A report by the Auditor-General of the federation’s office has indicted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) in the diversion and misappropriation of public funds and non-timely remittance of revenue to the federation account in 2021.

The report, published in November, details cases of unauthorized deductions of N82.9 billion from the federation revenue for refinery rehabilitation and irregular deductions of funds valued at N343 billion from domestic crude sales at the source.

The OAuGF report observed that N343,642,598,726.51 was unilaterally deducted from the gross domestic crude sales as NNPC Value shortfall, Strategic Stock Holding Cost, Crude Oil, and Products Pipeline Losses, as well as the pipeline maintenance and management costs.

The corporation did not provide the details of each cost component for audit review, and the corporation’s management could not justify the reasons for the deductions.

The NNPCL management ought to have paid a net payable sum of N127,075,366,570.65 in May but only remitted the sum of N77 billion, leaving the sum of N50 billion largely unaccounted for.

According to the report, these anomalies are attributed to the weaknesses in the NNPC’s internal control system.

This deduction is a violation of the 2009 Financial Regulations and the OAuGF has advised the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPCL to provide reasons for the deductions, remit the funds to the federation account, and provide proof of remittance else stand a chance of facing sanctions relating to irregular payments and gross misconduct.

Similarly, the NNPCL was also indicted for the deduction of N82.9 billion from the sale of Crude Oil and Gas (Federation Revenue) from the 2020 and 2021 records for purported refineries rehabilitation.

This deduction was not supported with evidence of authorisation and approvals.

Following these revelations, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a civil society organisation (CSO), directed the GCEO of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, to account for the misappropriated funds.

The Guardian earlier published a report detailing SERAP’s demands.

The CSO demanded that Kyari identify and hand over those suspected of involvement to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and

Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

“According to the recently published 2021 audited report by the Auditor-General of the Federation (AGF), the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) failed to account for over

N825 billion and $2.5 billion of public funds meant for refinery rehabilitation and repairs, and other oil revenues,” SERAP noted.

SERAP emphasized that Section 15(5) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) requires public institutions to abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power.

[Guardian]

A Rivers State High Court has upheld Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s authority to conduct official business with the three lawmakers who have not vacated their seats in the state house of assembly.

The ruling, delivered on December 20 by Presiding Judge Sika Aprioku, dismissed a suit seeking to compel Fubara to present the 2024 state budget to the Martin Amaewhule-led assembly.

The case, marked PHC/3552/CS/2024, was filed by the Registered Trustees of the Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners.

The plaintiffs sought to require the governor to submit the budget for passage to the 27-member assembly, led by Amaewhule.

The suit named the Government of Rivers State, Governor Fubara, and the Attorney General of the state as defendants.

After hearing arguments from both parties, the court ruled that the governor is constitutionally allowed to engage only with the lawmakers who have not vacated their seats.
Judge Aprioku referenced previous instances, including under former Governor Nyesom Wike, where business was conducted with fewer than the full legislative numbers.

“Therefore, the same way His Excellency Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, presented Budgets and financial Bills with only six members when the numbers were less than two third 2/3 of the 32 Members, so shall His Excellency, Siminalayi Fubara, the Governor of Rivers State be constitutionally guided to interface, and approach the properly constituted House of Assembly led by Oko-Jumbo, to carry on the business of the state and until the 27 lawmakers who defected and lost their seats, approaches the court, for a redemption or INEC conducts another election to the seats vacated by the 27 lawmakers upon their defection,” the court said.

The ruling also explained that as long as the status of the 27 defecting lawmakers remains in question—pending the outcome of the ongoing case concerning their seats—the governor can work with the current assembly members who have retained their positions.

This includes presenting the state budget, making board appointments, and screening nominees for executive positions.

The court concluded that the suit brought by the claimant lacked merit and dismissed the application.

The plaintiffs were also ordered to pay N500,000 in costs to the defendants.

“In sum, until the Supreme Court gives its verdict on the issue of jurisdiction which affects the status of the 27 lawmakers, it is only those who did not vacate their seats, the Governor can constitutionally approach to the present budget, appoint chief judges and president, customary court; also screen commissioners, including the attorney general and make board appointments.

“That the claimant’s claim seeking declaratory and injunctive reliefs for the Representation of the 2024 budget to the former 27 lawmakers, who defected and automatically vacated their seats, lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed.

“That this suit be and is hereby dismissed, with cost in the sum of N500,000.00, awarded in favour of the defendants and against the claimant.”

[Guardian]

The Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church in the Wenchi West District of the Mid-West Ghana Conference, Bono Region, celebrated 20 young girls over the weekend for preserving their virginity. The girls, aged 13 to 16, received undisclosed financial support during a special Thanksgiving service.

As reported by GhanaWeb, the ceremony was led by the Young Adventist Women Ministries and aimed to promote moral integrity, rooted in Christian and cultural values.

The Coordinator of the Young Adventist Women Ministries, Mrs. Nana Amponsah Poku, highlighted the initiative’s focus on nurturing the holistic development of young women.

She emphasized the importance of self-confidence and wise decision-making, urging the girls to maintain their purity and remain cautious in choosing friends in the coming year.

“God created you uniquely beautiful and you must not allow anybody to lure and break your virginity until you marry”, she urged the girls and asked them to be cautious about the friends they picked in 2025.

“The ancient Bragoro or Dipo rite was very essential in preserving girls’ virginity and controlling teenage pregnancies inimical to the growth and development of young girls and women”, she stated.

Associate Pastor Andrews Dua Bour Kyereh praised the honorees for their discipline and purity. He encouraged them to prioritize education and faith, urging other young girls in the church and community to follow their example.

Pastor Kyereh also called on parents to take an active role in guiding their children toward virtuous living and instilling strong moral values.

[Punch]

The Left Movement in Nigeria gained two of its best known leaders in 1973. Edwin ‘Eddie’ Ikechukwu Madunagu was a 27-year-old postgraduate student of Mathematics, specifically Differential Equations and Functions of a Complex Variable. He was in the University of Lagos, UNILAG, and had joined the Nigerian Youth Action Committee, NYAC.

In UNILAG, that same year, he met a 26-year-old postgraduate student of Botany, Benedicta ‘Bene’ Michael Afangide and immediately drew her into the movement. The following year, they were with the Society for Progress, a radical youth organisation led by high school teacher, Olu Adebayo.

That same 1974, Bene and Eddie were with the Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria, APMON. It was the period of the Public Service Review Commission headed by Jerome Udoji, hence it became known as Udoji Award. APMON got information that, under it, the military regime led by General Yakubu Jack Gowon had approved humongous salary increases for members of the armed forces. It published the new military salary, and members of APMON, including Eddie, were in January 1975, clamped into detention without trial. Students in campuses across the country went on nationwide demonstrations to protest Eddie’s arrest and demanded that the regime stepped down. One of the student leaders, Najeem Jimoh, wrote that: “The mobilisation of the leadership of the student unions nationwide to join our cause was easy because the couple (Bene and Eddie) had always identified with us students…Bene was the great inspiration of our efforts.” Eddie was released in the fifth month and reinstated to his UNILAG teaching job.

In 1976, they joined the Revolutionary Movement for the Liberation of Nigeria, REMLON. This was also the year they got married and undertook one of the most dangerous tasks in their lives: a plot to overthrow the Nigerian state. For this, Eddie resigned from UNILAG and went underground with others. As they planned an armed struggle to carry out a socialist revolution, the revolutionaries were embedded amongst the peasantry in Ode-Omu, now in Osun State. Eddie, to the peasants, was an Ijesha man. You can imagine their reaction when they later found out that he was not even Yoruba.

 While being part of the plan for an insurrection, Bene, that year, transferred her services from UNILAG to the University of Calabar, UNICAL. When the insurrection plan fell through, Eddie joined Bene in UNICAL. That 1977, they jointly founded a revolutionary students movement on campus called the Movement for Progressive Nigeria, MPN. One of their protégées, a then 21-year-old student, Offiong Offiong Aqua, emerged the pioneer President of the UNICAL Students Union.

In the April 1978 ‘Ali-Must-Go’ national students protests against the commercialisation of tertiary education, Aqua was fingered as one of the five ring leaders. He was detained without trial for months and expelled. Bene and Eddie were identified as the mentors of Aqua and providing inspiration for the protests. They were both dismissed from their jobs along with nine other lecturers and administrators in other tertiary institutions. Also dismissed was Bassey Ekpo Bassey, Editor of ‘Chronicle Newspapers’ and a close comrade of Bene and Eddie in Calabar.

It must have been quite tasking for a couple with Ph.Ds to be out of work and be unemployable for three years because the state so dictated.

In 1981, the year they were reinstated, Bene and Eddie participated in founding the National Democratic Movement Against Fascism, NDM, to tackle the growing fascism under the Shehu Shagari government. That administration had fallen on campuses like a hurricane, sweeping dozens of student leaders out of schools like the Bayero University, BUK, and the Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, while also smashing the leadership of the newly established National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS.

It was part of the efforts to stem this tide and resuscitate the NANS that led the radical national student movement, the Patriotic Youth Movement of Nigeria, PYMN, to send a two-person delegation round some campuses. Comprising then University of Ife Technology student, Femi Fatonode and I, our mission to UNICAL was to meet Bene and Eddie and ask them to link us with members of the MPN. It was on that mission we established contacts with the MPN leader, Kayode Komolafe, known on campus as Komo. Subsequently, the MPN sent two of their cadres, Chris Mammah and Eddie Igharo to the 1981 NANS Convention in the University of Benin, and they emerged respectively as the President and Secretary General of NANS. Those protégées of Bene and Eddie established the radical foundations of NANS which sustained the student movement through the Shagari administration and the brutal military regimes of Buhari, Babangida and Abacha.

The Marxism of Bene and Eddie is centred on social justice, humanism, freedom, internationalism and anti-sexism. In 1981, fierce debates on the rights of the woman boiled over in ABU leading to a national conference in that university from May 27-28, 1982. Two of the papers accepted at that heated conference were by Bene and Eddie. They made a joint presentation on “Conceptual Framework and Methodology: Marxism and the Question of Women’s Liberation.” They posited that the oppression of the woman in the nuclei family is located, first in her role as housewife performing socially necessary, but unpaid, labour. Secondly, as a mother, in which her role “as child bearer is exploited to perpetuate her social inequality with men.”

A socialist revolution, they argued, would not necessarily lead to women emancipation, so women liberation must be integrated into the struggle for socialism.

In a separate paper: “Contemporary Positions and Experiences of Women”, Bene argued that women oppression is in addition to the oppression of the mass, and neither can be liberated without the other. One salutary outcome of that conference was the establishment of a radical women movement called the Women In Nigeria, WIN. In a joint 1986 paper with great women champion, Altine Mohammed, Bene theorised that the strength of WIN is in straddling the class and gender fields, and accepting both males and females as members.

Bene with Grace Osakue in 1993, founded the Girls’ Power Initiative, GPI. Ten years later, she became the General Coordinator of the Development Alternatives With Women for a New Era, DAWN, a network of women from the global South working for democracy, gender and economic justice.

On April 30, 2021, Bene and Eddie ahead of the latter’s 75th birthday on May 15, jointly renewed their vows to socialist revolution in Nigeria and worldwide, and transferred their combined archives to the Nigerian Left.

On November 26, 2024, Bene joined the pantheon of international revolutionaries. The Left, her family and other lovers of humanity will gather in Calabar on Friday, January 17, 2025 to give Bene a final Red Salute.

The chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has dismissed claims that the panel did not consult with Nigerian governors.

The introduction of the bills by the Bola Tinubu-led government sparked widespread debates, especially in the north, with the Northern Governors Forum, the Northern Elders Forum, and others expressing strong opposition to the bill. 

The proposed legislation seeks to reform the country’s tax collection and administration systems, offering an opportunity to establish a more equitable and efficient taxation model. It includes the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, the Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill.

Earlier, elder statesman and northern politician Buba Galadima claimed that the tax committee failed to consult with governors, adding that the bills were only fair to Ogun and Lagos states, adding that the Oyedele-led group failed to meet with any governor except that of Lagos state.

Speaking during an appearance on Arise TV on Sunday, Oyedele faulted Galadima’s allegations, revealling that the heads of the state governments cancelled four scheduled meetings.

He said, “We have more than 20 government institutions represented. We have the private sector, whether it’s manufacturers, whether it’s women in business. We have 45 students from 22 universities across Nigeria.

“In addition to that, we had extensive engagement with the governors. I went to the governors’ forum. We wrote and wanted to meet with six governors, one from each of the six geopolitical zones. Up until this moment, it’s only the governor of Lagos state we were able to see.

“The other governor who was willing to welcome us was the governor of Kaduna state. And after all the logistics, we agreed on the date, on that day he wasn’t able to attend. It was the deputy governor that hosted us. I will not name the other governors, but I can actually if I need to. They didn’t have time for us.

“The governors’ forum themselves invited us four times and canceled four times. The fifth time, we were kept waiting until 1:30 a.m., in the middle of the night. By the time they had time for us, they said we had 15 minutes.

“And I said, Your Excellencies, we have a lot to talk about. They said, tell us how our revenues will go up. Even that, we couldn’t say in 15 minutes. We had a half-day engagement with the finance commissioners from across Nigeria. We’ve had more than four engagements with the heads of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from all over Nigeria. 

“We’ve had engagements with different groups, more than 40 sectors, from manufacturers to SMEs to FinTech. And these things were published.”

To address issues of misinformation, Oyedele revealed the committee met with over 120 northern clerics and regularly engages with northern groups like the League of Northern Democrats.

His words: “I’ll tell you that we had an interesting meeting with the Ulamas. They are the clerics, mostly from the north. There were over 120. We had to explain everything to them. And many of them, when we were done, were praying for the work we had done because there was a lot of misinformation previously. 

“We had meetings also with some sections of the north. I was with the League of Northern Democrats. So if they call me today, most times I get less than a 24-hour notice. I have to fly around to go to different places. So we are happy to discuss. We are willing to discuss.”

[Vanguard]

Nigeria’s telecoms industry, and the digital economy that has developed around it, are at a fundamental inflection point. The decisions that we make now will determine whether the growth and development of our digital economy continues on a sustainable trajectory, or whether the connectivity infrastructure that drives it begins to degrade.

The scope, breadth and sophistication of Nigeria’s telecoms industry today is a shining example of what can happen when a country combines the right policy and regulatory environment, with the right market opportunity. Since the first call was made in 2001, Nigeria’s telecoms sector has evolved into one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world, meeting the growing needs of Nigerian consumers and employing millions of people. Today, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) statistics show that there are now more than 157 million active connections, and that number is growing every month.

As the telecoms industry has expanded connectivity, it has enabled the emergence and rapid growth of the digital economy. In 2024, ICT contributed nearly 20% to Nigeria’s GDP, more than twice the contribution of oil and gas, and it continues to grow. As Nigeria transitions to the non-oil based economy that will enable more inclusive growth, connectivity is becoming more and more important. It is the foundation on which our future economy will be built. Whether it is your digital banking solution, social media and marketing, your mobile-based agricultural extension services, your e-government portal or the telemedicine and edtech solutions that are enabling broader access to healthcare and education, the impact of improved connectivity is universal.

That is why we must act now to ensure that we have a sustainable platform for the connectivity needs of the future. The NCC and the Federal Government are quite rightly-focused on ensuring Nigerians have the service levels that they deserve, but they also recognise that the industry needs the help and support of the government. The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the ministry of digital economy and communications under the able minister, Bosun Tijani, should be commended for their recognition of the need to support the industry, and the actions that they have taken to do so. For instance, legislation like the critical national infrastructure bill is vital to the maintenance of service quality levels, and systemic debt issues in the sector – both of which have now been comprehensively addressed. These all help establish the foundations for the future.

It is also commendable the other generic, giant strides the minister and the government as a collective, are taking to promote the nation’s digital economy. For instance, the ‘Three Million Technical Talents’ (3MTT) programme, which is a critical part of the Renewed Hope Agenda, is aimed at building Nigeria’s technical talent backbone to power our digital economy and position Nigeria as a net talent exporter. Put this side by side with the same government’s planned 90,000km terrestrial fibre roll-out, it becomes glaring that we now have a more forward-looking policy formulators at the helm of affairs. When completed, the fibre optics network will move the nation’s capacity from 35,000 to 125,000, making it one of the longest in Africa.

Ensuring service quality and reliability is at the heart of our mission as telecom operators, but achieving this requires a delicate balance between the cost of a product, and the investment that is made to maintain or enhance it.

Over the last decade, the tariffs that you pay for telecom services have not changed, yet over that time, operating expenses in the sector have increased by more than 300%. That equation is simply unsustainable for any industry, but even more so for a capital-intensive sector like telecoms. If you look closely at the financials of a telecoms company you will see that in order to maintain standards, delivery service quality and invest in new technology operators have to make continued and significant capital investments. The simple reality for our industry is that investment drives growth. If costs exceed revenue generation, then it becomes questionable whether the funds that need to be reinvested into the network every year will continue to be available. When that happens, growth stops and the service quality that our customers rely on suffers.

The consequences of this would go far beyond the telecoms industry. The digital services that we have all become reliant on could begin to suffer. Millions of jobs would be lost and Nigeria’s economic development would be set back by decades. This is not just a threat to our company and our industry. It is a threat to the nation, and every one of its citizens.

At the same time, the industry and the government recognise that Nigerian consumers have faced a range of significant cost of living challenges over recent years, and the transition to market pricing in the fuel and electricity sectors have driven up prices across the board. We know that we have to find the right balance between the increases that the industry wants, and the prices that Nigerians can afford to pay.

It is also important to assess the cost of Nigeria’s telecoms services compared to our contemporaries in Africa. Recent studies have shown that the average cost of 1GB of data in Nigeria is $0.38. That compares to $0.59 in Kenya, $0.68 in Ethiopia, $1.77 in South Africa and $6 in the USA. Today, Nigeria has some of the cheapest data prices for its citizens anywhere in the world.

The discussions between the industry and government have been deliberate and focused on finding the right balance, while aligning with pricing in other markets. It is why the proposed tariff increases will surely be capped, and definitely much lower than the price increases that have been imposed in other sectors like power/energy and oil; and ensuring that prices remain below our contemporaries. So not only will increases be capped well below the levels the industry has requested, but they are linked to a requirement to invest in network upgrades and service improvements, which will be overseen by the NCC to ensure compliance.

This balance of tariff increases, alongside investment commitments means that not only will the telecoms industry have the confidence to invest, and a clear pathway back to sustainability – but the higher prices will lead to better networks, more relevant services and so the better customer experience that enables growth.

Nigeria’s digital economy has shown its potential in the last decade, but the journey we are on to develop and grow it is still in its very early stages. The decision that the government has taken to ensure a sustainable tariff regime is brave, necessary and must be commended. It will ensure that our digital economy can remain on its growth path.

At MTN Nigeria we have demonstrated our long-term commitment to Nigeria many times. We believed when no one else did. We continue to believe, and we are committed to partnering with Nigeria and Nigerians to continue to invest based on that belief.

Dr Karl Toriola is the CEO of MTN Nigeria.

When Rotary started in 1905, it was just an idea and the vision of one man: Paul Percy Harris. The Chicago, Illinois-based attorney formed the Rotary Club of Chicago on February 23, 1905 (the first Rotary Club in the world with his three friends), so that professionals with diverse backgrounds could exchange ideas and form meaningful lifelong friendships. Over time, Rotary’s reach and vision gradually extended to humanitarian service.

By next month, Rotary International would be 120 years old – the fellowship and humanitarian service organisation that you will find in over 200 countries and geographical regions, including some of the world’s most remote locations.

Paul Harris died a long time ago on January 27, 1947 when he was 78 years old. But Rotary – his dream and idea – has continued to thrive and endure and waxing stronger each day with 1.4 million members in over 46,000 Rotary and Rotaract Clubs worldwide.

In 1917, something remarkable happened during the Rotary International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a life-changing initiative that would ensure that the Rotary vision of serving humanity did not die. It simply means Rotary would be with us forever; the idea would be sustained in perpetuity.

Arch Klumph, the sixth President of Rotary International, came up with the idea of setting up an endowment fund at the convention that became known as The Rotary Foundation (TRF) “for the purpose of doing good in the world.” It was previously called the Permanent Fund. That idea, with an initial contribution of US$26.50, “set in motion a powerful force that has transformed millions of lives around the world.”

The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment and alleviating poverty.

The Rotary Foundation is the non-profit arm of Rotary International. A Board of Trustees manages the business of the Foundation, led by the trustee chair. The Rotary International president-elect nominates the trustees, who are elected by the Rotary International Board of Directors.

The trustee chair serves for one year and trustees serve for four years. One of the trustees is our own Pearl Ijeoma Okoro, a Nigerian, who is currently serving on the board. Ijeoma is a Past District Governor of District 9141, and her tenure as TRF trustee would lapse on June 30, 2028.

The current trustee chair is Mark Daniel Maloney, who was Rotary International President in 2019-20 when the Covid-19 pandemic turned the world upside down. It was during his term that Rotary held its first-ever virtual convention from June 20 – 26, 2020 that was originally planned to be a physical event in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The seed money of US$26.50 has continued to grow and the value this year is expected to reach US$2.025 billion.  All the monies donated to the foundation are invested in various high-yielding ventures like stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. as advised by the trustees for a period of three years.

After three years, the funds – only the interest is touched – become available to be disbursed as grants. The Rotary Foundation offers grants that support humanitarian projects, scholarships, and vocational learning teams. We have: a) district grants, b) global grants, c) disaster response grants and d) program of scale grants.

District grants fund smaller-scale, short-term projects that address immediate needs in our communities or abroad; global grants support large international projects with long-term, sustainable outcomes in one or more of Rotary’s areas of focus. They range from US$30,000 to US$400,000.

The disaster response grants support disaster relief and recovery efforts in areas that have been affected by natural disasters through grants from the Rotary Disaster Response Fund, while the program of scale grants benefit a large number of people or a significant geographical area. The grant supports Rotary member-led, evidence-based programs that have already demonstrated success.

The program of scale grant is worth US$2 million and three have been issued to date. The first grant was given to Zambia to fight malaria (Malaria-Free Zambia project); the second grant was given to Nigeria for maternal and child health while the third was given to Egypt for cervical cancer.

Rotarians and non-Rotarians are encouraged to contribute to foundation. The three types of funds available in the foundation are: a) the Annual Program Fund, b) the PolioPlus Fund and c) the Endowment Fund.

Under the Endowment Fund, we have the Arch Klumph Society (named after the sixth President of Rotary International) which recognises The Rotary Foundation’s highest tier donors – those who have contributed US$250,000 or more during their lifetime. Some Nigerian Rotarians are Arch Klumph Society members.

Under this fund, we also have Bequest Society members (those who make a commitment for future gifts of US$10,000 or more to the fund that is redeemed after their death), and Benefactors (those who contribute US$1,000 or more to the fund outright, or when they include the fund as a beneficiary of US$1,000 or more in their estate plans).

Now, let’s talk about Polio and the fund being used for the eradication of the wild-polio virus. “Polio, or poliomyelitis,” according to a statement on Rotary International’s website, “is a paralysing and potentially deadly disease that most commonly affect children under the age of five. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can attack the nervous system.

“Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), Rotary’s commitment has seen polio cases reduced by 99.9 per cent since the first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.

“Rotary members have contributed US$2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly three billion children in 122 countries from this paralysing disease. Rotary advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than US$10 billion to the effort.”

Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Until the polio virus transmission is interrupted in these two countries,” says GPEI, “all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially vulnerable countries with weak public health and immunization services and travel or trade links to endemic countries.”

Nigeria used to be listed alongside Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria (PAIN, what an acronym!) as the remaining countries in the world where the polio virus was endemic. However, Nigeria was certified polio-free on August 24, 2020 by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Before then, Nigeria’s last case of indigenous wild-polio virus was in 2016, whereas in 2006, Nigeria had the highest number of polio cases in the world.

More than US$300 million was spent by Rotary to kick out the polio virus from Nigeria. Last year, The Rotary Foundation donated another US$14 million to strengthen polio surveillance in the country which was facilitated by the Nigeria National PolioPlus Committee chaired by Past District Governor Joshua Hassan.

The eradication of the wild polio virus was successful because community health workers and volunteer community mobilisers built effective community engagement; regions of high risk were targeted; missed children were tracked, and community-based surveillance and independent monitoring were improved.

However, information on the current status as of December 2022, revealed that there were 168 cases of vaccine-derived variant of polio (a circulating type 2 transmission strain), in the country. To maintain the polio-free status, Nigeria administers over 270 million vaccines each year.

In 2024, Nigeria recorded around 50 polio cases between January and May, despite vaccination campaigns and monitoring efforts. The polio virus that was discovered in Nigeria in 2021 continues to circulate, particularly in high risk areas. This variant often affects communities that are under-immunised, where routine vaccine coverage is low.

Every Rotarian is required to support the PolioPlus Fund by contributing a minimum of US$10, while the contribution by each Rotary Club is US$1,500. Each Rotary District is expected to apply 20 per cent of their District Designated Funds (DDF) to support the fund which is matched with an additional 50 per cent by Rotary’s World Fund.

By the way, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doubles contributions to the polio fund in the ratio of 2:1 matching grant.

Mark Maloney, the TRF chair and his spouse, Gay, are visiting Nigeria from January 15 – 20, 2025. The couple would be received by Pearl Ijeoma Okoro (member of The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees) and other Rotary leaders in Abuja.

He is scheduled to meet President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Aso Villa. Mark Maloney added Tunde to Mark as a mark of his engagements and recognition of his footprints in Nigeria. President Tinubu should call him Marktunde Maloney to confirm is Nigeria-ness and his relationship with Nigerians.

This would not his first visit to Nigeria. I recall that in September 2018, Maloney and Gay were in Nigeria. At that time, Maloney was the President-elect of Rotary International. We posed for photographs at Eko Hotel, in Lagos.

Maloney and Gay are billed to interact with Rotarians in Abuja (District 9126 and District 9127) before flying into Lagos on Saturday January 18, where he would be hosted by District Governors Oluwole Kukoyi and Femi Adenekan of District 9111 and District 9112 respectively.

His itinerary in Lagos includes a press conference, advocacy engagements, visit to the Polio House, funding raiser, symbolic polio immunisation, town hall meeting and gala dinner with Rotarians, partners as well as other stakeholders.

How are you doing good in your community? What are you doing to make a difference in other people’s lives? It is never too late; you can start today. You can become a goodwill ambassador, and you can also decide to join Rotary.

Braimah is a communications strategist and publisher/editor-in-chief of Naija Times (https://ntm.ng) and Lagos Post (https://lagospost.ng). He is also the Chair of Public Image Committee (2024-2025), Rotary International, District 9112, and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

India has detected two cases of the human metapneumovirus (HMPV).

The development follows the outbreak of the virus in China which has caused global concern.

HMPV, which was first reported in 2001 in the Netherlands, is a single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus that causes symptoms similar to the common cold and influenza, including cough, fever, nasal congestion, and fatigue, with an incubation period of three to six days.

It causes severe complications like pneumonia in infants, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems.

It spreads through respiratory droplets or contact with contaminated surfaces.

In a statement on Monday, India’s ministry of health announced that the country’s Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has detected two cases of the virus.

The ministry said the virus was detected in a three-month-old female infant, who was diagnosed with HMPV after being admitted to Baptist Hospital, Bengaluru with a history of bronchopneumonia.

The other patient is an eight-month-old male infant, who tested positive for HMPV on January 3, 2025, after being admitted to Baptist Hospital, Bengaluru, with a history of bronchopneumonia.

The ministry said while the three-month-old has since been discharged, the eight-month-old infant is recovering.

“Both cases were identified through routine surveillance for multiple respiratory viral pathogens, as part of ICMR’s ongoing efforts to monitor respiratory illnesses across the country,” the statement reads.

“It is emphasized that HMPV is already in circulation globally, including in India, and cases of respiratory illnesses associated with HMPV have been reported in various countries.

“Furthermore, based on current data from ICMR and the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) network, there has been no unusual surge in Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) or Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) cases in the country.”

The ministry noted that “neither of the affected patients have any history of international travel”.

“Union Health Ministry is monitoring the situation through all available surveillance channels. ICMR will continue to track trends in HMPV circulation throughout the year,” the statement reads.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) is already providing timely updates regarding the situation in China to further inform ongoing measures.

“The recent preparedness drill conducted across the country has shown that India is well-equipped to handle any potential increase in respiratory illnesses and public health interventions can be deployed promptly if needed.”

[TheCable]

I was shopping, as it were, for a political party that would terminate what my generation began and thought that the Labour Party (LP) would be the answer and solution until, it became very clear to me, that you who won an election as Governor of Edo State but was denied by the Electoral Commission [for which you are now in court] is therefore in a better position to continue where my generation stopped. I pray you succeed in court, to redeem the image of the Law profession which you and I belong. To show that I should be taken seriously, I have decided to join the PDP to demonstrate that my actions should speak louder than my words.

I had contacted Chief Tom Ikimi to arrange a meeting with the Executive members of Edo State Branch of the PDP, which I hope will enable me to formally join the Party as a ranking member with the portfolio of Legal Adviser and/or ideological leader (pro bono). shown below. This is because, in my view, Nigeria has no political parties but an oligarchy; as will be shown below. 

Chief Tom Ikimi and I, share a few things in common, we are both golfers and were also invited by Gen Sani Abacha to join his government. While Chief Ikimi accepted, I declined, but we both served our country well. Having recently reached out to some leaders of political parties, including the Labour Party, I have come to the conclusion that our country requires young, knowledgeable and independent minded, Nigerians honed through training in ideology and our political past to dare to reshape the now and future of our country. For me, most of the young men and women in politics today are those, I will like to call “operatives”, likely recruited by oligarchs to promote the Nigerian concept of “oligarchy” initiated by the Armed Forces of Nigeria. They are in essence, a small group of persons having control over the affairs of Nigeria with three major tribes and 385 other minority tribes. Two major religions with many others under the direction of a few with ultimate objective as a country subject to the “North”, I have been accused of being anti-North but on the contrary I am a true Nigerian. At the age of four, I was taken to Jos by my mother and her husband Mr. Jasper Okposima, a miner who exposed me to “Western civilization” at Clerk’s Quarters, Church and Palmer Streets then in Jos in 1941 – 1953 where I learnt Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba in that order plus English, Edo and Urhobo which made me a Nigerian in the truth and in fact.

I am convinced that a new PDP with taproots in Edo State should emerge as a challenge to the British well-conducted youth of the North and his two ladies of means (wives) of the East and Western Nigeria [Nd’igbo and the Yoruba], who have held sway since 1914 amalgamation. A tripod of which two rule at any point in time with a dominant husband – the North Looking at the way things have played out over the years, one is convinced more than ever before that to make a meaningful intervention and strengthen the polity, Nigeria should do so through strong and vibrant political parties not ethnic or religious associations. I consider the PDP as a better alternative to bring about this desired change. However, the PDP needs to be retooled by exposing its leadership and followership to a sequence of robust political ideas and its organizational skills must be national and not ethnic or religious basis.

Nigeria in the Image of Sudan 

Nigeria today, is on the brink of the precipice and experts have reasons to believe that she may go the way of Sudan. And all, I repeat, all Nigerians will be losers, all, the 389 ethnic nationalities including the big three - the Nd’igbo, Yoruba and the British created tribe of “Hausa/Fulani” or Fulani/Hausa including all structures, visible and invisible, which took years to build, manufacture and create, will be destroyed. In this document, I have listed ideas earlier sold to Labour Party because of my friendship with Ojukwu even though I was not a member of APGA when Peter Obi was the Governor of Anambra State which LP ignored, believing that we love our country Nigeria and will not allow her to go the way of Sudan. Sudan had an imperial institution - Sudan Political Service (SPS) “the SPS was instituted in 1901, and a regular system of recruiting young university graduates was in place by 1905. These recruits unusually were chosen on the basis, not of examinations but of a series of interviews. It was the duty of the Sudanese government agent in London to sift through hundreds of application forms and letters of recommendation, and then invite a short list of candidates to the selection board in London.” --- Public schoolboys were strongly favored, as were athletes, and it was this particular feature which gave rise to the saying that the Sudan was a country of ‘Blacks ruled by Blues’. ‘Blacks’ referred to the original Arabic name for Sudan, al bilad as-sudan, the Land of the Blacks, while ‘Blues’ referred to the distinction of getting a Blue representing either Oxford or Cambridge in a match against the other universities. Athleticism was greatly valued because of the supposedly sapping nature of the climate. The Sudan, in the words of one later governor general, was not a land for ‘weaklings to master’. The Sudan Political Service was regarded as the elite of the African Service, and enjoyed a prestige comparable with the Indian Civil Service. It conferred even greater distinction, because it was known that getting in was not simply a matter of passing examinations, as was the case for nearly every other branch of the civil service. Service in Sudan was very much about character and not merely brains; Sudan was where the ‘best of the imperial breed’ could exercise an unlimited sway over natives.” [Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World, Kwasi Kwarteng, pg. 237] Thus the Sudan had the best of British tradition and intention, and provided the image upon which a Muslim North was created. 

It is very clear that the experiment of the British in Sudan encouraged Lord Lugard to recommend amalgamation to the British government aided by the Secretary of State, Lord Harcourt, for the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria on January 1914. Until Independence in 1960, colonial officers in Northern Nigeria were mainly ex-service men from Sudan while the expatriates in the South were civilians who did not attend SPC. AHM Kirk-Greene wrote “one is reminded of the quip about the mutual hostility and regional loyalty of the Administrative staff of the Northern and Southern Provinces of Nigeria up to 1939: if all Nigerians had withdrawn from the country, there would have been a civil war between the two groups of Europeans. The seed of antagonism and division of Europeans of North and Southern Protectorates was planted in us by the British. The North for protection had to promote an ideology - Fulani/Hausa or Hausa/Fulani as the new Nigerian tribe. The amalgamation was thus influenced more from Sudan than London to enable the coast protect the interior. In addition to human nuisance, which helped to promote the conquest mentality which today is responsible for Nigeria’s inability to move from a country to a Nation.

Kirk-Greene wrote “Lugard cited Lord Scarborough, Chairman of the Royal Niger Company, as having declared that the coast ought to pay for the development of the interior, and any other way would be a ‘suicidal policy’. Till date, the coast has religiously developed the interior and thus has made the North arrogant because it sees itself as successor to the colonial British insisting that Western civilization was inferior to Arab civilization.

Why Sudan?

Let me draw your attention to the statement made by our President, Bola Tinubu after INEC declared Senator Monday Okpebholo elected when we all knew that you won the September 2024 election in Edo State. The President was quoted as saying that as he promised, he had delivered Edo State, and has gone further to deliver Ondo State. The question to be asked now is: how did he deliver these two States? It was not that the people of Edo State voted massively for his Party the APC, where INEC provided figures not related to the election. As the saying goes, “go to court” and as you and I know, rather most educated Nigerians know that the court would rubber-stamp INEC’s result. The danger here as it happened in Sudan was that a coup was staged against its President in 2010 which broke the country into two separate entities. In 2011, the Southern Sudan voted for independence to have a Christian leadership while the Animist South against rule by the Arab Muslim North modern Sudan – [North and South] having been threatened of conflict and instability with two length North-South Civil War. Sudan became independent in 1956; 1955 - 1972 was the first Sudanese Civil War between North and South over demand for more regions by Southern Sudan Region. Some 500,000 people were estimated to have been killed. The 1972 peace agreement failed to diffuse the tension, and in 1969 Colonel Nimeiri staged a coup wherein Parliament and political parties where abolished. In 1977, Limited Political Pluralism was introduced, Sharia Islamic Law was introduced in 1983- complete from 1985 - 2005 to 2023.

It is my hope and prayer that President Tinubu understands the meaning of Muslim/Muslim ticket and would not be carried away by people like Senator Ali Ndume to shout Democracy, yet in action he implements a Muslim/Muslim agenda.

My Involvement with Ethnic and Religious Associations

I now believe that my appreciation of amalgamation of 1914 must have shielded me from accepting appointments into government at various levels all these years.

• Rejected nomination to serve as State Commissioner Edo/Delta under General  Agbazika Innih’s government - 1975/76
• Declined the offer of an invitation to the Court of Appeal under Justice Akanbi as President of the Court - 1986
• Declined the offer to serve as Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice in General Sani Abacha’s government – see my CV
• Participated in the Constitution Drafting Committee under Buba Ardo CJ, Borno State or N.E. and the Constituent Assembly 1986 – 89
• And Okurounmu Committee of the National Conference 2013.

Although I rejected all government appointments between 1979 to date, I am proud to be a member of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Benin Branch which six of us were the founding members in 1971. In 1973, then a junior, I was at the Annual Conference held in Kano elected as the National Treasurer, later Secretary, Finance Committee at Sixth Commonwealth Law Conference – 1980; member of the General Council of the Bar 1978 – 1984; Visiting Lecturer for Courses in Civil Procedure at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies – 1985; member of the Council of Legal Education 1979 – 1985; member, Disciplinary Committee, of the General Council of the Bar, 1990 to 1995 and member, Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee 1991 - 1993 (the committee that confers the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria on Lawyers). Of relevance also is my involvement in the Catholic Social Movement (CSM); Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN); Ethnic Nationalities Movement (ENM); and National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF). The CSMN is a registered trustee harboring all the five blocs of Christians. To this day, CSMN is a think-tank for Christians in Nigeria, the basis upon which this paper is featured and hopes to establish the fact that one North in one Nigeria is a misnomer, is responsible for Nigeria’s inability to transform Nigeria from a country to a Nation. It will be shown in this publication that our colonial masters, who were mainly soldiers, were in substance opposed to Democracy and left a system of “Democracy” that is mere lip service. Unfortunately all that our political leaders that led the country to Independence in 1960 can be summed up as the Black man’s ambition to take over governance from the white, unfortunately our black leaders were unable to appreciate that the white man as humans and racist that preferred the minority Negroid to majority black Negros in Nigeria.

South Paying for the North

While on his way home in May 1905, Lord Lugard drafted a top secret dispatch to the Secretary of States titled ‘Amalgamation of Nigeria’, and it embodies, inter alia, the unique Lugard scheme for continuous administration. But our interest here must be confined to the idea of amalgamation, and as this is Lugard’s first official representation (he was not a member of the Royal Niger Committee of 1898). It is worth piecing together his views on the future of an all-embracing Nigerian administration which can be found here and there in his lengthy memorandum focused on the future government of the North. He raised, for instance, the issue of a common revenue to be ‘spent in the interest of Nigeria as a single and indivisible entity’. This, in Lugard’s view, could only be affected by ‘complete amalgamation under a single Administrator’, a goal which he declared to have been ‘continuously and strenuously’ urged by all the High Commissioners and Governors from 1900 onwards in the belief that the longer such unification was deferred the wider would become the divergence between the policies and practices of each Administration. In support of the respectable ancestry of such an amalgamation, Lugard cited Lord Scarborough, Chairman of the Royal Niger Company, as having declared that the coast ought to pay for the development of the interior, and any other would be a ‘suicidal policy’. Lugard’s premise was typically forthright: ‘The country is essentially one’-a far cry from the divisive feelings often voiced in 1966 and 1967, indicative of grave doubts whether any fundamental basis for unity existed at all. Till date the coast has continued to pay to develop the interior while the interior shows no gratitude or genuine affiliation with the coast.

Kirk-Greene wrote “by the middle of 1914 the situation came very near to boiling over when the Times of Nigeria accusation bluntly alleged in its leader titled: ‘The Hidden Meaning’ that unification was synonymous with a sell-out of the South. ‘The amalgamation of 1914’, it asserted, ‘is, broadly speaking, the conquest and subjugation of Southern Nigeria by Northern Land. Northern Nigeria system, Northern Nigerian laws, Northern Nigerian land laws, Northern Nigerian administration, must be made to supersede every system in Southern Nigeria’. One further weapon was placed in the press’s hands when a copy of a confidential dispatch to the Colonial Office on educational policy sent by Lugard on his way home in S.S. Mendi, was leaked to the Nigerian Chronicle. They printed it in full under the contentious title of ‘The Proposed Installation of Mental Slavery’ and, linking it with the remarks the Governor had made when opening the exhibition of school work in Lagos, made it the cause of a severe attack on him for his alleged plan to curb the educational genius of the South.” [Lugard and the Amalgamation of Nigeria: A Documentary Record on the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigerian and Administration, 1912-1919, pg. 24]

A former Lagos civil servant, Ian Nicolson, who has called amalgamation ‘a very saddening experience…. After studying the work of his [Lugard’s] forerunners who administered Southern Nigeria’. In harsh words, he castigates Lugard’s administrative plans as ‘trampling on all the carefully nursed seedlings of civilized government, law and legislature, and substituting authoritarian administrocracy in which the whole emphasis was away from the coast, away from the law and education in its widest sense’, and concludes that Lugard’s amalgamation place Nigeria in a state of arrested development, with its institutions of government left on the whole ‘dormant and static’ for the next thirty years. These contrasting views on the wisdom of the very concept of amalgamating the two Nigerias have been widely revived in 1966-1967. [pg. 26]

When therefore the Sardauna of Sokoto said after the motion by Chief Anthony Enahoro in 1953 calling for Independence in 1956 talked of the mistake of 1914 as an aberration, suggesting that the North was extending favour to the South, when the opposite was the case. The North was able to balance its deficit account with the British treasury, provided a gateway to the sea as well as joint railway. It is time for the South to say loud and clear, it was and still the South that had and has continue to extend favours to the North. Therefore 1914 was a blessing not a mistake for the North. In any case, the North as a colony had no say in the matter. As stated above, there was the plan to curb the “educational genius of the South”. With the benefit of hindsight, for some explained reasons not only education in the South was tampered with, but other infrastructures like railway was halted, e.g. Lagos monorail was halted and a perpetual “wall” was constructed to restrict the development of seaports which the South had monopoly of. It is time that the South begin to speak out, in fact, blow its trumpets because if the South does not do so, it cannot expect the North to do so for it. There is need, in the above circumstance, for policies of minerals, oil and gas to be reviewed.

Minerals

Lugard in his Amalgamation Report at paragraph 92 wrote “I thoroughly subscribe to the view that all mineral syndicates should produce proof that their capital and control are predominantly British. Since minerals in Nigeria are the property of the Government this presents no great difficulty. --- The revised Mineral Ordinance and Regulations of 1916 appear to have given properties, and worked well. --- The imposition of a normal surface rent (1d. to 3d. an acre) became a necessity when the Ordinance was made applicable to the Southern Provinces, where the system of land tenure differs widely from the North.” [pg. 109] From the above, it is very clear that minerals in the hands of the Federal Government are a continuation of colonialism. Should this be stopped? Not yet in any case, 13% derivation is not the solution to the problem. 

North Conquest of the South

It is a statement of fact today, 2024, that the “North” overthrew the Constitution shared the country’s commonwealth and introduced the “conquest mentality” rule. It is safe to conclude that since African States were granted independence beginning with Sudan in 1956, then Ghana in 1957 and Nigeria in 1960, most young Africans in uniform who were so anxious to “inherit” their “fathers’ wealth” – resulted to staging coups that has now been repeated in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger only to promote oligarchy. The whole concept affected State creation in Nigeria except perhaps for the 12 States structure created by General Gowon in 1967, the icing on the cake was the military Constitution of 1999 that entrenched the principle that indigenes own the top-soil but the Federal Government own the sub-soil, the way all minerals in British commonwealth were owned by the British crown. In effect, minerals including oil and gas are owned and controlled by the new colonial masters. The “North” became the sole beneficiary of minerals including oil and gas.

Devolving from the above, it is very clear that Nigeria is the creation of soldiers, first the British soldiers then Nigerian soldiers. The contest between Northern and Eastern soldiers had the same objectives and one wonders whether Nigeria could have been different if Biafra had won, especially for minority ethnic groups.

Political Party

A political party is one of the several types of organizations which under various political systems seek to control the personnel and policy of government. Political parties as defined here as an instrument of Democratic regime in which the chief governmental officials are chosen by election. A clique of military officers that gain control of government and by its command of the Armed Forces of a country is hardly a political party, although it may masquerade as one. A landed aristocracy or traditional ruler that exerts a continuing stress on affairs of the state under an absolute or non-absolute monarchy may play an important role in the governance of the realm but does not constitute a political party. Under dictatorship or oligarchy where one party system has been established to bolster the power of the dictator are not political parties. It is the freedom to form organizations that strive for power by electoral methods that are political parties. So when a “president” is proclaimed by the courts even though there were other candidates in the elections that scored more votes, does not constitute Democracy and the group or platform under which the candidate was supposed to have won the election cannot be construed properly as a political party. In the case of Nigeria of 2024, Nigeria cannot correctly be said to have political parties otherwise all the parties including the All Progressive Congress (APC) would have protested the manner in which the result of the Edo State gubernatorial election of 2024 was conducted without recourse to court of law or tribunal because faulty election or rigged election goes to the core of the existence of political parties in a democratic country. In 1966, there was in Nigeria a military coup, which, very clearly had a tribal influence. The Head of State and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces proscribed without justification, 81 political parties and 26 ethnic and tribal unions. With justification, one can say that till date, political parties and tribal unions remain banned under Decree 33 of 1966, and when Yakubu Gowon took over as Head of State and did not lift the ban. It is my submission that Religious and Tribal unions/associations are no substitute for political parties anywhere in the world and Western countries have shown that Liberal Democracy is still the best form of government invented by humans. Anything different is a poor caricature of Democracy. When Babangida created his new breed politicians, I must confess that I made an input in the exercise in 19---, he did so to ensure that the military continue with a few selected Nigerians to rule. It is my submission that since 1966 when Aguiyi-Ironsi banned political parties, Nigeria has had masquerades of political parties. The real parties were those mentioned, participated in the Constitutional Conferences that compelled the British to grant Independence to Nigeria. The National one was the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), the Regional parties were the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) for the North with only one member from the West - Chief Ukueku. However the NPC had some NCNC members working for them at the National level, the Action Group made incursion in the East and North while Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) in the North some connection with the NCNC and these were the parties that negotiated Independence for Nigeria. 

New Breed Politicians

The new breed political parties including PDP were set up by the military President Ibrahim Babangida was caricature parties, parastatals in the name of political parties which explains why it is not far-fetched that Nigeria may go the way of Sudan. These political parties did not and cannot perform the function of political parties, they are idle most of the year and only become relevant during election waiting for instructions as to which party they should support. They behave and act as operatives of the Secret Services – “Operatives”. Another faulty institution is the Electoral Commission which instead of promoting competitions amongst the parties, decided which political party and/or individual should be declared winner as dictated by the oligarchs of the day usually military men in khaki and agbada or their nominees.

Losing Faith in Democracy

In an article titled Why Africans are losing Faith in Democracy on The Economist of October 7, 2023, which reads in part: “One reason coups have grown more common is that many Africans have lost faith in democracy. Afrobarometer, a pollster, found that the share who prefer democracy to any other form of government has fallen from 75% in 2012 to 66%. In South Africa, which has one of the world’s most liberal constitutions, 72% say that if a non-elected leader could cut crime and boost housing and jobs, they would be willing to forgo elections. Incumbent regimes, most of which claim to be democratic, have brought neither prosperity nor security. More people are dying in small conflicts than at any point since at least 1989. The reason for this is that of the three arms of government, the Legislature and Head of the State, President, etc are free for all. Political parties with the major functions are non-existent in fact. PDP with the right direction will soon catch up the ANC of South Africa founded in 1912. I must emphasize that Africa the Dark Continent, Africa has done very well since the 1950s and the 60s when African countries were granted independence. Africa for thousands of years had jakpa to civilization and have suffered rule by African Traditional Rulers, slave raiders, slavery, colonialism before Independence. African need to graduate to full Democracy and that is what the PDP Edo State must set out to do notwithstanding the fact that the Presidential Election of 2023 and Edo State Election of 2024, were not how to protect Democracy. 

Nigeria would have been a different place, had Babangida allowed Nigerians to establish political parties rather than imposing parastatals which he called “New Breed politicians”, who knows, we may have had an Igbo man as elected Governor of Sokoto. After all, under NCNC we had Alhaji Altine as Mayor of Enugu, Ekuyasi, an Ibo representing Edo of Benin City. Premier Ahmadu Bello would not have regarded Enahoro’s motion for Independence as a mistake which encourage NPC to promote riot in Kano ostensibly against the Yoruba only for it to be turned against Ibo because a dead Nd’igbo means death to a kafir. The same would not have been said when Yoruba who had many Muslims killed; Sir Ahmadu Bello himself lamented the Kano riot against Nd’igbo in 1959 was not intended for the Nd’igbo but Action Group. 

Sudan of Today

Sudan today is a ghost country with the herdsmen (Janjaweed) actually the tools of conquest that were and are carefully co-ordinated, controlled organized and funded by the Sudanese military. The military and the herdsmen after joining hands to overthrow Al-Bashir are now at each other’s throats. Genocide returned to Darfur October 2023 when survivors tell of mass slaughter, murdered babies and killings spree. After surviving weeks of gunfire and rockets directed at the Masilit a black African ethnic group the Masilit fled to Chad. Fighters wearing the uniform of Rapid Support Force (RSF) dragged men to the side and shot them. Sudan today is very much like a country under a violent tsunami that has reduced it into rubbles and would cost much to rebuild if ever this is contemplated. Khartoum the “Paris” of Africa at one time have been reduced to a dump site and it is my prayer that Nigeria does not come to the level of present Sudan that has lost everything.

The Nigerian

Factor At this juncture, permit me to tell the story of a lady who was born in London to Nigerian parents but relocated to Nigeria to begin her education. She found Nigeria her home country too harsh for her disposition and returned to her place of birth unlike my daughter Ifueko, though born in Lagos, is not a Lagosian by Nigerian law. She returned to her country of birth, As Bishop Kukah wrote “at that event, at only 30 years old, she had spoken about her journey into politics barely 15 years after returning to the UK at the age of 16. She spoke of her experience with white British teachers who had discouraged her from contemplating going to Oxford because she would be boxing well above her weight. She said that when she informed a white female member of the Labour Party of her plans to join the Conservative Party, the lady had considered it a sign of ingratitude and a lack of appreciation of what the Labour Party had done for people of her kind. In the end, she said, she had joined the Conservative Party because, its ideology aligned with her personal beliefs. Seven years later, Kemi Badenoch now sits at the highest pedestal of a Party she joined barely ten years ago. This is a feat that is moment defining and will remain a major marker in the future of British politics.” I don’t know how you joined the PDP. All I know is that I assisted Professor Omo Omoruyi to fine-tune the two new breed political parties the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and later the Alliance for Democracy (AD) of which I was elected Legal Adviser. I concur with former President Shehu Shagari that Nigeria has had two political parties - the military and the civilians. The military whether in uniform or agbada has tried to emasculate the civilians by the establishment of a one-party State in Nigeria. Fortunately, Democracy is fighting back and the military is now compelled to return to the barracks even though their experiment on Democracy is still affecting the politics of Nigeria. Nigeria needs a political party that will mobilize public opinion to appreciate the dangers of going the Sudan way especially when Nigeria was “created” in the mould of Sudan.

This solution is to remind all Nigerians of the past in the hope that it will influence the present and the future and that no better example can be found than the Sudan. One has 12 witnessed and participated in elections since 1954, and can confirm that the only free, fair and credible election was that of June 12, 1993, when Chief MKO Abiola was elected but the “North” did not approve of handing over power to a Southerner at the time.

I was also one of the lead counsels for Chief Olu Falae at the Presidential Election against Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999. After the election, Chief Obasanjo boasted that he won 60% of the total votes. I had to correct the misconception at the lecture I gave at the Holy Cross Cathedral, Mission Road, Benin City that the election was won by Chief Olu Falae and evidence of this fact were the Forms EC 8A which were handed to me by the Electoral Commission. When later I saw the then Chairman of the Electoral Commission, late Hon Justice Ephraim Akpata JSC (rtd), he threatened to sue me. Fortunately, he did not before passing on. That also explains my rejection of a brief by now Senator Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole who wanted me to represent him at the Electoral Tribunal in 2008. I declined and told him that he does not need a good lawyer and that all he needed was to conform to the concept of the “North”. He listened to my advice and won. I have refused election related cases up till last year (2023) when I indicated my desire to join the Labour Party as an ideologue, but did not hear from the leadership. I appeared for a client who was a member of the Labour Party and the Party itself at the Election Tribunal and at the Court of Appeal.  

National Conference 2014

I was a member of the Okurounmu’s Committee (2013) for the Constitutional Conference of 2014. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was the only member of the Committee who was denied membership at the main Conference headed by Chief Justice Idris Kutigi. In his memoirs titled The Dream: Pursuing The Black Renaissance Through The Murky Waters of Nigerian Politics, Senator Femi Okurounmu wrote: “I sought a private audience with Anyim and persuaded him to replace Nyiam with Chief Solomon Asemota. He wanted an assurance that Asemota would accept the appointment and I promised to contact Chief Ayo Adebanjo to prevail on him to do so. Chief Adebanjo did contact Chief Asemota and obtained an assurance from him that he would accept the job. Thereupon, he contacted me and I passed the assurance to Anyim, leading to the formal announcement of Chief Solomon Asemota as a member of the Committee to replace Col. Tony Nyiam. I was sure of Asemota’s commitment to the national conference because we had agitated together for it for many years and on many fora, first on the Ethnic Nationalities Forum, and also on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). His inflexibility, however, later proved nearly disastrous for me. [pg. 484]”  

Permit me to state that I was one of the members of the Patriots led by Prof. Ben Nwabueze that visited Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in 2013 calling for a National Conference. A Committee was thereafter set up with Prof. Nwabueze as a member but he could not be part and asked me to represent him because he was hospitalized in the UK. The main reason for Nwabueze’s objection was professional. As the doyen of the legal profession at the time and Chairman of The Patriots, I could not say no, (in any case, Nwabueze taught me Constitutional Law at the University of Lagos in 1964). At the conclusion of the Okurounmu Committee’s assignment, I submitted a Minority Report, which the Chairman, Sen. Femi Okurounmu and others in the Committee refused to include in the Main Report on the flimsy argument that the Committee was one and could only submit one Report. I decided to send my Minority Report to the Presidency which Pius Anyim Pius said he could not infuse because it is a “one-Commission Report”. I still maintain that issues concerning Constitutional Law and Justice should be left to lawyers to guide others; to have made Okurounmu chairman with Nwabueze as a member and later on myself, was wrong and should not be repeated. Out of deference to Professor Ben Nwabueze I agreed to serve and even my effort was not appreciated because the Committee was programmed to take one direction while I took the opposite. This is the fate that befell the legal profession in Nigeria, where juniors and lawyers are place above their seniors, Magistrates trying Chief Justice, all to rubbish the traditions of the legal profession diluted with Sharia is proof of conquest mentality of the North.

Okurounmu wrote in his book that: “beginning from December 2003, the Nd’igbo, led by Dim Emeka Ojukwu and the Afenifere had initiated a conjoined consultative meeting for the discussion of Nigeria’s manifold problems. The first meeting was held on 2 December, 2003, in the Law office of Chief Solomon Asemota who was the convener. The meeting observed ‘that all Nigerian Ethnic Nationalities except the Hausa/Fulani agreed that a National Conference is necessary to draw a New Constitution, because the 1999 Constitution provides the basis for injustice now being perpetuated against the Nigerian people. The said constitution is biased in favor of some ethnic nationalities. A National Conference from which a New Ideological Group will emerge in addition to a New Constitution that will provide for welding the 389 ethnic nationalities into a nation was considered the best, feasible and non-violent option which should be pursued immediately…’ It was further agreed that ‘the South-West and the South-East leaders and the convener should immediately go into further discussions and plan to invite other nationalities into the fold’. Those who attended the meeting were Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Sen. Femi Okurounmu, Prince Jide Akinbiyi, for Afenifere; and Dim Emeka Ojukwu, Chief Chekwas Okorie, Chief Kalu Idika Kalu, and Engr. Odi Nwosu for Nd’igbo. That meeting eventually evolved into the Ethnic Nationalities Forum which gave birth to the Ethnic Nationalities Movement. Afenifere was a very strong pillar of the Ethnic Nationalities Forum whose co-leaders were Pa Reuben Fasoranti, Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu and Barr Solomon Asemota, with Hon. Mike Orobator as Secretary. The Forum, on the 27th of May 2004 held a Press Conference captioned “The Social-Political Issues that Threaten Sustainable Peace and the Very Survival of Nigeria”. [pg. 420] [Emphasis supplied] By appointing Sen. Okurounmu as Chairman of the Committee, the “North” took the wind out of the Patriot’s sail as he was never a member of the Patriots founded by Chief Rotimi Williams and Professor Ben Nwabueze. No wonder the Constitutional Conference failed and, today we are back to square one - slavery mentality. 

The “North” Does Not Believe in Democracy

One cannot help but agree with Kwasi Kwarteng when he wrote “Independence finally came on 1 October 1960. The new federal Prime Minister, responsible for the central government, was another Northerner called Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, but everyone believed him to be a creation of the Sardauna, who had earlier told an American journalist that he would leave the job of being Nigeria’s prime minister to ‘one of my lieutenants’. There had been elections in 1959 in which none of the three tribally based parties had secured an overall majority, but in which each had won handsome majorities in its home region. The Northern Region was the most populous of the three regions, with about 50 per cent of the country’s population, so it was not surprising when the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) captured 134 out of 312 seats in the 1959 pre independence parliament, all of which were in the North. In the East, the Igbos had won eighty-nine seats, while the Yoruba Action Group in the West won seventy-three. The next five years were ‘characterized by political crises’ as each of the three main parties fought for ‘supremacy over the federal government’. That there were three regions, each with its own ethnically based party, was wildly destabilizing and the perfect recipe for ‘ethnic combat’. --- All parties were ‘locked in a ferocious competition for a larger share from the national treasury’: ‘Tribalism became the ideology of politics.’ As population would influence the allocation of seats, censuses became keenly contested, --- In 1952, before the final constitution had been settled on, people had been under-counted in the census taken that year, because it was believed that the census was an instrument by which the colonial government would collect more taxes. In 1962, after independence, the census was now believed to affect political representation and so figures increased dramatically in many regions. The 1962 census was said to have cost £1.5 million, but the figures were never published. The Sardauna of Sokoto was reportedly upset by the findings when he saw that the unofficial figures showed that, while the North’s population had gone up 30 percent from 16.8 million in 1952 to 22.5 million, some of the Eastern areas claimed increases of 200 per cent. The Western returns also gave an increase of 70 per cent. The implications of all this were clear: it was rumored that the North no longer contained half the population and so could easily be dominated by a combination of the other two regions. When shown the results of the 1962 census, the Sardauna was said to have ‘torn up the figures in disgust’ and to have ordered Tafawa Balewa, the federal Prime Minister, ‘to try again’. Balewa did try again. Another census was conducted in November 1963, in which the Northern Region managed to ‘find’ another 7 million people more than the previous year and now, with a population of 29.8 million, there was no question of the north not having more than half of Nigeria’s population of 55 million. Dr. Michael Okpara, Premier Minister of the Eastern Region, the Igbo-dominated area, rejected the census on the grounds that the ‘Northern figures were fraudulent’. Satisfied with the new figures, the Sardauna allowed the federal Prime Minister to publish them, which he did without consulting the other regional premiers. Elections took place at the end of 1964 in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and disillusionment. It was clear that the only issue at stake was whether the north would dominate Nigeria, or whether the two regions in the south could muster enough seats to counterbalance the Northern bloc.” 

The Northern elites clearly resented these newcomers and managed to keep the immigrants in so-called strangers’ communities, where, because of the difference of religion, schooling was segregated and two different societies existed side by side. --- ‘Southern Nigerian system is turning out every year hundreds of Europeanized Africans’,--- Fifty years of colonial rule had failed to bridge this gap. --- It was not possible to become a Northerner by simply settling in the North, since an individual had to be born into a Northern tribe to be considered a true Northerner. --- After the elections at the end of 1964, the Easterners openly threatened secession and there was anarchy in the Western Region, while in the North the Sardauna was still trying to keep out Southern influences in order to consolidate his power. It was obvious that by 1964 that the Federation of Nigeria was falling apart. [Ghosts of Empire – Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World, pgs. 303 – 305] 0 I agree with his views concerning census that should be included in PDP’s manifesto. Professor Omo Omoruyi also supported the view when he wrote that the North does not believe in democracy “Alhaji Saleh told me in his own words, the definition of democracy: “professor, my vote is not the same weight as the vote of the Emir of Bauchi and the Emir of Bauchi is not the same weight as the vote of the Sultan of Sokoto” he then said “that is why we are not going to accept the mandate which Chief Abiola is claiming”. He added that if I was able to develop a new political education programme to reflect this new and curious philosophy of democracy. I would get money and much more from the head of state for the center and for myself. It was obvious that he was thinking of buying me just as many people I had always respected gave up their honour and collected money from the regime’s handlers during this period.” [Tales of June 12 – The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians (1993), pg. 34] It is safe to suggest that till date the “North” does not accept Democracy.

Willink’s Commission

In 1958 the Willink’s Commission set up to identify the fear of minorities, identified the British creation of Fulani/Hausa or Hausa/Fulani as “a system of rule and of society where the important ingredient is the Muslim law.” In other words, the North accepts only those who are not born in the North but accept Muslim rule as Northerners. Till date the amorphous ideology North is still being practiced by some Northerners.

The Willink’s Commission and the ideology of Fulani/Hausa as a tribe created by the British and some Muslim scholars, who insist that the “North” which is another name for Hausa/Fulani or Fulani/Hausa and the religion of Islam and Islamic way of life, must be accepted by anyone who wants to be regarded as a Northerner. Today, have Tinubu as a Muslim and President. The PDP had Atiku Abubakar and Wike who professed to be PDP but at the same time APC. This ideological thought that the Hausa/Fulani will be leaders of APC and PDP encouraged the Nd’igbo, I suspect to promote Ohaneze Nd’igbo with the Ijaws working very hard to be recognized as the fourth tribe. When Nigeria’s wealth is shared among the big three and an aspiring fourth member, nothing will be left for the other 385 tribes.

In 1937, Southern Nigeria was broken into East and West which began the identity politics in Nigeria. Later, twelve States by General Gowon cannot be regarded as an identity politics, but one of survival as it weakened Biafra. However my friend and mentor Prof. Ben Nwabueze a very enlightened Nd’igbo promoted its vision of identity politics, with the establishment of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, which affected me as a Catholic.

Present Day Traditional Institutions in Nigeria

Before I conclude, I want to restate that the future of Nigeria and Africa are in your hands. As colonial subjects, Nigeria was classified as Negros and Negriods; the blacks and not so black.  

Recently, traditional rulers are often mentioned in relation to the type of government, for us, Nigeria outside Democracy, this is dangerous. We must not be misled by military apologists who after staging coups and benefited more from its spoils now want a new dynasty in which military men will hold sway. After the overthrow of General Yakubu Gowon in 1975, his subordinates concentrated on how best to spend the wealth of the Nation population and land mass that were assets in themselves became principles for sharing the Nation’s wealth. Minority tribes in which the wealth of the Nation – (oil and gas) became colonized people.

It is now time that we re-examined our past to avoid its mistakes, and Sudan became an example by choice. To avoid mistakes of Sudan, one cannot but agree with Kwasi Kwarteng when he wrote: “Lugard was a great theorist of imperialism and his greatest legacy in the British Empire and to Nigeria was the doctrine of indirect rule. In many ways, Goldie had anticipated this, in his eagerness, as early as the 1880s, to keep the chiefs and local rulers happy. As Long as trade was unimpeded, he was content for local rulers to enjoy their traditional powers. Lugard translated this into a deliberate doctrine, even though once again it was the actual circumstance, the prevailing shortage of money with which to govern Nigeria, that drove the policy in the first instance. Indirect rule was a function of necessity more than it was an attempt to allow people to govern themselves. It was a practical, not a theoretical, commitment to self-determination or to any other grandiose idea. Lugard himself saw indirect rule as a better policy than a ‘regime laid down by regulations from Whitehall’. The old individualistic spirit, the spirit of 'anarchic individualism’, is always present in his life and work. The ‘all-pervading love of freedom’ which Lugard believed was the 'most notable characteristic’ of British colonial policy was derived from the 'individual instincts of each Englishman from the highest to the most junior’. This spirit of individualism meant that each of the fifty dependencies of the Crown, which Lugard distinguished from the ‘self-governing Dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa', had 'its own policy adapted to the character and traditions of its people. Indirect rule worked because it meant that the 'fifty or a hundred different Native administrations’ in Nigeria were free to develop in their own way, ‘subject only to a general scheme of policy’. As far as Lugard was concerned, democracy had taken several centuries to develop in Britain itself, and was not even an 'unqualified success in Europe' in the 1920s; Mussolini's Italy had 'discarded' it. Democracy simply was not ‘adapted to the mentality or traditions of Eastern or of African races’.” [Ghosts of Empire, pgs. 290 - 291] I submit that Democracy is the answer and political parties rather than ethnic and religion that held sway before Democracy was invented.  

Conclusion

Having contested Edo State gubernatorial election under the PDP platform and won but declared the loser by the Electoral Commission. You are now before the Electoral Tribunal, hoping that it will reverse the decision of the Electoral Commission. I have in this paper, traced the history of Democracy and elections in Nigeria that suggest that now that we are not as rich as in the past, there is need for younger professionals to come together to prevent our country from going the way of Sudan, that forsake democracy for extreme Islamism. It is my hope that this paper will stimulate you and others to promote talk talk than war war or jihad. At my old age, I am prepared to join the “jaw jaw”, so as to have a superior argument. Meanwhile, we expect the courts to live up to expectation.

God bless Nigeria Dated in Benin City, this 1st day of January 2025