Anyone who followed the conduct of the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State would not have found it difficult to identify several challenges which derogated substantially from what could easily have ended as a free, fair and credible electoral process. Must every Nigerian election be contentious and unduly controversial? Why is it so difficult to play the game of election by its rules in Nigeria?

If Nigerian politicians who have become notorious for their anti-democratic disposition make it hard for the country to attain successful elections, must election managers also allow their unacceptable partisanship to continue to worsen Nigeria’s political dilemma? Many more questions must have been silently considered by well-meaning citizens in the last one week

What the questions partly suggest is that public perception concerning politics and elections in the country is poor. The way forward is for the Independent National Election Commission INEC which has the sole mandate for the conduct of credible elections to immediately recognize the disturbing public perception and take steps to reverse the situation. It is laudable that the INEC office in Ondo State where the next off cycle election is scheduled to hold has already assumed a redeeming posture. According to media reports, Oluwatoyin Babalola, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, has made a passionate appeal to the electorates in the state not to lose faith in the electoral process.

In Babalola’s words, “every vote will count, and we will ensure that everyone’s vote is counted…don’t lose faith in the electoral process … the people of Ondo State should trust us to deliver a credible election.” Whereas assurances such as this are not new, the nation does not have a rich history of how they were actually adhered to. In fairness to INEC, many politicians are fond of viciously attacking the commission once election results are not in their favour. In other words, Nigeria has a host of bad losers in the game of elections. Besides, many of the challenges which are often thrown up during elections are caused not directly by INEC but by other election administrators such as security agencies, the judiciary and indeed political parties themselves.

There are at least two common happenings during elections that are beyond the role of INEC. One of them is vote buying. It is obviously beyond the capacity of election officials who are busy with accreditation and specific procedures for the casting of ballots to, at the same time, seek to control vote buying. One would have expected the security agencies to handle that segment well but it is hardly done. Interestingly, there are allegations that even the security personnel themselves are usually among those compromised as a result of such material inducements. During last Saturday’s governorship elections in Edo State, many people including voters testified that people openly voted for the highest bidder. 

A second problem has to do with the sudden relocation of collation venues from the location originally prescribed and publicised. With over 40,000 security operatives reportedly deployed to Edo State last Saturday, it is difficult to understand the expedience of relocating from a venue for security reasons. Why did the security agencies not fortify the prescribed location or are they only able to secure unapproved locations? In addition, each time collation venues are suddenly changed, the common report is always that certain party agents and some journalists and election observers are usually not allowed into the new venues. Considering that such persons were accredited by INEC to be part of the process why are they obstructed from the new venue and why would anyone expect those so disallowed to accept the eventual results announced?

There is however the argument that because INEC is not equipped to deal with security infractions such as the snatching of ballot boxes or intimidation of officials, the commission has to always rely on security advice. But can security advice legitimize unapproved venues? Here, there is a perception that INEC itself seems to enjoy the collusion with the security agencies to relocate from the approved venue to a conducive location for the perpetuation of electoral malpractices. Beyond collusion with other election administrators, INEC itself quite often, performs far below expectation prompting negative reactions not only from politicians but also from voters and the general public.

A good example of INEC’s poor performance is the unending lateness of officials and election materials to polling centres at every election. Whether it is a presidential election which is a massive nation-wide event or voting in only one state or even a single constituency, election personnel and materials must arrive late. Many years back this writer found time to participate in election monitoring where I observed such condemnable canon of behaviour. I was indeed shocked to see that during the Anambra governorship election of November 2013, election materials were late to a polling unit directly behind the INEC office – the operational base of the commission in Awka, the state capital.

Earlier in June, the case of the Oguta election was more scandalous because although it was held in only 4 wards for just one seat in the Imo State House of Assembly, many voters became restive after waiting in vain for several hours for the election process to commence. Painfully, this negative attitude is yet to change as many voters waited for longer than makes sense for the process to start in last Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State. According to media reports, there were delayed arrivals and commencement of the process in some locations such as Oba Market, Zabayo Street and Plymouth Road polling stations in the state capital. 

In Edo Central, the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reported that INEC officials and materials arrived in Okaegben ward one, unit 3 in Ewohimi at exactly 10:30 a.m. that is two full hours behind schedule. Incidentally this was the polling unit of the PDP candidate Asue Ighodalo. Although INEC promptly as usual ordered an extension of time in such locations, many people have continued to deprecate the practice whereby an agency that can conduct an event nationwide can have avoidable challenges in just one of 36 states and the federal capital territory. If as we hear, the electoral body is always having problems from its vendor, why is the same vendor always patronized? 

In the case of only one governorship election, there is doubt if INEC needs a third party to handle its logistics. Why can’t the commission pull its resources from all its nationwide offices to surmount logistics challenges or is there a rule which makes it compulsory for INEC to involve an unreliable third party in its arrangements especially one that it can internally handle? Also difficult to comprehend is the inability of the commission to properly manage the critical segment of collation and declaration of election results. One of the allegations often made during elections is over-voting. This is unacceptable because everyone knows that an election result whose figures exceed the number of accredited voters is invalid. Why then do some election officials not crosscheck results before announcing them? 

In addition, the practice of assembling agents and other interest groups to listen and comment on collated results has become annoying. This is because INEC normally does nothing about any point raised against what is read to the group. If whatever is announced is sacrosanct what is the purpose of asking for comments? Why can’t objections raised by agents be investigated before results are formally announced when INEC has 7 days to review its figures before announcing them? While it is true that politicians have a tendency to make false claims, INEC has a duty to review specific controversial results such as that of Ward six in Akoko Edo, units 12, 17, 15, 18, 14, and 16 where elections allegedly did not hold yet there were results. 

To protect its public image, INEC ought to immediately break its silence over several allegations especially those concerning election officials who were specifically identified for playing reprehensible roles at Edo last Saturday. Apart from an Assistant Director in charge of Electoral operations at INEC headquarters, the Presiding officer at the Osholo Primary School Polling Unit in Weppa, Etsako East Local Government Area, who was alleged to have arrived at over 400 votes when only 213 voters were accredited ought to be investigated. Inaction on these issues can exacerbate adverse public perceptions of INEC.

BARELY two months after the August 1-10 protests tagged #EndBadGovernance, some Nigerians are warming up for fresh nationwide protests planned to hit the streets on October 1, that is, about 48 hours away.

The date coincides with the 64th Independence Day celebration of Nigeria, and the protests are basically to reinforce demands earlier made by protesters but largely greeted with silence from the Federal Government despite President Bola Tinubu’s promise in a broadcast to dialogue with protest leaders.

Another reason perhaps is that #EndBadGovernance protesters, numbering over 1,000, remain in various prison facilities across the country after being charged with treason by the government.

Some of the protesters have been granted bail but under the stringent condition of paying N10 million each, particularly the 10 that were charged in Abuja.

Meanwhile, some Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, speaking with Sunday Vanguard, expressed worry over the demands made by the protesters that are yet to be addressed about two months after President Bola Tinubu, in a national broadcast in August and amidst the #EndBadGovernance protests across the country, promised to dialogue with them.

Time for dialogue is now – ANEEJ

In his reaction to the October 1 proposed protests, the Executive Secretary, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, Rev David Ugolor, said, “The government’s response to the October 1 protests could depend on the scale and public reaction. If the protests gain significant traction, media attention, and public sympathy, the government may feel pressured to engage”, Ugolor said.

“But in the absence of a well-defined strategy for dialogue, the demonstrations would encounter opposition rather than cooperation which might escalate tensions.”

He further stated that after the August protesters presented their demands to the government, “there has been no widely reported or concrete dialogue between the Federal Government and the protesters since President Bola Tinubu mentioned the possibility”.

“Despite the fact that a few government representatives indicated they were open to negotiations, no meaningful interaction has been seen”, the activist stated.

“The government has expressed readiness for dialogue in principle, but practical steps towards initiating structured discussions with protesters remain unclear. This hesitation suggests that the government might not yet have a clear strategy or timeline for engaging directly with protesters.”

Ugolor also spoke on the protesters still remanded in prison, saying: “The ongoing detention of protesters raises serious concerns regarding human rights violations and civil liberties.

“Due process rights for those who are still in detention are being violated in an attempt to quell criticism, which can exacerbate social unrest and erode public confidence in the legal system.”

On the intervention by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, and National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, to release the protesters in prison unconditionally, Ugolor asserted, “Both the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, and the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, have historically intervened in cases of rights violations.
“There have been efforts by these bodies to advocate for detained protesters, but the scope and success of their interventions vary. These organizations are crucial in pressuring the legal system to ensure fair trials and respect for human rights.”

No guarantee govt. will take a different approach to protests – Global Rights

On her part, the Executive Director, Global Rights Nigeria, Abiodun Baiyewu, said, “There is no indication that the Tinubu administration will take a different approach to handling protests.

“Since the August protests, the government has intensified its crackdown on civic actors such as Omoyele Sowore and the NLC President. The government has also taken the extreme step of besieging the offices of SERAP.

“This is a government that has shown a deep intolerance to dissent, and there is little reason to believe they will be more receptive to protesters’ demands this time around.

“The citizens are angry. The spurious charge of treason has also driven dissent underground. At this point, no one knows what is next. If it does not happen on the 1st of October, it would eventually spontaneously combust.”

On the Federal Government engaging protesters for dialogue as mentioned by Tinubu, the Global Rights Nigeria boss said, “Not in any meaningful way. The President addressed the nation on August 4th during the initial days of the protests.

“In his speech, he avoided addressing the core issues driving the protests, namely, high inflation, widespread poverty exacerbated by the removal of fuel subsidies, and the increasing insecurity across Nigeria.

“He highlighted programs and initiatives his administration was implementing and urged citizens to be patient with economic reforms, insisting things would improve in the future.

“However, his speech lacked clarity on how the government would share the burden of these challenges. Many civic actors and commentators expressed disappointment with the substance of the address.

“On August 8th, the Head of Media, Presidential Community Engagement Office, Ms. Seun Ajayi, stated that she and six Senior Special Assistants to the President on Community Engagement had been tasked with engaging citizens about the protests. However, none of us is aware that such engagements took place or what their outcomes were.

“The frustrations that fuelled the #EndBadGovernance protests largely persist. In fact, there has been an increase in the price of petrol since the protests, worsening citizens’ discontent.”

Asked if she thought the government was ready for dialogue with protesters, she asserted, “I don’t believe so. The initial reaction to the #EndBadGovernance protests was to dismiss them as politically motivated by opposition forces.

“The government then paid lip service to understanding the grievances, but its actions did not reflect this. In his August 4th speech, President Tinubu advocated for patience, but the government cannot in good faith expect Nigerians to bear the economic burden while it continues to spend taxpayer funds recklessly.

“The President frequently embarks on extravagant foreign trips accompanied by large entourage, with no benefits felt by Nigerians. The recent purchase of a presidential yacht and plane is just as wasteful, especially when citizens struggle to afford the barest necessities.

“Moreover, Tinubu has insisted that there will be no reversal on the fuel subsidy removal, a central demand of the protesters. Given these fundamental differences in viewpoints, it is unlikely the government is genuinely interested in engaging with protesters.

“The government has also gone to great lengths to suppress the protests, infringing on protesters’ human rights. From obtaining court orders to limit the protests’ scope to the unlawful arrests and prosecution of protesters for charges as serious as treason, the government has little appetite for dialogue. In some instances, protesters were even killed by Nigerian law enforcement!”

Baiyewu also spoke about her concerns about protesters still remanded in prison custody.

“The main concern is that the Nigerian state is violating their constitutionally guaranteed rights to peacefully assemble, associate, and express themselves”, the activist stated.

“Another issue is the judiciary, which was once regarded as the ‘Last Hope of the Common Man,’ being wielded by the state as a tool against the people. It is absurd that peaceful protesters were arrested and charged with crimes like treason.

“Equally troubling is that some judges are imposing extreme and excessive bail conditions for their release, rather than dismissing these baseless charges. Additionally, some of the arrested protesters are children who have no business being detained.”

She expressed her view on intervention by the NBA and the NHRC for the release of protesters in prison custody: “The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has worked with civil society organizations to secure the release of protesters in Kano.

“However, regarding the National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, while the Commission acknowledged human rights violations during the #EndBadGovernance protests, there is no information that suggests that they are working to ensure the release of the protesters.”

Don’t leave protesters’ release for the NBA, NHRC alone – HOMEF Director

The Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, Arc Nnimmo Bassey, counselled that Nigerians should take it upon themselves to pressurize government to unconditionally release protesters in prison facilities across the country instead of leaving that effort to the NBA and the NHRC.

“The issue of detention of peaceful protesters is not a matter to be left to the Nigerian Bar Association or the National Human Rights Commission. It is a matter for all Nigerians. Arresting, detaining and prosecuting peaceful protestors is against the basic tenets of democracy”, Bassey said.

“It is a very dangerous situation for citizens to be muzzled and stopped from expressing how they feel or what is affecting them. It is a clear indicator of a slide into dictatorship, a harbinger of harsher actions ahead.

“Having a protest announced weeks ahead should give the government time to act on the demands of the people. Refusing to take steps in response to demands built around conditions that are known to all citizens is not strategically sound at all.

“And if the government insists that the actions they are taking will yield positive outcomes in the future, they have to tell the people when that future will arrive and how the people are to bear the current pains and deprivations until such a time.

“Government should not forget that in all planning scenarios, there must be key indicators for expected short-term, medium term and long-term outcomes. Defending actions with only long term outcomes is not a saleable option”.

October 1 protests likely to happen – ActionAid Director

Meanwhile, the Country Director, ActionAid Nigeria, AAN, Andrew Mamedu, said, “There is a hint of another protest likely to happen on the 1st of October 2024 tagged the ‘Take It Back’ Movement. This is a great opportunity for the government to organize dialogues with Nigerians especially the youth to fathom what they want and what can be done very fast.

“I cannot quite say. The indications for dialogue so far have been discouraging; although, we have seen some minute dialogue and conversations with intended protesters by the Lagos State police, we need this discussion on a larger scale and by the President himself.

“Like I said earlier, the government would save itself a lot of frustrations by listening to the grievances of the young people. Fighting civil society is not the answer, we are here to help the government and ensure it stays on track. We are not the enemy and should not be seen to be so.”

He added, “There’s been no clear indication that the Federal Government has engaged protesters in dialogue as promised by President Bola Tinubu.

“The call for dialogue is not new, as many have advocated for this approach to address Nigeria’s challenges. Unfortunately, without concrete evidence of engagement, it’s difficult to assess the government’s commitment to a dialogue on this matter.

“Recently we learnt that six protesters were released by the DSS in Kaduna after an investigation was carried out, this is just six out of the 2,111 protesters arrested during the protests nationwide.

“The Nigerian government’s response to the #EndBadGovernance protests has been concerning, to say the least. Despite President Bola Tinubu’s promise of dialogue, there’s been no concrete evidence of engagement with protesters. It’s been nearly two months since the nationwide protests, and the government’s inaction and irresponsiveness suggest they’re not ready for dialogue.

“We cannot speak for the government, but we think whatever demands the protesters are making, the government should try to meet them mid-way. Mr. President is the father of the country and a formidable activist in his days.

“He has contributed immensely to promoting democracy through many means including dissent and protests. He should be able and willing to dialogue with the young people who are today frustrated about the economy, insecurity in the country.”

‘Protesters remanded for 60 days without bail violates right to life’

The AAN boss expressed concern about protesters still remanded in prison custody for 60 days without bail.
“The fact that there are still protesters in detention is a sad commentary on the freedom to express our disagreement in a civil manner”, Mamedu said.

“Protest is a legitimate means of registering disagreement with the government. How it has suddenly turned to a charge of treason is beyond everyone.

“We are all concerned about the shrinking civil spaces, and I think it is about time the President steps in and halts the descent and needless war against civil society. Every Nigerian watching the trial is also concerned about the bail conditions which are too stringent.

“You could see those accused of planning treason, is it even logical that those boys are capable of such an act? Protest, we must say again, is not treason and Mr. President should not allow certain elements to deem it so.

“This detention so far clearly violates their human rights and undermines the fundamental principles of justice and freedom. Being remanded for 60 days without the possibility of bail violates their right to life, the dignity of the human person, health and freedom of movement.

“I still stand that the Nigerian authorities must take immediate action to address these concerns, ensure the release of detained protesters, and guarantee their safety and well-being. The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right, and it’s essential to protect and promote this right.”
According to him, the NBA and NHRC have been able to secure the release of some protesters.

“The detention of protesters is a clear violation of their human rights, undermining justice and freedom. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has expressed deep concern over human rights abuses during these protests, urging Nigeria to respect peaceful protest, end excessive force, and conduct independent investigations”, Mamedu said.

“The Nigerian Bar Association is providing pro bono representation to detained protesters and has set up a monitoring committee to track interactions between law enforcement and protesters.
“We currently learnt that through their intervention six protesters were released in Kano, that is an applaud-able effort, but we need more effort from them to ensure more protesters are released.
“The Nigerian government is expected to respond to these concerns and take necessary actions to protect human rights and prevent further violations”.

Immediately the prostitutes were apprehended, rather than the office, Potts-Johnson escorted them to their homes. There, upon demanding #10 as bribe, the welfare officer was offered #5.30s by Agadagwu’s landlord, one Bakare, who negotiated the bribe sum with Potts-Johnson in Yoruba. Bakare promised Agadagwu would pay the balance later. The other prostitute, George, also offered the welfare officer 5s.2d. from the bribe amount demanded. If they hadn’t paid the bribes, upon conviction in court, the prostitutes risked two years in prison, #50 fine and repatriation by government from Lagos. But immediately after paying the initial bribes, the prostitutes reported it to the police. The Lagos police then handed them marked notes which represented the balance of the bribe money, on which was covertly inscribed, Wayo. The police also planted an undercover Sheriff to witness the bribery. When Toviho, Potts-Johnson’s middleman, came to collect the bribe money, he and the welfare officer were arrested.

In my piece of February 6, 2022 with the title, Atiku Abubakar and the sexual history of the Nigerian presidency, I explored this theme. I submitted that sexual politics defines and is often behind most of the corruption issues in high and low places in the world. A musical track rendered by Lagos Epe-born Apala music lord, Ligali Mukaiba in the 1970s illustrates this. The particular Mukaiba track speaks about the pervasive influence of women in the lives of men, comparable only to drugs on addicts. He sang “Mi o wa ri’hun t’obinrin o le fi’ni se, t’o ba nwu’ni, t’o ba nj’araba eni, t’o ba l’o ya ni Sokoto, kuru kere o, kere o, kuru kere o, a o tele l’eyin ni…”

Using the lurid story that instantly went viral in Zimbabwe that former Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, had suffered “a nasty blow from below” – euphemism for impotency – I drilled into how central and virile political power is and how men of power, through their libido, use sex as a locus of power. Attached to that, I argued, is why, agreeing with Prof Wale Adebanwi in his journal article he entitled The Carnality of Power, that all of us – scholars, lay scholars and society as a whole – “need to pay greater attention to the ways in which obscenity can help explain the nature of power.” From Abubakar, to Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida, I used these men of power as examples of exercises of virile members, to explain how libidinous politics and corruption cannot be divorced in Nigeria’s socio-politics.

Sorry, I digressed. A major obscene scandal broke out last week. It will seem to annotate the above theme of the need for us to pay more regards to obscenities in our analysis of society. It is a narrative which tangentially bears the colour of sex, though it smells more of corruption. With it, we can measure the barometer of how low our society has sunk and how political and social powers are implicated in the rot of our society. The story starred controversial cross-dresser jailbird, Okuneye Idris Olanrewaju, whose allegedly leaked audio conversation has created a national mess. If the authenticity of the video is confirmed, Bobrisky’s travails will bring back to memory an ancient Yoruba folklore of a man called Alade. Alade was a gentleman whose mutual friend had asked why he always wore his cap all the time. After much pressure, Alade decided to share the secret with this mutual friend, but on one condition – it must be kept secret from humanity. Alade then removed his cap, revealing a short stumpy horn around the frontal part of his head. His friend was shocked but promised to keep the secret. However, he could not stomach the secret for long. Keeping to the terms of not telling any human being, one day, the friend dug a hole into which he screamed, “Alade grew a horn (on the head)!” – Àlàdé hù’wo! Mysteriously, a tree sprang up from the hole and soon after, whenever boys blew a flute near it, the tree echoed, “Àlàdé hù’wo!” With this, the entire village got to know about Alade’s best kept secret.

A social media influencer, Martins Otse, also known as VeryDarkMan, had circulated an audio conversation Bobrisky allegedly had with an unnamed Alade. It instantly went viral. In it, someone, said to be Bobrisky, alleged that he paid the sum of N15 million to unnamed EFCC officers to have a charge of money laundering spiked off the criminal charges preferred by the state against him. The cross-dresser had been jailed six months after he admitted guilt for dealing unkindly with the Nigerian Naira. However, in the same audio, the Bobrisky claimed that he spent her term in an apartment, as against the Nigerian correctional centre imposed by the court. Shortly after the allegation, the cross-dresser refuted the accusations on his Instagram page. He claimed he was victim of a setup. Both the EFCC and Minister of the Interior have ordered full-scale investigations into the scandal, with the ministry of interior taking a bolder step in suspending all the prisons officers in charge of Bobrisky’s term in the Lagos Kirikiri prison.

Beyond the theme of crime and corruption in the Bobrisky case is the Nigerian society’s disdain for considered unusual sexuality and in particular, Okuneye’s audacity to flaunt it. As a measure of its conservatism, the Yoruba frown at counting the fingers of a nine-fingered person in their presence (a kii t’oju oni’ka mesan kaa.) In my April 7, 2024 piece with the title, Bobrisky and Jesus, the tax collector, written immediately the cross-dresser was jailed, I said this much. If you flip through the pages of history, you will discover, as I said in the piece, that from ancient times, the world has never hidden its hostility towards people who profess sexual orientation different from its heterosexual conservative status. This is also responsible for why a large chunk of the black world vents its anger on the western world’s validation of homosexuality. In the 19th century and even before, Bobriskys were lynched like common criminals. Their sin was their considered unusual sexuality. Until then, homosexual activities were classified as “unnatural crime against nature,” while sodomy got punished with, sometimes death penalty.

In comparison with his unusual sexuality forebears, Bobrisky has suffered one of the mildest fates. Between 1877 and 1950, over 4,000 of them were lynched. It subsisted till a few years ago in America. So, when you appraise the collage of apparent gang-ups – VeryDarkMan and others – against Bobrisky, you will get an affirmation of the Yoruba saying that he who does the unusual should be ready for infliction of an unusual reprisal (eni ba se’un t’enikan o se ri, aa ri’un t’enikan o ri ri). Bobrisky’s travails seem to be society’s attempt to deconstruct and destroy this unusual sexuality impresario. When you examine this thesis against the backcloth of Bobrisky’s recent innuendo that he could commit suicide, you will agree with me that the self-touted Mommy of Lagos is in the gulag of a conservative society and may never get out of it alive. If you ask me, I think Bobrisky commodifies her cross-dressing, using it as façade for God-knows-what unpleasant money-making ventures.

The allegation that Bobrisky paid bribe to the EFCC for a money laundering charge to be removed then crept in. The viral audio, amplified by VeryDarkMan, also alleged that he paid bribe to prison top officials to enable him serve his term outside the hostile walls of the Kirikiri prison. On this, all we have been entertained with since last week when the obscene scandal broke is a national breakfast of hypocrisy. Why are Nigerians feigning prudery at these scandalous revelations? Are we hearing about a story of this stench for the first time? Let us hop down from our high horses. If truth be told, the only way to reform this country is for both the leaders and the led to come clean with themselves. Nigeria is a thoroughly worsted place and all the bounds and parameters of societal civility, decency and global norms of civilized people have broken down irretrievably. I personally overheard an Edo-born prison warder detailed to a politically exposed person arraigned before the Lagos Federal High Court some years ago, saying, “Mek dem post me to (I am hiding the politician’s identity) mek I no buy car? He no go happen!” Last year, we witnessed an obscene altercation between DSS operatives and prison officials, right in the premises of the court. Their beef was on who owned custodial power over embattled Godwin Emefiele. And apparently, his loot. It was later that Nigerians found out that the scuffle was not strictly a turf battle; it was a graft fight, something in the mould of a robber robs the till and a thief robs the robber (ole gbe, ole gbaa.)

Like Nigeria, the prison is brimming with rotund-bellied maggots which reflect the collapse of virtually all the values that cobbled Nigeria together. Apart from decayed infrastructure, overcrowding and allied issues, Nigerian prisons are home to officers who, in saner societies, should themselves be in prison. In 2019, investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, adopting the pseudonym, Ojo Olajumoke, spent five days in a police cell and eight days as an inmate in Ikoyi Prison. It was in the bid to track corruption in Nigeria’s criminal justice system. There was no single whimper from the Nigerian establishment. After Soyombo’s arrest and detention in police custody, he was arraigned in court and ultimately got a remand in prison. He emerged with very distressing stories of illegitimate arrests, extrajudicial killings, bribery and corruption and a criminal justice system that is in a sorry case. He even claimed that a prison official asked him for money to remove his name from jailbirds’ roster.

If Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo is merely interested in the optics of being perceived as proactive, in order to save his job from the Sword of Damocles said to be hanging on ministers, he should let us know. But if he is genuinely interested in reforming Nigerian prisons, he surely has a humongous job on his hands. It is more demanding than the “I swear-to-Almighty-God” raising-of-a-finger he was embroiled in last week. Yoruba talk about how widespread a covertly released fart could go in its “B’a se nyo’so, l’a se nyo’gbo” aphorism. The Bobrisky allegation of Very Important Prisoners being ferried out of jail while serving their terms is almost as old as corruption in Nigeria. We have heard of a VIP who impregnated his wife while serving his term and who was present at the child’s christening. We have also heard a story, which occurred some twenty-something years ago, of a man who later rose to become a senator and a political party bigwig. While in detention for alleged murder, exhibiting his libidinous prowess, the girl procured for this Very Important Detainee in an apartment outside of prison had fainted under him. If indeed, as it is said, that a people is assessed by the way it treats its most vulnerable, prisoners are vulnerable lots and we should be interested in what goes on inside that nocturne called prison. Until Nigerian prisons become reformatory, as opposed to the place of torment it is today, it will continue to be a microcosm of our macroscopic Nigerian tragedy.

It will be gratifying if Olanipekun Olukoyede, the EFCC chair, on hearing the messy news that his operatives were sunk in the Bobrisky N15m scandal, is silently preparing earthly purgatory for them. He must do as the colonial police did in 1947 to Ayodele Potts-Johnson. This is time for Olukoyede to peel himself of his church mien and wear the garb of a Dracula. Otherwise, he will be dragging in the mud his pastoral calling claim, perceived to be atypical with the task of a crime fighter. If news circulating in Nigeria from those who experience Olukoyede’s men in all parts of the country is anything to go by, he is sitting atop a maggots’ empire where operatives are nothing more than armed gunmen who terrorize and extort criminals of their loots. These Wayo theatrics, in the name of crime fighting and law enforcement, has to stop.

Kabiyesi Ladoja @80

A blight that critics hold against newspaper column writers is that sometimes, our shots go off tangent, disenabling us from achieving precision. In the process, they claim, we mis-profile our subjects, literally calling the King’s Mother (Iya Oba) the Monkey Mother (Iya Obo). My reply to them is that, column writers are not infallible because they are columnists… Full stop! My reply is a timid parodying of Justice Chukwudifu Oputa’s locus classicus statement about the Supreme Court. I can’t go the whole hog and delve into its second stanza due to its potential for immodesty. Only Oputa, the great jurist, could so conclude about the Almightiness of the final appellate court.

The extreme ones among the critics compare column-writing’s sometimes imprecision to the proverbial Saare whose demonstration of knowledge resulted in unknowledge. One day, Saare went to the farm but rushed back home, panting. To his parents who were troubled on what went amiss, the young hunter told them they should show gratitude to their Maker because he was almost devoured by a leopard which strayed from the forest. And then, Saare began a description of the strange animal. “It had big, dilating eyes! It had arresting colour!” features his parents affirmed were a leopard’s (Ekun). Immediately, Saare’s father, an Ifa priest, ordered objects of sacrifice to appreciate and propitiate Saare’s “head.” When all the propitiation materials arrived – a big ram, red oil and others – in readiness for the sacrifice, unprompted, Saare then lullabied, in his flippant best: “The leopard was tall, had two huge horns! It was even eating okra!” Saare’s parents immediately apologized to the sacrificial crew: “Our son didn’t see a leopard. He saw a deer.” So, Yoruba say, amonju l’o b’ekun Saare je.

In my 26 years of column writing, (including the years of exits) I have had several bull’s-eye hits and some imprecisions. Two personalities stand out on the list of subjects who, in reviews of their personalities, I sometimes shot off tangent. They were, Late Adebayo Alao-Akala and Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, ex-governors of Oyo State. When they were both in government, my pen tormented them severally. On meeting Alao-Akala years after he left government, I encountered a man whose heart was as pure as spring water and whose humanity was one every mortal should seek after. When he asked me to write the Foreword to his memoir, Amazing Grace, like a witch’s confession, as the Yoruba will say, I was contrite, “mo tuuba.” While I am incapable of excusing their politics and governance, I can say both are/were great personalities.

In my writings and media strategies while I was myself in office, I wasn’t kind to Ladoja at all. Yet, we never met. However, in October, 2020, we met for the first and last time at the University of Ibadan. I was privileged to be on the high table with him, during a symposium organized by Hon Babs Oduyoye to mark his birthday. I don’t know where I got the audacity, but I walked up to him and introduced myself. He was literally overjoyed to meet me, thrust his hand forward excitedly and we shook hands like they did while signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). What he said about his estimation of me, rather than excite me, saddened me. How could I spend a large chunk of my writings demonizing a man who thought so highly of me? A couple of years later when talks centered on his biography, one of his ‘sons’ told me he was excited at the prospect of my writing it. I was saddened the more. This was the same thing Alao-Akala did to me: he handed me a raw manuscript and said, “except the title, you are at liberty to do anything with it!”

Since then, I have drilled into Ladoja’s persona. Brilliant strategist and engineer, his strongest point is that his political adversaries underrate him. As wealthy as he is, Ladoja is known for his deconstruction of wealth, both in sartorial outlook and materialism. He could be stubborn too, sticking to what he believes in, at the risk of ostracism.

Born on September 25, 1944 in Gambari village, near Ibadan and becoming a Director of the defunct Standard Trust Bank in the year 2000, last Tuesday was Ladoja’s 80^th birthday. Here is wishing Oba Ladoja many more years of good health on earth.

The Edo State governorship Election held on September 21, 2024, was a much talked about election that witnessed bickering between the three most medialized parties – PDP, APC, and LP. The electioneering period was marked by plenitude of verbal trivialities, insults and lies. Aren’t these the trend of political campaigns nowadays? After all, we heard in the news recently that Donald Trump, running for the office of the President of United States, the paradigm of democracy, made spurious claims about immigrants from Haiti eating dogs and cats in Springfield, a small Ohio city. Politicians can do anything to win election! However, for the Edo Election, it is soothing to know that the election has been concluded. 

 Elections in Nigeria do not come without irregularities like over voting, vote buying, and failed Accreditation `Processes, voters’ disenfranchisement, partisan security agents and electoral umpire being fingered of malpractices in favour of some political parties. In the September 21st, 2024 Edo Election, there were particular cases of disruption of Results Collation in some areas in the state due to violence and alleged vote manipulation, Over voting and discrepancies in the uploaded results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal, security concerns because gunmen snatched away ballot boxes in some polling units, et cetera. These scenarios are not normal for a free and fair election to take place. 

No doubt, these issues highlight the need for improvements in the electoral process in Nigeria. The recently enacted electoral acts that championed the use of technology seems to have been of no merit because political actors still manipulate election results. The introduction of BIVAS has even heightened the propensity of pilfering election results. Every election in Nigeria, anywhere in the country, opens up the level of civility of the people. It wasn’t different in this particular election. We could best access ourselves judging from the activities of the voters, political actors, security agencies and the electoral umpire, in this sense INEC. 

Now that the Edo election is over, the new administration will have to fight to enjoy legitimacy and credibility. Though the process of emergence is very important, some Nigerians and the ruling All Progressive Congress do not often consider the process as significant, for them, the end justifies the means. So, it is pertinent to just move on to the next stage – legitimacy and acceptance. Therefore, the new government must work to ensure that they are accepted. The present government, even though since its inception was “Fubaralized” and faced a lot of distractions occasioned by some political viruses, strategically made some progress, especially in human development; what this government should urgently do to establish itself is to quickly begin the construction of the Auchi – Benin truck A roads and the truck B roads. Apart from these roads, there are communities where there are no roads today in Edo State. Like Atte, in Akoko Edo Local Government Area, do not have motorable roads in spite of their rich agricultural reserve.

Also, regional power dynamics played a very major role in the emergence of the candidate of the APC. Going forward, developmental strides, political appointments, government work and any form of opportunity should be made available equally without over centralizing government benefits to one region of the state. Everyone keyed into Esan Governorship and everyone must have a taste of the beauty of having an Esan Governor! While if I were Akpakomiza I would begin the construction of Auchi - Benin truck A road from Ekpoma and its parts, because these areas have been neglected for so long, I would not close my eyes to Benin and Auchi environs respectively. I think going forward too, Nigeria should copy the outcome of the influence this sort of regional power dynamics.

The new government must concretely make policies that will improve the lives of the Edo citizenry, especially this time of austerity. The ordinary Edo people who do not know anyone in government should be able to feel the impact of the government, state monies should not be shared among political leaders and their cronies, Edo State monies should not be shared among political kingpins, thugs and ‘’Oloshos’’. One way to get to the common people is to pay workers their salaries as at when due. Workers who are retired and whose gratuities have not been paid should be paid! It is inhuman for a government to owe workers, and celebrates every flimsiest occasion with pump and pageantry. 

While we unambiguously assert that the process that has brought the governor elect is not without some faults, we sympathize with those who lost the election, especially the People’s Democratic Party, the party my brother who is a lawyer, accuses me of relishing.  Unfortunately for the PDP in this election, the chickens have come home to roost. The PDP has been enmeshed in internal conflicts - national and state – anchored on greed, petty quarrels, power tussle, self-aggrandizement; these may have weakened its electoral chances. The PDP must put its house together, settle quarrels and have all its formidable members agree, for it to ever win an election under President Bola Amhed Tinubu.  Now that the Edo election is over, Edo people, must as usual, be calm and watch what unfolds in the coming days, weeks, months and years. 

Choi Soon-hwa, the 80-year-old South Korean fashion model, has made history as the oldest-ever contestant in the Miss Universe competition.

Born in 1943, Choi became a sensation after she made it to the final of the annual Miss Universe Korea competition.

The fashion model will go head-to-head with 31 other finalists who are young enough to be her granddaughters for the crown on September 30.

Suppose Choi wins the Miss Universe Korea competition, she gets the chance to represent her country at the 73rd Miss Universe pageant in Mexico City on November 16, making her the oldest contestant in the history of the international pageant.

Speaking with CNN on why she took part in the beauty pageant, the fashion model, who divorced in her 40s and has two children and three grandchildren, said she aims to show the world that “we can live healthily even when we get old”.

Choid, who turns 81 in October, said she hopes to inspire people to understand that wellness and weight can be maintained well into old age.

“I want to stun the world, like, ‘How is an 80-year-old lady so healthy? How did she maintain that body? What’s your diet?’” she said.

“When you get old, you gain weight. So, I want to show that we can live healthily even when we get old.

“A lot of people do their eyes or raise their nose. Back in the day, it used to be something others spoke ill of, but it’s not like that now. It’s not just Koreans — a lot of women around the world are undergoing plastic surgery?”

While this is Choi’s first pageant, she began modelling at 72. She debuted at Seoul Fashion Week at 74 in 2018 and appeared in major magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Elle.

The Miss Universe Organization recently lifted its upper age limit for contestants, previously set at 28, making Choi eligible to participate in the beauty contest.

Last year, the organization also updated eligibility criteria to remove a longstanding ban on pregnant women or mothers, and women who were — or ever had been — married.

[TheCable]

It is a sort of sinking feeling. Something like an uncontrolled slide into a dungeon down a slippery slope. You seem trapped as you descend into a hellish pit out of which you are powerless to climb out. The descent is often propelled by a force beyond your control. Government. The IMF. The World Bank. Policy makers in Abuja and other bastions of power.

Suddenly, your living standards plummet.  The things that you have long taken for granted slip out of your control and become privileged luxuries instead of casual entitlements.  You begin to learn a life style of subtractions, eliminations and substitutions. Subtract bread and replace with slices of yam; cut out butter for breakfast and do palm oil stew. Demobilize one car out of a fleet of two. Cut back on electricity consumption. Switch to fans instead of air conditioners etc.

It is time to quit cooking with gas and switch to firewood and charcoal. But someone from the government is paid to scream about climate change and deforestation. There is no need to go to the hospital for every little headache. Forget essential drugs. Just pray and hope for the best. It is time for every man to become a doctor in the house: ‘physician, heal thyself!’  Ours is after all a land of miracles. There is no need for man made medicines. Just call in the neighborhood pastor to say a little prayer and ‘ye shall become whole!’ Do not worry about what thou shall eat. Man shall not live by bread alone! Adults do not need three meals a day. That luxury should be reserved for children.

The elimination and substitutions goes on in nearly every aspect of your daily life. Beyond individual life changes, you see whole segments of the society sliding downwards. Government has changed and has introduced new economic policies. A new deity is in town. It is called “the economy”; it feeds on the things that make people happy and lives livable. The things that enabled a better life yesterday have suddenly been pulled off.  Downward mobility suddenly replaces upward mobility as the standard mode of social aspiration.

In nearly all cultures, the desire of citizens to move upwards in their circumstances is universal. We strive to move up in our circumstances. We toil so that our children will live a better life than us. In a sense, the dream of all humanity is that the next generation will, through education and skill acquisition, enjoy a better quality and standard of life than the present. In this sense, all national dreams have a meeting point: upward mobility. Details and cultural paraphernalia may differ but we all meet at the place of a better life for our offspring. The future is always a better place.

Some societies have a constant dream, an ideal that fires the aspirations and hopes of their citizens. The American dream is easily the most famous. It is best captured by ‘the pursuit of happiness’ through positive aspiration and grueling hard work. It is most graphically captured by the 2006 film ‘The Pursuit of Happiness” directed by Gabriel Muccinno starring Will Smith as a homeless salesman in search of a good and meaningful life.

In real life, the American dream remains alive as the powering impetus of the United States as the land of possibility and opportunity for those who seek it through hard work and perseverance. The son or daughter of a pauper can struggle through a life of obstacles and booby traps to emerge on the sunny side of life as a millionaire or something nearly as good. Not too many people, native born or immigrants, achieve the American dream. But they all embrace the spirit and struggle on. Hope eternal drives life’s struggles towards a national dream that fires every life.

This is why people of diverse nationalities keep trooping to America in the hope of realizing the American dream in one lifetime if possible. The material indicators of the attainment of the American dream in the lives of individuals include a good credit card, a house on a viable mortgage, a decent automobile, access to weekend grocery shopping, sausage and egg on the breakfast table and the occasional annual vacation for self and family etc. These appearances decorate a pretension to partaking in the American dream.

No one has yet defined the Nigerian dream in any clear terms. No one knows exactly what the average Nigerian kid struggling through school should look forward to on graduation. It is a blind voyage into the treacherous darkness of chances and uncertainty. To the politically minded elite, the Nigerian dream is the realization of a truly united nation that is home to all Nigerians irrespective of creed, region or tongue. To the common folk, the Nigerian dream is a place to call home, to pursue one’s quest for 3 meals and a future that is better than the present. The Nigerian dream is never an entitlement to material contentment.

The Nigerian dream in terms of social and economic life used to be the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment through education, a career path and an ‘arrival’ at a destination where every child that goes to school and succeeds ends up better than his/her parents in terms of material and socio economic accomplishments. The sun total of the aspiration of every struggling Nigerian is to bring up their children through education so that they can join the elite who possess cars, decent living accommodation, a career etc. In sum, up to the time of the civil war and soon after, it could be said that the Nigerian dream remained a certain upward mobility in which future generations were expected to far better than those before them in material socio economic terms.

The clearest manifestation of the thriving of the Nigerian dream was perhaps the rise of a Nigerian middle class. All over the country in the span between 1972 and 2007, there arose in the urban areas a demographic mass of Nigerians who could afford cars, apartments, weekend shopping, occasional holidays, bank accounts, investment in stocks and indulgence in the trappings of middle class existence. The middle class was an enrollment into a productive role in national development.

Earlier in our history, investment in higher education was the best guarantee of enrollment into the Nigerian middle class. People pursued education as a means of guaranteeing their children a slot in the emergent middle class. Of course there were other not so legitimate routes to this dream. Short cuts emerged: fraud, corruption, robbery, ritual and cybercrimes. They could earn financial and material reward but not a place among the middle class.

The success of the economic policies of successive administrations could mostly be measured by whether the youth were moving upwards or were static or were regressing socio economically. Times changed and different periods redefined upward mobility and the good life.

Easily the most noticeable upward mobility in terms of an increase in the size of the middle class was under the Obasanjo elected government between 1999 and 2007. The banking sector ballooned, access to consumer credit grew phenomenally, employment in new growth sectors- telecom, banking and financial services, oil and gas, public works, the stock market etc. Most importantly, the sudden and phenomenal growth in cell phone ownership and use unlocked hitherto hidden economic powers in the hands of multitudes in both rural and urban Nigeria (and Africa). This coincided with the period when the international slogan about Africa changed from unrelieved doomsday predictions about “the dark continent” to  an upbeat optimistic note about ‘Africa rising’ especially up to the 2010s.

 In sharp contrast to the rev of upward mobility initiated under Mr. Obasanjo as elected president, the economic downturn under Buhari inaugurated a massive downward mobility that has only accelerated in the more recent months. National debt ballooned, inflation jumped, consumer credits dried up, retail and consumption shrank, unemployment grew as businesses struggled etc. From 2015 to 2023, we witnessed a phenomenal rise of downward mobility. The middle class shrank as living costs shot up. Inflation shot up. Retail and construction nosedived as the exchange rate of the Naira to major currencies worsened more than ever before. 

In the fifteen months under Mr. Bola Tinubu as president, Nigeria’s downward mobility has entered a jet speed momentum. It is now an epidemic. On a daily basis , throngs of Nigerians are sliding out of the middle class. Multitudes are drifting into poverty. Even those that used to exist at the fringes are now at the peripheries of bare existence. In some states, schools cannot reopen for the new school year as a result of high fuel prices making busing of children to school impossible. Some former middle class parents have changed the schools of their children and wards to lower class schools because of higher school fees. Even the federal government has increased school fees in the Unity Schools from N30,000 per term to N100,000 a term. In Lagos state, boarding fees have escalated from N30,000 a term to N100,000 per term. No one has said how these higher fees will be paid by parents whose monthly wag is about N70,000!

Nigerian youth who cannot stand the gravity of spreading downward mobility have opted to flee, swearing that this was not the homeland that they dreamt of growing up in. The more elderly are fleeing also in the hope of finding places where their old age medical costs can be covered by the welfare schemes of better climes. The only jobs they can find range from morgue attendants, care  home attendants to grueling manual labour as factory hands. The favourite destinations of the japa crowd range from Canada to the United States, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirate, South Africa and even some unlikely African destinations.

Some of the youth have set out with nowhere in particular as destination. Some have found themselves stranded in fatal crossings through the Sahara desert only hoping that their voyage would lead to southern Europe. Many have died of heat and exhaustion. Others have boarded boats on a journey of no return. Many have perished in the Mediterranean, leaving no trace, trail or message. For those who have stubbornly stayed at home, a different life has been defined by minus signs. Exclude one meal. Exclude another half. Exclude hospitals and make do with across- the- counter cheap drugs from Pakistani and India.

 In the last one year, the rate at which Nigerians are being forced out of the middle class is unequalled in our history. Astronomical gasoline prices have chased many off the roads as car owners. Families that owned and operated two or more cars now make do with one. Inflation has reached 43% while unemployment figures among the young highly qualified has exceeded 4.5%. Food inflation has driven many Nigerians into an unplanned hunger republic.

In recent times, parents who manage to send their children to schools and universities are doing so in order to keep the children engaged and out of trouble. There is hardly any expectation that the children would end up better educated or socio economically better off. We are now in a precarious position in our socio-economic evolution.

We used to lament that we the middle class of today are a ‘sandwich’ generation; we served and took care of our parents in old age. We ferried our children to privileged schools now only to have little time and resources for ourselves in retirement. Now, we are paying through our noses to educate children who are condemned to end up worse off than us and our fathers! Those we were expecting to take care of us in old age are themselves likely to remain dependent on us for the foreseeable future.

This is the crux of our present curse of raging downward mobility. Undoubtedly, our epidemic of downward mass migration has unmistakable  political origins. It is inbuilt in a growing endemic culture of bad governance whose origins we know too well and whose duration remains unknown. Those who have descended from the middle class are not likely to return there any time soon. Those driven into poverty may be stuck there for the rest of their lives. The children now being thrust into poverty may be stuck there forever as more children are born into the poverty republic of the world. Everyone knows we are descending downhill but no one knows when the slide will end and whether an economic recovery is possible in our life time. 

Yet, our only hope of recovery lies in the political realm. Democracy holds the key in the hope that the periodic changes of administrations will bring forth leadership that will redefine national progress and reverse our descent into oblivion. No one knows if Nigerian democracy will eve produce leaders of vision and courage that can reverse the curse of this generation.

When in one life time, we see the lives of the majority take a nose dive downwards, something uncanny has happened. Worse still, when in spite of our most strenuous efforts the life expectations of our children is condemned to end up worse than ours, we are in a bad place. No quantum of prayers and supplications is likely to rescue a nation mired in bad governance and misrule.

Time flies. No, I am not talking about the fact that the United Bank for Africa (UBA) is celebrating its 75th anniversary. As a financial institution that was set up during colonial rule, it has every reason to roll out the drums and pop champagne, of course. That is three quarters of a century. Not bad at all for a bank that started in a shop, as it were, on Kakawa Street, Lagos Island, and now operates in 24 countries worldwide, serving around 40 million customers. They deserve their flowers. In an economy where legacies are hard to come by, where businesses tend to die along with their founders, it is rare to find a trans-generational brand. It is often a case of here today, gone tomorrow.

Three decades ago, I used to enjoy the song in the bank’s TV commercial: “Wise men bank with UBA/And women too with UBA/Open a savings account today/At UBA, UBA” (hope I got the lyrics right). That was an early gender-sensitive commercial at a time gender equity was not a thing. But what am I even saying? UBA can claim to have a gender-friendly history. Mrs Bola Kuforiji-Olubi, a UK-trained economist, was appointed chair of the bank in 1984 — the first woman to hold an office of that height in sub Saharan Africa. That was an era when women were hardly at the top of any sector, private or public. It was an unwritten rule that top positions were strictly reserved for men.

Nigerian women were glad that the country had had its first female federal permanent secretary (Mrs Francesca Yetunde Emanuel, 1975) and its first elected female senator (Ms Franca Afegbua, 1983) but the men never hid the fact that they considered women to be backbenchers in politics and business. It was only in entertainment and sports that they enjoyed some prominence in those days. Things have changed significantly today, thanks to amazons like Kuforiji-Olubi who blazed the trail in the private sector as a woman of firsts and an inspiration to Nigerian women. Mrs Eniola Fadayomi, former attorney-general of Lagos, would later expand the rank by chairing the board of Afribank.

Kuforiji-Olubi was the first female president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and the first woman to be CEO of a multinational company in Nigeria when she headed VYB Industries Ltd, which had UK affiliates. She was the first female chair of a quoted company in Nigeria, Bewac Plc. But being chair of a bank as big as UBA from 1984 to 1990 was a monumental feather in her cap. The year she was appointed UBA chair, the bank began its operations in New York City, US. Kuforiji-Olubi died in December 2016 at 80. Significantly, she was older than UBA, having been born in 1936 — a whole 13 years before it was founded as the French & British Bank Ltd (B&FB).

B&FB metamorphosed into “United Bank for Africa” in 1961 with the end of colonial rule and its incorporation as a limited liability company under Nigerian laws. It has gone through several eras — notably from the time it was privatised by the military government of Gen Sani Abacha in 1998, when Mr Keem Belo-Osagie became its chairman, to its merger with Standard Trust Bank (STB) in 2005. STB, under the leadership of Mr. Tony Elumelu as MD, was a much younger bank, having been established only in 1997. STB, it has to be said, was not the darling of old-generation bankers. They considered the Young Turks in the banking hall as “too smart” and “too fast” for their liking.

The merger effectively launched Elumelu into the top tier of the financial sector. It was a no-brainer that the STB identity would be subsumed — UBA was the much bigger fish, one of the biggest in the Nigerian banking sector and even in Africa. But it was a case of new wine in old bottle: UBA was culturally different from STB. One was conservative and the other was radical. UBA appealed to the older generation in the category of First Bank and Union Bank, while STB was on a fast lane like the new class of GTB and Zenith Bank. How Elumelu reconciled the two contrasting cultures of the old UBA and STB to build the new UBA is worth an academic inquest. I assume it was a rough ride.

The born-again UBA kept expanding — there was clearly an aggressive mission to dominate the landscape. Inevitably, Elumelu became one of the most powerful bankers in Nigeria. Since the banking consolidation exercise of 2005, UBA has been getting bigger. It has grown to become one of the most visible Nigerian banks outside our shores. In fact, UBA prides itself as the only Sub-Saharan African bank “with a truly global presence” — operating in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America — and calls itself “Africa’s truly global bank”. At 75, UBA is the fourth oldest bank in the country after First Bank Plc (established in 1894), Union Bank Plc (1917) and Wema Bank Plc (1945).

The bank has been highlighting and celebrating its landmarks: its bragging rights date back to 1961 when it became the first among international banks to be registered under Nigerian laws; the first Nigerian-headquartered bank to offer an IPO following its listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE, now NGX) in 1970; the first Nigerian bank to issue a global depositary receipt (GDR) — a financial instrument that allows investors to buy shares of a foreign company on a local stock exchange; the first Nigeria-headquartered bank to hit N1 trillion in balance sheet size, contingents inclusive; the first to launch cash deposit ATMs in Nigeria; and among many other firsts and feats.

Mr Oliver Alawuba, the UBA GMD, recently spoke about his bank’s thirst for innovation-drive customer satisfaction, pointing out that it was the first to launch mobile banking in Africa. The bank has also been leveraging artificial intelligence; its AI-powered virtual assistant, Leo, enables transactions via social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp, and allows customers to interact with the bank round-the-clock. This was also a first. The bank has been particularly big on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and has signed a $6 billion funding agreement with the African Continental Free Trade secretariat to make finance more accessible to them across Africa.

But, as I pointed out when the bank clocked 70, we cannot talk about building strong Nigerian brands without talking about building an enduring structure. Many Nigerian companies begin to decompose as soon as the founders die. That is why it is a rarity to see Nigerian-established companies celebrating 75 years of doing business. Many would say UBA’s European roots may have largely contributed to its durability. That is debatable. But when you realise that many home-grown banks have gone under in the last 40 years, some in their infancy, we should not have to debate the fact that African entrepreneurs need to do more about building legacies that will outlive their founders.

As I also pointed out, I grew up being told the fascinating stories of legendary businessmen such as Alhaji Alhassan Dantata (great grandfather of Alhaji Aliko Dangote), who is believed to be the first Nigerian millionaire, Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Odutola brothers, and several others. What about Bashorun MKO Abiola? You have to wonder what happened to their businesses after they left the scene. Many of today’s pervasive global brands were built to outlive their founders. Some of them, such as Cadbury, Barclays Bank and Quaker Oats, are over a hundred years old and you are sure they would be around for much longer. What are they getting right, what are we getting wrong?

I’ve always been jealous of South African brands. They are stamping their feet all over Africa. Shoprite had planted its footprints in almost every Nigerian state before it was acquired by a Nigerian company. I am silently hoping it will endure. MTN is Africa’s king of telecoms. DStv, owned by Multichoice, sits atop the cable TV market in Africa. The late Dr Raymond Dokpesi set out to rival DStv, but his Daarsat pay TV did not break through. Many moons ago, HiTV attempted to take the Nigerian pay TV market from DStv using the English Premier League and UEFA Champions League, but it didn’t end well. Ethiopian Airlines and Ethiopian coffee are winners on the global stage.

Time flies. I almost forgot why I said that. Exactly 19 years ago, I used my first Nigeria-issued dollar-denominated card outside the country. It was a Mastercard, issued by UBA. I am too shy to admit here that I was as excited as a kid when I faced the wall, inserted my card, punched a few buttons and the machine spat out multiple notes in pound sterling. It was at the University of Sussex in the UK. Until then, you always had to travel with raw cash or use a foreign bank’s card. So, in a sense, I have benefited from UBA’s innovative approach to customer satisfaction. It is, thus, only in order for me to wish them a happy 75th anniversary. Here is to the next 75 years. Time flies, doesn’t it?

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

NIGERIA AT 64

The Federal Republic of Nigeria will mark its 64th independence anniversary on Tuesday, predictably on a “low key” as we have are used to hearing from government officials for many years now. We are usually told it is a day for “sober reflections”. I wouldn’t mind if indeed government officials lived “low key” lives and ruled the country with “sober reflections”. But our reality has been a gross and mindless mismanagement of our resources, worsened by the political manipulation of our ethnic and religious emotions by the ruling elite to keep us from focusing on the real trouble with Nigeria: bad governance. We desperately need to gain independence from the buccaneering elite. Reflections.

POLLS AND PEACE

The Edo state governorship election went fairly well — at least by Nigerian standards. My heart is always in my mouth at election times because of the possibility of destruction and death. Although Senator Monday Okpebholo, candidate of the APC, was declared winner by INEC, PDP’s Asue Ighodalo is preparing evidence to head to the tribunal, insisting that some of the declared results are different from what is on official record. I really love this. Whether or not there is rigging, I always prefer peaceful pursuit of justice to carnage. No politician is worth dying for. Life will go on after lives have been wasted, believe me. Let’s see what Ighodalo has got in stock for the tribunal. Process.

RUTHLESS OR ROOTLESS?

Ms Ruth Ogunleye, a soldier who alleged that she was sexually harassed and raped by a senior army officer, has been discharged (read: dismissed) by the Nigerian Army. The army authorities described her as a psychiatric case. Ogunleye is, however, having none of that. She has gone on air to repeat the allegations and even challenged the army authorities to release the full report of their investigation. She insists she does not have any mental health issue. Who should we believe? I commend the army for investigating the allegations, but I suggest that, in light of her insistence that justice was miscarried, an independent body should look into the root of her claims again. Important.

NO COMMENT

The bill to establish the South West Development Commission, which looked like a joke when it was first mooted by Senator Ibikunle Amosun in March 2020, has been passed by the senate. We will end up having “development” commissions for the Niger Delta (south-south), south-east, south-west, north-east, north-central and north-east. I guess the next move will be for the federal government to establish development commissions for every state of the federation. We know the drill: there will be plenty commissions and little development — but since these things are done basically for political patronage, there will be plenty slush funds. Nigerian politicians know what they are doing. Pathetic.

The first part of this topic, published on Sunday, 15 September, 2024, was the debate between the Marxist scholar at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, Dr. Segun Osoba (as he then was), and another (conservative, foreign) lecturer in the same institution, Professor L. Beverley Halstead over Osoba’s acceptance of the request by the university’s Student Union Government to “give a small talk” to the Great Ife students on the occasion of the third anniversary of the gruesome murder, on February 1, 1971, of a University of Ibadan undergraduate, Adekunle (‘Kunle) Adepeju, during a peaceful student protest on the U. I. campus. Accepting, Osoba intimated the students that he would speak on “Student power in a situation of public moral crisis”. We saw in the first part how Halstead felt it was not part of Osoba’s duties to give what he perceived would be an “inciting” talk to the students and how he said the university authorities were sitting on edge over the matter. Osoba, on the other hand, argued forcefully that it was both his responsibility and patriotic duty to address the students. Today, we are publishing the “small talk” delivered by Osoba. We shall return to make closing remarks:

“Our nation is in the grips of a serious moral crisis and value disorientation. We live in an age when our consciences have become so blunted and de-sensitized by the greed for personal wealth and power that the suffering of millions of our compatriots does not move us. Millions of Nigerians, even in the best of times, are undernourished, are ill without the hope of receiving health care of any description, live in intolerable conditions of squalor and degradation (sometimes sharing the same living room with their goats, chickens, and dogs!) while a handful of us enjoy scandalous opulence and luxury. What is even more pathetic, our highly-remunerated, high-living, well-housed, over-fed, and over-dressed elites are so lacking in modesty and basic human decency that they flaunt their prosperity in an unblushing manner before the masses of our poor compatriots – the Wretched of the Earth – who, ultimately, pay the bills for our elite extravagance and criminal exhibitionism. We sublimate our moral poverty and degeneracy in consumer culture, like a psychologically disturbed person who tries to drown his mental crisis in a sea of alcohol.

“It is against this background of public moral bankruptcy and degeneracy that we must look at the phenomenon which has become famous as “student power”. Student power, crudely put, is the ultimate ability of the student community, being the largest and, perhaps, the most homogenous in the university institution, to paralyse the life of the university in the pursuit of student objectives: the ability to demonstrate that, no matter what the university administrators, professors and lecturers think of their own importance, no university institution can function without the cooperation of students who are willing to learn and be taught. This essential but crude aspect of student power has been repeatedly displayed loud and clear since the fateful episode of 1st February, 1971 when Adekunle Adepeju, one of your illustrious members, was felled by the bullet of police power. He was a victim of the operation of naked power but he is also the hero and indestructible symbol of student power and it is only right that you commemorate his heroism and immortality.

“However, student power, if it is to make a significant impact on the depressing situation of public moral crisis in Nigeria, needs to have more of it than one solitary hero and symbol. It needs to have a clear moral vision with which it can gaze beyond the darkness and confusion in which we are all enveloped to a future characterized by an uncompromising sense of social justice, human concern and comradeship, and a life of dignity and usefulness for all our people.

“It is only when our students refuse to be educated out of a keen awareness of the grinding poverty in which our people live, when they demonstrate at every turn that the suffering of our people is their own suffering and that they are willing to work with other sections of our people to terminate it, that this nation will begin to take student power seriously and embrace it with their heart and mind. Student power cannot have the moral strength to survive and move this nation if the dominant ethos among individual students makes them see their purpose in a university as securing “meal ticket” or “trade union cards”, which alone can qualify them to join the dominant elite group in the elite culture of “ilabeism”. Similarly, student power cannot have credibility even among a majority of students if student leadership is afflicted by the same moral problems pervading our society – the problems of kleptocracy and gutlessness.

“Good as rituals are for cementing group solidarity, the annual ritual of commemorating Adekunle Adepeju by boycotting classes is not enough to establish the reality and effectiveness of student power. A more effective kind of student power is one that is not treated as a museum piece, tucked away for 364 days in the year while the rat-race for “meal tickets” and “miliki” goes on, and is then dusted up and brought out for display for one day, after which it goes back to its hiding place for another 364 days! Effective student power is one that is in operation all the time and whose presence and impact is felt 365 days in a year. It is power informed by knowledge of men and matters, not one based on ignorance. Student power, genuine student power, must be concerned with an ongoing evaluation of the universities’ programmes of instruction with a view to making valuable contributions to the decolonization of our universities mentally and making them relevant and committed to the progressive transformation of the Nigerian society into the land of hope and charity that all our people want. Effective student power should not leave in government hands alone the initiative to organize students for service to our people.

“To this extent, our students, in association with university teachers and workers who are committed to the ideals of elevating the masses of our people, should, the National Youth Service notwithstanding, organize themselves into small groups which will devote some of their free time to working on some community development projects in our depressed rural areas and without expecting any material reward. We can help the poor peasant farmers to make their hovels more habitable by working with them to repair leakages in their roofs, creating basic sanitary conditions in their environments. We can give them the gift of our abundant youthful energy by helping them to prepare their farms for the planting season and to reap their crops at harvest time. We can unobtrusively and with humility bring to their notice and within their reach the benefits of modern science and technology which we know so much about but which we hardly ever put to any creative use.

“in this way, student power can relieve the problem of mass poverty and enhance mass prosperity and well-being in our society while, at the same time, establishing its own legitimacy and moral strength.  Any other course of action by our students can only deepen the crisis of public morality now engulfing our society and lead to cultural decadence and collapse. Considerations of enlightened self-interest alone should enjoin us to commit ourselves more to the essence and reality of student power rather than to its form and symbol because it is only the reality that can lead to a brighter future for us, for our people, and for our nation.

“Long live student power! Long live the people’s power! May our nation achieve its full potential in human decency, social justice and equity!”

After Dr. Osoba’s “small talk” to the Great Ife students, another exchange ensued between him and Professor Halstead; that, however, is a topic for another day! Now consider the following: Does Osoba’s first salvo – the opening paragraph – sound familiar to what is happening today, not minding that his address was delivered 50 years ago? A “nation in the grips of a serious moral crisis and value disorientation”,  even as “we live in an age when our consciences have become so blunted (seared, I want to add) and de-sensitized by the greed for personal wealth and power that the sufferings of millions of our compatriots do not move us”; where “millions of Nigerians… are ill without the hope of receiving health care of any description, live in intolerable conditions of squalor and degradation…while a handful of us enjoy scandalous opulence and luxury” Does this sound familiar? And how about this: “What is even more pathetic, our highly-remunerated, high-living, well-housed, overfed and over-dressed elite are so lacking in modesty and basic human decency that they flaunt their prosperity in an unblushing manner before the masses of our poor compatriots – the wretched of the earth – who ultimately pay the bills for our elite extravagance and criminal exhibitionism”. Does this also resonate with you and isn’t it really pathetic?

But, if I may ask: When were things ever good here if, 50 years ago, they were as Dr. Osoba graphically had painted them? Do things ever get better here or do they keep getting worse? When we complain about the present, does the bard not appeal to us to wait until we behold what comes up next? The past only appears good when compared with the present. Yet, a popular prayer says may we not know better yesterday!

Comrade, as we fondly called Osoba during my own days at Ife (1978 – 1982) when he taught me History, ended his address to the students with a prayer – or was this unpretentious Marxist only expressing a wish and hope? – that “this our nation achieve its full potential in human decency, social justice and equity”. That was 50 years ago. Such prayer, hope or wish had been expressed since the country got its independence from Britain in 1960. Sixty-four years later, we still talk of Nigeria as a “potentially great country” When shall its greatness unfurl before our very eyes or shall it forever remain in the realm of conjecture, wishful thinking and hallucination?

When biblical Daniel asked how long it shall take for the prophecies he heard to come to pass (Daniel 12: 6 -7), he was told: “… it shall be for time, times, and an half” Figure out the arithmetics for Nigeria!

TO BE CONTINUED.

May our birthday not double as our death-day. I make that invocation in respect of my country, Nigeria, even though we are perennially stalked by death in the form of floods, Boko Haram, bandits and sundry agents of death. Annually, on October 1, I insist that the world pauses to take a deep breath and acknowledge that an entity named Nigeria impinges on its consciousness. That’s the least I can ask for.

Wasted Generation

When, in 1984, the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka wrote off his generation as “wasted”, quite a number of public commentators felt that he was being too harsh on his generation and that there were so many things to celebrate about the first set of high flying post-Independence Nigerian graduates and freshly minted members of the social elite. At that time, the entity called Nigeria was only 24 years old as an independent African nation.

His reasons were quite understandable: “I compare today with dreams and aspirations we had when we all rushed home after studies abroad. We considered ourselves the renaissance people that were going to lift the continent to world standards, competitors anywhere. It hasn’t happened.”

Soyinka’s frustration with how the achievements of his generation had fallen short of their dreams for Nigeria was further underlined as he elucidated: “After a quarter of a century of witnessing and occasionally participating in varied aspects of social struggle in all their shifting tempi, dimensions, pragmatic and sometimes even ideologically oriented goals, I feel at this moment that I can only describe my generation as the wasted generation, frustrated by forces which are readily recognisable, which can be understood and analysed but which nevertheless have succeeded in defying whatever weapons such ‘understanding’ has been able to muster towards their defeats.”

In the inexorable slide of Nigeria’s First Republic into the abyss of military autocracy and internecine war, politicians on all sides of the divide were casting lots as to what the future held for them. Those in government swore that Nigeria had never had it so good, even as the Western Region was in flames; and opposition elements averred that Nigeria had become a synonym for hell on earth. It was left to the Soyinkas of the time to be the conscience of the nation. And what a price they paid!

Sad to say, my own generation feels exactly the same way. In fact, we consider Soyinka’s generation as accomplished. The standards the older generation set for itself were so high and the opportunities available to it so many that when we came along, we could only scramble for what the older generation would have felt was infra dig, in terms of socio-political struggle and intellectual attainment.

Many of us grew up under the tutelage of the Soyinkas whom we adored and whose exploits helped to fire our imagination. Those of us who were student activists dedicated our youth to the struggle believing that we were part of a movement dedicated to helping Nigeria and the African continent to realise their twin destinies as the giant of Africa and the most resource-blessed continent in the world, respectively.

Dreams

At great risk, we spat in the fact of jackboot idiocy in the form of military dictators and their acolytes. We dreamt dreams, hoping that those aspirations would come to fruition sometime in the future to the glory of the fatherland. With hindsight now, those were our years of innocence. We were naive. We truly believed that if you worked for the good of the society and did good things based on good plans, the end result would be goodness and happiness all round.

We were wrong. Even the society on whose behalf we were supposed to be exerting ourselves was not as innocent as we imagined. For many of us, it hurt when we discovered that the society was not as innocent as we had thought.

The military had the yam and the knife; they sliced as they wished. They ate up the years that our generation would have held the reins of power. They stained the polity with their warped definitions of propriety, spreading their poison through a generous democratisation of corruption. Now, the whole society was tainted. The erstwhile “corrective” regime which came to set things right and reform the polity had itself become the problem, forming a coalition with the old political guards and luring new entrants into the politics of sleaze and self-aggrandisement.

The new political order being operated is fashioned after the image and likeness of its regimented inventors. It waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck. No prize for guessing what it is.

Every four years, we pretend to choose new leaders or renew the tenancy of old ones. It’s a game of self-deceit in which we have all become adept. We demand a bribe from a candidate and then proceed to permit him to rig the ballot in our neck of the woods. Nothing goes for nothing. It’s an unspoken agreement. The politician knows he doesn’t owe the people anything. He had paid his dues during the campaigns.

The idealistic student activist of yore is a bundle of frustration. Viewed with suspicion by the political class and shunned by the younger generation for his “old school ideas”, he is angry that he can’t seem to fit into any grouping and may as well not be in existence as far as any kind of influence was concerned. He is alive but invisible. In a way, he’s relieved that he doesn’t have to live a lie. He can go to bed with a clean conscience. But then, so what!

Because time waits for no one, the principled Turk of yesteryear suddenly finds that he is not immortal. Tick says the clock; what you have to do, do quick! He can’t help noticing that many of the people he had looked up to in the past were fading away and that his own generation was fast racing towards the exit door of both irrelevance and death. He tries not to panic, but he knows that statistically, his generation is on its way out. It is not given to every man to live up to the 90s like the Soyinkas and the Anyaokus. He had better infuse whatever good he wanted to impart in the younger generation quickly through whatever means before he became a memory.

Time Running Out

And that is the challenge. Old age creeps in on him while he still has so many tasks undone. From the corner of his eye he notices that his country, Nigeria, is also greying at the temples. Sixty-four is a respectable, grandfatherly age. But Naija is still taking tentative steps and not yet living up to its billing as an adult.

Nations become strong and influential based on the sacrifices made by their citizens to position them for greatness. There is no international gold medal for graft. Those who drowned in River Tiber in order to save Rome can look back today from the heavens at the ancient city they saved from capture and beat their chests in self-congratulation.

Nigeria, socially dislocated and economically prostrate, is marking her 64th birthday in doleful circumstances. It can be truthfully said that Nigerians have never had it so rough, as far as the hard times are concerned. But we all live on a diet of hope, a promise that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel. As Robert Green Ingersoll declares, “Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.”

It is that promise of hope that I hold aloft today as the only worthwhile gift to compatriots of all generations, wasted and yet-to-be-wasted, whether true nationalists or treasonous patriots; unwavering ‘abobakus’ or loyalist Judases. May your generations witness better days soaked in prosperity in the many decades ahead. May your reality be more glorious than ours.

Happy birthday, Nigeria!

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