The major obstacle to Nigeria’s meaningful development remains the crisis of leadership. Writers and commentators on public affairs often quote today as if written yesterday, a passage on this as aptly captured by the literary icon, Chinua Achebe in his book, The Trouble with Nigeria. Between the time he published the book and the emergence of Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as the nation’s Head of State in 2015, hardly did we know that we were in leadership paradise; when compared to what Nigerians have experienced in the last eight years, which is both happily and sadly coming to an end today. Who is not sad over eight years of being in the wilderness? Who is not happy that the worst may be ending today; though the outcomes will continue to torment us until the Elections Tribunal does the right thing?

As Gen. Muhammadu Buhari takes an undignified bow today, it is about time we reviewed some of the things he did that will certainly make Nigerians regard him as the worst national affairs manager in history. Let us start with the restoration of democracy in 1999.

From hindsight, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo rates as one of the best. By breaking the yoke of debt and borrowing, he wrote his name on the sands of time. Coming after him, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua will always be remembered for his forthrightness on issues about Nigeria, especially his maturity in bringing peace to the Niger Delta already battered by the activities of militia that hampered the economy of the country. President Goodluck Jonathan will also be remembered for his purposeful leadership, particularly his democratic credentials.

How shall we remember the out-gone President, Muhammadu Buhari? Shall we not do this by recalling his birth and growing-up? Said to be born on the 17th of December 1942, he remains a case of an incompetent man whose parentage and educational qualifications are shrouded in secrecy, but by a stroke of fortune reached the peak. He first became Head of State in 1983 after leading a military coup that overthrew the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. At that time, it was commonly believed that things were so bad in Nigeria that the coup was even welcome by Nigerians as a surgical necessity to restore the glory of the country.

I personally had a direct encounter with him through his monetary policy. I did not get the information that our resumption in school in 1984 had been postponed by one week as a result of the issuing of new currency notes by Buhari that year. I returned to school to a near-empty premises, and was constrained to leave my travel bag in a teacher’s room, I forgot to remove some perishables in it. By the time we returned the perishables had perished indeed and badly stained my bag.

In that era, Buhari created the image of a disciplinarian who wanted to put Nigeria on the right trajectory, but was prematurely removed by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and his boys. Watching him from a distance, we thought that feeling offended by what seemed to him the lies and cruelties of his follow coup plotters, that he became a pessimist recluse, shy, secretive, morose and always brooding over the opportunity he missed to turn Nigeria into an Eldorado. By osmosis of influence, that view of him as a reformer who was not allowed to fulfil his mission got stuck with some Nigerians.

I was sincerely one of those deceived by his histrionics and as such among those that secretly yearned for his return, believing that he possessed the magic wand to turn things aright. This was the spirit with which some Nigerians welcomed his second coming in 2015; not realising, like many of us, that he is the most bigoted president yet to be witnessed. The day he entered Abuja as the president-elect, delighted Nigerians surged forward in the panoramic and delightful formation of human heads. Hardly did Nigerians realise that they had just procured their own destruction.

Going by his travails on the route to the presidency, which he contested three times before securing victory, and judging from what I consider a profound statement that came from him, namely “I belong to nobody; I belong to everybody”, we thought he had come with genuine interest to re-position the country. We expected him to jettison who voted or did not vote for him and use maturity to unite the diversities in the country, which is the elementary task of statesmanship. Today, he is leaving Nigeria and Nigerians divided as she has not witnessed before.

As he leaves for Daura or Niger Republic, the time is ripe to place him on the crucible of evaluation. How would reasonable men evaluate his eight years on the saddle? Often, we hear his aides and a few others tell us about his successes, though we do not know the spirit with which they say so, seriously or whimsically. A full perspective of him would require seeing him through his sectoral “achievements.”

Immediately he was sworn-in, the man who pretended he had no relatives during electioneering begun inauspiciously by indulging all his known relatives in appointments. As time went by, his far-reaching aim became clearer: to Fulanise the country without giving a hoot about whatever anybody said or however anybody felt.

Under him the pastoralist became emboldened, carried guns and nothing happened. Because of his unabashed aim, his government was totally negligent and was marked by corruption, administrative incompetence and squandering of revenue on favoured parasites. By degree, many things deserving of abhorrence gathered around Aso Rock – It has been a change for the worse.

While he was campaigning, he made the issue of security his campaign mantra. Bragging over his military background, he boasted how he would restore security to the country. He even talked glibly about the relocation to troubled spots until the causes of the insurrection were blighted in the bud. Today when we look at the country, all we see are terrorism and insurrection that have become many times magnified. This is so, especially against the admission of the President about four months ago of how he had spent over 1 Billion Dollars in purchase of arms and ammunition to fight insecurity.

It is so easy to use his antecedents to prove that he has never been serious about fighting crime in the country. Has he ever behaved as if he knew about the existence of insecurity in the South-East? Which responsible and right-thinking leader, no matter how he hates a people, would allow the Monday sit-at-home to persist when he would have sacrificed whatever was inhibiting him and release Nnamd Kalu who he earlier went after with the eagerness of a hound sniffing blood? Had he devoted same energy to fight crime in Nigeria, the country would have been crime-free by now. To show how foolish his actions were and his manic-joy in inflicting pain, I can bet that whoever becomes President would of necessity start his tenure by allowing Nnamdi Kalu to go home. How can you directly punish millions of people because you want to deal with one man? As far as his actions are concerned, Buhari is not worthy to be called a leader because he is not. He is painfully self-imprisoned in his heritage of hate.

Besides insurgency and terrorism, even minor internal security lapses appeared to be beyond our General. Thinking he was genuine, we felt that it would be easy for him to stop the extortion of Nigerians by different agencies of the State on the roads in the form of road blocks. A simple directive to the heads of those agencies that their jobs were dependent on stopping the extortion would have done the magic. In this age and time, when most countries even in Africa do not mount road blocks, it is a shame that Nigeria still does so. It was the scenario under Buhari for eight years and evidently, he may not have even known that such a thing was one of the regrettable features of Nigeria.

Have you gone to a police station recently? It is shocking to know that citizens have to pay to report crimes against them. If, for example, one loses one’s phone, one has to pay to report the case in a police station. Sometime one would not blame the police because they are not funded and would not do the work with their blokos. The unfortunate sequel is that Nigerians pray not to become victims of crimes. Most now prefer not to report crimes against them because they would end up spending more money and, in the end, achieve nothing. Under Buhari, we are talking of a country where scammers daily empty people’s account into known and existing accounts and yet nothing would come out of reporting such cases. If a crime against one involves tracking, the only solution is hiring and paying a private tracker for the job!

As soon as Buhari was elected in 2015, medical tourism became part of his busy-for-nothing schedule. Having often visited the UK for medicals, one had expected that he would build two or three world class hospitals prompted by the thought that not all Nigerians would afford travelling overseas for medical treatment like himself. But the irony is that Buhari cannot point at any singular thing he did for the health sector. Under him, over 12,000 Nigerian doctors and medical workers have relocated to other countries, where they ply their trade.

He shamelessly commissioned Dangote refinery a few days ago when, in eight years, most of which he doubled as the Minister of Petroleum, he could not fix any of our refineries. Under him, the prize of diesel has caused many surviving companies to close shops. Any move he made ended up disappointing as when we thought he wanted to infuse new and fresh hands into the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC) only to discover that he sacked the old, top management staff to accommodate his brothers without regard for merit and qualification.

A few days ago, precisely on the 24th of May, I spoke with Prof. Okey Ikechukwu who was in Morocco for consultancy services. I asked him to compare the country and Nigeria. Ikechukwu replied in the form of a question: “Who would compare the living and the dead?” It was another round of discussion on the sad situation in Nigeria. Any nation that tolerated the likes of Buhari as President, especially after his disastrous first tenure is sick unto death! The irony is that the same people that did so have foisted another disaster on the country. That yoke is on everyone’s neck: businessmen, legal practitioners, the judiciary, civil servants, drivers, Batists, Obidients and must be collectively removed for the sake of our freedom.

Contrary to his protestations on corruption, after eight years it is now clear that Buhari is among the most corrupt Nigerians. During electioneering, he made the fight against corruption the cornerstone of his speeches. Looking back, all we can say is that Nigeria is still “fantastically” corrupt. This means that in eight years, he has achieved nothing in that regard. We witnessed a little gragra here and there, but all amounted to nothing. His greatest legacy in this regard was how he shielded his allies and political associates who were manifestly corrupt.

One area Buhari scored first without contest is in foreign trips. If quantified, Buhari’s foreign trips, averaging 2 per month, would have cost the country nothing less than 50 billion Naira since 2015. Is there any country in the world he did not travel to, some multiple times? It is true that Obasanjo travelled a lot, especially during the efforts to secure the country’s debt forgiveness. At that time, his Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also travelled for the same issue. Ultimately, Nigerian’s debts were cancelled.

I remember how the fruits of Jonathan’s trips were gladly announced to the country, including when he agreed with his South African counterpart that Nigerians with official passports would travel to South Africa without visa and vice versa. Could somebody tell us one significant thing Buhari’s foreign trips earned or achieved for Nigeria? With his level of articulation and understanding as revealed from few interviews it is even right to suspect that he did not understand what went on in most of those foreign trips he undertook. It was laughable when he was said to have travelled to deliver papers on security, revamping of ailing economies and on leadership. Could somebody ever give what he does not have? He is a cattle rearer and does not understand the commercial complexities on which modern economies thrive.

Is it not an irony that a man who rendered his country economiless was travelling to teach other countries the techniques of revamping ailing economies? Under Buhari, Nigeria’s GDP growth rate which was positive in 2015 has remained negative. The nation officially underwent two recessions under him even when it is clear that Nigeria has remained becalmed in recession. How do we describe inflation under him? Go to the market with one Million Naira today and you will come back with a polythene bag! Buhari will leave behind his miserable years, a social order that is iniquitous; that makes a small minority idly rich and corrupt with luxury at the expense of keeping millions of Nigerians in a degrading poverty.

Did we forget any of them? What of the controversial writer of the obituary fame? He has proved himself to be the fountainhead of ignorance, intolerance, and epistolary persecution. People like him have made us not to take many so-called activists seriously again. I was shocked at the position some of them, even in my class, took during electioneering. Some shattered the age-long myth they created around themselves because of pettiness of opinions influenced by extraneous factors. How could men thus fettered by pettiness give free flight to their genius or hasten human progress? Pity!

It is disgraceful that some Nigerians talk in terms of Buhari’s achievement in infrastructure. Which achievement is significant when placed side by side with a man who, between 2015 and 2023, borrowed over 80 trillion Naira? In fact, borrowing was among his few expertise. There is no part of the world from which he did not borrow, China, Japan, France, India, Germany, among others. Some of the money he borrowed were given or spent on Niger Republic. He also built railway in Niger Republic as well as procured vehicles and security equipment for them.

Honestly, there are issues in which Buhari, having failed to make any impact, show him as a sample of 21st Century failure in leadership. Talk about metering of energy consumption. Before they will start telling us that he did this or that, would anybody point at any improvement in the energy sector in eight years? There was none, instead it retrogressed. How many cities in Nigeria have 6 hours uninterrupted light in a day? Is it rocket science to get all houses in Nigeria metered?

In the area of political appointments, he was also worse. When Obasanjo, for example, talked about reforms, he showed his seriousness by appointing men and women with capacity, who understood what reforms mean. As for Buhari, he made so much noise about reforms, even while contributing to it the unreformable men as his Ministers. We have the case of characters like Alhaji Lai Mohammed: noisy and loquacious. It appears that to be considered a man among their tribe, you must defile your mouth with the most filthy, brutal lies. A friend described his species admiringly: “they are, with that SAN, a species of barely human animals who carry a paunch of poison under their tongues; when they speak, their venom mingle with their words and pollute all the surrounding air.” Recently, one of them, after having served as a Minister of State and collected his payment and other emoluments, told us, with all the careful pleonasm of legal phraseology, how that particular appointment was a constitutional aberration.

What of the other one, the oil-mouthed, slippery, wife-beating, time-serving sycophant they hired during electioneering? He could change as faster as the chameleon dares change. Obasanjo summarised him in compact epigram suggesting what he has proved over the years: amenability to the charms of money. Conceited, boastful, insolent, self-centred; and in the exhilaration of his conscious talent he rode with thoughtlessness over the sensibilities of his time. In his write-ups, he likes creating an intellectual atmosphere electric with controversy. Whenever he speaks, as when he attacked Chimamanda Adichie, kind hearted Nigerians proposed to send him to a doctor for the cure of his madness.

In spite his failures; Nigerians were almost at the verge of forgiving him when he showed signs of conducting a free and fair election. However, he decided to place a stamp on his failure by ending up conducting the worst election in the history of electioneering in Africa. That election was a whirlwind that is distributing ominous debris around the country. In his characteristic manner, he would steal to Daura as he did during election, and pretend he did not know what was happening. Knowing how government agencies function, the INEC Chairman would have briefed him on what was happening and he must have asked him to go on and announce the result – they actually acted a written script. Part of that script was what they did with the Naira at that time. The practical disfranchisement of Nigerians had removed the mental stimulus that comes from free political activity and a widespread sense of liberty and power.

The history of Nigeria under Buhari is clearly the history of re-barbarisation. No matter how or by what parameters he is judged, he maintained his reputation for mediocrity from the start to the end of his tenure. Even towards the end of his tenure age did nothing to mollify this tendency to wickedness.

As we guide him out of the scene according to the provisions of the constitution, our prayer is that no country in the world shall be inflicted with such a disaster. By all indices, his eight years is what it was: a barbarous interlude. With what he did in Nigeria, I do not think he should become a happy man thereafter.

Finally, how do we summarise Buhari? As I discussed the man with my friend, Barr. Robinson Alaekwe, he wished our dear country would not witness such a disaster again. I made it clear to Robinson that his position verged on wickedness. Beyond Nigeria, may no country in this world witness the like of Buhari as its president. The mistaken statesman we saw rising like some spacecraft Apollo due to concourse of factors that threw him up among the luminaries of his time has since crashed like the Challenger. What a man! He will forever remain a butt of dinner jollity whenever how not to be a President is discussed. The sight of the man handing over power today shall teach all of us the humbling finale of all earthly powers.

As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu mounted the saddle last Monday holding aloft the baton as Nigeria’s next leader, it was not impossible that he had butterflies in his stomach. How did he feel when he woke up that morning? Did he pinch himself to be sure he was not dreaming? It was clearly a day the Jagaban, alongside his wife, Senator Oluremi, and family members looked forward with bated breath. 

Finally, the day came with the break of dawn. It was May 29 and the events that unfolded would remain memorable, especially for Tinubu. “Oko mi, e ja gba du ra,” Remi would have told Tinubu that morning, as they prepared for the historic moments ahead. This translates to: “My husband, let us pray.” 

Don’t forget that a family that prays together stays together.

With Tinubu as president under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), why can’t all things become new? He asked for the job and he got it. Asiwaju Tinubu has been preparing for the job for more than 30 years. APC’s Renewed Hope manifesto is expected to catalyse a new beginning for Nigeria. .  

One of Apostle Paul’s well-known passages in his letters to Corinth is recorded in 2 Corinthians 5:17. “Behold, all things have become new” from the passage is the relevant context because “the old order of things have passed away.” 

It is believed that Paul authored most of the epistles in the New Testament. President Tinubu should do likewise and create a new direction for Nigeria. I am sure he knows that Nigerians are expectant and they are eager to enjoy the benefits of the reforms that will be introduced. 

Tinubu is fully aware of his new role and he knows he cannot afford to let Nigerians down. This is a self-imposed moral burden, but help will surely come from different quarters. The signal from the international community is re-assuring as they continue to pledge their support for the new administration to succeed. 

The announcements Tinubu made on fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange arbitrage during his inauguration are timely, commendable and exemplary. For how long are we going to pretend that we do not know where the shoe is pinching us? 

Truth be told, we have been wasteful in government spending. The best decision that Tinubu has taken since he was sworn in was announcing that there would be no more fuel subsidy. He is backed by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) which came into effect two years ago.

The law says fuel subsidy effectively ended on February 17, 2021 – six month after the bill was passed by the National Assembly. But former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration had the courage but lacked the political will to end the duplicitous fuel subsidy regime which created fat cats over the years. 

How on earth did we pay for the subsidy when the federal government was reeling under the yoke of mounting debts? We did not have the money to pay for importing premium motor spirit (PMS) which we call petrol but NNPC Limited paid on behalf of the government.

Mele Kyari, the chief executive of NNPC Limited, announced at a press conference recently that the organisation is being owed over N2.8 trillion for imported PMS. Last year alone, over $10 billion was paid as subsidy for petrol. This money could have been used for other essential services. 

President Tinubu should watch two trending and insightful videos by Audu Ogbe (on ending importation of goods such as toothpicks that drain our foreign exchange) and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (on ending multiple foreign exchange rates).

Clearly, the big elephant in the room is corruption. How are we going to solve this problem that is endemic in the public and private sectors? According to Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), fighting corruption is dangerous.

Both Ogbe (former minister of agriculture) and Sanusi (banker, spiritual leader and former Emir of Kano) are well-known personalities and they were very frank in their submissions. They maintain that hard decisions must be made to rescue our economy from the “enemies” of Nigeria who have formed cartels to promote their selfish interests. Their only agenda is economic sabotage and they have been at it for many years.

This sabotage includes the egregious theft in the oil and solid minerals sectors which must be stopped at all cost. It is also alleged that our gold is stolen from Zamfara State and airlifted to Niamey in neighboring Niger Republic where they are loaded into private jets to their final destinations. 

Who are these economic saboteurs? Are they not Nigerians? President Tinubu must combat these vested interests by assembling the best team for his administration. They must be men and women of proven character and integrity who are willing to be selfless and serve with distinction. In addition, they must have the capacity, track record of performance and presence of mind to do what is right without fear for favour.

The people Tinubu appoint – which should be done within 30 days – will determine the type of applause that he would receive from Nigerians and investors. Hope must be renewed in thought, word and deed. The president must understand that he is now the father of the nation; he must therefore be fair to all – including mending broken hearts.

He should watch “Designated Survivor,” a political drama and conspiracy thriller. It is a television series (53 episodes, three seasons) that depicted how an accidental American president, Thomas Kirkman, prioritised “integrity” and “fair-play” to defend the interest of Americans. 

Tinubu should similarly act with courage, integrity and fairness and defend the public interest at all times. He must never endorse the selfish interests of a few Nigerians – no matter how highly placed – and their foreign collaborators.

In the movie, Kirkman insisted that the right thing must be done always in the interest of the American people. He frowned at the idea or wild imagination which suggested that anyone one in the White House – or any American for that matter – should cut corners to achieve their goals. He promoted the American values of human rights, dignity, liberty, freedom and justice as the cornerstone of their democracy.

Rotary’s Four-Way test principle will also be helpful for President Tinubu and I recommend that he should put them to work daily: Is it the truth; Is it fair to all concerned; Will it build goodwill and better friendships, and Will it be beneficial to all concerned.

Integrity is a core value of Rotary, a fellowship and humanitarian service organisation founded in 1905 by Paul Harris, a Chicago attorney, in over 200 countries and territories in the world. The other values are service, diversity, leadership and fellowship.

I have no doubt Asiwaju Tinubu will also find these values useful as he settles down to work. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” is a popular saying which applies to his situation. His plate will always be full and I can only imagine what his daily schedule will look like.

Mr President, there is no time for frivolities. You must discourage all the groups who may wish to come to Aso Villa in different colourful costumes to congratulate you; tell them you are very busy.

The same people will go behind you and say rubbish about your presidency. It is why you must devote your time and energy to work for Nigeria, and send a strong signal to those who do “eye service” to stay away from you. 

You are not new to this game; you have been a senator and governor. Let the whole world know that the “Emilokan” spirit is alive to achieve a higher purpose for Nigeria. This should count as your legacy. 

Tolerate those who are sending you messages for appointments. Lobbying is part of the game but always remember that fair-play garnished in a sauce called integrity and social justice is the name of the game.

Put Nigeria first in all your decisions and ensure that you protect our democracy which you fought for at the risk of your own life under the jackboot military dictatorship of late Sani Abacha. No one can deny that because the evidence is there for all to see. 

At the end of the day, even your traducers will respect your leadership qualities and acknowledge your achievements.

You distinguished yourself as governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2005. Now is the time to even do more at the national level as the 16th president of Nigeria.

I wish you well, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

There is so much to say and write about the month of May. May is the fifth month of the year. As numerologists are wont to say, but mostly those who preoccupy themselves with the science of numbers, Figure 5 represents Love. It is powered by the force that is Love and it swings in Love. It can, therefore, be no surprise that the Son of God Almighty, Jesus, carries five letters, for indeed, He is the Love of God, the Love Part of the Father as I have mentioned in this column a few times now while Imanuel, the Justice Arm of God swings in Figure 7 which is also Perfection. Thus, the Justice and Will of God manifesting in the Laws of Creation otherwise called the Laws of Nature cannot be anything but perfect. It is through these living and perfect Laws, self-acting and self-enforcing, irrevocable, automatic, and unceasing, the Most High Creator governs His Creation.

In May, out of Love, the Almighty Creator renews His Creation during the outpouring of Power from On High. The Lord Christ said to His Disciples, “Be ye gathered in Jerusalem and ye shall be endued with Power from the Holy Spirit.” It is an Event that has been taking place from the beginning of Creation. If in any year, this renewal does not take place, Creation will shrivel and wither and all creatures, animate and inanimate, denied of energy, will go into extinction. To round off the series on Creation, having drawn our attention to how Creation came into existence as revealed in higher knowledge available on earth today, I consider it imperative to avert our minds to how it is maintained and will so be in all eternity. This concluding part is being handed over to John Olufemi Kusa, my “Siamese twin” and former Director of Publications/Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian. Captioned Significance of May (Pentecost) to Human Existence, the piece reads:

Nigerians will remember 29 May 2023 for the inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In other countries, different events will make that day a historic one. Yet, for many people worldwide, May 29 of every year is observed in spiritual retreat as the forerunner day of the peak of Pentecost or the outpouring of Power from On High into our universe.

Since I learned in 1978 of the importance of May of every year for human existence, I have striven inwardly to withdraw from material encumbrances in the last three days of that month to give it deserved attention. Many of us do not know we are tiny parts of a mighty whole and that the mighty whole is microscopically present in each of us. One remembers this fact all over every May 29, 30, and 31 when one observes one’s heartbeat, about 72 of them every minute, and imagines the blood as it circulates within the body. Then one strives to imagine this microscopic event in the body of a mortal man at play in the gigantic universe as what is happening below is a mere miniature of what is going on in the mighty whole, the universe. Does it mean that the universe has a heart that is beating and pumping “blood” around it? If this is so, of what significance is it for the existence of every creature, including man, in the universe?

Left to man, this conception must be a difficult one to disentangle. He is no longer a balanced being with the ability to simultaneously experience material and immaterial existence. The intellect, resident in the frontal brain, the cerebrum or the “big” brain, the sharpest instrument of the material world, is over-cultivated and out of balance with the back brain, the cerebellum, the connection point with the immaterial or invisible world. Thus, the average earthman knows only his physical environment and of nothing else. Yet, that other world exists and is tangible to whosoever connects himself or herself to it. Earthly affairs, political, social, economic, etc, or simply our tangible world is upside down solely because many of us are no longer able to connect with the immaterial world. The immaterial world we are now distant from is the world that should govern our activities in the material world. There are very few human beings today who are balanced human beings because their frontal brains and back brains are no longer balanced. Our language should have warned us about this. We do not speak of a small eye and a big eye. Nor do we speak of a big hand and a small hand. Both lobes of the ear are symmetrically positioned and physically apportioned. So something must be wrong with the conception of a big brain and a small brain. It is this imbalance that makes governments, citizens, and the professions to be unable to think straight when it comes to doing things the way the universe, the microscopic part of it, expects us to conduct ourselves.

Nevertheless, there is a life to the materialist or a purely intellectual person. This lifeline is Revealed Knowledge. Knowledge belongs to the realm of the non-physical world. We always make the mistake of believing that the intellectually developed person or someone who has trained his or her brain through the study of something earthly or physical is a knowledgeable person. Oh no! He or she is only an erudite person brimming with erudition in his or her field of material preoccupation. A cardiologist is erudite when it comes to discussing the heart and the cardiovascular system before laypersons or even specialist doctors like himself. But when he says he “knows” a person or something, you ask, can this be a true statement? Whoever “knows” the other person? You cannot say you “know me” simply because you have been seeing me, reading my articles, or hearing about me almost all your life. Only a person who can see that other person in and out can claim or speak of knowing him or her.

We may understand this subject better and appreciate it better, also, the concept of revealed knowledge from the story of a psychic boy. He was in elementary school. He liked to be by himself whenever other children trooped out of their class for snacks or to relax during break time. The boy was called John. His story was told by Neale Donald Walsch in his book titled Conversations with God. The book was a gift to me on 12th April 1999 from Mr. Jacob Akindele, economist, tennis coach, and a member of the Editorial Board of The Guardian newspaper. I guess he thought I needed to read it after my review in the newspaper of James Redfield’s book, Celestine Prophecy.

One day, during class break, John’s teacher, a woman, walked up to him to ask why he was not out for a break. John gave her a shocking and surprising reply. He said her son had just had an accident. She had a son. When she asked him what he meant, John replied that her son was trying to cross a road and a vehicle knocked him down. The teacher thought that John was out of his mind. But soon after the break was over and she resumed her work, the head teacher walked in with someone beside him. They came to break the news to her that her son had just been knocked down by a vehicle and was in hospital! The teacher looked straight at John, picked up her bag, and announced to the class that she had to leave and she went to see her son in the hospital.

What I am trying to say is that knowingness is knowledge, and the capacity or ability to know does not reside in the frontal brain but in the Spirit. The intellect is no more than the perceptive capacity of the brain to gather information, classify and analyze it when and if necessary. Where most human beings on earth do not realise that they are Spirit Beings, we cannot speak of their ability to recognise easily, become seeing and knowing and, therefore, become knowledgeable. So, when we speak of revealed knowledge, it is knowledge revealed to the person who does not possess it. We are all meant to be knowing persons, but, unfortunately, we have become thinking persons. That means we think before we act. We do not receive or act on the basis of that which we have received, using the intellect as an instrument to shape our conduct. We do not receive or, rather, we do not easily receive anymore because the back brain, the cerebellum, which is the spiritually receptive part of the brains, has become stunted or atrophied from lack of sufficient use for which reason we now recognise it as the “small” brain. That also, is why our world is upside down and, there is no peace or happiness.

Christians are aware of the BOOK OF REVELATIONS. Moslems, too, are well advised of the events this book of revealed knowledge says are forthcoming to the earth. I find interesting the Revelation about May 30 in Revealed Knowledge of Our Time. It takes us back to that Temple in Christian teachings where 16 Elders continually sing Holy, Holy, Holy, God Almighty. Going by this revealed knowledge, the Temple is at the boundary of the worlds of the angels and interfaces with another Temple right below it where before Creation came into existence, there was a dark, cold, and lifeless void. With the Creation order, LET THERE BE LIGHT, a spiritual temple appeared beneath the Divine Temple of the 16 Elders like an annex to it. From out of the Spiritual Temple, came out the Power which lit up and warmed the lifeless, dark void, giving it the ability to host and sustain existence. This was the creation of Paradise or the various species of Creation. It was after the lowest of these worlds that the material worlds developed as miniature semblances. The earth is the Outpost of the material worlds in our universe called EPHESUS. This universe is one of seven referred to in the Book of Revelations which speaks of a Message to The Seven Churches of Asia. In the Divine Message, the “seven churches” and “Asia” is the spiritual name of Creation. An archangel superintends each universe and is being addressed by a higher order. This should resolve the assurances of the Lord Jesus that there were many “many mansions in My Father’s House.” How else but as shown in this revelation could there have been many mansions in a single house? God’s house is the entire Creation and the mansions are the various spheres of existence!

At the peak of Paradise stands a Temple. In this Temple, there is a vessel. It is from this vessel that all the worlds below this Temple in Paradise receive power from the Almighty Creator for their continued existence, flowering, and fruiting. Once a year in earthly parlance, power is poured out to the creations below for their maintenance. The outpouring is akin to the pumping of blood by the human heart to all parts of the body. When the heart fails to perform this function, the possibility of death is high. As it is above, so is it below, we have been told. Thus, if there is no outpouring of Divine Power from the Chalice in the highest Temple in Paradise, Creation would become deprived of energy, it would shrivel or wilt and…die!

In the aforementioned Revealed Knowledge in our time, the Renewal of Power for Creation takes place in the earthly month of May every year. The Revealed Knowledge informs us that the earthly peak of this event is May 30th. Knowing ones assemble in groups in every country where the knowledge is anchored in worshipful thankfulness, to absorb this power unhindered and to triumphantly use it beneficially for upbuilding purposes on this earth and in the Universe.

This revelation does not end there. It informs us that, as this period approaches in Paradise, the Knights of the Temple Who guard the Chalice seriously beseech the Holy Spirit. There is rejoicing in the Temple when the Holy Dove appears over the Chalice. It is the spiritually visible form of the Holy Spirit. Clairvoyants sighted the Holy Dove above the Person of the Lord Jesus wherever He was. Even Joseph, His earthly father, would sight it only on his deathbed when the Lord Jesus stood beside him. So moved was he, we are told, that all doubts departed from him and he exclaimed…So, THOU ART HE! The appearance of the Dove above the Person of Jesus is evidence that, like the Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, He and the Father are One in their Activities.

Some churches may have come to the recognition of The Holy Dove as the spiritually visible form of the Holy Spirit to make an image of it as part of their paraphernalia. As the Holy Dove stands over the Chalice inveighing it with power, the Chalice bubbles over from an outpouring of Power from the Holy Spirit into Creation. This Event has come to be recognised as Pentecost. This was what the Disciples of the Lord Jesus experienced in the upper chamber. According to reports of that Event, clairvoyants saw Tongues of Fire descend onto the head of each of them, and their souls were spiritually invigorated. Some Nigerian churches do not celebrate Pentecost. Those that do believe that it was a one-off Event of which the congregation is merely reminded once a year. But in other spiritual circles, it is well known, thanks to Revealed Knowledge, that this Event has been occurring since the beginning of Creation and will continue to occur for as long as Subsequent Creation deserves to exist through the Will of God, especially after the promised millennium. Man is now educated that Jesus knew about it, having come from the Almighty creator. Did He not warn that man’s sins against the Almighty Father and those against Him, Jesus, would be forgiven, but those against the Holy Spirit would not? Jesus knew of the time of the Pentecost of His time and instructed His Disciples to gather in the upper chamber for the blessing. In fact, as we are now informed, His Ascension took place on the crest of the waves of power rebounding Homeward.

Pentecost has not ceased to occur at the designated time every Earth year calendar, and May 30th has remained its peak. The trouble is that this power is received by many human beings today, but not consciously as the Disciples absorbed it. In this regard, it drives not many people towards beautiful ends as it did the Disciples; some bubble while a great many use it for ignoble ends not knowing the power that fills them. If we carefully observe what we call Nature at this time, it is a season of regeneration. In our part of the earth, the rains come visiting, the fields and forests are greener, refreshing and they bow the spirits. When the greens settle on the soul, it is driven to the point of almost bursting. The soil yields crops in abundance. The fruits and vegetables beckon in their abundance. Traditionally, on the other hand, it is the season of outbursts not only in Nigeria but globally. It is the season of protests and turmoil of Aluta Continua in Nigeria with youth raising clenched fists to hit the air if the sky is unattainable. Anyone who does not absorb and use the power is more likely to put it to negative, indeed ill-use. It is the period laden with Flash Points if we run our minds through history whether it is the Second World War (1939-1945) and events that preceded it and then the invasion of Poland by Germany; the Nigerian Biafra War (1967-1970) after the declaration of Biafra on 27 May 1967.

One would not know the thinking that informed the shifting of the inauguration of the Nigerian President from October 1, Nigeria’s independence anniversary to May 29, a previously quiet date on the Nigerian calendar. It may very well be that whoever threw up the idea was guided to imbue the new President with the power of Pentecost. It may very well be just one of those things. Whatever it may be, our prayer is that our country would attract blessings as would help the citizens and country alike to recognise the unswerving Will of the Almighty Creator and fulfill it. For, that alone is what can renew the land, heal wounds, and restore genuine peace in the beleaguered land.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is under fire for announcing that petrol subsidy is gone from day one. His inauguration address also touched on a unified currency exchange, high-interest rates and power, among others.

Of all these, however, the one that got the headlines was the petrol subsidy and the most frequently expressed concern, is why now? 

To say, in his first speech, that fuel subsidy was gone, that a unified exchange rate was vital, and that the current interest rate was anti-people and anti-business, was the economic equivalent of an earthquake. 

Of the four preceding presidential inauguration speeches since 1999 from Olusegun Obasanjo to Buhari, none that I reviewed was nearly as audacious and as provokingly clear as Tinubu’s position was on perhaps the most crucial economic decisions as he took office. 

Obasanjo, for example, talked about corruption, loss of confidence in government and the Niger Delta crisis. His three successors spoke about infrastructure, corruption and unemployment. But none was bang on the nail, as frontal and clear, as Tinubu’s was. We’re struggling because we’re used to being lied to.

Interestingly, in campaigns before the last general election, the other leading presidential candidates – Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of Labour Party – said they would remove subsidy. Obi, in fact, called it an “organised crime” and he was right.

For a man who has his work cut out for him, Tinubu does not have the luxury of philosophy or poetry. Not when organised criminals trading on a yearly petrol subsidy of about N4.4trillion as of 2022, have left the country bleeding nearly to death. He had to make his own structural earthquake or risk uncontrolled seismic explosion. If not now, then when? 

Tinubu’s dilemma reminds me of the story of a number of leaders confronted with extremely difficult choices before they had time to settle in office. The first of them is the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who told his story eloquently in his autobiography, “Bibi: My story.”

Israel might have had some important military successes before, but at the time Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996 the country was an economic basket case and inflation was in double digits.

Netanyahu ran for and won the premiership against his father’s advice, against principalities in his own Likud Party and against veterans in the ruling Labour Party. Winning was hard, but making his victory count was even harder. The press and the unions hated him and didn’t hide it.

As he rolled up his sleeves, he was shocked at what he found when he entered the cabinet room for his first meeting. The room was like a banquet hall, lined with omelets, cheese, assorted bread, tomatoes, cucumber, jam, cookies and so on.

“The cabinet ministers were already busy munching away,” he wrote, “passing dishes to one another. It reminded me of the Shabbat Breakfast Club in the synagogue in Hull, Massachusetts.”

It was the sort of executive indulgence that President Obasanjo also saw in Nigeria when he assumed office in 1999 and his response then, like Netanyahu’s on that day, was to scrap the nonsense immediately. 

But cabinet menu reform was the least problem on his plate. The real challenge was how to free the country from a semi-socialist nanny economy, state control, exposure to future global vulnerabilities, the dominance of monopolies, and union fat cats.

“By far the most important reform I enacted,” he said reflecting on that very difficult period, “was to liberate Israel’s rigid foreign currency controls. In 1998, Israel still resembled many third-world countries with regards to currency. Israelis could not take more than $7,000 out of the country without special authorisation from Israel’s central bank. Returning from abroad, they had to redeposit and register all foreign currency they held inside the country.” 

His finance minister and other bureaucrats opposed his decision to announce immediate currency reforms. They argued that such a drastic step would seriously devalue the country’s currency. He bit the bullet, and his finance minister resigned in anger.

By 2004, in spite of dire warnings of the disastrous consequences of his actions, Netanyahu had removed all foreign exchange restrictions. He transformed Israel’s economy from third to first world by following a simple rule: “Whenever possible, remove barriers to trade. Money, trade and investments generally flow to the freer economies away from the more controlled ones.”

Of course, to unleash innovation and creativity, he also tackled the archaic educational system. He told university administrators at one point that although he had the utmost respect for the study of humanities, if he had to share government shekel between Tibetan poetry and microelectronics, he would have no hesitation putting the money in the latter.

It wasn’t easy for China’s Deng Xiaoping either. In the face of very serious economic challenges, Xiaoping made painful decisions not very different from those of Netanyahu. He liberalised the economy, unleashed the energy of the private sector and the small businesses, and introduced one of the most controversial – yet most consequential social reforms: the one-child policy. 

Also, India remained a nearly-there economic success story until nine years ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took some of the most far-reaching economic reforms, restructuring the tax system and expanding financial literacy and inclusiveness to cover the so-called “untouchables.”

From Netanyahu to Modi, the lesson is clear: a leader who inherits a broken country and an underperforming economy must take tough decisions or risk failure. Of course, tough decisions do not necessarily guarantee success. But shying away from them guarantees failure.

Since Tinubu said on Monday that petrol subsidy was gone, he has been criticised for a speech “lacking in empathy and philosophy.” If the current subsidy regime would officially end on June 30, why did he make an obviously unpopular decision on his first day on the job without first laying out how it was going to work?

For decades in this country, I have listened to empathetic and philosophical speeches about how subsidy only benefits the rich and how the country is being robbed to indulge them, yet nothing fundamental has been done to correct the situation. Government after government just kicks the can down the road.

I have heard union leaders, probably the greatest obstacles to a more transparent and efficient supply system, call for “greater stakeholder engagement”, when all they really want to do is exploit and milk public disaffection by holding the system hostage with threats of strikes, the sort of attitude that makes Margaret Thatcher’s handling of the unions in the UK look like redemption moment.

President Goodluck Jonathan came very close to scrapping subsidy in 2012. He was snagged, not by his good intention, but by the discovery that $6.8 billion collected to mitigate the impact of subsidy removal between 2009 and 2011 after petrol prices were raised from N65 to N120, had been cornered and stolen by his own government officials.

For eight years, President Muhammadu Buhari toyed with subsidy removal. In spite of strong support even by key members of his own party, however, he couldn’t quite overcome an approach-avoidance conflict, a catastrophic hallmark of his government.  

In 2020 the minister of finance said subsidy had been removed from the budget. Yet Buhari, the minister of Petroleum Resources who once said subsidy was a scam, turned a blind eye as subsidy returned in full force reaching an all-time high according to Reuters of N4.4trillion in 2022 alone. 

For lovers of philosophy and poetry, eight years of prevarication and temporising under Buhari was enough orchestra. One more day after would have unleashed the same forces that have held us hostage for this long. Not a luxury we can afford anymore.

The immediate fallout of Tinubu’s announcement would be messy, even ugly, with spikes in general price levels. Even though NNPC Limited has not issued import franchises in the last two weeks at least, which means the market had been hedging and anticipating Tinubu’s announcement, he had barely finished speaking when petrol queues surfaced all over the country and pump prices per litre tripled in some places.

That’s not new or unforeseen. Nor would the outcome have been significantly different even if Tinubu had waited another year before making the announcement or if NNPC had waited another six months before confirming the removal of pump price caps. 

My guess is that after the initial inevitable chaos, the market would gradually adjust and consumers, used to the easy road, would adapt. Prodigal states, faced with shrinking handouts from Abuja, would also have to examine their fiscal choices. 

There would be a need to reduce the impact on the weak and vulnerable, the bulk of who are outside the major cities and beyond the reach of the self-serving arguments of the city elite and the unions. But even intervention cannot start unless subsidy stops immediately to free funds.

Petrol subsidy is gone, means petrol subsidy is gone. Anything short of saying so on day one, would have amounted to kicking the can down the road, again. And that, we have seen, has been the graveyard of speeches in the last several decades full of economic philosophy and poetry but meaning nothing. Enough.

I recall my perennial visits to the three South-south Nigerian states of Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Rivers in the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was the Features of The PUNCH newspapers and, later, the Acting Editor of The Sunday PUNCH title with responsibilities for editing and producing the paper. Those were the days when Akpandem James was our State Correspondent in Akwa Ibom , Timi Fakrogha manned Cross Rivers (Calabar) and Ken-Fash Ayibaemi held sway in Port-Harcourt. I recall that Akpandem was one of the best writers we had in those days and his copy was always a delight to edit. I still remember a particular piece in which he described Uyo as the “Can-Do City” with its streams of commercial motorcycle riders which we call Okada” in Lagos but which, in Uyo, he said were called “alalok”, if my memory hasn’t failed me.

Those were the days when Nigeria hadn’t completely gone crazy with the importation of every conceivable item, down to toothpicks, and when the newsprint manufacturing company at Oku-Iboku in Cross River state, where Nigerian newspapers sourced their newsprints, was still functional. Timi had the additional assignment of enduring we got prompt and adequate supply of newsprints for our operations. Ken-Fash was adept at setting up high-brow and controversial personalities for interviews. I recall that he arranged for me to interview, among others, the musician, Evi-Edna Ogholi; Muhammed, a grandson of the then Sultan of Sokoto who got converted to Christianity and had to go into hiding; the Ogoni environmentalist and social justice crusader, Ken Saro-Wiwa; and the first military governor of Rivers state, at 25 years of age, during the Yakubu Gowon era, Alfred Papapreye Diete-Spiff, at that time the Amanyanabo of Twon-Brass.

Gen. Sani Abacha is well known for his obnoxious Decree 4 of 1984 which criminalized any publication by a journalist deemed by the authorities as embarrassing to a public official but Diete-Spiff, decades before him (on July 30, 1970), had set the unenviable record of an intolerant and high-handed military governor. A journalist, Minare Amakiri (Rivers State Correspondent of the Edo State-based Observer newspaper), had published, on the governor’s birthday, a story that the governor considered offensive (the grumbling of teachers in the state). An enraged Diete-Spiff decided to teach Amakiri a lesson for ruining his birthday fun. One of the governor’s aides, Ralph Iwowari, had Amakiri’s head publicly shaved with a broken bottle, in addition to his being given 24 lashes of the cane!

 My interview of Saro-wiwa was not as explosive as his recourse to it in his column in the Daily Times titled “Cannibal Rage”, in which he warned everyone to “Fear the Ogoni”! The question I asked him was whether his people, the Ogoni, still ate human flesh as his fore-bears were alleged to have done!        

Penultimate Monday, I was back again in Uyo to give moral support to Gov. Udom Gabriel Emmanuel as he rounded off his eight-year tour of duty as governor of the state. The first recommendation I had of Gov. Udom Emmanuel came from Femi Falana, SAN. Each time I advocated restructuring and fiscal federalism as panacea to Nigeria’s myriad problems, Femi would say “Go to Akwa Ibom and see what their governor is doing there”! He specifically mentioned the five-star Ibom Air founded by Udom Emmanuel. His argument was that despite the imperfections in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, there is still a lot that any serious, focused and competent governor can do to uplift their people and that our fixation on restructuring only allows our governors in the South-west a convenient excuse for their below par performance in the delivery of the dividends of democracy to their own people.

The second person I heard the name Udom Emmanuel from was my brother-journalist, US-based Dr. Moshood Fayemiwo, publisher of the very popular “Razor” and, later, “Sunset” tabloids with which he relentlessly fought military dictatorship. Moshood and I hail from the same town, Owo in Ondo state but more importantly, we were both in the trenches as Nigerians fought Babangida and Abacha on the way to giving birth to the democracy we enjoy today. Along with many other activists, we were hounded, harassed and detained but were lucky to escape with our life. Dr. Moshood called from the US one day and said he wanted me to work with his friend, Gov. Udom Emmanuel, who wanted to be the presidential candidate of PDP in the last election. I said to myself “Udom Emmanuel again!” I told Dr. Moshood I would think about it. I decided to pray. I called one of my prayer partners but as soon as I mentioned the name Udom Emmanuel, he interjected: “I know Udom Emmanuel" and recommended him very well.

The word of God says from the mouth of two or three witnesses the truth of a matter shall be established (2 Corinthians 13:1). That was how I came to work with Gov Udom Emmanuel as his presidential spokesperson. Had he been given the PDP flag, the result, I dare to say, would have been different. But hope deferred is not hope denied! Coming with him to Akwa Ibom while the campaign lasted, I saw more than Ibom Air. I saw the coconut oil factory and when the sample I took to Lagos with me got exhausted, my wife moaned. I was again in Akwa Ibom from Monday, 22nd May to the stepping down of Udom Emmanuel as governor and the inauguration of the new governor, Pastor Umo Bassey Eno, on Monday the 29th May to honour this special breed of a leader that we call, in Yoruba, “akanda eniyan” (specially made by God). All the superlatives that were deployed to describe him as he commissioned one project after another were, in my view, well deserved. His record of achievements are astounding, to say the least.

I have since added Udom Emmanuel’s name to those of JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, NDLEA’s Gen. Mohammed Buba Marwa, and retired but not tired judge of the Kogi State High Court, Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye as public officials who, having performed creditably well in their given assignments, deserve a place in the government of competency that our brand-new president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has promised to run. I dare to say that Akwa Ibom has been fortunate and privileged to offer Udom Emmanuel the pedestal on which to showcase the stuff of which he is made. Like Archimedes said: "Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world” For Udom Emmanuel, Akwa Ibom was that "place to stand". His record of achievements was the "lever long enough".

But it was not a bed of roses for the former governor; Nigeria’s political landscape is strewn with charlatans, petty jealousies, acrimony, blatant lying and the now-famous PHD (pull-him-down syndrome). There was a tinge of sadness in Udom’s voice as he narrated his experience on this score, first at the valedictory thanksgiving service and dedication of the International Christian Worship Centre and later the same day at his end-of-term media parley. He was miffed at the deliberate destruction of facilities provided at great cost for the benefit of the same people destroying them for political or selfish reasons. The strife between communities over boundary issues which his mapping policy was meant to address was deliberately misinterpreted by political detractors and ignorant people to cause mayhem and destroy projects meant to provide jobs and enhance the state’s economic fortunes.

 Udom knelt down on the altar at the International Christian Worship Centre and decreed: “No evil man, no wicked man will rule over Akwa Ibom” Turning to his successor, Pastor Umo Eno, he passed until him the same mantle of grace that had been upon him (Udom) for eight years in which the state enjoyed unparallel peace, attested to by even the man on the street. The service was still ongoing when news came that Udom Emmanuel has been conferred with the national honours of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). Udom and his wife Dr. Martha Udom Emmanuel were also honoured by the Christian community. 

At the media parley, Udom passed this message across to the people: “You cannot have a better state than yours”. So people should stop deliberately putting their state of origin down to score cheap political points. Satisfied with his efforts which have made many to refer to him as the architect of modern Akwa Ibom state, Udom declared: “I am leaving this state better than I met it ''. He was confident his investment in human and capital development would stand the test of time      

These days Nigerians flock to Dubai but hear what a citizen of that country said about Nigeria and Dubai in a post that has gone viral: “If you compare Nigeria with Dubai, listen to this: Nigeria has (crude) oil before Dubai. They are richer than us. They have agriculture, they have mining, they have everything, you name it; they have it. Am I right or wrong? When you have true leadership – which we have – we have nothing but we have everything because we have the right leadership. That is the only thing you need – a right leader for your country... That is what brings your country to the top. You don't need anything (else). We don't have water; we don't have agriculture; we don't have mining...” It could not have been better put!

That, in a nutshell, is the real value we must attach to the likes of Udom Emmanuel – providing the right leadership - which he demonstrated in Akwa Ibom. So, the last may not have been heard of this banker-turned-politician. His next bus stop lies ahead - in the womb of time.

In a show of desperation (some would say cowardice) at the polling station in Daura on 25th February, former President Muhammadu Buhari displayed his ballot paper after exercising his franchise. The unusual gesture – which goes against the spirit of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) guidelines – was a not-so-subtle signal to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that he (Buhari) had kept his side of the bargain. Just in case the election did not favour his party. It was certainly understandable. Stripped of all pretensions, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was carefully constructed by Tinubu for the goal of reaching the presidency after Buhari. That was the meaning of the ‘Emilokan’ outburst at a time people around the former president were plotting to throw Tinubu under the bus. But now that he has arrived at his final political destination, the question is: What does Tinubu want to do with Nigeria?  

Let’s be clear. President Tinubu comes to the office with a sense of foreboding. This is the first time under the current democratic dispensation that a presidential election winner secured less than 50 percent of the votes. In his own case, Tinubu secured less than 40 percent of the total votes cast because, also for the first time, there were four major political parties in contention. Like the Second Republic when Alhaji Shehu Shagari won with 33 percent of the votes. This election has also left the country divided along ethno-religious lines. That a Yorubaman is president again after eight years of Olusegun Obasanjo and eight years of Yemi Osinbajo as vice president presents its own peculiar problem in a nation that we have all been conditioned to believe rests on a tripodal WaZoBia political construct. But the issue now is that the kingmaker has wangled his way to the throne at a most difficult period in our history.   

In his (in)famous declaration in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, on 1^st June last year, Tinubu said what could have upended his ambition.“If not me that led the warfront, Buhari wouldn’t have emerged. He contested the first time; he lost. He contested a second time and lost again. He contested a third time and still lost,” said Tinubu in a speech that depicted someone going for broke. “This time, it’s Yoruba’s turn. And it’s my turn.” That ‘Emilokan’ slogan which echoes both a sense of entitlement as well as an offensive condescension was enough to end Tinubu’s ambition. That he mocked a sitting African president in the process made his case even worse. But like many of the scandals he has survived, the angry retorts spoken in a moment of frustration may have helped Tinubu’s cause.   

But whatever anybody’s preference, Tinubu is now the president of Nigeria. Unless the court says otherwise. Beyond the healing process that must begin, he also has two tough but critical decisions to make on the economic front: removal of fuel subsidy and getting the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to merge the exchange rates that has left scandalous arbitrage for fat cats. Vice President Kashim Shettima said on Tuesday that “it is either we get rid of subsidy, or the fuel subsidy gets rid of the Nigerian nation. In 2022, we spent $10billion subsidizing the ostentatious lifestyle of the upper class of the society because you and I benefit 90% from the oil subsidy. The poor 40% of Nigerians benefit very little. And we know the consequences of unveiling a masquerade.” Shettima could not have presented the situation better and that is exactly what some of us have been saying for the past two decades. But because everything lasts forever on the internet, to borrow a famous saying, Tinubu’s words are now coming back to haunt him. 

Following the removal of subsidy by President Goodluck Jonathan on 1^st January 2012, Tinubu authored a statement where he argued that the decision was taken “with an arrogant wave of the hand as if issuing a minor regulation”; and “because of the terrible substance of the decision and the haughty style of its enactment, the people feel betrayed and angry.” The same is now being said of the “fuel subsidy is gone” line in Tinubu’s inauguration speech which created chaos at fuel stations before yesterday’s decision that has almost tripled the pump price of petrol. “Government would have us believe that every hardship it manufactures for the people to endure is a good thing. This is a lie. The hardships they thrust upon the poor often bear no other purpose than to keep them poor. This is such a time”, Tinubu wrote 11 years ago apparently oblivious to the fact that a day like this would come.   

When in January last year Tinubu told State House Correspondents that being president was a lifelong ambition, I wrote at the time that it was more than a Freudian slip. Tinubu has spent the past 16 years since leaving office as Lagos State Governor pursuing this ambition. In his memoir, ‘My Participations’, former Osun State Governor and founding chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande (who is perhaps the closest politician to Tinubu), confirmed that the ambition indeed dates to 2007, with the formation of the Action Congress (AC). “We agreed that (former Vice President) Atiku Abubakar should be our presidential candidate and we had the understanding that he would run with Bola Tinubu. I was the chairman of the AC. One day, after we had nominated Atiku as our presidential candidate, one young man came and gave me a form from INEC. I told him I could not sign a blank form and that I, as the chairman, must know the name that would be filled in it” wrote Akande who explained the intrigues that led to Atiku dropping Tinubu as running mate 15 years ago. “Segun Osoba, Niyi Adebayo and Lam Adesina had earlier met Atiku, and we proposed to him our choice of Tinubu, and he promised to come back to us. He gave us a date. On that date, we all assembled. Atiku came with Audu Ogbeh, Tom Ikimi and Usman Bugaje. We proposed that Tinubu should be the running mate, though Tinubu was not at the meeting. Atiku would not give us an immediate answer. He said he wanted to have more consultations.”   

At that period, there were forces around Atiku who believed the choice of Tinubu, a fellow Muslim, would present a problem and Akande named them. “Ikimi, Ogbeh and others were all strongly against Tinubu, because they said it would mean a Muslim-Muslim ticket. We deadlocked over that. Atiku never said anything. We left the meeting. What prompted us was that anytime we said we needed money, Atiku would say Bola please help us. Bola was the only one spending money among us. The rest of us were poor. Tinubu also put all his energy and resources into the formation of the AC, and we felt he deserved a spot on the ticket. We discussed with Bola on this, and he said we should discuss it with Atiku. It was after we were deadlocked that they brought me the blank form. So, Atiku ran with (Dr Ben) Obi and failed. Only Lagos State from Southwest voted for Atiku.”  

Despite the failure of that project in 2007, Tinubu never wavered on his presidential ambition. Incidentally, I have had several interactions with Tinubu over the past three decades but the one I remember most vividly occurred on 16^th November 2016. In writing my book, ‘Against the Run of Play: How an Incumbent President was defeated in Nigeria’, I spoke to many of the principal characters, including Tinubu. In the more than two hours I spent with him that day in Lagos, Tinubu made it clear that the idea of the APC was for him to be running mate to Buhari, ostensibly with a plan to use that as a ladder for the number one job. Akande also corroborated that in his memoir.   

When in 2015 people around Buhari suggested a committee to assess possible running mate candidates after the presidential primaries, Akande saw it as a betrayal of Tinubu: “Adams Oshiomhole, the Governor of Edo State, stood up and said we were being dishonest. He said he was a serving governor and many of those in the Elders Committee had been governors. ‘Did we set up a committee to give us our running mates?’ he asked. ‘It is not fair!’ I came to know later that some people constituted themselves into a group, called the Northern Interest Group, and they prevailed on Buhari not to allow a Muslim-Muslim ticket. Some governors from the far North were involved in this group. The following day after the Elders’ committee meeting, which was deadlocked, Buhari phoned Tinubu. He said he would like Tinubu to give him three names from which he would pick a running mate. We were all in Abuja and Tinubu rushed to me with this information. He wanted to know whether the understanding we reached with Buhari had changed. I called Buhari and he told me he now needed three names from us. I was angry with him. ‘General, this was not what we agreed upon,’ I said in annoyance. ‘You are changing our agreement?’. He knew I was getting angry. He said he was under pressure from some governors from the North, including (those) who were Muslims. I told him the slot belonged to the Southwest and among the Yoruba, religion is not a factor in leadership. ‘That is the burden the north has brought to national politics!’ He did not like my remark but kept quiet about it…”  

Before I conclude, it is important to hear what Akande has to say about the person of Tinubu.“In struggles, Bola is always resolute against all difficult circumstances. In fighting, Bola demonstrates consistent courage and resilience. He is a powerful and strong political mobiliser, a fierce and ferocious fighter such that he generally and quickly generates tension around himself when poised for a fight to the embarrassing confusion of those who might have enjoyed his pleasantness and generosity. In any war, apart from battles of deadly weapons, it would be safer to persuade Tinubu to fight on your side. If you allow him to fight on the other side, even if you are winning the initial battles, you cannot be sure of winning the peace thereafter.”  

Akande is not done: “Tinubu carries his business sense too often into his political decisions. He always feels too strongly about his own (sometimes, peculiar) political views and ways, but his presentations and utterances appear constantly underplayed by smarting too often under heavy burdens of human demands and public pressure. Tinubu is a difficult personality; very complicated for me to classify. He revels in controversies but constantly suppresses attendant difficult pains of disappointments and betrayals by consuming cups of strong espresso (coffee) and chains of cigarettes. However, he is a man of exceptional quick reflexes who has interpretations for different and alternating moods of others around him with instinctive striving and sensitive hormones. For whoever he senses negatively, he detests, condemns and, if possible, fights ferociously; for others in his positive antenna, he admires, protects, and defends with passion. Bola Tinubu is blindly generous and dangerously humorous.”   

That in a nutshell is the man who now carries the burden of Nigeria on his fragile frame. I have written several critical columns about Tinubu. One of them, just a two-paragraph piece, ‘Tinubu should watch it’ elicited an angry response from my friend Sunday Dare (until a few days ago the Minister of Sports and Youth Development under Buhari) who was then Tinubu’s spokesman. But I am one of those who believe that there are positives from Tinubu’s stewardship in Lagos that would serve us in Nigeria. What critics often ignore is that we are talking about a huge population cramped into a small space (for instance, Niger State is more than 21 times the size of Lagos State in landmass). I crave the indulgence of readers to take a few excerpts from what I wrote in November 2015: “I am quite aware of the sundry allegations that have for years dogged tax administration in Lagos, especially regarding who the actual beneficiaries are as well as other questions that border on transparency and accountability in the management of the state’s finances. Those are important issues that would have to be addressed. Notwithstanding, in terms of the primacy of ideas for modern governance, Lagos remains the model by which Nigeria can work and due credit must be given to Tinubu as the pioneer in that direction.   

“When people complain about Lagos, it is because they have not paid attention to its huge population, the enormous challenges and what is no more than meagre resources, even with all the internally generated revenues. The question really is how the situation would have been if Lagos was, like other states, dependent on oil revenues. One fact most people also ignore is that Lagos, according to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode contributes significantly to the federal purse with over 65 percent of Nigeria’s non-oil Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 60 percent of value-added manufacturing.  

“In his cabinet appointments, Tinubu went for talents. For the record, Tinubu’s commissioners included Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, (former vice president); Olawale Edun who had worked in the Wall Street firms of Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Capital Markets Corporation in New York and the World Bank/IFC in Washington DC; Olayemi Cardoso who started his career in 1981 at Citibank; renowned architect, Mr. Lanre Towry-Coker and several other accomplished professionals like Leke Pitan, Ben Akabueze, Tunji Bello and Oladele Alake.   

“The Lagos model has its own contradictions that would have to be resolved in the overall interest of the people of the state and that of the actors themselves. But if Nigeria is ever to develop an economy that is less dependent on oil rent, the Lagos model is the way to go. The success recorded in Lagos under Tinubu and (Babatunde Raji) Fashola especially owe largely to their very keen understanding of the immediate needs of the people—free flow of traffic, infrastructure that is tolerably acceptable, improved environmental sanitation and a reasonable level of security. They went ahead first to address these needs in a demonstrable and visible way before evolving taxation mechanisms. It would be recalled that as Tinubu set about fixing potholes on many Lagos roads, there was always a signage that said, ‘YOUR TAX MONEY AT WORK’. The same went with most other public work projects.  

“When the tax man eventually came calling, most people were able to see the relationship between the increased demand for taxation and the sense of responsibility of their government. This remains the clearest demonstration in recent Nigerian history of the dictum that dictates a correlation between taxation and representation…”  

I wrote that eight years ago when I had no idea that Tinubu would ever be president of Nigeria. Now that he has achieved his ‘lifelong ambition’, we wait to see what kind of president he would be. Yes, Lagos under Tinubu was not perfect but by putting the right people in the right places, enduring reforms were made in several sectors and the state is now the better for it. But all factors considered, Tinubu is a very lucky man. Despite what Nigerians know (and do not know) about him, he is now our President. Therefore, in moments of introspection, Tinubu must admit that Nigeria has given him so much. And to whom much is given, much is expected. I wish him all the best in his new assignment.    

Dokpesi: An Impactful Life  

From Agenebode, Edo State to Ibadan, Oyo State capital, before the sojourn in Poland and the political adventure in Yola, Adamawa State in the early eighties, the late Dr Raymond Dokpesi, as I wrote in the blurb to his memoir last year, lived according to the timeless injunctions of Misty Gibbs: He was bold, he took risks, and was perpetually on the move. It was therefore with sadness that I heard about his death on Monday.  

Although we had been ‘neighbours’ for more than a decade, I had no relationship with Dokpesi. But two things happened in the last three years. First, his wife and African Independent Television (AIT) Managing Director, Mrs Oluwatosin Dokpesi took special interest in the free education project for indigent children (Not Forgotten Initiative) of my wife and has been rendering invaluable support. And then two years ago, I was approached by two respected senior colleagues, Messrs Bayo Bodunrin and Okoh Aihe to help read through the draft of their authorised biography of Dokpesi, ‘The Handkerchief’. It was a task I accepted without hesitation. The hefty cheque that accompanied the letter of appreciation that followed from Mrs Dokpesi indicated that the late DAAR Communications chairman knew about my intervention. Thereafter, Dokpesi called me to initiate what became a friendship until he died. 

Despite the circumstances of birth and the travails of formative years, Dokpesi rose against all odds to accomplish so much in 71 years. Not only did he pioneer private radio and television stations in Nigeria, but he was also one of the first persons to venture into indigenous shipping line on the continent with ‘Africa Ocean Line’. And he was barely 30 at the time. I commiserate with his family. May God grant him eternal rest.  

• You can follow me on my Twitter handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com   

Some people who know me well often argue that everything that I do or say is deliberate and that, when asked, I often have a reason for what I do or say. You may not agree with my reason, but you will recognise or accept that I do have a reason for whatever I do and I generally will not change my position unless a superior argument emerges and/or new facts come to light.

If the foregoing sounds like I am describing myself, then you missed the point - it is one of the most powerful things that I learnt from the late Otunba Balogun, the Founder of First City Monument Bank (FCMB). I am referring here to the dogged and unrelenting pursuit of his dreams/ideas. He literarily obtained FCMB’s banking licence by wearing down his detractors and the naysayers.

Like Otunba or hate him, if he took an “inflexible” position, then invariably he had a good reason for it. His actions were never random, thoughtless or meaningless. If you thought any of them were, then you never knew the man - the Colossus, in his lifetime.

So why do I address this tribute to "Otunba Balogun" and not to "Otunba Subomi Balogun" or "Otunba Michael Olasubonmi Balogun”? Of course, it is deliberate. It is because, during the last two decades of his life, I never needed to explain to anybody which Balogun I was referring to if I mentioned "Otunba Balogun". Nobody ever asked me a follow-up question such as: "Which Otunba Balogun are you referring to”? I am not aiming to be disrespectful to others bearing the Balogun surname. Nor have I checked if indeed there is or was another Balogun who was also an Otunba. It is unnecessary, because context matters in life. If I was also an investment banker and a younger Bank CEO and/or Bank Chairman for periods that overlapped with part of Otunba Balogun's own tenure as a Bank CEO and/or a Bank Chairman, then there are no prizes for guessing that there was only one Otunba Balogun in my own life and industry circles.

There is no second Otunba Balogun in my life and industry circle and there can never be, because my own banking career is essentially over, save for sitting on the boards of Standard Bank Group Limited (parent company of Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC) and The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited.

Apart from having a good reason for everything that he did, Otunba Balogun obviously had both "style" and "confidence" in enormous proportions. He believed he could move mountains - and he often did.

Long before IBTC (now Stanbic IBTC) was formed in February 1989, Otunba Balogun once offered me a job. I sat with him for one hour - we had lunch together. It was essentially a job interview over lunch. We discussed succession planning and other sensitive matters. It would suffice to say we both realised and agreed that his idea could not work. We parted as friends and remained friends ever since, even though we were not mates by any stretch of the imagination.

In due course there was healthy competition and Investment Banking rivalry between FCMB and IBTC throughout the 1990s, but it was born out of mutual respect and therefore never got nasty - Otunba made sure of that.

Goodbye Grandmaster.

You came, you saw and you conquered. ������

--------------------------------

Atedo Peterside is the President & Founder of Anap Foundation and the Founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank PLC

Twitter: @AtedoPeterside

I can hear prayers binding the devil and declaring that today’s journey will lead not to nowhere, not to hell or to the witchy world of grief and anguish. The prayer will be answered only if the new regime breaks ranks with the Buhari tragedy and the personal flaws and failings of the principal characters on the new stage. How is that possible? In a government that will run well and end well, there must be certain ingredients in its leadership: “trustworthiness, fairness, unassuming behaviour, capacity to listen, open-mindedness, sensitivity to people, sensitivity to situations, good judgment, broadmindedness, flexibility and adaptability, the capacity to make sound and timely decisions, the capacity to motivate, sense of urgency, and initiative, initiative, and initiative.” This list of essential attributes I took from G.R.K Murty (2009) who paraphrased Marvin Bower in his ‘The Will to Lead’. Now, did you see a single item from that list on Nigeria’s leadership menu in the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari? His review would have been positive if he had had a space for just two of those demands. But, no; the man had his own priorities and they were selfish and sectional. It is only operatives and direct beneficiaries of the outgoing regime that will swear they saw equity or fairness or competence in the leadership experience that is expiring today. We wait to see which of those items Tinubu is bringing to the table.”

There is a road in Canada that is officially known as ‘Road to Nowhere’. Road signs there say so. At the terminal point of that road is virtually nothing apart from an access to a shooting range and a gated path that leads also to nowhere. A political journey can mirror a cruise on that road. There is also a popular town in Norway officially called Hell; the road to that town is the Road to Hell. In Oyo State, Nigeria, there is a town called Ilu Aje (town of witches); the road to that town is paved with misery. Each of these places has a history behind the weirdness of the name it bears. Road to Nowhere. There is a rock song of that title too. Its supposed writer and Talking Heads singer, David Byrne, told Q magazine in 1992 that the song is “about how there’s no order and no plan and no scheme to life and death and it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s all right.” Those words sound so much like the Nigerian experience with democracy. It has not been pleasant for the peasant, yet the chorus is “it’s alright.”

Another leg of the journey starts today. A new president, complete with his own cabal, takes charge of Nigeria. In every home, the unasked question is: The journey which these people are starting with us today, where is it taking us? Igbó rèé, ònà rèé. It could be ‘Nowhere’; it may be ‘Somewhere’, the choice is for the driver to make.

I can hear prayers binding the devil and declaring that today’s journey will lead not to nowhere, not to hell or to the witchy world of grief and anguish. The prayer will be answered only if the new regime breaks ranks with the Buhari tragedy and the personal flaws and failings of the principal characters on the new stage. How is that possible? In a government that will run well and end well, there must be certain ingredients in its leadership: “trustworthiness, fairness, unassuming behaviour, capacity to listen, open-mindedness, sensitivity to people, sensitivity to situations, good judgment, broadmindedness, flexibility and adaptability, the capacity to make sound and timely decisions, the capacity to motivate, sense of urgency, and initiative, initiative, and initiative.” This list of essential attributes I took from G.R.K Murty (2009) who paraphrased Marvin Bower in his ‘The Will to Lead’. Now, did you see a single item from that list on Nigeria’s leadership menu in the eight years of Muhammadu Buhari? His review would have been positive if he had had a space for just two of those demands. But, no; the man had his own priorities and they were selfish and sectional. It is only operatives and direct beneficiaries of the outgoing regime that will swear they saw equity or fairness or competence in the leadership experience that is expiring today. We wait to see which of those items Tinubu is bringing to the table.

From the frenzy I see around Bola Tinubu who takes over today, it appears that everyone holding the hem of his garment has a personal reason for doing so. They await the “So help me God” end-line of his oath of office for them to unfurl their ensign of claims without objections. That is an expressway to failure. Real lovers of the new president should tell him that personal and institutional rebirth is the sacrifice. What will matter ultimately is how he uses what he has just got to cleanse Nigeria of its bad head.

There is also something about a government engine that is run on grudges, bitterness and vengeance. The Buhari regime had more than a full tank of that toxic fuel. There was an unreported meeting between President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the General from Daura became president of Nigeria in 2015. At that meeting, the old reportedly told the new to forget and forgive anyone who might have hurt him in the past: “Now that you have become president with the support of everybody, it is time for you to forgive everyone who might have hurt you in the past.”

The host casts a serpentine look at his guest and asks: “including Ibrahim?”

“Yes, especially Ibrahim,” the guest responds, curtly.

The new man bites his lips, nods and changes the topic.

The ‘Ibrahim’ in that conversation is Ibrahim Babangida, the man who sacked Buhari in August 1985. Someone very close to two of the three actors told me that story days after the encounter. He had no reason to make it up.

You remember how General Buhari spoke repeatedly with bitterness about losing power in 1985 and his subsequent detention. The man simply could not imagine his new power ignoring a vengeance that was just thirty years old. He wanted a pound of flesh but apparently, he realized the folly of his kite going after the fox. He talked to himself or he listened to the big boss. But because hawks feed on preys, there were other victims. You remember how he spent his eight years not tired of mentioning his repeated failures to be president in 2003, 2007 and 2011 and how the courts failed him. He eventually became president and the courts got raided and thoroughly whipped. Can you remember too how the outgoing president described the South-East as a dot in a circle? You remember his reference to Igbos of the South-East as those who gave him just “five percent” of the votes that made him president in 2015? You remember how that unfortunate comment dictated government policies and alienated that part of the country permanently from Buhari and his government – and how he did not care? And, please do not forget that there was no pervasive agitation for secession in the East until official vengeful alienation burst the people’s long pipe of endurance. A new regime comes in today; it will succeed only if it stops talking about continuity, charts its own course and brings the country together under the roof of fairness and equity.

Vengeful leaders lead into the gully; they hurt their nation and their people. They destroy themselves too and cancel everything that recommends them for leadership. That explains the thought of the elders who say revenge destroys the seeker. In William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Act 3; Scene 1), we see Salerio asking implacable Shylock what he wants to do with a pound of Antonio’s flesh. What is it “good for?” He is asked and Shylock replies that it will “feed” his “revenge.” He says Antonio “hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million…” So why would he not sink his cleaver knife into his debtor’s thigh and go to bed in a meaty mirth? Let no one tell him not to do it; he will do it because he is human: He says: “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not take revenge?” Shylock promises to “execute” and “go hard” and “better” others in doing wrong. He thinks revenge and vengeance are the way of a world which forgets nothing good, nothing bad. And, because he is fixated on revenge and will not listen to wise counsel, he ends disgracefully.

Instead of Tinubu looking for a list of enemies to hurt, his friends should advise him to draw up a list of things to do to heal Nigeria. He should look at the North especially. Anyone that will fix Nigeria has northern Nigeria to fix first. The North is Nigeria’s problem incubator. Particularly because of the North, the population of Nigeria is projected to hit 400 million in the year 2050. At about half of that figure today, 133 million of the population are multi-dimensionally poor. It can only get worse. If the North is not saved from itself and from its ways, the country is doomed and whatever government or president comes in today is doomed as well. UNICEF’s current statistics says that “one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.” The North gives Nigeria that dubious reputation. The brand of religion that is practised there is nowhere else in the world – not even in Afghanistan. In May 2017, the Sultan of Sokoto told a gathering of northern Muslims in Kaduna to end Almajiri and embrace education. “Almajiri does not represent Islam but hunger and poverty. Almajiri system of begging does not represent Islam and must therefore be distinguished from Islam. Islam encourages scholarship and entrepreneurship and frowns on laziness and idleness as exemplified by itinerant Almajiri. Therefore, attempts must be made to stop the practice of the Almajiri system of begging among Muslim faithful.” That was from the Sultan six years ago. What has changed? Nothing, except that the uneducated children of the past have grown to master assault rifles to demand their share of Nigeria. Is it not said that an untrained child will not fear God and will not live righteously? The untrimmed Iroko has grown wild; it now demands sacrifices from the state.

Three years ago, the Sultan cried out again that the North was the worst place to live in Nigeria. The North is not safe, he said. “In fact, it is the worst place to be in this country. Bandits go round in the villages, households and markets with their AK-47 and nobody is challenging them,” Sultan Abubakar told a meeting of Nigeria’s Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) in Abuja in November 2020. You cannot have a vast region of misery and lawlessness as the North and have peace of mind. My people say the child that is not built will sell the house that is built. We saw how the joy of the multibillion naira Abuja-Kaduna rail service was destroyed by the North’s children of the forest. That is what you get where priorities are not right and the vehicle of state faces where the world backs. If the North remains a region of subjects without citizens, there cannot be peace in Nigeria. If it remains a vast desert of the uneducated poor, banditry will not end. It, in fact, will spread and it is spreading anguish already from the North to the South.

Coming down south, the West will always fix itself. But the Tinubu presidency is putting the ‘pesky’ Yoruba elite on trial. Like debauched widow-inheritors, they are upbeat that it is their turn to fill/feel the space and build castles on Mars. The world waits to see if they will stop saying that Nigeria, as it is, needs restructuring because it is fundamentally defective. We won’t keep quiet. Leaving Nigeria in the hands of its abductors is leaving the proverbial madman to roast his mother’s corpse; he will endanger all of us with the entrails. Tinubu’s friends should keep reminding him that the foundation is the most critical part of a building. If Tinubu and his victorious people say from today that they are satisfied with ugly, decrepit Nigeria because they are the latest inheritors of the estate, we should be around and we will be available to remind them that those who negotiated Nigeria had wisdom and saw clearly that the chemistry of the Nigerian soil was not balanced; they insisted on what they knew was safe for all. The negotiators of Nigeria knew that a wrong foundational decision would give them a building with a fissured base; a house that would endanger everyone; that would soon sink and collapse under a weight it was not designed to carry. The founding fathers considered everything and rejected a multi-storey unitary Nigeria with an emperor reigning in the penthouse. They opted for a federation of manageable low-rise structures in the Nigerian estate. Angels of confusion soon systematically converted what we inherited to a choking, poorly constructed skyscraper without elevators and with a foundation cracking under a weight it cannot carry to success and safety. The structure today chokes and puts all of us in harm’s way. History will pat Tinubu on the back if he surprises himself and rebuilds the house using the original plan of the architects.

There is an undeclared civil war going on in the East. People get killed daily, the murderers are not known, the state shrugs its shoulders, it picks its teeth and belches. But the crisis is an ill-wind that should not become a firestorm. Smothering the fire should be a deliberate agenda of the new regime. Equity and fairness in a restructured Nigeria appears the only remedy here. If the Igbo say they want Senate presidency and if you won’t support their aspiration, Tinubu, please don’t oppose them. If Nigeria fixes the East with the tools of equity, the country will have the mouth to tell the Igbo man to embrace peace. And, really, the alternative to peace is misery in unimaginable proportions.

Nigeria has a generation of angry youths who want a Nigeria that is safe and prosperous. They worked for candidates they believed would work for their future; they did very hard work to birth their dream nation. They came out disappointed and angry and are watching what is unfolding. They need to be convinced that with what we have as a country, elections can be nuts with kernels.

Tinubu is leaving Bourdillon, Lagos and will be the Lion of Aso Rock for four years – or for eight years – at the end of which a Daniel will come to judgment. He will be judged not by the number of roads or bridges he built; he will be judged by how well he tamed his own personal foibles; how well he detoxified northern Nigeria, settled the quarrel between the Igbo man and Nigeria and got the entire country rebuilt for the wellness of all. If the country, however, remains its odious, unwashed self after Bola Tinubu’s regime, he would have tragically proved right the millions opposed to his person, his politics and his methods, particularly the feudal rungs he took to the throne.

I hear you have questions. So do I. What does fuel subsidy removal really mean today? How much will a litre of petrol sell for? Does Dangote Refinery make any difference? How about inflation? These are the first round of questions from President Bola Tinubu’s inaugural speech on Monday. In this article, I will attempt an answer based on the economics of fuel subsidies and the politics of the nation, Nigeria. 

In an almost poetic fashion, Tinubu stood before Nigerians at Eagle Square and said “On fuel subsidy, unfortunately, the budget before I assumed office is that no provision is there for fuel subsidy. So fuel subsidy is gone.” Like magic, minutes after the declaration, the prose that is fuel queues resurfaced nationwide. Prices also began to jump.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, petrol was sold for an average of N254.06 per litre in April 2022. Today, after the speech, it sold for as high as N500, with speculations of prices going as high as N750 in the coming days. But what can we expect?

HERE’S HOW PETROL PRICING WORKS

Based on Tinubu’s speech, not much changes in the pricing template — just the subsidy bit is removed. Let me explain with lessons from the past. In 2016, when the first subsidy removal was implemented by the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) released its new pricing template, which showed that two components make up the petrol price: landing cost and distribution cost.

At the time, the landing cost of one litre of petrol was N119.74, while the distribution cost was N18.37 per litre. This brought the total pump price to N138.11. PPPRA mandated fuel stations to sell between N135 to N145 per litre. Here, there was zero subsidy.

Along the line, the landing cost changed, following the increase in oil prices globally. The landing cost crossed N119.74, and distribution cost was slightly impacted, and total pump price exceeded the N145 mark PPPRA had set. In order not to lose money, fuel stations refused to sell. This led to fuel scarcity. So the government quietly reintroduced subsidy and tried to keep prices at N145, by paying the excess. This was not sustainable.

So in 2021, a new pricing template was “erroneously” published by PPPRA. It showed landing cost had jumped from N119.74 to N189.61 and the distribution cost moved from N18.37 to N23, bringing the total price to N212.61 per litre at the pumps.

Government then applied some subsidy, which allowed Nigerians to buy for about N165 per litre at the time — not the market price of N212.61.

In 2023, the landing cost and the distribution cost have changed, but the biggest change has been in the structure of the state oil company, which has now become NNPC Limited, and no longer has the absolute power to fix prices. The distribution cost today should be about N30 to N35 per litre, while the landing cost is where the conversation is.

The landing cost when the last PPPRA template was published in 2021 was $561.96 per metric ton. Today, this price is between $680 and $750 per metric ton. This should naturally bring the new landing cost per litre to N266 per litre. Add distribution cost, the expected pump price should be N296 per litre without subsidy.

All of this is based on the assumption that $1 is N403.80. This brings us to the second round of questions: What did Tinubu mean by unifying the exchange rate? How much will $1 sell for at the official market? What impact will that have on fuel prices and everything else?

TINUBU’S FOREIGN EXCHANGE POLICY

The president said his government “shall ensure that investors and foreign businesses repatriate their hard earned dividends and profits home,” adding that “monetary policy needs thorough house cleaning. The Central Bank must work towards a unified exchange rate”.

This immediately signals a free market system, where the real value of the naira to the dollar is employed across board. It suggests that no one will get $1 for N461 while another gets the same for N770, which is fair. But fair has consequences; the first of which may be the pump price of premium motor spirit (PMS).

Tinubu’s FX policy will likely mean a devaluation of the naira on the official side of the market. Bloomberg had previously reported an expected 15% to 20% devaluation, which will put the naira around N530 to N550 at the official market. Others are suggesting N600 per dollar if any real unification of exchange rates will be achieved.

Whatever the case is, the final decision will impact the landing cost of petrol from the international market. This may lead to an increase of anywhere between 15% to 40%. At a 40% devaluation of the naira (from N403 per dollar), which is expected to be the worst-case scenario, a litre of petrol should sell for about N415. Hence, all the predictions of N650 and N750 per litre are quite the stretch.

DOES DANGOTE REFINERY CHANGE ANYTHING?

On a good day, yes. But maybe not the pump price of petrol. The first sure thing we can count on Dangote for is support for a reasonable foreign exchange policy. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) figures, Nigeria spends almost $7 billion every year importing petrol, this totalled $36.3 billion in five short years.

That $7 billion in foreign exchange could be reduced to zero dollars per year — if Dangote Refinery agrees to be paid in naira. This will ease up pressure on the local currency. But will this be the case seeing Dangote took some dollar-denominated loans to fund the refinery?

The second benefit we can claim is freight cost. According to PPPRA, it cost Nigeria $22 to import one metric ton of refined oil from Europe to Nigeria. This translates to about N7 for every litre of petrol. With us buying refined petrol from Ibeju Lekki, that cost could go to near zero, further reducing pump price.

I generally recommend that we wait for clearer policy direction from the Tinubu administration, and for Dangote Refinery to sell its first litre of petrol, before we make final conclusions. I hope this helped.