Former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu, on Thursday claimed the All Progressives Congress, APC, has no money at the moment.

Okechukwu disclosed this while addressing why the APC accumulated N8.9 billion debt.

Recall that the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, on Wednesday said he inherited N8.9 billion debt from his predecessor when he took over office.

Ganduje disclosed this in Abuja while speaking at the APC National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting.

He noted that the expenses were incurred during pre-election legal battles, election cases, and appeals for legislative, governorship, and presidential elections.

Ganduje said, “The current NWC inherited debts and legal liabilities to the total tune of N8,987,874,663, arising from various legal engagements.”

The meeting was attended by President Bola Tinubu; Vice President Kashim Shettima; Senate President Godswill Akpabio; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas; state governors; NWC members; and other party chieftains.

However, Okechukwu said the huge debt was accrued from legal battles over the years.

Featuring on Arise Television’s programme, Morning Show, Okechukwu said: “On why we accumulated debts, that’s very simple, from day one – this same president Tinubu established a biometric registration quartered in Lagos.

“We were only able to do Anambra in 2013 with that machine, when this information got to the then president Jonathan, he instructed the Department of State Services to close it down.

“Since that close down ruptured our plans to have a biometric membership seamlessly and that could have met with one of the conditions in our constitution that members should have some tokens to contribute.

“If those tokens were done, we could not have been owing because we are now bedeviled in a situation.

“The debt came from outstanding legal fees, we didn’t do what PDP used to do while in the presidency, they were taxing ministers. We don’t have money.”

[DailyPost]

Reality star Leo Dasilva has stated that he will start preparing his children for his death.

In a tweet, Leo expressed intention to start preparing his kids once they reach a certain level of understanding.

“As soon as my kids get to a certain level of understanding, I will start preparing them for my death,” he wrote.

[TheNation]

The Enugu Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has arraigned one Barrister Ifeanyichukwu Okonkwo before Justice E. N. Oluedo of the Enugu State High Court sitting in Independence Layout, Enugu for fraud.

The EFCC disclosed this in a statement on X.com on Thursday.

The statement partly read, “He is facing prosecution on a one-count charge, bordering on stealing by conversion to the tune of N41million. The offence is contrary to Section 342 of CAP 30, Criminal Code Law of Enugu State and punishable under Section 353 (L) of the same Law.

“The charge reads: ‘That you, Ifeanyichukwu Okonkwo on or about the 23rd day of November 2015 in Enugu within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, fraudulently converted to your own use, the sum of Forty-one Million Naira (N41, 000, 000. 00) being money received by you from one Onyishi Maduka Samuel for the family of late Ifemelunma Okoye, in your capacity as the liquidator of Ifemelunma and Company Enterprises Limited and thereby committed an offence.'”

Okonkwo reportedly pleaded “not guilty” when the charge was read to him, following which prosecution counsel, Ajobiewe Enitan asked the court for a trial date and for the defendant to be remanded in a correctional facility, while the defendant, who appeared for himself, applied that he be allowed to continue enjoying an earlier bail granted to him by Justice H. O. Eya of the same court, on the same matter.

The statement continued, “After listening to both sides, Justice Oluedo granted the defendant’s application and adjourned the matter to May 13, 14 and 15, 2025 for trial.

“The defendant was initially arraigned before Justice Eya of the same court on June 23, 2022. He pleaded “not guilty” and was granted bail.”

Similarly, PUNCH reported in January that the EFCC arraigned a lawyer, Benjamin Nwobodo before Justice F. O. Giwa-Ogunbanjo of the Federal High Court sitting in Enugu State.

He was reportedly brought before the judge on five charges bordering on forgery and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of N12 million.

[Punch]

South Africa wants to find agreement with the new US government on diplomatic, trade and other issues, President Cyril Ramaphosa said Thursday, after harsh criticism of the country by Donald Trump.

Pretoria plans to send a delegation to Washington to settle a host of issues, Ramaphosa said at an event on the sidelines of G20 meetings in South Africa that were snubbed by the US foreign and finance ministers.

“We would like to go to the United States to do a deal,” he said in a discussion with Goldman Sachs vice chairman Richard Gnodde.

“We don’t want to go and explain ourselves, we want to go and do a meaningful deal with the United States on a whole range of issues,” he said.

Trump tore into the South Africa government early this month, accusing it of “confiscating” land from white farmers and announcing he would cut off funding.

He was referring to a bill that Ramaphosa signed into law last month that stipulates the government may, in certain circumstances, offer “nil compensation” for property it decides to expropriate in the public interest.

The new law is intended to go some way in addressing historic inequalities in land ownership, with the minority white population still owning most farmland three decades after the end of apartheid.

Ramaphosa said he had a “wonderful” call with Trump soon after the US leader took office in January. But relations later “seemed to go a little bit off the rails”, he said.

The US secretaries of state and finance later said they would not attend this month’s G20 ministerial meetings in South Africa.

The United States is South Africa’s second-biggest trading partner and will take over the rotating G20 presidency next year.

“We have got to make a deal of one sort or another on trade issues, on diplomatic issues, on political issues, a whole span of issues,” the South African leader said.

“It’s inevitable that we will get together and do a deal.”

Vanguard News

At the just concluded All Progressives Congress National Economic Council meeting, which was held at the Blantyre Street Headquarters of the governing party, the seminal contributions from party leaders, governors and NEC members ruled the day. Beyond party politics, Nigeria took center stage. National issues and the current positive trajectory of the reforms under the Bola Tinubu administration easily became the topic of the day. Speaker after speaker spoke unscripted, yet with facts and eloquence. APC leadership in full parade, with President Tinubu leading the charge, was caught in a moment of testimony and confession draped in the colors of patriotic zeal and desire to see a stronger and better Nigeria. The mesage that rechoed across the NEC meeting and across to Nigerians was the fact that Nigeria was gradually turning the curve. The Tinubu Reforms are working, and the gradual transformation of the Nigerian economy was taking shape.

Speaker after speaker rolled out veritable data and clear pointers that the headwinds were clearing for Nigeria to move forward. From Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State to Governor Hope Uzodinma to Senator Adams Oshiomole, the analytic elucidation of the specifics of President Tinubu’s performance and the strong emerging positive signs was very clear. They spoke to many things, all made possible by the boldness the President brought to bear on taking tough decisions with conviction. It was a cascade. The floating of the naira, which was thought to be unwise by some critics, now proves a wide and timely decision as the naira has strengthened against the dollar crashing from N1,890 to N1,470.
The fuel subsidy removal that signaled the oil sector reforms has reduced the pressure on the demand for forex, reduced petrol imports, and given birth to a local refinning capacity of PMS never witnessed before.

Contrary to the gloomy predictions of some ideological antagonists, Nigerians are seeing PMS prices dropping slowly but steadily. The unleashing of market forces and the willing seller and willing buyer principle now fully in play is opening up the economy. And there is more. Foreign reserves have gone up close to $40 billion. GDP in the 4th quarter of 2024 is again up to 3.84. Exports volume is up with over N16 trillion surplus as at January 2024.

In the same vein, oil production is climbing up to 1.7mbd. The student loan program, NELFUND is working, helping many of our young ones to achieve their educational aspirations. Consumer credit scheme being executed by Credit Corp is making purchase of new cars and access to credit easy for thousands of civil servants. Foreign Direct Investment is on the rise. Nigeria is turning out to be one of Africa’s strongest economies. By the time the microphone got to the Rt. Honorable Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, the atmosphere was already saturated with applause, claps, and large doses of positive indicators and data that the Tinubu reforms were yielding fruits and Nigerians are beginning to feel the relieving impact.

Rt. Hon. Abbas who had a prepared speech lived up to his credential as a PhD holder with a seminal paper on Tinubunomics and how to lead in troubled times. He reeled out facts. Nigeria’s GDP rose from 2.5 percent to 3.8 percent under President Tinubu.

The improving performance of key sectors under President Tinubu were highlighted. He also dwelt on security, praising Mr. President for realizing that without security, everything else will amount to nothing. Security has improved with well over 30 percent reduction in violent crimes across the nation. When Senator Godswill Akpabio took over, he simply endorsed all that the Speaker said and added his own icing, warning the opposition to continue in their ways. Converts confessed. Doubters became believers, and many hitherto in the dark saw the light at the NEC meeting.

But perhaps the most important aspect of all of these was the Vote of Confidence moved by the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum, Governor Hope Uzodinma who, before he moved the vote, took his time to slice through the achievements of President Tinubu. He gave a well calibrated rendition with an unusual intellectual depth. The script he delivered was tight and well written and clearly justified the vote of confidence. Before Uzodinma, Governor Abiodun had set the mood and tone of conversation with his effusive commendation on how President Tinubu has set the economy on a new path of growth. Governor Abiodun urged the Chairman of the Progressive Governors forum to move the vote of confidence, but not until he had finished delivering his own eloquent assessment of President Tinubu’s stewardship. It was a vintage delivery loaded with facts about the direction the country was headed. The right direction.

Perhaps the most engaging was the mea culpa delivered by Mr. President himself. The best closer. I offer you Mr. President’s words at NEC today :

“I am happy with your vote of confidence, and I accept it. The vote is a challenge to do more work; we will vigorously pursue our sovereignty in food security, investment and development. I am happy with food prices coming down, especially as Ramadan approaches. The Sun is high, and the sky is bright outside. While the rest of the world unravels, we see growth in Nigeria. We are seeing a gradual return to stability. We are seeing improvements. I thank you, governors. I’m grateful to all Nigerians for the electoral successes recorded from one state to the other. Governors, you have embraced these changes, and I thank the leadership of our party. I also thank members of the National Assembly for expeditiously considering the budget.

“We can only build the party on a progressive platform to deliver good service to Nigerians. Though the journey has been very challenging for us as a ruling party, given the big task we have at hand and the expectations from Nigerians. We can sufficiently submit that we have collectively risen to the occasion and challenges.”

Dare is the Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Media and Public Communication

Security aides attached to Mojisola Meranda, speaker of the Lagos state house of assembly, have been withdrawn.

TheCable understands that her security detail was withdrawn on Thursday morning.

A high ranking official in the Lagos assembly confirmed the development to TheCable.

“Yes, it’s true. Let people know that this woman did not impose herself in the Lagos house of assembly. She was elected by 33 of the 40-member house. That is to me an overwhelming majority,” the source said.

“We should ask ourselves: Is it because she’s a woman? Women are also asking the same question. How long do we continue in this tradition?”

The Lagos legislature has been embroiled in crisis since Mudashiru Obasa was removed as speaker on January 13.

Meranda was immediately voted in to replace him — becoming the first female speaker of the Lagos legislature.

On February 17, the house passed a vote of confidence in Meranda who subsequently adjourned plenary indefinitely, as rumours swirled that pressure was mounting on her to resign.

Obasa has repeatedly challenged the process that culminated in his impeachment, arguing that due procedure was not followed and insisting that he remains the legitimate speaker of the house.

[TheCable]

You cannot quarrel about how a man tells his story. It is his business. However, the pseudo-autobiography of the former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, is more than the retired general telling a story of his own life. A Journey in Service is a long, tortuous journey to penitence, which arrives at its destination, if it does at all, leaving its memory behind.

After 32 years of deflecting, dissembling, dodging and denial, the former military president finally gets as close as possible to remorse, then stops short of saying sorry for his betrayal of his country by blaming several dead and a few feeble living.

And yet, Babangida, being Babangida, reserved the best part of his book for himself. He left the worst for those who might have challenged his account and others he believes should have forgotten by now. Babangida will not change, but that’s okay. He shouldn’t also make the mistake of thinking we have all forgotten.  

Whitewash

The prologue says the book is “not about finding blame, inventing excuses or whitewashing known facts.” However, apart from chapters 1 and 2 on his early childhood, chapters 11 and 13 on his home front and retirement, and perhaps one or two other chapters in between, where he struggled to restrain himself, nine of the 12 chapters of the 440-page book are filled with blame, inventions, and whitewashing.

I start with his relationship with the press. In chapter 6, entitled, “Mounting the Saddle, Defining a Military President,” after throwing Major General Muhammadu Buhari and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon under the bus for miscarrying their “initial rescue mission,” he praised his government for abolishing Decree 4, passed by Buhari, and granting state pardon to two journalists, Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson of The Guardian, who had been sentenced under the decree.

Babangida said his heroic act of press redemption warmed his relationship with the media.

The other side of the story

That’s one side of the story, done, like many things Babangida did, with a hidden agenda. Here’s what a report by the media watchdog Media Rights Agenda (MRA) said: “The regime of General Ibrahim Babangida (August 27, 1985 to August 26, 1993) has the dubious distinction of having closed down or proscribed more newspapers and magazines than any other government in Nigeria’s history.

“Forty-one newspapers and magazines were victims of this practice under the administration; some closed down or proscribed on two different occasions. Twenty-five newspapers and magazines were shut down or proscribed by the Babangida administration in 1993 alone following public agitation for a return to civil democratic rule…”

The clampdown

The clampdown didn’t start in 1993. It began in 1987, roughly two years after Babangida came to power. The first target of this press saviour in shining armour was Newswatch magazine, which was banned for six months for publishing a report deemed injurious to the government’s political bureau. This was barely one year after one of the founders of Newswatch, Dele Giwa, was killed in a parcel bomb.

Press freedom went downhill from then on, with the government shutting down PUNCH, Concord, Guardian, and Sketch, among others. Another matter is how the military president, even out of office, manipulated the election of newspaper publishers.

MRA reported that three newspapers owned by John West publications were shut down for publishing the Jennifer Madike stories that “embarrassed the president’s wife.” And when William Keeling, a British journalist with the Financial Times, dared to publish a story alleging that about $5 billion windfall from Gulf War 1 was diverted, Babangida’s government wasted no time bundling him out of the country.

Seduced by power

Those too young or indebted to Babangida to see clearly may believe what they choose. But it would be defamatory of reptiles to call the man a chameleon. When General Yakubu Gowon said in the Foreword that being a soldier and a politician was a virtue in Babangida, the old man was being economical with the truth. As Marshal Davout, one of Napoleon’s most outstanding soldiers, said, the best soldiers abhor politics. They take a professional stand. Many who are seduced lose their way.

A Journey in Service reminds us of how Babangida sucked in the crème de la crème of the academia to boost the legitimacy of his regime. Regrettably, this handshake across the Ivory Tower, which later extended to the judiciary, labour and sections of civil society, became a deadly stranglehold. Babangida’s book doesn’t contain a hint of the poisonous liaison.

We read nothing, for example, about how Babangida inflicted further damage on academia. Under Gowon, the field was already dented by awful interference as military administrators began appointing university visitors.

Our Gorbachev?

But it got even worse. In 1988, Babangida, who framed himself as Nigeria’s answer to Mikhail Gorbachev, ordered the deportation of Patrick Wilmot, a sociology teacher at the Ahmadu Bello University, for teaching “what he was not paid to teach.”

Yet, if you think Babangida’s attempt to rewrite history was limited only to the press and academia, then you underestimate the disservice of the book. Chapter 12, “Transition to Civil Rule and the June 12 Saga,” is at the heart of the book: it reveals Babangida for who he is – duplicity, the milder version of which is an evil genius. However, anyone remembering this trying period in Nigeria will pinch himself at Babangida’s convenient attempt to take responsibility by shifting the blame.

In this chapter, he blamed the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) for going to court on the eve of the election. Then, he blamed Justice Bassey Ikpeme, an agent of his own Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Clement Akpamgbo, for granting the order to stop the election.

Then, he blamed the National Electoral Commission (NEC) chairman, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, for stopping the announcement of the election result. He blamed Nduka Irabor for announcing the annulment of the election from a rough sheet of paper, claiming it was without the knowledge of Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, his second-in-command.

Abacha as scapegoat

Finally, he blamed General Sani Abacha for leading the fifth columnists in his government to sabotage the process. This comprehensive blame account indicts everyone around the boss. Still, it leaves the boss a generous latitude to accept responsibility for the glaring and monumental lapses without apologising to the country he had betrayed.

“These nefarious ‘inside’ forces opposed to the elections have outflanked me”, Babangida said he remembers saying on Page 275. He didn’t say to whom he was speaking. A whitewash by the whitewasher-in-chief never looked whiter.

What did he do to “outflank” the “nefarious forces?” By his own account, he convened the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) after he claimed announcements stopping the elections were being made without his authority.

He admitted knowing when Nwosu stopped announcing the result without his approval and when Irabor made the so-called unauthorised announcement. Even before that, his minister Akpamgbo, at whose behest he insinuated that Justice Ikpeme may have acted, attended the AFRC meeting with him. Yet, the commander-in-chief present amidst the chaos lacked the courage to call the shots.

He did something, though. He yielded to the law of self-preservation, the love of self, and then, only later, like a scoundrel, claimed he was stepping aside for the love of country. He left behind the Interim National Government, a contraption he knew wouldn’t last.

More questions than answers

Writing off the book as a triumph of cowardice and dissembling would be harsh. There are a few strands of consistency. For example, Babangida admitted that Dele Giwa was his friend but didn’t say and has never said what became of the multiple investigations into how Giwa was killed by a parcel bomb decades after the tragic event. Yet, Giwa was his friend.

Babangida said 159 persons, mainly middle-level military officers, were killed in the C-130 NAF aircraft crash in Ejigbo, Ikeja, because of poor aircraft maintenance, but failed to say whose responsibility it was to maintain the aircraft or what happened to the negligent officers in charge.

His Mamman Vatsa coup story was also conveniently consistent. Vatsa had always envied him from secondary school, even though they sometimes shared bed spaces and clothes. He wasn’t surprised Vatsa would bribe soldiers—one of them with N50k—to put his head on a plate despite the consequences of such a treasonable act.

Plea for Vatsa

Why didn’t he commute the death sentences on Vatsa and others despite the cloud of suspicion around their sentencing and his promise of a review after strong appeals by many, including Nigeria’s leading literary lights, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and JP Clark? Again, he was conveniently consistent. It’s an elementary fact, he says, that plotters don’t live to tell the story, except if, like him, they succeed.

But Babangida conveniently forgot at least two notable exceptions of commutation: Kukoi Samba Sanyang’s failed coup against Gambia’s President Dawda Jawara in 1981 and Olusegun Obasanjo/Shehu Musa Yar’Adua failed coup against Abacha in 1995.

Perhaps the book’s most surprising accounts included his admission that his friend MKO Abiola won the June 12, 1993, election hands down and his rare praise of Buhari for cleaning up his mess by acknowledging Abiola as “a former head of state” 25 years later. This is surprising because when I interviewed him nine years ago, he said the presidential election result was “inconclusive.” He knew he was lying at the time.

The five-letter word

It would be remarkable if Babangida took responsibility for his mistakes and apologised. He is right that life can only be understood backwards. However, to complete the quote by the Danish philosopher and existentialist Soren Kierkegaard, whom he did not name but quoted in part, honesty in living forward is essential for understanding life backwards.

Instead of the five-letter word – sorry – Babangida tried vainly to use 111,281 words to exorcise the demon within. He failed. In his book On Writing, Stephen King, one of my favourite authors, said honesty is necessary for good writing. Babangida’s pseudo-memoir fails that test.                     

A heartfelt thank you…

My profound thank you to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a man of all seasons, and all who sent messages and prayers on my 60^th birthday. I’m overwhelmed. May your kind wishes and prayers return to bless you and yours.

One of the grandchildren of the late General Sani Abacha attacked General Ibrahim Babangida last weekend in an angry post on X. Titled, ‘My grandfather saved the life of a coward’, it features a photo of Babangida and Abacha holding hands. But the first line carries the punch: “If the lifespans of these two consequential figures were reversed, this treachery would never be discharged by General Abacha.” While I am not interested in the family feud between the Babangidas and the Abachas, there is an important lesson we should not miss: Those who hold the levers of power must always be mindful of the consequences of their actions – not only on themselves but on their families.

That lesson may be lost on the dead, but it is important for the living. On that score, I sympathise with the Abacha family. People may react differently to the dark or heroic parts of their ancestry, but I understand that it can be upsetting to hear unpleasant tales about those we love. “It’s generally not in human character to be all good or all bad–maybe there are positive features of a disgraced ancestor that go some way to compensate or counterbalance whatever evil they did…” Daniel Maurice wrote in ‘How to deal with unwelcome family history discoveries.’ But where such people held positions of public trust, there is practically nothing anybody can do to change perceptions shared by many.

One may argue that Abacha is the only villain today because he is dead. That is the cross his family may have to carry. But the ultimate lesson is for those who are still alive. Speaking on the desperation for power that fuels all kinds of misbehaviour by politicians and public officials in the country, former President Goodluck Jonathan made a profound statement last week, “We, Nigerians, celebrate the wrong thing. And I believe one day, the country will get to the level where people will reject bad behaviour…” said Jonathan who then added: “Maybe one day, we will have two big buildings in Abuja where we will put pictures of people—whether dead or alive—who have messed up this country so that their grandchildren will know their forefathers were part of Nigeria’s problems.”

Last Thursday, a friend forwarded to me a crisp message: “Today in Abuja, all the oppressors of Nigeria gathered in one room. To celebrate one of their own.” If we examine the message from the prism of political leadership,  assembled were General Yakubu Gowon who spent nine years in power; Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who spent 11 years in power (in both military and civilian capacity); Babangida who spent eight years; General Abdulsalami Abubakar who spent a year (less just a few days); Dr Goodluck Jonathan who spent five years and President Bola Tinubu who is nudging towards his second-year anniversary. So, cumulatively, these men have led the country for 36 of the last 60 years. When you combine that with all the richest men and women in the country as well as numerous former vice presidents, serving and former ministers, serving and former governors, against the background of the reality of Nigerian condition, it is difficult to fault the message.

What is remarkable is that anyone who has followed the overwhelming reactions to Babangida’s book would think that the only thing he wrote about was the June 12 election. There is so much more to read and learn about the complexities of policy, governance, issues of nation building, what it meant to be a military leader, and of course snippets of our history. But June 12, the Babangida albatross, overrides everything else. Without the annulment of that election, Babangida’s era could easily have gone down as transformative. And evidence abounds: Third Mainland Bridge, relocation of the Federal Capital to Abuja, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), liberalization of the banking sector and electronic media, private participation in the oil and gas sector. etc. Despite these historic achievements, the only thing that comes to mind at the mention of Babangida is the annulment of June 12. And as we have seen, it will take more than one book to change that. In life, some conditions are permanent.

Meanwhile, contrary to what some readers think, I am not writing a new book on the June 12 crisis. As a reporter during the era, I wrote four self-published books that are no longer readily available. The first, ‘Fortress on Quicksand’ was on the futile efforts by 23 presidential aspirants in the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) before they were all disqualified and banned from contesting elections. It took me several months to get an old copy. The second, ‘POLITRICKS: National Assembly under Military Dictatorship’, detailed the intrigues of Babangida’s civilian legislature as a military president. Although originally printed at a shop in Mushin in August 1994, I republished it in 2010 with a foreword by then Senate President David Mark, a retired Brigadier General who happened to be one of the central characters in the June 12 story. The third, ‘Abiola’s Travails’ was published in August 1997 to mark his (Abiola’s) 60th birthday at a period he was in detention. ‘The Last 100 Days of Abacha’ was written in 2005 to warn against ‘Third Term’. So, what I have just done is to combine (and edit) them into one book for release, hopefully in June this year.

Since Abacha is no more, it is unfortunate for his family that they will have to carry the burden of what is in the public domain about their late patriarch. But for Babangida, the lesson of the moment is also clear: One single chapter can define a book. And a single action can define a life!

What is the Population of Nigeria?

In June 2013, then National Population Commission (NPC) chairman, Eze Festus Odimegwu, inadvertently spoke to the architecture of electoral malpractices in Nigeria. Responding to the request for assistance on constituency delimitation exercise by then Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, Odimegwu said “The enumeration centers we have, some of them do not exist in reality. Some politicians bought them the way you will want to register voters, and some people will buy voter cards in order to have an advantage.” It goes without saying that once the number of enumeration areas is compromised, the integrity of the outcome of such exercise (whether census or election) becomes doubtful.  

But the real issue here is not about how our politicians try to ‘rig elections at source’. Rather it is the difficulty in ascertaining the real population of Nigeria without which there can be no proper planning. The United Nations (UN) recommends a national census enumeration for every country at least once every ten years. The last census in Nigeria was conducted 19 years ago in 2006! “I don’t know how long we will keep running away from census, and we keep deceiving and lying to ourselves, by running away from the truth,” former President Olusegun Obasanjo whose administration conducted the last census told the current NPC Chairman, Mr Isa Kwarra, during a courtesy call on him in Abeokuta three years ago.

At a meeting with a delegation from the NPC on Monday, President Bola Tinubu proposed to set up a committee that will solve the logistical problems that hamper the conduct of a new national census. “We must ascertain who we are, how many we are, and how to manage our data,” the president reportedly told his audience, including the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Atiku Bagudu. “Without an accurate census, we can’t successfully plan for employment, agriculture and food security.”

As much as I agree with the president, he—perhaps more than anyone else—knows quite well that Nigeria has had a chequered history of attempting to count its population. Virtually every effort to conduct a credible national census has ended in controversy, acrimony and rejection by one section of the country or the other. Two (1973 and 1991) were in fact annulled. Perhaps more ironic is that one of the people described as “Confusionists” by Obasanjo for disputing the 2006 Population Census report is Tinubu. Lagos State, according to then Governor Tinubu, had 17,553,924 residents as against the 9,013,534 he claimed was ‘allocated’ by the NPC. “The figure is totally rejected … The database is faulty. It has to be discarded,” Tinubu said at the time.

I once took time to study population figures in several countries. Over the last 100 years, the annual growth rate is mostly between 1 and 3. I then juxtaposed this with that of pre-independence and post-independence Nigeria. In 1911 for instance, our population was 15.9 million but ten years later in 1921, it had become 18.7 million—an increase of 2.8 million. In 1931, the figure had increased by 1.3 million to give us a population of 20 million. Instructively, all these were consistent with the global pattern. The next census took place 21 years later in 1952 by which time our population was 30.3 million people. But from that period, things changed.

With independence and its politics, the 1962 census gave us an extra population of 14.9 million people, thus pushing the threshold to 45.6 million. A year later (when another census was conducted) an extra 10.5 million Nigerians had been added to give us a contentious figure of 55.7 million that was eventually discarded. Ten years later in 1973, another set of 24.1 million Nigerians had come on board to make 79.76 million, although that census figure was also jettisoned. There was no census until 1991 when our population was put at 88.5 million. The census that would follow came in 2006 by which time (within a period of 15 years), another 51.5 million Nigerians had been added to the population data to make 140 million people.

The implication of the foregoing is that between 1911 and 1952, our population grew from 18.7 million to 30.3 million, an increase of 62 percent in 41 years. But between 1952 and 2006, a period of 44 years, the same population grew from 30.3 million to 140 million, an increase of about 360 percent! How can we sustain a system based on such transparent fraud?

Why is a simple ‘headcount’ such a difficult thing to do in Nigeria? I suggest it is because population determines how much each of the 36 states and 774 local government areas collect from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) disbursed monthly by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). Yet, at no other time has a real census been more critical than now to allow for proper national planning. We must wean our nation of the distributive politics of oil rent that is at the root of corruption in our country, including in our politics and data collection.

 Indeed, the absence of credible data accounts in large part for the state of our nation today. For instance, in a report on the mismanagement of the oil and gas sector in Nigeria in 2016, the Economist wrote: “…oil is also being stolen at a record rate and traders’ figures show output at well below the government’s figures. Information about Africa’s biggest oil industry is an opaque myriad of numbers. No one knows which ones are accurate; no one knows how much oil Nigeria actually produces. If there were an authoritative figure, the truly horrifying scope of corruption would be exposed.”  

The census provides requisite information needed by the government to develop policies that will help run effective public services. We therefore need credible data about our population and the different demographics if we are to successfully tackle the challenges that plague our country. But until we see population counts as an instrument for economic planning rather than for the allocation of rent (unearned resources), census will continue to be a problem in Nigeria. Sadly, with ethnic/sectional cleavages already becoming more and more pronounced two years to the next election, how do we conduct a census which will produce an outcome that is both credible and acceptable in a nation of distrustful people? 

The ball is now squarely in President Tinubu’s court!