A Nigerian man, Godswill Okon, took to his Facebook page, Thursday, to celebrate becoming a father 13 years after getting married.

Okon shared a photo of his newborn daughter, penning a heartfelt message alongside, as he celebrated his new role as a parent while gushing over his daughter.

“She just open her eye since after her birth and we looked eyeball to eyeball. e sweet ooo to be a father.

“We had a father and daughter conversation and at length she smiled at me. And I promised to always teach her the ways of the Lord.

“I didn’t forget to tell her how priceless she meant to me. That I waited for 13 good years with shame, pain and mockery from people for not having a child, but today God decided to silence my accusers and feeds them with shame…Jesus, you are so good to me.”

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu has assured concerns raised by Nigerians on result management at the various elections during the 2023 general elections will be addressed.

He said even though some of the concerns raised are sub judice because they are before the courts, the commission intends to discuss them in-house and share experiences on the way forward.

Yakubu spoke at the commission’s post election review meeting with Collation and returning officers who participated in the 2023 general election.

The meeting is the fourth in the series of review meeting to take stocks of the conduct of the 2023 general elections and fashion the way forward.

He said: “The Commission is aware that as collation and returning officers, you worked under extremely challenging circumstances by tediously and manually completing designated forms as provided by law and either moved them to the next level of collation or concluded the processes as Returning Officers.

“Many of you also have the cognate experience of result management, having served in similar capacities in at least three electoral cycles. The Commission appreciates your commitment, dedication to duty and sacrifice to the cause of our democracy.

“More specifically, and from your practical experience in the 2023 General Election, we would like to hear your perspectives on the processes and procedures recruitment, training and posting of Collation and Returning Officers; logistics for movement to and from your places of assignment; the role of technology in result management among others.”

He said when the review engagements are exhausted, a comprehensive report will be prepared.

REMARKS BY THE CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION (INEC), PROF. MAHMOOD YAKUBU, AT THE POST-ELECTION REVIEW MEETING WITH COLLATION AND RETURNING OFFICERS HELD AT LADI KWALI HALL OF THE ABUJA CONTINENTAL HOTEL ON FRIDAY 21st JULY 2023

National Commissioners Collation and Returning Officers for the 2023 General Election
Other Senior Officials of the Commission Members of the INEC Press Corps Ladies and Gentlemen

1.​ It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the fourth in our planned engagements with key participants in the administration of the 2023 General Election. You may recall that on 4th July 2023, we met with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs). Thereafter, the RECs met in the various States of the federation with our regular staff and ad hoc officials, including those who presided over the elections at polling unit level. Two days ago, we held yet another meeting with our Electoral Officers (EOs) and the leadership of the land and maritime workers’ unions who were engaged to provide logistic support for the movement of personnel and materials.

2.​ Today, we are meeting with yet another important category of election officials i.e. the Collation Officers. Present here today are the 37 State Collation Officers for the Presidential Election (SCOPEs). Many of you also doubled as Returning Officers for the 28 Governorship elections. For legislative elections, we invited, across the six geo-political zones of the country, the Senatorial District Collation Officers who also doubled as Returning Officers for senatorial elections. It is practically unmanageable to invite all the collation and returning officers for 1,462 federal and state constituencies made up of 109 Senatorial Districts as well as 360 Federal and 993 State Houses Assembly constituencies. We therefore focused on the Senatorial Districts since they are bigger and cut across the other constituencies.

3.​ The Commission is aware that as collation and returning officers, you worked under extremely challenging circumstances by tediously and manually completing designated forms as provided by law and either moved them to the next level of collation or concluded the processes as Returning Officers. Many of you also have the cognate experience of result management, having served in similar capacities in at least three electoral cycles. The Commission appreciates your commitment, dedication to duty and sacrifice to the cause of our democracy.

4.​ At the same time, issues have arisen and some Nigerians have raised concerns about result management at various levels. While some of the issues are subject of litigations and therefore sub judice, we can nevertheless discuss them broadly and most importantly share experience on the way forward. It is therefore the Commission’s expectation that at this meeting, we will identify areas of strength and weaknesses as well as the necessary reforms that we need to introduce going forward.

5.​ More specifically, and from your practical experience in the 2023 General Election, we would like to hear your perspectives on the processes and procedures for:

i. Recruitment, training and posting of Collation and Returning Officers;

ii. Logistics for movement to and from your places of assignment;

iii. The integrity of the collation and declaration procedure, including the application of the law, regulations and guidelines for result management;

iv. The role of technology in result management;

v. Security of Collation/Returning Officers and the collation centres;

vi. Conduct of party agents and election observers during collation;

vii. Conduct of security personnel; and

viii. Any other lessons that will improve the future collation and declaration of results.

6.​ Consistent with the Commission’s commitment, when the review engagements are exhausted, a comprehensive report will be prepared. It is therefore expected that you will share your field experiences candidly. We would like to hear from you and what can be done to improve this critical aspect of the electoral process.

7.​ On this note, it is my pleasure to welcome you once again to this review meeting.

8.​ I thank you all and God bless

...N190,000 For Medical Students

The University of Lagos has increased school fees amid rising inflation and hikes in petrol prices following the removal of fuel subsidy.

The school increased its tuition from about N20,000 to over N100,000 depending on the course of study.

The new tuition ranges from N100,750 to N190,250 depending on whether the course of study requires laboratory or studio work or if the student is in the college of medicine.

The Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola held a meeting with the representatives of non-teaching staff unions on July 20, 2023, at the Senate Committee Chamber of the school.

During the meeting, Ogunsola disclosed the proposed fees for undergraduate students of the school.

A statement issued by the school’s chapter of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) said during the meeting that lasted approximately three hours, the “proposed fees for undergraduate students at Unilag were disclosed. Students without lab or studio use would pay N100,750, those with lab use would pay N140,250, and college of medicine undergraduates would pay N190,250.

“The SSANU representative, Comrade Rasaki Yusuf requested a rebate for staff members with children in the university, but the vice chancellor explained that the charges were set nationally and could not be modified for specific student categories.

“However, she offered the option of paying in instalments for staff wards with a condition to pay up one month before the final exams.”

In June, President Bola Tinubu signed the Student Loan Bill into law which allows Nigerian students to access loans from the government.

The bill will also enable Nigerian students to access loans at interest-free rates.

The piece of legislation passed the second reading at the House of Representatives on May 25, 2023.

Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief of Staff to the president; Dele Alake, a member of the President’s Strategic team; Tunde Rahman, spokesman for the president; and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, David Adejoh, witnessed the signing.

SaharaReporters had reported that the government inserted a jail term of two years or a fine of N500,000 or both for any students who breach the new Student Loan Act.

While perusing the Student Loan Bill which was introduced to the Nigerian National Assembly in 2019 by the Former Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, SaharaReporters learned that section 22(5) of the newly enacted bill states that any person who breached or aided anyone who breached its provisions would be jailed for 2 years with or without a fine of N500,000 if found guilty by a competent court of law.

The provision reads: “Anyone in default of the provisions of sub-section 4 above, or found to be aiding the default of any of the provisions of this Act is guilty of an offence and if convicted shall be liable to imprisonment for two years or a fine of N500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira) or both.”

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has reassured his administration will focus on providing adequate security for Nigerians in every part of the country.

Naija News reports that the president stated this while speaking at the graduation of Course 45 of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna State.

Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, pledged more support for the military as he commended them for protecting the territorial integrity of the nation.

The president, who also congratulated the graduating officers, described the military officers serving Nigeria as the best group of people out of the over 200 million citizens of the country.

Two hundred and ninety-one participants graduated and were conferred with the Passed Staff Course (PSC) honour.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Prince Adewole Adebayo has slammed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over the removal of fuel subsidy.

Adebayo described President Tinibu as a hypocrite for opposing former President Goodluck Jonathan when he wanted to remove fuel subsidy in 2011 and went in the opposite direction when he came to power.

In an interview with Arise News on Wednesday, Adebayo said Tinubu and his advisers should have provided palliatives and other plans to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal for Nigerians before the announcement.

He said, “When we talk about hypocrisy, it didn’t start with the labour unions. Hypocrisy started with President Tinubu himself who opposed former President Goodluck Jonathan when he had a smaller amount of subsidy adjustment and all of them went on the streets against it.

“And when they came to power, they went in the opposite direction; finished everything once and for all. It is not a political statement when you say people are hypocritical. We predicted all this.

“We were discussing it then. Nobody can pretend that he/she is not aware that it will affect factor cost. And if it affects factor cost, it will affect cost of living. If it affects the cost of living, more people will go into poverty.”

Speaking further, Adewole said the fuel subsidy removal has thrown more Nigerians into poverty in the last two months, warning that unless President Tinubu and his handlers rethink and have a backup plan, the government would fail woefully.

He said: “I think it is not too late for the government, starting with President Tinubu and co, to rethink and have a backup plan because I have a feeling, and I am saying it with every sense of responsibility, that if they go the way they are going, they will fail woefully. Not because they hate the people but because they are adopting models that never worked.”

Nigeria’s electricity gen eration, yesterday, dropped Week-on-Week, by 16.4 per cent to 3,501.20 megawatts, MW, from 4,187.6 MW recorded Thursday, last week.

Checks by Vanguard indicated the situation occurred because of many factors, including the poor state of plants and low gas supply to thermal plants.

The development has pushed the Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, to embark on load shedding in order to spread the limited electricity to many at different times.

This is coming as the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) says eleven electricity distribution companies, DISCOs, have filed an application for rate review with the commission.

The request for rate review, according to NERC, is premised on the need to incorporate changes in macroeconomic parameters and other factors affecting the quality of service, operations and sustainability of the companies.

Meanwhile, Powercom Smart Grid Nigeria (PSGN) has announced its acquisition of Kano Electricity Distribution
Plc(KEDCO).

PSGN is a subsidiary of Powercom and specializes in delivering an “end-to end” Smart Grid/Smart Metering turnkey solution.

In a statement made available to Vanguard yesterday, PSGN said the acquisition presents a significant opportunity for KEDCO to implement a comprehensive turnaround plan aimed at improving performance and efficiency.

It stated: “PSGN Turnaround Plan encompasses a strategic approach to address the challenges faced by KEDCO and transform it into a highly efficient and financially viable electricity distribution company supporting 5 million customers.

“The plan focuses on revenue enhancement, operational performance optimization, revenue collection, customer service, and overall system reliability.PSGN will supply KEDCO smart electricity endpoints including the full backbone infrastructure to manage the grid.

“The project is meant to upgrade the existing distribution grid into a modern platform, addressing services such as: Revenue Enhancement, Reduction of Energy Losses, Debt Recovery, Reduction of Outages, Grid Optimization, Asset Recording, Asset Protection, Peak Load Management; Workforce Automation, reducing operational expenditure and improving customer service. PSGN ‘turnkey’ solution includes the Vending Platform and a Control Room with GIS visualization for grid management.”

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has appealed to Nigerians to be patient to ensure they reap the long-term gains of the current economic policies of the Bola Tinubu administration.

The group’s Executive Director, Prof. Ishaq Akintola, made the appeal in a statement on Friday in Lagos.

“The deregulation of the oil sector of the Nigerian economy which has been hailed by experts as a wise step must come with a price.

“It has necessitated the determination of prices of petroleum products by global market forces.

“This implies that even the Nigerian government can no longer fix the prices of petroleum products and it was not responsible for the latest increase from N488 to N617.

“The good news is that we have a sensitive administration which has shown concern for the plight of the common man,” he said.

He added that the president had declared that the poor must not be strangulated by the current hardship.

“Palliatives are, therefore, being prepared to ease the pain without which there can be no gain.

“We, therefore, appeal to Nigerians to patiently wait for the palliatives. This hard time is the test of our faith, our patriotism and our resolve to reengineer our destiny as a people.

“Therefore, endurance is our best option now, not demonstrations or willful destruction of public properties, looting of shops and businesses belonging to innocent Nigerians,” he said.

He appealed to Nigerians to rally behind the Tinubu administration.

“We have seen the concrete and pragmatic steps which he has taken as he squarely confronts Nigeria’s economic woes.

“Comments made by experts since the beginning of this administration prove that the man on the driving seat knows his onions and he is well prepared for the job of turning our economy round.

“All we need to do now is to endure, to have faith in the leadership and to patiently forbear for Nigeria,” he pleaded.

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) yesterday said the vessel caught with stolen crude was destroyed instantly as required by standard procedure.

Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj.-Gen. Edward Buba, at a briefing in Abuja, said the procedure stipulates instant destruction of any vehicle, vessel or equipment linked with crude oil theft.

The vessel MT TURA II was intercepted on July 7 while conveying 150,000 metric tonnes of stolen crude oil from Nigeria to Cameroon at a location offshore of Ondo State, with 11 Nigerians and one Ghanaian onboard.

The vessel was set ablaze on July 11 at a creek near Bennett Island in Warri South-West Local Government of Delta State.

Buba said: “The vessel, MT TURA II…has a tank capacity of 800,000 litres.

“It was previously named ALI RITA BEY and an inspection revealed that only two compartments were partially filled with about 150 metric tonnes which is approximately 178,000 litres.

“This quantity is less than a quarter of the vessel. The vessel, upon arrest, was moved to Oporoza in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State.

“The voyage of the vessel revealed that it originated from Lagos and was heading to the Republic of Cameroon as its destination.

“The captain admitted to having been engaged in the same illegal activities for over four years.

“On July 11, the vessel was destroyed in accordance with the extant operating procedure that stipulates instant destruction of any vehicle, vessel or equipment linked with crude oil theft.”

The Defence spokesperson also said that troops of Operation Delta Safe discovered and destroyed 23 illegal refining sites, 15 wooden boats, 34 storage tanks, and 96 ovens in the past two weeks.

They also recovered 367,200 litres of crude oil and 150 litres of Automotive Gas Oil.

Buba said: “On July 10, troops of Operation DELTA SAFE with Pilgrims Security Service personnel responded to criminal activities around Chinese Camp in Akamkpa Local Government Area of Cross River State.

“Troops pursued the criminals and arrested five suspects as well as recovered four motorcycles, stolen cables and casted steel conveyor bearing balls.”

In the Southeast, he said troops of Operation UDO KA on July 10 killed one Indigenous People of Biafra/Eastern Security Network (IPOB/ESN) fighter during a gunfight at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Uburu in Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State and arrested 12 suspects.

He said: “On July 11, troops of OPERATION UDO KA raided a suspected IPOB/ESN criminals’ hideout at Udoma Community in Aninri Local Government Area of Enugu State.

“Following the raid, troops arrested two suspected IPOB/ESNcriminals.

“On July 13, troops raided a suspected criminals’ hideout within Umoh Orok Street in Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State and arrested 10 suspected criminals.

“On July 14, troops with DSS operators raided suspected high profile ESN criminals’ hideout/shrine at Nsukka in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State.

“Suspects on sighting troops fled while troops searched the hideout and recovered three pump action rifles, one dane gun and 75 live cartridges.

“On July 14, following a tip-off, troops raided IPOB/ESN hideout at Ikwo in Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State but the criminals fled on sighting troops.

“Troops searched the general area and recovered one AK47 rifle.”

1) Game of numbers

Playing fast and loose with numbers, elections in Nigeria are a derivative of fraudulent population figures and the abuse of the majoritarian principle of democracy. The fraud of the Nigerian population yields the fraud of Nigerian elections and many other sanctified scams. It is a syndrome in which the utility of population figures in Nigeria boils down to accessing consumption but seldom rationally engaged as a facility for planning, growth and development. It is employed to enable and rationalise power politics and who gets the bigger pie of the so called national cake. It has been used to freeze power politics relations in Nigeria at the level it was handed down by the manipulation of the British colonialists.

 It is the basis for the creation and sustenance of the following consumption sub revenue allocation heads: Wards, local governments, federal constituencies and states. It necessarily yields the mentality of fraud pervading a most consequential agency like INEC. What is the use of fictitious population figures if not its utility to work towards predetermined answers. What is misinterpreted as voter apathy was a mere reflection of the true numbers of registered voters as against the register produced by INEC. At the national level, the authentic numbers of voters are nowhere near the cooked up 89 million registered ghost voters. It is counterintuitive to believe that Nigeria will uniformly record massive gaps between registered voters and accredited voters across the nation- with no single outlier.

2) Federalism

Nigeria, ponders the pundit, is structurally rigged against rationality. This irrationality, first and foremost, is rooted in the ‘mistake of 1914’. The mistake comprises the contraindications of fundamental internal contradictions that did not recommend the amalgamation. Regardless, the fate of a failed Nigeria is not thereby sealed, but only if the inheritors, did not stray from the foundational policy prescription of federalism as the organising principle.

With federalism as enshrined in the 1960 constitution and as practised up to 1966, there would be no need to engage in a Russian roulette game to win the presidential election at all costs. It is the sustained subversion of federalism into the monstrous centralisation of power at Abuja that is responsible for the life and death desperation to win the presidential election. With a federalism compliant

decentralisation and devolution of powers, there would really be no need to be force fed with the broth of North/South power rotation, especially in its Muhammadu Buhari heralded perversion as institutionalised turn by turn plundering of Nigerian resources. 

3) BVAS and IReV 

Ironically, the newly introduced Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, was both the hero and (the INEC proxy) villain of the elections. It foiled the time tested avenue of rigging elections through the inflation of figures beyond the numbers of duly accredited voters.The rigging that took place occurred within the constraint of the captured accurate numbers of accredited voters-such as deducting a certain number of votes from one candidate and crediting the same to another. Without BVAS, the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate would simply have been credited with outlandish figures that would correspond to the fictitious number of registered voters. In this ancient regime, the near one million votes scored by the labour party presidential candidate would just be superseded by the attribution of over two million votes to the APC

3) INEC

The contrived competitiveness of the presidential election has been tendered as the evidence-in-chief of the credibility of the INEC announced results. But, what, if in reality, the election was not competitive?. Did polls after polls by detached third parties like CNN and Bloomberg not indicate Obi was going to win the election? And isn’t there something naive and credulous, in the first place, to accept the testimony of a heavily compromised witness like INEC? How probable is it that the three leading contestants will win exactly 12 states apiece in the election.

For that matter, this is not the first time INEC will be called out in its habit of the attribution of farcical competitiveness. In an assessment of a previous electoral cycle, the London Guardian newspaper noted “analysis of the data for each of the country’s 36 states and its capital shows that INEC has increased the number of new registered voters by almost exactly the same percentage across all states. The correlation is a statistical impossibility”

Three characteristics are adjunct to election rigging in Nigeria, namely, opportunity, capacity and inclination. The three are written all over the 2023 elections. You will recall the evidence propounded in the theory of how elections are won in Nigeria by no less the then candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu at his Chatham house outing in London. He called it “grab it, snatch it and run with it”. 

On top of it all, the sum total of the argument of INEC before the election petition tribunal, is that the Nigerian public should discountenance the relevance of BVAS and IReV in the determination of the credibility of the results. It does not get better clarified than the expert statement of the versatile lead counsel of Tinubu, Chief Wole Olanipekun “It was wrong for the petitioners to hinge their grouse on the electronic transmission of votes when INEC’s electoral laws also contemplated manual transfer of votes as an option”. Yet, a crucial peg on which the agency predicated the need to evade electronic transmission of votes had been contradicted by the host of the INEC server, Amazon Web Services, AWS, that there was no glitch in its services on the 25th of February 2023. 

4) INEC And The Professors 

On the face of it, the recruitment of university professors to serve as state elections returning officers was a commendable policy. But, as is the case with anything this INEC touches, the policy soon turned to ashes. It has become habitual of the agency to self sabotage all interventions with any potential to steer democracy into safe harbour. As it is the case with BVAS, so has it become with the INEC professors. Below is the testimony of the vice-chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Professor Kabiru Bala. “It makes me shiver when I hear some of our colleagues say, ‘We are the people who rig elections.’ I participated in the process and I know what I did.” 

The exception to the rule was the force of character demonstrated by the vice-chancellor of the Federal University of technology, Oweri, Professor Nnannaya-Oti in her resistance to the pressure mounted on her by the INEC hierarchy. “I shall stand squarely and unapologetically on these principles. The people’s votes and mandate shall stand…The pastor and the mother in me will not permit me to do anything that will adversely affect the future of our children,”. This was in contrast to the instructive behaviour of the INEC witness (the redeemed church pastor Bayode) who objected to affirm the truthfulness of his testimony with the holy bible and took exception to being recognised as a pastor at the court hearings. 

The Intervention of the Obidients 

Regardless of their imperfections, both structurally and exuberant protagonism, this Nigerian population demographic are the heroes of the election. At the core of the movement, inspirationally and organisationally, were the concatenation of the Nigerian youths who prosecuted the End Sars protest in October 2020. It started as a collective revolt against police brutality but expanded to incorporate reformist angst at the degenerate propensities of the Nigerian status-quo. I had urged them on with the charge borrowed from Frantz Fanon “out of relative obscurity, each generation must discover its destiny, to fulfil or betray it”. As the 2023 presidential election goes, they fulfilled their part of the bargain but their dream has been abbreviated by the depravity of the political status quo. 

At the approach of the elections, I tried to substantiate what polls after polls were telling Nigerians about the potential capacity of Peter Obi to upset the political apple cart. I made it a point of duty to verify the appearance of a bifurcation of opinion between the older generation and their younger counterparts, especially between parents and their children/domestic workers. What I discovered, almost in its entirety, was a ratio of one to four, five or six within families and households in favour of obi. 

5) Igbo/Yoruba Schism

My belief is that if the God of the Yoruba wanted them to play the son of soil politics, he would have ensured the former vice-president, Yemi Osinbajo won the APC primaries. Peer rivalry between the Igbo and Yoruba had played a crucial role in their ascension on the ladder of modernisation. But their coerced membership of a country founded on consumption culture rather than the ethic of productivity has degraded their capacity to rise to their promise and potential. Were they to stand alone as individual countries and on the projection of feats they recorded as autonomous regions, they were on course to rival the likes of India and Brazil in socioeconomic development. 

The toxic environment of Nigeria has made each sub-national component (including the pan Islamic North) a victim of the mistake of 1914. The Nigerian dysfunction has rendered the duo unable to cooperate with one another to make the best of the bad Nigerian situation-to the advantage of the adversarial third component of the WAZOBIA tripod. The 2023 elections proved to be a classic theatre for the resurgence and display of the role, wished and designed for them by their common political foe. 

The lapse into their default position of mutual antagonism culminated in raw tribalism especially and shockingly of the Yoruba intelligentsia. The pathos was tragically captured in the demonisation of the Labour Party governorship candidate in Lagos state, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour. At the height of absurdity, otherwise reasonable and intelligent people began fulminating that Rhodes-Vivour was Igbo candidate on account of his mother being of Igbo origin. 

6) Conclusion 

Soon enough, we will know whether going to court to prove the obvious is another colossal waste of Nigerian resources and time. A precedence of sorts has been set by INEC. Given the widespread condemnation of the electoral agency as totally devoid of credibility, it is a contradiction in terms to accept the results declared by such a body as worthy of the paper on which it is written. As things stand today, Nigeria is caught in a vicious cycle of self-destruction. The trillion naira question is where and when will this cycle be breached and by who?

On Monday, the Ondo State Security Network Agency, otherwise known as Amotekun, paraded 28 people alleged to have committed an assortment of crimes against the state. Amongst them were two teenage sisters, both junior secondary school pupils. The sisters, 15 and 13, allegedly faked their kidnapping and asked their mother for a ransom of N100,000. That broke my heart!

It is one thing for children to contemplate or even embark on criminal missions; it is entirely another thing to make your parents targets of such endeavours. 

First, kidnapping any human being’s two children already throws that person into emotional turmoil; to compound that by placing monetary demands on the same parent is, in my opinion, the height of cold-heartedness. It is worse when there is only one parent in the equation, and even more unsettling when the only available parent is the mother.

Now, we don’t know anything about the circumstances of these children or their mother, but the narrative suggests that the mother is the breadwinner, if not the only parent in this family. 

Given the prevailing economic situation in the country, you would expect children to empathise with their parents and avoid putting unnecessary burdens on them. That did not happen in the situation under question. The older sister talked her sibling into tormenting their mother.

But they didn’t stop at that! The report indicated that pretending to be kidnappers, they threatened to kill their “victims” if the ransom wasn’t paid within 24 hours while speaking with the monarch of their native Oka-Akoko, Akoko South-West Local Government Area of the state. These young souls must sound like some dreadful, tough criminals at that point. Reports gave no impression that they had accomplices.

The second problematic thing about these girls’ actions is their desperation for money. Should money and the desperate acquisition of it be the priorities of children of that age? Why have money, and success by all means suddenly become the priorities of children in Nigeria? Just three weeks ago, we were talking about another person who falsified her matriculation examination result, so why?

The question got more expedient when I came across another thought-provoking report shortly after reading about the Ondo State incident. 

The second report came with a YouTube video titled “Meeting of the Masters.” The first episode of the short series has legendary Swiss Tennis player, Roger Federer facing 12-year-old Tanitoluwa Adewunmi in a chess match at Columbus Park, New York. 

Tanitoluwa is the child whose Nigerian parents left Abuja to seek religious asylum in the United States to escape of violent threats from Boko Haram terrorists, in 2017.

Tani, as he is known, was seven at this time! For their first year, the family lived in a refugee shelter. It was during this period that the young man joined the chess club at his elementary school. To the surprise of everyone around him, he learnt very fast.

According to chess.com, the chess prodigy has now “earned his second “IM norm” of the three required to earn the coveted international masters title, at the NY Summer Invitational IM C closed round-robin tournament… He won the tournament in clear first with 7/9 points, the only undefeated player in the field, and ahead of three international masters.”

In his conversation with Federer, who confessed that he was nervous about facing Tani, the young player said he was determined to become a chess grandmaster before he hit the age of 14. He ended his statement by affirming: “I think I can get there.” 

Tani asked his opponent how many grand slams he had won. When Federer said twenty and went ahead to list the tournaments where he achieved the feats, the young lad nodded contemplatively. His confidence and understanding of the importance of hard work as a building block for attainment struck me. I could not resist juxtaposing his situation with the self-kidnap story I just read. I found it sad.

Yet, every Nigerian child can attain the feat Tanitoluwa and many other children achieve worldwide. The only difference is the training and opportunities the country offers for its children.

For instance, Tani’s potential grew within his first year in the United States. At eight years old one year on, he won the 2019 K-3 New York State chess championship. Before the end of that year, he accumulated seven trophies! The difference: the opportunity to join a club in his school, demonstrate his skill without inhibition, and secure the support of his coaches! He had the opportunity to aspire and the platform to attain his aspiration. He made the best of it! 

Of course, there are many high-achieving children in Nigeria. Now and then, the country throws up global champions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. At some other time, pupils excel and make the country proud in sports. 

However, these are mostly children of the elite who have extra attention in expensive private institutions littering the country. There are just a few instances of children in public institutions, where the bulk of the children are, thriving. This is where Nigeria’s problems stand. 

Many would suggest that the main problem is with the number of out-of-school children, currently put at about 20 million by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), but this is just a tokenistic view of Nigeria’s challenge.

The reality is that many of those in schools are not learning! Last year, Communication Specialist for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Geoffrey Njoku, hinted that 70 per cent of children in Nigerian schools are not learning. Newspaper reports quoted him as saying, “… it is high time we focused on learning by revamping the education system through teacher training, changing the curriculum, and changing the narrative through quality education.”

This call is one that no country should take lightly. But it is more so for Nigeria, where children and young people constitute a considerable population. UNICEF’s 2022 Situation Analysis of Children in Nigeria indicates that data gathered in 2020 suggest that 52% of Nigeria’s population are children between 0 and 17. The global agency also projects that by 2050, one of every 13 children will be Nigerian. These numbers show that the fate of Nigeria’s children will affect global development in years to come. More importantly, it draws attention to the dangers the country faces without a plan to engage this demographic gainfully.

The educational sector is in shambles, from the elementary to the tertiary level. Informal and vocational education is virtually non-existent, while the quality of teaching has continued to sag. The country is also not making any serious attempt to direct the interest of its youth towards science, technical, mathematical, and engineering subjects, all of which are critical.

So, as the Tinubu administration struggles to put the country’s economy in shape, it must take urgent steps to tackle the country’s child development crisis.

President Bola Tinubu must be willing to galvanise national action in this direction. Whether through the governors’ forum, the national economic council, or any other platform he deems fit, Nigeria must move together on this vital mission of compulsory formal basic education (up to secondary level) for all children. This initiative must also overhaul teacher training, recruitment, and welfare.

After this compulsory formal education, the country must make alternative forms of education available to children who do not have the capacity or flair for advanced formal education. Nigeria needs more personnel in the vocations, and it can engage millions of its youths in these areas with proper education.

Beyond education, the country should move for the nationwide adoption and implementation of The Child Rights Act (2003). We must address all impediments and threats to the existence and well-being of children, and adequately empower them to be tomorrow’s leaders.

Society, including the family, plays a vital role in determining whether the individual tends towards law and order or the base instinct of decadence, savagery, and violence when this constant internal battle ensues. When you deny children proper education that addresses their soul and intellect, society throws its future to the dogs. That is when they resort to crimes, success, and survival, which make the country hell for everyone. Unless we act, those children Nigeria will not train today will be the albatross of those sent to first-grade schools by their rich parents tomorrow.