Reliance on oil as the only source of revenue by successive governments in Nigeria has for long left the country in a dilemma of inadequacy of funds for development. Among other things, this encouraged the country to approach foreign creditors for huge loans that future generations may never be able to repay. 

Taxes which other nations depend upon for development are unavailable because they are poorly collected and managed in Nigeria. For several years, nothing was done about this precarious situation until July 2023 when the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu decided to set up a Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms to be chaired by Taiwo Oyedele of the famous Price Waterhouse Coopers. 

Following the work of the committee, Tinubu requested the National Assembly to pass 4tax reform proposals, namely: Nigeria Tax Bill, Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill and Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill. Almost immediately, many Nigerians mostly politicians started criticising the bills even before reading their contents.

The posture of the legislators was not surprising because it has become fashionable for them to politicise every public policy with some of them falling on each other to demonstrate their purported closeness to the president. There was indeed, the impression that the present assembly had surpassed their immediate predecessors who told anyone that cared to hear that they would approve any request from former President Muhammadu Buhari. In the case of our current lawmakers, they appear ready to approve 5 even if only 4 bills were sent by Tinubu. Whereas collaborative federalism has its advantages, it is certainly harmful for sycophantic legislators to automatically approve executive requests without checking to remove inconsistencies or even grammatical errors in such requests. 

The negative attitude of some legislators to the tax bills was thus informed by the fear that if care was not taken, they might not be read before they are passed. As one legislator said at an informal gathering, the other day, one needs to be watchful before the bills follow the pattern of the change of the national anthem. This background also explains the speed by which the tax bills found their way into the deliberations of the National Economic Council NEC, as well as the call by NEC for the bills to be withdrawn for further vetting before returning them to the National Assembly for deliberations. First, the NEC being an advisory body should not make such directive statements. Second, a bill does not have to be perfect before legislators can read and debate its contents. In fact, the inputs of legislators ought to enhance the quality of bills.  

Instead of allowing interested citizens to express their views on the bills, almost every person who did not oppose the bills became an enemy to be condemned – a good example being the deputy senate president Barau Jubril. Even governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State was fiercely criticised for supposedly opposing the tax reform bill, only because he was one of those mandated to explain the position of the National Economic Council. Speaking later at a media chat in Ibadan, Makinde asserted that he was not opposed to the tax reform bills, but that the Federal Government needed to engage with a wider array of stakeholders to achieve a meaningful reform. He then counselled Nigerians to learn to focus on the message rather than the messenger.

While public comments on the bills suggests a step forward in making Nigeria become a communicating nation, citizens also need to understand the formal processes and procedures for policy making. Bills are not expected to be passed without an opportunity for the public to make comments. The flood of comments especially those made by people who are convinced that the bills could dismember the nation are therefore hasty. Why can’t sub-national governments, interest groups and other associations arrange rational dialogues that could produce superior arguments over some of the provisions of the bills? Instead, it appears that some of the negative comments and threats are no more than bogus alarms.

It is however true that stakeholder’s engagements on the bills have been scanty and incoherent. As a result, not many people are fully aware of the bills and what they convey. There is therefore no better time than now for societal institutions such as the National Orientation Agency NOA, to take the highlights of the bills to all nooks and cranny of the country. Luckily, the Agency’s current chief executive who appears greatly energised by an obvious synergy between him and the information minister is well positioned to take on mass mobilization of Nigerians with the purpose of convincing them to appreciate the objectives and merits of the tax bills. But more importantly, the federal government can easily get from NOA, robust feedback on the disposition of Nigerians concerning the bills.

For sure, not all Nigerians are opposed to the tax bills. Whereas a large number of those said to be opposed to the bills are Northerners, there are people in the region who appear to embrace the bills. A review of comments from the North breaks the region into 3 distinct groups; namely: those in favour of the bills, then those who are only partially opposed and lastly those who are totally opposed to the reforms. For those who are not opposed to the bills, there is Senator Diket Plang, representing Plateau South in the National Assembly, who has found it necessary to ‘urge Nigerians to support credible governance initiatives and avoid fear over tax reform proposals, regardless of their origin.’

Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who also supports the bills made a scathing critique of Northern leadership, ‘accusing them of neglecting the region’s development despite decades of political dominance.’ He spoke at a town hall meeting organized by the Christian Awareness Initiative of Nigeria (CHAIN) in Kaduna, where the group resolved to support the tax reform initiative because of its benefits for the region and Nigeria at large. This group is slightly different from those who are only partially opposed to the bills. In this later groups are experts and stakeholders who at a roundtable discussion organized by the Kaduna Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (KADCCIMA) said they are partially opposing the proposed reforms because of fear of poor implementation.

On their part, the most influential group made of governors of the 19 northern states are unanimously opposed to the bills. At a meeting in Kaduna in October, the governors rejected the proposed tax bills which they said would jeopardise the well-being of their people. The apprehension of most of them is probably the suspicion that the bills favour Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos and the Rivers State in the oil-producing Niger delta, where most of the offices of local and foreign companies are located. The governors’ opposition appears to be conditional because they have since called on lawmakers from the region to reject the bills and ensure they were not passed into law until the controversial clauses were amended. But why will the controversial clauses not be amended?

Are the leaders sincere or are they like ordinary people misled by certain parochial interests? The question becomes relevant as other people have said the views of the governors are false. Bamidele Opeyemi, leader of the senate says “credible data have shown, for instance, that the new model recommends 6.17% to Kano compared to 0.89% currently due to it. It recommends 1.21% for Zamfara compared to 0.05%. Currently, Lagos gets 80.26%, but the new model only recommends 15.28%, representing an 81% decrease. Under the new model, also, Rivers’ share will decline from 7.74% to 4.6%, accounting for 41%. With these figures, the narrative around the new derivation model is utterly incorrect and unfounded.”

Whoever is fooling who, our politicians, be they apostles or opponents of President Tinubu, need to recognize that Nigeria does not belong to them alone and that false statements are tantamount to fake news which are harmful to national growth and integration. Our leaders should beware of centrifugal factors in heterogenous Nigeria that can at the slightest provocation stretch to breaking point.

I have been asked severally what my opinion was on last week’s presidential media chat. First, I must commend the presidency for hosting the chat, though belatedly after 19 months of holding back. When the people hear directly from their leaders and not from third parties they didn’t elect, it affords them opportunity to psycho-analyze the man at the helm of affairs, match his gestures with policies and project what the leadership’s future strides will be.

It was also gladsome to see the president radiating warmth, confidence and mastery of his craft. He appeared to have learned the ropes of a limitless presidential powers. He must have warmed himself up to the behemoth powers at his disposal, next to God’s. You could see this as he exuded confidence in himself and his office. Unlike the pre-and early Bola Tinubu presidency optics we had, the president appeared physically stable and in better health. I was glad to see stability as he raised his hands in gesticulation. We thank God for presidential health mercies.

But, why did the presidential office air a recorded, rather than live interview? Could it be to be able to spike off magisterial comments and gaffes that may reveal the Leviathan in his true colours? As they say, the divide between confidence and arrogance, much as it is as long as the Zambezi River, could be paper thin as well. Though clothed in a cloak of confidence, the Bola Tinubu I saw in that interview wore arrogance on his lapel. Beneath that, you could see a God mentality. I didn’t hear anywhere throughout the interview where the president accepted that he was human, capable of frailties and wrongs. I saw King Herod and the clowns of power shouting, “This is the voice of God, not man!” The tax bills were chiselled straight from the stone plate of Moses, he seemed to have said. They are irreversible. And to the north which thought it had him by the balls, like the man who knows tomorrow, the president proclaimed that he would live till 2027, go through the presidential election and win. He would not probe military top brass whose fat stomachs and fat epaulettes are euphemisms for the toads of wars – apologies to Eddie Iroh – which they have become from filching Nigeria’s wealth in an endless war. He didn’t err when, pounced upon by the Herodian spirit, he pronounced that “subsidy was gone,” he said. While Nigerians die in droves from hunger, the president literally clinked wine glasses for being the greatest reformist in human history.

When I heard the president compare his reform to a woman going through the pangs of labour – “and the child may die” – but at the end of the birth, everybody is happy, the mentality that drives the president came out vividly to me like the first flick of a movie in a dark cinema. I saw a heart scarred and scorched like the sand dunes of the desert. I didn’t see blood flowing through the veins at all. Immediately I understood. The political furnace has forged in the smithy a stone statue devoid of feelings.

Nigeria of the 1950s and early 1960s had very many interesting personalities. Western Region had its fair share of such. One of them was a man named Súàrá Sòbó (Sobo pronounced as ‘Sorbor’). He was a prominent transporter who held the transportation industry of the time by its jugular. It became a peculiar refrain in the Western Region to say a man had entered Súàrá Sòbó’s lorry, an equivalent of today’s One Chance lingo among youth. Odolaye Aremu, then Ibadan-based, Ilorin-born Dadakúàdà musician, once sang of the untimely passage of Súàrá Sòbó, years after. At a celebration in his house, said Odolaye, Súàrá Sòbó had hosted the crème de la crème of Ibadan, where roast mutton and turkey flesh were feasted upon. People were shocked when, six days later, Súàrá Sòbó’s sudden death was announced to the world.

As I stood up from watching the interview, I shook my head languidly. I was sorry for us. All I saw were 200 million Nigerians sequestered inside the Súàrá Sòbó bus. We must pray that the Herodian spirit which pounced on Olusegun Obasanjo doesn’t repeat its tragic pounce on Mr. President. If it does, Tinubu would have a third term and more, becoming an Hastings Kamuzu Banda at the drop of a hat. And nothing would happen.

AFTER the sustained, unwarranted personal attacks I endured for eight years from northerners for unswervingly calling out what I called the “embarrassingly undisguised Arewacentricity of Buhari’s appointments” in a February 2, 2019, column titled “Even Ahmadu Bello Would Be Ashamed of Buhari’s Arewacentricity,” I promised that I would look the other way if a southern president returned the favour after Buhari’s tenure.

But promises made in the heat of disillusionment often crumble under the weight of principle.

Ironically, this column was inspired by a well-regarded Yoruba supporter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is worried, in fact embarrassed, by the optics of what he says is Tinubu’s relentless Yorubacentric take-over of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).

His concern wasn’t just partisan discomfort; it was a profound unease about how this nepotistic approach undermines national cohesion.

I frankly hadn’t been paying attention to the internal dynamics at the NNPC, but the acquaintance pointed out that Yoruba people now occupy major positions at the NNPC and that a certain Yoruba man is “being proposed as GMD after Mele Kyari’s term expires” early next year.

I haven’t independently confirmed the accuracy of this claim but given the closeness of the source of information to people in the circles of power, it’s probably best to not dismiss this with the wave of the hand.

His concern is that Tinubu, from the Southwest, is already the minister of petroleum. Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Petroleum and Chairman of the NNPC, is from the South-South. Chief  Pius Akinyelure from the Southwest is NNPC’s Non-Executive Board Chairman.

The head of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS), Mr. Bala Wunti, my acquaintance pointed out, has been replaced by one Seyi Omotowa. Gbenga Komolafe is the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), making him the highest-ranking upstream regulator.

“If a Yoruba man were to be the GMD, another Yoruba man is the Chairman, and yet another Yoruba man is the regulator, that’s extreme lopsidedness,” and other parts of Nigeria would be justified to feel uncomfortable, my acquaintance said.

As with issues of this nature, the reality may be more complex that the surface-level impressions that I have been presented with. Of the 12-member non-executive Board of Directors, I counted at least four names that I recognize as northern, and that includes Kyari, the outgoing GMD.

The 7-member Senior Management Team on NNPC’s website has three northerners (if Kyari is included). That seems fair. Plus, Buhari actually appointed many of the Yoruba people in high places at the NNPC. By these metrics, one might argue that there’s a semblance of balance.

However, Tinubu’s broader public image tells a different story. His administration is rapidly cementing a reputation for Yorubacentric provincialism.  Like the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who governed Nigeria as if he were still a Katsina governor, Tinubu appears to be governing Nigeria as though he were still the governor of Lagos.

Just like Yar’adua was elected a Nigerian president but operated like a Katsina governor in Abuja, Tinubu is also, so far, a Nigerian president only in name. His mindset is still that of the governor of Lagos.

With a few notable (and in some cases unavoidable) exceptions, Tinubu’s government is largely the re-enactment of his time as the governor of Lagos. It is, for all practical purposes, an unabashed Lagos-centric Yorubacracy.

To be fair, though, with the possible exception of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, all civilian regimes since 1999 have been insular ethnocracies.

My source reminded me of a viral social media post I wrote on January 14, 2019, titled “New IGP: Why Progressive Northerners Should be Embarrassed” where I gave four reasons for being insistently censorious of Buhari’s Arewacentric appointments in response to southerners who asked why I was bothered since I was a northern Muslim who was “favored” by such appointments—“favored,” that is, on the emotional and symbolic plane.

I pointed out that I criticised similar such parochial appointments by previous presidents from the South and that it would be hypocritical to look the other way because I was now “favored” by such appointments.

I said people from my region and religion won’t always be in power, and I wanted to be able to stand on a firm moral pedestal when I criticize future presidents who replicate Buhari’s (and previous presidents’) provincialism.

Most importantly, I said, I was personally embarrassed by Buhari’s insularity and that every progressive northerner should be. I described it as the sort of embarrassment you feel when your best friend, who thinks highly of your mother, visits you in your home and your mother, during a family dinner, gives you a considerably bigger food portion size and choicer pieces of meat than your friend.

“You feel like screaming: ‘Mom, I know you love me, but you’re embarrassing me by showing overt preferential treatment to me in the presence of my friend’,” I wrote.

The Yoruba acquaintance of mine who alerted me to the creeping Yoruba-centric takeover of the NNPC said he was doing so out of a feeling of the same sense of embarrassment that inspired my rage against Buhari’s appointments that favoured the North unfairly, especially in the areas of security.

Tinubu is doing in the economy sector what Buhari did in the security sector. The minister of finance, the governor of the central bank, and every other consequential agency in finance is headed by a Yoruba man. I am not sure Nigeria has ever seen this level of extreme, state-sanctioned ethnocentric domination of a critical segment of national life.

Appointing another Yoruba individual as the head of the NNPC would complete what many already perceive as the ethnic capture of Nigeria’s economic nerve center. It would not only cement Tinubu’s image as an insensitive ethnocrat but also exacerbate public discontent and foster deeper divisions in an already polarized nation.

If Tinubu is unaware of this burgeoning perception, he needs to awaken to its reality. Leadership is not just about policies and actions; it’s also about managing optics and inspiring confidence in a nation’s collective identity.

In a September 5, 2015, column titled “Buhari is Losing the Symbolic War,” where I railed against the exclusion of Igbo people in Buhari’s first appointments, I wrote:

“Symbolism isn’t the same thing as substance. Appointing people to governmental positions does nothing to improve anybody’s lot—except, perhaps, the people so appointed and their immediate families.

“Jonathan’s disastrous 5-year presidency couldn’t even bring basic infrastructure like boreholes to his hometown of Otueke, yet his people derive vicarious satisfaction from the fact of his being Nigeria’s former president.

“Human beings are animated by a multiplicity of impulses, including rational and emotional impulses, both of which are legitimate. When we turn on our rational impulses, we may ask: What would appointing an Igbo man as SGF, for instance, do to Igbo people? The answer is ‘nothing.’

“But we are more than rational beings: we are also emotional beings. That’s why people are invested in symbolism. Appointing someone from the southeast or the deep south is merely a symbolic gesture, but it inspires a sense of inclusion in the minds of many people from that region; it serves as a symbolic conduit through which people vicariously connect with the government.”

This cycle of ethnic favoritism must end if Nigeria is to realize its full potential as a nation. To grow and thrive, we need leaders who can transcend the narrow confines of ethnocracy.

We need leadership that embraces diversity and inclusion, not as buzzwords but as guiding principles for governance. Only then can we begin to heal the fractures that divide us and build a nation that serves all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or region.

In my piece last week, I made a tangential reference to the place of African magic in modern matters. It was in the discussion of the calamity that befell Nigeria a few days to Christmas. Ibadan, the capital city of the Yoruba, had taken a sizeable chunk of the tragedy. Thirty five persons, the bulk of whom were kids, had been trampled to death in a stampede. The dead and a crowd estimated to be about ten thousand, had heeded invitation to attend a funfair where freebies, which included the sum of N5000, would be shared per attendee. Three persons were arrested and charged before an Ibadan Magistrate court on account of the deaths. They were Naomi Silekunola, an ex-Queen of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja I1; Oriyomi Hamzat, a popular radio owner and presenter and principal of the school that served as venue for the event.

Since the Queen’s somersault from the pinnacle of grace to the nadir of sharing smelly, dingy cell with ordinary criminals in the Agodi Correctional Centre, subtle, muffled and repressed thoughts have variously been expressed about what could have transpired. Questions asked range from, could there be a causal link between the fate of ex-Queen Naomi and her abandoned Queendom? Or, is it a reinforcement of the historical Yoruba wise-saying of fatalism, which says that, among the innumerable beheaded skulls quartered in Mògún, the ones belonging to unjustly beheaded ones were many (Orí yéye ní Mògún, ìpín àìsè l’ó pò)?

In a December 2021 Instagram post, Queen Naomi unilaterally announced her divorce from the Ooni. After “bless(ing) the Lord almighty for His faithfulness in the last three years of my marriage,” Naomi revealed that she “endure(d).. to make (the marriage) work” as she, “many times… smiled through the struggle.” Finally, the Queen revealed that she was “moving on,” stating that, “today, I… announce that I shall no longer be referred to as wife to the Ooni of Ife or as Queen of Ile-Ife but as the Queen of the people and mother of my adorable prince.” Were the gods of Ile-Ife happy at that gloat over their king? Since then, she had indeed moved on. Once in a while, she advertised her sultry beauty on the social media and her Christianity. It was akin to the conquest smile of a conquistador. It was believed that the decision of the Ooni to embark on a serial acquisition of wives thereafter was a response to the subtle disgrace he suffered in the hands of a wife who divorced him on the social media.

I first came in contact with the epistemological body of knowledge of African magic in my pre-teen years. I lived with my parents in a town called Ikirun, in today’s Osun State. There was this highly dreaded spiritualist called Baba Iyanda Aladokun. It was not possible to live in Ikirun without a sniff of the whiff of Aladokun’s spiritual prowess. His magical powers were legendary. For seven years, boy Aladokun was said to have been declared missing, allegedly carried away by whirlwind called Àjà, only to surface thereafter. His known specialty was in the spiritual healing of mentally challenged patients. He was my late father’s older friend. My father and I frequented his house almost every Saturday. Aladokun’s house was usually filled to the brim with all manner of patients. Dark, pot-bellied and most times wearing agbádá, Baba Aladokun sat cupped up in a corner of his herbal hospice, welcoming oncoming people afar off with his cryptic, “e wèé” – greetings which a pre-teen boy like me smothered the urge to laugh at. Many of the patients were brought to his herbal sanatorium from several lands away. Some were Igbo as well. When his patients were in the twilight of recuperating, Aladokun loaned them to farmers like my father to work on their farms for fees. The farmers in turn gave him reports of the perceived level of the patients’ sanity. On the farm, armed with cutlasses and hoes, my father would ask that we gave the recuperating patients some distance, lest they return to status quo ante and feasted their weapons on us. My father however engaged them in dialogues which were most times intelligible.

A few years after, Baba Aladokun was embroiled in allegation of human body parts rituals. The police criminal investigation department (CID) had received reports that the herbalist had veered into human body parts rituals. A female police detective who pretended to be mentally deranged was seconded to his sanatorium. In the course of simulating mental derangement, she reportedly witnessed the herbalist pounding the body of a newlyborn baby in a mortar which was then garnished with black soap and other accoutrements. Baba Aladokun was subsequently arrested, remanded in the Ilesa prisons and later released for want of evidence. I remember my father used to go pay him visits in the prison. Not long after, specifically in 1984, one of the old herbalist’s mentally ill patients suddenly ran amok and beheaded him right inside his sanatorium.

African kings, no matter their erstwhile religious backgrounds, are believed to be beneficiaries and inheritors of a system of African medicine, sorcery, magic and witchcraftcy which dates centuries. The late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, once let me into some of the details. For instance, a traditional DNA system exists in the Oyo palace which ensured that bastards cannot be brought into the palace as princes and princesses. In the palaces of many Yoruba towns are believed to be headquartered witches whose powers help the monarchy to fight its battles. This is sometimes unsolicited. For all you care, however, all these could be a mythic system that has kept the palace fortified from invaders and evildoers.

So, when a 31-year old woman, who set out to favour the less-privileged in a fun fair, suddenly landed in one of the most notoriously famous prisons around, a few days after this noble effort, to what do we put that: happenstance, fate; normal encounter of man or spiritual recompense for openly disgracing a foremost king in Yorubaland on the social media? At the wake of the calamity, the Ooni palace masterfully disconnected the monarchy from her travails, de-linked her and her action from the palace, while subtly empathizing with her. It was the last laugh of a scorned husband.

Some people have also argued that the fates of Naomi and Oriyomi Hamzat can be compared to the historical Yoruba wise-saying that depicts fatalism. It is a philosophical school which subjugates all actions, events and occurrences to fate or destiny. The history behind the wise-saying is that, in ancient days, Mògún was where persons accused of committing heinous crimes were incarcerated. Once the King was persuaded of their guilt, he ordered their beheading right inside Mògún, which makes the prison a place where hordes of skulls were kept. However, many of them were victims of petty conspiracies who never committed the crime they were accused of. So, the saying goes that, of the innumerable heads quartered in Mògún, the ones belonging to unjustly beheaded ones were many (Orí yéye ní Mògún, ìpín àìsè l’ó pò). Today, prisons across the world are Mògún which house just persons unjustly incarcerated. Many have also died unjustifiably, either from the supple hands of the law or the coarse brunt of lawlessness. On June 16, 1944, for instance, 14-year-old George Stinney, was executed in the electric chair of Columbia, America. He was accused of having killed two white girls who earlier approached him and his sister while playing in their yard to ask where they could find flowers. The bodies of the girls were later found the following morning. Seventy years after, a South Carlina judge held that Stinney could not have murdered the two girls. He vacated the conviction. So, are Queen Naomi and Hamzat victims of this ancient fatalism?

As we approach the New Year, I pray that we will not be victims of an unjust world; now, in the new year and all through our sojourn on this divide.