Seven African leaders stunned the world on June 16 and 17, 2023 when they went on a peace mission to warring Ukraine and Russia. The reaction from many in the West was that of contempt; how is it the place of lowly Africa to intervene in a war of Europeans? In fact, Poland tried to scuttle the mission by detaining for 30 hours the aircraft carrying the protection unit of President Cyril Ramaphosa, leader of the delegation.

Its claim was that the security men carried “dangerous goods”(weapons). Did they expect them to carry candies? The protocol all over the world is for the paper work for the weapons to be submitted; but Poland declined. Eventually, the aircraft which also had a dozen journalists on board, could not join Ramaphosa as Hungary barred it from using its airspace. These are clear indications that some Europeans countries do not want peace.

The United States had also tried to scuttle the peace process by its Congress insisting that sanctions be imposed on South Africa for being a member of the Brazil, Russia, India , China and South Africa, BRICS, economic initiative and promising to allow President Vladimir Putin on whom it had imposed unilateral sanctions, to attend the BRICS meeting in South Africa without any consequences.

The reaction of some in Africa was one of self-denigration: how can African leaders think of making peace among Europeans, especially when the Pope, the United Nations and China had failed? Some, in trying to portray the African leaders as jobless busy bodies asked: what is Africa’s business? I will tell you what our business is by retelling a true story.

The European countries in search of territories, and to exploit the world’s human and natural resources went on a voyage to colonise the rest of the world.

As is often the case with the greedy tortoise, they came close to blows, and in 1884, met in Berlin to agree on how they would steal the resources of other peoples without fighting themselves. But greed has no limit, so on July 28, 1914, they commenced an All-European War. Since there were no persons to mediate, the Europeans were left on their own and at the end, 16 million human beings were killed in what they beatified as the First World War.

Despite the Europeans proclaiming that the First World War was a “War to end all wars”, they were back at another endless slaughter from September 1939. This time, some 85 million human beings were killed. They christened this slaughter, the Second World War. In each of these wars, genocide was a side menu. In the first, Armenians were the main victims, while in the second it was six million Jews. In all these, innocent Africans, Asians and Latin Americans were killed as they were forced to fight for both sides.

So today, with the same countries engaged in another slaughter, is it logical for anybody to ask what the concern of Africa is?

 If the senseless war in Ukraine were not brought to a quick and peaceful end as the African leaders are trying to do, is anybody in doubt that all humanity would be affected and that part of the war would also be fought on African soil as it happened in the Second World War?

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday told the African leaders that he is not interested in peace and is confident of resolving issues militarily, is anyone fooled that his faith is in the decimated Ukrainian armed forces? Is anybody in doubt that the war in Ukraine is an international one with the military from various countries, including America, Asia and Europe, engaged? Are we to pretend that since those armies are not fighting under their countries’ flags, then they are not on the battle field?

Did those querying the business of Africa in pushing for peace, listen to Putin when the African peace ambassadors asked him if the Russian nuclear weapons recently deployed to Belarus would be used? He had retorted that in case of a “threat to the Russian statehood” they would be used. He emphasised: “In that case, we will certainly use all the means that the Russian state has. There should be no doubt about that.” So, is Africa to do nothing in the face of a possible Third World War in which nuclear weapons will be used or do people think all these is a joke?

Those who argue that Africa has no business initiating peace in Ukraine are like occupants of a multiple storey building who claim that it is not their business if an occupant on the ground floor decides to blow up his flat.

Some scoff that the African leaders returned home empty handed. Such people do not seem to understand that a peace process is not a quick fix; once it is not going to be an imposition, it is often a marathon race. An African saying goes: an elder that listens to only one side of a story to pass judgement is a wicked elder. So the African leaders have gone to Kyiv and Moscow, listened to the combatants, poked them for response and watched their body language. A wise step the African leaders also took was to ensure their team includes friends of the warriors and their allies who might be beating the drums to which they are so energetically dancing. It is a known fact that South Africa is not opposed to Russia; Egypt is an ally of the United States and Senegal strives to be in the good books of France.

Again, there are those who argue that we have not been able to settle African conflicts like the senseless one in Sudan. True, but that does not mean we cannot strive for peace in Ukraine as we are also doing in Sudan. By the way, who praised Africa for the peace process in Ethiopia?

Then, there are those who query why the African countries went on the peace mission rather than the African Union, AU. To me, it is not on all issues we must wait for the bureaucracy of the AU to agree before an action can commence. In any case, how do they know the AU was unaware of the peace mission? How do they know the delegation did not get the nod of the AU before setting out?

I wish the African peacemakers: Presidents Ramaphosa, Macky Sall of Senegal, Comoros’ Azali Assoumani and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly of Egypt and the envoys from Congo-Brazzaville and Uganda, success. Africans cannot just sit back and watch the Europeans engage in another mutual slaughter or ignite a Third World War.

Before grappling with the subject matter of this column today, I feel encouraged to get readers acquainted, if they are not already, with certain universally applicable concepts and perspectives of law. They are Natural law, Positive law, Judicial activism and the Separation of powers.They provide a meaningful backdrop to the surveillance of the rule of law in Nigeria 

According to my sources, ‘the theory of natural law believes that our civil laws should be based on morality, ethics, and what is inherently correct; that laws should reflect moral reasoning and should be based on moral order.This is in contrast to what is called “positive law” which holds that there is no connection between law and moral order’.

Proponents of judicial activism are persuaded ‘that the courts can and should go beyond the applicable law to consider broader societal implications of its decisions.The specific decisions that are activist are controversial political issues’. 

‘Separation of powers is the division of the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of government among separate and independent bodies

The purpose is to prevent the concentration of power and provide for checks and balances’.

Now to the column proper- beginning with the rave of the moment, namely, Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa. He confessed:

“Mr. Chairman, I must say that okay, to round off, since that is what you want me to do, I will do that and I must thank particularly my wife whose freedom and independence I encroached upon while she was in office and she has been very tolerant and accepted my encroachment and extended her help to my colleagues.”“I know – I look at faces in this chamber whom have come to me and sought for my help when my wife was the President of the Court of Appeal and I am sure…”

In a left handed salute and acknowledgement, Nigerians owe a debt of gratitude to Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa for laying bare before the public glare, what we have always suspected of the Nigerian judiciary. We now know for certain that the culture of rampant corruption in the Nigerian judiciary is alive and kicking, thanks to the loving husband of the former president of the Nigerian court of appeal.. 

The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the law in Nigeria and the ultimate destination for all cases before the lower courts. As such, the apex court is the personification of the Nigerian judiciary, in its entirety. Hence it is from its conduct that we draw the exemplars of the culture to which Mr Bulkachuwa speaks. 

First, on the last governorship election in Imo state in 2019, the Supreme Court rules:

“It is thereby ordered that the appellant votes from 388 Polling Units unlawfully excluded from the appellant vote declared shall be added and that the first respondent, Emeka Ihedioha, was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the said election.”

Responding to this judgement, here was fellow Supreme Court Justice Chima Nweze:

“The decision of the Supreme Court in the instant matter will continue to haunt our electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come. This court has a duty of redeeming its image. It is against this background that the finality of the court cannot extinguish the right of any person. This Court has powers to over rule itself and can revisit any decision not in accordance with justice,”

In tandem, we learnt from another source that ‘Professor Ben Nwabueze accused the Supreme Court of playing a discreditable part in manufacturing a jurisprudence of electoral impunity, lamenting the failure by the Court to appreciate that the question of who should rule Nigeria is not one to be decided by a perverse and narrow legalism, by the technicalities of the rules of evidence, practice, and procedure and by considerations of.expediency.”

Second, is the Supreme court judgement on the eligibility of Senator Ahmed Lawan and Senator Godswill Akpabio to contest, simultaneously, for the presidency and the Senate haven taking no part in the APC primaries: Delivering the unanimous judgement of its five-member panel led by Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the Supreme Court held that the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal were wrong to have assumed jurisdiction in the suit because the issue of candidate nomination lies squarely with political parties.

The explicit implication of the judgement of the Supreme court here is that regardless of how the party candidate emerged, with or without participation in party primaries, such a candidate is eligible to contest. It also found no offence in contesting for two electoral officers at one and the same time.

Another instance is the upturning of the conviction of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu: “The trial court found him guilty of corruption in December 2019 and was sentenced to 12 years in jail. But in one of a series of questionable judgements given by the Supreme Court, his jail time was nullified on technical grounds: that the judge who jailed him was ineligible to handle the trial having been elevated to the Court of Appeal’s bench as of the time he concluded the case”.

There will always be bad eggs in any institution or organ of government including the Judiciary. In any functional society however, such bad eggs are the exception and not the rule. A situation of crisis therefore arises where the bad eggs become the rule rather than the exception. In this latter instance, what you then have amounts to institutional subversion. 

At its maturation, this phenomenon is characterised as state capture- which refers to the way ‘formal procedures (such as laws and social norms) and government bureaucracy are manipulated by government officials, state-backed companies, private companies or private individuals, so as to influence state policies and laws in their favour’ 

It is within this concept of state capture that we can best locate the crisis of the judiciary. The other organs of government namely the legislative and the executive are, of course, equally implicated. What we then have is a systemic crisis in which none of the organs can be meaningfully isolated for remedial action.This is presently the case with Nigeria. The argument is that given the near criminal capture of all the arms of government, it is unrealistic to assume that the judiciary will not follow suit.

Nonetheless there are several dimensions to the crisis of the Nigerian judiciary. The crisis (of the judiciary) is the crisis of the Nigerian constitution, especially in regard of overcentralisation of power at the centre. Lord Acton aptly admonished that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Today, the most destabilising factor in Nigerian politics is the take no prisoners pursuit of the Nigerian presidency by contending factions of a self-destructive power elite.

In its zero sum dimensions, “the premium on political power became so exceedingly high that political contestants regarded victory at elections as a matter of life and death struggle” The judiciary is thereby co-opted and subverted to become the hired gun of desperate unscrupulous politicians. From this subversion at the national level, those at the subordinate levels have duly taken a cue.

Of equal significance is the utility of the unintended consequence of federalism. There is the profitable coincidence that federalism is, at once, the cure prescribed by the wholistic systemic crisis diagnosis of the entire Nigeria sickness and of a judiciary gone rogue.There is however the caveat that this ascriptive role (of federalism) is Nigeria specific. Taming a criminally implicated judiciary is not a generic role of federalism 

We have come to learn that the institutional subversion of the judiciary has largely emanated from its power of adjudication over the eligibility of who should contest and who should not contest elections; who wins and who loses elections especially at the governorship and presidential election levels. 

The overcentralisation of powers at the centre has precipitated and fuelled a desperation that is subversive of any legal and moral norm in the pursuit of its acquisition. Being the final arbiter of formal political conflicts, it is inevitable that the judiciary will become the major casualty of this anomaly. It then follows that any countervailing measure such as devolution and decentralisation of power will commensurately diminish the incentive to subvert the institutional integrity of the judiciary. 

There is the saying that all politics is local and by dint of the same logic, it can be validly argued that all development challenges are local. For development to take root, it has to be localised and owned by the beneficiary local population especially in a polity that is defined by large scale diversities and disparities. This self-prescriptive decentralisation and devolution of powers is the philosophy behind the Nigerian federalism. It was true in 1960 as it is true today.

Even if we did not have the crisis of the judiciary in mind, whenever the case is made for the restoration of federalism, it is now clear that this constitutional remedy has the potential to tame the monster. Without the murderous desperation to acquire the presidency, it is improbable that there would be a judiciary buyer of the sale of the inducement to subvert the course of justice.

Another dimension to the ailment is the immanent threat of facistic encroachment where presidents begin to arrogate to themselves the arbitrary privilege to determine what constitutes the boundaries of legitimate judicial intervention and

pronouncements.The proper recourse for any president who is not satisfied with the conduct of the judiciary is the national judicial council. The president has no power in the constitution to appropriate and arrogate such leviathan sovereignty to himself.  

In this tendency to take liberty for license we need look

no further than the exemplified pronouncements of Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu. Said Buhari “Our apex court has had cause to adopt a position on this issue in this regard and it is now a matter of judicial recognition that; where national security and public interest are threatened or there is a likelihood of their being threatened, the individual rights of those allegedly responsible must take second place, in favour of the greater good of society.” In similar fashion, Tinubu threatened that “It has become imperative to state here that the unnecessary, illegal orders used to truncate or abridge democracy will no longer be tolerated.”. 

To recap, the problem of Nigeria is a near systemic collapse which must to be addressed as such if the country would survive. Pending the acceptance of this prescription, all attempts at isolating the sporadic and episodic manifestations for remedial initiatives will end up in self-defeating smokes and mirrors. 

The Bola Ahmed Tinubu Administration has unpretentiously put on its gloves to do battle with the forces that have constituted clogs in the wheel of development and progress of our nation. He said the fuel subsidy was gone and it has been out of the way, seven days short of a month now. His war front is the economy and socio-economic entanglements. He has set the tone and his style of decisiveness has left no one in doubt that a new Sherriff is in town and he means business. Babatunde Fashola, his erstwhile Chief of Staff when Bola Tinubu was governor of Lagos State gave a hint of what to expect from the then President in the making. He parted the window blind a little for us to peep and said with a ringing tone that people were making a mistake of underrating Bola Tinubu. The salvos the latter has fired would seem Tunde Fashola may be proven right. He should know: he was his Chief of Staff for many years. He has been governor himself, an action governor for that matter with an eye and a longing for the beauty of the environment as well as the right attitude and application for environmental transformation. He is just back home from a ministerial tour of duty for eight years. When he spoke, we were fixated on some other areas of Tinubu’s life such as his health.

What will anchor President Bola Tinubu’s signature policy scores, it would seem, are security, economy, and inter-ethnic balance to engender trust and cultivate harmonious relationships. As I was saying last week…at the root of an economic downturn is the breach of the Law of Balance and connected therewith, of other firm and inviolable Laws governing human existence and the entire Creation. It is not only the economy that the Law of Balance in particular governs. Whenever and wherever imbalance manifests, be it in man, be it in a system, there must be disharmony or even collapse and ruination.

When a man acts in a strange way, there is a question as to his balance in the head. When a man has a bad leg, there will be an imbalance in his walking, his gait, and carriage as a whole. There must be a balance between work and rest. Where there is exaggeration in work, there is stress and tension in the body system which could lead to high blood pressure and trigger hypertension. A system that is overworked will break down. It is, therefore, not for nothing that we hanker to go on vacation, to wind down, give the body system some rest, and rejuvenate our entire being. Too much sleep leads to weakness of the body. The body, as a result, becomes susceptible to diseases, indeed, to all manner of ailments. The corpuscles in the blood are no longer in the mood to fight any menacing radicals. Too much sleep leads to indolence and want. He who sleeps too much loses enthusiasm for work and his own agility that makes for movement which is in turn tonic for maintenance that keeps the body in good form and awakens even mental faculties. Thus exaggeration in work and life of ease is not just harmful but often brings premature death. Retired men or women who no longer have a goal to drive them, we may have observed, soon lose the will to live. And so within a year or two of their retirement, to their chagrin and surprise of their families, they suddenly depart earthly life.

The Law of Balance stipulates that it is in giving that lies receiving. There must be balance in inhaling and exhaling to prevent cardiac arrest. There is joy and confidence in giving and receiving with the giver knowing joy and the recipient in shining eyes and relaxed countenance as an expression of gratitude. And so, the Lord Jesus said: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20, 35). In the enlightenment of these times, we learn that “he who gives selflessly, whether of earthly or spiritual values, ultimately gives most to himself.” This is because the Law of Sowing and Reaping which in spiritual language is called the Law of Reciprocal Action, comes into activity ensuring that what is sown is reaped in multiples at harvest. We can just think of maize that is in season now, one grain of it that was sown three months ago emerges brandishing about 40 grains clinging to a cub and there could be five to six ears hanging on a stem. Mango season was in February/March. From one seed planted, about 500 can be harvested. Several bags of bitter kola can be derived from just one tree at harvest from just one seed even though its maturation period is between 29 to 32 years depending on the species. A yam seedling can bring forth four to five tubers from a heap. There are even species that are harvested twice in a year without having to replant the seedling—first in June and the second harvest in December. The maturation process for yam is nine months, while maize is three months and vegetables 10 days. How long the maturation takes will depend on the nature of the seed. It can be likened to when a man commits an offence and it is detected for trial. A heinous crime of murder for instance attracts instant attention as it hits the community with a bang. Law enforcement agencies move in and in no time the criminal is apprehended and made to face the wrath of the law. A company or bank heist may go on for years undetected if auditors, especially external auditors do not check the books. In other words, fraud maturation period is longer by its very nature to produce fruits for harvest whereas that of a violent crime is shorter.

What I am getting at is that sowing is giving and the product is the seed. The harvest is as the seed sown and is in multiples. Sowing, however, is not only in relation to plants. Every activity of man, whether in thought, speech, or deed is a seed planted in the soil of life which will produce multiple fruits when they shall have gone through unfailing maturation processes. Nature beings are diligently at work, tending, nurturing and where the activities of nixies are required, they are standing by to tap and weave radiations of the Light pouring into our universe into H2O by which is meant water or to provide rain. Butterflies are in waiting for pollination. Necessary nutrients of the soil are provided by gnomes. It is heaving and surging in collaborative working in matchless loving and loyal service to the Lord of all the worlds.

A land that gives little vapour to the elements will have little or no rain in the automatic natural mechanism of the necessary balance between giving and taking. We are told in the higher knowledge spreading on earth today to rescue man in this End-Time: “Naturally, this principle holds equally for what takes place spiritually. The spirit of man also lives from the spiritual power which the Creator gives perpetually into His Creation for its maintenance and expansion. With this power he forms his intuitive perceptions, his thoughts and his deeds. But the counter-value which he owes to his Creator as a return for its use is gratitude, joyful gratitude through the deed, that is through the right application of this power. Thus gratitude in the relationship between men is also an important balancing factor, if it is really heartfelt and not superficial.

“Through the one-sided application of the spiritual power of Creation for what is base over thousands of years, the human spirit has lost the balance in every sphere of life. He has taken and taken from the gifts of Creation, and from what he has taken he has formed almost exclusively what is wrong and evil, and in so doing has forgotten the balancing factor of giving. Is it then surprising to us when now the compensating Justice of God redresses the imbalance? The happenings on the whole earth, which become more and more violent, certainly speak to us in plain language.”

In any land where people take more than they have contributed, there can be no harmony in the system. As it is in socio-political affairs or in biological workings, so must it be in the economy. All are subject to Law, the higher correlation of life, be it stone, be it plant, be it man. The Nigerian economy is in shambles because most Nigerians would rather take from a system than contribute to it; they would rather make money than render service. For a nation that does not produce, that loves luxury, idling about carrying the beggar’s bowl and consumption above hard work and production rather than exerting itself and mobilizing its citizens for meaningful productive activities; a nation that loves the easy way out; that rewards indolence rather than hard work and merit; and even prays daily to the Most High to reward the lazy in violation of His own Laws; a nation that tramples on the Natural Laws while reveling in excesses, invites economic collapse unless it retraces its steps in time.

Our system is deliberately geared towards dependence on the central authority whereas ideally, it is the component states which ought to contribute to the centre to maintain common services only. Each part should be made to fend for itself. It is in this that the development of strengths lies. It is through struggle that the unfolding of talents and abilities lies. For, through having reservations about life, seeking ensues. And he who seeks finds. It is a Law enunciated by the Lord Jesus: “Seek and ye shall find.” In seeking we gain connection with help from On High. The strengths of the parts will constitute the strength of the whole.

It is to be hoped that Bola Tinubu would take urgent steps to get the states to fend for themselves through the balancing of stick and carrot. There will still be sharing in giving and taking, people standing side by side, helping and furthering in the recognition that each people, every viable nation possesses something essential for the completion of the whole, not however taking as entitlement and not taking advantage of the other parties. Giving and taking must always counterbalance each other. Bola Tinubu’s posture and breathless drive so far rekindle hope. The world is waiting. The responsibilities are self-evidently onerous.

Those familiar with road travel before fancy luxury buses and jeeps displaced wooden-back Bedford light trucks, famously called mammy wagons, might remember this ubiquitous message in cursive, bright colours scrawled on the rear and sometimes on the sides of trucks plying highways in Nigeria’s South-East: “No condition is permanent.”

I’m not quite sure what the motivation was. My guess is that it was a message of comfort to the despairing and a warning to those who take life too seriously: No condition is permanent. 

True in life as in politics, that message rang again this week with wide-sweeping changes announced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that could affect top appointees in up to 567 parastatals, government departments and agencies. 

You would be forgiven to think it was not a transition from one All Progressives Congress (APC) government to another. The scope, speed and extent of the changes from Tinubu’s inauguration on May 29, make it look like a hostile takeover, the sort of thing one might have expected if the opposition had won the presidential election.

No one is exactly sure of the number of persons that may have been affected by the changes announced this week. But even if allowance is made for a few parastatals whose CEOs may remain in place and will now report directly to the President, instead of the boards which have now been dissolved, we may be looking at over 3,000. That is, assuming that each of the roughly 570 affected establishments has a board of at least six members. Often, the figure is higher.

Regardless, every job loss is different in its own way, both in how it affects those directly involved and those who depend on them. Each political appointee has a personal story not conveyed in the usual press headlines of how many have been beheaded, politically, and how many more heads may roll. Like sharks, the press loves the smell of blood, as long as it is not their own.

It doesn’t matter how prepared those fired may be, they never seem prepared enough when the hammer eventually falls. It’s human nature. And those who take their place never fully learn the lesson of the message on the back of those South-East bound trucks until they, too, become victims. 

Imagine, for example, the response of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, when six years ago he was told of a statement by the Presidency announcing that he had been removed as he emerged from a meeting in the Presidential Villa.

“Who is the Presidency?”, Lawal asked State House reporters in a voice full of blessed self-assurance.

Well, that was his last question as SGF. He found, to his shock and surprise, that no condition is permanent. He had indeed been removed “with immediate effect,” with barely enough time to gather his files.

He should have learned from the public encounter of the great Nnamdi Azikiwe with Dr. Ukpabi Asika, who had been seconded by the military from the University of Ibadan to be civilian administrator of the East-Central State. Azikiwe had criticised Asika’s administration and the administrator didn’t like it at all. 

He replied mocking Azikiwe as “ex-this, ex-that, and ex-everything else,” adding that Azikiwe was just a politician craving relevance. 

Azikiwe, who had the gift of asking his adversaries to go to hell and still make them look forward to the trip, replied Asika that one day, he too, would be ex-administrator of the East-Central State, as Asika’s father had also become ex-post master general of the post office in Onitsha, his hometown. The message on the back of the mammy wagon, he told Asika, is the inevitable story of every appointee: No condition is permanent.

Leader of the APC and former governor of Osun State, Bisi Akande, among the lucky few who lived to tell his own story recalled in My Participations, how in 1984 after General Muhammadu Buhari’s military coup, “fallen big men of yesterday wept like babies” when soldiers descended on them as was often the case during military rule. 

In the last 24 years of civilian rule, the experience of political appointees has been somewhat different. Perhaps former President Olusegun Obasanjo holds the record of the highest number of federal firings, especially after he retired scores of military officers who had been “politically exposed”, and followed up with public sector reforms that left even scores more out of jobs.

Perhaps because Obasanjo’s successors between 2007 and 2015 were also from his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and also because of his longevity in office, no other PDP president after him retired or sacked as many political appointees as he did. 

Sixteen years after Obasanjo left office, Tinubu, a president from a rival party, appears ready to upend a record that once again reminds the public of the message on the back of the mammy wagon. 

Even Buhari, who took over the reins of power as president from the opposition and matched Obasanjo’s two-term four-year tenure, did not seem to have the amount of appetite for table-shaking that Tinubu has shown in less than one month in office. 

Apart from retaining the service chiefs he inherited from former President Goodluck Jonathan for nearly three months, for example, Buhari also retained the suspended Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and a number of heads of MDAs, first appointed by Jonathan.

Of course, Buhari made some changes. But with a few exceptions, he seemed to make changes only at gunpoint. Which was neither necessarily strategic nor carefully thought out. There were cases where as a result of poor record-keeping, for example, appointees whose tenures were due escaped removal or where the president yielded to political pressure to extend the tenures of persons who had no business staying on. 

Buhari’s 30-year absence from power, his nearly zero rigorous public activity after office, his narrow, clerically-biased social circle, and his introverted style were major handicaps after his election as president. His poor health in his first term did not help matters also. Yet, not a few close to him said once he made appointments, he had a tendency to abdicate rather than delegate responsibilities, often letting some of his appointees run amok.

That is partly why Tinubu’s actions in the last few weeks, especially the sackings this week, are looking like a hostile takeover. 

But they are not. A number of the decisions taken by Tinubu since he assumed office, particularly the removal of petrol subsidy and unification of the exchange rate, were long overdue. Buhari ignored calls to act, even from a few inside his inner circle, choosing instead to bury his head in chaos under a rubble of debt. 

As for the dissolution of the boards and the removal of service chiefs, it’s a ritual of every new government. The problem, in Buhari’s case, was a frighteningly bizarre absentmindedness or perhaps indifference, that left vital positions, especially in the Judiciary, unfilled; and overdue retirements unattended or indulged by unwarranted extensions.

On the whole, under Buhari, it seemed, once appointments were made, “all conditions were permanent!”

To be fair, accusations of nepotism against him during his first term were not entirely justified, at least up to December 2018. The data which I obtained from the Presidency at the time showed a distribution of 278 to 289 in the appointments of heads of parastatals and Federal agencies between the South and the North, as a whole. 

Contrary to the trope of nepotism at the time, the North Central and South West had 102 and 101 respectively. The story changed in Buhari’s second term. And now, the public is watching to see how Tinubu, who has started the difficult task of correcting the outrageous lopsidedness in Buhari’s second term, manages the process.

Announcement of new policies and personnel changes, however crucial they may be, are only a form of signalling. The more difficult part would be what follows next, especially the institutional changes required to make public offices more responsive, less amenable to the whims of appointees and accountable and service-driven.

For now, I recommend the message on the back of the mammy wagon to both the incoming and outgoing appointees: No condition is permanent.