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OTHERS' VIEWS

OTHERS' VIEWS

[OPINION] Nigeria’s governance cost: Can Alex Otti help? - Tonnie Iredia

Some 3 months ago, general elections were held across Nigeria. On account of the nation’s financial predicament and monumental misery in the land, Nigerians are now anxiously awaiting those who emerged victorious in the elections to change the nation for good or at least ameliorate the precarious situation.

For a number of reasons, one new leader that can lead a group of game changers is Alex Chioma Otti, Economist, Banker, Investor and Philanthropist who currently serves as governor of Abia State. Although a few Nigerian leaders have some of Otti’s traits, he stands out for shunning the nation’s subsisting pedestrian thought process which many Nigerian leaders appear to cherish.

Since 1999 when democracy was restored in Nigeria, we have witnessed stunted growth and dwindling fame. It is certainly time for citizens to get tired of leaders who do same things over and over again while expecting different results. Interestingly, our leaders are not exactly as incompetent as their performance often show; rather, they are basically greedy.

It is therefore time to embrace visionary leaders who can initiate innovative and viable policies that can improve the living standards of the people which is why Alex Otti fits in here. For the many years he served as a member of the editorial board of the Nigerian news outlet, Thisday, he also conscientiously ran a weekly column titled “Outside The Box.” The new governor has no option than to meet the treatise underpinning his column

Beyond personal qualities, another factor which stands Otti out and which compels many to look towards him is his membership of the Labour Party (LP)- a political organization that recently introduced to Nigeria, a sudden electoral tsunami; the first of its type in the country’s political history in which election results against the traditional run of play were recorded. As of today, it is not only that Peter Obi, the phenomenon around LP is yet to become Nigeria’s president or to unveil his promised programmes, Otti is so far the only surviving governor of the LP’s school of thought. The mantle of acting as the leader of the reformist agenda therefore places on him, an obligation to use his performance to underscore what the nation can miss in Obi’s absence.  

Another reason why Otti is easily a reference point concerns the progressive points he made two years ago when he delivered the 10th Anniversary lecture of Adeleke University Ede, Osun State. The major point he harped upon at the lecture was the adverse impact which the huge cost of governance was having on Nigeria. One of the things begging for change according to Otti, remains the inexplicable remuneration of legislators in which “Nigerian senators earned about $450,000 per annum, over two and half times the $174,000 per annum that their counterparts earned in the United States of America.” He also decried the trend whereby 70 percent of the national budget was spent on recurrent expenditure. The extent to which this can hinder societal development speaks for itself.

The beauty of Otti’s points lies in the fact that those of us who cried ourselves hoarse over the stupendous looting of the nation by its political leaders can now rejoice that a state governor has got to join our group. He has all the perquisites of office such as daily televised press conferences to urge our leaders to fall in line. If it is all he does at the Council of state meetings and indeed, in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, may be things may improve. And because charity must begin at home, it is expedient to appeal to Otti here to review the list of 19 commissioners he has nominated to assist him to govern Abia. In order that no local government area feels cheated, he can have 17 for now at one per local area while the remaining 2 can serve as special advisers, and no more. 

Except he follows this line of thought and mobilizes people of like minds to support relevant reforms, he might be unable to be part of the interest group that should dissuade the Senate and President Bola Tinubu from appointing 20 advisers that have already been approved. Otti and his team would probably not be able to also join us in fighting against the practice of having as many as the constitutionally provided 37 ministers at federal level let alone to indulge in the old wastage of adding 6 appointees to represent geopolitical zones. Of course, there would be pressures from those who ‘helped’ the party to secure electoral victory but it is ill-advisable to use scarce public resources to reward political jobbers. Apart from cost, an obese governance framework has for long be proven to have the capacity to hinder efficiency and the attainment of goals.

What the above suggests is that we shall need more than the Alex Ottis for the enormous job. Other Nigerians like him must join in deprecating an inflated workforce which is no longer in vogue worldwide. This probably explains why the United States which has a larger population than us has only 20 secretaries -the equivalent of ministers. As already rationalized by the President of the Lagos Chapter of Florida based International Human Rights Protection Service, Kalu Ofon Emmanuel, it is unacceptable to have too many officials at this time of financial squeeze where the country and the citizens are undergoing serious hardship, suffering, hunger, and economic backwardness. We are therefore at a time when patriots should rise up to mobilize our government to reduce both the numerical strength and cost of governance in Nigeria.

For this to happen, several voices are needed to speak to the nation’s political class because everything in Nigeria today has been politicised and except some politicians join the patriots that are fighting to keep the nation together, not much can be achieved. In this regard, searchlight needs to be beamed at the National Assembly because the contribution of that arm of government to the nation’s financial woes is more than big. Only last week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abass, appointed as many as 33 senior aides. This included the Chief Press Secretary, different from the Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, the Deputy Chief of Staff, Administration, as distinct from the Deputy Chief of Staff, Legislative and then separate Special Advisers, one for Special Duties and another for Political Matters.

Besides, the budget of the legislature is by far too large. In the Adeleke University lecture of 2021 cited earlier, Alex Otti had revealed that the average House of Representatives member in Nigeria earned, at that time, $224,000 more than his counterpart in the United States. He also added that the budget allocation to the National Assembly of about N150billion annually, was far in excess of the annual combined budgets for education and health for the entire country. If Nigerians are unable to rise to stop this unfathomable transactions, not much progress can be made. The same is true of the regime of constituency projects which our prime anti-corruption agency has since discovered to be phoney.

No one knows exactly why the executive branch has since 2015 struggled to enforce a collaborative venture between it and the legislature which by law is expected to check the excesses of the former. In 2019, however, a new legislature emerged as a rubber stamp to the executive. From then till 2023, several bizarre loans were taken to the extent that over 90 percent of our national revenue is now dedicated to debt servicing. Whereas we can do little or nothing about the number of federal legislators in Nigeria until certain provisions of our constitution are changed, there is doubt if we are also incapacitated in doing anything about whether or not our law makers should operate on part time basis or whether they should run the same public service salary structure as other Nigerians in the country’s public sector who are employed by the same tax payers.

 

 
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[OPINION] Ifon: Once Upon A Town - Wole Olaoye

One area of quick wins for the Nigerian government: re-energise the security apparatus to restore normalcy in Nigeria’s towns, villages and forests. When economic activities are restored in those places, poverty will recede.

In those days when social order was the norm and life was predictable, it was normal for groups of hamlets to aspire to become villages someday; villages aspired to become towns (or, at least suburbs); and towns looked forward to the day when they would become cities in the fashion of the glitzy municipalities.

 

No one foresaw the day when, in the manner of children crawling back to their mothers’ wombs, thriving towns would start shrivelling, withering, shrinking, and reverting to the stature of rustic villages from whence they had originally emerged. It is a big leap into backwardness, a giant effort to undo countless seasons of back-breaking manual labour through which the locals tamed the environment.

All over Nigeria, if you look carefully enough, you will find former towns which are now villages and erstwhile villages which are now mere settlements— no thanks to the novel phenomenon of banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom and other forms of criminality that have defied the government’s tepid response in the last decade. Today, I use Ifon, a town in Ondo State, as a point of contact with other Nigerian communities suffering similar afflictions.

At the turn of the last century, Ifon used to be a divisional headquarters. It lost that status later but came back to reckoning in 1989 when it was named as headquarters of Ose local government in ondo state.

Before the era of expressways, you had to drive through Ifon if you were going from the West to the Midwest or Eastern Region. Over time, the town and its surrounding communities prospered on account of bustling commerce. If that town were to continue on that trajectory, it would someday number among the significant urban centres in Ondo State. But that has not been the case. All the optimism about the area became dampened when tragedy gave the town a bear hug and refused to let go.

 

Ifon attracted national attention on November 26, 2020, when the town’s traditional ruler, the Olufon, Oba Israel Adeusi, was killed by unknown hoodlums on his way from the Council of Obas meeting in Akure. Killing an oba is taboo in Yorubaland. After that, the secretary of the APC, another indigene of Ifon, was killed along Imoru Road in the town. Then, a businessman based in Ifon, Mr. Ojo Emmanuel, was killed at Omi Alafa. Up till today, their killers are still at large.

Following the death of Oba Adeusi in such gruesome circumstances, Ifon has gradually become a ghost town. The elites have relocated to surrounding towns because of the security situation at home. Its vantage location of being a link to many towns and states in the Midwest and Eastern regions, which used to be a great asset, is now a handicap.

 

Ifon is the border town between Ondo and Edo states. When the police turn the heat on robbers in Edo State, they easily escape across the border into Ifon and other towns in Ondo State. The security situation is compounded by the menace of the cattle rearers who have taken over the forests and have been terrorising local farmers. The forest reserve in Ifon extends all the way to Edo State. Many farmers have reportedly been abducted in their farms and many of the townswomen raped by roving bandits.

The string of tragedies dogging the town is relentless. On April 23, 2023, the former chairman of ose local government, Hon. Bola Adelegbe, was abducted along Okeluse Road. Up till now, he has not been released— even after paying the ransom of N5 million demanded by his faceless abductors. No one knows whether he’s alive or dead.

As with many other rural communities in other parts of the country, the unending menace of herdsmen destroying farmlands and feeding their cattle with farm produce has led to several skirmishes between the herders and the indigenes of the town. The situation is now threatening food security in the area because farmers are afraid to go to their farms lest they are kidnapped.

The people were aghast two years ago when some of their community leaders were invited by the police to report in Abuja on the allegation that a cow belonging to the herders had been killed by an unknown indigene. There was no word about investigations into the killing of their Oba but the police were quick to issue an invitation over the alleged killing of a cow?

 

Hon. Olaniyi Eni-Olotu, a community leader, was one of those invited. According to him, “The police actually invited four of us indigenes to report in Abuja to explain what we knew about the dead cow. Imagine, our Oba was murdered and there had been no arrest of the perpetrators, but when a cow was reportedly killed, they invited us to report in Abuja!”

The saga of insecurity continues unabated. The highway’s terrible state of disrepair is a bonus for the bandits. Only last week, gunmen killed two commuters on their way to Ifon. It usually takes about 30 minutes to drive from Ifon to Owo. Now, it takes five to six hours because the road has broken down due to lack of maintenance.

The result is that while the motorist is busy navigating the craters and gullies on the road, bandits launch surprise attacks from the surrounding bushes. They shoot indiscriminately and swoop on those trapped in vehicles. They rob both the wounded and the dead. At times they abduct a few survivors to the bargain. It was bad enough when the road was motorable. Now, it is pure hell looking out with one eye for passable patches of laterite or tar and scanning the horizon for armed bandits with the other.

Even by Nigerian standards, that kind of situation must be considered as double jeopardy because the other ‘regular’ crimes such as bank robbery have all but shut down the town. The story is still told of a red letter day in 2017 when a 15-man gang of armed robbers invaded Polaris Bank in Ifon, killing the three policemen on duty and escaping with an undisclosed amount of cash taken from the vaults of the bank. The incident grounded social and commercial activities in the town. Today, Ifon, the town that produced the legendary musician Orlando Owoh, no longer has a bank!

 

One issue that the bank robbery brought to the fore was the matter of under-policing. Many people were of the view that if the police were well equipped and available in higher numbers, no gang of rag-tag robbers would just shoot its way to the vaults and cart away all the cash in the bank. As with many other towns in Nigeria, under-policing is clearly a problem.

Hon. Olaniyi Eni-Olotu wonders, “How can the government expect the police to be effective when they don’t have enough personnel and the necessary equipment to do their job? The police in Ifon don’t have patrol vehicles. How are they expected to monitor criminality? The police must be well provisioned before they can deliver.”

Insecurity is one of the negative ‘levellers’ in Nigeria. The bandits and robbers and sundry gunmen who are holding society hostage all over the country do not ask about the religion or tribe of their victims. They simply point their guns at helpless souls and terminate their lives.

If you have the courage to drive past Ifon, you will see rows and rows of cocoa trees untended by their owners who have been frightened away by robbers, bandits and herders. You will see food crops wasting away. You will see a town which is slowly but surely grinding its way back to villagehood. The modern order changeth, yielding place to antiquity. Without the government’s firm intervention, this will be another inexorable slide into prehistory where dog eats dog.

Without doubt, this could be an area of ‘quick win’ for Nigeria’s new federal administration. Just restore adequate security to Nigeria’s towns and communities and watch as the people gleefully pick up the pieces of their lives. Nigerians are not asking for too much when they demand protection. They have to be alive to be economic players. Dead men don’t pay tax.

For Raymond Dokpesi

“Trailblazer: Noun. A person who blazes a trail for others to follow; pathfinder. A pioneer.” That was Dr. Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi, founding Chairman of DAAR Communications, owners of Ray Power and African International Television. His life was a blessing to so many people, paving the path for himself and countless others. When the saints go marching in, I pray Raymond will be among the number.

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[OPINION] Tinubu, nation building and federal character - Martins Oloja

Despite the complexity of managing expectations and priorities these days, another time has again come to reflect on this thing called federal character in the context of urgency of nation building.

As I have noted here several times, the urgent task before us is how to rebuild this country’s broken walls. I also once wrote here that, ‘we need a Nehemiah,’ that classic example of how to rebuild a nation with only one weapon: passion.

The last administration wasn’t listening to agenda setting, construction and deconstruction even in the media. So many editorials and commentaries were written and spoken on federal character and nation building but the lanky General from Daura didn’t care a hoot about federal character. Nor did he want anyone to talk to him about nation building. And so on his watch, our country was so recklessly divided. It was even on the brink. We no longer have Nigerians. As I was saying, we now have Nigerians of Igbo extraction, Nigerians of Yoruba nation, Nigerians of Fulani origin, Nigerians of Niger-Deltan people, etc…No one is proud to say a simple prayer, “God bless (our) Nigeria” as most people in any congregation would like to ask, Whose Nigeria? On October 9, 2021, I wrote here, “When will Buhari’s character be federal?” https://guardian.ng/opinion/what-will-make-buharis-character-federal/

As I had earlier noted, there were numerous criticisms of former president Buhari on the serial violation of the federal character provisions in the constitution. Sadly, he felt he was above the law till the end of his disastrous tenure. The no-rule-of-law regime of Buhari was so devastating that a lawyer had then sued the President and his Attorney General on their insensitive character that wasn’t federal, after all. The background is worth repeating here:

An Abuja-based lawyer, Festus Onifade, had then in 2021 sued President Buhari before a Federal High Court in Abuja over an alleged gross breach of Nigeria’s constitution in relation to recent Federal Character Commission (FCC) appointments. The President was sued alongside the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, FCC, Mueeba Dankaka and Mohammed Tukur. The grouse of the plaintiff was that Mr. Buhari allegedly violated some provisions of the Nigerian constitution in the manner of his political appointments.

In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/709/2021 and instituted on his behalf by his counsel, Moses Owuru, the plaintiff accused Buhari of violating sections 7 and 8 of the Constitution in the appointments of Ms Dankaka and Mr. Tukur as Executive Chairman and Executive Secretary of the FCC respectively.

The plaintiff alleged that the two appointments were in clear breach of section 4 of the FCC Act having been made from the Northern part of the country. He, therefore, prayed the court to issue an order compelling Buhari to dissolve immediately the board of the Commission and re-constitute it to reflect the principle and letters of the Federal Character Commission as enshrined in the 1999 constitution. The plaintiff who claimed to have been aggrieved with the appointments also sought another order to compel Mueeba Dankaka and Mohammed Tukur to vacate their offices without any delay. In a 21-paragraph affidavit in support of the suit, plaintiff averred that Buhari on March 18, 2020 appointed Ms Dankaka and on June 2, 2020, was confirmed by the Senate as Executive Chairman of the FCC.

He also claimed that Buhari appointed Tukur on April 6, 2017 as Executive Secretary of the FCC. He added that the appointee had continued to function in office since the expiration of his tenure on April 6, 2021. The plaintiff averred that since the two appointees being from the North, Buhari breached sections 7 and 8 of Nigeria’s constitution with their appointments. He urged the court to declare the appointments unlawful, unconstitutional, illegal, null and void. The plaintiff also wanted the court to declare that Buhari and other defendants in the suit were bound to abide by the provisions of the constitution as they relate to the principle of proportional sharing of all political offices. Till May 29, 2023 when Buhari left office, the two officers from the North remained in office. And that impunity has made the federal character commission to remain without any federal character.

Recall that on June 18, 2017, I drew attention to this same anomaly here in an article titled, “A Federal Character Commission Without Federal Character” https://guardian.ng/opinion/a-federal-character-commission-without-federal-character/But as usual, the president ignored the federal character bogeyman despite the embarrassment to the administration.

As I was also saying, even the top echelon of the police force of the convoluted federation under Buhari was also without any federal character in another embarrassingly curious colour. The President appointed the Minister of Police Affairs, the Inspector General of Police from the North. Then there was a 2020 Act of the national Assembly, which created the Police Trust Fund whose Board has a Chairman and a Secretary. This was an opportunity for our president to right some wrong for our police force and its administration to reflect the character of the federation. But the accident-prone presidency would not get anything right. On May 6, 2020 the President appointed the Board of Trustees of the Police Trust Fund and named former Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba as Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Alhaji Aliyu Sokoto as Executive Secretary of the Board. The Inspector General of Police is a member of the Board representing the Police Force.

How many times did editorialists complain about the fact that even in the security and intelligence community too, there was a federal character crisis: The DG, DSS, DG, NIA, CG, Customs and Excise, CG Immigration, CG Correctional Centres, all hailed from the North and are all Muslims. Even in the Transportation, Maritime and Communications and Digital Economy and Oil Resources sectors all the Ministers and heads of critical agencies under the wonderful Buhari, all hailed from the North and are Muslims. The last Minister of Transport (after Rotimi Amaechi), the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA 2015-to 2023), the Managing Director of NIMASA, the Minister of Aviation, the MD of FAAN, the DG of NCAA, the two critical agencies, all hail from the North and are all Muslims. The Minister of Communication then, the Chief Executives of NCC and NITDA, the two critical agencies are all from the North and they are Muslims. The Chief of Army Staff too, the Chief of Air Staff, the Attorney General of the Federation then and the EFCC Chairman all hail from Kebbi State while the Director of Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) hails from Adamawa State and are all Muslims. There were more as Buhari’s nepotism in all his appointments actually threatened national security, not just national unity.

The national question was so embarrassing under Buhari that in October 2018, The Guardian editorial drew the attention of the president to the ethnocentric tendencies inherent in his appointments when two key officers of his administration from the South were replaced with citizens from the North. Then the newspaper noted that: “With each passing day, it is becoming apparent that President Muhammadu Buhari’s suspected ethnocentric and nepotistic tendencies are attaining an embarrassing proportion. The latest demonstration of this longstanding suspicion was the appointment of Mr. Yusuf Magaji Bichi as Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS) to replace Mr. Matthew Seiyefa, who was recently appointed by then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. Shortly after that, the President had also picked former Minister of State for Finance, Hajia Zainab Ahmed to replace Kemi Adeosun who resigned over certificate forgery scandal…” These and other past actions then reinforced perception about President Buhari’s prejudice and insensitivity to the principles of federal character in appointments.

The principle of Federal Character, as contained in Act No. 34 of 1996, which established the Federal Character Commission, is an attempt to entrench fairness and equity in the distribution of public posts and socio-economic infrastructure among the various federating units of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It has been featuring in Nigeria’s constitution since 1979. And it is in the current 1999 constitution.

Section 14 (3) of the 1999 constitution reads: “The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or any of its agencies.”

The phrase Federal Character was first used by the late General Murtala Ramat Muhammed in his address to the opening session of the Constitution Drafting Committee on Saturday, October 18, 1975. Federal character of Nigeria, according to the CDC’s report of 1977, refers to the distinctive desire of the peoples of Nigeria to promote national unity, foster national loyalty and give every citizen of Nigeria a sense of belonging to the nation notwithstanding the diversities of ethnic origin, culture, language or religion which may exist and which it is their desire to nourish, harness to the enrichment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

 

The Federal Character principle has its root in a proneness for fairness. The 50 wise men who drafted the 1979 Constitution understood that disposition. They justified the entrenchment of the federal character principle in our constitution using the following words:

“There had in the past been inter-ethnic rivalry to secure the domination of government by one ethnic group or combination of ethnic groups to the exclusion of others. It is, therefore, essential to have some provision to ensure that the predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups is avoided in the composition of government, in the appointment or election of persons to high offices in the state…”

And so it is pertinent to encourage President Tinubu to run away from the trappings of office and parochialism that made former President Buhari to threaten national security through appointments of mostly his people into almost all key positions in Nigeria. Jagaban, Borgu had earlier promised a government of national competence, a development that instantly received some rave reviews. It should be gratifying that so far, the president is complementing the national competence model with federal character as the three critical service chiefs hail from the three major regions in the country. The Army Chief is from South West, Naval Chief hails from South East while the Air-force Chief is from North West. The powerful office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) is now occupied by a politician from North Central zone, and he is a Christian. The critical urgent national assignment should revolve around rebuilding the nation (from the architecture in the ruin of the man who in 2015 conned us into believing him as a pan-Nigerian leader when he told us on May 29, 2015: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody…”

The conclusion of the whole public-service matter is this: President Tinubu needs a robust federal character management nurtured by national competence policy to propel national development at this time.

 
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[OPINION] Task before President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (II) - Bolanle Bolawole

For the first time since Independence in 1960, Nigeria’s economy expanded slower than its population between 2015 and 2020. Nigeria’s GDP per capita declined by 0.02 per cent, 4.16 per cent and 1.78 in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively; in 2018, 2019 and 2020, it declined by 0.68, 0.38 and 4.57 per cent respectively. Nigeria’s annual GDP growth rate also declined from 6.22 in 2014 to 3.10 in 2022. Under Buhari, Nigeria’s economy fell into recession twice. The exchange rate of Naira to US dollar in 2015 was N197 but today the rate on the black market where most Nigerians source their forex is well above N700 to the dollar. Merging the official and black market rates by the Tinubu administration has only driven the former to meet the latter upstairs! According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s debt profile stood at N12.12 trillion as at June 2015 but now stands at about N81 trillion. On the Global Human Development Index (HDI), Nigeria ranked 152 out of 187 countries in 2014 but dropped to 163 out of 191 countries by 2022.  We can go on and on!

What the above statistics indicate – including maternal and infant mortality rate, out-of-school children figure and corruption index – is that in virtually every area, we fell backward under the Buhari administration rather than make progress. Were it possible to completely wipe out the Buhari years and take Nigeria back to where it was pre-Buhari, many Nigerians will smile! Return the price of petrol to what it was pre-Buhari era! Return the price of a bag of rice and other essential commodities to what they were in 2015! Return the price of a bag of cement to what it was in 2015! Return the exchange rate of the Naira and PHCN tariff to the pre-Buhari era! Return Nigeria’s debt profile, local and foreign, to what it was under Jonathan! Again, we can go on and on! Yet, this was the same Jonathan that Lai Mohammed at the head of the APC propaganda machine had described as “clueless and incompetent” and the same Buhari that had promised Nigerians CHANGE! For sure, Buhari proved more clueless and more incompetent than Jonathan!

What kind of president has Tinubu himself said he will make? If we must take the advice of MKO Abiola that you do not shave a man’s head behind his back, we should take a look at what Tinubu himself considers as the tasks before him. While campaigning for office and after his swearing-in as president and commander-in-chief, Tinubu, like the presidents before him, has promised heaven and earth! He has said he will fight insecurity and protect life and property; he will provide infrastructure, including regular power supply; run an inclusive government that will give everyone a sense of belonging; fight to keep the country united, strong and prosperous; govern according to the rule of law; revamp the economy and make it strong; create jobs; give agriculture a pride of place; maintain a robust foreign policy, etc, etc. There is hardly anything that Nigerians need that Tinubu has not promised. But will he walk the talk? Can he? Talk, as they say, is cheap. We have seen examples of that again and again. Will Tinubu be different? And will “they” let him? I am sure you know who the “they” are!

 
 

It is not every leader who leaves office as a failure that planned to fail. Many had lofty goals and great ideas but translating them into plans of action and following through with them was their Achilles heel. Running for office is tough but composing a good team afterwards is tougher. Ensuring that the team keeps focus and stays the course through thick and thin is even harder.

Here, then, are nine points that will be of help to President Tinubu if he must make a difference: 1. He must possess the political will to see his plans and policies through. Fickle-minded leaders have no chance of success in the Forest of a Thousand Demons that Nigeria is. 2. As a visionary leader determined to overhaul a decadent political and economic system, he must be ready to commit what the Marxists call class suicide because the greatest stumbling block on his road to success are the members of his own ruling class. 3. To avoid being blown off by the landmines of religious, ethnic and other chauvinistic tendencies, he must apply the biblical injunction of being wise as a serpent but gentle as a dove. Grandstanding or playing to the gallery will do him no good 4. He must understand that to succeed, a measure of authoritarian streak in the right direction is needed. If in doubt, ask Germany’s Otto von Bismarck or Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew.

  1. Another biblical injunction he must take very much to heart is the one that warns that a man’s enemies are the members of his own household. Rein in your family members – wife or wives, concubines, children, friends, etc. Usually, they are the weakest link in the chain. 6. Ministers, aides and other officials who work for you are often the cause of your failure. Once they discover your template or weakness, they will exploit it for their selfish benefits rather than help you overcome them. Over time, they will barricade you in and cut you off from the very people you purport to lead, such that you no longer see the reality on ground. A leader who wants to succeed must design a way to get feelers and feedback from the grassroots outside and independent of those in the corridors of power. 7. A leader must understand that try as he may, he cannot possibly please everyone; neither can he solve all problems. Government is a continuum; no single administration can “finish” it, so to say. Government is like “soldiers come, soldiers go but barracks remain”. Government is the soldier that comes and goes while the country is the barracks that remains. Like William Shakespeare admonishes, the world itself is a stage where all of us as actors come in, play our part and leave the stage for others. May we know when to leave and may we leave when the ovation is loudest!
  2. The purpose of government, as posited by Jeremy Bentham, is “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” In democracy, the majority will have their way but the minority must be allowed to have their say. The dividends of democracy must be spread evenly across board to promote inclusivity, justice and fairness and give everyone a sense of belonging. The cost of injustice and high-handedness in governance can be prohibitive. 9. Have an eye on history. If, like Buhari, you wait until you are on your way out of power before you begin to bellyache about your place in history, it will be too late. Understand that history is “pay as you go”

As expected, discussion at the lecture was not only robust but also offered hope that with prayers and the support of well-meaning Nigerians coupled with President Tinubu’s pursuit of the right policies quickly, the hope of Nigerians will be renewed in no time and the narrative, which is frightening at the moment, will give way to renewed and refreshed hope and Nigerians will begin to see the glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel. Data, statistics, and economic indexes may not look good at the moment but the consensus of opinion was that these are mere symptoms of deep-rooted malaise bedevilling the country and they will dissipate with the application of the right policies by the Tinubu administration.

A three-pronged approach was suggested: 1. As fast as possible, move Nigeria from a consumer economy, which has made it a dumping ground for all manner of adulterated and sub-standard products from all the nooks and crannies of the world, to an economy that produces what it consumes and consumes what it produces. Curb the unbridled taste for anything foreign; be proudly Nigerian. Restructure the country by returning/reviving the 1960 Independence Constitution or the 1963 Republican Constitution and make the various components of the country competitive and productive again. Find a way to reduce the prohibitive cost of governance.

Also, the manufacturing companies that have either collapsed or have voted with their feet should be encouraged to return. Provide an enabling environment for business through favourable and business-friendly policies and the provision of needed infrastructure. Where are the Oni and Sons, Exide batteries, Michelin and Dunlop tyres, the textile factories, Cable and Wires, Oluwa Glass to mention but a few?  Once we stimulate local production, jobs will be created, income will rise, inflation will go down, the “Japa” syndrome will abate; the Naira will firm up against other currencies when the pressure on it caused by the over-reliance on imported goods is relaxed with local production.

 

The second is that there is the need to fashion out an elite consensus that will see the need to reduce corruption to the barest minimum. It was not that there was no corruption in the First Republic, which Nigerians have remained nostalgic about, but there appeared to have been an elite consensus that corruption be limited to only 10 per cent of total contract sums; hence, the coup plotters of January 15, 1966 referred to the First Republic politicians as “ten per centres….who make the country look big for nothing” These days, however, the actual cost of contracts and services are not only scandalously inflated, huge percentages of contract sums are carted away. Some jobs are executed only on paper and the same projects keep resurfacing each budget cycle; allocations are shared with no work done and the cycle continues! Where the job is done at all, the quality is usually sub-standard and the cost of one project should, actually, deliver multiples of such projects.

The third is that deliberate and vigorous effort must be made to diversify the economy for the country to earn more revenue. For too long, we have paid lip service to diversification without much to show for it. A population growing at a rate faster than the economy is expanding is a sure recipe for disaster. In this way, we must do what other countries do: pay our taxes. Many of the developed countries that our children run to, run on taxes; the time has come for us to do similarly here in Nigeria. The Tinubu administration should ginger the religious leaders in this respect. The time is now when churches and mosques should not only encourage and pray for those who are faithful in the payment of their tithes and in giving of their offering or zakat but must also encourage and pray for those who pay their taxes and who also shun all vestiges of corruption. In a country made up mostly of those professing Christianity and Islam, how come that finding honest and conscientious leaders and followers has become a problem? Finding honest workers is like searching for a needle in a haystack; why? (Concluded)

 
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[OPINION] ‘Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)’ - Simon Kolawole

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been receiving accolades for his initial, somewhat radical policy steps since he was inaugurated on May 29. Many economists, foreign media and, surprisingly, some Nigerian opposition figures are impressed with his speed in announcing the end of petrol subsidy, which he followed up by moving to eliminate the multiple exchange rates. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are obviously incredulous that a Nigerian leader could do these two things in quick succession. The consensus seems to be that Tinubu is in the right direction and if he sustains the reforms, the Nigerian economy should be on sound footing in a couple of years.

On the other hand, the average Nigerian is not finding it funny. You can say whatever you like about the imperative of deregulating petrol pricing so that the downstream sector can attract investments and create jobs — while the budget for subsidy “to protect the poor” (about N4.5 trillion in 2022 alone) should be spent on areas that will be more beneficial to Nigerians. Very good point. But the biting reality is that petrol price has moved from under N200/litre to over N500. Transportation costs have gone up. Prices of goods and services are up. That is what Nigerians can feel instantly. The economic theories are good for classrooms only — until the people can see and feel the benefits.

You can argue convincingly that the multiple exchange rates regime was hurting the economy, sending discouraging signals to investors as well as creating corruption and insane arbitrage with the “official” and “black market” rates. You can argue that the “rotten system” discouraged the inflow of forex. Why would anyone bring $1 billion to invest in Nigeria and be forced to get the naira equivalent at the “official” N430/$ rate when the same sum was going for N750/$ on the streets? If you were sent a Western Union transfer, would you exchange for N430/$ or N750/$? Unification is a rational argument. But to Nigerians whose cost of living has gone up, that is no music to their ears.

As if things are not bad enough, electricity tariffs are set to go up again. Of course, you can make a compelling and logical case that the privatisation of the power sector means tariffs have to be commercially viable. Otherwise, the power companies would go bankrupt. Sound reasoning. After all, the multi-year tariff order (MYTO) allows for tariffs to be reviewed regularly to reflect inflation and exchange rate changes (remember gas prices and spare parts are also dependent on FX). We have often delayed or suspended MYTO “to protect the poor”. Between 2015 and 2020, we spent trillions of naira on the Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility (NEMSF) “to protect the poor”.

But when you put the effects of Tinubu’s reforms together, what you get is harsher economic climate for the majority of Nigerians. Those that will be disproportionately affected are the low-income earners who are already struggling with high cost of living and low standard of living. Inflation — whether or not it is one-off — is an enemy of the poor whose disposable incomes are miserable. Even members of the middle class will also be impacted, although they may have overcome the Maslowian physiological needs: food, shelter and clothing. Still, they have to deal with higher payments for foreign education and medical treatment because of the unification of the FX rates.

Nevertheless, if we take a dispassionate look at the Nigerian situation, the conclusion would be that we have been living a lie for too long under the guise of “protecting the poor”. It is inevitable that the economy would come to this sorry pass with debts mounting, inflation unforgiving, and public finance in total mess. The economy is on its knees. For too long, we deceived ourselves that we were an oil-rich country. We lied to ourselves that we were a special breed of homo sapiens who should be treated differently from the rest of the world. Alas, the poor people we are “protecting” remain poor while those “protecting” them are busy flying private jets and acquiring mansions in Dubai.

Let us discuss energy prices, for a start. Nigerians who live abroad know for a fact that energy is not a cheap thing. Electricity, gas, petrol and other fuels are sold at commercial rates — in addition to energy taxes. That is their reality. When oil and gas prices go up or down, tariffs are adjusted accordingly. Our counter argument in Nigeria is that “but their government is doing something for them”, which is true, very true, but we have to ask ourselves what we want in Nigeria. Should the government go on pumping trillions into petrol subsidy yearly to keep energy prices low or spend the money on education and healthcare so that we too can say our Nigeria is doing “something” for us?

Nigerians who travel to neighbouring countries know that petrol is not sold for N200/litre. So, if our argument is that we want “to protect the poor”, are Ghanaians, Togolose, Ivoriens and Cameroonians poorer than Nigerians? Why were they paying the economic rates for energy and we were not? We also say because we are an oil-rich country, we should enjoy low prices. To be honest, I used to make this argument myself. But the reality today is that we are not oil-rich. A country that was producing 2.3m barrels per day in the 1970s when its population was 60 million is now producing 1.4mbpd with a population of 200 million. And our share of oil production is so pitiable — less than 400,000 bpd!

The sad truth is that our false confidence as an oil-rich country has ruined us for decades and we have refused to make the necessary adjustments. When oil prices nosedive, we continue to spend money and take debts hoping that the market would soon bounce back. We continue expanding government expenditure, creating agencies every week, building ultra-modern governor’s lodges, acquiring the best bullet-proof vehicles in the world for government officials, paying fraudulent commissions on dubious deals and all whatnot. The central bank kept printing money to fund public budgets. We kept digging holes in public finance. Well done, guys: we now owe over N77 trillion.

We are in a black hole. Something has to give. Can we continue to pretend we are oil-rich when we had to use our share of oil and even borrow barrels from the future to import petrol? Under the crude swap regime which we have now decided to ditch, we would exchange $1 billion worth of crude for $1 billion worth of imported petrol and sell for roughly $400 million “to protect the poor”. That was a hit of $600 million at a time we badly needed all the money. But some people even argue that there was no subsidy since it was trade by barter. I wouldn’t blame them. The Nigerian situation is so convoluted it is difficult to make sense of anything. Our economics is close to witchcraft.

Nigerians also feel entitled to cheap dollar. It is very common to hear people reminisce about the “good old days” when it was N1/$ and a return ticket to the UK was N250. In truth, there was a time it was 80 kobo to $1. We were having a ball. It was cheaper to import a bottle of water than to make it at home. Our problem was not money but how to waste it. This mentality comes with oil booms which result in an influx of petrodollars. It is called the Dutch Disease, coined from the experience of the Dutch who hit oil boom in the 1970s and started drowning in dollars. It killed their local industry. Oil windfalls make the local currency look strong until the wind stops falling and stark reality dawns.

Adjustment has been begging to happen to us since oil prices started falling in the late 1970s. But because oil prices kept rebounding, we got locked into the vicious cycle of boom and bust. We kept spending big and piling up debts when we were broke, believing that the next oil boom was just around the corner. The boom would come and go but our mentality never changed. Our budgets are eternally benchmarked against oil prices. It is bondage. Like the biblical Samson whose supernatural powers waned after Delilah’s betrayal, we have been unable to rise again since the oil power left us in 2014. It has been a sad story of low export and low revenue for us. Yet, we keep behaving rich.

Let me now make my arguments. One, while Tinubu’s steps so far may make economic sense in terms of taking the necessary adjustments to get Nigeria out of this sorry state of being, he has to address the reality that the burden will be borne disproportionately by the poor who spend most of their incomes on food and transportation. There must be real and accessible social safety nets to cushion the impact of these harsh economic realities. Nigerians are used to “audio” safety nets and do not trust the government. The president and the governors must address the trust deficit concretely, sincerely and transparently. Nigerians need to know they are not suffering for nothing.

Two, while I have nothing against the message of “let us sacrifice now for a greater tomorrow”, I regret to say it is very painful that our leaders are not doing anything to show us that the sacrifice message applies to everybody. The congregation of government cars that came to welcome Tinubu to Lagos on Tuesday was obscene. His media team tried to put a spin by saying that the cars were not in his convoy but those of the government agencies that came to receive him. Nonsense. Who is paying the N500/litre petrol for those cars? Is that the best way to spend public funds in these dire times? The best way to propagate sacrifice is for our public officers to practise what they preach.

I now conclude. I agree that adjustments come with pains. I agree that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. I agree that economic hardship is not limited to Nigeria — many developed countries are also battling the cost of living crisis. I agree that we must stop underpaying for energy since we cannot afford the subsidies. However, I also insist that the poor must not bear these pains alone. Government officials must sacrifice as well so that Nigerians can be comforted that it is not a case of “them belly full but we hungry” — in the words of Bob Marley, the reggae legend. I have not seen anything in Abuja and the states yet to suggest that this message of sacrifice is for everybody.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

POLICE BRUTALITY

We were reminded yet again that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) urgently needs far-reaching reforms with the reported conduct of their officers in Ekpoma, Edo state, on Thursday. A man reportedly refused to allow them to go through his phone (we’ve been told several times by police authorities that officers have no right to randomly search our phones). In a viral video, the man was seen in handcuffs with policemen in a car apparently running over him. He sustained injuries but the good thing is that he was not crushed to death. We need to rid the police of bestiality to make them civil and Mr Kayode Egbetokun, the acting inspector-general, would do well to make this a priority. Brutal.

FIRST CUT

The Lekki Deep Seaport received its first trans-shipment vessel at 1pm on Friday — a landmark development in the maritime history of Nigeria. It is the only Nigerian port that can receive the world’s biggest vessels. In trans-shipment, goods are transferred from one vessel to another before being shipped to their final destination. The ship, operated by a French shipping and logistics company, was moving goods from the Far East to Cotonou, Republic of Benin. Lekki is the deepest in sub-Saharan Africa and that means Nigeria is on its way to becoming a trans-shipment hub for the region. It’s been long in the making and I look forward to greater things from the Lekki port. Cheers!

AFFIRMATIVE SETBACK

The US Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against the use of Affirmative Action for university admissions, thereby bringing an end to a decades-old policy aimed at encouraging inclusion of ethnic minorities, mostly blacks. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “Harvard’s admissions process rests on the pernicious stereotype that ‘a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer.’” Sure, that is not Harvard’s point. But I have since realised that if you have never been a victim of discrimination or exclusion, you cannot really understand Affirmative Action. Interestingly, beneficiaries of Affirmative Action may also want to kick the ladder after getting to the top. Irony.

AND FINALLY…

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appears to be a different person from the one that ran in the February 25 election. He was making gaffes before the poll quite all right, but he was portrayed more as someone who was seriously ill and had lost control of his faculties. Some said he could not stand on his feet for five minutes. However, the Tinubu I saw on TV on May 29 making a long speech at the Eagle Square, the Tinubu that has been holding meetings home and abroad, looks like a new person. I won’t be surprised if the Jibril movement soon comes up with another theory — like they did to President Muhammadu Buhari — that somebody from Brazil is impersonating Tinubu. Hilarious.

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[OPINION] Religious Persecution: Catholic Priest Sentenced to six months behind bars for Anti-abortion Campaign - Tony Ademiluyi

Lifesite News reported that Pro-life priest Fr. Fidelis Moscinski was sentenced to six months in prison for blocking access to a New York abortion facility in an attempt to save innocent unborn children. 

On Tuesday, the priest was dealt the punishment in a federal court, months after being found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Moscinski is frequently involved in Red Rose Rescues and “lock and blocks” — forms of pro-life advocacy in which volunteers enter the waiting room of abortion facilities, or block access to said facilities, in a final attempt to dissuade women from killing their babies. The “lock and block” in question took place on July 7, 2022, in Hempstead, New York. 

“It is almost surreal in these court rooms to listen to the prosecution and the judges,” pro-lifer Theresa Bonapartis, who was present at the sentencing, wrote in a statement shared with LifeSiteNews. “Father [Moscinski] is made out to be a career criminal while the slaughter of the innocent human life and the destruction of their mothers and families that takes place is never even mentioned or allowed to mentioned.” 

The judge reportedly claimed that Moscinski has a “criminal past” and must be given “deterrents from acting like this again.” Bonapartis shared that the judge rejected the prosecuting attorney’s request that the priest have “restrictions … placed on him with pretty much anyone who is pro-life” during his probation but “compar[ed] restrictions of a crime family not being allowed to associate with others in the mafia with pro-lif[ers].” 

“The prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence and unsurprisingly that is what he got. He is not in jail yet but will be waiting to hear when and where he needs to surrender,” Bonapartis wrote. “Of course, there is a basic misunderstanding of the reason and the sacrifice on a spiritual level to what Father (and others) do. No matter your views on rescue, please keep him in your prayers as he lays down his life for the moms and babies.” 

As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, Moscinski was charged and found guilty after he locked the gates of a Planned Parenthood facility, preventing cars from entering the driveway and the killing center. Federal charges were brought against the priest after local authorities only dealt him an ordinance violation immediately following the incident. 

In court on Tuesday, Moscinski told the judge that “my actions on July 7, 2022 were done because Planned Parenthood as an organization is in the business of killing. Every procured abortion that occurs on its premises constitutes the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.” 

Moscinski shared that “I was also aware of the evidence compiled by the House Select Panel on Infant Lives that Planned Parenthood, contrary to federal law, profits from the harvesting and selling of the body parts of unborn children. This grisly trade in human tissues and organs is deemed by many as revolting and sickening since it reduces human beings to mere objects that can be bought and sold.” 

The priest noted that, despite Roe’s reversal last year, “we are still sadly burdened with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act,” further arguing that he is “not guilty of violating this law because this law cannot be seen as anything other than null and void since it attempts to give legal protection to actions which are intrinsically evil and unjust.” 

“I recognize that this view may not be shared by your Honor,” Moscinski continued. “I would like you to know that I find the pernicious error of legal positivism both logically incoherent and immensely destructive in practice” 

“Would it not be much better to acknowledge the truth that there must be a necessary and intrinsic connection between our civil laws and the natural moral law written on the human heart, knowable by human reason, and revealed authoritatively by God Himself in the Ten Commandments?” 

The sentence to imprisonment of this heroic priest is highly condemnable and an unjust law. Abortion is murder clear and simple and the Supreme Court’s Dobbs Decision has made it illegal in the US. Therefore, it is against the laws of God, nature, and man and so the priest is justified in blocking access to the murderous Planned Parenthood premises so that lives can be saved.

African pro-choice apologists should learn from the travails of the noble priest. If these liberals can punish their own, they will unleash ruthless venom on Africa in their avaricious bid to aggressively expand their blood-soaked empire on the world’s most raped continent. It is not worth it being their stooge – they should ask their non-biological ancestors cum chiefs who colluded with the Caucasians to sell their brethren into slavery for ridiculous gifts like gin, mirrors, guns, gun powder among other hilarious rewards. The leopard never changes its spots – the benefits of betraying Africa and opening up the wombs of women for their seeds to be slaughtered will always be smaller than Esau’s mess of pottage.

History repeats itself because man in his usual frailty learns the stories but never its salient lessons. It is high time the African pro-abortion lobby began to pay close attention to the lessons of history and not get caught up in the ‘frenzy’ of the ‘good life.’

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[OPINION] Main Opposition APC Rejects Results of Sierra Leone’s 24 June General Elections, Demands Re-Run, Travel Bans on Some Government Officials - Paul Ejime

Sierra Leone’s main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) has rejected results of the 24 June 2023 general elections and called on Sierra Leoneans “to play their part in resisting tyranny and fight for the restoration of democracy, civility and good governance” in the country.

Sitting President Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has since been sworn in for a second term of five years after the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) declared him winner of the presidential poll with 56.17% of the votes. 

The Commission said Dr Samura Kamara, the APC candidate came second with 41.16%.

In its latest statement issued on Friday in Freetown, “the APC unequivocally rejects the announced results of the recently concluded multi-tier elections in Sierra Leone, given the glaring irregularities and violations of established electoral procedures.”

“We demand the resignation of (Chief Commissioner) Mr. Mohamed Konneh and all the other commissioners of the ECSL based on demonstrated bias and failure to conduct their duties impartially,” the APC said, adding: “We insist on a rerun of the elections within six months to be overseen by credible individuals and institutions who will ensure a fair and transparent process.”

The party also “declares its non-participation in any level of governance, including the legislature and local councils, as the results have already been tampered with to give the SLPP an unjust majority at all levels.”

It further “demands the resignation of the following: Fayia Sellu, the Inspector-General of Police; Major General Patrick Lavahun, the Chief of Defence Staff; Abdulai Caulker, the National Security Coordinator; Francis Langumba Keili, the Chief of Staff of the Office of the ONS; and Desmond Babatunde Edwards, the Chief Justice,” alleging that “these individuals have shown a clear disregard for their constitutional duties and have instead aligned themselves with the undemocratic aspirations of (President) Julius Maada Bio.”

The APC also “urges international development partners to impose travel bans on key individuals who have played instrumental roles in stealing the mandate of the Sierra Leonean people,” including re-elected President Maada Bio and his wife, ministers of foreign affairs, information, internal affairs, Chief of defence staff, Inspector General of Police, Coordinator of the Office of National Security, deputy justice minister and the deputy Speaker of parliament.

“We call on all well-meaning Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad to play their part in resisting tyranny and fight for the restoration of democracy, civility and good governance in Sierra Leone,” the party added in the three-page statement.

The statement said the “stance of the APC in the last few days should not be mistaken as an acceptance of this obnoxious announcement of illegal electoral result but was an opportunity to document evidence and avoid falling into a mindless trap of violence that had been planned by this monstrous regime.” 

The ECSL has not released results of the parliamentary, mayoral and Local Council elections.

The APC statement said: “They have not only tried to steal the presidential election, but also are working assiduously to give the SLPP a 2/3 majority in parliament and take a comfortable lead in local councils across the country.”

Sierra Leone has remained largely calm since the announcement of the election results with International Election Observation Missions to Sierra Leone’s 2023 General Elections, including ECOWAS, AU, the Commonwealth as well as the West Africa Elders’ Forum in sustained engagements with major political stakeholders to exercise restraint and work together for national peace to prevent the country from relapsing into conflict after its 10-year civil war that ended in 2002. 

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[OPINION] When it’s time to walk away - Funke Egbemode

‘Forever’ and ‘till death do us part’ are not for every relationship. Some are destined to last. Many end even before they start. Others just get wobbly at some point. The going gets painful. Both parties know in their hearts of hearts that they are not going to go the whole nine yards but they continue to make the efforts anyway, patching and stitching. Sometimes, it is one of them carrying the two of them, which makes the trip more tedious until they both get to the point of no return. Whichever way the parting of ways happen in a relationship, the bottom line is that walking away is never easy. There is that temptation to make more efforts to make it work, to wait for another couple of months and see if the unserious guy would realize the errors of his ways and turn a new leaf, to see if he would stop being a leech and make something of his life. Shouldn’t he just bear with her, even pray for her and see if she would stop cheating on him? But too often too late, you find out that a player is always a player, cheaters hardly ever stop and that a leech will always be a leech.

If you have invested in an unprofitable business, the only sensible thing to do is to divest and move on to a more profitable venture. Holding on may look like you are brave, patient and long-suffering but please, must you suffer in a relationship that is going nowhere fast? There is a time to let go, time to walk away. My darling, take a good look at that relationship and ask yourself the hard questions. Are you happy, fulfilled? Do you wish you were somewhere else, with someone else most of the time? Does he make you cry so often you have forgotten how to laugh? Does that woman in your life make you feel less and less a man every day? Let go, dear, walk away. If it’s not working, it is not working. You can’t force a limp ‘third leg’ walk.

You can’t force anyone to love you. If you need to beg him or her to stay with you, what you feel is not love and it is time to stop fooling yourself. A man you blackmail not to leave you or you are considering trapping with pregnancy, real or fake, is not your man. Even if he stays, he’s only there in body not in spirit. If you are grabbing at straws to stay afloat while dating, how will you cope when the high waves of marriage arrive in a stormy weather?

Although it feels like it, but the end of a relationship is not the end of life. Love leaves you sometimes. It does not mean you are cursed or jinxed. Just learn the lesson and move on. The right person will come. It may take a while but the right person is always worth the wait.  As the saying goes, you must kiss a few frogs before your prince charming comes along.

If you are in a relationship where you are constantly having to sacrifice your happiness to please your partner, you are not on to a good thing. For instance, you have to pretend to be a teacher because his mum doesn’t want him to marry a lawyer. You have to hide all evidence that you have enrolled for your Ph.D because his ego is fragile and he’s thin skinned.  You have to pretend your brand new car is ‘tokunbo’ because it would make him ‘feel somehow’. You are in the wrong place. You may be managing it now but a few years down the road, you will resent him and what he has turned you into.

A woman who demands but supplies no value to your life is only good for a short ride. If you allow a girl to make more withdrawals than deposits in your life, you will be out of balance and in the red before you know it.  You must know when to close the account and take stock.  It’s always better to be alone with dignity than in a relationship that constantly requires you to sacrifice your happiness and self-respect. 

Is your relationship giving you more pain than joy? Do you wonder more why you are in it than wishing you had met your partner earlier? If all your relationship offers is great sex, something is wrong. If the only time you are not bickering is when he’s on top of or under you, you are in a dry pasture. Don’t be so blinded by the wild orgasms as to forget the real deal, the morning after. If that relationship leaves you frustrated, upset, unhappy, miserable more often than not; if it leaves you in tears every so often, perhaps this might not be the right person for you. The relationship you are in now should be one which brings you happiness now.  It is simple enough, in business the aim and objective is to make profit.  In a relationship it is happiness, and it has no substitute.

Any kind of abuse, physical or verbal, are definite no-nos. If he hits you, slaps you around, punches you to drive his point home, it is time to let him go. Forget the beautiful gifts and nice words he says after, there is clearly something wrong with him and you too for staying in there for this long. If her way of expressing anger is throwing the intercom at the flat-screen television, please start walking and keep walking. What those crazy moments show is something deep that needs addressing.

Perception is reality. Emotional abuse is even trickier because only the victim feels it. You have told yourself long enough that things will get better. It hasn’t. It won’t. Time to walk away is now.

Aunty, if he believes in God and you believe in science, the two of you aren’t heading in the same direction, so boarding the same plane will be a mistake. For any friendship or relationship to work out, the parties involved must share certain fundamental beliefs and values. The values you share are the big rocks which will hold the relationship in place and help you weather through even the toughest storms.  Of course, you know there are storms ahead, don’t you?

On the other hand, if your core values are fundamentally different, love or no love, when the storm comes, holding your union together will be like jogging uphill or trying to hold the ground together in a mud slide.

Are you both growing or this relationship is holding one of you down? Indeed if you will be true to yourself, this relationship has altered your plan and desire for your life. You have God’s calling on your life. You know you have special gifts for pastoral work but she has issued an ultimatum that the day you become a pastor is the day she leaves you but you are hanging in there hoping she will change her mind, praying on seven prayer mountains that God changes her. Bro, you are not married yet. If she’s God’s will for your life, why is she opposing God’s will in your life?

Sisi, you know your ultimate ambition is to become the first female Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in your village but the man in your life has made it clear that no wife of his will ‘answer sir’ to any man because he makes enough to take care of his family. He told you his woman will not go out to work which is why you are learning cake-making. Take a step back and see the road ahead. Are you where you want to be and do you see a future where you will be happy making cakes? If the only reason you are doing what you are doing is to make him happy and keep him, then you need to think again.

He is mean and abusive. He is lazy and unambitious. But he has proposed and his nice ring is on your bruised finger. So you decide to wait it out expecting a better future. Wake up girl. You don’t live in the past, and the future is not yet here. Are you happy now? You need to make it to tomorrow. It is okay to hope for better days ahead but not in this situation. Take a good look at what you have, at him. He is what he is. She is fully formed. A one-day wedding ceremony will not change him or her. Wedding ceremonies are not designed to change fully-formed adults, trust me.

In all, when you give yourself to someone who doesn’t add value to you, you surrender pieces of your soul, pieces that you’ll never get back. 

 

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[OPINION] Daura Could Be Yamoussoukro or Gbadolite - Eric Teniola

While in power, the former President, Muhammadu Buhari GCFR sited the following projects in Daura, his hometown in Katsina state. The Federal Polytechnic Daura, Airforce Reference Hospital, Daura, Women and Children Hospital, Daura, University of Transportation, Daura, Kano-Maradi rail line will pass through Daura, School for People with Special Needs, Daura, Nigeria Airforce Response Air Wing, Daura, Nigeria Army 171 Battalion Base, Daura and the Forwarding Operating Base, Daura, National Directorate of Employment Centre, Ganga, Daura, Upgrade and Expansion of Daura Mini-Stadium, Sustainable Development Goals Skills Acquisition Centre, Zango Road, Daura, Completion of the Sabke Dam, Daura supplies 1m litres od water to Daura and neighbouring communities, Several SDG School Projects in Daura, 73km 132KVA line from Katsina to Daura and two 30 and 40 MVA transformers to boost power supply, Dualization of the 72km Katsina-Daura road, 50 bed maternity Centre at the Daura General Hospital built under the name of the First Lady, Sir Emeka Offor E-Library, Daura, 400,000 litres capacity solar powered water system by NNPC and Belema oil in a joint venture with Jack-Rich Tein Foundation, NDE Cosmetology training and distribution of Cosmetology packs to 1000 women in Daura, 330KV /132KV power substation, Daura, among others.

He sited these projects in the spirit of nepotism. Since 1999, many of our governors have done the same. Former President Buhari GCFR did not take this action because he is a Fulani man. I know of many Fulanis both powerful and ordinary who do not practice the act of nepotism but who are fair, generous, considerate and objective. Former President Buhari did it because he is Muhammadu Buhari. He was not acting the script of any religion or tribe. No Nigerian leader has been worse in terms of nepotism than President Buhari. It is my hope that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR or any future Nigerian leader will not follow the path of General Buhari.

I am always guided by the conclusion of Mr Paul Kenyon, a BBC Correspondent, who wrote a book titled “DICTATORLAND- THE MEN WHO STOLE AFRICA”. In the book, he wrote on Nigeria, “this was a vast country of 200 million people, home to 300 tribes jigsawed together by British to create an artificial nation. To many of its inhabitants, Nigeria didn’t exist. There was no such country. The tribes themselves were the nations. The newly drawn borders were just an expression of imperialism. And now all these tribal groups, many of them hostile towards each other, were expected to govern themselves, peacefully and fairly, without the glue of national identity, in a federal republic.”
It should be the responsibility of our leaders to find that glue. It is important.

Every Nigerian leader must try to promote the Nigerian nationhood. We must all attempt to promote unity in all our actions. There is beauty in unity instead of divisiveness and the burden falls on our leaders to make unity and nationhood their watchwords. No leader must be allowed to promote ethnicity and division. It just does not pay.
Daura is a city of population with less than forty-five thousand people. I have visited Daura several times. It is a border post between Nigeria and Niger Republic. Daura is the spiritual home of the Hausa people. The emirate is referred to as one of the "seven true Hausa states" (Hausa Bakwai) because it was, (along with Biram, Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Gobir, and Rano), ruled by the descendants of Bayajidda's sons with Daurama and Magira (his first wife). The University of California's African American Studies Department refers to Daura, as well as Katsina, as having been "ancient seats of Islamic culture and learning.

Most importantly Daura has the same identity with Gbadolite and Yamoussoukro. The three, are homes of former Presidents. I hope Daura will not share the same fate with Gbadolite and Yamoussoukro. I felt sad after watching recently the documentaries on Gbadolite and Yamoussoukro. The two documentaries have been trending on YouTube.
Yamoussoukro as of the 2014 census,is the fifth most populous city in Cote D’Ivoire, with a population of 355,573 inhabitants. Located 240 kilometers (150 mi) north-west of Abidjan, Yamoussoukro covers 3,500 square kilometers (1,400 sq mi) among rolling hills and plains.
Yamoussoukro became the legal capital of Cote D’Ivoire in 1983, although the former capital Abidjan retains several political functions. Prior to 2011, what is now the district of Yamoussoukro was part of Lacs Region. The district was created in 2011 and is split into the departments of Attiégouakro and Yamoussoukro. In total, the district contains 169 settlements. Yamoussoukro is a sub-prefecture in Yamoussoukro Department and is also a commune: since 2012, the city of Yamassoukro has been the sole commune in the autonomous district of Yamoussoukro.

In March 1983, President Houphouët-Boigny made Yamoussoukro the political and administrative capital of Cote D’Ivoire, as the city was his birthplace. This marked the fourth movement of the country's capital city in a century. Cote D’Ivoire’s previous capital cities were Grand-Bassam (1893), Bingerville (1900), and Abidjan (1933). The majority of economic activity still takes place in Abidjan, and it is officially designated as the "economic capital" of the country. Félix Houphouët-Boigny (18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("The Old One"), was the first president of Cote D’Ivoire (1960 to 1993), serving for more than three decades until his death.
Yamoussoukro is the site of the largest Christian church in the world: The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, consecrated by Pope John Paul II on 10 September 1990. I visited Yamoussoukro twice, first in 1982 and later in 1986. When I watched the documentary on Yamoussoukro recently it brought me memories, especially the Presidential Palace now surrounded by the crocodile lake. At Present, judging by what I watched in the documentary, there are more than 3,000 crocodiles surrounding the Presidential palace today in Yamoussoukro. It is safe to conclude as of now; the glory of Yamoussoukro is gone.

In 1982, I accompanied Dr. Joseph Wayas, the Senate President between 1979 and 1983 to Gbadolite. The flight from Kinsasha to Gbadolite took us two hours. Kinsasha is a crowded city like Lagos. Gbadolite is the capital of Nord-Ubangi Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The town is located 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south of the Ubangi River at the border to the Central African Republic and 1,150 kilometres (710 mi) northeast of the national capital Kinshasa. Gbadolite was the ancestral home and residence of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, later self-styled as Mobutu Sese Seko where airport, colleges, malls, supermarkets and libraries were built by the President in a program of modernization. Gbadolite is where Mobutu led the summit that would produce the Gbadolite Declaration, a short lived ceasefire in the Angolan Civil War, in 1989.
Mobutu built Gbadolite into a luxurious town often nicknamed "Versailles of the Jungle". He built a hydroelectric dam on the nearby Ubangi River in Mobayi Mbongo, an international airport, Gbadolite Airport, which could accommodate a Concorde, and three large palaces.
President Mobutu hosted us in Gbadolite. At that time, he built a soft drink factory in Gbadolite. Mobutu also built a nuclear bunker that could house more than 500 people and was the largest in Africa; this was the only nuclear bunker in Central Africa. The bunker was connected to the Ubangui River by a secret tunnel, giving access to the military harbour at the village of N'dangi.

Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 1971, and later Zaire from 1971 to 1997. He also served as Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. Mobutu was the object of a pervasive cult of personality. During his rule, he amassed a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule a "kleptocracy". He presided over a period of widespread human rights violations. Under his rule, the nation also suffered from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations.
In August 1997, Mobutu Sese Seko (14 October 1930-7 September 1997) flew from Gbadolite to Lome, Togo to be a guest of President Gnassingbé Eyadéma (26 December 1935 – 5 February 2005), Togolese military officer and politician who was the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005. And from Lome, President Mobutu flew to Rabat in Morocco. He died on the 7th September, 1997.

His corpse is yet to be exhumed and reburied in Democratic Republic of Congo—a land he ruled for over thirty-two years.
Democratic Republic of Congo has moved on without Mobutu where the mere mention of his name is now a taboo.
Gbadolite and Yamoussoukro got transformed by the power of the PRESIDENCY. Now the two towns are like ghost towns. What is happening to the two towns now is a clear example of the futility and vanity of this is our turn syndrome. It happens in some countries of the world especially in Africa where leaders personalise their offices.
Let us take a look at Iraq whose leader tried to impose his tribe on the other tribes in a united country. Such attempt is dangerous as it is only very short term. In this part of the world we call it nepotism and ethnicity. But nepotism itself is corruption. Nepotism refers to granting jobs to one’s relatives in various fields including business, politics, entertainment, sports, religion and other activities. The term originated with the assignment of nephews to important positions by Catholic popes and bishops. Trading parliamentary employment for favours is a modern-day example of nepotism. Criticism of nepotism, however, can be found in ancient Indian texts such as the Kural literature.
Nepotism refers to partiality to family whereas cronyism refers to partiality to a partner or friend. Favouritism, the broadest of the terms, refers to partiality based upon being part of a favoured group, rather than job performance.

The term Nepotism comes from the Italian word nepotismo, which is based on the Latin word nepos (nephew). Since the Middle Ages and until the late 17th century, some Catholic popes and bishops, who had taken vows of chastity and therefore usually had no legitimate offspring of their own, gave their nephews such positions of preference as were often accorded by fathers to sons.

Several popes according to the papal history elevated nephews and other relatives to the cardinalate. Often, such appointments were a means of continuing a papal "dynasty". For instance, Pope Callixtus III, head of the Borgia family, made two of his nephews cardinals; one of them, Rodrigo, later used his position as a cardinal as a stepping stone to the papacy, becoming Pope Alexander VI. Alexander then elevated Alessandro Farnese, his mistress's brother, to cardinal; Farnese would later go on to become Pope Paul III.
Paul III also engaged in nepotism, appointing, for instance, two nephews, aged 14 and 16, as cardinals, as well as making efforts to increase the territories of his illegitimate son Pier Luigi Farnese. The practice was finally limited when Pope Innocent XII issued the bull Romanum decet Pontificem, in 1692.The papal bull prohibited popes in all times from bestowing estates, offices, or revenues on any relative, with the exception that one qualified relative (at most) could be made a cardinal.
The ancient Indian philosopher Valluvar condemned nepotism and ethnicity as both evil and unwise. In a larger world, nepotism could be applied to where you favour your tribe more than other tribes. That is enlarging the word in its interpretation.

Iraq has a population of over 40 million people. The country also has over 150 tribes. Some of these tribes include Arabs, Kurds, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians and Kawliya.

According to Wikipedia, the Al-Bu Nasir is one of a number of Arab tribes in Iraq. It is a Sunni Arab tribe comprising some 30,000 people who primarily inhabit the town of Tikrit and the surrounding area of northern central Iraq, as well as many other areas in south and center of Iraq. Although not very numerous, the Al-Bu Nasir nonetheless obtained a reputation of being "a difficult lot of people, cunning and secretive, whose poverty drove most of them to pervert the Bedouins' legendary qualities of being warlike and fearless. Like many Iraqi tribes, it follows the Hanafi fiqh and it traced its origins to the Arabian Peninsula and maintained cordial ties with other related clans and tribes.
The tribe rose to prominence in the 1960s, when one of its members, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, seized power in Iraq. Bakr's successor, Saddam Hussein, was also a member of the Al-Bu Nasir and the tribe became a crucial element of his hold in power from 1979 to 2003. Saddam drew heavily on the tribe to fill the upper echelons of his government and in particular to manage his security apparatus, notably the Intelligence Service and the Special Republican Guard. Most of the key posts in the Iraqi government were held by members of the Beijat clan group and Majid extended family to which Saddam belonged; some elements of the regime's security apparatus, such as Saddam's bodyguards, were recruited exclusively from the al-Bu Nasir.

The relatively small size of the tribe was, however, an obstacle to Saddam's ability to fully "tribalise" the institutions of the Iraqi government. He recruited tens of thousands of supporters, whom he placed in command positions in the Iraqi Army, from a number of other tribes allied to the al-Bu Nasir. The resulting network of tribal alliances, centred on the al-Bu Nasir and bound to them by payment and patronage, provided the backbone of Saddam's regime.
Of all the accusations made against General Saddam Hussein none is greater than nepotism and tribalism. And it led to his downfall. When his trouble started his tribe Albu Nasri could not save him. When the western world led by the Americans waged a war on Iraq, Saddam Hussein was abandoned to his fate by other tribes because he excluded other tribes from his government. He lost out. Iraq lost out too. After Saddam Hussein Iraq has lost its momentum in the Arab world. Leaders must know that nepotism and ethnicity are no longer fashionable in the modern world. It strains growth. It is bad. Very bad.

One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to promote unity. This does not mean that there is not disagreement or even periodic conflict on the team or within the organization. To be a unifier, the leader brings people together around a vision, a mission, or a project. Team unity drives results. Babe Ruth said in his paper “the way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”
The great calamity that has befallen most African leaders is that they are busy promoting their tribes instead of promoting unity within their countries. And that is why there is no development in African states. Instead of national leaders, all we have are sectional and tribal leaders who promote divisiveness. A leader’s behavior either promote unity or division.
Leaders who seek to divide, for whatever reason, may think they will succeed. After all, they are playing to their allies; but in reality, no one admires divisive behaviours and the leader will quickly lose much of their support.

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[OPINION] President Tinubu should be wary of France - Tony Ademiluyi

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu made his first official visit as Nigeria’s President to France where he was between June 20th 2023 and June 24th 2023. He attended the summit on New Global Financing Pact in Paris, France’ capital.

At the time Tinubu was attending the historic summit, two masterstrokes had been achieved in Nigeria – the removal of fuel subsidy and the unification of the country’s exchange rates.

Oche Egwa in an op-ed in PM News had this to say about this highly strategic meeting where he wrote: “The two decisions taken on the nation’s economy made President Tinubu a toast of world leaders and financial institutions at the Summit. The ovation by economic and financial experts for the courageous steps revealed more for the future, with the World Bank projecting, after the meeting in Paris, that Nigeria will save about $3.9 trillion in 2023, and N21 trillion between 2023 to 2025. 

The seriousness and quick engagement of critical stakeholders in the economy, like trade unions, oil marketers, depot dealers, the NNPC Ltd by the administration was also taken by the foreign institutions as a deliberate attempt, and not political convenience, to take the country to a new height, as well as various initiatives and measures being out on the drawing board to alleviate the impacts. 

The two-day Summit, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, was aimed at repositioning the global financial architecture to reconsider less developed countries, who are dealing with debilitating debt hangovers, struggling through energy transitions, and still reeling from effects of climate change and Covid-19. President Tinubu seized the moment to start a new conversation about Nigeria. 

A plethora of sideline meetings were lined before he arrived in Paris, and the President was careful in making the right choices for Nigeria’s economic prosperity. President Tinubu met with French President, Macron at the Elysée, President of Swiss, Alain Berset, at Palais Brongniart, President of Benin Republic, Patrice Talon, Director General of World Trade Organization, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim), Prof. Benedict Oramah and President of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Odile Renaud–Basso.

The President also held meetings with Senior Vice President of Airbus/ATR, Public Affairs, Laurent Rahul Domergue, on aviation matters and a two-hour marathon interaction with the Nigerian community based in France, where he outlined his vision for the economy, starting with a roadmap on palliatives to soothe the burden of subsidy removal. He sought “family” support for more inclusive growth, especially with technical expertise.

Every speaker at the forum thanked the President for taking the bull by the horn, and getting the “elephant’’ out of the way.

“You have shown we have a committed and competent leader. You are the first President of Nigeria, who has no godfather. You are your godfather. We are impressed with the removal of subsidies and streamlining of foreign exchange. We will wait for the palliatives,’’ Prof. Emmanuel Iga, a Nigerian in France, said”.

While I am happy at the meeting because of the strategic importance of France as a world power and member of the elite G7, Tinubu must set the precedent of Nigeria relating with world superpowers on the basis of equality rather than the usual tokenism that has defined international relations since most African nations gained independence from their erstwhile majorly domiciled European former colonial masters.

My worry is that France’s status as a so-called developed nation is largely predicated on her continued parasitism of the resources of her former colonies In Africa. Françafrique is the name of this unequal balance of power between France and the Francophone countries which have been a source of anguish and underdevelopment of the latter.

Let us go down memory lane: In 1962, French President Charles de Gaulle commissioned his adviser Jacques Foccart to build up Françafrique. "Foccart built a network of personal contacts between the French leadership and the elites of the former French colonies.”

Foccart came up with the treaties that are still in force today. In exchange for military protection against attempted coups and the payment of hefty kickbacks, African leaders guaranteed French companies access to strategic resources such as diamonds, ores, uranium, gas and oil. The result is a solid presence of French interests on the continent, including 1,100 companies, some 2,100 subsidiaries and the third largest investment portfolio after Great Britain and the United States. France also retains the right of first refusal on all natural resources and privileged access to government contracts.

France also has a considerable military presence in Africa. It leads the Barkhane operation against Islamist groups in the Sahel region, in which around 5,100 soldiers from several countries are involved. According to the US daily "New York Times", in 2007, almost half of France's 12,000 peacekeeping troops were deployed to Africa. These troops have both military and advisory capabilities as well as supporting and stabilizing the regimes of the respective countries.

If France loses her ex-colonies to a possible rebellion by nationalist African leaders, its status risks being plunged to a similar one like Spain who largely depended on the plundering and looting of resources from abroad and when that stopped as a result of the loss of the Armada war against England in 1588 which saw the rise of the British Empire, the hydra-headed monster of poverty crept into the country which it is still yet to recover from.

France and eight members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had an agreement  on replacing the CFA franc with a new West African single currency called Eco.

According to the agreement, the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) will no longer have to deposit half of its foreign exchange reserves with the Banque de France as was the case until now. However, the fixed parity with the euro will be maintained, allegedly to prevent inflation. At least this will put an end to remittances from Africa to France. But it will not enable an African independent monetary policy.

In the past, African countries paid up to 65% of their foreign exchange reserves into the French treasury.

Tinubu should beware of a country that has no respect for the Sovereignty of her former colonies as the tendency is that the nauseating paternalistic relationship may be extended to Nigeria which wouldn’t be in our national interest.

It is high time Africa with Nigeria leading the vanguard altered the terms of foreign policy from aid to trade so that we can sit at the negotiation table and deal with one another as equals.

Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream speech’ particularly rings true here. The time for the paradigmatic shift in trade relations is now and Nigeria like it did during the anti-colonial liberation struggle should spearhead this vanguard, especially in the impending post-fossil fuel era.

 

 

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