OTHERS' VIEWS
ISRAEL on Monday, April 1, 2024 attacked the Iranian Embassy in Damascus killing 16 persons, including two Iranian generals, Mohammed Reza Zahedi and Mohammed Hadi Haji Rahimi.
There were no apologies. No sense of remorse. Rather, the Israeli Army Spokesman, Daniel Hagari, declared: “The ones attacked were engaged in terrorism against Israel.”
The attempt in the United Nations Security Council, UNSC, to discuss the attacks were blocked by the United States, Britain and France.
For Israel, the attacks were routine. After all, it had carried out over a dozen previous attacks against Iran, including within the country, and the Iranians had not responded.
It, therefore, came as a shock when on April 13, 2024, Iran, according to Israel, fired 185 armed drones, 110 ballistic missiles, and 36 cruise missiles into its territory. Like a beaten child with bruises but pretending not to be hurt, Israel claimed the attacks were of no effect because with its American, French and British allies, it shot down 99 per cent of the Iranian missiles.
However, Israel imposed a media ban on the attacks when it was revealed that two of its bases, including the Nevatim military base, were hit.
What Israel did not say, was that the Iranians might have deliberately used very slow missiles that announced their take-off, some five hours before, thereby giving Israel and its allies, adequate time to shoot them down. Secondly, that Iran has far more sophisticated missiles, like the hypersonic missiles it unveiled in 2023 which travels at Mach-5 or five times the speed of sound. These modern missiles travel at a kilometre per second with complex trajectory and unpredictable manoeuvrability.
These missiles can hit Israel in less than 17 minutes from Iranian territory. So, it appears Iran’s strikes were like a mere warning. A way of assuring its allies that it can strike Israel.
Perhaps this reality is why the United States told Israel point blank, not to respond. Rather, it tried to massage Israel’s ego. US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu that the Iranian attacks were a victory for Israel because there was “no significant damage within Israel itself”. This, he said, demonstrated Israel’s superior military capability.
The attacks, in themselves, cost Israel five times more than Iran. The latter used cheap arsenal. The drones cost $50,000, each, the cruise missiles, $250,000 and the ballistic missiles an average $5 million. So, maximum cost to Iran was about $217 million. In contrast, Israel employed the Arrow and David Sling missiles, which cost $3.5 million and $1 million. The defence overnight, cost Israel, $1.1 billion.
The realisation that Iran did not use its modern missiles might also have been the reason Israel did not immediately respond. Rather, it went wailing at the UNSC. Its UN envoy, Gilad Erdan, said the UNSC must sanction Iran for alleged terrorism.
Iran’s counter-claim that it retaliated the Israeli attacks based on Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, could not be faulted. That Article states: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
The joint response of Prime Ministers Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Japan’s Fumio Kishida, Justin Trudea of Canada, Britain’s Riche Shunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Presidents Emmanuel Macron of France and Joe Biden, was a classic case of duplicity in diplomacy. They had not condemned Israel’s attacks on Iran, but found their voices when Iran retaliated.
The leaders who met virtually under the G7 canopy said they “unequivocally condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s direct and unprecedented attack against Israel”. They expressed solidarity with Israel and rededicated themselves to its security. They gave the impression that Israel, like a spoilt brat, can go about attacking other countries, but that their victims have no right to self-defence. Their message is that only Israel deserves security, while countries like Syria and Iran who are victims of its reckless attacks, have no right to defend themselves.
The hypocrisy in such statements was brought into sharp relief when the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, told Sky News’s presenter, Kay Burley, that Iran, by retaliating the attacks on it by Israel, was “reckless and dangerous”. But when Burley asked him how UK would react were any of its consulates to be attacked by another country, Cameron replied that it would be ‘very strong action’.
In contrast to the G7, Cuba struck a more reflective pose. First, that the silence of the UNSC “served as an incentive for the Iranian response…” Secondly, that de-escalating the on-going violence, requires an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Thirdly, that peace and stability in the Middle East is impossible “unless a comprehensive, just, and permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reached.”
But, why would Israel violate the territorial space of Syria and attack the diplomatic mission of Iran conscious of the fact that it was technically attacking two countries? It could be a continuation of its policy of spreading terror in the region. Secondly, it might be an attempt to divert attention from its on-going genocide in the Gaza. Thirdly, it could be an attempt to suck in the US and its allies into its war in the region and widen the conflicts. Fourthly, it might be a move to draw out Iran which, after its peace deals with Saudi Arabia, is enjoying unprecedented support across the Muslim world.
Conscious of Russia’s presence in Syria and commitment to supporting that country, Israel’s attacks can also be an attempt to provoke Russian response and widen the conflicts in the region. This way, the conflict in the region can be linked with that in Ukraine. If this were to be the case, then Israel would be playing the same proxy role as Ukraine, which is essentially, a cannon fodder.
In taking on various countries simultaneously, Israel reminds me of the African saying that if a dog has human backing, it can kill a monkey. The powerful countries using Israel as a hunter’s dog, also have a duty to put it on a leash so it does not constitute a danger to society.
On the other hand, the Israeli dog might have been long gone in the wilderness and can no longer hear the hunter’s whistle. It is like The Second Coming’, William Butler Yeats’ famous poem: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
This was the question a friend of mine in his late 20s asked me when we woke up on April 14 to the news that Iran had launched over 300 drones and missiles towards Israel.
Apart from video war games, the young man has not seen any wars. Nigeria’s civil war ended nearly two and a half decades before he was born. Of course, you don’t have to experience war to feel it. There’s a sense, for example, in which the more recent wars in the West African subregion or the more distant ones in Northeastern Africa or Europe tend to reach us, wherever we are.
Our televisions and phones bring the horrors of war right into our living rooms. A generation for which these smart devices have become a playground is right to be concerned that the flare-up in the Middle East could lead to something more serious.
Apart from the war in Ukraine and the underreported conflicts in South Sudan and Central Africa, no other war in recent times has riveted the world like the one in Gaza. For all the talk about the potential escalation into a wider regional conflict, it didn’t seem likely that the Israeli-Palestinian war would spread beyond shadow attacks by Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, until Israeli air strike killed seven Iranians in the Iranian Embassy in Damascus and six Syrians.
An unusual response
That was when the threat of escalation became real. Not even during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, did Iran, a regional power, take a direct aim at Israel the way it did in its revenge attack on April 14. If half the drones and missiles aimed at Israel had hit their target, Israel would be reeling from a devastation worse than anything that happened on October 7. The world might have been a different place today.
It may be convenient to dismiss concerns about a possible outbreak of a Third World War as far-fetched, and perhaps even childish. Yet, remembering a few of the things that led to two world wars might help us not to take too much for granted.
The immediate cause of WW1, for example, was the murder in Sarajevo of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist, prompting the Austro-Hungarian empire, supported by Germany, to declare war on Serbia. Russia, Serbia’s ally, joined. It wasn’t long before Germany declared war on Russia and invaded France, drawing Britain into the war.
Of course, the murder of the Archduke may have been the tipping point, but a web of other factors also contributed, from the competition for territories and economic rivalries to militarism, and from the unstable alliances to the crisis in the Balkans. The Sarajevo murder was only the last straw.
Rules-based system
God knows just how many more straws before we reach another breaking point. We like to think that we have a rules-based system; that the world is wiser today, restrained as much by competing interests as it is by the assurance of mutual destruction.
The two world wars claimed the lives of a population nearly the size of Ethiopia’s 120m and left millions more ruined forever. And yet, since the last two years we have seen, starting from the Russia-Ukraine war, traces that the world is going mad again.
If by the death of one man – the Archduke – the world descended into chaos, was it irrational to fear that Israel’s killing of 13 people, including seven Iranians in Iran’s embassy in Damascus and the destruction of the embassy was sufficient to spark a wider regional conflict? Has anything really changed or the world learnt anything new 110 years after WWI?
Fewer warmongers?
Some studies suggest so. One interesting study, for example, points to demographics as a good predictor of civil conflicts. The study, famously called the “youth bulge” suggests a strong correlation between countries prone to civil conflicts and those with fast-growing youth populations. So, the older the population, the theory goes, the less likely its appetite for a hot war.
It suggests that in spite of the sabre-rattling in the world’s former war-mongering capitals – Washington, Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo and Moscow – the dominance of older, wealthier populations in these countries combined with concerns about managing their ageing populations have reduced their appetite for war.
A few like the US, Britain and France, may press the world to the edge of a frenzy with the sort of disgraceful complicity seen in the Middle East. But just before madness finally takes over, the theory argues that the leadership in countries with older, wiser populations would dial back and make the kind of last-minute call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that saves the world for another day.
There have also been those, like foreign affairs columnist, Jonathan Power, who argue that in spite of the Russia-Ukraine war, the war in Gaza, and the under-reported deadly conflicts in South Sudan and Yemen, the world has never been at greater peace with itself than it is.
Although Ukraine is not too far from becoming a meat grinder and the death toll in Gaza has topped 32,000 (minus hundreds unaccounted for) studies suggest that, thanks to the better angels of our nature, there has been a reduction in battle deaths per 100,000 in state-based conflicts since the Second World War.
Spells of peace
War historians say that outside the Pax Romana, and the Golden Age of Islam, the post-World War II era is probably the most peaceful time in world history.
A number of other reasons have also been given why a Third World War is improbable. It’s believed that the end of colonialism, the prioritisation of human rights, the general rise in global prosperity/literacy, and particularly the establishment of the United Nations, have accounted for the longest spell of peace in human history and might yet keep the world from descending into another catastrophic war.
Maybe – and that’s a big maybe. The safeguards of our sanity are already fraying at the edges and we may just have entered a violent new era.
If after 77 years, Israel would still not accept the UN’s two-state solution to the problem in Palestine, preferring instead to kill over 30,000 Palestinians in pursuit of the last Hamas; if recourse to the International Criminal Court (ICC) cannot restrain Israel from the widespread carnage in Gaza; if the US, Britain and France will veto the UN’s condemnation of the attack on the Iranian Embassy in spite of the significant casualties – a crime they would not accept if it had been done to them; if the US keeps showing by its conduct that might is right, then the world is not too far from another world war.
Global institutions expected to keep the fragile balance for peace have almost all broken down, and all five veto-wielding members of the UN have gone rogue: Russia in Ukraine; China in Taiwan; and the US, Britain and France in the Middle East, and indeed anywhere else they please in pursuit of their strategic interests.
To continue to ignore the impotence of and disdain for the global institutions supposed to preserve peace and still believe that nothing would happen, is foolish and dangerous.
Today, the Federal High Court, Abuja, Coram Inyang Ekwo, J upheld the No case Submission I made to the spurious charges levied against me by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the official role I played in the implementation of the 2006 Settlement Agreement entered into by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and Malabu Oil & Gas Limited (Malabu) over the disputed ownership of OPL 245.
It will be recalled that the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Coram Abubakar Kutigi, J, had on Thursday, 28th March 2024, similarly upheld the No case submission I made to the charges filed against me. The EFCC had, in their wisdom and in the exercise of their prosecutorial powers, filed charges on the same facts in different courts to annoy and cause me maximum discomfort and expense.
Nigerians will recall that I served the country in the exalted position of Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice from April 2010 to May 29, 2015. During that period, I received Presidential Approval/Directive to implement the subsisting 2006 Settlement Agreement between the FGN and Malabu, which at the material time had been reduced into a consent judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja. When the EFCC, at the instigation of some powerful persons in the country, ostensibly because of the enabling political environment, began their shenanigans sometime in 2015, I took out an Originating Summons against the FGN praying the Federal High Court, Abuja, to determine whether I, acting as the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice in the Government of the Federation could be held personally liable for carrying out or implementing the Presidential Approvals/Directives of the President in exercise his powers under section 5 and 148 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. The Federal High Court, Abuja, Coram, Binta Nyako, J declared in essence that I did no wrong by carrying out the President's lawful directives and that I could, therefore, not be held personally liable for discharging my responsibilities.
Nigerians will also recall that when the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement came under the searchlight of the EFCC in 2017, the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, CON, had in his reasoned legal opinion to the EFCC confirmed that he had reviewed the Settlement Agreement and could not find any illegality in the transaction. The Honourable Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, also wrote an opinion to the President through the Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, where he opined in essence that the transaction was for the benefit of the country as it would enable the Oil block to be developed for the benefit of the country.
Despite these exonerating opinions and the subsisting judgment of the FHC, Abuja, the EFCC proceeded to charge me and other entities for corruption, money laundering and other sundry offences. I had no option but to submit myself to the legal process. It has been a harrowing experience that has lasted for over nine years due mainly to the antics of the Prosecution, which hurriedly filed charges against me to satisfy some narrow political interests but became reluctant to prove their case for want of evidence. The trial became an object of a political witch hunt and scapegoatism, as the EFCC needed to hang corruption charges on my neck as a way of sustaining FGN’s claims against the implementation of the Settlement Agreement in foreign jurisdictions such as Milan- Italy, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
Predictably, these foreign jurisdictions examined the OPL 245 transaction and my role in implementing the Settlement Agreement and, in their reasoned judgments, held that there were no infractions of a criminal nature. Consequently, the charges in Milan-Italy were quashed, the United States Department of Justice found no criminality in the transaction, and the United Kingdom Commercial Court, which interestingly in affirming the legality of the transaction, commended the role I played in the implementation of the Agreement.
I am delighted to observe that despite the campaign of calumny launched against me by the EFCC domestically and internationally, which essentially deprived me of my livelihood as a Lawyer and Arbitrator since 2016, and loss of family life and reputation, I survived. God was kind to me by granting me good health and friends who came to my aid in several ways. Now that the trial is over, I have the option of suing the Nigerian State and all those who contributed to my ordeal. While contemplating the next steps, I leave all my traducers to their conscience and the judgment of posterity. I am grateful to the Almighty Allah for divine mercies and blessings, my family for standing by me and enduring the public odium associated with trials of this nature, my friends for living up to the name and my lawyers for their forbearance and industry.
Despite my ordeal, my faith in the Nigeria Project is not misplaced or shaken. I will continue to contribute my quota to the progress and development of our great country.
MOHAMMED BELLO ADOKE, CFR, SAN, FCI arb (UK), DSSRS
At the end of AFCON 2023 in February, Jose Paseiro, the Portuguese Manager that took the Super Eagles to Cote D’Ivoire became history. His contract was not renewed by the Nigeria Football Federation despite getting to the final of the championship and putting up a credible performance through most of the championship. The majority of Nigerian football fans insist that he is not good enough for Nigeria’s ambitions into the future.
Since then, some 6 weeks later, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, have been unable to announce a new gaffer for the senior national team. There appears to be a ‘go slow’ at the bottleneck of selecting the right manager for what would be a new national team.
Two friendly matches were played under a temporary arrangement with the Nigerian assistant coach to Paseiro, Finidi George, in charge. The team won the first friendly against Ghana, but lost the second. The loss to Mali may have sealed Finidi’s fate as the new coach. Despite the team’s unpreparedness for the insignificant friendly match, Finidi working alone on the bench without any other member of the technical crew, and several players not available or reluctant to play, those that don’t like the face of a Nigerian as head, have been unrelenting in condemning Finidi’s seemingly poor technical performance in that match.
Since then, with 6/7 weeks to the next very important World Cup qualifying match to play, the debates and controversy have dominated the media space over who should lead the team. Should it be another foreigner, or a Nigerian for a change? There have been 200 million opinions. Every Nigerian has become an expert. In the midst of these discordant voices, the NFF must make an announcement soon.
One thing is clear, except amongst some academic hard-line critics of Nigerian coaches, there appears to be little appetite for another half-baked foreign coach in Nigeria. The rackets attached to the hiring of foreign coaches may not find accommodation in a beleaguered government trying to reduce corruption in the system. The NFF does not have the funds, and the federal government will not accommodate the humongous fees of foreign coaches in the present dispensation.
So, it will be a Nigerian as next manager of the Super Eagles.
Why has the NFF not identified the most suitable amongst those that have indicated an interest, or that the body has identified and appointed a new national coach?
There is a lot of politicking ongoing. Nigerian coaches appear not to tick all the boxes of requirements, not eliciting the confidence of several officials of the NFF with vested interest in particular aspirants.
As things stand, however, a decision has to be taken now.
Most fingers point in the direction of a former international player.
He appears to be the preferred choice of most Nigerians in the media, particularly the social media.
I will not be surprised if Emmanuel Amuneke gets the final nod to lead the team. It will become a huge task to dispel the serious reservations about his choice by those familiar with his antecedents when he was in one of the junior teams.
PARIS 2024 Olympics – My Olympics story!
I have just made up my mind to attend the Paris Olympic Games this summer.
It will be my first time at the Olympics and not as an athlete.
In 1976, at the Montreal Olympics in Canada, I attended as an athlete but did not participate. Along with the rest of the world, I tasted the incursion of politics into sport and the first deployment of sports diplomacy in international affairs. the names of all the athletes from 30 countries that were involved in the boycott of the games were not recorded in the International Directory of Olympians at the International Olympic Committee, IOC.
In 1980, without officially qualifying for the Moscow Games, but benefitting from the crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, leading to the boycott by several Western countries led by the USA, the Green Eagles were invited to the Moscow Olympics. I led the Nigerian national football team and doubled as co-captain (with Ahmeed Adio) of the overall contingent to become a registered member of the exclusive club of Olympians.
I would have attended the 1996 Games in Atlanta, USA, as manager of Chioma Ajunwa and Charity Opara. Unfortunately, when I applied for a visa to the Games from my base in the UK at the time, the interview date given at the American embassy was weeks after the Games would have ended. That’s how I sat at home in London, and missed the opportunity of attending the Olympics as a manager of athletes. My two wards won a Gold and a Silver medal.
At the 2010 Games in London. I was at ‘home’. I watched the Games as a tourist, attending a few events LIVE from the stands, but most from the giant screens at the Nigerian village set up for the huge Nigerian population in the UK.
During the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, I became inventive. I did the seemingly impossible. I became an invisible ‘fly on the wall’ reporting from Nigeria everything about the Nigerian contingent at the games with the deployment of technology and the collaboration of athletes and officials at the games.
Now, Paris 2024 Games are here.
I have a strong feeling Nigeria will come away with several medals. The feeling is strong. There are some obvious athletes in the winning zone already.
Having said that, the spirit of the Olympics is more in participating than in winning. That’s why as many athletes as have achieved the qualifying times and distances should be given the opportunity to experience the Olympics. I hope Nigeria will take all the athletes that attain the qualifying standards to Paris 2024.
Winning’ is not only about coming ‘first’.
From AFCON 2023, Nigeria gave a new and interesting definition to ‘winning’.
The country’s national team, the Super Eagles, for 4 weeks, provided the glue that united the country at a time when the country was going through difficult times in perennial economic, political and social challenges. As the Super Eagles, a team that was not given a chance to win by fanatical Nigerian football fans on the even of the championship, started to play well and to win matches in dramatic fashion, the spirit of nationalism took over the country. Temporarily, for a few weeks, Nigerians set aside their hardship, divisions and differences, and focused attention on the feel-good success of the Eagles on the football field. Even President Bola Tinubu became a part of the championship, following the Super Eagles on television all the way to the final match. With hopes sky-high, the entire country rallied around the team and supported their bid to win the most prestigious sports trophy in Africa, only for the hopes to be dashed at the last hurdle.
Despite the disappointment of that defeat, the country demonstrated uncommon appreciation of what the team had done for the psyche of the citizens during the period, a reminder of positive possibilities beyond AFCON, by spreading out the Red Carpet to welcome back the football heroes, compensating the team that came second with rewards unheard of in sports history. It was a beautiful confirmation of that Olympic truism that to be a ‘winner’ you do not have to come ‘first’.
God willing, I shall be at the Paris 2024 Olympics to report Nigeria’s success, first hand!
At an academic conference some years ago, two students walked up to me after learning I was a Nigerian. They had based their academic projects on popular cross-dresser Idris Okunenye (Bobrisky) and they wanted to know a few things about her. Bobrisky was still a straw weight then but was not ignorable. One of them asked how she survives a Nigeria virulently opposed to any display of nonconforming sexuality. I opined that Bobrisky’s survival partly owes to the internet, particularly its feature that allows virtually any sight to escalate into a spectacle made Bobrisky one we could view remotely from the display show glass of our phone screens. That distance also put her out of the physical reach and social orbit where she could be harmed.
Then the other factor was money. The Bobrisky character implicitly understood something about Nigeria: for all our claims about “African values and morals,” we worship money. A universal solvent, money dissolves even our strongest claims of virtue. With money, you can regulate the collective moral temperature. So, Bobrisky did not appear on the social scene as a stereotypical cross-dresser appealing to public conscience for acceptance. She spurned acceptance and made her own brash rules of public engagement. Elsewhere, people who transition their gender take up an activist cause to fight the power (or the establishment) on behalf of other marginalised people. Not Bobrisky. On the social scene, she was a glammed-up doll, a made-for-contemporary-feminism Barbie doll that rolls in wads of cash. Bobrisky also talked about a “bae,” another tactic. Knowing that you are not a figure of power in the Nigerian political culture if you cannot claim the backing of some shadowy forces, she had to claim a male sponsor. It does not matter if those shadow backers exist or not. What counts is how much Bobrisky understood Nigeria, and how she mirrored us back to ourselves. It was a tactic that worked for her until it did not.
One day in the future when Bobrisky’s history is written, someone might say her undoing began when she stepped forward to collect an award meant for biological women. But the precedent will be how her glamorous existence as a woman undermined the ultimate symbol of masculinity: the penis. Bobrisky was a man who, by transitioning into a woman, proved that manhood was not the ultimate prize that men have long been socialised into believing. By whittling down manhood and opting for feminity, she treated the penis as another gift of nature that you could accept or reject. For men whose entire identity revolves around the thing between their legs, Bobrisky was an abomination. How can nature give you this thing, and you dare not venerate it? It was even worse for them that Bobrisky did not only become feminised but she was also living as a woman who possesses something beyond biology that a man needs in order to be called a man: economic power. For men whose claims to masculinity are daily abridged by the emasculating Nigerian economy, Bobrisky’s gender fluidity and wealth must have been torture. She was not the regular woman against whom they could measure their masculinity. That is why Portable’s song about Bobrisky being a “disgrace to Brotherhood” resonated with them.
When men could not take the affront to their dear penis anymore, they came up with the most spurious charge against Bobrisky. It was not that hard. Nigeria has a collection of judicial enforcers—from the police to the Department of State Services, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and even judges—who wield immense power but hardly match it up with either a sense of moral responsibility or an understanding of the spirit of democracy. For people who operate in bad faith, they have a lot of power. When Bobrisky stood in front of the judge and pled guilty, she must have expected a judge who would treat her like any other person and not the one who would see her as a personification of destabilised masculinity.
By saying she was a “male” when the judge asked, Bobrisky must have thought she could assuage the judge’s slighted sensibilities. Unfortunately, she never had a fighting chance in that court. Judging from the harshness of the sentence she was given, one could tell that the judge was fighting some other culture war. If a death sentence had been listed on the books, this judge would not have hesitated to hand it out. A judge who sentences someone to prison for a “sin” virtually every Nigerian routinely commits must lack the fear of God. Now, the EFCC tells us that public members are bombarding them with video recordings of abuse of the Naira by Nigerians from all walks of life. This will be the way witchcraft will operate in Nigeria now. Rather than people taking the names of those whose lives they have secretly envied to awon ìyá mi òsòròngà, they will report to the EFCC. Since the EFCC too needs the clown show to distract us from the government’s economic failures, we will be entertained all night.
Bobrisky’s case is an intriguing example of our society’s obsession with the penis. After she was arrested, people asked if her dress could be lifted for them to see what was under. Even after she was jailed, they still followed up to inquire what was between her legs. Prison warders who should have told off the journalist who formally inquired to mind their business gave details of Bobrisky’s genitals. The journalist publishes it, several media/blogs happily reproduce it, and you see them circulating the news to rejoice they have humiliated a defector. Sick voyeurs! If not madness, what is your business with someone’s genitals? Imagine calling Kirikiri when Senator Orji Kalu or Bode George was incarcerated and asking about their private parts. You look at the level of obsession with another person’s private parts and realise that, for all the self-glorying assertions about our allegedly superior African values, we are a people who severely lack the notion of human dignity.
The toughest part of the Bobrisky issue has been watching people who call themselves critics, social advocates, and moralists justify (and even celebrate) the judicial abuse that landed Bobrisky in jail. Some of them claim they are trying to protect women, but it is a lie. Let me say that every single time I have read someone say Bobrisky accepting an award meant for a woman was “a slap on the face of actual/biological women,” it has come from a man. Not women, men. I have never felt insulted by what Bobrisky does, but I get grossly irritated by the paternalism of men who arrogate to themselves the power to define what insults “every woman.” You would think those men care about women, but wait until the National Assembly says it is time to pass a bill defending women’s rights. They simply want him gone because his non-confirming gender identity unsettles them. I will not be quick to call them hypocrites, but I will at least say that they have not thought through either their own politics or ideologies.
When issues are about abstract political issue—corruption, certificateless president, election rigging, IPOB/Biafra, terrorism, banditry, tribalism, Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, and so on—their moral clarity is almost unimpeachable. When it comes to the right to express the freedom of the human spirit as Bobrisky does, they suddenly become self-contradicting. They want human freedom, but their imagination cannot stretch beyond what is merely convenient. And that constriction of possibilities is exactly where the problem lies. Look, a society can survive the ignorance (and amorality) of its masses who want to see what is underneath the skirt of cross-dressers. But no society can stand when the ideological vision of humanity of its supposed band of thinkers, judicial enforcers, and moral advocates is too narrow to accommodate the diverse range of humanity.
Muhammad Bello Matawalle, the minister of State for Defence, onerous task ahead of him. It appears he is more at home with the job of a spokesman to President Bola Tinubu than performing the task of Defence minister of state. It is nauseating that he has turned himself into the spokesman of the president and wants all appointees from the North to do same.
Perhaps, we need to remind Matawalle that insecurity is deplorable and as the junior minister of Defence, that should trouble him, more so that the president has assured Nigerians that his appointees would be subjected to thorough performance monitoring and evaluation.
Unfortunately, it seems this former governor of Zamfara State and a former lawmaker has a somewhat contorted understanding of his role. He seems to be thinking his brief is merely to defend the president. If not, why should he reduce his position to that of responding to criticisms from the Northern Elders Forum (NEF)? It was so tough that Matawalle had to issue a statement urging all northern appointees to either defend Tinubu or quit office.
His quarrel with the NEF The squabble between Matawalle and the NEF started when the group claimed the north regretted voting Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election, insisting that it would not repeat such mistake in 2027.
NEF spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, had said, “The North made a mistake in voting Bola Tinubu to the presidency in 2023, and it is unlikely that they will repeat the same error in the future.
“Moving forward, the North will be more cautious in selecting a candidate for the presidency. They will prioritise someone who is seen as more inclusive, less controversial, and more aligned with the interests of all regions of the country.”
Taking a swipe at the NEF, Matawalle described its members as mere “political paperweight trying to embark on a destructive journey that will bring the North to disrepute for the group’s personal and selfish gains.
“This NEF is more of a political burden to Northerners. The group is seeking to erode other people’s rights in order to be recognised or made relevant in the scheme of things despite the failure of their sponsored candidates in the 2023 general elections,” he added.
NEF, a paperweight?
It is amusing that someone who emerged as governor by accident and tried to no avail to seek reelection because he lacks the requisite relevance will come out openly to describe a formidable group like NEF as paperweight. Indeed, words are cheap.
For all I know, Matawalle needs to be reminded that the NEF has remained consistent in calling out bad governance. The Forum was unapologetic in condemning the mis-governance of former President Muhammadu Buhari. It consistently called out the Buhari government for failing with distinction and in so doing, became the only dissenting voice from the north.
I recall that sometimes in 2022 NEF had asked PMB to resign for failing to combat insecurity, which was one of the three things he promised to prioritise when elected. In a series of statements, the group called out the former president for failing to provide the sort of leadership Nigerians required. Less than one year after the Buhari tenure, even his die-hard supporters have come out to say what mess the administration was.
So, what NEF is doing now by calling out the PBAT government is not new. But why shouldn’t they when we are dealing with a government that told us that subsidy is gone, yet still pays subsidy? Former Kaduna governor, Nasir El-Rufai, recently declared that the government was paying more for fuel subsidy. We are dealing with a government that floated the naira, yet is spending to stabilise the naira; a government that suspended electricity tariff at a time most Nigerians are battling with high cost of living.
And one wonders why NEF elects to be a voice of reason by calling out the government? To my mind, NEF is doing the right thing. It must sustain the tempo in offering constructive criticisms to this government because Nigerians deserve better. But between the NEF and Matawalle, who is a paperweight?
Real paperweight Nothing qualifies Matawalle for appointment as minister than the fact that he served as Northwest coordinator for PBAT. And as the coordinator, he performed woefully, leading to PBAT’s woeful lost in Katsina, Kano and Kaduna States- three of the ruling APC’s vote banks for the zone.
Atiku Abubakar, PBAT’s main challenger, won in Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna and Katsina States, while Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s NNPP won the Kano presidential poll with a landslide. Tinubu’s APC won the other two states of Jigawa and Zamfara. The impact of such a win is not phenomenal because the real votes are in the states lost. So, what is Matawalle beating his chest for?
I think Matawalle himself knows that his only qualification for appointment as cabinet member was the die-hard support he offered to the Tinubu project and that is why even as minister of State for Defence, with security still being precarious, Matawale is fascinated about defending PBAT’s politics. He has reduced his work to that of merely defending PBAT and his politics.
But those who are surprised need be reminded that he governed Zamfara for 4 years and performed woefully.
Zamfara, under Matawalle’s leadership from 2019-2023, was a study in failure. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – to show and that is why the voters rejected him resoundingly.
Arguably, the ministerial appointment provided Matawale a political lifeline because having lost his battle to reclaim the Zamfara governorship seat, he well would have been hibernating by now. So, one expects him to do all it takes to leave a mark. The Northwest states of Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna and Zamfara, his native state, are worst hit by the current insecurity. What Matawalle has yet to do is to rally the governors of these states for a frontal war on this menace. Rather, he is fascinated about defending PBAT’s politics to the point of attacking the NEF.
Like Matawalle, like El-Rufai
In the build-up to the 2023 polls, then Governor Nasir El-Rufai who accused the northern elders of working against power shift to the South also described the northern elders as mere paperweights.
In his usual frenzy, El-Rufai declared that the 19 governors of the northern states were the real elders of the North. Therefore, Matawalle is not alone on this path of denigrating the elders. But it won’t be out of place to remind Minister Matawalle that after insulting the northern elders because of Bola Tinubu’s election, El-Rufai is no longer in bed with Asiwaju’s government.
Minister Matawalle needs to be reminded of the time-tested Hausa saying that ‘Idan gemun dan uwanka ya kama da wuta shafawa naka ruwa’. He can do well for himself, the north and the nation by focusing more on his responsibilities as Defence minister of state rather than waiting to respond to criticism from NEF to the point of denigrating the northern elders who people this all-important forum.
Last Thursday, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar doubled down on his allegation that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road project is “a highway to fraud”. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election was countering claims by the Works Minister, Dave Umahi, whom he accused of dishonesty. “Umahi had announced that Hitech would fully fund the project, and based on this, there was no competitive bidding. He (Umahi) then said that Hitech could only raise just 6% of the money for the pilot phase. This smacks of deceit,” Atiku stated.
Shortly before Atiku’s response, Umahi had announced that the road project would cost N15.6 trillion ($13bn at an exchange rate of N1,200/$1), with an additional rail through the road to be costed separately. “The total budget of all 36 federation states for 2024 is about N14 trillion. If you add that of the FCT, the entire budget of all sub-nationals is N15.91 trillion,” Atiku argued, wondering why a single road project by the federal government would cost more than the budgets of all the subnational governments put together. He raised other posers. “Umahi had said in September 2023 that Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech had the money to construct the highway and would be PPP (Public-Private Partnership). Hitech was to build, operate, and transfer it back to the Nigerian government after years of tolling. It was based on this proposal that Hitech was picked. Why did Umahi then turn around to claim that it was not to be a PPP but that the government would pay 15%-30%?”
Incidentally, until Atiku’s intervention, I was also under the impression that the road would be constructed without any financial commitment from the federal government, based on what is in the public domain. While flagging off the project last September, Umahi had told Nigerians that the deal with Hitech Construction was on a PPP model. “Let me announce that this project is under PPP. The Hitech group are going to look for the money. They have already found the money and that is the good news because we don’t waste our time talking and holding meetings and wasting resources,” Umahi announced on 23 September 2023. “We are engaging seriously because we have seen the financial capacity and capability of Hitech, and this project is going to be delivered in phases. Any section that we complete, we will toll it and then business and transportation will start.”
But Umahi is now changing his story. “This administration never envisaged the project under Private Public Partnership. It has always been under engineering, procurement, construction and finance,” Umahi said last week. “And so, under this kind of arrangement, as you have on the Abuja to Makurdi road project, the federal government is required to pay a certain amount for counterpart funding.” The Minister then went on to cite some technical jargon to rationalize why a multibillion-dollar highway is shrouded in so much opacity.
Whereas the National Assembly approved N500 million for the project in the 2024 budget, according to Atiku, the federal government has released N1.06 trillion to the company, even when the total cost remans a matter of speculations. “If N15.6 trillion is for the road component alone, then the total cost could be far higher when the railway is included. We want to know the cost of the railway,” Atiku countered as many Nigerians compare the cost with similar highways in other countries. “The essence of competitive bidding is so that Nigerians can get the best value for money. It is so that you can compare prices and pick the company that can afford the project. It is wrong for him (Umahi) to have concluded that only Hitech could handle this project when such a project has been done by other reputable firms in the United States, China and South Africa.” The former vice president claimed that the Hitech promoter, Gilbert Chagoury has a business relationship with President Bola Tinubu. “Until I exposed the dubious nature of this project, no member of the National Assembly thought it wise to investigate. The total cost was never made known until now. The fact that there was no bidding was never made known until I blew the whistle.”
While Atiku may be directing his attacks at Umahi, it is obvious that his main target is President Tinubu. In the process, the former vice president has raised several fundamental questions. But for me, one suffices: the credibility of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) under the current administration. It’s beyond scandalous that the BPP has no say on a project of this magnitude that ordinarily provides opportunities for international bidders to drive the cost down through superior technology, experience, and expertise.
The objectives of establishing the BPP are contained in Section 4 of the Public Procurement Act (PPA). These include establishing pricing standards and benchmarks, as well as ensuring the application of fair, competitive, transparent and value for money standards for the procurement of public assets. Section 16(1)b of the PPA clearly provides that all procurements shall be conducted by open competitive bidding. But the BPP has since become irrelevant, with tales of compromised officials all over the place in Abuja. Meanwhile, on 19th January 2022, then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, issued a circular which provides that for works costing over N1.5 billion, the procurement method to be adopted shall be International/National Competitive Bidding.
There are just too many issues that do not add up on this Lagos-Calabar Highway project. As of today, Nigeria is not yet very experienced in the construction of concrete roads, so we need to know more about the capacity of Hitech in that regard. Then there is the issue of ‘Right of Way’. I am aware that some of the major power transmission projects awarded since the Obasanjo administration are still being stalled due to Right of Way acquisitions. One then wonders how the Right of Way for a road of 700 kilometres was acquired within a matter of weeks. I have no expertise in road construction, but should there not be an environmental impact assessment on this major project that was designed and awarded within seven months? More disturbing is that Umahi has been speaking more like the project engineer for Gilbert Chagoury than a Works Minister who should be promoting and defending the interest of Nigerians.
The Coastal Road Project is a necessity no doubt. And it is one that I would love to see constructed because the economic benefits are immense. I also have nothing against any company getting the contract. But the process of engaging Hitech as contractor for the road is against all international best practices. Perhaps it is time to scrap the BPP and we just go back to the era where government officials just award contracts without following any process.
The Challenge of Disabilities
Two weeks ago, I used the unpleasant experience of Debola Daniel (at the Lagos airport KFC) to write on the challenge of living with disabilities in Nigeria. Not surprisingly, the column elicited responses from several Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora. With his permission, I have decided to run the one by Mr Banji Fatoba because of his family’s experience and the efforts he and his wife are making to help others with similar challenges.
Dear Olusegun,
I read your article ‘Debola Daniel and the Inconvenient Truth’ with great interest. As a parent of two neurodivergent children navigating life in Nigeria, let me share my own experiences, which echo the struggles outlined in your piece. In recent years, my wife and I have faced numerous obstacles in ensuring our children receive the education and support they deserve. Despite our best efforts, both of our children have been kicked out of two private schools in Lekki, Lagos, solely due to their neurodivergent conditions. The discrimination and lack of understanding they encountered were disheartening and frustrating, to say the least.
One particularly distressing incident involved our daughter being barred from participating in ballet classes for an entire school term, despite us paying for the classes. Moreover, a teacher at one of the schools had the audacity to declare that our daughter was unable to learn, further exacerbating our anguish. In response, we were left with no choice but to withdraw her from the school and resort to homeschooling for two years. Despite the challenges inherent in homeschooling, we persevered, and I am proud to say that our daughter has made remarkable progress. She has not only learned to play the piano but has also developed a love for reading. These achievements serve as a testament to her resilience and the unwavering support of our family.
While Nigeria still has a long way to go in terms of providing adequate support and inclusivity for neurodivergent individuals, similar challenges exist even in more advanced countries like the United States based on my personal experiences. Although such occurrences may be uncommon, they serve as a stark reminder that the fight for equality and acceptance knows no geographical boundaries.
Meanwhile, my wife and I started a company called Bloom Buddy (www.thebloombuddy.com) to ensure that many other families do not have to go through this harrowing journey alone. We partnered with ‘Autism Speaks’, the largest Autism NGO in the world and launched the first Autism screening app designed for Nigeria and low-resourced communities. We also collaborate with the Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment Disorders (CAND-Do) of the University of Lagos to create access to parents and caregivers.
In conclusion, I appreciate your efforts in shedding light on these issues, and I hope that by sharing my own experiences, we can collectively work towards creating a more inclusive society for all, regardless of neurodiversity or physical disability. Awareness is key to supporting people with disabilities and ensuring inclusion. I admire your outspoken conviction to promote this inclusion of those who are typically excluded. Lastly, here is a link to a blog post authored by my wife on the challenges neurodiverse and disabled children face in gaining access to education in Nigeria: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/07OwUz19E?languageTag=en&cid=b42e426e-4503-46b0-89cb-4b21c4fd268f.
A Note of Appreciation
I must express my appreciation to all the people who honoured us with their presence at our residence last Friday to mark my wife’s 50th birthday. Former Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, who arrived the country the previous night from Kigali, showed up. Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State (with whom I was in the Christian Corpers Fellowship during the 1989/90 NYSC year) sent Senator Napoleon Bali to represent him. My gratitude also goes to Pastors Chinedu and Oby Ezekwesili, Pastors Evaristus and Ngozi Azodoh as well as Pastor Joke Joseph who were in the house as early as 8am for prayers and the 50-minute of praise/dance coordinated by music ministers, Kenneth Ozioma and Uche Okoro. Having refused to reveal who was funding the music (including the afternoon session by Leke Gospel Band), it was only after the ceremony that Uche told us Pastors Julius and Funke Abegunde paid for everything. May God continue to bless them and family. Later in the afternoon, the NEITI Executive Secretary, Orji Ogbonaya Orji was among several professional colleagues that were in the house. Of course, his predecessor, Waziri Adio was around with his wife, Sandra (‘Madam Metro’), as the chief hostess.
Special thanks to Father George Ehusani, Pastors Laolu and Olawunmi Akande, Pastors Lanre and Bimbo Oduola, Pastors Paul and Joy Amade, Pastors Dele and Lydia Jegede, Pastors Amaechi and Chinwe Azubuike, Pastors Williams and Ify Onidarafunmi, Pastors Dayo and Elizabeth Kayode, Pastors Seun and Tosin Afolayan. My appreciation also to Sonny and Aniema Offiong, Deji and Kemi Adesida, Ola and Eniola Awoniyi, Sonny and Florence Aragba-Akpore and others who were with us from the morning session. In the afternoon, Senator Bello Mandiya, Mrs Maryam Uwais, and Dr Kole Shettima spent considerable time with us. And so did Messrs Biodun Adeniyi, Paul Nwabuikwu, Muyiwa Adekeye, Jideoffor Adibe, Azu Ishiekwene, Dan Akpovwa, Lanre Lasisi, Yusuf Ali, Paul Ibe (and wife, Dorothy).
Other guests included Mr J.J. Omojuwa, Mr Tunde Ahmadu, Ms Lewa Ejila, Kazeem and Temitope Iwalesin, Mr Olawale Banmore, Mrs Onyinye Waniko, Mrs Angela Agboyinu, Dr Emmanuel Nwokorie, Mr Mike Leramo, Mrs Ronke Okezie, Ms Shade Enajekpo, Princess Hassana Onoyiveta, Mrs Sylvia Garuba, Dr Mrs Abiola, Mr and Mrs Attah Nwachukwu, Mrs Olayinka Fagbemiro, Mrs Angela Agboyinu, Mrs Florence Igwe, Mrs Eki Iyoke, Mrs Bosede Okuneye (my children’s ‘Daddy’s sister’), Mrs Beatrice Ayorinde, Mrs Modupe Ogundimu, Mr Yemi Adeniji, Mr John Oko, Mr Tola Ogunnbi, Mrs Julie Jackson and husband. There were also Patrick and Amaka Uzoma, Chinedu and Uche Eneh, Akintayo and Vivien Ayodele-Bamisaye, Patrick and Stella Uzu.
Having drawn the foregoing list from images captured by the photographer, I am aware that many names have been omitted. I plead their forgiveness. But let me also appreciate Messrs Chudi Offodile, Bisi Kazeem and Chiedu Ebie as well as Hon Florence Akinwale.
It was delightful that the Not Forgotten Initiative (NFI) teachers were the first to arrive our house at 7am last Friday to celebrate her. We appreciate them. Meanwhile, with support from their uncles, aunties and cousins, our children (unavoidably absent) raised a huge fund to give my wife a holiday in a Lagos resort from where I am writing my column this week. On Tuesday night, we were hosted to dinner by the chairman of Caverton Offshore Support Group, Mr Remi Makanjuola and wife, at their Ikoyi residence. We cannot thank them enough for their support over the years. Yesterday, it was the turn of Mrs Biodun Martins and Mrs Ronke Kosoko to take us out for lunch.
Ordinarily, birthday celebration is a bit alien to me. I grew up with Christmas as the only period in the year worth looking forward to. New clothes and shoes. Rice and chicken. Bread and tea (what they now call beverage). My wife, of course, was used to celebrating birthdays. When our children were still young, she would take them to orphanages on their birthdays. And the moment they entered boarding school, birthday was no longer an issue in the house, especially with all of them born when schools would be in session. The first real discussion about birthday happened ten years ago when my wife was about turning 40. At the end, she asked that we donate the money to dig borehole for a Tunga community in Abuja. With that, I thought I could delete birthday from the family calendar. I was wrong. Since January, someone had become almost aggressive in saying, “I must celebrate my 50th birthday”. I had no choice but to make a concession. I believe my wife deserves to be celebrated for her role in the family and the underprivileged children she helps to provide free and quality education to.
For all the people who joined us last Friday and the numerous other well-wishers who sent messages, may things of joy never cease from our families.
The contest is not really a case of Chartered Accountants versus Economists because many Chartered Accountants actually trained as economists before becoming Chartered Accountants. Vice-Versa (similarly), many of our leading economists qualified as Chartered Accountants before venturing into economics as their area of specialization.
Be that at it may, it is an oversimplification to postulate that while Chartered Accountants insist on balancing the books first, it is the economists who are somewhat wary of the scepticism of Chartered Accountants. If they have their way, they would prefer to dazzle us all with econometrics and veer off into the exotic areas of fiscal policy and monetary policy as well as the areas of convergence – or the lack thereof.
What is even more fascinating are the never ending vigorous disputations amongst economists themselves and (versus) accountants and the rest of us.
Permit me to quote: Jimi Morgan
“As Africa’s most populous country, largest economy and most notable democracy, Nigeria is a bellweather for the continent. A weakening economy, rising insecurity and violent conflicts threaten progress made in its democratic development. Amid deepening distrust in government and institutions, Nigeria has significant work to do in improving national, state and local security and governance ahead of national and state elections in 2023.
Nigeria’s federal system gives governors great responsibilities in addressing the issues driving the country’s multiple conflicts, including farmer-herder violence, deepening regional divides, armed banditry and the Boko Haram insurgency. United States Institute of Peace [U.S.I.P] brings together state governors, national policymakers and civic leaders to design and implement inclusive policies that mitigate violence and strengthen community-oriented security. The Institute engages a variety of influential figures, empowers citizens and uses its expertise and convening power to inform Nigeria policy in the United States, the region and around the world. Recent work includes:
Since 2016, this working group has fostered relationships between citizens, policymakers and national and international figures to ensure that a diverse array of voices impact decision-making processes. These relationships allow the working group to turn expert analysis into tangible, actionable policy advice. For instance, recommendations for addressing the country’s current security and political challenges — informed by a 2021 convening with religious and civic leaders from the National Peace Committee and the Inter-Faith Initiative for Peace — were published in leading Nigerian newspapers. In 2021, amid deepening public mistrust, the working group harnessed its collective experience and relationships to advance high-level dialogue between major civic groups working for peace across the country and the Nigerian government. The working group is regularly invited by state and national policymakers to provide recommendations on a range of issues, from inclusive governance and electoral violence to communal conflicts between pastoralists and farming communities.
Network of Nigerian Facilitators (NNF)
The NNF is a group of professional peace mediators trained by USIP to resolve local conflicts through nonviolent means across several states throughout the country. NNF dialogues focus on strengthening community-security sector relationships and mitigating intercommunal, pastoralist-farmer and election-related violence. Since 2019, the NNF has collaborated with state peacebuilding institutions to address conflicts and support local peace processes. In 2021, the NNF helped conduct USIP research to better understand the drivers and dynamics of communal conflicts across Nigeria.
Working with State Governments and Peacebuilding Institutions
USIP helps governors and state peacebuilding institutions to establish inclusive, cooperative strategies that prevent and resolve violent conflicts; ensure that policies focus on citizens’ needs; stem the potential for all forms of violence; and allow communities to play meaningful roles in the transition process.
Strengthening Local Security
Through USIP’s ongoing Justice and Security Dialogue project, citizens at the local level collectively identify security challenges and organize dialogues that bring together internally displaced communities and police in Northeast Nigeria to develop practical and concrete solutions to address security concerns, build trust and foster accountability.
Informing Policy through Research
USIP conducts research on governance and security to better advise Nigerian policymakers in their response to these challenges. A 2020 public opinion survey found new linkages between COVID-19, instability and conflict. These survey findings informed policy discussions with senior U.S. and Nigerian policymakers, including Nigerian President Buhari and state governors. USIP also published research mapping state peacebuilding institutions; assessing election-related violence risks; and outlining pathways to civilian-led governance amid the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria.
Convening Stakeholders
USIP convenes government officials, partners and civic leaders at its U.S. headquarters and Nigeria country office for candid conversations that foster collaboration and inform policy and program priorities. USIP hosted discussions in 2020 with the Nigerian ministers of foreign affairs and humanitarian affairs and senior U.S. policymakers. Throughout the pandemic, USIP convened a series of virtual roundtables with Nigerian federal and state policymakers and key stakeholders to examine COVID-19’s impact on security and governance. In 2019, USIP hosted eminent U.S. and Nigerian civic leaders and government officials for a roundtable to explore the state of Nigerian governance 20 years into its democratic transition.
Expanding the Institute’s Field Work
In 2020, USIP officially established a country office in Abuja. This accomplishment allows the Institute to continue its impactful operations, broaden its regional scope and sustain its direct action for peace in Nigeria.
*Current situation in Nigeria and possible path to sure and sustainable recovery.*
The Nigerian Federal Government has received a plethora of advice, and some threats. Sadly, the majority of counsel, with the greatest of respect, are ideological.
- i) Economic systems and their proponents are based upon preferred political systems. Adam Smith, through adherents such as David Ricardo represent one school - capitalism and the free market. Karl Marx represents another system - communism which is the antidote to the ills of capitalism, and which has only a few countries following his original philosophy although that's been refined. Then there is John Maynard Keynes of the Cambridge School of thought advocating for government role in the capitalist system. Importantly, Milton Friedman of the Chicago School did advocate for a private sector dominance over as many areas of economic activities as possible.
- ii) In more recent times, these neoclassicals have pushed for free market economics - the private sector running loose with little government intervention. That philosophy almost caused the global economic collapse in 2008. The central bankers and China had to rescue the system.
iii) Thus, any system is ideological.
With its adherents and practitioners.
- iv) The political liberal order is closely aligned to the Milton Friedman school of economics. The Western democracies push their model as the only democracy. And try to compel others to adopt it, name calling or bad mouthing them as autocracies.
Question 1: Which model has brought greatest benefit to the largest number since WW2?
Response - The Peoples Republic of China with emphasis on "common prosperity", India and I include the USA.
Question 2: Which system has pushed for prosperity and good quality of life for as many of its people as possible?
Response - The PRC, the Scandinavian countries. The USA is one of the worst performers of a major economy in wealth disparity.
Question 3: Which one country or set of countries have performed worst economically compared to their resources, human and otherwise?
Response -The various African countries befuddled between one political system or the other, and the ideology of one economic system or the other. If one takes it from 1960 although one can go back to 1957, African countries have experienced growth or retrogression; political peace and internal harmony or political upheavals, conflicts and killings.
- v) Let's home in on Nigeria. The government with greatest comparative achievement in economics, education, health, transportation, communication and quality of living was the Western Region between 1952 and 1969. It encouraged growth of private capital and government participation. It owned embassies in Britain and the USA (which were taken over by the FGN after the Unification Decree of May 1966). It also lent money to the FGN. It paid its civil servants twice that of another region and one and a half times that of the federal government.
- vi) The military administration between 1970 to 1979, with a change of guards twice in that period, experienced great economic and other growth.
However, education, almost always an area of focus by a dear professional colleague, didn't reach many. The economy also became unequal with the steady increase in the private sector and decline in the public sector. Thus, education for the rich rather than the majority increased in number and scope. (Not sure if even the Western Region achieved a 100% enrolment).
Oh yes, private sector education benefits those with the money. I attended a church school myself, fee paying but not exclusive. And indeed there are many papers on the introduction and impact of church schools and education in different parts of Africa.
vii) And disparity in wealth became greater. The 'social warriors' became the Oyewusi and Anani armed robbers. I hope some readers can recall those characters and the period.
viii) Let me add. The 5 Year Development Plan of 1970 - 1974 under Chief Awolowo as Federal Finance Commissioner mentioned government being responsible for the commanding heights of the economy. It was that plan that propelled the economic growth and other achievements from 1970 to 1975 when Chief Awolowo resigned. The approach was no longer followed and the intellectual capacity and discipline could not be replicated by Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Thus, I acknowledge it's not just about the economic system, it's also about the persons implementing the systems. Of course, based upon an agreed political or military system.
- ix) It should be noted that the plan marked the very first attempt to express a social philosophy that should guide the plan.
- x) In conclusion, the free market economic system favours the few at the expense of the many. It also develops the economy itself at a slower pace than where the government plays a role.
- xi) There is therefore an umbilical link between economic system and socio-political philosophy. And since World War 1 when there was a dispute over which economic system should prevail, the German or the British, global powers have advocated for the variant that maximises their benefit.
xii) As a consequence, the philosophies keep evolving. There are several variants I have not mentioned, but let me flag two divergent thinking and practice; (a) the new classical economics with monetarism, and (b) socialism with Chinese characteristics, arguably the most transformative of the lot.
xiii) My observation is that Nigeria under PBAT (President Bola Ahmed Tinubu) has adopted the neo classical approach with monetarism. I could be mistaken.
xiv) We seem to ignore the fact and reality that there is a new player in town – BRICS consists of : Brazil
Russia
India
China
South Africa
Egypt
Ethiopia
Iran
And the United Arab Emirates
and new rules are being established.
I apologise for the length of this piece, but we are sharing thoughts and increasing awareness and thus understanding. There are currently three power economies in Africa: Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. Two are in BRICS+, the other is nowhere, not in G7, not in G20.
- xv) Having stated all that, there are many foreign interests who need to keep exploiting Africa in order to enjoy their economic prosperity and maintain their political superiority.
xvi) In addition, recent events have eroded their moral authority because of the differentiated and hypocritical response to global events:
17) * Condemn Russia for killing Ukrainians but support killing by Israel of many more people - tens of thousands of Palestinians especially women and children;
18) * Condemn Russia for invading its neighbour which justifies this on security needs that it doesnt want an enemy military organisation there but justify USA & British invasion of Iraq, separated from them by long distances and the sea;
19)* Encroach into African economic activities eg the Uganda Tanzanian oil pipeline was condemned in the EU Parliament although it will generate revenue to the African owners of the oil and the transit country.
20) If security can be achieved in Nigeria, it's safe to predict the economy will recover, irrespective of the economic system used.
21) Conclusion: Let's adapt the Lee Kwan Yew mantra - it's what works, not economic theories.”
On its front page, “The Guardian” newspaper published the damning verdict delivered with feisty brutality by Francis E Ogbimi:
“Economists, accountants and bankers do not understand how the economy works. They lack a sense of history and do not understand the science of sustainable economic growth, industrialization and development. They are only good at sustaining abstract and irrelevant arguments about the economy. Africa will stagnate as long as economists and related institutions like the World Bank and IMF continue to influence (the) planning in the continent.”
In crafting economic policy, the least we can do is to recognise that there are actually four distinct pillars:
- Economic theory
- Applied economics
- Economic history
- And, most importantly: COMMON SENSE !!
For Chartered Accountants who insist on accountability, transparency and discipline, there is a huge mountain to climb especially when they insist on balancing the budget and following the money (the audit trail).
The economists are ever ready to throw in micro-economic framework and macro-economic postulations as proof positive that all will be well. Lord Maynard Keynes (1883 to 1946) argued that governments should solve problems in the short run rather than wait for market forces to fix things over the long run because: “In the long run, we are all dead”
For very good reasons, the press has opted to keep above the fray and the fierce tussle for supremacy. Instead we have the following vignettes:
- “ThisDay” newspaper front page report.
Headline: “THE GARDEN OF THE PROPHET:
The late Lebanese-American poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran captured the Nigerian tragedy so succinctly in his poem:
“Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave
and eats a bread it does not harvest.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into fragments each fragment deeming itself a nation.”
Indeed, this country deserves to be pitied.”
From the archives:
When Egba women led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (mother of Afro-beat legend, Fela) formed Abeokuta Women Union (AWU) and revolted against the King – Sir Ladapo Samuel Ademola, Alake of Egbaland for conspiring with the Colonial Government to impose an oppressive tax regime on women, their war song according to BBC translation was:
“Idowu (Alake) you have used your penis as symbol of authority against us for ages under the pretext that you are our husband. The game is up. Now we have reversed the roles by weaponising our vagina. We are set to overwhelm and subdue you. We are your dominant husband (master) and you have no choice but to succumb to our demands.”
The rage persisted from October 5th, 1946 with furious petitions to the Resident and the Colonial Office. On January 3, 1949 the British government caved in and forced the King to abdicate. He was succeeded by Oba Adesina Gbadebo (1963 – 1971). Sir Ladapo was sent into exile in Osogbo (Osun State) where he died on 27th December 1962.
Front page report of “Saturday Vanguard” newspaper.
Headline: “IN THE COURSE OF SHOOTING, I FELL DOWN; CORPSES FELL ON ME”
- Archbishop Chukwuma on how he escaped being killed at Asaba genocide
- Says Nigeria owes Asaba people easterners apology
- Talks about life in retirement
Emeritus Archbishop of Enugu Anglican Diocese, Most Rev Prof Emmanuel Chukwuma who, penultimate week, retired from priesthood speaks about his 44 years priesthood, how he escaped the Asaba genocide and what should be done for Nigeria to return to its lost glory.
Did you retire because of age or years of service?
There is a statutory age in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that once you are 70 years old you retire. If you are a primate after 10 years whether you are 70 or not you retire. I am retiring as Archbishop with 10 years completed as Archbishop. I was a second term Archbishop and at the same time retiring at the age of 70, after serving as a Bishop for 34 years, excluding my time of priesthood. So, I’ve served as a priest for 44 years. I glorify and thank God for what I am today.
On his experience as a priest
It has been a great and tremendous experience in the sense that I started as a Bishop in the Diocese of Bauchi, northern part of Nigeria. I spent about eight years there and came to Enugu to spend 26 years. I started as a missionary Bishop in Bauchi, which was not an easy task. I started from nothing in a Muslim area; 1990 to 1991, I experienced Christian and Muslim uproar with our churches burnt, houses burnt and many of our members killed. I was Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, chairman and my life was at risk. At that time God protected me. My Cathedral in Bauchi was burnt before I rebuilt it to a bigger one and also through God, founded churches in the whole of Bauchi and Gombe, Katagum, that’s Azere area and built a Cathedral in Gombe; founded churches in Ashaka up to Bilirri, Bollie, Dukuntim, Bambam, Maraba, and Ningi. I was busy planting churches that have now given birth to the Gombe Diocese.
Having built Bishop’s Court in Bauchi, Cathedral in Bauchi and Gombe, I came to Enugu and there was no Bishop’s court. Thanks be to God for Bishop Otubelu, my predecessor, who also suffered because he started from the civil war, since 1970, and with all these indigenes and non-indigenes syndrome, he couldn’t do much.
However, coming to Enugu, through God’s grace and with the support of my friends and the people, I was able to build the Bishop’s Court which is one of the best in Nigeria. The foundation was laid in 1999 by the then Prelate, Most Rev Timothy Adetiloye. After that I started with the Cathedral and built the Cathedral and through God’s grace it has been working. We mobilised funds and built a hospital, Diagnostic Center, schools, printing press, established Micro-finance bank and churches all over the place. We are also building a convent school. We began to expand the frontiers of Anglican Communion in Enugu State to the point that Enugu State now knows that Anglican communion is really the place. So, we have a lot to thank God for, the priest, laity, and friends that supported us in the ministry. Sometimes some people can be so conspiring and treacherous but many of them have repented and apologized. So I’ve forgiven all those who offended me and those whom I offended through my work, I say forgive me. Now, I’m happy retiring with Enugu Diocese not as bad as I met it, not as poor as I met it and I feel fulfilled and thank God that I now have time to go and rest and establish a foundation for the poor, the less privileged and widows that I can help some people and do my lecturing.
Is it true you were once a Catholic?
No! People make mistakes. I attended a Roman Catholic school, St Aquinas College Akure, just like College of Immaculate Conception, CIC, here in Enugu. If somebody attends CIC, must he be a Roman Catholic? But you find that it was made compulsory for everybody to behave like a Roman Catholic and because of my attitude and way of life, I speak Latin, the Irish Fathers loved me and so they put me in charge of the Sacristy.
At that time, I was serving Mass, we were all made to attend the chapel, whether you are a Roman Catholic or not, it was compulsory. So, I was influenced a bit by the Roman Catholic doctrine, which was an eye-opener and my father therefore said why don’t I become a reverend father because of the way I served Mass and followed the reverend fathers for evangelism.
My father wanted me to be a lawyer and some people wanted me to be a Reverend Father. I started teaching, from teaching I was to read law in the University of Ife but I went into Theology because during the civil war I was one of those that would have been killed in the Asaba genocide but God saved my life.
In 1967 I was to be killed among those that were killed but God saved my life. When they were shooting, I fell down and in the night I escaped. So, I experienced the genocide of the Nigeria civil war. I saw war with my eyes, I saw blood with my eyes, and it was a serious genocide. Innocent people in my Asaba area were killed for nothing except that we were ‘Ajukwu’ brothers (Ojukwu brothers), that was what they were saying. My father’s first house in Asaba was burnt down, many of our houses were burnt, many of our relatives were burnt, many of our kindred were killed unnecessarily and many of our women were forcefully married by the soldiers. It was such a terrible thing that when I remember it I shed tears especially when they are doing Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
I feel that Nigeria still has to apologize to the Asaba people and to the Eastern part of Nigeria for the genocide and war. That was the reason I said that January 15, which is my birthday, Nigeria should be celebrating it as a day of mourning and forgiveness, asking God for forgiveness and thanksgiving for the end of the war. Remember that in the Bible when God destroyed the world with water Noah prayed to God and he stopped the war of water and Noah praised and thanked God for it. So if war has ended we should be able to say father thank you for the war that ended but rather than doing it what you see now is selectiveness against the Igbo. We are being neglected, sidelined and nobody is thinking about what we suffered during the civil war. This is unfortunate and I feel that President Bola Tinubu, if they could do something to MKO Abiola and honour him, the people of Asaba should be honoured with a day of forgiveness, thanksgiving and then a lot of things should be done in memory and compensation for the Eastern part of Nigeria for the civil war.
How did the Asaba genocide actually happen?
The Nigerian soldiers were to cross the River Niger and when they came they couldn’t cross. They said there was a goddess in the River called Onishee who would come out and their boat would sink because at that time the bridge had collapsed. So, the soldiers got angry and said that there were some Biafran soldiers among us. In fact, they separated us, I was about 14 years. They separated the women and said that all of us, the male, should be lined up and killed. In the course of the shooting I fell down and corpses fell on me. That was how I escaped.
When I spoke Yoruba, one of the soldiers said ‘are you a Yoruba man?’ And I said yes and that was how they rescued me. The soldiers were tall, we called them Gongola, gwodogwodo! Some of them said it was because of Chukwuma Nzeogwu, who was not from Asaba really, he was from Ika Ibo, but they still dealt with us and that’s unfortunate. To God be the glory we survived.
What do you think is the reason General Yakubu Gowon is yet to say anything about the civil war?
Gowon is very apologetic and that was why he started Nigeria Prays and we have to commend him for that. That Nigeria Prays was to revive the spirit of the people back from the civil war and to reconcile people back to God and to go on with one Nigeria.
On easterners asking General Gowon to tender an open apology
He has done it many times when he was doing Nigeria Prays, and moving around. He apologized but that’s not enough. The Nigerian government should do that because the Nigeria civil war dealt with us. In Asaba, it was a real genocide and we’re asking for apology and compensation as they do in other places.
What is your message to Nigeria as you take a bow in priesthood?
Nigeria should be a country for all of us, not a country for just one person. There should be no segregation, nobody should be neglected, and there should be equal rights and justice. Equity and justice must prevail. The Igbo must be given the same opportunity to serve Nigeria and corruption must cease. We must stop all these deceit in government. Parliament has been turned into self-centered composition; there should be no sycophancy in government. Something must be done to save Nigeria from calamity.”
“Saturday Tribune@ newspaper front page report.
Headline: “IT’S TIME NIGERIANS COOKED FOR THESE TERRORISTS!!
- Abiodun Awolaja
THE terrorists who kidnapped a bride and 62 wedding guests at Damari in Sabuwa LG of Katsina State are currently having a swell time. Not only do they have a rich supply of captive women with which to slake their depraved lusts, they also want millions to prop up their fiefdom. They are demanding N100 million, threatening to marry off the bride and sell the other abductees if their families did not pay the ransom. They dressed the bride in army uniform, slung AK-47s around the necks of the captives, and uploaded the video evidence on social media, confident that the state will not cow them. Hear their leader: “I am the one who abducted them, and I will not release them until the ransom we demanded is paid. Anyone who thinks they can rescue them should try to do so.” There’s a Daura Deceiver in the same state who did nothing to protect the people from the blood-thirsty killers but has an impenetrable wall around him while brides and grooms cannot even consummate their marriage!
Folks, there’s a reason these dogs (who once fed the twins born by a woman in their captivity to dogs) are so bold. They have backers in high places. Only recently, Danjuma Ali-Keffi, former GOC, 1 Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army, asked President Bola Tinubu to investigate the death of former army chief, Lt-General Ibrahim Attahiru, in a plane crash in Kaduna, Kaduna State, on May 21, 2021, linking the incident to terror financiers in the country and urging the president to probe his compulsory retirement from service for exposing those top officials during the previous administration. Think about it: the terrorists who collect millions and billions often look ragged and disheveled, according to those who managed to escape from their clutches, and they are working for barons. They carry expensive weapons. They use phones. Ransoms have been paid through banks but the masterminds are still walking as free (wo)men. Something isn’t adding up.
Why don’t terrorists launch attacks in North Korea? They know that the state itself is terror; that they would be buried with bullets. They know that soldiers would use their bodies for shooting practice. Before whose dining table will a dog wag its tail? Terrorists dread Israel: Netanyahu takes a thousand lives for each life they take among his people. In the United States, these criminals would be dead in less than two hours. Japanese Admiral Yamamoto may or may not have spoken the words attributed to him, but they are true nonetheless: “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” In Nigeria, terrorists reign as kings, pampered by the powers that be. They know the weaknesses of a country where hospitals lack drugs, where ATMs are empty, where schools foster illiteracy, and where fuel is not guaranteed at a filling station. Hunger stalks the land as people cut up a single Titus sardine into ten pieces, buses conveying foodstuff are being attacked by hungry citizens, but the terror masterminds know no poverty. They know that the nation is not asking serious questions.
Who is supplying these terrorists with weapons and food? Where are their families based? How do they transport huge stashes of cash across our borders? If they convert naira to foreign currency, where do they do so? Who are their backers and where are their family houses located? Is there something customs operatives are not telling us? Can we not deploy drones and smoke them out? As part of its National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, the U.S. Government says it will “enhance domestic terrorism analysis and improve information sharing throughout law enforcement at the federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels, and, where appropriate, private sector partners, guarantee “revamped support to community partners who can help to prevent individuals from ever reaching the point of committing terrorist violence, disrupt and deter domestic terrorism activity via increased support to federal, state, and local law enforcement in addressing domestic terrorism nationwide, and “confront long-term contributors to domestic terrorism”, protecting Americans from “racial, ethnic, and religious hatred, and stemming the flow of firearms to individuals intending to commit acts of domestic terrorism, and working to ensure that law enforcement operates without bias in countering domestic terrorism.” Why can’t we take a cue from the US?
Terrorism would not thrive with the society slaughtering terrorists: daggering them till the knife is blunt, mauling them without mercy. The terrorists would not strike if they knew that the society would deploy tactical superior wickedness, castrating, daggering and incinerating them in the bush; beheading their food suppliers and burning their houses. You have to make it clear to terrorists that once they abduct people, they will be slaughtered. To tackle these blood merchants, you impose community terrorism levy to support hunters in the bush and set up roadside squads/community information brigades. There must be a town strategy: you fight terrorists as a town, hold vigils and monitor strange faces at beer parlours, etc.
The government must set up state police, ensure drone monitoring of forests and farmsteads, locate terrorist communication with GPS, set up farm squads comprising all the armed services, deploy Man O’ War to support Amotekun, and empower forest guards. The case of the terrorists who murdered the Elesun of Esun-Ekiti, the Onimojo of Omojola-Ekiti and the Olukoro of Koro Kingdom in Ekiti LG of Kwara State proves that state policing is the way to go. A combined team of police, military and secret service operatives and vigilantes and hunters rescued the abducted wife of the late Olukoro and her little girl and arrested 13 terrorists in the forest/boundary between Kwara and Ekiti states. Another team involving police operatives, hunters, members of Agbekoya group, vigilantes and Amotekun Corps stormed Emure-Ekiti Forest, Ise/Ogbese Forest and Emure-Ile Forest in Ondo State and arrested the murderers of the Elesun and the Onimojo. The arrested terrorists, Yaya Sumaila, Idrisu Abubakar, Hassan Abudullahi, Abudullahi Abudullahi, Haruna Abubakar, Usman Abudullahi, Haruna Sule, and Babusa Alhaji Lede, will soon have their day in court.
If a man cooks for the community, say the Igbo, the community will finish the food. But if the community cooks for a man, he will never finish the food. The terrorists have been cooking for Nigerians for too long; it’s time Nigerians cooked for them. It’s time to send them to hell!”
Quotation:
- “If you can’t explain it simply then you don’t understand it well enough.”
- Albert Einstein
(1879 to 1955)
- “The secret to living is giving”
- Tony Robbins
(1960 – 64 years)
- “The level of poverty is alarming. An estimated population of 88.4 million people in Nigeria are living in extreme poverty. Overall, 12.9 per cent of the global population in extreme poverty was found in Nigeria as of 2022.”
One question which has always agitated my mind was answered last Monday, 15th April, 2024 by retired Justice Andrew Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye in a keynote address he delivered at the 2024 Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association, Warri Branch, whose theme was “Emerging trends in legal practice and administration of justice: Challenges and prospects''. Justice Omolaye-Ajileye’s paper was titled “Tomorrow’s legal profession today: Today’s legal profession tomorrow”
I have always wondered if two sets of referees pursuing the same goal(s) can act in the same manner and still achieve the same result. The first is an official refereeing a football match and the second is a judge adjudicating in a matter between litigants. What is expected of both is impartiality, fairness, thoroughness, and even-handedness so that one side is not given undue advantage and unmerited edge over the other. So that, in the course of maintaining an even keel, the cause of justice can be served.
Now, a football referee that (repeatedly or in strategic moments) makes decisions that favour one team against another is said to have stepped into the field or ring. He is deemed to be biased and the cause of justice cannot in that way be served. But can a judge afford to maintain similar aloofness and neutrality in all instances and still serve the cause of justice?
In my 39 years in the journalism profession, I have seen cases lost not because the litigant did not have a good case but because of poor handling by counsel; sometimes deliberately so contrived for varying reasons. Uncountable number of cases get dismissed or get lost (and won) for lack of diligent prosecution; again, sometimes deliberately and in some others because of incompetence or carelessness of the prosecution or counsel.
In that instance, the innocent may suffer and the cause of justice may not have been served. Should a judge step into the ring in certain situations to avert the miscarriage of justice? Oftentimes, we hear judges lambast counsel and bemoan the miscarriage of justice for lack of brilliance or diligent prosecution of cases. In that situation, can a judge step into the ring?
There was a time in this country when some of its brightest judges like Kayode Esho, Akinola Aguda, and Chukwudifu Oputa were not only described as philosopher-judges but also were well respected for what some have called their judicial activism. Yes, judges interpret the law but in interpreting laws, cerebral and conscious judges also make laws! Some even make statements.
Judges, when they are in their court, especially when reading their judgments, enjoy immunity, like the members of the Legislature when those ones, too, are in their hallowed chamber. Judges and the lawyers appearing before them are referred to as officers in the temple of justice, meaning that their primary obligation, even when lawyers represent opposing sides or views, is that justice is served, and not miscarried.
As such, even counsel not directly involved in a matter can chip in something as “amicus curiae”, that is, an impartial adviser to a court of law in a particular case or matter. This being so, are there instances that allow or, better still, is it incumbent on the judicial umpire to step into the ring to ensure that justice is not miscarried? Or should he or she simply maintain aloofness and rely only on the evidence brought before him or her to make a ruling?
Nowhere does this intrigue me more than in election matters and other cases that are as controversial or that have attracted a lot of public discourse and controversy. Judges, too, are members of the society. They read newspapers. They listen to the radio. They watch television. They may also be active on social media. They may or may not visit pubs and listen to gossip but they have friends and family members. Therefore, they must be aware, if I may so put it, of the merits and demerits of some of the cases coming before them before the arrival of such cases. Should they discountenance such information and only limit themselves to the evidence presented before them?
Omolaye-Ajileye provided what I consider to be an answer when he said: “I want to comment on a change of culture we can bring about in the way justice is administered. Administration of justice must shift from the orthodox adversarial approach to more collaboration between lawyers, parties and the court with the focus being an earnest effort to isolate the real issues in a dispute from a maze of ill-digested causes of action and defences.
"The judge’s role must be transformed from the traditional umpire role to that of active case manager. By this, I mean we must introduce in our Rule of Court situations where judges must take an active part - together with learned counsel - in identifying at an early stage of the proceedings what is the real dispute between the parties and, working together with the parties, charting a course that will result in the adjudication of the dispute as speedily as possible and at minimum costs. That is now the system of judicial case management that is taking hold in many jurisdictions across the world. We must move with the world in this regard.
"The days of over-pleading, raising as many issues that you can muster in the hope that one might just stick, should be something of the past. Courts should decide only the real disputes between the parties. In that way, the court’s time is saved and judges can dispose of more cases. Litigation should be limited to what is truly in dispute between the parties and not to obfuscate and terrorize the other side”
That is the answer I have been searching for! If the main objective is to serve the cause of justice at minimal costs and in record time, this is the way to go. I have watched such a system in operation in other climes and it is fun to watch, is not elaborate, is not long-drawn, adversarial and costly as the system we operate here.
Besides, the new system advocated by Omolaye-Ajileye will remove tension, enmity and bitterness amongst litigants. Our people have a saying, based on the adversarial system of administration of justice that we operate at the moment, that people who drag each other to court do not return from there to still be friends. We must change that narrative because it poisons the good health of our society.
Justice Omolaye-Ajileye may not have known or meant it; but he, like the Kayode Eshos, Akinola Agudas and Chukwudifu Oputas before him, is also seen by many as a fearless but even-handed judicial activist and icon. The judgments he delivered while on the Bench of the Kogi State judiciary testify to that. When he was retiring on 15 February, 2023, the outcry was much, as leading members of the Bar and others made a case that he be promoted to the higher Bench, which he eminently deserved, so that the Judiciary might still retain his services for an additional five years at the least. His pioneering work on the emerging field of electronic evidence stands him out as a leading authority in that field.
In the paper he delivered at Warri, the retired judge advocated what he described as “paradigm shift” in the practice of law and the administration of justice in the country “in order to secure tomorrow’s legal profession today". He said: "The advocacy here is that our conservatism should not make us resist change. We live in a changing world. It is a great momentous and exciting time. Change is happening around us in ways that we had not imagined just a few years ago. All aspects of human endeavour are changing. The legal sector - to be precise, the practice of law and the administration of justice - is not spared. We must be amenable to change. As lawyers and judges, we must constantly adapt and innovate or be prepared to be pushed aside and become irrelevant”
He advocated that lawyers and judges must imbibe technology because “we are in the middle of a technological revolution of a great magnitude, scale, scope, and complexity…To maintain relevance and remain competitive in any industry, profession or endeavour, one needs to understand the impact of emerging technologies on the future. Indeed, we need to go beyond the acquisition of knowledge. We must be prepared to integrate modern innovations strategically in our work to increase efficiency and productivity and improve our paradigms”
Chief Consultant, Forensic Electronic and Digital Law Consultancy, Omolaye-Ajileye is also a visiting professor at the National Open University of Nigeria. To corroborate what he said, I recall here a personal experience of how technology can make hitherto indispensable hands redundant and surplus to requirement: When I was editor of PUNCH newspapers, the advent of computers displaced compugraphic machines and cut-and-paste artists had to be sent for training to plan pages on computer. Ironically, one of our best cut-and-past artists, much sought-after by everyone, could not cope with the new technology and had to be sent away!
Those who have ears, let them hear what Omolaye-Ajileye is saying to the Bar and Bench!
April is the month dedicated to drawing societal attention to the acceptance of autism. In some climes, this is done in a way that brings the subject of our common humanity into a sharp focus. It is a period to express solidarity with autistic children and their families. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), autism “constitutes a diverse group of conditions related to development of the brain.”
It is estimated that one in a hundred children is autistic worldwide.
In generic terms, this month could also be regarded as a season to reflect on the struggles of those who are living with various forms of disability.
A fellow columnist, Olusegun Adeniyi, made an introductory reference to autism in his column on this page a fortnight ago. The column was on the widely reported inhuman treatment of Debola Daniel at one eatery located in the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja. Daniel was on a wheelchair. The lady at the till told Daniel, accompanied by four other persons including his wife and brother, that “wheelchairs are not allowed” in that public place. Expectedly, this act generated outrage from members of the public and the aviation authorities have appropriately sanctioned the offending outfit.
Today’s column is a follow-up of sorts to Adeniyi’s conclusion: “What we must begin to deal with includes the exclusion, discrimination, isolation, lack of empathy and frankly, the absence of thought in all facets of our society for the weak and vulnerable among us.”
The good news is that there is already a trend of advocacy in the positive direction suggested above. It is good not only for the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs); it is also in the interest of the society at large.
Beyond the perennial lamentation about the gross erosion of our collective humanity, the forces of hope and improvement on the state of things should be encouraged. Physical and institutional reforms are necessary to achieve this noble purpose. Doubtless, the government should take the lead in the conscious inclusion of fellow human beings with disabilities in all areas of life. But as Adeniyi rightly observed, it is not a task for only the government. Private individuals and organisations have a huge role to play to humanise the public space and boost consciousness sufficiently for the inclusion of the PwDs.
The heroic efforts of the private individuals and organisations constitute a magnificent basis for hope for the members of society living with disabilities.
Take a sample.
Jake Epelle is the president of the Albino Foundation of Nigeria. A distinguished personality in the society, Epelle is an accomplished personality in his private life. Yet, he has invested his time, energy and resources in the daily struggles of those with disability in Nigeria. The sheer gamut of the activities of Epelle and the Foundation have gone a long way to cure not a few members of the society of their ingrained prejudices about albinism. For instance, while the government of President Goodluck Jonathan was putting together the famous 2014 National Conference, Epelle noticed the seeming exclusion of albinos. Here is how Epelle made a case for his group: “We have six million albinos in the country and so we need a voice. We should be heard. This is what we have been saying to the government not only in Nigeria but in Africa and in the world.
“The integration of persons with albinism is very important. We need to mainstream some our issues and challenges into the national policy and discuss. We see this National Conference as a platform to push our cases.
“Many people who go to such forums to discuss issues that affect us don’t know ‘jack’ about albinism. I think this is the right time and platform for us to be heard and we need to be heard.”
That was Epelle’s position 10 years ago. Since then, his voice has become more strident in the advocacy for the inclusion of PwDs.
Epelle is also the convener of another non-governmental organisation, the Disability Inclusion in Nigeria.
While President Bola Tinubu was constituting his cabinet, Epelle put up a passionate appeal to the President for equality, justice and inclusion for PwDs. On that occasion, he made a case for inclusion like this: “Appointing PwDs to influential positions in your government would serve as a powerful symbol of inclusivity, sending a clearer message that Nigeria embraces and values the contribution of every citizen, regardless of their abilities
“This act of leadership would inspire other sectors of the society to follow suit and create a ripple effect of positive change that extends far beyond the political realm.
“It will also send a powerful message to the society, dispel misconceptions and prejudices surrounding disability as well as serve as a beacon of hope and inspiration for countless PwDs who often face systemic barriers and limited opportunities due to societal attitudes and biases.” Epelle is certainly on point in this matter.
Of course, you can justifiably talk of systemic barriers when ramps are not made available in public buildings for those on wheelchairs. The unacceptable experience of Demola Daniel at the airport is a typical case of prejudicial attitude of the society.
The advocacy of the Epelles in our amidst should inspire more persons and organisations to support and encourage those with disability in the struggles for justice and inclusion in the society, polity and economy.
Besides, hope is to be found in the examples of those who have turned disability into ability to make contributions to the society. This point is amply demonstrated by an American journalist, Steve Silberman, in his book, “Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently.”
Silberman traced the history of autism to make the point that autistic people are actually people who think differently and should be accepted by the society as neurological tribes. The success stories of the autistic persons are told in the book.
The example of the 21-year old Swedish climate activist, Greta Thunberg, has received global acclaim. Thunberg is autistic. At the age of 15, she was addressing world bodies and national parliaments, stressing the urgency of climate action. In fact, Thunberg’s influence was such that former American president, Donald Trump, in one of his ugliest outings, taunted her because of the condition. The bluntness of Thunberg, her commitment to the cause of nature and the disdain for deception are said to be enhanced by her autistic condition.
All told, those who live with disabilities have reasons to be hopeful despite their condition. The society should be structured in a way to make them enjoy life to the fullest.
More...
[OPINION] Ten Years Since Chibok: Kidnapping Has Become an Illegal Industry Rewarded with Ransoms - Bola Ahmed Tinubu
AdminTen years ago today, 276 girls were abducted in the night from their school in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. The attack by Boko Haram pricked the conscience of the world. From London to Washington, protesters held placards reading #BringBackOurGirls—the hashtag the girls’ families had posted to pressure their idle government into action. It would take almost three weeks for then-Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan even to make a public announcement. Critical time had been lost.
When this March, 137 children were tragically taken from a school in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria, the shadow of Chibok lay ever present. Why, Nigerians and the world asked, after the passage of a decade was such an atrocity still happening?
This time, unlike Chibok, the girls and boys were brought back a fortnight later, the security and intelligence agencies deployed immediately to rescue them. Nevertheless, legitimate concerns over kidnappings persist in Africa’s most populous country. Success in Kaduna has brought families relief and praise for the military, yet the government bears no illusions: The scourge of kidnappings must be routed once and for all.
It begins with recognizing the changing nature of the threat. Boko Haram translates to “Western Education is Forbidden” and reflects an ideological impetus as jihadi insurgents opposed to the very idea of a Nigerian state. Today, Boko Haram are splintered, and mass abductions are primarily the work of criminal gangs. There is no ideology here: kidnapping has become an illegal industry rewarded with ransoms. Within days of the Kaduna attack, the abductors were demanding 1 billion naira ($600,000).
Nothing was paid. As president, I have been clear that ransoms stop. Resolution through payment only perpetuates the wider problem. This extortion racket must be squeezed out of existence. Meanwhile, the costs for perpetrators must be raised: They will receive not a dime, and instead security services’ counter action.
But compressing the kidnap for ransom market only addresses the pull factors. If we are to avoid funneling the same people into other crimes that cause normal Nigerians to feel insecure, we must address the push factors: poverty, inequality, and a paucity of opportunity. Criminal gangs can find easy recruits among those without either a job, or the prospect of one.
Some 63 percent of Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. They are bearing the economic consequences of a failure by successive governments to get to grip with the Nigerian economy. Fiscal and monetary albatrosses have grounded the country’s flight, when surging demographics demand high economic growth to just maintain current standards of living.
A decades-old fuel subsidy was exhausting paltry public finances. By 2022, the cost had ballooned to $10 billion—more than the government’s combined spending on education, health care, and infrastructure in a budget of $40 billion. Currency controls that artificially propped up the naira deterred investment and led to shortages of foreign exchange. For decades we have been financially ransoming ourselves. When my government took office last May, we faced a pile of debt obligations.
Just as with kidnappers, we had to be tough with the economy. Unsustainable market distortions had to be removed. As expected, floating the naira caused it to plunge. Given Nigeria is a net food importer, the average shopping basket has consequently risen in price. The removal of the fuel subsidy, in a country where many businesses and households rely on generators for power, has also had far reaching effects. These reforms have caused pain across Nigeria; they are still painful. Yet there is no better alternative: These and other difficult reforms are necessary to arrest the economic rot that lies at the heart of insecurity.
Green shoots are now visible. In the first quarter of this year, foreign currency inflows have almost matched those for the whole of last year. A multi-billion forex backlog at the central bank has been cleared, giving foreign investors’ confidence to invest in Africa’s largest economy, safe in the knowledge they can repatriate earnings. The naira has begun to stabilize after its initial downward trend and has made huge gains against the dollar.
Talk of macroeconomics might seem remote from the challenge of insecurity. But without the fundamentals in place, it is impossible for an enabling environment where the private sector thrives, jobs are created, and opportunity is spread across the country. It is how we ensure children can go to school without fear.
For any who may have doubted our direction, it should now be clear. There will be no more ransoms paid—not to kidnappers, nor toward those policies which have trapped our people economically. Nigerians, and their economy, will be liberated.
Bola Tinubu is president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
This article was first published April 15, by Newsweek Magazine
TUESDAY WITH REUBENABATI
The Yoruba Nation ‘Secessionists’ of Ibadan
On Saturday, April 13, a group of 18 masked persons dressed in army camouflage, armed with rifles, charms and Oodua Nation flags attempted to take over the Oyo State House of Assembly and Government Secretariat to proclaim the emergence of a Yoruba Nation. They caused some commotion as they insisted on hoisting a flag, but the rag-tag team of insurrectionists were soon overpowered and arrested by officers of the Nigerian Police Command. Well, not quite. They resisted the police but when soldiers from the 2 Div. of the Nigerian Army arrived on the scene, the Oodua boys took to their heels. Cowards! They should have waited and argue with the soldiers over the integrity and sovereignty of Nigeria. But the twist in the tale turned out to be the appearance of a woman on several platforms – Modupe Onitiri Abiola, who endorsed the action of the Oodua 18 and proclaimed that a Democratic Republic of Yoruba had emerged with effect from April 13, 2024. The additional twist in the tale is that the woman introduced herself as a widow of Chief MKO Abiola, the undeclared winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, pillar of sports in Africa, entrepreneur, philanthropist and a martyr of democracy.
Nigerians are probably used to persons, groups – ethnic and socio-cultural – threatening to leave Nigeria and declare their own separate country, to as they argue correct the mistake of 1914, so-called, or to seek meaning in a new association. Afterall, in February 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw ethnic minority rights activist, formed a group known as the Niger Delta Volunteer Force and declared the formation of a Niger Delta Republic. He and his group fought the Nigerian Forces for 12 days before they were overwhelmed, arrested, tried for treason and thrown into jail. This was the first major rebellion against the Nigerian state. The same year, following the Unitary Decree No 34 of the Aguiyi Ironsi military government, the people of Northern Nigeria were so dissatisfied with the turn of events in Nigeria, they openly talked about “Araba” – meaning “let us separate.” In January 1966, there had been a military coup which resulted in the death of Northern leaders and others, notably Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Northern Region Premier, Chief Ladoke Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, and Festus Okotie-Eboh, Minister of Finance.
The coup was led by Kaduna Nzeogwu, an Ibo man, and with that collapse of Nigeria’s First Republic, the new leader was also an Ibo man, General Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, the first military Head of State of Nigeria. The North had wanted to separate but eventually there was a counter coup in July 1966, which ousted the Ironsi regime, which further widened the centrifugal ethnic fissures in Nigeria. In July 1967, the Ibos fought back. Led by Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, they declared the Republic of Biafra, meaning they were determined to secede from Nigeria. The war that ensued lasted three years – 6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970. That was 54 years ago, but there are signs that the civil war in Nigeria has not really ended. Nigeria took a turn for the worse. The rain began to beat us.
The separatist spirit would again show up on April 22, 1990 in the coup speech by Major Gideon Orkar whose plan, as announced, included the excision of five Northern states of Bauchi, Borno, Katsina, Kano and Sokoto from Nigeria. The Orkar group was convinced that the people from these five states were the problem with Nigeria and they should just get out and form their own country. Thus, Orkar and 41 of his colleagues wanted to seize government and re-draw the map of Nigeria. They were captured by government troops, charged for treason, convicted and executed by firing squad. However, the fact that treason attracts the punishment of death has not deterred those who think that Nigeria must be dismembered, or that the map must be re-drawn. The year 2012 witnessed the emergence of a separatist, nativist, Igbo nationalism, anti-Fulani, neo-Biafra group called the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) which aims to restore and actualize the dream of Biafra. IPOB is led by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who has been facing trial for treasonable felony since 2016. Before IPOB, there was also Radio Biafra established by Mazi Kanu in 2009, there was Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra led by Ralph Uwazurike (1999) and there was the Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM) led by Benjamin Igwe Onwuka (2012). There have also been talks about the possibility of an Arewa Reepublic.
A common thread in the foregoing is that every attempt at separation in Nigeria has been driven by frustration with the Nigerian arrangement, protests against bad governance, cries of marginalization or victimization, with ethnic identity and questions of federalism, religion and resource control thrown into the mix. For example, in 1993, following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election which denied MKO Abiola, a Yoruba man, victory, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) was formed to defend Yoruba rights and to remind the Babangida military junta that Yoruba people would not be cheated. OPC was founded and led by Dr. Frederick Fasheun. It was also known as the Oodua Liberation Movement, or the Revolutionary Council of Nigeria. There would later be a more militant faction of the group, a breakaway faction, led by Gani Adams, who is now the Aaare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, that is the Yoruba Generalissimo, defender of the Yoruba realm. The OPC never really pushed the idea of leaving Nigeria: the group, Fasheun or Gani Adams faction has consistently focused on defending Yorubaland against any form of attack or aggression from other groups and to protect Yorubaland, covering both the South Western states and Itsekiriland in the Delta. The Itsekiri are cousins of the Yoruba. They share cultural, linguistic and political heritage
What we must note is that the Yoruba who had been maintaining a pacifist, federalist position in the matter soon began to talk about secession too, with the emergence under the Buhari administration (2015 – 2023) of the likes of Professor Banji Akintoye, and the militant Sunday Igboho who announced an Oodua Republic with a group known as Ilana Omo Yoruba in response to what they considered the Fulanization of Nigeria by the Buhari government and the assault on Yoruba territories by Hausa-Fulani herders. Ideologically, their objective was to protect Yoruba territory against Fulani invasion, to avoid a repeat of the seizure of Ilorin, a Yoruba town, in the 19th century. The group petitioned the United Nations. The mainstream Yoruba position however had always been restructuring and federalism, as canvassed by the Awoist group, the OPC and the Afenifere. The idea of an Oodua Republic looked like a fall-back position.
Sunday Igboho’s activism and militancy telegraphed what happened in Ibadan on Saturday. He is a self-determination activist who went beyond Professor Akintoye’s theoretical disposition to ask for an immediate declaration of an Oodua Republic. Of course, the Nigerian state went after him. He had to spend three years in exile and only recently returned for his mother’s burial. But that is another story. It would be recalled, however, that in April 2021, more than 100 self-determination groups stormed Ibadan to declare an Oduduwa Republic, and a Yoruba nation. They included the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS), the Youth Initiative, Itsekiri National Youth Council, Ilana Omo Oodua and the Homeland Group. They were dispersed by the police. Now in 2024, we have a Mrs Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, leading a relatively unknown Ominira Yoruba group, trying to take over power in Oyo State. Special attention should be paid to the fact that the group has been disowned by both Professor Banji Akintoye and Sunday Igboho whose real name is actually Chief Sunday Adeyemo. Professor Akintoye says the group must be an agent of the Fulanis still desperate to destabilize Yorubaland. Igboho says he does not know the group, and that they are so “low-brained”. Akintoye and Igboho seem convinced that the Ibadan secessionists must be insane. No Yoruba leader has come out to identify with Mrs. Abiola’s group.
My take however is that the Yoruba elite cannot distance themselves from what has happened. Each and every one of them who has been calling for this or that or else, is guilty. I refer them to Ebrahim Hussein’s Kinjekitile, a 1979 play written by the Tanzanian playwright on the Maji Maji war. The lesson of that play is that a word when spoken develops a life of its own, beyond the author of the word. You can break a community, nation and even the world, by the power of words spoken. Those who ask that the mistake of 1914 must be revisited and that Nigeria must be renegotiated have their point, but let them also think about the effect of their pronouncements. MASSOB created IPOB. Nnamdi Kanu gave birth to Simon Ekpa. Self-determination, the right of a people to decide their own destiny is a fundamental right under the UN Charter (Article 1 sub. 2), and we have seen that in the case of Kosovo, and Abhkazia, and the unresolved, ongoing cases of Kurdistan, Northern Cyprus, Quebec, Scotland, Western Sahara, Tibet and Taiwan. Nonetheless, the April secessionists of Ibadan led by Mrs Onitiri -Abiola and others of their ilk must be reminded that whereas Nigeria is a signatory to international laws and conventions, it remains a country governed by specific domestic laws, and this is where I think Mrs. Abiola and her band of 18 soldiers are in troubled waters. Section 2 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution states clearly that Nigeria is “one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state to be known by the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Section 37 of the Criminal Code prescribes the death penalty for anyone who tries to tamper with Nigeria’s sovereignty. The offence is defined as treason. In Sections 40 – 43 of the same Code, the law refers to treasonable felony which attracts the punishment of a life imprisonment. Mrs Abiola and her gang have definitely ran foul of the law. They must be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted. Mrs. Onitiri-Abiola is said to be abroad; proceedings should be initiated post-haste for her extradition and interception wherever she may be in the world, and made to answer for her sin.
She reportedly disclosed with her own mouth that she is a widow of Chief MKO Abiola, a man who struggled and died in the process, to rescue this country from sheer hopelessness. In 1993, every section of Nigeria, including the North voted massively for Abiola in what was acknowledged as the freest and fairest election ever conducted in Nigeria. He was both a hero and a martyr of democracy. And just like that, here comes Mrs. Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, one of Chief’s many wives, suddenly showing up from Alhaji’s harem, many years after, spitting on his grave and legacy. Is she truly of the MKO stock? I think the Abiola family owes us a duty of issuing a statement to clarify at least one point: that Mrs. Onitiri-Abiola does not speak for the family. MKO Abiola is one of Yorubaland’s major icons of the 20th and 21st centuries, and a Nigerian hero. It is sad that anyone at all, would dare associate his name with less noble causes.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must feel personally embarrassed. He is President of Nigeria from the Yoruba stock and his own people, whoever they are, are trying to take over government? It is either he is terribly disconnected from his own people or he is not paying enough attention to certain details. The other month, he came to Lagos and on his way to the mosque, his own people trooped out to complain about hunger. When he came back home for the Eid-el-Fitri festival, a week ago, he conveniently restricted himself to Ikoyi and worshipped at a place not farther than the Dolphin Estate. Wait a moment. Are Yorubas in a position to even claim that they are marginalized now that they have their own kinsman and half of the tribe of Lagos in government? President Tinubu must address “the peculiar mess” that occurred in Ibadan on April 13. He should find out if there are certain fifth columnists seeking to embarrass his government, using Yorubaland as their play field. He took an oath to defend the Nigerian Constitution. Every Nigerian leader that I have worked or interacted with insists that they are sworn to an oath to protect the indivisibility of Nigeria under their watch. Tinubu must wake up. He must not allow a situation whereby his own people are the ones calling for the dissolution of Nigeria while he is President, whatever all the textbook arguments may be. Mrs. Modupe Onitiri-Abiola must be given the Nnamdi Kanu treatment!
We had Chief Olabode George on The Morning Show (TMS) of Arise News yesterday and he drew attention to the failure of intelligence in the Ibadan matter. The old man was right. I share his view. How on earth did the Yoruba secessionists plan, organize and move to the Oyo State Government Secretariat without anybody catching a whiff of their intentions. Their spokesperson lives abroad. They must have been in touch with her through phone calls, messages and all that. And nobody picked that up? They even bought and wore military camouflage. And all the spokespersons of the Service Chiefs will come and tell us that they are committed to the defence of the sovereignty of Nigeria? Please how do you and your troops defend this country when you sleep on duty? And where was the station manager of the Department of State Security (DSS) in Oyo State and all the other agencies? They must all be called in for questioning. Sleeping on duty is not allowed. And one more point, where was the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps? It is the duty of that agency to protect and defend public infrastructure. Section 3 of the Civil Defence Act as amended (2007) gives the agency broad powers “to assist in the maintenance of peace and order and in the protection and rescuing of the civil population during the period of emergency.” The agency also has powers under section 3 (f) “to arrest with or without warrant, detain, investigate and institute legal proceedings by or in the name of the Attorney General of the Federation in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…” Where was Civil Defence even if the other agencies failed?
The bigger issue that we have to deal with perhaps is the increasing, creeping failure of the Nigerian state. Much fewer people today believe in the idea of Nigeria. This is why we have people challenging the state either through secessionist or separatist moves or complete abandonment of the country, the Japa phenomenon, with many believing or thinking that they would be better off in foreign lands. When Nigeria becomes attractive to its own people, we would have managed to create a nation.
“Can the Yoruba Christian really avoid sharing things Islamic? If you are a pentecostal Yoruba Christian and you will see it as a sin to celebrate the next Sallah with me, what you will need to throw away will be more than my food. You will stop praying entirely in Yoruba because almost all the key words in the established Christian payers are taken from Arabic/Islamic texts. You will stop calling prayer ‘adura’ because it is from the Muslim ‘Du’a’. You will stop using the word ‘aanu’ (mercy) because the word is rooted in an Arabic word. A new word has to be coined for alafia (peace, wellbeing) because its root is also Arabic. Sermon will stop being called ‘iwaasu’ because it is from the Arabic ‘wa’z’. You will, furthermore, need to change your wardrobe and come up with new designs beyond what you call Yoruba dresses.”
The audience at the 1903 (third year) lecture of the Royal African Society in London listened with rapt attention as African nationalist, Dr. Edward Blyden, took them back to antiquity when “the most enlightened nations of Greece, Asia, and Egypt” held the opinion that “God revealed himself only in Africa.” Great men of that period, including Alexander the Great, rushed to the great oracle of Africa to drop offerings and “learn the will of God.” A few centuries after that epoch, Blyden lamented, Africa, the “first home of God” where He “buried His great truths” had travelled full circle and had come to be identified by the ‘civilised’ world of the 19th century as “the last home of the devil.”
“Now, things have so changed that it is the opinion of some that God is everywhere except in Africa,” Blyden agonized in the lecture which was on ‘West Africa before Europe.’ He went on to predict that “Africa’s turn will be sure to come again” when it would reclaim its place as the “refuge for seers who see and for prophets who prophesy.” Blyden said when that time would have come, an utterly materialized and exhausted Europe would go back to Africa to learn about God. The lecture is in the July 1903 edition of the Journal of the Royal African Society, Volume 2.
Just a hundred years after that lecture, the Blyden prophecy has come true. We’ve reclaimed our place as “the first home of God”. Nigeria, which houses the highest percentage of Africa’s population, qualifies to be celebrated as the global “refuge for seers who see and for prophets who prophesy.” Across faiths, we incubate and hatch men of God and gods of men – in their thousands. We speak and act for God here without counting the costs.
There is something cool about setting precedents. The immediate past Oyo State Governor, the late Abiola Ajimobi, won a second term election in 2015 and pronounced himself Koseleri (it-has-never-happened-before). Nigerians enjoyed an unprecedented three-day leave from work last week. In some places, the holiday lasted the whole of the week. The abstinence from work was the country’s way of celebrating Muslims’ 30 days of total abstinence from day-time meals – and from all sins. Allowing one abstinence to provoke another abstinence made all of us pious and sinless. It was surreal. The holiday should have endured till eternity.
While the holiday lasted, some friends shared their sallah experiences with me. They thought another koseleri was happening in Yorubaland: their pentecostal Christian neighbours refused to eat their food. “They said it was sin to share in our feast,” one of them said, sadly. “That was not who we are”, another added. I told them it is not really a new strain in Yoruba Christianity. I have RCCG and Deeper Life friends who celebrate and dine with me during Ileya. I also have RCCG and Deeper Life friends in whose mouths our good old eran Ileya (sallah ram meat) has lost its holiness. The twists started before the close of the last century when pentecostal Christianity came in costumes of fundamentalism.
Can the Yoruba Christian really avoid sharing things Islamic? If you are a pentecostal Yoruba Christian and you will see it as a sin to celebrate the next Sallah with me, what you will need to throw away will be more than my food. You will stop praying entirely in Yoruba because almost all the key words in the established Christian payers are taken from Arabic/Islamic texts. You will stop calling prayer ‘adura’ because it is from the Muslim ‘Du’a’. You will stop using the word ‘aanu’ (mercy) because the word is rooted in an Arabic word. A new word has to be coined for alafia (peace, wellbeing) because its root is also Arabic. Sermon will stop being called ‘iwaasu’ because it is from the Arabic ‘wa’z’. You will, furthermore, need to change your wardrobe and come up with new designs beyond what you call Yoruba dresses.
British Africanist J.D.Y. Peel’s ‘Christianity, Islam and Orisa Religion’ published in 2016 addresses some of these on pages 162 and 163. It says the agbada dress which you proudly assert as yours is a donation from Islam, perhaps from persons more northerly than northern Nigerians. Anglican missionary, Henry Townsend, in 1847 saw agbada’s acceptance and growing popularity and wrote that the “Mohammedan costume is become very fashionable with the young and gay” and “is by no means put on as a religious peculiarity.” If you read David Heathcote’s ‘The Embroidery of Hausa Dress (1977), cited by R.O.R. Kalilu’ (1997), you will have a clue that the embroidery (jakan) on your agbada “developed from Mali (and) is associated with Quranic scholars and teachers.” You must have heard the saying: Ise agbada kii se Imale (poverty of lack of agbada does not afflict a Muslim). I heard that from the genius of Yoruba Sakara music, Yusuf Olatunji.
There is no escaping the oneness of the world. Do the anti-Muslim pentecostal realize that Bible chapters and verses are numbered in Arabic numerals 1,2,3 etc. The word, ‘Algebra’ is from the Arabic al-jabr. Indeed, the whole “method of equation solving” in Mathematics is from Arabic.
When we speak about what Lord Lugard did with Southern and Northern Nigeria in 1914, we use the word ‘amalgamation.’ Scholars have agreed that ‘amalgamate’ descends from the Arabic al-malghama which means what ‘amalgam’ means.
In your everyday lives, you can’t escape words that have Arabic ancestors. The ‘sugar’ in your tea is from the Arabic word ‘sukkar’; cotton is from ‘qutum’, your overcoat got its ‘jumper’ name from the Arab’s ‘juppa.’ We can go on and on and conclude that it is pointless and fruitless for my Yoruba pentecostal friends to seek to run away from dining with Muslims and their Islam.
Now, the insular Christian has ideological bedmates in Yoruba Islam. There is this Imam in Ogbomoso shown online last week emitting fire and pronouncing everyone outside Islam as hell-bound. His voice was divisively loud and his penal tongue baleful. I listened to him and wondered where he was coming from. I once discussed clerics like this with the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi. “Taa lo ko won ni kewu (who taught them Quran/Arabic?)” was the oba’s rhetorical response to our worries. True, we should ask questions of competence when we hear such papal pronouncement from supposedly learned people. What he said was not what my Mallam taught me in Madrasha. If God had willed, He would have made all of humanity to belong to one nation (see Quran 5:48; see Quran 42:8); and one religious community (Quran 16:93). But, in His wisdom, God didn’t; instead, “to every people”, he sent “an apostle” (Quran 10:47). The Yoruba forbid saying or hearing what that Imam said about other religions. It is unYoruba to speak the language of perdition – they say man is not God.
It is in the character of the Yoruba to celebrate persons who speak with decorum. The highly regarded, thoughtful Chief Imam of Offa, Alhaji Muhyiddin Husayn, was at a Laylatul Qadr event in Ogbomoso a few days to last week’s sallah. His sermon at the programme was a tour de force on how to have a calm sea of peace. I heard him warn against unguarded utterances. He told the Chief Imam of Ogbomoso to win acceptability with character and close his running tap of hot words: “It is when you stop uttering words that words will stop uttering themselves,” he told the Imam. He added that bad words can’t win wars: “if you’ve seen war before, you will fear war” and “war knows no friend.” He cited examples with his own ascendancy experience. “The years I spent warding off attacks were enough as a man’s full tenure,” he said. But, he added, you would win if your tongue is bridled, if you do right and respect elders and pay hate with love. “One can gain an office with force”, he counseled, “but it takes patience and wisdom to sit there in peace.” Words, they say, draw kola nut from the pocket and can also draw sword from the pouch. The consequence of not listening to reason is having one’s milk spilt and the mug broken.
Ask master-potters if refiring can make whole again a broken pot. It is there in the experience of our fathers that a pot once broken, cannot be mended. There are several lethal pronouncements in Yoruba history with the pot metaphor at the centre. That is why we emphasize peace and unity in all our affairs.
The story of Islam and the Yoruba is the story of how leaf becomes soap. Scholars from the earliest of times have always marveled at how the Yoruba seamlessly combine opposition and accommodation when it comes to religion and religious matters. Fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam have neither comfortable bed nor cushion seat to relax and flourish in Yorubaland. And they won’t tomorrow. There is no family without both Muslim and Christian wings. In books and arts, we encounter moderation and cross-religious handshakes that emphasize the Yoruba moderation in matters of faith.
I read Gbadebo Gbadamosi’s ‘Odu Imale: Islam in Ifa Divination and the Case of Predestined Muslims’ published in the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, June 1977. In it, I encountered discussions on Ifa verses which tell us of Yoruba Muslim clerics, “their dress, travels, and the patronage which they enjoy from the people.” Ifa speaks of “Babamale ‘Bewu gereje/ti yio fi gbogbo aye se ofe je (the Muslim man/ who wears voluminous garment/ who will have the whole world as free bounty).” I read Razaq Kalilu’s ‘Bearded Figure with Leather Sandals: Islam, Historical Cognition And the Visual Arts of The Yoruba’ ((1997). Here, the author asks the reader to note earlier works which suggest that Sango, the third Alaafin of Oyo, was “favorably disposed to Muslims” to the extent that he got an oriki: “Ogbori odo s’aluwala ‘male (He that sits on a mortar to perform ablution like the Muslim.”
Whether Christian, Muslim or nothing, humanity is one – or supposed to be one. One hundred and fifty nine years ago, Harvard-trained American scientist, Pliny Earle Chase (1820-1886), sought to use similar words and word-sounds found in Yoruba and other ‘world’ languages to prove what he called the “universal brotherhood” of man. In a 39-page seminal article published in an 1865 edition of the ‘Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,’ Chase did a painstaking comparison of some Yoruba words and word sounds with some others found in Arabic, Latin, Greek, English, Hebrew, Chinese, German, Coptic, Gothic, French, Dutch, Egyptian, Italian, Finnish, etc languages. He examined similarities in sound and meaning of prefixes, suffixes and midfixes found common across Yoruba and those other languages. He, in particular, draws our attention to what he calls “the marvelous grammatical affinity that exists between the Yoruba, Egyptian, and Coptic Languages.” Copiously using T.J. Bowen’s ‘Grammar and Dictionary of the Yoruba Language’, he argues that it could not have been mere fortuitous occurrence of coincidences that “auro” (owuro)- morning/dawn in Yoruba is “aurora” (dawn) in Latin, just as “awari” (search) in Yoruba shares sound and meaning with the English word “aware”. He writes that there is “oro” (wealth) in Yoruba just as its Latin sound-mate, “aurum”, means gold. Chase notes with considerable interest that the word ‘duro’ means “to stay” (or stand firm) in Yoruba, and ‘duro’ in Latin means hard, harden, toughen, become stern. Incidentally, I also found that there is a similar Hebrew word, ‘dura’ which, among others, means ‘endurance.’ Chase’s conclusion is that humanity is one vindicating the Biblical assertion that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts, 17:26).
The world lounges under a fatal canopy. You should be following the escalated bloodshed in the Middle East. The standards and the double standard. It may still get worse. Just as it is in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, carrion birds are hooting at noon; ravens, crows and kites are flying above the “sickly” world. But, what we need is love to defeat war. And, we will have this if we are able to take care of the devil in race and religion. It is difficult. Daniel Defoe, in his ‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) writes that “Whenever God erects a house of prayer,/ The Devil always builds a chapel there; /And ’twill be found, upon examination (that) / The latter has the largest congregation.”
There is a strong belief among business leaders around the globe that businesses should no longer be about just making money. Every business should care deeply about society. This is why we frequently now hear of corporate social responsibility. Businesses are these days greatly concerned about social issues like inequality in society, poverty, primitive diseases, environmental protection, discrimination against women and minorities, and the entire gamut of social justice. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and David M. Rubenstein are among those involved in the Giving Pledge, some of the world’s richest men who have resolved to give much of their wealth to charity or worthy social causes.
Nigeria’s Allen Onyema, founder and chairman of Air Peace, is easily Nigeria’s version of these globally known entrepreneurs because of his commitment to the common good. The Lagos-London flights which his Air Peace started on Saturday, March 30, 2024, bear an eloquent testimony to his passion for the public good. No sooner he started the lucrative routes than foreign airlines in Nigeria announced drastic reductions in their fares. The foreign carriers, however, cleverly attributed the cutbacks to the Central Bank’s clearance of a backlog of $7bn owed them and the recent marginal gain in naira value. Interestingly, a section of the Nigerian media fell into their mind game and carried their propaganda without proper analysis. But that’s a story for another day.
As Tunde MacAlabi, the founder of the Africa International Investment and Trade Exhibition and Fair noted a few days ago, British Airways now charges N1.25m for a one-way ticket to London, and no longer N3.5m, as was the case a few weeks ago, even during the winter which is normally a low season. KLM has come down from $1,500 a few weeks ago to $641 for a trip from Lagos to Amsterdam. Turkish Airlines now accepts N1.76m instead of N5m, to fly a passenger from Lagos to Istanbul. The list goes on. The good news is that the slashes are on average about 50%, and the reductions may continue in the foreseeable future. All this is because Nigeria’s Air Peace is charging a mere N1.2m for the busy Lagos-London route.
The Air Peace chairman, noted MacAlabi, could have gone into a deal with foreign airlines to keep the Lagos-London fare high because of its enormous lucrativeness, but the patriot in him would not have allowed it. Onyema used his planes in 2020 amid the COVID pandemic, when most airlines in the world were in a total mess, to lift Nigerians who were under the sustained barrage of xenophobic violence in South Africa back to the country free of charge. He lifted 286 persons home on May 29 and 301 others the next day. He has also brought home distressed Nigerians from war-torn Ukraine and Sudan free of charge in 2022 and 2023, respectively. He has supported the Nigerian national football team without looking back. All this without regard to tribal, sectional, regional, religious, and gender differences.
Against this backdrop, Nigerians are touched deeply anytime Onyema says that his reason for setting up Air Peace was not to make money but to serve the tremendous social purpose of providing jobs for Nigerians and creating business opportunities where they could serve as suppliers and consultants. I have attended two such meetings in Abuja in the last two years. Indeed, it was his late father, as he revealed, who made him set up Air Peace in 2012 and the following year it commenced commercial operations. It is today Nigeria’s largest air carrier, with 38 planes. It began when Onyema’s father asked him to employ teeming kinsmen and others flooding the house for financial assistance. He took to the airline business because he already had a private jet and acquired some aircraft management experience.
It is logical to hold up Allen Onyema as a quintessential Nigerian practitioner of shared prosperity, the concept that everyone in society should benefit from prosperity. The idea that a business should exist purely for the shareholders is now discredited. Shareholder capitalism which the likes of Milton advocated fiercely has fallen out of favour because it has created or worsened many problems in the world like the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. In place of shareholder capitalism, there is now stakeholder capitalism. Stakeholders in a business are not just the investors but also the workers, the suppliers, distributors, the host community, the government, and even non-government organizations (NGOs). Among the top persons who have embraced this new thinking is Klaus Schwab, the German engineer, economist, and founder of the famous World Economic Forum whose annual meetings in January in Davos, Switzerland, are attended by thousands of top government leaders, writers, business leaders and thought leaders around the globe.
It is delightful that there are Nigerian entrepreneurs who subscribe to shared prosperity. Onyema stands out even among his peers. The new Lagos-London operations by Air Peace mean more aircraft for the airline, more direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians, and, of course, more prosperity for our people. To repeat the obvious, the Lagos-London flights have resulted in radical reductions in fares by Nigerian travellers. The cuts mean more savings for the people and more investments in their well-being and their businesses. The Air Peace founder truly runs a business with a soul.
Malam Abdullahi, a retired director in the federal public service, lives in Abuja.