his open secret scheme of imposing Ahmed Lawan as successor?

Three years ago, I sought the counsel of my economist friend on what to do with a hypothetical small fortune. Without a whiff of hesitation, he said the best store of value was dollars and that I should make a habit of it. My friend was doing no more than prescribing the most rational option in the circumstances and counselled me not to bet on Nigeria and the naira. At the macro level, it is this lack of belief in Nigeria that is fueling the run on the Naira and the runaway from Nigeria syndrome. Never really a nation, Nigerians are getting increasingly alienated from Nigeria, made worse by the fact that at all potential turns for good or bad, it has become habitual for the country to embrace the latter option. 

This lapse is boldly written all over the budget statement put out by the President a few months ago. It is what is at play in the audacity and callousness of national legislators awarding themselves with top of the range brand new Toyota landcruisers. It is responsible for the prioritisation of a sixty billion naira mansion for the Vice President and five billion naira renovation of the state house annexe in Lagos. To what mentality do we attribute the reappointment of Mele Kyari as the Group Managing Director, GMD, the man at the centre of the oil subsidy scandal?. 

In similar character, the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, recently announced it spent nearly four hundred billion naira on the last general elections. This was when the naira was about six hundred naira to the dollar. The calculation in dollars run upwards of three hundred and fifty million dollars. Yet, at the end of the day, the electoral body delivered the worst general elections in the history of Nigeria. The double tragedy was not merely the certification of the rogue results but the determination of the judiciary to declare winners regardless of the outcome of the election. The major significance of this electoral cycle is that it is the judiciary not the voters who decide the winners and losers in Nigerian elections. 

The pregnant yesterday that gave birth to the monstrous baby of today is to be found in the craven rent seeking hysteria of the Nigerian ruling elite, (particularly the Northern faction). In an impossible claim of patrimony and gluttonous obsession with the Niger Delta oil, the late Dr Bala Usman came up with the cuckoo theory that ‘the sediments with which, and in which, this petroleum deposits are found, did not drop from the sky…These sediments are made up of soil containing vegetable, and other organic materials, including human, and animal, faeces and remains, which were washed away from farmland, pasture and forests all over Nigeria and outside and carried by the Niger to form its delta and all the minerals in it”.

In a similar display of Northern hegemony masturbation Dr Usman Bugaje followed up with a made to measure rant “There are no oil producing states…. the only oil producing state is the Nigerian state itself…  Whatever mileage you get in the sea, according to the United Nations Law of the sea, is a measure of the landmass that gives that long 200 nautical miles or more into the ocean, is because of that 72 per cent of the land mass of this country, which is the North. What they claim is the off shore oil is actually the oil of the North.”. 

Brimming with Southern Nigeria irredentism, Professor Itse Sagay responded in kind “You will observe that because of the long stay of the North in power at the centre, they manipulated the process and cornered all these oil blocks to the disadvantage of the South; today, you have all the juicy oil blocks in the hands of the North. Now that Jonathan is the president, he should ensure that he corrects this imbalance by allocating more oil blocks to people in the South to make up for the inequity in the sector.”

The worldview and ideological position of these fellow travellers is significantly antithetical to the ethic of socioeconomic development and subversive of federalism. It is a raw display of the culture of prioritising consumption over productivity at its most insidious. It bespeaks a mentality that negates the potential of Nigeria for national cohesion and socio-economic development. 

In his contribution to the food security policy, the poster boy of the prevailing Nigeria’s gangster politics, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, lived to his billing once again. He alleged that the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, had credited the bank accounts of the state governments with thirty billion naira apiece. He said he got the rumour from “unverified reports. Well, according to the Oyo state governor, Seyi Makinde,’FIRS cannot give money to any state. It is not possible. All revenues accruing to the country goes into the federation account and it is distributed to all tiers of government. There is nothing like N30 billion being given to states for food security’

Noteworthy is that just about all the tragedies that had visited Nigeria have a direct or indirect causation in the Oil curse. Regardless of the prima facie case of Odumegwu Ojukwu, many observers share the belief that the recalcitrance of both sides to compromise was fed by the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta (moreso the Nigerian state). 

If oil played a role in fostering the civil war, it became the essence of the Nigerian political economy after the war. Following upon the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel contrived surge in the price of oil in 1973, the Nigerian military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon famously gave voice to the full blown descent of Nigeria into a rentier economy when he wondered out loud that the problem of Nigeria was not money but how to spend it. 

My visits to the Niger Delta region had been intermittent and confined to the urban metropolis of Benin, Warri, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa. For the first time, I sighted the interior islands a few years ago and it was a disheartening and harrowing spectre to behold. The unique topography made it extremely difficult and exorbitant to extend pipe borne water facility to their habitation. Provision of the infrastructure will require multiples of the cost of laying similar facilities elsewhere in the country.

Yet I was not prepared for the horror of the spectacle I was about to witness. The people were defecating and taking their bath in the same creek water they scooped to drink and cook! Lest I forget, the same water was polluted with oil sleek from the operations of the illegal oil refineries that dotted the banks of the crisscrossing creeks. I did not see anybody casting fishing nets into the river. Maybe it was futile to do so. My friend and escort directed my attention to the skies above; it was eerily quiescent and overcast but more importantly it was bereft of the chirping and flapping of flying birds-proof positive of toxic air pollution. 

It is not only in the Niger Delta creeks that crude oil stood in the way of income yielding utilisation of the land and waters for agriculture, it also did in the rest of Nigeria. The difference is that while the reality was shoved down the throat of the Niger Deltans, other Nigerians made the choice of opting not to till the ground on account of the disincentive to work fostered by the avalanche of petrol dollars. Parallel to the pathetic situation in the region was the inadvertent mocking refrain of General Theophilus Danjuma. 

Whatever his good intentions are (echoing the peculiar Gowon refrain five decades before), Danjuma struck at the heart of the resource curse syndrome when he complained that he has so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it. And where did he get this troubling riches that do not require the ethic of productivity? His oil bloc in the swamps of the Niger Delta. Given the squalid living conditions of the same Delta region inhabitants, should he have any difficulty identifying potential beneficiaries of his largesse?

Once again, Nigeria is squirming in the throes of an existential crisis. Dangling like the sword of damocles over the country are the harrowing exactions of the twin vicissitudes of the deregulation of the pump price of premier motor spirits (PMS) aka the removal of oil subsidy and the floatation of the naira.

Moments of challenges and difficulties are often replete with opportunities to advance with a giant step forward. Nigeria has for long being victimised by an unworkable constitution. At my last outing, I posed the option before Nigeria as that between ‘Rawlings’ and Restructuring.The former is a Rawlings style revolutionary cleansing and the other is a voluntary and conscious constitutional restoration of federalism. The jury is out. Let us seize the moment 

Certain events cannot be erased from memory and, indeed from consciousness. After nearly six decades, controversy still rages over the calamitous events of 1966. In two years, it will be 60 years since the first coup which overthrew the Balewa Administration and down the line, the governments in the Regions as well, took place. If the principal actors were to be alive today, they would be close to knocking 90 years. But the last of them, Major Adewale Ademoyega, left in 2007. Come to think of it, General Yakubu Gowon, the rallying point for a united Nigeria, will be 90 later this year. He was a Lt.-Col while the putchists were Majors in the Nigerian Army. Because of the horror and the dramatic impact of the era both on the country, and its peoples and the concomitant trust deficit it has generated among the different nationalities, it has been difficult to live down the era in our hearts. Indeed, it is firmly imprinted in the souls where some of the events so filed away come alive from time to time. In the Beyond, the intensification will even be more. It is from there that those who preoccupy themselves with the event draw, albeit, unconsciously. What can tame and erase it and progress will ensue is love, love, and more love.

As I stated last week, “The history of the earthly past, recent or contemporary, can be re-written and it is often re-written or amended to suit whims and caprices, to satisfy fancy, or to provide the correct rendition of accounts…Often the objective is to whitewash. Through the re-writing many publications thought infallible in later years are often found to have suffered from distortion as a result of limitation or deficiency of memories. You may just have to read writings about events of the last 70 years in Nigeria by different authors and you will get my drift.” People pay special attention to contentious issues spoken or written. Some of those affected by the 15 January 1966 coup and its aftermaths, directly or indirectly, are around, and more, the succeeding generation who may have been fed with different kinds of narratives. In the handling, such issues should be put in context, for better enlightenment so as not to prolong the agonies of victims or their loved ones and their succeeding generation.

This brings me to a video now in circulation in which the renowned lawyer and activist, Prof. Mike Ozekhome featured or was, perhaps, credited to him—credited because you never can say in the times we are. The video does not state the occasion the learned SAN was speaking and what the subject was. What you find is a vehement pronouncement to correct what he called “one historical profanity” that comes “from the pit of hell.” What he sought to correct was the widespread and decades-old notion that the January 15 coup was an Igbo coup. For such a sensitive subject that if mishandled is capable of opening a new chasm and triggering a season of hate, his presentation could have been less didactic and abrasive. The timing of an intervention from an eminent scholar like Mike Ozekhome is key, indeed, very important. The diatribe over the elections whipping up emotions is yet to abate. A great many, grey-haired and bald-headed today, were not just readers of history but witnesses to some of the unhappy events that occurred in our land in the not-too-distant past. There has been enough literature to help clarify issues.

Ozekhome is correct: The 15 January 1966 coup was not an Igbo coup. I had had my conviction that it was not an Igbo coup nor was it an Igbo agenda from the word go. My conviction was bolstered by books authored in particular by principal planners of the coup. In the Western Region riled by events that could self-evidently be said were the catalysts for the coup there was wild jubilation, heaving sighs of relief. It was throughout the Region. In fact, thanksgiving worship took place in churches and mosques. The distortions to what was seen as a high-minded mission of the planners by officers who backed out at the 11th hour did not alter convictions; they were only seen as black sheep.

There were unfortunate coincidences that made people and commentators go away with the impression that a regional agenda by officers from the eastern part of the country underpinned it. That the event was going to provide an opportunity for Chief Awolowo, their icon, to be released from prison was all that mattered to the people of Western Region. What characterization was anyone going to give to the putsch that an Ekiti man or woman, an Ondo man or woman or an Owo man or an Ijesha, was going to accept if by the event Awolowo was going to get out of the jailhouse? I have not mentioned Oyo, Ibarapa, Jonathan Odebiyi’s Egbado, Adegbenro’s Egbaland, and Ibadan where the Awolowo factor was a given. The coup was seen as an end to arrogance of power on display: “Whether you vote for us or not we will win! A ti t’oje bo Oloosa lowo, o ku baba eni ti yio bo! Roughly translated as ‘the sceptre of power is in the hands of the King, we will see who will seize it from our hands!’ Opposition Leader Adegbenro replied that the hand bearing the sceptre would be cut! Bi ko ba se e bo a se e ge. A o ge e ni. We will cut it, Adegbenro, said. Such was the situation in the Western Region. Major Adewale Ademoyega, one of the masterminds, alluded to this much in his book, Why We Struck: “Thereupon, the people of Western Region did not appeal to the deaf gods typified by the regional Governor, the law courts and the police. They simply recalled the days of their ancestors when unpopular rulers were removed by concerted efforts of the people.” In other words, the people of the Western Region were not just poised for a show-down; they were already engaged in the fierce battle to remove their rulers by all means. So, when the coup took place, those behind it were hailed as heroes.

Not until months later when jubilation died down that analysts began to paint the picture of the possibility of the operation as being one-sided. The perception was spread following reports from the North. While there was jubilation in the West the North was cold. The situation was getting tense by the day as reports of the killing of their beloved Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and his senior wife spread. Peter Pan (Peter Enahoro), the celebrated columnist and Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Times travelled round the country and wrote about how unimpressed the Northerners were about the coup and the change of their government. Anxiety then began to mount when the checklist of actors and casualties started to come out in trickles and controversies ensued. What was the objective of the coup and how was it compromised, what was the nature of the compromise, and to what end?

By merely running one’s eyes through the table of contents of Major Adewale Ademoyega’s book, “Why We Struck,” one can have some ideas. After the Foreword, Preface, you have Chapter One—Political Prelude. He wrote on the ideology that underpinned their objective, What happened on the night of the coup, its execution, and what he has described as Ironsi’s Misadventure. Ademoyega was not just a participant; he was one of the principal planners, in the forefront. Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu may have been the leader, but Ademoyega was the coordinator of the operation throughout the country. He carried the idea of a revolution firmly ingrained in his head from his university days at the University of London. They started as three—himself, Nzeogwu, and Emmanuel Ifeajuna. They drew in two more as they were progressing. The number grew to seven, six of whom were Igbo and one Yoruba. Two more were drawn in to make altogether nine. The list was later expanded to involve some Captains. The planners were Majors, addressed by writers as The Five Majors. The addition consisted of the following: Captain Emmanuel Nwobosi, who insistently preferred Awolowo to Dr. Azikiwe as President of Nigeria in the planning if the coup succeeded; and Capt. Ogbu Oji. Those listed by Prof. Ozekhome were mostly Lts. that is 1st Lts. And 2nd Lts. Captains were three, namely Captain Gani Adeleke, Capt. Gibson Jalo and Capt. Gibson. The 2nd Lts. were Saleh Dambo and John Atom Kpera (Tiv). They were not part of the planners. They were brought in only close to the hour of action. Fola Oyewole, author of the book The Reluctant Rebel also on the coup said this much in an interview with The News Magazine of 09 January 2016. He said:

“I was not one of the master planners of the coup. It will interest you to know that by half past eleven on the night of January 14th, 1966, I had no clue about the coup. No clue whatsoever,”

The Magazine then asked: Why did they link you?

Oyewole: “Precisely, I was friendly with Emmanuel Ifeajuna who was the Brigade General and then after they had planned and done everything possible as the saying goes, some of the people who agreed to what they had agreed decided not to take part; it was a matter of getting anybody who could help and by virtue of my position, I had a telephone in my house, which was the same thing that happened to most people there. The original people started telephoning: ‘Where are you…? I want to see you.’ It was an emergency period. I was second in command to the Transport Brigade in Apapa and we were on 24 hour alert (So, like they will say something like this… something is happening in Ogbomoso blah, blah, blah, can you help? We did get instruction 24 hours. It did not come as a surprise, so that is what happened. They drove to my house at about 25 minutes to 12 and asked me to come to Ifeajuna’s house. I got there and I saw a lot of officers sitting down and they had even finished….I was not the only one. There were some other people who didn’t know until that day. For instance on the night people were briefed, a colleague was at the briefing and he told them, Look I have to consult my family. They looked at him and said, O.K. go and consult your family your family”. Just by the corridor, somebody was told to follow him thinking he might not come back, “Follow him, maybe he will be the first casualty of the coup…” He revealed that the gentleman was Capt. Gani Adeleke. He was a reluctant rebel because he was drafted from the prison in Enugu by Ojukwu to fight on the side of Biafra. He wrote the book in prison between 1971 and 1972. It was published in 1975. He revealed how he distilled and produced petrol, to move vehicles on Biafran’s side, diesel oil, and kerosene for the ordinary people.

Adewale Ademoyega says in his book: “I came to the Army with a heart pointed towards finding a solution to Nigeria’s political problems. But before I was commissioned, I had met and established a solid relationship with two young officers of the Army, Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna whose hearts pointed in the same direction as mine. It seemed as if the three of us were destined to play the big and decisive role together.”

The plan of the three of them was to put down the upheaval, the seemingly intractable upheaval in the West, and pre-empt what they saw as Balewa’s Federal Government plan to clamp down on the opposition, notable personalities such as Dr. Tai Solarin and the intellectuals from the University of Ibadan and from the University of Ife in particular regarded as the hotbed of opposition against Premier Akintola’s government which was battling for its life. Sardauna’s absence from the country on Lesser Hajj, from their observation, was what held up the Federal Government crackdown in the West as was done in the Middle Belt, using troops to suppress dissent and agitation led by Joseph Tarka in Tivland. The plan of the core three planners was to overthrow the Federal Government and the four Regional Governments of the era and end arson, looting, and brigandage and restore order and normal life in the troubled Western Region in particular. They were going to release all leading political leaders in jail such as Chief Awolowo, Lateef Jakande, Onitiri, Omisade, Josiah S. Olawoyin, Ayo Akinsanya, and Okorie-Yesin. An Air Force plane was to be on standby to go and fetch Chief Awolowo on the morning of the coup from Calabar and fly him into Lagos.

Says Ademoyega in his book: “It was in mid-November 1965 that we held the one and only formal meeting that preceded the coup. The meeting was held in Lagos, in the military quarters of Major Ifeajuna. Nzeogwu was there from Kaduna and I from Abeokuta. Major Chude Sokei was there from Enugu. Others were from Lagos, i.e. Okafor of the Federal Guards Company; Anuforo, Chuwuka from the Army Headquarters. The meeting was short. There was a consensus amongst us that something had to be done quickly to save Nigeria from anarchy and disintegration and to restore peace and unity to the nation. It was agreed that only the use of force could bring immediate end to the violence being perpetrated in many parts of the country. It was, however, agreed that the use of force should be minimal.” Their targeted leaders were only to be arrested but where arrest was resisted it was to be met with force. “Otherwise, no one was to be killed.”

It was in the execution of the coup that critical officers were less than faithful to the cause. They did not report at their duty posts on the night of the operation. Those to supply weapons and communication equipment were nowhere to be found. When you consider the failings in execution and those who disappointed their colleagues, it is easy to have it tagged an Igbo coup. They were Okafor, Ifeajuna, Obienu, and Oguchi. Ademoyega had to be asking in exasperation: “Where now was Ifeajuna? Major Obienu had defaulted altogether…Had we now lost Lagos? Had our own men deserted us? Okafor had lost the Federal Guards. Has Ifeajuna also lost the 2nd Brigade Headquarters? Obienu who was to send reinforcement from Abeokuta to Ikeja, in the account of Ademoyega “was not around; he had not returned to the station since the previous day and left no orders for troop deployment… Now we have lost Lagos and Ironsi. What a terrible situation!”

Gen. Aguiyi-Ironsi the GOC, upon escaping the approaching dragnet, mobilized counter-forces against those he termed “unfriendly forces.” He gave orders that they be arrested. He thus foiled the coup in Lagos. The orders went to different formations throughout the country, but more urgently South-West and Lagos. Before Ironsi’s orders could reach Ibadan and Kaduna, the deed had been done. What happened in Enugu and Benin? How come the political leaders of Eastern extraction escaped being killed like their counterparts elsewhere? (This will be treated in Part 2.) The killings where they took place were horrifying. The coup led to war and the horrors of war. Wise counsel, therefore, ought to have dictated caution and respect for sensibilities. My intervention is to correct misrepresentations to calm nerves in the event of an incipient rise in body temperature.

General Emmanuel Abisoye says in the Foreword to Ademoyega’s book: “At last, the missing link in our contemporary history is being supplied by Adewale Ademoyega, a former Major in the Combat Arm of the Nigerian Army. He is one of the historical trio who planned and executed the first Nigerian coup d’etat of January 15, 1966. Hitherto we had been treated to half-truths and sometimes imaginary stories by those who claimed to know the real motives behind the said coup.”

I BEGIN by pleading an obsessive problem – media language. As one who is routinely traumatized by encountering his own words reworked into imagined equivalents, duly enhanced and augmented even with the best and honest intentions, but which actually convey the exact opposite of intent, such an obsession is quite understandable. Fortunately, this preliminary is not personalized. I shall proceed, as gently as I can, and through purely fortuitous exemplars from our national media, to a straightforward proposition of just how a national psyche can be programmed, rewired, so to speak, into absorbing the freakish, the grotesque into its digestive system, so that it becomes assimilated as the norm. The process is mostly imperceptible, but the results are manifested in conduct, values, relationships in both the private and the public domain. Language is part of the enabling factors of such social disfigurement. That is obvious, since it is our basic means of social exchange. The print media has a very special responsibility in this respect, as the communication field is now wide open, instantly and promiscuously accessible. It is patronized by the knowledgeable and the vacuous, the purpose oriented and the dilletante, the nihilist and the builder.

By contrast, the print remains the product of a long tradition of discipline and commitment, no matter how suspect or unpalatable its choices in political partisanship. The real veterans of the species often become famous for what is known as “a housestyle”. Each consciously aspires to credibility and peer respect among its competitors. When it slips up, it makes efforts to ‘clean up its act’ or else, confront sanctions. In sum, each member of that estate strives not to lower the sensibilities of the humanity it claims to serve – this is where the issue of language comes in. The secret sign of progress is when one finds that the frequency of certain reprehensible expressions has diminished, and eventually vanishes altogether. Retrogression is when certain replacements are introduced, through imitation, attain currency through ignorance and a craving to be “in fashion”.

These days, for instance, it is unlikely that you will encounter an account of a motor accident which reports that so many passengers were “roasted to death”.  Yet, up to a few years ago, the print media was almost competitively awash with it. It was almost as if journalists were on the hunt for nothing else but fiery road shows just so they could splash the supposed barbecue party across their pages. And so, it was quite a shock for me to encounter, just a few days ago, yet another innovation along this perverse valuation of human life. Perhaps it was just an isolated slip in standards, but it struck me as a reflection of the state of the collective conscious of a fast-unraveling nation, a condition that provoked my recent novel - CHRONICLES FROM THE LAND OF THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH.

Hopefully, you have come across it. It quite rightly earned comments such as a lavish exercise in the vein of gallows humour. However, that work belongs to the realm of fiction, not daily reportage. It was perhaps unfortunate that this was one of those occasions that I chose to browse through the newspapers after a stretch of absence, just to acclimatize myself with a whiff of environmental fragrance and – well, what else did I expect?  Morbidity as the staple read.  One has become accustomed to that. However, there was one headline that instantly leapt out – yes, another case of “Mystery death”. The casualty? A young female graduate on her way to Europe. Without any conscious effort, my mind flew instantly to precedents. First, to that student victim of the fanatic lynch mob in Sokoto, Deborah Samuel, next, further back, to yet another student, Cynthia, who was lured into a hotel on Victoria Island, and was drugged, robbed, raped, and strangled. Her killers were also youths, mostly of her own age.

            I paused, took a deep breath, then proceeded to immerse myself in details. It turned out that this was not a Deborah scenario, and it vastly differed from the Cynthia exercise in murder via virtual encounter. This was related neither to the lucrative ritual killing and trafficking in human parts as celebrated in the earlier mentioned fictional work. It appeared to be one of those deaths for which, blasphemously, one comes close to even breathing a sigh of relief. No crime appears to have been involved. No summary execution by kidnappers for failure to pay ransom. So far anyway, it appears to have been a freakish outcome of some medical procedure gone wrong.  So why did my mind switch from the initial “Oh, no not again”, to “Oh no, why kill her all over again”. Expand that to, “Why dehumanize her?”  “Where is human empathy in this family tragedy?”  The cause of that silent outburst is easily grasped in the following reportage:

“The promising, beautiful girl was hale and hearty when she walked into the hospital theatre for a minor medical procedure but, an hour later, she had become lifeless like a dead cow on the slaughter slab.”

Really? That is how to report the premature death of another being? This has nothing to do with grammar in a foreign language - translate it into any indigenous language and we are still confronted with an accusing question – what has happened to basic humanity? To find such a degradation of sensibilities in the print media delivered quite a jolt. And a warning: T’ewe ba pe l’afra ose, ohun na a bere sii ho yoyo. (Translation:  If the leaf wrapping stays too long on the soap, it also begins to foam). The question then arises: who now is infecting whom? Are we dumbing down in deference to the language of trolls? Freedom of expression implicates also freedom of the choice of expression, thus, personal, as well as corporate responsibility cannot be evaded. One’s mind goes immediately to veteran editors such as Lateef Jakande. Lade Bonuola, or closer to the present, Stanley Macebuh, Patrick Cole and that breed - would such a travesty have left the press room under their watch? If the answer is – most improbable”, then does this indicate human progress? Or is a complacent society being programmed to accept as normal what was once unthinkable?

Of course, we also have a choice: we can relegate such retrogression to quite a minor glitch, label it isolated and let it pass. We do all the time anyway, knowing fully well it is anything but isolated. Well, why not? After all, it is only language. There is absolutely no correlation between the depiction of that “cow on a slaughter slab” and the story on a succeeding page, or shared in lurid headlines across sister journals, this time featuring another youth, also a student, male in full confessional flight: WHY I SLAUGHTERED MY MOTHER AND CHOPPED HER IN PIECES. Or that student, this time female, who murdered her lover in a hotel room, then went on to contest in a Beauty pageant in prison while awaiting trial. It all comes round to that other, but fundamental contest for – what is human?

Enough of those grisly preliminaries. We shall return to that theme on a related note – the exercise itself of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, and its subversions in the strangest, least expected places. You express an opinion, a political preference in Kontangora, and your ancestral home gets burnt in Idi-Ayunre. State power, you see, is not the only identifiable villain, albeit it has the inbuilt capacity to grab us by the neck, spit in our faces, and shake us out of complacency. I refer to the degree of license so ruthlessly exercised by Vladimir Putin in his feudalist elimination of Alexei Navalny, the democratic voice of the Russian people. Any local echoes here of the fate of MKO Abiola? Of Yar’Adua? We shall not let Poison Putin long distract us.  Society itself – its own citizen domain - often harbours mutations of the same virus. Alertness is the watchword, and the Press, will it or not, sooner or later, always finds itself catapulted to the fore.

So, for now, let us find some relief in indulging a little in the rites of Celebration of Creativity. That, after all, is the purpose of our gathering today. We proceed by way of some reminiscences, pausing only to remind ourselves that the creative urge in humanity is unpredictable. Considering our religious saturated environment, perhaps the closest comparison for us here would be the phenomenon of spiritual possession.

Oh, that brings up the recent hullaballoo occasioned by a BBC documentary on the religious enterprise rampaging across this very nation. The question to pose is: why the fuss? Why the attempt to pillory the BBC? Stories are an open field where fiction, reality and faction – the name for fictionalized reality, or a mix – meet and intersect. Reality?  That is the very name of the harvest of some three hundred souls in search of spiritual fulfillment – mostly all the way from the other end of the continent. They were sucked into eternity through illegal and deficient construction authorized by a “man of God”. Plus a lot besides, a lot more. If culpable homicide knows no boundaries in its allocation of victims, its narrative acknowledges boundaries even less. If one human enclave fails or dawdles in its mission of appropriating and transforming raw material, others outside will adopt it as theirs.

In any case -and here comes a minor revelation - don’t tell me everyone missed this. I invite you to return to the earlier mentioned CHRONICLES FROM THE LAND etc. etc. The story of the nation’s star prophet is right in there, splashed all over some 500 pages. No? Re-visit the names acquired by that faith healer of prodigious talents and execrable theatre, projected in that novel as a man of many parts. Shall I remind you? Yes, he was most prominently identified as Father Davina and Teribogo but, call out slowly one of his other names: Tibidje. What does it spell? Call it out – separately - Tee-Bee-Jay!  That’s our man, who else? T.B. Joshua. I studied him for quite some time, I assure you. I even once discussed him with the then Lagos governor who had plans to bring him to justice. He vanished of course, relocated to Latin America. No matter, between journalism and fiction, the narrative is virtually complete – a creative genius of fakery and - diabolism.  Let us return to creativity in the uplifting mode

 Yes indeed, creativity, and the modes through which it is manifested often makes many of us miss recognition of its operations, and thus fail to give credit to numerous products of the expression of human vision. The parturition of a new vehicle of communication and thus, the promotion of socio-political discourse, including the stimulation of artistic productivity, is one such creative feat, and cannot be over celebrated. When, despite numerous obstacles – from basic economic uncertainties and brand  competition, to exterior incursions, often of a hostile, even fatal nature – it has survived and arrived at a significant milestone, it needs no excuse whatever to preen its feathers, flaunt its colours and bask in public appreciation. 

            I enjoyed – no, that is something of a misleading expression – so, let’s just say that I was thrown into a somewhat unique, personal, yet vicarious and intriguing relationship with PUNCH from its very beginning. I was part of the environment of its birth, and have watched its rise from the public regard of what we might call a sigh of resignation – that sigh of, “oh, another one in an already overcrowded field - to the status of a sturdy must-read journal, observed its transformation through experimentation in every production department - from basic aesthetic appearance to shifts in political leaning and ideological flirtations. I have every reason to recall that last paring in particular, and the reason is not far to seek. The PUNCH came to life at a critical phase of this nation’s history.  Unquestionably the brainchild of one individual, its driving force both financially and creatively, that individual, the late Chief Olu Aboderin, was socio-politically impassioned, and he drew into his orbit similarly engaged minds, influential and combative. I can only speak as a peripheral observer and occasional interloper, most in the adversarial mode, so I plead guilty here to possible upturned assessment of individual hands in the making of that institution. However, this was my assessment in those days, and I believe it tallied with the perception of most of the public.  

Regarding the timing however, there can be little dispute – The Punch burst on the media scene with a finely tuned sense of history in the making. It emerged as if on cue, as if timed to enable or reinforce a new political order that was poised over the nation, following  our baptism in the font of military coups – the installation of the regime oi Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi. This was soon followed by the counter-coup that transferred power to General Yakubu Gowon. The danse macabre of musical chairs would consolidate the relegation of civil society to the margins of political relevance and deepen the fault lines of ethnic divisions, such as we are currently undergoing. At the time however, hopes were not totally absent for the re-building of a new society on the rubble of the past, that watershed of existence for which the press invariably plays a frontal role. The PUNCH was not implicated in the catastrophic errors of the past, so it entered the fray with the credentials of a new eye on that past, and the potentials of a new order.

There was yet another unique aspect to the profile of this newcomer to the lists. Yes, indeed, it was a new conduit for national aspirations. Was it however, a new voice? Here follows my personal take on its emergence, one that was product of a close but also vicarious relationship. That seemingly contradicting connection evolved through the agency of a movement of which most of us here probably have never heard, or may have forgotten. It was however a powerful pressure group at that critical phase of the nation’s history. It was known as the Committee of Ten, and consisted of a group of young to middle-aged and middle-class intellectuals and professionals, of which Chief Aboderin was the acknowledged head. That pressure group had pronounced itself unambiguously supportive of the government of General Gowon. By contrast – I am sure no one needs reminding - I was, to put it mildly - no fan of the Gowon dispensation.  The committee – let me now interject the personal insights – included my own cousin, the late Sobo Sowemimo, S.A.N.  I mention him specifically for a number of reasons. One, he was a distinctly hyperactive member. Occasions such as this should not be allowed to pass without a few reminiscences that enable us to restore faces to the dramatis personae that animated a fast-fading era. Such restoration even adds a bonus of chain reaction. Each link tugs at the next, enabling us recover details that revitalize events and reconstruct a number of illuminating aspects that tend to crack and crumble with time.

 Sobo Sowemimo and I – on opposing sides in that critical phase - were close, so close in fact that he made a habit of stopping at my residence in Igbobi – I was then teaching at the University of Lagos but lived off-campus. This wily cousin owned one of the few sports coupes in Lagos – it was either a BMW or a Mercedes, I forget which. The strange thing however was that he hated to drive. Despite that phobia, usually on his way home from his club – it was either the Island Club or the Yoruba Tennis Club - Sobo would stop at my quarters, dismiss his driver, and settle down to continue what he had been engaged upon at the club – which was depleting a few more bottles of beer. He usually arrived with an ice bag fully loaded. That meant only one thing – he expected me to drive him home -and in his own car! He did not hide his contempt for what I called a car. I had no objection, I loved driving that coupe – and he knew it. So, I would drop him at his home, bring his car back to my Igbobi home for the night. His driver would then pick up his car the following morning.

            In between – what else? - we talked politics, and the politics of Sobo was none other than the politics of the Committee of Ten. I doubt if Gowon ever knew what a determined advocate he had in Sobo – but I would be greatly surprised if he failed to note and indeed appreciate what a fervent ally he had in The PUNCH, once it surfaced.  It took a while before I began to suspect that Sobo was not always as incapacitated or averse to the steering wheel as he professed. He had a mission, and that mission was to convert me into the Committee of-Ten position on post-war prospects under Gowon. It was an uphill task, and my learned cousin was visibly heartbroken when I began to make my contrary position public, largely in strident opposition to the military presence which was fast digging in. The fallout was inevitable. I found myself – facing a ferocious barrage of the collective hostility of the Committee of Ten. When I published my prison memoirs – The Man Died, all hell was let loose in the Nigerian media, The PUNCH very much at the vitriolic head of assault. My beloved cousin was not left behind, indeed he felt duty bound to deliver the most resonating Punch – that pun could not be more appropriate!

              The social landscape had begun to change however, and so had a citizen viewpoint. The cynical beneficiaries of war – any war! - had begun to preen in their true colours. The oil boom distorted values. Corruption soared, as did political opportunism. Nigerians began to readjust their veneration of the military as agents of progressive change. The sworn affidavit became the weaponry of indictment in high places - Who still recalls the battle-cry of “You Tarka me, I Daboh you!” Ideological pundits began to readjust post-war priorities. All this evolved against a background of a soaring national economy that even valued the Naira above the dollar? The non-beneficiary exceptions were of course, those defeated on the battle field - the Biafrans. As confidently predicted by this roundly vilified negativist – in company of a few other voices such as, it is often forgotten, the unwavering Tai Solarin – the bubble of triumphalism was close to bursting.

It burst eventually, but not before, for example, a delegation – which, in my recollection, included two members of The Committee of Ten, was commissioned to tour the military belt of the globe - most particularly  Latin America - and study how coup makers had transformed themselves into civilian rulers, even as Life Presidents. However, that inevitable process of reassessment that catches up with even the best assimilated victors from the battlefield began to take hold. I confess that I cannot recall how early and deeply that mood of re-assessment was reflected in The PUNCH during that transitional phase – and the reason is straightforward: not long after emergence from my involuntary tenure in Gowon’s Kaduna guest house, I began to sense the need for a mental break from the cloud of euphoria that had settled over the nation, one that seduced a people into believing that the crisis of nation-being had been definitively resolved on the battle field. I prescribed myself a spell of voluntary exile where neither The PUNCH nor other Nigerian media was permitted space among my informative read.

 Well, as we all know, Gowon took his turn on the power roulette. It was the signal I had long awaited – it was time for us to change places, he moved into exile while WS found his way back to Nigerian soil. Murtala Muhammed was now in charge, a mercuric and somewhat unpredictable leader but, I was prepared to take my chances. Within the Committee of Ten, a commonality of purpose appeared to have dissipated. Sobo remained my barometer.  He took pains to seek me out, unburdening his mind on the reorientation that had taken place within the famous group and in him in a most profound way. He had got rid of his sports coupe, but he did not require any tools of seduction. I had returned from exile in the same frame of mind as I had emerged from Kaduna prison, which was exactly the same as when I had brought down a rain of fiery coals on my head with my “unpatriotic” – some even called it “treasonable” - article titled “Let us think of the aftermath of this war”. Alas, till today, the nation continues to writhe within the debilitating coils of that “aftermath”

            These reminiscences are intended neither as vindication nor indictment of one position or the other in relation to the concluded war - no, I would hate for them to be read as such. They are intended, as earlier confessed, as simply acts of recollection augmenting an occasion of celebration. They also serve however to evoke the quite routine phenomenon of how institutions respond to changes in socio-political realities, which, let us recollect, are often not of their own making. But then, this also constitutes a warning. All we have to do is look over the borders, but not far. Is it possible to deny that we are, at this moment, witnessing History repeating itself?  A cordon militaire, a khaki belt that we considered permanently unbuckled and jettisoned is being refastened, and tightened, under our impotent gaze? That Belt consolidate daily, even to the extent that its wearers now feel sufficiently confident to pronounce themselves a sub-region within a sub-region, having taking the step of “seceding” from the umbrella body, ECOWAS. Largely Francophone for now, it narrowly failed to distend itself with an anglophone nation quite recently, that nation appears to have been “saved by the bell”. Or perhaps there is a secret understanding, even a pact, that this neo-khaki belt is meant to be strictly francophone. Consider the signs emerging from one time-tested democracy located at the historic westernmost departure point for Africa’s traumatic history of enslavement that lasted over two centuries! I shall let an appeal, circulated to a group of us, I speak for itself. It is an appropriate indicative of the concerns into which some individuals beyond their immediate borders are drawn time and time again. Even where one is impotent to intervene, to alter the course of events, such summons still serves as a template against which one sees reflections of the lurking threats in one’s own internal condition before such threats actually materialize. This particular appeal was sent to a number of black intellectuals both within the African continent and the Diaspora – that is, to us all in this hall, and on the continent. An earlier – warning, just about a year ago - had been followed by some of the most intensely violent civil unrests, of unprecedented destructiveness that Senegal has known since independence. Let us begin with that earlier alert, just so we understand that these convulsions do not simply spring up overnight. The signs are always present, nudging the complacent and/or naive, leaving them to the wearisomely predictable fate of the indifferent. Here goes:

Dear Anthony, Cornel, Noam, Wole,

I hope that this email will find you well. I am sad but I would like to inform you about the on-going chaotic socio-political situation in Senegal. A month ago, you were kind enough to sign the petition where we, Senegalese intellectuals, called on Macky Sall, the head of state of Senegal, to stop the instrumentalization of justice. We thought that this appeal, which was very successful, would have brought the head of state to reason. 

Unfortunately, he has stubbornly carried on with the repression of the opposition and the popular will of the people of Senegal. 

Today the consequences are horrible. In the past three days, about fifteen very young people were killed by police force, and the armed militias of the head of state, not to mention those seriously injured alongside thousands of extra-judicial arrests. 

This situation is very worrying and unstable, with drifts dangerous for Africa and Senegalese democracy.

Thank you for your attention

That was just about a year ago, Now let us take the latest sequel – dated February 7, 2024

Dear all,

I hope you are well. Surely, you are aware that Senegal is currently undergoing a major crisis. The President of the Republic has abruptly halted the electoral process, canceling, for the first time in Senegal's history, the presidential elections scheduled for February 25. With his mandate ending on April 2, he has decided to postpone the elections to December 15. The entire country is in anger. It is uncertain what will happen, but it's highly likely we are entering a cycle of uncontrollable violence. This Head of State and his entourage have been involved in so many malpractices and corruptions that he fears for his own safety. We, intellectuals, civil societies, and political parties, are organizing ourselves for resistance.

That's the current situation. I will keep you informed of developments and actions to be taken.

Best regards,

Just what is it that happens to us on this land-mass? Again, let us recall that a khaki belt does not simply spring to life from nowhere and from no causes. We know what those causes are, and they are never without warning signals – suppress those signals as often and as brutally as you choose, the fingerprint smudges are clearly there for all to see. Coups are not thereby justified, they are politically amoral, illusionary, and dehumanizing. All known organisms – among which we must reckon human society – evolve in an ascending direction of more and more self-sufficiency, less and less dependency. This presupposes, for human society, increased capacity for navigating the unexpected. To come down to concrete examples, experience teaches us to anticipate, and thus devise, and structure responses to the untenable, such as corruption, marginalization and – most insistent of all – the will to dominate. Historic consciousness is also part of the human asset, and when we see supposedly mature people today carrying soldiers’ shoulder high and jubilating at yet another jackboot intrusion in their lives, one comes close to despair, seeing the evolutionary process operating on a reverse track. And where the home bred imperators proceed to forge new alliances with foreign adventurers, one can only mutter the embarrassed question: haven’t we been here before?

            Well, perhaps there is another way of looking at such history, and maybe even find a crumb of consolation in this tragi-comedy of recycling, but what a desperate, even perverse   extraction, since it is based on the principle of vengeance on ancient oppressors, of the chickens coming home to roost in their barns. I refer here to that – quite understandable - feeling that reads: Serve them right! Our erstwhile colonizers are having a taste of their own medicine. They now know what it feels like to be dispossessed, albeit even of property that was never theirs. That position claims, with grim satisfaction: we Africans are finally asserting our authentic independence by abandoning the colonial embrace of francophonie, anglophonie, lusophonie and all.  From all signs and pronouncements, a new linguistic entity may be in the making – a Russophonie. Abandoning years of surreptitious moves, most especially in the uranium saturated Sahel, Russia appears to have convoked a presumed one-nation version of the Berlin conference – perhaps with North Korea and China as privileged observers, and moved frontally into Africa, asserting her own interest in that beleaguered continent. Never too late to begin. decided Mr. Vladimir Putin, as he commissioned his Wagner Group and inserted that surrogate army into the African interior, first covertly, operating under the strategy of denial, then openly and defiantly. If only African leaders had listened to alerts, both open and coded, they would have discovered, long before Nigeria hit the air-waves with that famous election battle-cry, Vladimir Putin, ardent poacher in troubled waters, had long declared to the retreating Western imperialists: Emi l’okan!

All it takes is a “civil war” – under whatever guise and by any available euphemism - and West Africa is awash with that commodity at the moment and - who can dispute it? – our region is desperate for helping hands. We need not travel beyond our own borders to find a much more ancient precedent than the present plague of religious insurgencies across the region. Russia also played a most effective role in the Nigerian war of secession. Most of the bombing raids that wreaked havoc on Biafra were Russian, manned by Egyptian pilots, so we cannot even claim that the Russia are strangers to the African conflict zones. When you add such aerial intervention to the role of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc in Africa’s liberation struggle, we can estimate this latest wave as no more than a phase of just recompense for past services.

There are, however, two questions that should agitate us , and they are questions that African leaders should take to heart as this new entity, the Russophonie, begins to consolidate and take formal shape. One is: is the continent an inert, expendable commodity, condemned to change hands eternally under foreign will? Then, two: is the present contender for imperial possession the same socio-political entity that, in the nineteen-fifties sixties and seventies, aided the liberation of the continent from western imperialism? Just those two questions for objective reflection, and we can return our attention to how the continent itself, despite her harrowing past, continues to lay herself wide open for serial rape.

My observation is that, from north to south and east to west, this home continent is burdened with far too much of unfinished business, imbuing in much of leadership thinking a psycho-pathology of evasion, rather than a pro-active temperament that takes on board, simultaneously, in one hand, the immediate, mundane task of governance – health, housing, economy, infrastructure, environment, unemployment, much of which ailments have provoked a craving for the short cut – military intervention and -  firmly in the other hand, the unfinished business of nation being. Remedies are thus left to individual desperation. We find this expressed in the form of what is now known as the “japa” syndrome – seeking not just food and shelter, but also marginal identities elsewhere, even if this ends in lining the Sahara sands with their skeletons or, more highly publicized, the sea-bed of the Mediterranean. They feel nothing for origin, feel no further sense of belonging, seek nothing further at its hands.

I can count on the fingers of both hands the number of conferences and encounters in which I have participated regarding this scourge, some of which have resulted in manifestoes on the fundamental rights of the immigrant. The causes of this renewed wave of Africa’s depopulation following the slave trade, can be summed up in that phrase yet again - “unfinished business” of nation-being. Preoccupied with the earlier enumerated features of existential woes, sometimes as much nature inflicted as they are man-made, for which corrective measures are easier to tackle, and whose returns are material, even quantifiable, we simply brush aside as inconsequential the fundamental notion of identity, of belonging, which constitute the fruits of the tree that is nation.

And yet, we know that the most cursory glance across any continental axis, be it along the west African sub-region, the Horn, or central Africa to the south, reveals that the uprights across which those material rungs are sustained are at best illusory props, largely sustained by habit only, prone to collapse at the slightest stress. Even right here, the Biafran war of secession offers us a constant springboard for a rethink. All we have to ask is the question: is that war over? Taken narrowly, for instance, an ancient statement of mine which warned that a people who had resolved on secession could never be defeated, would appear to be contradicted by a mutual, terminal ceasefire ritual. The leaders did sign the article of surrender. A policy of No Victor no Vanquished rang out vibrantly and the three Rs were promulgated, and probably with the most sincere intent to deliver as declared – Reconciliation, Restoration and Reconstruction – or something along those lines. However, is that all? Then tell me, what is MASSOB? Or, more currently and militantly - IPOB?  Only a few months ago, I was sent a statement allegedly issued by iPOB, canvassing an internationally supervised plebiscite among the Igbo to determine whether or not their people wish to remain within Nigeria. Peacefully. Legitimately. I have not read of any follow-up, but I am assured that it was not FAKE NEWS. Certainly, early pronouncements and actions of that movement weigh on the side of authenticity.

Well, all the foregoing results in only one question? Why not? Fifty post-bellum years of existence for this journal have passed and I challenge its midwives and their successors and consumers – that is, all of us in this hall - to point out anything they have published or read that sheds, unwaveringly, the laser beam of illumination from the whole wide world – from the Ukraine to Palestine, from the Horn of Africa to Myanmar – on that critical question: Why not?  We find that we come down constantly on the side of relativity, not categorical absolutes. The right to self-determination for any people, capable, and desirous of creating a viable national identity for themselves cannot be proven inimical to human survival, its road to prosperity and human dignity – indeed, the contrary comes closer to the truth. There are effective, non-dehumanizing ways of determining the authenticity of that choice of belonging or not belonging, rational ways that result in a Reconfiguration of the Willing, not the incorporation of the Reluctant or Resentful. It can hardly be considered elevating to substitute one geography of subjugation for another. 

There is a corollary however, and if any instructive event has been providentially offered to influence independent thought on this frankly artificial dilemma, that event is to be found in this very nation which illustrates that logical corollary, which is:  the right of any nation to expel from its bosom any sector that flouts its enabling protocols and ideological foundation of co-existence. There was, you may recall, a coup attempt that declared this approach as its manifesto. It was, alas, a bloody coup, with a record cast of fatalities in the annals of coups. At base however, setting aside – for now -, certainly not dismissing - the pragmatic challenges for ascertaining the true will of a people, that manifesto was grounded in flawless logic. We live in an era of space travel, of the ascendancy of Artificial Intelligence? Are we saying that the management and structuring of human collectives will continue to remain at a standstill? The philosophy of nationhood and its management imperatives have become antiquated, no different from the violent antics of religious primitivism.

            That evocation in the comparative mode is by no means accidental. We have, in recent times, endured unprecedented savaging of our humane sensibilities, the blatant cooption of religion in the violation of the sanctity of human lives – in other words, the casual disposal either through incited mob action, or by encouragement, even endorsement after the deed. By such overt acts, a sector of the nation can be considered to have “opted out” voluntarily from a collective will, based on humanistic principles, and only requires to be formally assisted to relinquish membership of the larger community. It is obvious, a nation cannot claim to be one if it espouses two clashing sets of protocols for cohabitation.  

Only recently, I yet again called attention to the plight of a young man, Mubarak Yusuf, currently passing his third year in prison. And his alleged crime? Blasphemy. We know of Mubarak. Before him, there was the musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed. You must excuse my saying this, but the press is simply not sufficiently assiduous on these issues. Letting the extremists get away with murder – figuratively – only escalates to the real thing – murder in the physical, and with impunity. Activists can, and indeed do much, but this is an issue that goes to the heart of nation-being, and thus require sustained attention. As I complained during my address to the Nigerian Bar Association at the Gani Fawehinmi Memorial event, this January, if the ground is laid but not followed to conclusion, it means we have yielded those grounds to jungle repossession. Every struggling ethical sprig is then overtaken by poisonous weeds, and the teeth of the strongest ploughs are repeatedly broken.

            From imprisonment, under whatever local contraption, but always in defiance of constitutional provisions, to open, brutal murders by thrill-seekers parading themselves as defenders of one faith or another – the name of Deborah Samuel is one that this nation must never be permitted to forget. There are hundreds of others but this stands out as the nadir of mob dementia and the deadly arrogance of impunity. Also alleged to have disrespected the person of Prophet Mohammed, she was set upon by her own classmates, pursued like a quarry in a hunt, dragged out of safety and clubbed to death. Her body was then set on fire in the presence of armed police. That was sufficiently mind-churning for any sensibility of national shame. Worse was to come however.

            The head mullah of the national mosque in Abuja proceeded to justify and bless the crime, while governance in that state, Sokoto, made feeble noises of disapproval. It took a while, but eventually two Identified participants in that bestial act were charged to court. You know the rest of the story.  The judge appeared dutifully, robed in majesty of the law but even the expected Show Trial was No Show - by the prosecutor – that is, No Show by the State. Again and again, No Show by the State and thus. Adjournments upon adjournments. The judge did not so much as castigate the Justice Department or upbraid the police for subjecting the public to such an exercise in nation degradation. His Worshipful Adjudicator simply set free the case, unleashed these sick products of doctrinal extremism on the world to target and eliminate their next victim. Prosecution is not a personal affair but an institutional responsibility. If one assigned prosecuting counsel goes underground like a Wanted felon, there is always a Prosecutor above ground in line. Not in this case! And cases are legitimately subject to transfer in the interest of justice – it all depends on willing and – professional and ethical integrity.

            No, that was not the end of the macabre dance of separatist escalation by occupants of the benighted zone. Months after these variations on human outrage, it turned out that a woman, a mother of five, Rhoda Jatau, had been in prison detention for eighteen months. Her crime? She dared to make and disseminate a video that condemned the open lynching of Deborah Samuel! And so, some underarm arm of the law, in this very nation, rose to a defence of the Right of Religious Homicide, had her arrested, then kept in prison detention without trial. It took some strenuous intervention by Human Rights Associations and Christian religious missions to effect her release. Well then, what price nation identity? What value the commonality of passport attribution? What, let us consider, is the next logical step in this supposed upward spiral of human evolution? The most brain-dead question if ever there was one! The answer?  It shall be considered a crime even for the family and friends of Deborah Samuel to show any signs of grieving for the loss of their daughter and community member. As for intervening busybodies who never even heard of either victim until these events, warrants of arrest – why not?!

There is a yet deeper erosion of claims to a fundamental nation concept. The nation – indeed the entire world has since been regaled by the ultimate obscenity – one of the killers thumbing his nose at justice – he has joined in polluting that ever permission media  even further by posting his photo on our faces, posing with a box of matches with which, we are meant to understand, he set off the gruesome culminating act. He has not been arrested for the implicit admission of a hate crime or for inciting emulation, any more than the Imam of Abuja Mosque for his impious intervention.  I made it a duty to accept a lecture invitation in Abuja not long after, where I openly demanded of Buhari that the professorial maniac be removed from that position, since an unlicensed butcher was unfit to preside over any structure of spirituality. Did I expect fulfillment of that demand.  Obviously not. And the reason was clear – I was speaking, not just from a different nation, but a different planet. This is why, very often, and wherever relevant, I stick to the expression “nation space” rather than “nation”.

An implicit critique of the judicial loss of nerve was recently manifested as the accusing shade of Dele Giwa was prompted into life quite under that same supposed uniformity of justice, prompting the following outcome:        

“The court, per Justice Inyang Ekwo, has asked the Attorney General of the Federation to bring Dele Giwa’s killers to justice because the killing violates the right to life under the Nigerian Constitution and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.” 

Dele Giwa’s murder took place over sixty years ago, but the files have been thrown open, challenging this nation space to prove its right to be considered a nation. Is there any further prompting needed for the Deborah Samuel call to be granted judicial closure?

            Otherwise, what price for nation belonging? Is it any wonder that calls continue to surface for the complete overhaul of the protocols that fake the validity of this mere nation space that continue to preens itself a nation? The word “Restructuring” refuses to disappear, despite evasion by one elected leader after another. Of course, that word means different things for different people – just what is strange and unusual about that? Certain facts however, implicitly admit that the word has a number of common, pragmatic implications for both governance and the governed, that indisputable commonality being as follows:  the present contraption is not working – neither economically, developmentally, or even as a material expression of any functional social philosophy. Another is that those who come in power have indulged in pretend exercises in that direction, engaging the populace in totally phony exercises – obviously just to “pacify the natives”. It is surely time that this demand be taken seriously, and addressed head on. There is no shortage of reasoned and implementable propositions in past conference papers, including even sham, money guzzling initiatives, summoned to distract attention from conspiracies for self-perpetuation in power.  It is high time we stopped the cyclic distraction of re-inventing the wheel. The spokes are in place, the rims intact. Only the will, not the wheel, is missing in action.        

The Press, needless to urge has a crucial role to play in this! However, be it noted that the Press is only one of the enabling estates - all arms of governance, most pertinently, at state level, have a propulsive, even commanding role to play in the effort. Repeatedly, backed by constitutional authorities, both publicly and privately, we have pointed out to them that there is sufficient constitutional leeway in the present protocols of association – if I may quote myself unapologetically – to “push the envelope as far as it can go without actually bursting” - if the centre continues to shirk away from this now strident imperative. I repeat that wearisome call yet again. There can be no further evasion. That assertion is made both as a general principle of socio-political volition that is fundamental to any free, truly liberated people, and as informed response to the actualities in which we struggle to exist as a sentient people, responsive to the exigences of daily manifestation of change. To anticipate accustomed banal responses, let me state quite clearly that no one has ever claimed that Decentralisation – a precise word I personally prefer – will end Hunger in the land or terminate religious conflicts and other forms of national malaise, no. We simply insist that this is central to the incomplete mission of – nation-being. It is essential to activities of basic existence such as food production, and access to such products. Palliatives remain crude, short term, stop-gap measures only. As a veteran of food security working conferences from Uganda to India, from Paris to Sochi, I insist that, for a nation to be food self-sufficient, and sustainably, decentralization is the key, not collectivisation.

            Today, I shall not particularize. I simply point out, quite generally that, in addition to the nation’s current state of economic recession, more than one section is in a state of secession. Secession is not defined solely through geography – there is also a secession of minds, independent of the merely geographical. It has become a pointless exercise to argue whether this is a positive or negative development. Both entail risks. What we can agree upon is whether or not a collective strategy can mitigate the negative consequences of either secessionist mode. Bearing in mind that scabbing over suppurating sores merely deepens the abscess, not miraculously heals it, It becomes irrelevant if such wounds are self-inflicted, opportunistic, self-indulged and pampered, largely imaginary – I think the medical expression is psychosomatic or – genuine wounds. We know the pattern - once programmed, sustained indoctrination set in, then, take it from me, the battle is over and the choices squeezed down below Ground Zero. Sectarian self-preservation then becomes paramount, with the very dire consequences that we had striven so hard to evade. Check the world wide over, and you discover that Nigeria is not a favoured child of History, indeed, it is more the abandoned foundling of the human race. Truth Is now submerged within the blood stream of memory, not in the operations of the mind.

            Permit me to end with one of my extreme convictions – I call it extreme but it is nonetheless a product of history - including contemporary actualities – if you don’t believe me, just cast your gaze in the direction of Ukraine, of Gaza or the Horn of Africa. That conviction has weathered time and localities, and declares, quite simply:

            “Let nations die, that humanity may live!

Postscript:

A postscript, quite brief. It is intended to ensure that we do not lose the preliminary remarks to the main body of this address, and concerns the culture of freedom of expression, so constantly under threat, frontally from state power, but often in a more sinister form by civil society itself. That postscript takes the form of a recorded exchange, quite recently, between two individuals. Let us simply name them HANDLER, and the other  - TROLL. The exchange went as follows:

HANDLER: Your online performance was pathetic. We expect better from you this time round.

TROLL:  Sir, I did my best.

HANDLER:   Which kind best? Your orders were to get online and scatter him to the four winds.

TROLL:     With all due respect sir, easier said than done. I did not understand what the man was saying.

HANDLER: Did anyone ask you to understand anything? We said, whenever he opens his mouth, don’t bother what the subject is, just jump down his throat.

End of Excerpt. Now, a friendly message:      

Be very careful. The expression, slightly adapted, goes:  Think before you leap, especially down time weathered throats. You may end up being swallowed intact, without any condiment, then expelled through the rear end of the human anatomy.

            That is sufficient food for thought, I hope. Thank you once again.

One Adebayo Olamide Azeez, a suspected ritual killer, has revealed how he lured seven women through a dating app, “MyChat,” and killed them for ritual purposes.

The 32-year-old suspect disclosed this on Thursday during a parade held at the Officers Mess, Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta.

He informed that he was a member of a ritualist gang that specialized in killing women and selling their body parts for different purposes.

Members of the gang, including Moses Abidemi Awuraji, Oluwo Samuel Monday, Peter Oluwalolese, Jamiu Yusuf, Akinwunmi Ifatosin, Sherifff Agbai, and Osojieahen Alioneitouria, had been earlier paraded by the operatives of the Command. They were arrested over the alleged killing of a 35-year-old woman, Sulaimon Adijat, for a money ritual.

He was arrested by the Police after being on the run.

The State Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Alamutu, while parading the suspect, said he was arrested on Friday, February 23, from his hideout.

Alamutu said the suspect conspired with Moses Abidemi Awuraji, an herbalist, to kill the victims for money ritual.

“The suspects strangled their victims to death and dismembered their body parts and sold them to Oluwo Monday Samuel and Alfa Ariwo (who is still at large) for ritual purposes.

“The three suspects confessed to the killing of ten different ladies at the Igbo Olomi residence of Moses Abidemi,” Alamutu said.

Narrating how he lured and killed the victims, Adebayo said, “I got the ladies from MyChat, which is a hookup app. I just talk to them that I want to hook up with them whenever Moses Abidemi Awuraji contacted me that they needed human body parts.

“They will call me that they need body parts; I will go on the app and chat the ladies for a hookup. I don’t know the ladies before; we don’t have any conversation before. I only talk to them on the app. I ask if they are available, and we negotiate on the amount they want to collect. When we reach an agreement, I will send my address to them, and they will come over to me at Atan-Ota.

“I will pick them up and call Moses Abidemi Awuraji that they are around; I will then take them to Moses Abidemi Awuraji’s house in Igbo Olomi, Atan-Ota, and inside his sitting room, we will kill them.

“Abidemi’s wife (Awuraji Mariam) will pin their legs down while I strangle them.

“I joined the gang in September 2023, and we have killed seven ladies. These are the ladies that I brought to the house that we killed.

“I don’t know what they use the corpses of the ladies for; my job is just to source for the ladies and bring them in. They don’t usually tell me the amount they will give; at times, they will pay me N30,000, other times, they gave me N40,000.

“I can’t say no to them whenever they ask me to bring the ladies. I don’t know who they sell the body parts to, and I don’t ask them about it. My own is just to source the ladies and collect my money.”

The Lagos State Government has decided to pay the same amount of money, which is N35,000, as a monthly palliative allowance to its primary school teachers, just as it has been done for the secondary school teachers and other civil servants in state employment since January.

The state’s commissioner for basic and secondary Education, Mr Jamiu Alli-Balogun, dropped this hint during a stakeholders meeting between the officials of the ministry and the leadership of the state’s chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) held in his office on Wednesday.

According to a statement made available by the head of the public affairs unit of the ministry, Mr Ganiu Lawal, on Thursday, the commissioner disclosed that the state’s governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had already approved the parity in the payment, directing that all the primary school teachers should also now be paying the same N35,000 with other civil servants against the N20,000 they were paid before.

The wage award is a palliative allowance to lessen the financial burdens due to economic hardship on the state’s government workers, just like many other Nigerians pending when the national minimum wage review will be completed.

In his remarks about the development, NUT State’s chairman, who led the executive committees to the meeting, Mr Hassan Akintoye, commended the state government and Governor Sanwo-Olu in particular for the gesture.

He stated that the development would certainly appease the grievances of teachers at that level of education against the initial disparity.

While appreciating the state government for its unwavering love for teachers and the development of education generally in the state, the NUT boss promised a stronger commitment of teachers to the state education development.

He said teachers’ roles in providing quality education for the people of the state are unquantifiable.

How many of the world’s strongest currencies do you know? On the flip side, here’s everything you need to know about the weakest currencies in the world.

A currency becomes weak if a country’s exchange rate is regressing. This is as a result of internal policies, inflation and the economic situation of the country. It is possible for you not to be aware of the weakest currency in the world but I’m certain you know of the most popular which is the United States dollar. But surprisingly, the dollar is not the strongest (see the strongest currencies here).

The value of a currency depends on the demand and supply while some are pegged – that is, the currency is valued at an agreed rate. The foreign exchange rate is an indicator of a country’s economic wealth. Through it, the economic future of a country is clearer.

Actually, the exchange rate is not usually stable, it fluctuates as dictated by the market. Let’s quickly talk about factors that determine foreign exchange. They are Inflation and Interest rates:

Inflation

If the level of inflation of a country is low, the currency will definitely have higher value but if it is the other way, the value will definitely drop. Inflation is a big influence on the currency exchange rates of a country.

Interest

A shift in interest can have an impact on the currency value. If it rises, lenders will want more interest and this would attract more international investment. This would automatically lead to a rise in exchange rates.

Now, let’s go back to the essence of this article. I’ll break down the weakest currencies in the world from the least weakest.

10. Iraqi Dinar (IQD)
Iraqi Dinar is the official currency of Iraq. Inflation has rendered the currency to one of the weakest currencies in the world. Political instability is a major contributor to the state of Iraqi Dinar. The currency is issued by the Central Bank of Iraq and its first circulation was on April 1, 1932, replacing the Indian Rupee which had been the country’s official currency since World War One. The United States one dollar equals 1,312 Iraqi Dinar.

9. Ugandan Shilling (USH)

Ugandan Shilling became weak due to Uganda policies that have had a negative impact on the economic status of the country. The East African Shilling was replaced with Ugandan Shilling in 1966. Another shilling was introduced in 1987 due to high inflation. One US dollar equals 3,938 Ugandan Shillings at the moment.

8. Paraguayan Guarani (PYG)

Paraguayan Guarani has been affected by high inflation, poverty, unemployment and corruption. Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in South America. Even though the country exports soybeans and cotton, the economic situation has overpowered its effect. Currently, one US dollar trades at 7,278 Paraguayan Guarani.

7. Guinean Franc (GNF)

Guinean Franc is the official currency of Guinea. Political instability and corruption led the currency to its weak state. Sadly, every year, the currency devalues despite having natural resources like gold, aluminum, and diamonds. One US dollar is currently equivalent to 8,597 Guinean Franc.

6. Uzbekistani Som (UZS)

So many efforts have been employed to improve the economy of Uzbekistan but have been fruitless. The industrial output of the country has really declined which is also affecting the currency value. Important to note that Uzbekistan is still grappling with the effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the economy. As of now, one US dollar is equivalent to 12,501 Uzbekistani Som.

5. Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)

The Indonesian Rupiah has failed to improve over the years. This can be traced to decreasing foreign exchange reserves and the dependence of Indonesia on the export market. All efforts to strengthen the national currency have been abortive. One US dollar equals 15,562 Indonesian Rupiah at the moment.

4. Laotian Kip (LaK)

Laotian Kip is the official currency of Laos People’s Democratic Republic. This currency was never devalued but issued at a very low rate in 1952. The Central Bank of Lao maintains the currency, but it’s among the weakest in the world. The current exchange rate of one US dollar in Laos People’s Democratic Republic equals 20,900 Laotian Kip.

3. Sierra Leonean Leone (SLL)

The value of Leone declined drastically due to corruption and other financial scandals in Sierra Leone. Poverty is also another factor, which led to the downfall of the economy. Leone was introduced in 1964 as a replacement of the British West African pound. 20,969 Sierra Leonean Leone is side-by-side with just one US dollar at the moment.

2. Vietnamese Dong (VND)

Vietnamese Dong is the official currency of Vietnam. The economic situation in the country devalues the currency. The transitioning from a centralized economy to a market based one devalued the currency. The State Bank of Vietnam manages the currency. Vietnam’s currency exchanges at 24,639 Vietnamese Dong to one US dollar.

1. Iranian Rial (IRR)

The Iranian Rial has been affected by different kinds of crises. In 1979, the termination of the Islamic Revolution made foreign investors withdraw from the country; the nuclear programme and political unrest are factors that contributed to the weakness of the currency. As of now, one US dollar is equivalent to 42,055 Iranian Rial.

Nigerian Gospel singer, Moses Bliss and his Ghanaian fiancé, Marie Wiseborn on Thursday had their much anticipated traditional marriage with the hashtags #Foreverbliss #MMBliss24 #Foreverbliss24 at the Underbridge, East Legon, in Ghana.

The traditional wedding ceremony, acclaimed to be a fusion of Nigerian and Ghanaian cultures, including the Ghanaian “knocking” ceremony, where the groom’s family formally requests the bride’s hand in marriage.

The celebration knitted the rich blend of Nigerian and Ghanaian traditions, as the ceremony was thronged with the vibrant shades of traditional Ghanaian attire and Southern Nigeria outfits.

The couple’s attire and that of their families was a harmonious blend of Ghana’s colorful ‘kente cloth’ and Nigeria’s regal ‘aso-oke’ fabric and George material.

Highpoint of the ceremony was the grand entrance of the bride in the popular ‘Adowa Dance’ with her bridesmaids, alongside other traditional dancers.

Moses Bliss and Agyare-Wiseborn announced their engagement earlier this year, had their civil wedding in Abuja, on February 27.

The singer had also last Tuesday shared the news of their marriage with a few pictures from the civil wedding on his Instagram page.

Mose Bliss also expressed his excitement over the new milestone and doted on Marie by calling her his “personal gift from God,” in the post.

He wrote: “Civil wedding done! It’s official I’m legally married to my personal gift from God @mariewiseborn Lord we are grateful for helping us this far.”

The singer posted another video later in evening where the newly weds were seen gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes while exchanging their vows.

Marie sat as Bliss serenades her on a grand piano, singing a song he wrote just for her.

Bliss posted an elaborate posted video of his elaborate proposal to Agyare- Wiseborn on the 19th of January.

Moses Bliss later revealed on his Instagram handle that he met Marie on Instagram after she had tagged him in a video of herself dancing to his song Miracle No Dey Tire Jesus.

“I was like ahh, ‘I like the way she praises God, wow she dances like David,” as they say, the rest is now history.

(NAN)

Governor Alex Otti has explained his contributions to the realisation of the 181-megawatt geometric power plant which was commissioned to serve the commercial city of Aba and some other parts of the State last Monday by Vice President Kashim Shettima.

Speaking on Channels television programme on Wednesday, the government explained his involvement in the realisation of the project started in 2004 as a top banker and from when he assumed office as governor on 29, May, 2023.

Otti was, however, categorical that he has no evidence that his immediate predecessor invested the State’s fund in the project as being insinuated by some officials of the administration.

Otti, said his involvement in the project began when as an Executive Director a First Bank in 2010, he was approached by the owner of Geometrics Power Limited and ex-Minister for Scienjce and Technology, Bart Nnaji to help fund the project. He said this was after the bank that was funding it pulled out as a result of global economic crisis.

According to the Abia Governor, he was able to process an $85m facility for Geometric Power Project then. But he noted that the the Board of First Bank stopped the company from draw the facility because he was proceeding to Diamond Bank as CEO. According to him, the Board felt it won’t make any sense to allow the country to withdraw the facility when the person that was going to manage it was not there.

“I headed to Diamond Bank which actually was the bank that was initially funding the project. On getting to Diamond Bank, we restructured the facility and saw it to completion by October 2014, the time I left Diamond Bank.

But he added that a lot of other factors stalled the realisation of the Geometric Power Project even after then. He listed the factors to include the sale and resale of the Aba Invest Island as well as sale of the major oil block that was supposed to provide power to the plant by Shell

Otti said when he assumed power in 2023, he initiated move to settle the gas problem.

“By the time we took over on the 29th of May, we sat down with Geometric a few times and engaged with NNPC and NNPC deployed their partners and gas was made available.”

Otti said Geometric Power Project, the first integrated electricity facility in Nigeria located in the Osisioma industrial hub of Aba in Abia with its current capacity of 141 megawatts power has the capacity to ensure that blackouts became a thing of the past in the state.

“Power outage will the exception rather than the rule which is the situation at this time,” said Otti.

“I have set up a team to dig into the facts,” the Governor said while stating that it would be difficult to say that his predecessor, Okezie Ikpeazu was involved in the realisation of the project.

Nnaji, had at a media briefing few days before inauguration of the Geometric Power Plant also assured assured of providing reliable power supply to Aba Ring-Fenced Area (RFA) by third week of March 2024.

Nnaji co-hosted the briefing with the Abia Commissioner for Power and Public Utilities, said the first turbine which would start functioning fully after the IPP’s inauguration on Feb.26 will not yet provide reliable power supply to the RFA.

According to him, the Aba IPP is Nigeria’s only integrated power project which had its own embedded power plant enabling it to generate and distribute its own power.

“We have about four brand new power stations not yet connected to our network and at this moment, our infrastructure are adequate to carry our supply.

“Geometric Power Limited (GPAL), has invested almost $800m in the integrated power project, making it by far the largest investment in the Southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria”, he said.

..seeks help for less privileged

Fuji musician, Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, popularly known as K1 De Ultimate, says he has cancelled the yearly birthday carnival for his 67th birthday on March 3.

K1, however, urged his family and friends to rather use the occasion to reach out to the less privileged in the society.

K1, in a statement on Thursday, said the decision was informed by the current economic situation in the country.

The statement reads: “To the glory of God Almighty, I shall be turning 67 years on this planet earth on 3rd of March 2024.

“A joyous day for me, that many of my friends and associates across the globe usually joined with me and my family to celebrate.

“My fans both home and abroad always make the best out of that day in history.

“Now that the day is near and inside of me, there is nothing much happening in our country Nigeria to warrant me celebrating at this point in time.

“Many people are praying for survival at this point, to feed well is a big issue for many, and as someone that benefits from many of this people crying and lamenting, I share in their pains and see no reason I should be celebrating.

“Yes, I agree what our country is passing through now is not permanent and government is trying in a possible way to get things fixed and I believe God Almighty shall open ways and better direction for the leadership of our dear country.

“I, hereby, implore and request all my loved ones, instead of coming to celebrate, eat and drink at this time, please choose this my coming birthday celebration to help someone nearer to you.

”To at least secure a better living at this critical period of our nation’s travails to share how ever small the gift to people.

Lord Lamba shares picture of baby moments after Queen Atang announced engagement
“God Almighty shall replenish your pockets in multiple fold as you choose to get along with me on this.

“I thank you immensely and I shall live to appreciate you all soo very much till my last day on this planet earth.”

…CBN mum over deadline lAs customers lament network failure

The CBN had in a circular on December 1st 2023, directed that banks should place restrictions on all Tier 1 bank accounts without BVN.

Tier 1 accounts are accounts that can be opened with a valid identity or proof of address.

The maximum daily transaction limit for a Tier account is N50,000 while the maximum account balance is N300,000.

According to the circular, titled, ‘TIER-1 WALLETS AND ACCOUNTS: MANDATORY USE OF BANK VERIFICATION NUMBER (BVN) OR NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBER (NIN), the CBN said: “As part of its effort in promoting financial system stability, it becomes necessary to strengthen the Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures in financial institutions under the purview of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“Accordingly, the CBN hereby issues an amendment to Section 1.5.3 of the Regulatory Framework for Bank Verification Number (BVN) Operations and Watch-List for the Nigerian Banking Industry (The Guidelines).

In this regard: It is mandatory for ALL Tier-1 bank accounts and wallets for individuals to have BVN and/or NIN
“It remains mandatory for Tiers 2 & 3 accounts and wallets for Individual accounts to have BVN and NIN;

“The process for account opening shall commence by electronically retrieving BVN or NIN related information from the NIBSS’ BVN or NIMC’s NIN databases and for same to become the primary information for onboarding of new customers, and all existing customer accounts/wallets for individuals with validated BVN shall be profiled in the NIBSS’’ ICAD immediately and within 24hrs of opening accounts/wallets.

“Effective immediately, no new Tier 1 accounts and wallets should be opened without BVN or NIN,
“For ALL existing Tier 1 accounts/wallets without BVN or NIN:

“Effective immediately, any unfunded account/wallet shall be placed on “Post No Debit or Credit” until the new process is satisfied.

“Effective March 1, 2024, all funded accounts or wallets shall be placed on “Post No Debit or Credit” and no further transactions permitted.

“The BVN or NIN attached to and/or associated with ALL accounts/wallets must be electronically revalidated by January 31, 2024.”

Vanguard checks revealed that customers of a Tier 1 bank who have not linked their NIN to their account were not allowed access to the account.

A staff of the bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to Vanguard, that the bank had started implementing the directive of the CBN that all bank accounts must be linked to NIN and BVN before February 29.

‘It is true that we have started implementing the directive. We have begun to place restrictions on accounts not linked to NIN. Today a customer called for my intervention because he could not access his account via internet banking.

A customer of the bank who also spoke anonymously shared his experience at the Berger Branch of the bank in Apapa. He said: “The bank staff told me I cannot access it because it has not been linked to my NIN. I had to show them a copy of my NIN slip before I was allowed to access the account.”

Vanguard checks however reveal a different story in most of the banks. Besides sending email and SMS messages to their customers, most of the banks have yet to place restrictions on accounts not linked to NIN.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the branch manager of another Tier 1 bank, said: “The only thing that is mandatory for now is BVN. In as much as the account is linked to a BVN, we allow access for customers. That is the latest communication received from our Head Office.”

Adding to the confusion is the divergent messages from the banks to customers over the deadline for the CBN directive.

While some banks indicated February 29, 2024, as the deadline, some banks were silent about any deadline.
For example, a Tier 1 bank in an SMS to its customers said: “Dear Customer, you must link both BVN and NIN to your account. Visit www.gtbank.com to link your BVN and NIN.”

But another Tier 1 bank, in an email message to its customers, said:

“Please ensure that your Biometric Verification Number (BVN) and National Identification Number (NIN) are linked to your account number on or before 29 February 2024.

“You can seamlessly update your account information with your BVN and NIN by visiting any FirstBank branch close to you.

“Please note that Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through its circular:

PSM/DIR/PUB/CIR/001/053 dated 01 December 2023, has directed that effective, 01 March 2024, all funded accounts without BVN shall be placed on ‘Post No Debit or Credit’ and no further transactions permitted.”

However, efforts to get the CBN to clarify the implementation of the directive prove abortive. A top official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Vanguard, “What I can tell you for now is that we have not issued any fresh directive to the banks on the issue.”

Similarly, subscribers in the country are going through harrowing times at the moment as operators’ networks are failing spectacularly.

Since the yuletide, subscribers have had to struggle to complete calls when they manage to achieve connection.

Businesses that largely depend on telecom networks have also suffered massively as voice calls and data services have recorded annoying glitches.

This is compounded by a directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission, instructing jamor telecommunications operators in Nigeria, such as MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9Mobile to implement comprehensive network barring all phone lines without a link to National Identification Numbers, NIN on Wednesday, February 24, 2024.

Some of the major operators who spoke to Vanguard in confidence confirmed that they had commenced disconnection of all unregistered SIM cards as well as SIM cards not properly registered and linked to NIN, based on the NCC directive.