The World Trade Organisation Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has announced her intention to seek another four-year term as head of the trade organisation.

She disclosed this in an interview with Reuters on Monday, stating that she hopes to complete “unfinished business” from her first mandate.

Okonjo-Iweala, who served as Nigeria’s finance minister, took office in March 2021 as the first female and African head of the 30-year-old trade body. Her current term expires on 31 August 2025.

She said, “I would like to be part of this chapter of the WTO story, and I stand ready to compete for the position,” Okonjo-Iweala said, citing a letter she plans to send to the trade body’s main decision-making body.

“For my second term, I intend to focus on delivering,” she added, mentioning that among her priorities are addressing “unfinished business.”

These priorities include finalising a deal on ending fisheries subsidies, achieving a breakthrough in global agriculture negotiations, reforming the WTO’s struggling dispute system, and decarbonising trade.

Officially, she has until the end of November to decide whether to apply again.

However, the African-led initiative to start early, which began in July before U.S. President Joe Biden withdrew from the election campaign, was seen as a move to secure her second term ahead of the U.S. vote in November.

Under WTO consensus rules, this would be possible if no other candidates come forward and all member states support her.

In 2020, the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump blocked her appointment, a move seen by some as an attack on an organisation he had previously described as “horrible.”

She secured U.S. backing when Joe Biden succeeded Trump in 2021.

Asked whether both she and the WTO could be successful if Trump were re-elected, she said: “I don’t focus on that because I have no control.”

[Punch]

Many Nigerians are understandably shocked that petrol being pumped out of the Dangote refinery (DR) will not be selling at a relatively affordable price at the pumps, or a little cheaper than the imported variety. Long conditioned to subsidised products, they had expected that a locally produced petrol will offer a huge relief from the cost-of-living crisis they’ve been enduring since last year. Hope was heightened when the government announced recently that Dangote will buy Nigerian crude oil in naira and sell his products within the country in the same currency. In many social media platforms and talk shows, Nigerians have been busy analysing the refinery’s production economics and explaining why we should be buying cheap fuel soon.

‘’Why would Dangote not sell his petrol cheap or cheaper than imported product when he is not bearing cost of shipping; LC charges; wharf charges; insurance and other costs borne by importers?’’, a disgruntled university professor wrote last week. Another person noted on X, ’’Anything above N766 per litre from Dangote is back to square one’’. One other commentator wrote, ‘’Queuing for fuel is not our problem. If Dangote’s fuel is not cheaper than what we have now, then the whole thing is not worth it’’.

I had always known that Dangote’s fuel will not come cheap, but I did not expect that it would go as high as about N1,000/litre. When I visited the refinery in July as part of a media tour, I had remarked during the question-and-answer session that Nigerians were looking forward to buying petrol from the refinery at between N400 and N600 per litre, against the retail price of over about N700 per litre then. My remark drew a chuckle from the man himself.

Just this morning, NNPC announced that it would sell Dangote petrol at various prices, depending on location. In Lagos, for example, the product will sell at N950 per litre at its stations; N980 in Rivers; N960.22 in Oyo; N999.22 in Kaduna, Sokoto and FCT and N1,079.22 in Borno. NNPC will make a margin of N26.58 per litre, after incurring distribution cost of cost N15/litre; inspection fee of N.97/litre and NMDPRA fee of N8.99/litre. On Sunday, NNPC had told us that it purchased petrol at N898/litre (it actually paid 55 cents/litre) from Dangote.

I commend NNPC for these disclosures, and I should note that these prices are only obtainable for the month of September when NNPC is buying in dollars from the refinery. For October when crude would be sold in naira, the prices may change, depending on a few variables like the exchange rate and the crude oil price in the international market.

Clearly, the downstream market is now fully deregulated, and for the first time in our history, subsidy is truly gone. Nigerians should brace up for a market determined pricing structure that would be influenced by a few factors: price of crude oil; exchange rate; cost of refining; overheads; borrowing costs and insurance. Crude oil price will continue to be a major determinant of petrol price. Even when NNPC sells crude in naira to DR, the pump price would still be determined by the prevailing exchange rate. If Naira continues to slide, petrol price will increase, even if other factors remain unchanged.

This morning, crude oil is selling at about $72 and at the exchange rate of N1,600/dollar, Dangote would be buying a barrel of crude oil at about N115,200. Although there are many other products that are obtained from a barrel of crude oil, petrol will not come cheap because of other inherent costs in the production process. Dangote is highly indebted to Nigerian banks, and even before his refinery began production, he was already repaying and servicing his debts. He had told the media in July that he had incurred huge interest charges due to failed attempts in land acquisition in Ogun state and delays in construction in Lagos state due to communal issues. The accumulated interest charges and other interest costs will count in the pricing of his petrol.

I am sure that the refinery is fully insured by foreign insurers and huge premiums are paid yearly in dollars. According to loss adjusters in the United States, a refiner worth $1 billion will likely pay a yearly insurance premium of $2.5 million or more. You can imagine what Dangote Refinery, the world’s largest single-train refiner, worth about $20 billion, will pay every year as a premium. This will also be factored into its pricing structure.

Dangote’s costs of production must also be very high and this will impact heavily on the pricing of its products. The refinery provides everything for itself, including building three ports within the complex for its use in bringing in heavy equipment and building a huge 400 MW power plant to provide own electricity. In addition, DR has over 8,000 persons in its payroll. During construction, 29,000 Nigerians and 11,000 expatriates worked at the site. The huge wage bill would have to be taken care of by the selling prices of the products.

But despite the relatively high cost of Dangote petrol, this refinery is about the best thing that has ever happened to Nigeria’s industrialization and economic development in terms of the multiplier effects and expected uninterrupted fuel supply. Since the refinery will buy crude oil in Naira, that should ameliorate the impacts on the exchange rate. As the Naira firms up in the months ahead, I expect inflation to dip southwards. With all other factors remaining the same (they hardly do, anyway), prices of other items in the market should fall. The only reason petrol will sell cheap is if crude oil goes for as low as $40 per barrel or if the dollar exchanges for N800 or less. Both have significant implications for the economy, of course. But with tension mounting in the Middle East, cheaper crude oil is not likely soon.

I have taken note of the assurance from the finance minister, Wale Edun, that petrol price will fall as the refinery scales up production. Speaking at the refinery on Sunday, Edun said, ‘’We’re expecting that as this refinery, and even others, ramp up production, scale and achieve economies of scale, there should be the opportunity – and there is definitely the potential – to reduce their costs which should be passed on to consumers’’.

I agree, provided all other factors remain unchanged. Will they?

President Bola Tinubu has arrived in Maiduguri to commiserate with the government and people of Borno state over the recent flood incident. 

On September 10, flood displaced many residents in the Fori, Galtimari, Gwange, and Bulabulin areas of Maiduguri.

No fewer than 30 people have been reported dead from the flood which occurred following the collapse of the Alau dam.

Vice-President Kashim Shettima had visited Maiduguri shortly after the incident, describing it as the “most catastrophic” flood in Borno state in the last three decades.

Speaking during an on-the-spot assessment, Shettima said the impacts of the floods “exceeded estimation”.

Tinubu had directed the immediate evacuation of victims of the flood while he was away from the country.

The president left Abuja for China on August 29 but stopped in Dubai before arriving in Beijing on September 1.

After six days in China, Tinubu left Beijing for London where he met with King Charles III on September 12.

The President arrived Nigeria just before midnight on Sunday, September 15, and was received at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport by some members of the administration and heads of security agencies.

[TheCable]

IT is bizarre. The International Monetary Fund, IMF, calling on the government to protect the poor from the impact of the fuel price hikes it engineers! To add to its criminal thought process against the Nigerian people, the same IMF is telling the Tinubu administration that fuel prices in Nigeria are too low and need to be increased because it is allegedly selling below market price. What market?

To understand this, we need to know that the Western Europe-owned IMF and its Siamese American twin, the World Bank, have since 1981 told every successive Nigerian government that our petroleum product prices are too cheap and must be increased. Based on their ‘advice’, every successive Nigerian government increases the price of petrol. The more government increases the price, the more impoverished Nigerians become to the extent that even as an oil-endowed and oil-rich country, Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world. Yet, the West imposes ever more pressure that the price be increased.

Let me give you an idea of the depths the IMF and World Bank have pushed us. When this shoving of Nigerian governments started under the Shagari administration, a litre of fuel was raised from 15.3 Kobo to 20 Kobo. Then as part of so-called reforms and the ruinous Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, the Babangida regime first moved the price on March 31, 1986 to 39.5K, then, two years later to 42K , on to 60K, and finally, 70K.

The illegal Shonekan interim regime moved it to N5, Abacha reduced it two weeks later to N3.25 before moving it to N15 and two days later reducing it to N11. The Abubakar regime took it to N25 before reducing it 17 days later to N20. Obasanjo in a series of increases took it to N70 and Buhari took it to N238 before handing over to Tinubu on May 29, 2023. In the last 15 months, President Tinubu has increased the price, first to N545.883, then to N617, and now to N897.

The goals of the IMF and World Bank are to dominate the world on behalf of the West, discourage production by the underdeveloped countries and ensure they remain providers of raw materials. Part of their strategy is to bury client states in unnecessary and doubtful debts and, reduce them to junk status.

Anybody who thinks that these Western vehicles of underdevelopment have by their expression of sympathy with the poor become humane or repentant is mistaken. The IMF and World Bank are bandit organisations, ever-ready to steal from the poor and deprive the hungry child even half a loaf of bread.

They are undertakers of the West who dig the graves of the poor and underdeveloped countries and bury their hopes and, possibly, their future. So, if they express sympathy with the plight of their victims, it is not skin-deep. It is like a person carrying out cosmetic surgery, that in itself neither changes the age, nor the person.

In the midst of mass misery, deprivation, hunger and anger, the narration is being pushed that our political elites admire China and would want Nigeria to develop like the Chinese. Yet, they would not take the basic steps towards development the children of Chairman Mao Tse Tung and Chui Enlai have taken. Not even to start with the most basic step, which is to develop a thought process.

The basic principle of China is that the business of the Chinese government is business; in contrast, the Nigerian government says it has no business in business. So, how can the Chinese reforms be its model? In China, there is crime and punishment as indeed should be in any sane clime. In Nigeria, there is crime, but punishment depends on social status. As the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, had often told its opponents, come over and join us, and all your sins (crimes) are forgiven. Indeed, it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a politically-connected Nigerian elite to be successfully tried in court. Even if by happenstance he were found guilty, there is a guarantee that he would not spend his full prison term behind bars.

So, when government claimed that the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, President Joe Ajaero was detained last week on his way to the United Kingdom because nobody is above the law, I am not sure anybody believed it. The issue of Ajaero is not about law, it is about lack of coordination in government and little veiled incompetence amongst the security services. How come almost every arm of the security services are inviting or arresting the same person for a sundry of known and unknown reasons?

The labour leader has been arrested, and even beaten by a state government and, multiple arms of the police and the secret services. I will not be surprised if local traffic wardens like LASMA arrest him to ‘assist with investigations’. So the issue about Nigerians like Ajaero and the youths on treason trial for publicly demonstrating their feelings, is not about Nigeria being a country of laws, but about social justice.

This, again, raises our claims to want the Chinese model of reforms. Unlike Nigeria where the law is supposed to be even-handed for every citizen, in China, the higher you are in public office, the higher your punishment. A crime in China, say for theft of public funds which would earn a lowly citizen years imprisonment, would fetch a highly placed public official the death penalty. Let me also say that from my observation of the Chinese legal system, punishment for crimes are carried out.

It is the failure to bring crooks to justice that has saddled Nigeria with lots of baggage that would not allow the democratic system breathe. For instance, our elections are a litany of crimes for which the perpetrators, including hired thugs, are richly rewarded. That is why certified street thugs in various parts of the country are multi-billionaires.

I feel ashamed as a Nigerian that each time elections are to be held, especially at national and state levels, former leaders, serving and past governors, senators, religious leaders, academics and security chiefs gather to sign peace accords with a promise not to rig elections or perpetrate violence. As it turns out, these agreements are not worth the paper on which they are written.

After such agreements, the peacemakers -I wonder who picks their bills – retire to their homes, and the gladiators in the elections do what they know best.

We can learn lessons on development but we will be deceiving ourselves if we think oppressors will fall in love with the oppressed. You can take this to the bank, including the World Bank.

The Yorùbá culture has always been blessed with the attention of intellectuals, scholars and academics who considered it a worthwhile subject of discourse. Without any doubt, the Yorùbá culture is one of the most studied cultural forms of life in the world. This is apart from the many scholars, cultural enthusiasts and intellectuals that the culture itself has produced, from Samuel Ajayi Crowder to Samuel Johnson, from Akinwunmi Isola to J. A. Atanda to Saburi Biobaku, and from Wole Soyinka to Wande Abimbola, Oyekan Owomoyela to Toyin Falola. But we must also not forget the cultural and indigenous intellectuals, like D. O. Fagunwa, Archibishop Ayo Ladigbolu and Adebayo Faleti, to name just a few, who’s very being and profession are invested in the culture itself. All these intellectuals are those who have laid the foundation for entrenching the influence and the national and global reach of the culture, as well as its hold on our collective imagination.

In this piece, I am glad to dedicate this critical analysis to Baba Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu who has been a cultural icon for me since way back. I have written so much about my wondering and wandering sensibility as a young boy growing up and reflecting about my context and surrounding. Yoruba culture and history have always held a deep source of curiosity for me, and Pa Ladigbolu is a phenomenal figure who constitutes a triadic embodiment of the theological, the cultural and the political, and one at that who influenced my scholarship indescribably. That places Baba within the crosshair of my search for cultural and theological enlightenment, especially about the Yorùbá culture’s engagement with non-Yorùbá influences. Indeed, in many of my intense political conversations with HE Chief Olusegun Obasanjo around Nigerian politics and the place of the southwest within it, he had always been insistent that I must not miss the opportunity to sit at the feet of the Master, Archbishop Ladigbolu, since I have chosen to follow in the footstep of my grandfather and the celebrated historian of culture, Rev. David Aibinu Olaopa, of blessed memory. This was an added impetus since I had already taken him as a father and a mentor.

Baba Ladigbolu is phenomenal. He occupies the same circle of cultural preservationists that include Tunde Kelani the filmmaker and the Afenifere, the pan-Yorùbá cultural and political forum. However, Baba’s historical trajectory is one with a significant difference. And this is because he is a minister of God who is deeply ingrained in both his cultural environment as well as in Christianity. His career therefore enables a deep insight into the understanding of the conflicted relationship between culture and modernity, and how one could begin to unravel the significance of modernity within a culture’s own development. Indeed, the cultural and professional trajectories of Baba Ladigbolu provides us with a fundamental framework for how an ecumenical framework could be generated between an indigenous culture and a foreign religion. Pa Ladigbolu achieved that almost seamless coherence that allowed him to become a priest of the Methodist Church of Nigeria (and to rise up to the zenith of its hierarchy as an archbishop) while retaining a very deep cultural mooring in the Yorùbá heritage.

We immediately see the significance of this fusion in an age when Pentecostal Christianity built its own incursion into a different culture on the basis of the demonization of those cultures as heathenism. Archbishop Ladigbolu deployed his contact with western education as the fulcrum for developing an open-minded cultural sensibility that allows for the mutual reinforcement between Christianity and the Yorùbá culture in terms of the emergence of a modern sensibility that enables a conversation between the two. When I think of Pa Ladigbolu, I see an older and more perfect reflection of how Ali Mazrui’s Africa’s triple heritage thesis could become an embodied lifestyle and philosophy. I have written so much about how my upbringing enabled me to see how the three dynamics—Christianity, traditional Yoruba religion and Islam—could relate in a non-violent manner. Baba Ladigbolu was raised as a Muslim within a deeply culturally conscious Yoruba context and he converted to Christianity while still advocating the preservation of the Yorùbá culture.

Being born within a household that traces its lineage to Alaafin Siyanbola Ladigbolu I, and growing up within an authentic palace comes with its own unique educational value in the paraphernalia of the Yoruba culture. One of the deepest implications was that even before encountering western education through his many travels and the experience they yielded, he had already assimilated an enlarged mind that accepted the theological ramifications of Islam, Yoruba theology and Christianity. His worldview was already wide enough and empathetic to accommodate his myriad experiences traveling from one place to another. We can speculate that his enlarged sensibility owes a lot to the openminded accommodationist framework that the Yorùbá culture itself makes possible. The Yorùbá culture was able to accommodate the incursion of Islam and Christianity because it lacks the exclusionary ontology of both.

I prefer to see Archbishop Ladigbolu as an exemplar of Antonio Gramsci’s understanding of who an intellectual is. Gramsci bifurcated between the “traditional” and the “organic” intellectuals. The traditional intellectuals—teachers, scientists, priests, artists—contrary to their claims to be the bearers of universal values, are actually those that emerged from within a privileged or even a dominant social class, and who are compelled by the dynamics of that class to reinforce its values and philosophies. The organic intellectuals, on the other hand, are more organically connected to the masses because they grew and emerged from within non-privileged strata, transformed their status through education especially, and imposed on themselves the obligation to raise the fortune of that strata. Intellectuals, Gramsci argues, are recognized by their need for the critical elaboration of a new understanding of the world. This is what determines the functions of the intellectuals in any society.   

Indeed, I want to make a radical assertion that Pa Ladigbolu possesses the status of both a traditional and an organic intellectual. When he became a Christian and the entire household became convulsed with fear and tears, they had no way of understanding the contradiction in their worries. They were Yorùbá who embraced Islam. And so there should not have been any worries about one of them embracing Christianity. And if their worry had been about his possible loss of cultural knowledge, little did they know that he would become a cultural champion that he is today.

A much more fundamental challenge embedded in Pa Ladigbolu’s stature is the tension between absolutist theological ontology of Christianity and the accommodationist and liberal worldview of the Yorùbá. How was the archbishop of the Methodist Church in Nigeria able to balance the claim that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life with Christianity’s paganization of non-Christian cultures? How is Christianity’s proselytizing dynamics squared with the non-proselytizing nature of Yorùbá traditional religion? One way to respond to this is to argue that Pa Ladigbolu’s cultural enthusiasm had to take a back seat while he was the Archbishop of the Methodist Church. And this cultural advocacy had picked up immediately he retired as the archbishop. Even if this explanation is far-fetched given his fearless determination to be Yorùbá at all cost, no one—not even the Church—could deny that Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu was a staunch Yorùbá who deeply loves God.  

Combining two near incompatible theological views, in my assessment, becomes a courageous plus for Pa Ladigbolu, an insight into the capacity of the Yorùbá culture to keep inventing itself in the face of challenges. The Yorùbá understanding of àṣà demonstrates a flexible adaptability that has allowed the Yorùbá to not only domesticate non-Yorùbá influences, but to also fit into any cultural and theological contexts wherever they found themselves. This is what had made possible, for instance, the Candomblé and Santeria religious experiences from Brazil to Cuba and beyond. These religious forms emerged from the syncretic fusion of the Yorùbá òrìṣà tradition with Roman Catholicism. What is even more significant is that Candomblé, for example, lacks the same institutionalized framework determined by an orthodoxy and a sacred text. Its heterogeneous form allows for significant incorporation in the same way that Ifá incorporates non-Yorùbá events.

This is the same way that Baba Ladigbolu could be understood as a modernizer of the Yorùbá culture and tradition. Being the leader of the Yorùbá Unity Forum (YUF) as well as the chairman of the Oyo Metropolitan Development provide the opportunity to do two major things. First, it allows him to pursue a program of creative urbanism, what the Yorùbá themselves are historically famous for—transforming Yorùbá cities in line with modern exigencies. And second, Baba’s advocacy also brings to the fore the roles of traditional structures and institutions in the development of modern existence.

For Baba, even as the best of modern scholars have realized, culture matters. It must be the platform around which our being-in-the-world is measured and extended to others. The full extent of his multicultural experiences has allowed him to both serve the Almighty while pushing the bounds of theological and cultural similarities and differences. And so, in straddling Gramsci’s distinction between the traditional and the organic intellectual, Archbishop Ayo Ladigbolu becomes an exemplar for other intellectuals—a sum of cultural knowledge that broadens our cultural worldviews.   

All flights at Shanghai’s two main airports were cancelled on Sunday as authorities in the Chinese megacity prepared for a strong typhoon bringing high winds and heavy rain.

Typhoon Bebinca is expected to make landfall along a swath of China’s densely populated eastern seaboard between Sunday night and Monday morning, according to Beijing’s emergency management ministry.

State broadcaster CCTV reported that all flights at Shanghai’s two main airports would be cancelled from 8 pm on Sunday (1200 GMT) because of the storm.

“Affected by Typhoon Bebinca, the traffic capacity of Shanghai’s Pudong and Hongqiao airports has decreased today,” CCTV said.

“Flight adjustments at the two main airports will be promptly released to the public in accordance with the impact of the typhoon,” it said.

The emergency management ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Bebinca would cause “heavy to torrential” downpours with “local heavy or extremely heavy rainstorms” between Sunday and Tuesday.

Officials held a meeting on Saturday to “research and deploy flood and typhoon control work in key areas”, it said.

Bebinca’s expected landfall will come during the Mid-Autumn Festival public holiday.

China’s railway operator is expecting passengers to take 74 million trips during the holiday, state news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday.

The emergency management ministry said officials must “pay close attention to the development of the typhoon”, adding that “many people will be travelling, mobility will be high and safety risks will be prominent”.

The water resources ministry launched on Saturday a level-four emergency response — the lowest in a tiered system — for flooding in Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, according to Xinhua.

The weather office issued orange typhoon warnings — the second-highest in a four-tier system — for several districts in Shanghai and areas of nearby provinces on Sunday.

It advised that people refrain from gathering in large numbers, boats return to port and rickety structures be strengthened against high winds.

Shanghai municipal authorities urged residents on Sunday to “strengthen efforts to guard against harmful effects of the typhoon on high-altitude work, transportation, infrastructure and agriculture”.

Passenger shipping lines were also scheduled to be suspended in Shanghai from Sunday, according to an official statement on the social media account of the municipal port and shipping development centre.

– Trail of destruction –
China is the world’s biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say are driving climate change and making extreme weather more frequent and intense.

Another typhoon, Yagi, killed at least four people and injured 95 when it passed through China’s southern Hainan island this month, according to national weather authorities.

Bebinca passed through Japan’s Amami island overnight, carrying gusts of up to 198 kilometres (123 miles) per hour, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, warning of an increased risk of landslides due to heavy rain.

The storm also slammed into the central and southern Philippines on Friday.

Philippine officials said on Sunday that falling trees had killed six people as the tropical storm brought strong winds and floods.

AFP

•ON ONDO POLL: Some APC govs supporting PDP guber candidate 

Dr Adekunle Akindele is a leader of Peoples Democratic Party ,PDP, in Ondo State,  and the immediate past Chairman of the party in Osun State. He is currently the Special Adviser to  Osun State governor on Public Health. In this interview, he speaks on contentious issues in the party, saying he is confident of victory in next month’s election in Ondo State. 

How prepared is PDP in Ondo State for  November 16 governorship election?
 My party is fully prepared for the election, and we are putting all machinery in place to ensure that the Peoples Democratic Party wins the governorship election in Ondo State. We know that for sometime we have been out of government in the state, and don’t forget the fact that PDP is one party that has internal cohesion.
We are very determined this time around, despite the fact that we had some issues in the past, which have been completely resolved. We are very much prepared to win the election.

You mentioned the party had some issues. How do you see the manner the party leadership is handling them?
 I can tell you that everything has been resolved. We are  united, unlike before, and we have all agreed that we need to bury the hatchet, and come together to win the election for our people.

As a leader of the opposition party, how do you assess governance in the state right now?
 As I speak to you, I am in my village in Ondo State, I can tell you that governance has taken flight. There is no governance in the state. Everything is at low ebb and the people are down. Look at the roads. If you drive from Ore to Okitipupa, and down to Ilutitun where I hail from, the roads are death traps. Unfortunately, these are the roads leading to the town of the current governor. It shows you that they are bereft of ideas. It goes to confirm the fact that he came here by accident. He was not prepared and his ascension to office was a misnomer. He has no clear vision of what to do in government.
It is the same story everywhere. When I came to Akure last week, I came through Oyaregbulem, and there was this overhead bridge they have been trying to construct for the last four years. If you compare that with what is happening in Osun, and examine what we have done in two years, you will agree with me that governance has gone to sleep here in Ondo State, and we cannot continue like this. We cant wait to kick him out of Alagbaka House.

What level of confidence do you have in your governorship candidate ?
 I can describe our candidate, His Excellency, Agboola Ajayi, as a politician who has seen it all in terms of governance. If you look at his trajectory, he started as a councilor; he later became a local government chairman, a member of the House of Representatives, and of course,  Deputy Governor of our state. He has the credential.  And one thing that he has going for him is that he is a grassroots politician. This is a man who has never for once lived outside Ondo State, except when he was in Abuja to represent his constituency at the Green Chamber. So I’m very confident that he will do well, because when you live among the people, you understand them, you know their worries and you know what it takes to resolve it.
Unlike the APC that brought in Lucky Ayedatiwa, he is an alien. Until now, I never heard about him until he became Deputy Governor of the state. So these are people that do not really have any relationship with our people. And I see them as aliens, and of course, you will agree with me that all their actions and inactions will be geared towards doing the will of their pay masters.  Agboola Ajayi is a man who is after the heart of the people, and a man who the people are waiting for to make the fortunes of Ondo people better.
Governance is no rocket science. If somebody has gone through those stages of governance, you should know that this is a man that is tested and well prepared to ensure that  this hardship in the land, this poverty that they are all going through is at least reduced to an extent.
Apart from the roads that are bad, I don’t want to go to the health sector in the state where there are few doctors. Infrastructures are dead. For example, the General Hospital in Okitipupa, doesn’t even have light at night, the doctors can barely work. These are issues that a very responsible and responsive governor should attend to, but he is busy appointing needless and countless numbers of Special Advisers and Personal Assistants. His own agenda for the people are quite different. His coming to power is an aberration and we are hoping that by November 16, we will send him out of the Government House.

Now , how has the PDP risen to its role as the leader of the opposition parties?
We have been providing leadership and opposition. You will agree with me that all is not entirely well with the party at the national level. But the National Working Committee has done the needful by setting up a reconciliation committee that will ensure that all those issues militating against cohesion in the party are resolved. As far as the PDP is concerned, we are sure that we are providing a very robust opposition.
You see, most of the problems we are facing in this country, like in the run off to the general elections, we of course, have analysed it, and we have a clear cut agenda, to solve most of these problems, unfortunately, the APC, through there abracadabra and shenanigangs were able to manipulate the last elections. For now, that is history, but going forward, we are determined and come the next election, we should be able to kick them out of power.

But how do you see the argument that there are some fifth columnists within the party, that even the Acting National Chairman is former Governor Wike’s stooge, and how do you see Wike’s threat to put fire in any state that intervenes in the Rivers State imbroglio?
 Wike does not have the ability to cause fire in the party. He is no God.  He is a former governor, and now we have a governor in place and he should give them their space and respect.
I won’t rule out the possibility of Fifth Columnist in the party but we have what it takes to tackle that. The National Chairman is doing so much. He is a democrat and a party man to the core. I think he won’t allow the party to disintegrate during his tenure. He is doing so much to resolve the problems in the party.

To what extent would you say  Agboola has the support of  PDP governors as he prepares for the election?
 They are giving him  fantastic support. All the PDP governors are solidly behind him. At one of their last meetings in Abuja, he was there to speak with the PDP governors, so we have no doubt about that. It has even gone beyond PDP governors.
I can tell you for free that even some APC governors are supporting him. I don’t want to mention names. Don’t forget that he has been in the Green Chambers, in Abuja and he has friends among the APC governors, because they know that he is a better person in terms of experience, service delivery and experience.

Now to Osun State, to what extent would you say the governor has imparted on the lives of the people?
 Governor Adeleke, in the last two years, to me is the most impactful and successful governor of the state.  If you look at the massive infrastructural renewal going on in the state, in terms of roads, in terms of hospitals, in terms of agricultural development and ICT  and even civil service reforms. Those things make me happy and I am proud to work with him and for him.
In the runoff to his election, I was the party chairman there, and he has not disappointed anybody a bit, and I will describe him as a star God has used to bless Osun people. Even in security, Osun is the most secure state in the South-West and I call tell you everybody is happy. Salaries are paid as at when due, and debts incurred by the previous government are being taken care of. His performance is unprecedented,  and he is loved by the people.
Even his brother governors have been asking ‘how have you been doing it?’ so his superlative, supersonic performance is impressive. We thank God for our governor. I will tell you that more is still coming. By the time we will be rounding up after our four years in office, Osun State will be well-transformed.

[Vanguard]

Dikko Radda, the governor of Katsina, has approved over N340 million to restore electricity at Umaru Musa Yar’adua University (UMYUK).

NAN reports that Abdullahi Aliyu-Yar’adua, the press director at the office of the secretary to the state government (SSG), spoke on Saturday.

Aliyu-Yar’adua said the governor has approved the immediate release of the fund for two separate electricity projects in the university.

“Firstly, the replacement of a 33KVA indoor control panel and other accessories which supply power to the school at the cost of over N260 million, and also the installation of solar security lights awarded at the cost of over N98 million,” he said.

Aliyu-Yar’adua said the decision by the state government aims to address incidents of vandalism and insecurity in the university.

He said Abdullahi Faskari, the SSG who made the announcement, disclosed that the approval was a swift response by the governor to restore conducive atmosphere of learning and other activities in the institution.

Aliyu-Yar’adua quoted the SSG as saying: “Gov. Radda is concerned about the recent report of power outage which affected the university, hence, the directives to fix it with immediate effect.

“Radda appreciated the various efforts of the management and the understanding exhibited by the staff and students of the university while trying to restore the power supply.”

Earlier, the UMYUK had extended its mid-semester break following issues associated with electricity supply to the university.

“The university’s senate has, at its special meeting, reviewed the progress made on the repairs of electricity supply to the university, which apparently shows that the earlier date given for resumption, Monday, Sept. 16, is not tenable,” it had said.

“In view of the above reality and as state government is working to address the fault, the university senate finds it expedient to suspend the resumption until the electricity supply is fully restored.”

[TheCable]

“A historian ought to be exact, sincere and impartial; free from passion, unbiased by interest, fear, resentment or affection; and faithful to the truth, which is the mother of history the preserver of great actions, the enemy of oblivion, the witness of the past, the director of the future.” Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

History is endangered in Nigeria and those who research or teach it as their vocation are at risk of extinction. Every opportunity to celebrate or learn from history or historians in a country like this, therefore, is not one to be spurned.

When the Usman Dan Fodiyo University (UDUS) in Sokoto, north-west Nigeria, announced that the latest instalment of its Inaugural Lectures would engage with the universe of history, a coincidence of three factors guaranteed them more than the usual bandwidth reserved for such events.

First, this was advertised as the 50th Inaugural Lecture in what is effectively the 50th year of the university. UDUS began life in 1975 as one of twelve federal universities established by the military in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War with a mission to disperse the frontiers of enlightenment across the country. Usman Dan Fodiyo after whom it is named was the founder of the Caliphal system and a scholar of some repute.

Second, the subject matter of the Inaugural Lecture had audacity written all over it. The framing was: “The Igbo Factor in the History of Inter-Group Relations and Commerce in Kano.” It departed from the usual preoccupation with academic comfort levels and promised a peek into delicate recesses of the Nigerian narrative.

Third, this was only the second Inaugural Lecture from the History Department of UDUS and the lecturer was a man who had spent over 43 years teaching and researching Nigerian history. He had every right to be taken seriously. Moreover, this was the teacher of Mahmood Yakubu, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), no less. Here was an opportunity to find out whether the legend of the INEC chairman as an alchemist of fantasy was a product of nature or nurture.

By the time he stepped up to the podium in Sokoto for his lecture on 5 September, 2024, Professor Ahmed Bako was guaranteed an audience like none that he had encountered in nearly four and a half decades as a university teacher. A full auditorium in the university was more than outstripped by the remote audience.

The esteemed lecturer began by acknowledging that his subject matter was one steeped in “extreme prejudice and emotions”, particularly, “in recent years when a lot of stories are being told or rumours being peddled on Igbo Community in different parts of the country.” Far from fidelity to his promise to put matters “in proper perspectives” (sic), the lecturer wasted no time in fulsomely embracing the prejudice.

Growing up, he confessed, he “heard a lot of frightening stories about Igbo as wicked people who killed Sardauna.” On the evidence of his rendition, this tragedy was not the origin of their wickedness; it was proof of it.

According to Professor Bako, the Igbo in Kano are a “diaspora”, which calls into question any claims they may have to Nigerian citizenship. The pioneer Igbo cultural organization in Kano, the Igbo (State) Union, was both clannish and “extremely militant” and the contemporary pan-Igbo socio-cultural institution, Ohanaeze Nd’Igbo, is a “separatist” organization.

He was only warming up. The Igbo, he theorized, “embarrassed” (sic) education “all with the hope of eventual domination of the country; not necessarily for developing it for the benefit of the nation.” Deploying “ethnic solidarity”, he claimed, the Igbo “gradually marginalized or even displace (sic) large number of Hausa traders.”

Far from an Inaugural Lecture, this read very much like a 21st Century Bill of Attainder. There was hardly a constructive contribution to be gleaned from his study of or occasional interaction with the Igbo. Even the Igbo Union School built entirely form community resources of the Igbo and launched in 1959 was dismissed as “exclusively meant for the Igbo, the school had only 9 non-Igbo students.”

In the absence of any organizing theoretical or philosophical framework, the lecture read like a long-suppressed eruption that finally found an occasion to occur. Its context, sub-text, and texture belied its ostentatious claim early in the text that it was “purely historical not political. It is base (sic) on Archival (sic) and field research.”

Blinkered by prejudice, Professor Bako could not muster the curiosity to interpret his own evidence. Earlier in his lecture, he acknowledged “the colonial residential segregation policy that established different enclaves for migrants”, which effectively binned the Igbo in Kano into an ethnic ghetto in Sabon Gari. He could not have been so bereft of imagination as to be unable to discern it was ethnic discrimination that forced the community to build the Igbo Union School. In striving parents who sought to afford education to their children who may otherwise have missed out on it altogether, all he had the capacity to see was ethnic malevolence.

Professor Bako trotted out hackneyed tropes with a recklessness that dispensed with evidence, authority or comparison. For instance, he claimed that “searching for economic power and dominance make the Igbo to be desperate and aggressive. Desperation is what make (sic) them to not only be disliked by host communities in several of the areas of their dominance in Northern Nigeria but to pushed (sic) some young Igbo into criminal activities.” In support of this claim, he provides neither archival material nor evidence from anthropology, criminology or comparative criminal justice research. It was difficult to believe this was an Inaugural Lecture.

In Professor Bako’s fantastic world, these Igbo are an ethnic group in perpetual conspiracy. In reality, he comes across as projecting his own ethnic self-image onto the Igbo, reflecting at the same time the crisis of a country that cannot make up its mind about this ethnic group. The classic Nigerian trope about the Igbo is of an ethnic nationality almost congenitally incapable of unity. In Professor Bako’s world, however, all they do is conspire on the altar of ethnic solidarity and before the god of domination.

Blinded by this, the professor could not imagine alternative explanations outside his conspiratorial theory of Igbo domination. The lecture mentions “Igbo” 427 times and contains 16 references to words “dominate”, “dominance” or “domination” but finds no citation, authority or evidence to support its connection between Igbo and domination.

The only currency it trades in is homogenization. Magically, it deploys “Igbo” as singular, plural, and collective. It’s a sorcerer’s epic.

Professor Bako’s history of Igbo interaction with Kano coincides rather conveniently with the onset colonial urbanisation in Nigeria. The text is too lazy to even speculate as to whether or not there was any interaction before this time. If he had allowed himself to think outside the frame of homogenized Igbo identity, the professor may have realized that different Igbo communities came to education (and to Kano) at different times.

The Onitsha on the banks of the Niger, for instance, were relatively early recipients of Western education. Their neighbours in Obosi came to it a little later and pursued it aggressively not to dominate Nigeria (a notion that was alien to them) but to compete more equitably with the Onitsha. The idea that the Wawa, the Aro, the Ngwa and the Onitsha (all Igbos sub-groups) conspired to head to Kano to pursue domination makes meaning only to someone who is willfully illiterate about Igbo inter-group relations.

In 2012, an evidently unwell Emir Ado Bayero traveled to Enugu to attend the funeral of Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, whose leadership in the Nigerian Civil War has Professor Bako throwing hissy fits. In January 1966, Ojukwu was the Brigade Commander in Kano who saved Bayero’s life and precluded Chukwuma Nzeogwu’s subaltern, Captain Ude, from coup operations in Kano. Ojukwu was himself fluent in Hausa and may indeed also have fathered a child in Kano. None of this merited acknowledgement in Professor Bako’s elevated piece of pitiable hatchetry. The students who endured him for over four decades deserve our thoughts and prayers.

One thing is clear, however, after surviving Professor Bako: the provenance of this current INEC Chairman is settled.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

There are negative vibes emanating from Edo as the state prepares for the governorship election. These vibes are, in fact, ominous, especially in light of the timely warning that was made the week before by eminent scholar, political thinker, and founding national secretary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Professor Udenta O. Udenta. Professor Udenta had issued a warning, pointing out that a large number of the political players in the country’s democracy are seriously harming democratic governance and democracy itself. He had asserted that a great deal more people are working to establish a really toxic and authoritarian atmosphere that is choking democracy.

His words bear repeating in part: “A climate of fear, intolerance, and silence has descended on the national political landscape. Civic spaces are shrinking as security agencies unleash venom on labour leaders, journalists, perceived regime opponents, and members of the political opposition. Elections are now between the APC and their cohorts in INEC and the police and the other parties, as was the case in the Imo and Kogi off-season elections, and unless urgent steps are taken, in the upcoming Edo and Ondo governorship contests.”

Looking at the Edo governorship race objectively reveals that some see it as a do-or-die contest that will incarnate Prof. Udenta’s predictions. The right and desire of the people to select their representatives or president/governor lies at the heart of democracy. However, given the relentless drumbeat of war being beaten by political parties and their members, there is little chance that the Edo election will result in a free, fair, and credible process that can produce a satisfactory election result if the trend is not addressed.

The process is already being marred by violence, as evidenced by the death of a police officer when APC-supporting Philip Shaibu returned to Benin as deputy governor after being reinstated. As of right now, no one has been taken into custody or held accountable for the killing of the law enforcement officer who was carrying out his official duty of upholding public order. We learnt that he was married and the father of children who are now stranded. Even worse are the rumoured detention of prominent PDP figures, the purported targeting of many more for potential arrests, and the temporary statewide deployment of shadow police units.

Violence and irregularities have always plagued Nigerian elections. But the true tragedy, however, arises if the lawful electoral security agencies, especially the police and the umpire, INEC, which are in charge of overseeing elections and election security, respectively, were compromised. Many people still harbour concerns that Edo and other off-season elections might not be free and fair because of the shambolic roles that the two played in the general election in 2023.

It was anticipated that the two organisations would turn their suffering and damaged reputations around with these off-season elections, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Both bodies, especially the police, are already facing accusations of partiality.

The National Peace Committee, headed by former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, drafted a peace agreement, but the Edo PDP and the governor of Edo state simply refused to sign it. And their unwillingness to sign is not without reason. They accused the police and INEC of supporting the state’s main opposition party, the APC, which the current governor, Godwin Obaseki, formerly belonged to. The PDP, rightly or wrongly, accuses the police of open partisanship, intimidation, and oppressive acts against their members in favour of the APC. This has to be addressed by the force for the sake of its image, democracy, and stability of the polity.

The APC, the Labour Party, and the PDP, which is currently in power in Edo, have a right to hope to win the election, but they must do it fairly and without using unethical tactics. The actual concern is that Edo State’s election rhetoric does not foster a climate of amity and peace that would allow for a free and fair election.

During a national television broadcast rally, for instance, at least one APC chieftain dressed in a police uniform was seen threatening that his party would fight back during the election. Many started to question why a police officer, who may only cast a ballot in elections, would be so politically partisan as to threaten people on behalf of a political party and speak at a rally while wearing a police uniform. If not swiftly checked, the unparalleled and extremely embarrassing impunity could taint the election and lead to rejection of its outcome.

Nonetheless, the police attempted to justify the officer’s actions by calling him an SPY police officer. Even if that were all there was to it, the Nigerian police force produced these specialised officers like him for specialised police work in private organisations, as the police officials said. However, is the purpose of this kind of police training to serve the political agenda of the political party that the officer is affiliated with? The other political parties won’t view it that way, even if the special police officers have the best of intentions.

It is imperative to emphasise that INEC and the police are the only entities vested with legal authority to ensure a free, fair, and credible election. Even for the sake of the optics, these two vital organisations cannot afford any move or inaction that casts doubt on their credibility.

Even though it seems late in the day, INEC and the police need to work to restore confidence in the final lead-up to the election and maintain impartiality. The method of conducting a free, fair, and credible election is more important than the results. Nigerian elections are notoriously messy and opaque, producing the largest number of lawsuits worldwide. The fact is: there won’t be many good grounds to go to the tribunals to contest the results once candidates and their political parties are satisfied with the process.

There is also a crucial function for the president of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. In order to ensure that a level playing field is created, as required by law and expectant Nigerians, the president has to prevail over the heads of the two main agencies responsible for a fair and credible election: the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, and the IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, to do their work according to law.

INEC has to adhere to the text and spirit of the Electoral Act 2022, specifically Section 64, Subsection 4, which says, “A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the— (a) number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 47 (2) of this Act; and (b) the votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 60 (4) of this Act.” These explicit provisions require INEC to follow this criteria precedent in the Edo gubernatorial election, which is the posting of results from the polling units in real-time.

Don’t forget, the Electoral Act makes the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) the only means of accreditation before voting. INEC cannot afford to do otherwise.

Per the explicit terms of the electoral act 2022, let the Edo gubernatorial election be transmitted from the polling units, which is established as a condition precedent before the announcement of the results at all levels. This is not insurmountable; in fact, it was achieved in the last Osun governorship election, resulting in a peaceful finish. The 2023 presidential election fiasco, in which INEC claimed that an internet malfunction prevented them from posting results from the polling units in real time, which almost sent the nation into chaos, should be avoided.

Finally, if concrete assurances from INEC and police leadership are received, the PDP and the other parties that declined to sign the peace accord should reevaluate their stand and commit to peace, lest their actions be misinterpreted as hostile, which will further endanger the country’s fledgling democracy.