Manchester United legend, Wayne Rooney has advised Arsenal to try and hijack the Red Devils’ move for Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta.

According to Rooney, Matete is big and strong, adding that he can help the current Arsenal team under manager Mikel Arteta.

Mateta has been heavily linked with a move to Man United in the summer.

Man United have already opened talks with the 27-year-old’s representative.

Mateta, who joined Palace from Mainz in 2022, has scored 34 goals in the past two campaigns across all competitions for the Premier League club.

“Jean-Philippe Mateta is a big, strong lad who scores a lot of goals,” Rooney told BBC Sport.

“From watching Arsenal over the past few games in the Premier League, they have put a lot of balls into the box without having anyone to get on the end of them.

“I am sure he would help from that point of view.”

Arsenal are keen to sign a new top striker in the summer transfer window and it’s yet to be seen if they would go for Mateta at the end of the season.

[DailyPost]

Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Florian Wirtz has been ruled out for several weeks after suffering a ligament injury in his right ankle during Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat to Werder Bremen.

The 21-year-old, who was introduced at the start of the second half, was forced off in the 59th minute following a foul. An MRI scan conducted after the game confirmed the extent of the injury.

“That was the diagnosis from an MRI scan following the game. The 21-year-old midfielder will be out of action for several weeks,” the club stated on Monday via its site.

Leverkusen sporting managing director Simon Rolfes acknowledged the setback but expressed confidence in the team’s ability to cope in Wirtz’s absence.

“The loss of Florian obviously hits us hard in this phase of the season, but we will compensate for him with a strong squad. We know Florian and also know he will come back as soon as possible. Everybody will support him in that. We are assuming he will be fully fit again for the end of the season run-in,” Rolfes said.

Leverkusen will now have to navigate the coming weeks without one of their key creative players as they continue their push for silverware.

[Punch]

Mark Carney, a former central banker and economist, has had an illustrious career spanning global finance, climate advocacy, and now, politics.

With a reputation for steady leadership in times of crisis, Carney is stepping into Canadian politics with promises of economic stability and progressive policies.

Here are ten key things to know about him

10 Things to Know About Mark Carney

His Signature is on Canadian Money

As the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, Carney’s signature appears on Canadian currency—a testament to his influence in the nation’s financial system.

He Was the First Non-British Governor of the Bank of England

Carney made history by becoming the first non-British person to lead the Bank of England since its founding in 1694.

He Was Called the “George Clooney of Central Banking”
Known for his charisma and intellect, Carney was once likened to the Hollywood actor. He downplayed the comparison, calling it “a very low bar.”

He Has Never Held Public Office Before
Despite his extensive experience in finance and governance, Carney is stepping into elected office for the first time.

He Served as the U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action

Carney’s commitment to climate change policies was evident in his U.N. role, where he earned a symbolic annual salary of just $1.

He Played Hockey at Harvard

A passionate hockey fan, Carney was a third-string goaltender on Harvard’s varsity team and once played in a game against Colgate.

In 2011, Reader’s Digest Canada editors voted him the “Most Trusted Canadian,” though readers placed him 19th.

He Completed the London Marathon at 50

Proving his endurance, Carney finished the 2015 London Marathon in 3 hours and 31 minutes.

He Is the Godfather of Chrystia Freeland’s Son
His close political ties include being the godfather of former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s son.

He Entered Politics in 2024, Declaring ‘This Is No Time for Politics as Usual’

On January 16, 2024, Carney officially launched his political career, stressing the need for change and a fresh approach to leadership.

Vanguard News

Tomi Arayomi, founder of RIG Nation and Pioneer Church in the United Kingdom, has opened up about his traumatic experience of childhood sexual abuse.

In an interview with Sharon Stone, Arayomi recounted the trauma he endured at just five years old, which had a profound impact on his life and identity.

He revealed that his journey began with physical and emotional challenges due to being born with rickets, a leg disease that left him immobile.

The cleric said he faced additional pain when a family friend “sexually molested me”. The abuse, according to him, was accompanied by threats and secrecy.

He disclosed that years later, his trauma resurfaced when he overheard a BBC news segment discussing homosexuality.

Arayomi said since he was unfamiliar with the term, he asked his mother what it meant, but her response left him devastated.

“My journey was, I was born with rickets. I had a leg disease that made me fairly immobile. And there was a sexual exploitation that took place when I was five,” he said.

“A friend of the family, who at times took care of us, would sexually molest me. And I didn’t know what he was doing at that age, because I wasn’t in any way awakened sexually.

“This is our little secret. And it came with shame. And I knew when my parents left us with them, they didn’t know what was going on, of course, that the abuse was going to continue.

“And it wasn’t until one day, I was watching news, some BBC news, when homosexuality was a taboo. I didn’t know the term homosexuality. That was in the early 90s.

“I said, Mom, what happens to homosexuals? She laughed, and she said, ‘oh, they go to hell’. Now I’m going to hell.”

Arayomi also spoke about a pivotal moment when he finally stood up to his abuser. He said when cornered in the bathroom, he refused the abuser’s demands, pushed him into the bathtub, and ran away, unsure of what would happen next.

“And I remember my last encounter with that man. My parents had left the house again. We were in the house by ourselves,” he added.

“And he cornered me in the bathroom and told me basically to pull my trousers down. And I remember I just said no to him for the first time. He said, ‘what did you say?’ I said no.

“And I pushed him into the bathtub. And I ran down the street crying my heart out because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I didn’t even know where I was running to.”

The cleric recalled how he was exposed to pornography by his school teacher, which became an addiction even after he became born-again.

He said as he grew older, he struggled with his identity, grappling with the fear of the abuse.

Arayomi said the “double-life” secrets affected his mental and emotional well-being. He said he eventually disclosed the abuse to his parents when he was around 17.

“And I got introduced to pornography by my schoolteacher. And all of a sudden, what became a remedy for a diagnosis from BBC all of a sudden became an addiction,” he added.

“That once I was saved, the addiction didn’t go away. It just got suppressed. And the secrets were suppressed. I never told my parents what happened to me until they rededicated their life to the Lord, when I told them when I was about 17, 18 years old.

“But I didn’t tell them for years. I didn’t tell my twin brother. I just carried the secret.”

Arayomi said through his platform, he aims to offer hope and healing to others who carry the weight of unspoken trauma.

“That is not unique to you. So many people go through that. And I would like to hope that maybe before we’re done today you could even pray for others,” he said.

[TheCable]

The English language is a compulsive borrower; a great debtor. It borrows any word that catches its fancy anyhow and from anywhere. From Ancient Rome, the Englishman got loaned mobile vulgus, the Latin phrase for ‘movable, excitable crowd’. The Englishman took that loan and quickly slim-fit the borrowed item to ‘mobile’, then in 1688, he clipped the abbreviation to ‘mob’.

If you are looking for a more practical definition of ‘mob’, go to the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Members there will, in confounding unity, act the mob if you dare their leader and question their privileges. Or you go and read reports of how soldiers beat up electricity workers in Ikeja, Lagos last week. Think of the parliament as a mob. Think of a military of rioters and street brawlers. Can you ever spot the difference between having soldiers as rioters and having rioters as soldiers? Think about the confusion here.

What the mob is came to my mind as I read of some soldiers of the Nigerian Air Force invading the headquarters of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) last Thursday, beating up workers and visitors and even journalists. Why? They acted wild because of the very high electricity bill they get while their base get supplied with very low or no electricity by the company. The attack was a shocking, shameful, deplorable act of security people wreaking insecurity.

Self-help is an eye for an eye; it is the Roman’s Lex talionis, the law of retaliation. If it is allowed to reign here, everyone will soon be blind. Criminal self-help is when soldiers had a payment-for-power dispute with a company and decided to use the might they have to claim their rights. Do our brothers in uniform think we (Nigerians without guns) are stupid for peacefully surrendering to Never Expect Power Always?

Poor soldiers beating up poor electricity workers and journalists is a shame. Everyone is misdirecting their anger. They are just oppressing their own tribe, the tribe of the dispossessed. The real sinners beyond the whip, they are too safe to be beaten.

Who told our soldiers that beating the hell out of electricity workers would give them uninterrupted power supply? The problem is bigger than big. You can’t force the eunuch to ‘do’ that thing. His existence is defined by impotence with all the innuendos and allusions. Force won’t help the forces. Even powerful Tiger in the old story of ‘Tortoise, Tiger and Monkey’ could not hammer out sweet shit from the traumatized belly of his victim.

The power supply situation in the country is horrible. Businesses are stuttering and bleeding and crying. A friend in telecoms told me that the reality of power in Nigeria and, particularly, the cost of diesel, has turned every base station to a full company. The cost of Nigeria’s darkness is horrifying, frustrating. Everyone is displeased and angry. But self-help by officers of the law is subversion of the law; it is not the solution.

What the solution is, I do not know. What I know is what my culture says impunity is. It is Taa ní ó mú mi? The translation is something like “Whatever I do, who will query and punish me? Who can?”

Because I am as helpless as the beaten workers and reporters, I plead with military authorities to beg the beaten for forgiveness, compensate them for the trauma and sanction the beaters. I also beg the authorities to leash their dogs and recalibrate the discipline we’ve always known with our uniformed forces. Gold should not rust. If it does, what then shall iron do?

“Possibly he cohabited with Miss Bloggs, but don’t mention it in front of his wife, let the sleeping dogs lie.” Gordon Jarvie’s ‘Dictionary of Idioms’ contains that example of a warning that has been with us since Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1385 epic poem, Troilus and Criseyde. When the storm is angry and howling, the wise stay safe. I thought every man has that wisdom until I heard Senate President Godswill Akpabio at the weekend in Abuja vowing to devour a bowl of very hot 20-year-old pounded yam. To him, the sleeping dog must stop sleeping.

For some people, one trouble at a time is not enough. I count Akpabio among such persons. The mouthful wahala from delectable Senator Natasha is not enough; voracious Akpabio must do Oliver Twist; he wants one more problem to solve. He threatened at the weekend to sue former acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, over her 2020 allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him. Where are Akpabio’s younger friends? They should read to him Harry Porter’s exasperation: “And quite honestly, I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.”

In July 2020, Nunieh alleged that she slapped Akpabio, who was the then Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, because he allegedly sexually harassed her:

 “Why did he not tell Nigerians that I slapped him in his guest house at Apo? I am the only Ogoni woman, the only Nigerian woman that has slapped him. I slapped him because of his plan B. Since he couldn’t get me to take that money, he thought that he could come up on me,” she told Arise TV at the time and proceeded to explain that sexual harassment was what she meant by “come up on me.”

For five years, Akpabio slumbered and snored. A slap from a lady called Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan appears to have now woken up Nigeria’s number one lawmaker. Addressing the matter at the weekend, Akpabio announced his intention to take legal action against Nunieh. “My other sister, the one they sometimes refer to as Joy Nunieh, I will like to mention her name because she will be hearing from my lawyer anytime in the next one week. Crime never dies.”

When is trouble enough? And, does the right to seek judicial remedies exist forever? By July this year, it will be five years since Nunieh made her sensational slap statement. She uttered the claim, Akpabio pretended she said nothing significant. Akpabio is a lawyer. At the law school, his teachers taught him that rights of action are subject to specific time frames. The cause of action occurred in Abuja. The Limitation Act which applies in Abuja, what does it say on when a man is stopped from suing for defamation of character? Or does Akpabio want to approach this as a criminal offence which is not statute-barred, especially now that he is Nigeria’s very powerful number three citizen? In that case, it won’t be a case of “hearing from (his) lawyers”. It will be a case of the slapper hearing from the very duteous Nigeria police. We cannot wait.

What should be a leader’s reaction to attacks and allegations? The British House of Lords in 1987 delivered a controversial judgment backing the ban of Spycatcher, the memoirs of a former MI5 officer, Peter Wright. The Daily Mirror reacted with an upside down photo of the three law lords who decided the case in favour of Margaret Thatcher’s government. The picture came with the caption: ‘You Old Fools.’ Many thought that was insulting and contemptuous of the court. But, the Law Lord, Sydney William Templeman, did not think so. The lord noted that the caption contained three words ‘You’, ‘Old’ and ‘Fools’. The world might think the caption offensive but to my lord, they were not. Templeman said it was indeed true that he was an old man. He said being a fool or not was a matter of perception but he knew he was not a fool. He caused the matter to end right there.

Sir Alexander Cockburn was England’s Lord Chief Justice in 1879. He was incensed at scathing criticisms of one of his rulings. He thought the right course to take was to use his high office and his knowledge of the law to take down his critics. Cockburn did the very unusual: he published a 24-page pamphlet in rebuttal of the strictures and thoroughly abused his critics. But his pamphlet did not help him; his rebuttal attracted a string of counter-rebuttals. Records say that the Lord Chief Justice came out of that controversy diminished in social and intellectual standing. Roderick Munday who went over that case again in 1987, wrote that “this unedifying episode illustrates how even the holder of the highest office can make a spectacle of himself.” Munday’s conclusion is that “if ever a judge again feels disposed to respond to public strictures, he might first do well to ponder the experience of Cockburn C.J.”

A man in a hole is still digging. Senator Akpabio thinks an old and long-forgotten war is worth exhuming. He must combine it with the present and have both crushed.

Can I now examine how he is handling the present problem? Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan accused Akpabio of sexual harassment. Akpabio kept quiet for almost a week; when he spoke, it was as a judge in his own case. His wife and almost the whole of the Senate were the first to come out roaring. They said Akpabio did not do what he was accused of doing. They said the lady had assaulted the integrity of their presiding officer. They were very rancorous like passengers in a midair troubled plane.

One of the senators said Natasha should use the period of her suspension to learn the Senate rules. I found that quite ironic. It will be appropriate if that member and other members learn what the law says about a man judging his own case. Or, what did they think happened when Mr Akpabio appointed the jury, sat as the judge, read his judgment and convicted his accuser? If you are accused of harbouring unsightly intestines, why wouldn’t you use common sense to pack it well and far from public sneer. The convicted is already shouting fair hearing. A first-year law student knows that the Latin phrase, ‘Nemo Judex In Causa Sua’ means no one should be a judge in his own cause. It is a universal principle of fair hearing that in judicial and administrative proceedings, a judge or an administrator having personal or proprietary interest in the outcome of a proceeding must not exercise adjudicatory powers in the case in question. Was Akpabio set up to take that route? A smart Akpabio would have let his deputy handle that case. If he did, justice would have been seen to have been done. Or, could it be that Akpabio and his Senate believed that only weaklings without money and power bother about procedural fairness? And there are lawyers among them.

I do not know how they do it where Akpabio comes from but in my part of the country, no wise man is allowed to directly judge his own case. A man would be an original àgbà òsìkà to make himself judge over his enemies. Section 36 of our constitution is clear on this. And it is universal in its application. The US Supreme Court also carefully laid this out: “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. Fairness, of course, requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases… To this end, no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome.” In another case, the court held that “prejudice, in order to be disqualifying, must consist of a personal animosity toward one party or very strong feeling in favour of the other party.” In this case of Natasha, Chief Akpabio was actually the other party – the accused; and he was the judge.

The senate riotously mobbed the accuser out of the chamber. She will be in the cold for six months. This is not about who is saying the truth and who is lying. No one outside the two actors can say what the truth is. What is true is known to the supposedly harassed and the alleged harasser. But I think Akpabio, for whatever reasons, should not have bungled his case. He shouldn’t have sat over the matter with the catty visage of the lion, king of the jungle. What he did is what the English qualify with the word ‘impunity’. And I think he did so because in this country, anyone blessed with his kind of uncommon bigness is hefty enough to pocket the law.

At the weekend again, Akpabio went regional in search of defence. He thought his tribulations should wear the tunic of politics. He vowed that the South South region (where he comes from) would not surrender the senate presidency no matter the level of gang up against him. He said: “The Senate President of today is not representing himself alone. He is representing a people who are very crucial to the economic life wire of this country. So, when people gang up and conspire, I hear voices from Adamawa shouting, I hear voices from Kwara State shouting, I hear some young people from the southwest being used for something they don’t know, they don’t know the rules of the Senate, you can’t be a herbalist and start quoting the Bible, you won’t know what to quote.” Interesting. So, are Akpabio’s enemies from the South West, the North Central and the North East? Who are they? Those who want to be lame should be completely lame, the blind should be blind totally; half blinded people always plunge the world into wars. If I were Akpabio, I would be total in naming names. That is what real men do.

If you carry a pot of uncommon palm oil, run away from stone throwers. Has Akpabio ever heard the Yoruba story of Eku kékeré tó ní òun yóò ba isé àgbè jé (The small rat that says it will destroy the farmer’s work)? The story, with a little adjustment, is reproduced here as told by James Bọ̀dé Agbájé in his ‘Proverbs: A Strategy for Resolving Conflict in Yorùbá Society’:

“There was once a small rat on a farm who said to the farmer that he would destroy all the farmer’s work. The farmer answered the rat: ‘How can you destroy my work, you tiny idiot?’ When the maize on the farm matured, the rat went to see the farmer and told him again that he would destroy all the farmer’s work. The farmer just burst out laughing and told the rat: ‘You are joking. How will you destroy this huge maize farm?’ The rat said okay and departed. When the farmer was harvesting his maize, the rat revisited the farm and again promised the farmer that one day all his harvest would be destroyed. The farmer just ignored the rat and the rat went away. After the farmer had finished packing all his harvested crops in the aka (‘barn’), the rat managed to enter the barn unnoticed. He started eating part of the maize and left the wasted remnants covering the ground.

“The farmer knew what was happening and announced, ‘I know you are in there. You just hide yourself there.’ He was determined to deal ruthlessly with the small wicked rat. The rat heard the farmer and answered him. He told him that he had promised the farmer that his farm would be destroyed and the time had now come for the operation. The angry farmer thought he should just smoke out the stupid tiny rat. A little fire he made went out of hand. Within the twinkling of an eye, all the maize caught fire. Just then, the rat escaped and the whole place was burnt to ashes. Later, the rat went to the farmer and said to him that the deed was done. The rat boasted: ‘I promised to shatter your efforts and you underrated what I said. Haven’t I destroyed all the fruits of your labour now?’ The farmer was downcast and started to bite his fingers in regret. He said that if he had taken the proper precautions and had not underrated the stupid tiny rat, the whole situation could have been averted.” The powerful should be very careful; the ground is wet and slippery.

Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasiru El-Rufai, has left the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

In a statement he shared on Monday in Abuja, titled “Onwards to the Future,” the former Kaduna State governor noted, “As a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I have fond memories of working with other compatriots to negotiate the merger of political parties that created the APC.

“It had been my hope since 2013 that my personal values and those of the APC would align up to the time I chose to retire from politics.”

However, he said developments in the last two years confirm that those who currently control and run the APC have no desire to acknowledge, let alone address, the unhealthy state of the party.

*On my part, I have raised concerns in private and, more recently, in public regarding the capricious trajectory of the party.

“Founders rightly feel attached to institutions they helped create, but one must be pragmatic enough to admit when a divergence becomes unbridgeable.

“I have diligently served the APC and contributed to its viability as a political platform but recognize that the party has strayed, leaving me stuck in the vision of its well-meaning founding fathers and mothers.

“As a loyal party man, I worked to help secure the APC’s election victories in 2015, 2019, and 2023. I was one of the many governors elected on the party’s platform in 2015 and 2019 who stood for democratic and progressive principles to advance nation-building.

“My eight-year tenure in Kaduna State was devoted to implementing progressive policies to advance human development in education and healthcare, expand infrastructure, promote equality of opportunity, create jobs, and attract investments.

“However, these records count for little in the current APC, which has castrated its organs and treated its membership with contempt over the last two years. I find this no longer acceptable.”*

He added, *”On March 10, 2025, I submitted a letter resigning my membership of the APC to my ward in Kaduna, effective immediately.

“Subsequent to this, I concluded consultations with my mentors, colleagues, and loyalists about the future and have decided to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and adopt it as the platform for our future political engagements and activities.

“Without prejudice to this decision, as a member of the SDP, I will focus on engaging with and persuading other opposition leaders and parties to join us in forming a unified democratic platform to challenge the APC in all elections and by-elections between now and 2027, by the grace of God.

“I therefore call on all our supporters and other persons concerned about our country’s future to join us in the SDP in the journey towards making Nigeria flourish as a beacon of pride for Africans and the Black race.”

[Nigerian Tribune]

The autobiography is a most delicate, complex and indeed disruptive art form. It is the autobiographer’s authorial insistence to be heard in terms of his or her narrative addition to a historical discourse. In fact, it is the autobiographer’s narration of the historical event from his or her own perspective. And more often than not, when the autobiographer is a fundamental participant in the event, the complexities of that event and the circumstances surrounding it is multiplied. Only very few autobiographies enjoy global approval. And that is because the art form is seen as an ego trip. That sentiment is summed by the English biographer, Humphrey Carpenter: “Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.” This is even made worse if the protagonists are critical individuals whose lives have affected national trajectories. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) is one such critical protagonist, and his autobiography has arrived. 

A Journey in Service has since started generated lots of furors in all strata of the Nigerian public space, online and offline. Lots of opinions have tied IBB to several significant historical moments in Nigeria, especially the annulment of the June 12 elections, and the demise of MKO Abiola. What many have conveniently glossed over, and a case I have consistently made, is that personal narrative in the forms of autobiography and memoirs serve a unique function in terms of their historical import. If A Journey in Service had not been written, we will all be gasping within the yawning silence of the political and administrative gaps that ought to have been filled with whatever the autobiographer has to say. But now it has been written, and we can then commence the journey of unraveling how the narrative fits or fails to fit in with the existing accounts of Nigeria’s political development. 

This personal narrative has a critical import for me as a historian of Nigeria’s administrative and reform trajectories. The Babangida administration played a very fundamental role in articulating a significant portion of Nigeria’s administrative reform architecture. And so, that portion of the trajectory, and the entire institutional reform agenda of the Nigerian state, will not be complete without adding the voice and perspective of the key protagonist to the understanding of how the reform policy emerged. No matter what anyone thinks, the imperative of national history demands that such an account be added to the stock of what we already know, and to flesh out a better understanding of what we already know. The idea therefore is to see how the protagonist, no matter the groundswell of national opinion for or against him, fits into a larger picture of the political and administrative frameworks that enable us to see where the nation is coming from and where it is headed. This is a task every institutional reformer must long for without getting sidetracked by sentimental opinion that accords blame and sling mud. This is part of what makes IBB and A Journey in Service such a delight for me. Unfortunately, the head of the historic administration does not consider that irreducible reform agenda that distinguishes his administration so significantly as to celebrate its conception, elements and operation, as well as its limitations, in a significant autobiography. That responsibility has been passed to posterity. This piece rescues that fundamental omission.    

The pre-Babangida administrative reform narrative must always revert back to the 1974 Udoji Commission. That Commission is singular because it was the first to attempt an alignment between Nigeria’s reform efforts and the emerging managerial revolution in public administration across the globe. The Udoji Commission took its immediate inspiration from the Lord Fulton Committee of 1968 in Britain. The task of the Fulton Report was to inquire into the capability readiness of the British civil service to confront the modern British society and its technological complexity. Fulton’s most significant recommendation was the displacement of the cult of generalist amateur civil servants in an approaching administrative dispensation that requires a critical mass of new managers who possess the professionalism and specialist expertise to harness the talents needed to make the civil service economic, effective and efficient. 

By the time the Udoji Commission was inaugurated, Nigeria had also reached the critical juncture where it became imperative to ask whether the Weberian assumptions underlying the British administrative legacy were capable of tackling the urgent governance requirement of a postcolonial society. The wage impasse which the system had been confronting before independence, for the Commission, was a symptom of a deeper administrative malady represented by a bureaucratic culture that had arrested innovation and entrepreneurial creativity in the analysis and implementation of policies. Managerialism therefore provides the most timely and perfect means of making the civil service system align with the goals of national development. The Udoji Commission went on to leverage the global good practice of the time that calls for a new style public service that deploys new management techniques of Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS), Management by Objectives (MBO), the precursor of what is today called the performance management system, project management system, among others, that was totally alien to the Nigerian public service, at the time. The new management architecture that the envisioned management system would have institutionalized would obviously have been inadequate but would have laid a critical substructure that would have set Nigeria on the new productivity paradigm that assisted Malaysia, Singapore, the Asian Tigers and many other developing countries that are within Nigerian global ranking at the time. 

The most devastating blow that the civil service suffered were those created not by it but the governance tradition that militarism and “New Federalism” of the post-civil war years created where the rigorous analytical frame that governed development investment got replaced with the unreflective “with immediate effect” command and control governance tradition which created huge process, policy, capacity, performance and resource gaps. The Udoji Commission and its limitations, as well as the succeeding Phillips and Ayida Commissions, could be understood only within this military tradition of which IBB was a significant part. When he assumed office in 1985, one of the most immediate decisions was, according to his admission, the need to “strengthen the practice of the presidential system with clear economic, political, and social reforms to strengthen the nation as a constitutional democracy based on the presidential system.” Assuming the title of a “President” was therefore more than a mere nominal gesture to narcissism. Rather, he said, it was “a summation of our consensus on the need to preserve and strengthen the presidential system and make it work better for the nation.”

But a nominal title was not enough. A commitment to the presidential system, IBB insisted, defined the necessity of “structuring a reform programme around institutions to make it work.” And given the tension that already was prevalent in the heated polity, IBB surmised, the reforms that must make any significance must be as comprehensive as the administration could make it. And the first act of symbolic gesture was negative: the urgency of the need “to review the various draconian decrees, convictions, and pending cases that bordered on human rights violations.” The Exchange Control (anti-sabotage) Decree 7 and Decree 4 (Public Officers Protection Against False Accusation) had to be significantly reviewed. This was followed by the real positive task of reforming the economy and governance in ways that go beyond “knee-jerk populist reflexes.” 

The task, in governance and economic terms, was therefore to “Remove the government from the role of an enormous money changer to that of an enabler of the appropriate economic environment. We also needed to let the economy, in general, breathe more freely.” It was to liberalize the economy and make government an able enabler rather than occupying the ‘commanding heights of the economy.” Unfortunately for us all, IBB fails to dwell on what could have been a defining dimension of A Journey in Service, the civil service reform framework of the Babangida administration. This is shocking but revealing in itself. One possible reason is that the author subsumed the civil service reform under the broader political reforms: “Our political programme targeted the critical areas of political and socio-cultural restructuring highlighted by the Political Bureau report: the party system, the electoral process, including election administration, the federal structure, the civil service, and the problem of succession, including political leadership.” 

And yet, this fails to do justice to the significance of the Babangida administration and its inheritance of the Dotun Philips Commission from the Buhari-Idiagbon administration. The Phillips Study Team is significant because it had the task of re-organizing the operations of the civil service in terms of professionalism that will eventually align it with the managerial revolution recommended by Udoji. And that reform effort alone cements his administration’s significance in the annals of administrative history in Nigeria, and a fundamental contribution to the cumulation of reform knowledge in Nigeria. IBB already gave the significant intellectual basis of the restructuring that was an imperative: to achieve “national rebirth and future greatness,” there is a need for political and economic restructuring that free up the national space for transformation. And one way to do this, according to him, was cultivate intellectuals: “We needed the input of intellectuals to enlighten the business of government.” There was also the crucial need for the public service as the engine of government business. It beats me how IBB did not see that. 

The Dotun Philips Study Group was constituted by the Buhari-Idiagbon administration in 1985, with the objective of undertaking an interrogation of the structure, mode of operation and strategy of the civil service in the light of contemporary administrative situation, as well as finding means by which the eroded professionalism of the system could be restored. After the 1985 coup, Babangida inherited the study group and transformed it into a full-blown commission whose task was to keep up with the objective of aligning the spirit of managerialism and a professionalized civil service with the form and spirit of presidentialism. This was to be incorporated into the total package of the Civil Service Reforms through a Civil Service Reorganisation Decree No. 43 of 1988. Given the administration’s concern with the rigid Soviet-styled centralization of the economy and the need to open the economy up to market forces, it was only logical that the administration would adopt the critical managerial principle of letting managers manage by having greater control on critical resources. This possesses the capacity to inspire a wholesale decentralization of the HRM function to MDA. The policy choice here is between centralized resource governance for example where the civil service commission wields constitutional powers for recruitment, promotion and discipline exercised at top management levels by the Commission while delegating the powers to MDAs at middle to lower levels. 

The Philips reform was compromised essentially because (a) it took the issues involved in professionalism too far (for instance, by attempting to make a professional out of everybody within the civil service); and (b) its own unique managerial thrust was directed towards integrating the civil service into the presidential system of government, with one unintended consequence being that professionalization turned into politicization through an attempt, for instance, that turned an administrative post (permanent secretary) into a political one (director-general). And yet, this is not a failure because it was a logical reform complements to the short-circuited Udoji Commission recommendation of a public service founded on performance management, and its underlying managerial philosophy was significant in getting the Babangida administration its governance template for transforming national development. 

I insist that an administration is only as good as its reform agenda, both in design and implementation. The Babangida administration gave Nigeria’s reform trajectory one of the key moments in the protracted attempt to translate the gains and efficiencies of a managerial opportunity to a bureaucratic system. 

MTN Nigeria Communications Plc and Airtel Africa have aggressively cut their foreign debt, repaying $1.2 billion in 2024 to ease foreign exchange burden as they chart a path back to profitability.

Following the naira’s steep depreciation in 2023, both telcos suffered $1.56 billion in foreign exchange losses.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s unification of the country’s foreign exchange market in June 2023 triggered a sharp devaluation of the naira to 471/$ from 1043.09/$ by December 28, 2023, and 1512.3/$ by March 7, 2025.

MTN Nigeria declared its first loss after tax of N137 billion since its 2019 listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2023. Airtel Africa, which had 50.9 million subscribers in Nigeria as of March 2024, reported a loss after tax of $89 million for its full year ended March 2024, primarily due to FX headwinds in Nigeria and Malawi.

To mitigate further FX-induced losses, MTN and Airtel have aggressively cut FX liabilities. MTN Nigeria slashed its outstanding letters of credit (LC) dollar obligations from $416.6 million as of 31 December 2023 to $20.8 million by the end of 2024.

Airtel Africa, on its part, repaid $739 million in foreign currency debt over the last year, reducing its foreign currency debt exposure. Both companies believe that reducing their foreign currency obligations is key to strengthening their financial positions.

At the end of 2023, Olusegun Ogunsanya, the then-chief executive officer of Airtel Africa, stated, “We will continue to focus on reducing our exposure to currency volatility.

“Although this reduction resulted in realised foreign exchange losses, it has substantially strengthened our financial position and lowered the financial risks associated with the depreciation of the naira and its related finance costs,” MTN said in its 2024 results.

However, the debt reduction came at a cost, significantly impacting MTN’s financials. Despite reporting a record revenue of N3.36 trillion for 2024, it recorded a N400.44 billion loss after tax due to forex losses arising from the revaluation of foreign currency-denominated obligations.

It noted that it would have reported a profit after tax of N247.3 billion if not for the net forex loss.

Airtel Africa, on the other hand, recorded a 5.78 percent revenue decline to $3.64 billion from $3.86 billion in the nine months ending December 2024. However, its profit after tax grew 12,300 percent to $248 million from $2 million.

Both companies are shifting towards local debt as their appetite for FX debt wanes. Airtel Africa now holds 92 percent of its debt, excluding lease liabilities, in local currency, up from 79 percent a year ago.

Sunil Taldar, chief executive officer of Airtel Africa, noted, “Our capital structure remains robust with just 8 percent of OpCo debt in foreign currency — a substantial improvement over the last year.”

MTN has also restructured its loan portfolio, with 72 percent now in naira and 28 percent in dollars, compared to 56 percent naira and 44 percent dollars in 2023. Its total net debt dropped 29 percent to N591 billion by the end of 2024.

To finance operations locally, it raised N190 billion under its N250 billion Commercial Paper Issuance Programme.

On an investors’ call, Modupe Kadri, MTN Nigeria’s chief financial officer (CFO), noted that as of December 2023, the telco had an overall foreign exchange exposure of $1 billion, but it was reduced to about $300 million by the end of 2024.

Renegotiation of tower lease contracts

Beyond debt restructuring, telcos renegotiated tower lease contracts with infrastructure companies such as IHS, INT Towers Limited, and ATC Nigeria to curb FX and energy-related costs.

MTN’s renegotiation with IHS alone resulted in N113.8 billion in operational savings. Telcos are also increasingly adopting local solutions to minimise FX exposures and improve margins.

“We will focus on cost savings through our expenditure resiliency programme and implement localisation initiatives to further reduce foreign exchange exposure and operating expenditure and to improve financial resilience.

“We believe these efforts will help us maintain our competitive edge and drive additional growth in service revenues, support margin recovery, and restore our capital position,” said Karl Toriola, chief executive officer of MTN, during the telco’s investors’ call.

With the recent regulatory approval for a 50 percent increase in telecom tariffs, experts believe that this, combined with ongoing FX debt reduction efforts, will set the sector on a path to profitability.