Nigerian striker Victor Olatunji made a remarkable UEFA Champions League debut, contributing both a goal and an assist in Sparta Prague’s commanding 3-0 victory over Red Bull Salzburg on Wednesday.

Olatunji doubled Sparta Prague’s lead in the 42nd minute, finding the back of the net before assisting Qazim Laçi in the 58th minute for the team’s third goal.

Olatunji’s impressive debut earns him a spot among the select group of African players to have scored and assisted in their first Champions League appearance.

According to a football stats platform, Opta Joe, Olatunji is the third African player, and the first Nigerian, to score and assist on his UEFA Champions League debut, joining Daniel Cousin (Rangers vs Lyon, 2007) and Serge Aurier (PSG vs Shakhtar Donetsk, 2015) in this elite group. 

To celebrate his goal, Olatunji lifted his jersey to reveal an undershirt with the inscription, “I am a Chosen, who are you?”—a nod to a recent viral trend that has sparked discussions on social media.

The trend gained traction after videos of testimonies shared by members of The Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministries went viral.

The testimonies led to widespread online engagement, with many social media users parodying them.

However, the leadership of the church has refuted claims that the viral videos represent the true essence of their testimonies, stating that some of them have been doctored and taken out of context to mock their faith.

They clarified that the testimonies occurred in dreams and emphasised that people should be cautious of misleading content online.

[Punch]

In July, the wife of President Mrs Oluremi Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Initiative launched a “smart farming” project to boost food production. According to her, if everyone takes up farming, the problem of hunger can be ameliorated. To lead by example, Mrs Tinubu had to show herself at work. A sanctioned television crew and a few hangers-on who would say the right things were about the only witnesses to the landmark event of a woman—who likely cannot distinguish between ewédu and lemon grass seeds—farm in the backyard of the presidential residence. It was just right that no serious media house was invited to witness the occasion. Imagine how disruptive of that grandiose charade it would be if any of them who still had their heads screwed right asked irritating questions like, “So how many aides will help to water these vegetables when you would have forgotten all about their existence?

Given that first ladies typically use their symbolic power for social advocacy, it was not out of order for Mrs Tinubu to have launched an initiative around urban farming. Under a different set of circumstances, it would be a good idea. What ruins her advocacy is the gaslighting and the insincerity that underwrites the whole project. First, asking women to get involved in farming to boost national food production is out of touch. Women already farm. If she had done some homework before starting her pet initiative, she would have realised that a significant percentage of farming in Nigeria is done by women. What does Mrs Tinubu think women in rural areas do for a living?

Second, when she claimed that the proceeds from her garden would feed her family and she would be giving some to her staff members, you saw a woman who lies like a child. Even the most dimwitted among us know that that little thing you are doing in that garden has no impact whatsoever on the Aso Rock food budget. Why insult the public by pretending there is anything more to the project than the mere symbolism of it all? The ‘Every Home a Garden’ project is inorganic and so unrelated to the reality of life in Nigeria that she knew the idea would hardly catch on. Typical of the Tinubus to throw money at issues, she offered a N25m prize to farmers just to stimulate some interest.

Third—and this point is crucial, is the fact that much of the present food crisis is a fallout of her husband’s ill-conceived policies. Yes, there has always been hunger in Nigeria, but under their administration, food costs shot up astronomically. At the time Mrs Tinubu was launching her garden in July, food prices had increased by more than 200 percent compared to last year. The inflation is about structural problems that can only be addressed through providing the right infrastructure. It was disingenuous of Mrs Tinubu to pretend that the matter is simple, and resolvable if women would just grow food crops inside a bucket in their houses. She says the farming initiative is for all of us to contribute solutions. But why solicit corporate support when the problem was not caused by the collective? It was you—the Tinubu administration—that caused the problem. It should also be you solving it, not deflecting responsibility.

When they launched the regional initiative in Jos, Mrs Tinubu was represented by Salamatu Gbajabiamila, wife of the chief of staff to the president, who announced their donation of N500,000 to 20 women in each of the north-central states. Mrs Gbajabiamila said they were confident that their efforts would boost women in agriculture, transform the lives of the beneficiaries of their stipend, and even contribute to food sufficiency in the region. There you go! Thanks to Mrs Tinubu and her right-hand women, all the complex problems rural women face—from insecurity to poverty, lack of storage facilities and food processing infrastructure, and poor access to capital—will be resolved by throwing a pittance at a few actors, the money that might not even reach their hands.

These people have not made genuine efforts to understand the problem, but they are expecting their pet project to be transformative. To even simulate the magical results they wanted, Mrs Tinubu’s vegetables were harvested a mere 23 days after she allegedly planted them.

Now Mrs Tinubu is on to another joke: a fabric to promote national unity. According to her, she was inspired to create a national fabric after a trip to Zimbabwe last year. She called for a national competition with another N25m prize for whoever can design the national fabric. Now, she says that dress will be donned on October 1st. Well, the first thing she should have asked the Zimbabweans was how the national fabric, launched in 2020, is working for them. Are they more united because they wear a uniform now?

If Mrs Tinubu had bothered to inquire, she would have found that the main reason the Zimbabwean national dress seems to be popular is because the interest is imposed by the first lady who uses the government machinery to sell it. Nobody wears it because they buy into the idea of national unity, nor do they imagine their historical and ideological fault lines will magically disappear because they wear “andco.” The dress will disappear the moment the government that made it near-compulsory for civil servants and party supporters leave power.

Mrs Tinubu, like a typical African leader who pursues symbolism at the expense of substance, thinks that in addition to changing the national anthem, they can foster unity through a dress. That is how they will obsess over national unity until the next election, when their attack dogs will be unleashed with their usual divisive rhetoric, and they will pretend to be blind, deaf, and mute.

Mrs Tinubu says local manufacturers will mass-produce the fabric, thereby boosting the local textile industry, creating jobs, and improving the economy. There we go again with magical expectations. You are not even sure that people will give a bleep about your fabric, but you are already building castles in the air. Apart from the APC flock who will be made to wear their uniform to prove they are still standing on Bola’s mandate, how does Mrs Tinubu hope to sell enough nationwide to keep the local textile factories working? How much money is even being invested in this farce?

Meanwhile, Mrs Tinubu is so locked in the Yoruba insularity and nepotism of her husband’s government that she fails to see that the optics of the project are entirely bad. So, she, a Yoruba woman, initiated the project. The named judges are Yoruba women; her Lagos friends, and the winner of the N25m fabric design competition is a Yoruba woman too! Mrs Tinubu wants an incredibly diverse country people to wear a national aso ebí, but it just did not occur to her to extend the sphere of creating the material beyond Yorubas? So how do you hope to get the buy-in of non-Yoruba Nigerians if you do not think their contributions are valuable? So much for national unity!

Like her vegetable garden, I can bet Mrs Tinubu did not think through what the national fabric project was meant to achieve or how to organize the idea. This “andco” thing is just another means of seeking social relevance for a woman who does not know what she should be doing with her time or how to justify budgetary allocations to her “office.” Unfortunately, she does not have advisors or friends who can help her design a sensible project. All the women surrounding her are likely to just say “yes, ma” each time she proposes another witless idea. Even if an idea for a worthwhile project were to be created for her, she still does not come across as someone who has the discipline to sit down and master what it takes to turn it into a success. She just wants to be seen as relevant and that is why she is all over the place, doing too much of nothing.

ON Saturday, September 21, Edo electorate will elect a new governor who will superintend over the affairs of the state in the next four years. In other climes, that is a simple task. Agreed, contestation for power is a serious business not meant for chicken-hearted fellas, but the heavy lifting is done out on the hustings, talking to people. On Election Day, the will of the majority expressed through the ballot box prevails.

That is why, in such other climes, the polity is not shut down on Election Day. Movements are unhindered with schools, markets and sundry businesses remaining open as people exercise their franchise. But not so in Nigeria. As Edo people go to the polls in less than 48 hours, the state has been shut down, and on hand to enforce the lockdown are 35,000 policemen and 8,000 other security personnel, including soldiers, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, operatives and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, officials. The NSCDC alone deployed 6,433 personnel, including intelligence squads, anti-vandal units, and Special Forces mobilised from its national headquarters.

The Inspector General of Police, IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, said the 8,000 security personnel other than the police will man the waterways, as well as the entry and exit points to the state. The Defence Headquarters is claiming that the deployment of soldiers is meant to guarantee a safe environment for the electorate, despite the fact that a Federal High Court in Lagos, relying on a Court of Appeal judgement that barred the use of soldiers in the conduct of elections, ruled in 2015 that such deployment is a violation of Section 217(2)(c) of the Constitution and Section 1 of the Armed Forces Act.

Now, let us throw in some statistics for context. This is a standalone, off-cycle governorship election. Created on August 27, 1991, Edo occupies 17,802 km², which makes it the 22nd largest State by landmass in Nigeria. With an estimated population of 4.777 million as at 2022, it ranks as the 22nd most populous state. If INEC is to be believed, there are 2,629,025 registered voters in the state, out of which 2,249,780 collected their Permanent Voter Cards. The state has 18 local government areas with 4,519 polling units where 17 candidates, including the frontline three – Asue Ighodalo (PDP), Monday Okpebholo (APC) and Olumide Akpata (LP) – will slug it out on Saturday.

How is it that 25 years after, Nigeria cannot hold a successful election in one of its 36 states without so much security exertions? Any country that requires a total shutdown of the polity, deployment of well over 43,000 security personnel and signing of a peace accord to conduct a standalone election is a democracy hellhole.

And that brings me to the General Abdulsalami Abubakar-led National Peace Accord Committee, NPAC, and the spin by those adept at playing the ostrich that the mere signing of a peace accord guarantees a violence-free poll. Well, Governor Godwin Obaseki and his political party, the PDP, think otherwise. And I dare say, they are right.

Now, to be clear, there is need to promote peace and ensure a free, fair and credible governorship poll in Edo. But signing a peace accord that will be breached even before the ink dries on the paper, is a distraction. Yes, the optics of such ceremonials are good which explains why some political gladiators are ululating that Obaseki scored an own goal by opting out.

But the question remains: has Obaseki any reason to be doubtful that both the police and INEC are incapable of delivering justice in the Edo election? Yes, he has because both Professor Mahmoud Yakubu and IGP Egbetokun have shown bad faith.

Besides, President Bola Tinubu, promoter of the “power is not served a la carte school of politics” is assuring APC that he would do for them what he knows how best to do. 

“You know me well. You know Adams Oshiomhole well. We are still going to fight further. Don’t worry, we are with you, you will not walk alone. One thing I can assure you is this: do you want Edo back?  As the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I will give Edo back to you,” he told them. For a man whose political ideology is anchored on grabbing power and running with it, such declaration should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand.

Nothing on ground suggests that there will be a free and fair poll on Saturday. The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in the state, Dr. Anugbum Onuoha, is not only Nyesom Wike’s first cousin and close political ally but also strongly believed to be a card-carrying member of the APC. The Edo State Commissioner of Police, Nemo Edin-Iwo, is also a Wike ally. These are the two most important officials in the election.

As if that is not bad enough, on the eve of the elections, IGP Egbetokun’s police embarked on an arrest spree, literally snatching PDP stalwarts from their homes and even on the road in the dead of the night and broad daylight and whisking them off to Abuja.

During General Abubakar’s visit to Obaseki last week, the governor alleged that the police who are expected to enforce the peace accord are working for the APC.

“The entity supposed to maintain and enforce the peace accord is now actively creating a destructive environment… in the last four weeks, we’ve had a situation where from the office of the IGP, armed police gangs have entered Edo State to invade, arrest, and take away PDP members,” he complained to the former military leader.

“As we speak, 10 PDP members are arrested and detained in Abuja without trial. Two days ago, they arrested a local government chairman… The IGP’s office issued a warrant to arrest 60 PDP supporters, driving all our leaders into hiding. My role as the Chief Security Officer of the state is being undermined by the IGP. When I hear of an arrest and contact the Commissioner of Police, I am told the individual has been moved to Abuja.”

Then, Obaseki pointedly asked him: “So, tell me, sir, how can we sign a peace accord under these circumstances?” General Abdulsalami had no answer.

The Edo State PDP has demanded, as a condition for signing the peace accord that all party members detained in police formations across the country be released, or alternatively, charged in competent courts if they have committed any crimes; the immediate redeployment of CP Edin-Iwo and REC, Dr. Onuoha.

These are reasonable demands for confidence building. But expectedly, IGP Egbetokun laughed it off while INEC flatly rejected the call for Onuoha’s redeployment.

For those who are condemning Obaseki, the PDP and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo, for not signing the peace accord, the question the governor asked the NAPC chairman remains germane: how can a peace accord be signed under the circumstances?

As the legendary reggae artist, Peter Tosh, noted in his second studio album, Equal Rights, which was released in 1977 on Columbia Records, even as everyone is crying out for peace, there will be none ’till men get equal rights and justice.’

What is needed in Edo State on Saturday is a level playing field. Let the sovereign will of the people expressed through the ballot box prevail. The only thing that can guarantee peace is free, fair and credible poll, not a perfunctory peace accord that has become a fad but which no one is prepared to respect.

As Peter Tosh also noted in the Get Up, Stand Up track: “You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” INEC fooled Nigerians in 2023 and got away with it. But they may not be twice lucky. Edo people must vote and protect their votes, no matter the level of subterfuge by those to whom free and fair election is an anathema.

The National Examinations Council, NECO, has released the 2024 SSCE internal results.

This was disclosed on Thursday, September 19, by the NECO’s Registrar/Chief Executive, Professor Dantani Wushishi.

He briefed journalists in Minna during the release of the 2024 SSCE internal results.

Also, Wushishi said that NECO blacklisted 21 supervisors in 12 states. They also de-recognised one school in Ekiti state for mass cheating in three subjects.

How to check NECO 2024 results

Below are the easy steps to check your NECO 2024 results online:

1. Visit NECO portal at https://www.neco.gov.ng. This is the only official platform for accessing your results.

2. Select ‘NECO Results’: On the homepage, pick the ‘NECO Results’ option. Clicking this will take you to the result-checking section.

Click “Check “Results”.

Alternatively, just go straight to the result portal at https://results.neco.gov.ng/.

3. Enter your examination details: Provide your exam year (2024), exam type (June/July or Nov/Dec), and your unique examination number.

4. Input your token: You can buy it directly from the NECO website. Input the token in the appropriate field. 

Special notes

You can buy token from

a) Official NECO website, which remains the most secure and reliable source for purchasing tokens.

b) Authorised retailers: Ensure the third-party retailer is officially approved by NECO to avoid being scammed.

c) Result-checker token will only allow you to check a candidate’s result once. Five attempts at most. You cannot use another token to check the same result again.

Any further checks of the same result will require you to use the NECO E-Verify Result Verification Portal to verify or confirm such results. So do not exhaust your token’s access. 

Vanguard News

On September 22, 2024 Yemi Cardoso will mark one year in office as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria at a time of unprecedented economic headwinds. What will his scorecard look like?

A while back, I was discussing with a few friends and as is the case where one or two or more Nigerians are gathered, the discussion segued naturally to the economy. It was school fees season and three of us have children schooling abroad.

At some point, one of my friends blurted out. “Naira is now N1,580 to the dollar. What exactly is Cardoso doing at the CBN?”

This particular friend holds an MBA from a foreign university and runs two businesses in Nigeria so I was quite surprised when he reduced the functions of the CBN governor to just managing the value of the naira.

But it was not surprising. Speak to ten Nigerians and they will express almost the same sentiments. What is Cardoso doing if he can’t manage the foreign exchange rate?

The question is a valid one but also a bit reductionist because the job of a CBN governor extends beyond foreign exchange management, to include formulation and implementation of monetary policy, ensuring financial stability, reserve management, banking regulations, setting interest rates and more.

So, reducing the job description of the CBN governor to just one item in a long shopping list would be akin to a man who spends his time brushing one single tooth out of 32.

Why is foreign exchange management so important to Nigerians? Well, the short answer is that it makes news and impacts us in a lot of ways – school fees, medical care, travel, cost of goods, etc.

The naira has been making serious news since Cardoso assumed the mantle at CBN. According to the most recent World Bank’s biannual publication, Nigerian Development Update, of December 2023, the naira “depreciated against the US dollar by approximately 41% in the official market and by about 30% in the parallel market” between June and December 2023.

This was in the wake of the liberalization of the foreign exchange market or (managed) floating of the naira because the CBN is still intervening to reduce the pressure on the naira. Why was the naira floated? It was to ensure that the naira finds its true value, checkmate round tripping and remove speculative arbitrage. The ultimate aim is to achieve parity through a positive contraction in the gulf between the official and parallel market rates.  But this cannot be achieved overnight.

Yemi Cardoso admitted as much when he appeared before the House of Reps in February 2024. Acknowledging that foreign exchange management is a key part of his remit, he also noted that ““the genuine issue impacting the exchange rate is the simultaneous decrease in the supply of, and increase in the demand for, dollars. It also seems that the task of stabilising the exchange rate, while an official mandate of the CBN, would necessitate efforts beyond the apex bank itself.”

This is because boosting the value of the naira against the dollar depends on more than just the CBN defending the naira. There are other factors; oil prices in the international commodity market, a productive economy, growth in exports both oil and non-oil products, increase in foreign reserves and dollar availability which often receives a boost from diaspora remittances, a reduction in the demand for dollars and containment of inflation.

The CBN is working to make these happen and Cardoso hit the ground running by taking quick key decisions; mandated banks to adhere to Net Open Position (NOP) limits to discourage hedging and prevent excessive holding of foreign currency assets. He also ensured that backlogs of unpaid forex obligations were cleared.

But the fact remains that for an economy to grow and the local currency gain strength there must be a convergence of both monetary and fiscal policies? Monetary policy is not a silver bullet.

We saw some movement recently on the fiscal front. The first domestic dollar denominated bond was oversubscribed by 180%. Planned to raise $500 million, the bond secured $900 million in commitments.

While the oversubscription surprised analysts and underlined investors’ confidence not just in the ongoing economic reforms but Nigeria’s economic stability and growth prospects there are concerns that the bond should have been targeted more at diaspora remittances instead of domestic dollar deposits as it put demand pressure on the dollar in local supply and the CBN may have to cough up about $200m in 5 years with interest rates of 9% per annum for bond holders.

While the jury is still out on the bond’s final impact on the economy, the fact remains that seamless fiscal and monetary synergy is required to get us out of the doldrums.

Prior to this, the CBN under Cardoso had recorded an all-time high $553m diaspora remittance  inflow  in July 2024 up by 130% compared to 2023. That significant uptick was thanks to the CBN’s decision to grant access to new and eligible international money transfer operators (IMTOs) to trade on the official foreign exchange (FX) window, implementing a willing buyer-willing seller model, and enabling timely access to naira liquidity for IMTOs  thereby enhancing liquidity in Nigeria’s FX market.

There have been other monetary, credit and foreign exchange policy initiatives introduced by Cardoso which are yielding positive results.

The Monetary Policy Rate was raised to 26.75% in July 2024, the 4^th time in seven months. The increase which impacts the cost of borrowing while encouraging savings is to moderate inflation while ensuring price stability. While analysts have argued that it could stifle productive activity, the increase in the MPR appears to be having a salutary effect on month on month inflation with inflation dropping by 1.25% compared to July according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

To address the expressed concerns the CBN has lifted import restrictions on 43 goods with the aim of achieving stability and fostering growth because cheaper imported inputs will lead to local production which will in turn boost employment as closed factories re-open and consumers will benefit from more affordable imported retail products.

The restrictions which had been in place for about eight years was ostensibly to conserve forex and encourage local production as importers were barred from using forex sourced from the official market to import the goods.  But the reverse seemed to be the case as the imports continued with importers sourcing their forex from the parallel market thereby “exerting additional demand pressure on the parallel market, widening the gap with the official rate and permanently segmenting the market.”

To reduce demand pressure in the foreign exchange market and promote price discovery, the CBN re-introduced the retail Dutch Auction System (rDAS). The Dutch auction mechanism is not new having been applied previously in 1987, 1990 and from 2002 – 2006. The system is helping sanitise the foreign exchange market by allowing for an objective evaluation of forex demand and supply ensuring that demand is for end users. Predicated on the volume of forex available for sale, rDAS, by giving forward guidance, promotes forex stability.

On August 6, 2024 $1.18bn bids were received from 32 banks with total bids of $876.26bn from 26 banks qualifying while $313.69 from six banks were disqualified for various reasons ranging from late submission, wrong template to unverifiable forms. In the pursuit of transparency, all the bids have been published on the CBN website. The effect of the return of rDAS was felt immediately with an appreciation in value.

Aside sale to banks through rDAS, the CBN is also ensuring forex availability to registered and qualified Bureaux de Change operators.

Another key initiative was the announcement that the CBN would no longer indulge the FG’s Ways and Means appetite until the previous loans, put at N18.16 trillion which is 40% higher than total money in circulation as at 2023 are repaid. Cardoso said the bank will insist on following the rules which states that the CBN cannot advance the federal government more than 5% of revenue earned in the previous year. Bold and fraught with political implications, it is meant to reduce currency in circulation and so moderate inflationary pressure.

Cardoso’s attempt to moderate government spending and fiscal dominance has already received political push back with the National Assembly approving an increase of that threshold from 5 to 10% of annual revenue.

In terms of its regulatory functions as banker to the banks, the CBN is focused on ensuring the financial stability of Nigerian banks. It is strengthening the banking system through the upward review of the minimum capital requirements, increase in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and ring fencing of the banking system through the Unclaimed Balances Trust Fund (UBTF) Pool Account.

According to the recapitalisation guideline issued on March 28, 2024, commercial banks with international authorization are now required to have a new minimum capital of N500bn which the CBN says will “enhance their resilience, solvency and capacity to continue to support the growth of the Nigerian economy.” While the targets differ based on the bank’s licence, the recapitalisation exercise is supposed to take place over 24 months and conclude on March 31, 2026. At the time of writing, share raise offers by Fidelity, Access and Guaranty Trust have been oversubscribed.

The increase of the CRR to 27.5% will help ensure that Nigerian banks are cash positive while reducing the amount of cash in circulation thereby helping achieve the CBN’s inflation moderation agenda.

The Unclaimed Balances Trust Fund (UBTF) Pool Account will warehouse “unclaimed balances in eligible accounts” helping to protect the banking system by limiting incidents of fraud to which dormant accounts are susceptible.

Finally to ensure that the policy initiatives are communicated and understood, the CBN is encouraging transparency with a return to full disclosure in the form of regular publications of reports and data. According to the CBN this is to reaffirm its “commitment to fostering transparency and accountability in the Nigerian economy.” It will also complement the data available from other sources like the NBS thus providing Nigerians a better view of the economy.

But is it working and is any one taking notice? To return again to the question we posed at the beginning; what will Cardoso’s scorecard look like?

While the naira’s battle against the dollar will dominate discourse, his adoption of proactive forex policies, regulatory initiatives and a robust  inflation-targeting framework indicate that Cardoso has shown himself as a CBN governor capable of coming up with and translating strategic initiatives into actionable outcomes.

One year into his tenure, the CBN’s target inflation rate of 21.4% has not been achieved and the naira is still on the back foot relative to the dollar, but time may well be on his side but not so for impatient Nigerians eager to see quick wins.

Kan is a PR expert and financial analyst.

President Bola Tinubu will not attend the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York this year.

In a statement on Thursday by Bayo Onanuga, special adviser on information and strategy to the president, Tinubu has directed Vice President Kashim Shettima to lead Nigeria’s delegation to the meeting.

More to follow…

[TheCable]

I don’t get involved with what the security services do or how. Their ways are so complex and their motives so unsearchable that sometimes you’ll be forgiven for thinking that working from the answer to the question is the standard operating procedure. Of course, you are told that whatever happens in between is in the public interest.

As far as fiction imitates life, there is a striking resemblance between the recent hyperactivity in Nigeria’s security services and what happened in a novel set in mid-17^th century England. 

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (famously called “Double Trouble” by the English press) is a comedy about the birth of the son of Satan and the coming of the End Times.

The part that reminds me of what is obviously a hectic season for the security services – from the arraignment of the #EndBadGovernance protesters on charges of felony to the police raid on Labour House and run-ins with the NLC president and civil society activists – is the time in England when, according to Pratchett and Gaiman, witch-finding was a respectable profession. 

General Hopkins

At that time, there was a certain General named Matthew Hopkins. You would think that in pre-industrial England, when poverty, disease and unemployment were rampant, the last thing the state would be interested in would be a witch-hunt. But no. Witch-hunting was good business.

Hopkins charged each town and village nine pence for every witch he found. But that wasn’t enough. Since he wasn’t paid by the hour, and the reward for not finding any witches was a thank you and a bowl of soup, he invented a way to earn more. He went out of his way to find witches, which made him unpopular in the towns and villages. 

When Hopkins’ madness became insufferable, the villagers framed him as a witch, much to the pleasure of the local authorities, who were also tired of paying him. They hanged him. Hopkins, by many accounts, became the last Witchfinder General in England.

The world may have substantially passed the time when people were hunted, hanged and burned at the stake on suspicion of witchcraft. But I’m concerned that there is a growing similarity between witchcraft and how Nigeria’s security services look for enemies. 

A British suspect

Listening to the spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, explain why the force raided Labour House, the siege on the Labour leadership, and the charge of treason against protesters and their alleged British sponsor, Andrew Martin Wynne, I can almost see the ghost of 17^th century England. By his looks – and one must respect his decision to keep his shaggy hair and matted beard – Wynne might have been lumped together with those in the “pointy hat” in those days.

Not in Nigeria

But Nigeria is not Hopkins’ England. This is not 1961 when Joseph Tarka was detained for three weeks and charged with treason by the Crown for “inciting” the protests in Tiv land, only to be acquitted later for lack of evidence. 

It is not the Nigeria of 1962 when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was prosecuted for treasonable felony for purportedly working with Ghana to overthrow the government of Nigeria, a scandalous charge borne out of politics rather than law. 

Anthony Enahoro, a journalist’s journalist and scourge of the British government, was also jailed twice for sedition, once for an article mocking a former governor and then for another article “inciting Nigerian troops against the British army.” 

Then, he was deported from England as a “fugitive offender” and jailed a third time along with Awolowo for treasonable felony.

This is not the Nigeria of military president General Ibrahim Babangida, where human rights activists Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Beko Ransome-Kuti and Baba Omojola were hounded and imprisoned on the spurious charge of treason by a military government that had lost its way. It is not the Nigeria where Babangida deported sociology lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Patrick Wilmot for the “treasonable sin” of teaching what “he was not paid to teach.”

Or the one where General Sani Abacha hounded NADECO leaders, including President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for standing up to the extreme human rights abuses of that government.

In 2024?

This is 2024, with a government that parades some of the most well-known human rights figures up and down the corridors of power and even among the principal officers of the National Assembly. Where is this ghost of 17^th-century England coming from?

Let me be clear. Protest is not – and should not – be chaos and anarchy. The killing of protesters and police officers during the #EndBadGovernance protests in August, which left seven persons dead, the arson at the NCC building in Kano, the open calls for a military takeover, and the symbolic insinuation that Russian intervention was welcome are inexcusable.

The silence of some top politicians and leaders, especially from the North, fueled suspicions of complicity if not connivance. Yet, why add a third if two wrongs don’t make a right?

I don’t know what Intelligence is saying or the briefing President Tinubu is getting. Of course, he needs them. We need them, too, as citizens. No modern state can do without them. But in many countries, their job has become more valuable and sophisticated – and one might even say, often dangerously sophisticated – far beyond the voodoo of Hopkins’ witch-hunt in the east of England. 

Like Aziraphale and Cowley

For example, for decades in the US, and going back to the Vietnam War, through the Nixon years and the Cold War and even the destabilisation of Libya, the Intelligence services perpetrated some of the vilest acts in pursuit of the so-called enemies of the state, actually a mask for vendetta and a ladder for the ascendancy of the deep state. 

Like the angel Aziraphale and the demon Cowley in Good Omens, the good and bad guys in the security services have shared interests. They routinely collaborate for good and ill, sometimes at the state’s expense.

Take heed

Tinubu must take heed. He has a competent Attorney General and Minister of Justice in Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who should advise him to tread softly. The history of our security services, especially the bad habits inherited from colonial rule and reinforced by the long years of military rule and entitled politicians, hasn’t changed much. 

It’s not the business of police officers, the state security service or special advisers to run the government. That’s not their job. They cannot abridge the people’s freedoms in a quest for ascendancy. Those who breach the law in exercising their liberty should not face the justice that reminds us of Hopkins’ England but a process consistent with modern progressive society, one that Tinubu was voted to uphold.

As the veteran journalist Owei Lakemfa said in his column last week, the danger is not so much the protesters, their sponsors or the witches in a coven somewhere. The biggest threat to the land is the hardship in plain sight, compounded by the lavish lifestyle of government officials and the lack of clarity about what is next. And the president doesn’t need Witchfinder General Hopkins to tell him.

Using the hashtag, #TheBudgetisaMess, BudgIT Nigeria made a crisp post Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter): “Just look at this, Nigerians! A Federal Polytechnic (NICTM) in Edo (State) has an allocation of N900 million to construct a road in Cross River (State). This same Polytechnic is renovating traditional palaces for N300 million and supplying motorcycles to Katsina and Bayelsa traders for N100 million to ease the effect of subsidy removal.” The post listed many other projects running into several billions of Naira scattered across the country to be undertaken by this same Federal Polytechnic in Edo State before the conclusion: “Nigerians, these insertions cannot continue.”

BudgIT, a civic organization that promotes transparency and active citizen engagement, has for years been raising awareness about the futility of the national budget. When Senator Abdul Ningi was suspended in March this year following his allegation of an ‘underground budget’ of N3.7 trillion, BudgIT Director and co-founder, Seun Onigbinde, waded in on the side of the senator. And in recent days, Onigbinde has been exposing the various insertions that make nonsense of the 2024 appropriation law. But this is a recurring issue on which I have also written dozens of columns and most times, I preface or conclude with the admonition by Laolu Samuel-Biyi that “If you want to keep hope alive in Nigeria, don’t look at the budget.” The challenge, of course, is that we cannot ignore the budget. Yet, if such an important planning instrument is reduced to sharing money between and among powerful interests, as we have seen over the years in Nigeria, how can our country develop?

Ordinarily, the national budget is the financial plan of a country with the principal objective to reduce inequalities by mobilising and allocating resources for investment in the public sector. Sadly, that has rarely been  the case n Nigeria. From buying motorcycles and wheelbarrows to construction of websites to multibillion Naira ‘empowerment’ projects, budgeting in Nigeria is simply about sharing money for items repeated annually.

After President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Appropriation (Repeal and Amendment) Act, 2020 into law, I wrote a two-part series, ‘A Nation on Ventilator’ where I highlighted these same problems. A few of the items I listed from the 2020 budget: ‘Supply of fertilizers to some operatives in Bauchi Central Senatorial District for N50 million’; ‘Grant to Kutiriko Jummat Mosque Committee, Agaie/Lapai Federal Constituency, Niger State’ for the sum of N10 million; grant to ‘Lapai Emirates Development Association’; ‘Construction of Admin Block at ECWA Theological College (Christian Academy) Zambuk, Yamaltu/Deba’ at N19 million; N40 million for ‘Community support in Iwo, Ejigbo and Ola Oluwa LGA in Osun West Senatorial district’ etc. In the budget of the federal ministry of water resources for the same year, there was even a vote of N2 million for the construction of a personal gym that had no location!

One may argue that the sums allocated for a number of these items are small but by the time you multiply them into thousands, you get a fair idea of the quantum of money deployed for things that do not belong in the national budget of a country. Besides, there is hardly any rigour in the description of these items. For instance, supply of ‘empowerment materials for youths and women in Ondo motorcycles, tricycles, grinding machine, fashion and training equipment, barbing and hair dressing equipment in Ondo Central Senatorial District’ gulped N60 million if you can decipher what that means. The ‘purchase of one unit of CAT Caterpillar grader equipment for rural road rehabilitation in Ondo Central Senatorial district’ took another N70 million. Assuming this caterpillar was purchased (and you find this kind of line item every year), who would take ownership? More noteworthy: That particular ‘project’ was inserted in the budget for the Public Complaints Commission!

I understand that the structure of our country encourages lack of accountability in a system that was founded on ‘sharing the national cake’. But as I have also argued on numerous occasions, the essence of budgeting is forward planning.  It takes three years to complete the process for one fiscal year in more organised societies—a year to formulate, another to legislate, and yet another to execute. The real issue is not even that National Assembly members insert ‘projects’ without any process but rather that most of these financial allocations are transactional. That explains why ‘road construction’ projects can be domiciled in the Ministry of Health while ‘empowerment’ can be under the Ministry of Labour and Productivity. Projects running into hundreds of millions of Naira are sometimes domiciled in ‘various locations’ or ‘some communities.’ Since it is not conceivable that these Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) officials will execute projects outside their mandates, it stands to reason that such monies are purposely ‘warehoused’ for certain individuals.

More concerning is that while this challenge has been with us for years, it is now being institutionalized under the current administration. Even if they didn’t do anything about it, previous presidents (from Olusegun Obasanjo to the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari) were uncomfortable with the manner the budget was cannibalized by the National Assembly. But for the first time, we have a president who is not only comfortable with what the National Assembly has done with the 2024 budget but has also defended it. “I know the arithmetic of the budget and the numbers that I brought to the National Assembly, and I know what numbers came back. I appreciate all of you for the expeditious handling of the budget. Thank you very much,” President Bola Tinubu told the National Assembly leadership after the allegation by Ningi earlier in the year. “Those who are talking about malicious embellishment in the budget; they did not understand the arithmetic and did not refer to the baseline of what I brought. But your integrity is intact.”  

Perhaps the commendation is understandable because this presidency has also been adding luxury items that have more to do with its own indulgence than any attempt to promote the public good. Meanwhile, while signing the 2022 Appropriation Bill into law two years ago, Tinubu’s predecessor had expressed concern over “new insertions, outright removals, reductions and/or increases in the amounts allocated to projects.” These distortions, according to Buhari, “relate to matters that are basically the responsibilities of states and local governments, and do not appear to have been properly conceptualised, designed and costed. And many more projects have been added to the budgets of some MDAs with no consideration for the institutional capacity to execute the additional projects and/or for the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.’’

With a president who is more concerned about taking from the people (removal of subsidy, increased taxation etc.) than how such monies are expended, it is no surprise that concerns are not raised by the executive regarding the 2024 budget. But we cannot continue this way. When the national budget of a country is replete with ‘stakeholders annual forum’, ‘promotion of energy planning tools in six geopolitical zones’ etc., there can be no meaningful development. It is therefore important that we reform the budgeting process. And that will not happen until critical stakeholders in both the executive and legislature agree that we have a systematic problem which requires dealing with.

Section 88, subsection 2(b) of the 1999 Constitution expects the National Assembly to “expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement or administration of funds appropriated by it”. An institution with such enormous powers cannot afford to be messing with the national budget every year. Let’s take the case of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)—one of the agencies that BudgIT has highlighted in the 2024 budget.

Established in 2008 “to promote and support the use of space technology within and outside of Nigeria for the management of the full disaster cycle including prevention and mitigation”, the mandate of NASRDA is very clear. Despite that two of the three remaining satellites have expired, about 40% of the 2024 capital expenditure by NASRDA is going to ‘Supply Of Empowerment Materials To Indigent Women In Various Communities’, ‘Training And Empowerment Of Clergy, Traditional Rulers/Heads Of Communities On Conflict And Peace Resolution’, ‘Supply of Toyota Hilus Utility Sports For Sensitization Against Rape And Pre-Mature/Unwanted Pregnancy’, ‘Provision Of Sustainable Appliances’, ‘Provision And Supply Of Large Metal Dustbins, etc. How can anybody defend such budgetary provisions in a space agency?

But I do not want us to scapegoat the National Assembly. The argument of lawmakers has always been that if unelected ministers, heads of agencies and civil servants (who did not go through the rigour of any election) can insert whichever projects they want in the budget of the MDAs, why should they (elected representatives of the people) be precluded from doing the same? And this is a valid question. The issue, of course, is that the budget is a legislative responsibility, so we cannot but hold the lawmakers to account on the issue.

The essence of legislative oversight is to detect and help eliminate areas of waste within public agencies, make government accountable to the people, evaluate the impact of policies and programmes on the society while ensuring that all these are in promotion of the public good. A National Assembly whose members cannot appreciate that such onerous responsibility demands accountability will sooner or later lose the moral authority that surrounds its constitutional power. That exactly is the situation today. But we must also understand their own challenges.

On the second anniversary of the 8th National Assembly on 9th June 2017, I had the privilege of addressing members of the House of Representatives at plenary, at the invitation of then Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara. “While the Honourable members of this House were elected to make laws for the good governance of the country and through that bring developments to the people, what your constituents demand are instant gratifications. They want money to pay the school fees of their children, establish businesses and sometimes even to marry more wives,” I said in my presentation, which dwelt on the power of the legislature and the crisis of expectation on Nigerian lawmakers. “If you are not able to deliver on these, no matter how many bills you sponsor in the National Assembly or how efficient you are in your oversight functions, you are a failed lawmaker, in their estimation.” But I also made the lawmakers understand that the legislative ‘power of the purse’ confers on them the responsibility to serve as watchdogs on the executive in the way and manner national resources are allocated and expended.

Overall, we need a serious conversation on the budgeting process in Nigeria. The current arrangement does not, and cannot, serve the public good. As critical stakeholders in this democracy, our lawmakers (and their collaborators within the executive branch) must appreciate that, and course correct. In their own enlightened interest.

Renowned media personality, Frank Edoho, has stirred discussion with his unconventional perspective on marriage.

On the Curiosity Made Me Ask podcast, Edoho argued that marriage should not be regarded as an accomplishment, describing it simply as an agreement between two people to be together.

He questioned societal norms and the definition of marriage as an achievement, asserting that the end of a marriage does not equate to failure.

“Firstly, marriage is not an achievement. Who told you marriage is an achievement? It’s just two people agreeing to live together. If one marriage breaks, it’s not the end of the world. Leaving a marriage doesn’t mean you’ve failed”, he said.

[TheNation]