An All Progressives Congress, APC, youth leader, Hyde Kalu, has urged the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to discontinue the suit he filed against President Bola Tinubu in the United States.

Atiku had in the suit asked a US district court to order Chicago State University, Tinubu’s alma mater, to release the President’s academic records.

Kalu, in a statement on Monday, urged Atiku to allow the judiciary in Nigeria to decide disputes arising from the 2023 presidential election.

He noted that Nigeria is being ridiculed in the comity of nations as a result of the legal dispute in the US.

The APC youth leader said the call became necessary because the issue was already generating negative attention on Nigeria across the globe.

He begged Atiku to save the country the embarrassment.

The statement read, “Atiku is a statesman, and it is not in contention that he has the love of Nigeria at heart.

“I am sure that no Nigerian is happy with the way our country has been subjected to ridicule over the court ruling in the United States

“For the love of this country and to spare Nigerians the shame of how this process may end, it is important that we plead with Atiku to drop that case and not allow us wash our dirty linens in the public.

“We are all patriots, and I believe that we can have a decent way of handling this matter and save Nigerians the shame of this impending embarrassment.

“The election has come and gone, and a president has emerged. We are all humans, and that is why I am pleading with Atiku to discontinue the case in America for the sake of the country and in consideration of the friendship between him and President Tinubu.”

…Fetish Object Placed At Official Residence

The crisis between Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa has assumed a risky dimension as the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Olamide Oladiji raised the alarm that his life is being threatened by some unknown persons.

Speaking with newsmen at the Assembly on Monday, the Speaker disclosed that he has been receiving phone calls from unknown persons threatening him shortly after the Assembly began the impeachment process of the state Deputy Governor on Wednesday.

Oladiji also revealed that some of his colleagues from the Southern Senatorial District of the state have been warned not to visit their constituencies or they risk attack.

He told journalists that he saw a fetish substance placed at the entrance of his official residence at Alagbaka, Akure, the state capital early on Monday morning.

But the Speaker declared that he was unperturbed by the phone calls and fetish substance, saying the tormentors were trying to put pressure on him to disembark from the constitutional duties of the Assembly.

He, therefore, called on security agencies in the state to beef up security around him and other members of the Assembly to prevent them from being attacked the strange callers.

The Speaker called on the Police and other security agencies to track down the strange callers.

According to him, “Very early this morning(Monday), when I was about going out, I saw an object in front of my lodge.

“Since the day we started this process(impeachment process), I have been receiving strange calls. My life has also been under serious threat from unknown people.

“So, I want to call on the people of Ondo State and security operatives to track down these people.”

Meanwhile, the Speaker disclosed that the Assembly has served Deputy Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa the notice on the allegations of gross misconduct and abuse if office on Monday afternoon.

He disclosed that the Deputy Governor was served through substitution service having found it impossible to serve him physically.

Oladiji said: “One hour ago, we served the Deputy Governor. Since Wednesday 20th, we have been trying our best to see how we can get him served, but we were not able to achieve that.

“Now we have to go through the court. We got an affidavit from the court to serve him through substituted service.

“So, he has been served through his office. It was received by his Secretary. I am not under any pressure, except the threats. This is a legislative assignment.”

In his presentation before a federal judge in the United States on Monday, President Bola Tinubu through his counsel has pleaded with the judge to release only his university certificate to Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the February 25 election.

He pleaded with the court to hide his gender and other school records from his political rival, Atiku.

Tinubu argued that releasing all his academic records including his gender would be costly to him.

“There is harm in allowing discovery on issues and documents outside the diploma,” Tinubu had pleaded while seeking a review of Judge Jeffrey Gilbert’s order by Ms Maldonado, a district judge.

The judge while shifting his ruling to Monday called both parties to make their presentation before him.

Atiku had approached the court to compel the Chicago State University, CSU, to release complete information of the president to unravel who he is, following many years of controversy surrounding his state of origin, gender, age, academic records among other biodata.

One of the controversial documents showed the person Bola Tinubu as a ‘female’ while others contained conflicting information and discrepancies that the president has failed to explain.

Atiku said causing the CSU to release all documents linked to the president will put to rest the controversy as well as aiding his case in Court regarding the outcome of the presidential election.

But after stoutly opposing the release of his documents a week ago, the president has at the hearing today (Monday) pleaded that the court can cause only partial release of the documents, which is his certificate while blocking the CSU from releasing others.

Simon Bako Lalong and Nkeiruka Chidubem Onyejeocha are two dogged fighters. Over time, both of them have earned their ranks in the rough terrain of Nigerian politics, fighting and winning notable battles along the way. Today, the two who are still settling down in office as President Bola Tinubu’s ministers, are in the centre of an intriguing challenge of what to do with their National Assembly election mandates which they have just retrieved from the tribunals.

Two people of two different genders from two different political backgrounds with a similar fairy tale of a story weaved by several twists of fate.

Lalong served two terms as Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly between 1999 and 2007 before he went for the ultimate prize as governor in 2015. After serving as Plateau State governor for 8 eight long years, the contest for the Plateau South Senate seat was supposed to be pretty predictable in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate.

When the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, called the election, Lalong who doubled as Director-General of Bola Tinubu’s presidential campaign organization, ‘lost’ to Napoleon Bali of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Onyejeocha’s record is no less impressive. After serving as Abia State Commissioner for Resource Management and Manpower Development under Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, she contested and won the 2007 election to represent Isiukwuato/Umunneochi constituency in the Federal House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. She remained in the Green Chamber for an unprecedented four terms. Her fifth term, this time on the platform of the APC, was also supposed to be a straightforward matter, but when INEC announced the result on February 28, 2023, Onyejeocha ‘lost’ to Amobi Ogah of the Labour Party.

Simon Lalong

Like in most electoral contests in Nigeria, final outcomes are never known until the courts speak; the euphoria of victories called by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, may sometimes be short lived. Both Lalong and Onyejeocha were obviously not satisfied with the declarations by the electoral body, hence their decision to head for the election tribunals in Jos and Umuahia, respectively. In their usual dogged manner, each of them put up a good fight and hoped that jubilation may come their way in the end.

Nobody has told us if they lobbied for it, but when President Tinubu tapped them for ministerial appointments, it resonated with party chieftains. It would be unfair to shut out the former Campaign DG, just as there was need to accommodate the woman who stepped down for Gbajabiamila during the 2019 race for Speaker of the House of Representatives.

They did what most Nigerians in their positions will do in the circumstances by taking up the offers, after all, many sitting parliamentarians abandon their mandates when offered ministerial positions. The former governor of Ebonyi State, Engr. Dave Umahi is a recent example: he had already bagged the position of Deputy Majority Whip in the Senate but was at the time already gearing to join the federal executive council.

So, rather than wait for an uncertain judicial outcome, they opted to accept. That notwithstanding, the Judicial process, like a coach already in motion, continued to run its course. Meanwhile, on 21 August 2023, they were sworn in as ministers and posted, coincidentally, into the same Ministry of Labour and Employment; one as Minister and the other as Minister of State.

They plunged into the unenviable task of resolving, through hard negotiations with the organized labour, the myriad of outstanding industrial and labour issues involving the Federal Government. The sudden announcement on May 29, that fuel subsidy had been removed, pitched the government against the Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and their affiliates that pencilled down a list of demands to cushion the biting effects brought about by the policy reversal.

While still battling over the thorny issues with the labour unions, however, providence struck. The news filtered that the petition filed by Onyejeocha before the Tribunal sitting in Umuahia, against the election of Labour Party’s Hon. Amobi Ogah representing Isiukwuato/Umunneochi Federal Constituency, had succeeded. Delivering judgement in the petition EPT/AB/HR/8/2023, the three-member panel nullified the election that returned Ogar for substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Nkeiruka Onyejeocha

Days later, a similar news also came from the Elections Petitions Tribunal in Jos headed by Omaka Elekwo. The tribunal similarly nullified the election of Senator Napoleon Bali of the PDP because of the party’s refusal to respect the order of a Jos High court to conduct ward congresses before the last general elections. With all the votes cast for the PDP candidate invalidated, the senator representing Plateau South was sacked and Simon Lalong of the APC subsequently declared the validly elected candidate for the seat.

They are not alone. Hundreds of other candidates who contested the 2023 elections and found themselves, either as petitioners or respondents, in the many Tribunals across the country, were also affected in the judicial topsy-turvy. While many are jubilating, others gnash their teeth. But everybody knows, in most cases, that the last words have not been heard. Sixty more days of appeal is a long period in the courts, especially when election matters are in issue.

While the losers in both cases, legislators in the green and the red chambers of the National Assembly, respectively, have indicated interest in appealing the judgments, attention has returned to the two ministers. Have Lalong and Onyejeocha just laboured in vain? Even if their tribunal victories are sustained on appeal, to what effect will their victories be? Will they opt out of the federal cabinet to enjoy the fruits of their labour in the National Assembly or continue in the ministry of Labour?

Sheddy Ozoene, Editor-in-Chief of People&Politics, is the Vice President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.

It is a bit of a risk to advise your professional colleague, especially one in a big political office. No matter the nobility of your intentions, you’d always be misunderstood. If he has a large ego, like many political appointees, he may feel offended and mark you down for a revenge. I have seen it before, but I cannot resist the urge to send this note to Ajuri Ngelale, the president’s spokesman, who is bumping from one blunder to the other, embarrassing himself and his bosses along the way. In the social media, he is being derisively referred to as ‘’junior Lai Mohammed’’ with many saying that his official statements are filled with embellishments, obfuscations or outright lies. Ngelale has become the subject of jokes on morning talk shows and social media chatrooms. Ngelale is in too much of a hurry to impress the President, who in turn, is too eager to dazzle Nigerians with his fabled wizardry in governance. In his haste, the spokesman overlooks the key cardinal principles of his job: cross check all your claims; keep the message simple and honest and above all, stay humble and true to the people.

Soon after the President met with the leaders of UAE early in September, Ngelari rushed out a statement claiming that the UAE authorities have approved the immediate lift of visa ban on Nigerians and the immediate resumption of Emirates and Etihad flights to our country. ‘’President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the President of United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Monday on Abu Dhabi, have finalized a historic agreement, which has resulted in the immediate cessation of the visa ban placed on Nigerian travelers. As negotiated between the two Heads of State, this immediate restoration of flight activity, through these two airlines and between the two countries, does not involve any immediate payment by the Nigerian government’’, the statement reads. No sooner had the press release reached newsrooms than the UAE government issued their own version, disclaiming Ngelari’s statement. It noted that the two leaders only exchanged diplomatic niceties and courtesies. There were no discussions on the visa ban and flights resumption.

This was an obvious embarrassment to the Nigerian government and a dent on Ngelari’s professional reputation. Was he not in the meeting between the two Heads of State, or did he deliberately lie to Nigerians just to present his boss as a miracle worker? Presidential spokespersons sit in almost all meetings and they are well informed of the President’s activities. How then could he have issued a statement that was not only patently false, but also filled with superfluities. Words like ‘’historic agreement’’; ‘’immediate cessation’’; ‘’immediate restoration’’ and ‘’negotiated between the two Heads of State’’ easily revealed the writer’s hidden mission. Presidents don’t negotiate agreements! Negotiations are done at ministerial levels. The statement was also defective in a more intrinsic way. It did not mention anything about a possible return of the Nigerian airline, Airpeace, which had also been flying into UAE as part of the bilateral air service agreement (BASA) which we have with the Arab country. How could our President have sat down to agree on such a one-sided agreement? Didn’t he consult with our aviation officials before the talks?

Nine days after the UAE debacle, Ngelale issued another statement from New York, announcing that President Tinubu had rung the closing bell at NASDAQ in New York, and that he was the first ‘’African Head of State to be given the honour’’. That was a lie. President Jakaya Kilwete of Tanzania had in September 2011 rung the NASDAQ closing bell. President Goodluck Jonathan had in 2013 rung the bell at New York Stock Exchange, a bigger exchange than NASDAQ. Even a Nigerian citizen, Ms Florence Otedola, popularly known by her trade name, DJ Cuppy, had also rung the NYSE closing bell. There was uproar across the country and the embarrassment was so huge that Ngelale had to issue an apology for the mistake, explaining that he was misguided by a third party. A simple Google search would have saved him this humiliation.

But why does the administration seem to have a predilection to exaggerate its claims and depict the President as the ‘’only one’’ – someone with a special set of skills who have done what his predecessors could not do? The answer is rooted in the psychology of the man and the people around him. Tinubu has always been presented as the greatest political tactician ever in the country. When he was governor, he erected billboards bearing his photograph and those of Mahatma Ghandi and Obafemi Awolowo, essentially comparing himself with the two renowned sages. He skillfully cultivated this image in the 16 years he out of public office. His prominent roles in building APC from a regional platform to a national party that has won three presidential elections has further buoyed his credentials. Throughout the last campaigns, the Tinubu camp rode on this sentiment, presenting himself as the man with extraordinary powers. He built Lagos, we were told, transformed it from a rustic town to a mega metropolis with Class A Team. He is the only one who will revive Nigeria, his campaign boasted. On May 29, Tinubu ended his inaugural speech with ‘’All these would be possible because my name is Bola Tinubu’’. Since then, every piece of communication from the Villa and other corners of the administration has been deliberately couched to reinforce the mantra that the President can do all things. By garnishing his public statements with unfounded claims, Ngelale is only trying hard to strengthen this narrative, but unfortunately, his efforts have fallen flat. It is now up to him to mend his ways.

I have had some interesting relationships with previous presidential spokesmen. In the early days of the Obasanjo administration when the President was mired in many controversies, I wrote a piece entitled ‘’Communicating the President’’ in which I offered some suggestions on how best to manage his engagements with the media. Dr. Doyin Okukpe, the then SA on Media & Publicity to the President, liked the piece and invited me to meet him in Abuja. It was my first time in the Villa. Garba Shehu and Femi Adeshina warmed up to me easily given my passionate support to President Buhari, until I wrote a piece ‘’The many frustrations of Femi Adeshina’’ in February 2020 in which I advised Adeshina on how best to handle the pressures of the job. But he did not like my intervention. Dr. Reuben Abati took my many interjections in his strides, apparently because we had come a long way from our days at The Guardian. In January 2013 or so (not very sure), President Goodluck Jonathan attended WEF at Davos, Switzerland, and I watched with horror as the President addressed a press conference in what appeared as a restaurant, with wine and liquor glasses appearing in the background. I denounced the setting and the apparent lack of attention to detail on the part of the people who arranged event. Abati called me and explained the circumstances surrounding the shoddy arrangements and how he was blindsided in the preparations. He took my comments with equanimity.

I do not know Ngelale personally, but as a young media professional, I want him to succeed. He should, however, learn three important lessons. One, President Tinubu is not a superhuman being with extraterrestrial powers. He will play his parts, and leave the stage one day.
Two, a presidential communication ought to be measured, elegant and delicate. Three, a key ingredient of public communication is to establish your own personal integrity. If the communicator does not come across as believable, authentic and truthful, he will lose his audience sooner than later.

President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, has warned that 40 to 50 per cent of students will leave school in the next two to three years if the federal government fails to stop the arbitrary increment in school fees by the universities.

Prof Osodeke gave the warning while speaking on the current situation in the education sector in Nigeria on Channels TV Sunday night.

The union leader, who accused universities of arbitrarily increasing school fees, posited that the government should rather be attracting more students to school by its education policies.

“Today, universities are arbitrarily increasing school fees. Is that correct in an environment today where the minimum wage is N30,000 per month when you have to pay rent, pay heavily for transportation and you are enforcing it on the students?

“If nothing is done about these heavy fees being introduced by schools all over the country, in the next two or three years, more than 40 to 50 per cent of these children who are in school today will drop out,” he said.

Prof Osodeke also warned that the country would be in trouble when its large youthful population are out of school.

He said: “When they drop out, they will become a big feed for recruitment for those who want this country to be ungovernable.

“This is what we are saying, create the environment we have in the 60s and 70s. When I was a student, the government was paying me for being a student. Let’s have an environment where the children of the poor can have access to education.

“School fees of N300,000, how can the children of someone who earns N50,000 a month be able to pay such a fee?”

He called on the government to increase budgetary allocation to education to at least 15 per cent of the total budget sum.

He lamented that the 3.8 per cent allocated to education in the last budget was nothing to write home about, saying with an increase in budget allocation to education, parents would be relieved of the burden of paying high fees for their children.

The union leader punctured the student loan policy of the government, saying there were no signs it would work.

Prof Osodeke said: “When you are talking about student loans, you have to be comprehensive. There is nothing to show that it would work.

“There is a need for a review. Check what happened in the past and see how we can move forward. But for us, our idea is that instead of calling it a loan, let us call it a grant.

“If you look at the conditions, 90 per cent of the students will not have access to that loan. The condition that you must have parents who earn less than N500,000 per annum [is harsh]. How many people earn less than N500,000 per annum?”

The Benue State House of Assembly has passed a resolution urging the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to ban the popular reality television show Big Brother Naija.

The decision was reached during a plenary session presided over by the Speaker, Hon. Hyacinth Dajoh.

The proposal gained momentum after Hon. Manger Manger, the representative for Tarka State Constituency, raised concerns about derogatory comments made by Venita Akpofure, a housemate on the show, towards the Tiv ethnic group.

In addition to the call for the show’s ban, the House decreed that Akpofure issue a public apology to the Tiv ethnic community through two national dailies and television stations.

Furthermore, they recommended reporting her to the Inspector General of Police and initiating legal action in a competent court to deter future instances.

In his motion, Manger cited Section 34 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, emphasizing that every individual or group deserves respect for their dignity, a principle that must be upheld and protected.

Manger expressed concern over the damaging remarks made by Venita, an Urhobo from Delta State.

She had claimed the Tiv people of Benue State offer their wives to visitors and friends for entertainment.

Manger underscored the importance of addressing the issue promptly to prevent confusion and misinformation, particularly since she was previously married to a Tiv man and had two children from the union.

The House aims to curb the potential harm caused by such statements, ensuring accuracy and understanding prevails.

FCT Minister, Mr Nyesom Wike, has approved a three-month grace period for owners of 189 undeveloped plots of land in the territory to start to develop them or get their allocation papers revoked.

Director of Information and Communication at the FCT Administration, Mr Muhammad Sule, stated on Sunday in Abuja that the affected title holders had obtained building plan approvals but were yet to develop the properties.

Sule stated that the affected property owners were expected to develop the property within the stipulated period or have their title documents revoked in line with extant laws.

He explained that the grace period applied to individuals and corporate organisations that had shown the desire to develop their property by obtaining building plan approvals.

Sule added that public institutions that had land titles within the FCT but had yet to develop the same were also advised to do so within the three-month grace period to avoid the sanction.

“The minister has extended this gesture to 189 property owners due to their desire to develop the properties by obtaining building plan approvals, a prerequisite for the development of any property in the FCT,” Sule was quoted by NAN as saying.

“Owners of the plots were exempted from revocation because they had already demonstrated firm commitment to develop their property by obtaining necessary documents from the FCT Administration.

“The minister is urging the affected property owners to take advantage of the gesture and develop their plots in line with the terms of their Offer of Right-of-Occupancy.”

Alhaji Wale Adedibu, an influential All Progressives Congress (APC) member from Oyo State, has passed away.

Saturday saw his passing after a brief illness.

A few days have passed since the death of the APC woman leader in the Oyo North Senatorial district before Adedibu’s passing.

Princess Adebowale Atoyebi, the female leader of the APC, passed away last week.

In response, Senator Sharafadeen Alli, who represents the Oyo South senatorial district, said that he was shocked to hear about Adedibu’s passing.

Alli in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Akeem Abas, described Adedibu as a committed and dedicated party member.

He added that the deceased worked tirelessly for the growth of the party in the State.

He said that Adedibu’s death was a reminder of the fragility of life and the need for all to cherish every moment.

He expressed condolences to the family, friends, political associates and the APC family on the tragic loss.

Not knowing when to complain is a problem. That the North believes it has the moral right to talk at all is because it thinks itself senior in the Nigerian arrangement. But I know that the greedy is red-eyed twice: when he eats his yam alone and when his neighbours converge to eat their pounded yam. For eight years, Muhammadu Buhari dared the other parts of Nigeria outside his north and fed àdí (palm kernel oil) to Èsù with his provocative nepotism. He did it without personal consequences because he stood on very firm grounds of regional supremacy. While he wantonly shredded Nigeria’s garment of diversity, today’s noisemakers (and their slaves) egged him on with claps of endorsement. They okayed Buhari’s cronyism and hollered that the spread of the appointments was not necessary but that what mattered were competence and performance. They felt (and feel) no shame that at the end of their Buhari’s eight years, what was harvested from their farm of ‘competence’ and ‘performance’ was mass hunger and mass misery.”

President Bola Tinubu gave our country’s Minister of Defence and Minister of State, Defence to the North; he gave the North Minister of Police Affairs and Minister of State, Police Affairs; he gave the North Minister of Education and Minister of State, Education; he gave the North Minister of Agriculture and Food Security and Minister of State, Agriculture and Food Security. Again; he gave the North the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare plus Minister of Steel Development and Minister of State, Steel Development. To the North, again, Tinubu gave Minister of Water Resources and Minister of State, Water Resources. I can go on and on and add the Minister of Housing and Urban Development and Minister of State, Housing and Urban Development. No part of the South has that privilege of having ‘couplet’ ministers managing key sectors. It is double, double blessing for the North. I don’t think any president has ever done that – not even the insular nepotist, Muhammadu Buhari, did. But why did Tinubu do that? Sacrifice, obedience and gratitude for favours. Sacrifice (libation) to power timekeepers, obedience to janitors of politics, and gratitude to regime makers. “O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!” (William Shakespeare in Henry VI).

But my people say it is impossible to get it right if you are asked to sweep the compound of the witch. If you do it well, she will accuse you of overdoing it; if you do not do it well enough, she will accuse you of not doing it at all. The North is like Hades. In the pantheon of the Greek, Hades is that greedy god who wants more of everything and who shares what he has with none. The Yoruba have Esu which takes everything wholly and completely. Those who know who Esu is know how fatally wrong it could be to appease him with one hand; he demands your two hands and ten fingers (owo meweewa) to deliver his offerings. Yet, whether at home or at the crossroads or even in palaces, Esu takes; he does not give; and when he takes, he offers neither thanks nor thankfulness. Those who know his oríkì say he is the master of the marketplace who buys without paying; the one who ensures that nothing is bought and nothing is sold unless it is nightfall – and on his own terms. For their way to be free of trouble, all other deities worship and propitiate him. That is northern Nigeria; it is not enough that it has all the above. It wants more, and maybe all.

The North is complaining. Its elites say they made this president, now the supposed side chick is ‘forming’ independence; he is neither singing their song nor dancing to their beats – the right way. I have a sultry parallel to draw here: The bed is made, the room is scented with the fragrance of desire, the groom is unknotting his boxers, yet the bride is complaining that her husband is not paying enough attention to her needs. What does the hot bride want to eat that is not yet on fire?

I do not belong to the Tinubu orchestra; what I sing here is my own chord. We may complain about the quality of some of the Tinubu appointees but the justice of the spread between the north and the south no one should. The cluster structure of the appointments would be seen by critics as the president zoning and centralizing prebendal privileges in the hands of regional power lords. His friends and fans would argue that the cluster pattern is the president’s way of ticking problems and attaching them to localised solutions. If the North has Defence Minister and the defence ministry’s Minister of State; if it has Police Affairs Minister and the ministry’s minister of state in addition to the National Security Adviser and the Chief of Defence Staff, should it still have the mouth to complain of lack of official attention to its endemic insecurity? If the North has the Minister of Education and the ministry’s Minister of State, should it still rummage for policies that will wean it of the blight of mass illiteracy and of having uncountable millions of out-of-school-children? If the North has the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, should we ever hear it lament high incidences of child and maternal mortality and epidemics of preventable diseases? The whole of the agriculture ministry is ceded to the North; the entire Water Resources ministry belongs to the North. We wait to see how it will use these to feed its dying, hungry poor – more than eighty percent of its population. It is like now that the South-East has the Minister of Works, we wait to see who that zone will blame if the East-West Road remains unbuilt at the end of Tinubu’s reign. And, if the management of the economy is in the hands of the Lagos-Yoruba, the country knows who to attack now that a dollar is selling for a thousand naira.

Samuel Butler, author of ‘The Way of All Flesh’, warns that what is golden is tact, not silence. Although my fish does not swim in Tinubu’s river, I join this ‘noise’ because of the hypocrisy of those involved. New groups are being formed and old hacks are being activated to compose complaints. One of them is the Arewa Economic Forum (AEF) which recently accused Tinubu of what it termed ‘Yorubanisation’ and ‘Lagoslisation’ of his appointments in the economic and finance sectors. Chairman of the Forum, Alhaji Ibrahim Shehu Dandakata, at a press conference in Abuja said the North was not happy that it was being left out “in the Finance and ICT sectors.” Voices from outside the North are also being borrowed the perfect way slave owners deploy their bondmen to battle. There is an Ile Ife man whose business name is MURIC; he joined the orchestra from his Lagos base and wrapped the nepotism charge with boubou of religion: “All five key appointments made by President Tinubu to revive the economy were given to Christians and Yorubas mainly. These new appointees include the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun; the newly nominated CBN Governor, Dr. Michael Cardoso; Hon. Zacch Adedeji, acting chairman, FIRS; the chairman, Tax Reforms Committee, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, and Mr. Tope Fasua, Special Adviser on Economic Affairs,” MURIC’s promoter, Ishaq Akintola, said in a statement. The MURIC man’s puppeteers did not tell him or he forgot to remind them that an Atiku Bagudu from Kebbi State is the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning. Ishaq Akintola is Yoruba, he is attacking the Yoruba; he is Muslim; he accused his Muslim-Muslim presidency of marginalization of Muslims. Perfect isé erú (slave job) delivered the erú way. In folklore, we tell the hunter to use the sword of Tortoise to kill Tortoise (idà ahun la fií pa ahun). One of the best newspaper articles I read on Nigeria’s north-south relations was written in the early 1980s by Banji Kuroloja, editor of the Nigerian Tribune from 1984 to 1988. Because the title of the piece came very simple and catchy, I will remember it forever: “Singing Their Songs.” I can’t forget. I also can’t forget the takeaway from it: “The ubiquitous North has a way of making others sing their songs.” Forty years plus after that article was published, nothing has changed; the falconer still holds the falcon by the throat, making it say what it is told to say. We’ve seen how abjectly the MURIC man recited his verse, shedding blood when the owner of the problem was shedding tears.

Even the National Publicity Secretary of the North’s apex organization, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Professor Tukur Muhammad-Baba, joined the discourse. In a newspaper interview, he accused Tinubu of giving sensitive and lucrative appointments to persons from his ethnic Yoruba stock. He said Tinubu should not be doing what he is doing “in a deeply fractious federation like ours.” He remembered that “a part of the constitution directs that… appointments must reflect the social diversity of the country in terms of balancing, of place of origin, indigeneship, ethnicity, religion, etc.” Muhammad-Baba and his ACF did not remember the existence of this constitutional provision throughout the eight years of imperial Buhari, Bayajjida II of the kingdom of Northern Nigeria. “Few love to hear the sins they love to act.” That is how William Shakespeare, in his ‘Pericles, Prince of Tyre’, elegantly explains what hypocrisy does to people’s sense of shame.

Not knowing when to complain is a problem. That the North believes it has the moral right to talk at all is because it thinks itself senior in the Nigerian arrangement. But I know that the greedy is red-eyed twice: when he eats his yam alone and when his neighbours converge to eat their pounded yam. For eight years, Muhammadu Buhari dared the other parts of Nigeria outside his north and fed àdí (palm kernel oil) to Èsù with his provocative nepotism. He did it without personal consequences because he stood on very firm grounds of regional supremacy. While he wantonly shredded Nigeria’s garment of diversity, today’s noisemakers (and their slaves) egged him on with claps of endorsement. They okayed Buhari’s cronyism and hollered that the spread of the appointments was not necessary but that what mattered were competence and performance. They felt (and feel) no shame that at the end of their Buhari’s eight years, what was harvested from their farm of ‘competence’ and ‘performance’ was mass hunger and mass misery.

I know that there are certain All Progressives Congress (APC) masquerades who wear costumes of region and religion to complain about their not having posts (yet). If they are in the cold, whose fault should that be? Tinubu’s is a government of libation, everyone who has sense knows. But when you refuse to offer prayers in the right temple and drop sacrifices in the proper shrines, expect disappointments. There is a Festus Keyamo whose ministerial dream suffered reluctance of nomination and controversy of clearance. But, apparently because he knew in what river to wash his hands, his troubles eased off with apologies in sherds of remorse. There is, on the other hand, the petite Nasir El Rufai who went through the examination process supervised by prayerful Godwin Akpabio but had his result withheld by those who held the yam and the knife. What else is there to say when a pupil finds their report card in the mouth of the headmaster’s goat? Yet, there are some who got what they wanted because of the good boy and good girl they had been to the new powers in town. If you keep your palms clean, it is not every time you pour libation to dispensers of favours. And, I have here Ezeulu in Chinua Achebe’s ‘Arrow of God’. The old priest is full of apologies for not setting before his guests “even a pot of palm wine.” The response he gets is to the effect that “when a father calls his children together, he should not worry about placing palm wine before them” (page 143). But that is a father that has paid his dues and has not taken more than he has put down.

Now, is it not a shame that the complaints we hear from the North are about elite privileges and not about the hardship in town? Think about the existential struggles of an average Nigerian and what interests the political class. Like an exasperated friend said on Friday, inflation is hitting the roof, the naira is sinking, market capitalisation at the Nigerian stock market is tumbling, people are dying, yet what interests the elite is what appointees come from their bedrooms. Instead of the northern elites complaining about the ethnic origin of those managing the economy, they should be worried about the calamity of their own failure as leaders and the collapse of all humanity in their region. On the streets of Ibadan, we encounter, daily, beggars from the North with heart-rending stories. This last Saturday, one of them, Harira Muhammadu, told the Saturday Tribune that she left her husband, aged father and children behind in Kano to face a “life of uncertainty” begging on the streets of Ibadan. She said she had no other choice than to beg because the North had collapsed and she could not afford to watch her children starve. “If things were easy and sweet for us back home, we would not come here to live this life of uncertainty. I have some children with me and I do not have anything to feed them with and it is a lot of work…I remember when I first came here many years ago, I did not know where to go or what to do and I was afraid and all. I would cry and wipe my tears. Sometimes, the children would cry with me but I endured because I knew that if I returned home (to the North) the suffering would be more severe,” she said.

There is no southern town or city without sad stories such as that of the beggar above. Yet, check all conferences, read books, monographs and pamphlets from the North, the poor perennially have no space there. There is never a conversation there on the imperative of finding a cure for the pandemic of poverty in that region. The North’s eunuch stands erect (or has an erection) only when there is a South to intimidate. Everything is about power and elite comfort carefully packaged as regional nationalism and/or duty imposed by religion. The elites of the North won’t keep quiet until they are back in power to ride roughshod on the other parts of Nigeria. Check how to deal with bullies. Stand up to them.