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When Lt. Colonel Abdullahi Hassan Ali, 49, assumed duties as Commanding Officer of the 181 Amphibious Battalion of the Nigerian Army, all his mother, Hassana, could do was pray.
Three years ago, Ali’s younger brother, Jamilu, a captain, had been killed in action by bandits in Katsina State. As an officer in the North-east, Ali himself had escaped death a number of times in battles against Boko Haram insurgents.
His father had died after retirement from the Army. After his death, Ali’s ageing mother has been nursing her loss, in addition to coping with the death of her son in Katsina, and later, the deaths of her daughter and son-in-law in a road accident.
But Ali, a soldier’s soldier promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in November 2020, knew better than to demur when he was moved from commander of the 63 Brigade Garrison in Asaba to head the amphibious battalion. The battalion was part of efforts by the military to restructure the Joint Task Force (JTF) in 2016, following widespread oil theft in the region which, according to the Financial Times, had reached $1billion monthly.
Task force dilemma
In a statement at the time, the military said the restructuring of the JTF was to “tackle the emerging security challenges in the Niger Delta region such as piracy, bunkering, vandalism and other criminal activities prevalent in the area.”
The task force comprising other services, but led by the military, as expedient as it was, was also an official admission that the Police could no longer cope with the situation. Oil money, mixed with militancy and violent local politics in the area, has created and nurtured private armies with money, weapons and political clout comparable to rogue states.
The relationship between the state and some of these private armies is complicated, even incestuous. With revenues in billions of naira monthly, for example, a few are better equipped than the military.
But politicians don’t mind. In their desperate search for solutions to the problem of oil theft and also to consolidate their political hold, they have indulged the private armies. Officers deployed in the area are left to invent their own ways of serving two masters – the state and the communities on the one hand, and the powerful private armies on the other.
With a population of about 31 million and over 40 ethnic groups, the Niger Delta is a cauldron, radicalised by decades of poverty, agitation, militancy and violent politics. A quarrel between a husband and wife could spill into an intra-communal dispute; an intra-communal dispute could engulf the community.
On March 14, a lingering spark of dispute between Okuama and Okoloba (one Urhobo and the other Ijaw, two of the largest ethnic groups in Delta State) over a fish farm, erupted in violence.
More questions…
How did the officer from the amphibious battalion who led a team to Okuama on March 14 on what was supposed to be a peace mission understand and define his mandate? Was the mission to Okuama over the alleged kidnap of one Anthony Aboh from neighbouring Okoloba (in retaliation for an Okuama youth allegedly killed by persons suspected to be from Okoloba), his job as a soldier or that of a first responder, say, the police? Was the officer like many others, too embedded in the local politics to draw the line? Or did he anticipate that after the failure of the peace accord facilitated by the Delta State government, military mediation was necessary to quench the fire?
Media reports suggested that leaders in Okuama broke kola nuts with the officer (some accounts say he was a major) and his team when they arrived. At what point did murderous violence erupt? If people in the community were opposed to the officer taking their leader away for statements at the army base in Bomadi, as was reported, was murdering him and his team and seizing their weapons the answer?
Meanwhile, back at the base on the same day, Lt. Col. Ali did not know what was happening in Okuama. He was in Kano only two weeks earlier to visit his ailing mother, his wife, Hauwa, and six children, and may have visited again at Sallah, if he got a pass. Okuama was the last thing on his mind.
And then, it happened. Soldiers who had been waiting in a boat at the Okuama creek escaped after the peace team was attacked and reported to Ali what had befallen the major and the three other soldiers believed to have followed him into the town.
Hindsight
Hindsight is 20/20. There has been no shortage of opinions about what might have been. Given the enormity of what happened to the major and his men, couldn’t Ali have done a recce, and possibly mobilised other services before going in? Did the alleged use by the military of boats belonging to a private security company perceived to have a vested interest in the conflict further endanger this mission?
In a conflict zone where the private armies have gunboats, specially fitted crafts, and relatively modern arms, while the military depends largely on improvisations, how is a commanding officer supposed to respond to an emergency like the one in Okuama, where his men had been murdered and their weapons seized?
Perhaps, out of a sense of holy rage, Ali took the plunge. He gathered his men and went to Okuama. Sadly, that was his last journey. He and his men were ambushed and brutally killed by people they had sworn to protect.
The savagery has called to question the humanity of the perpetrators. Okuama has been compared with Odi in Bayelsa State in 1999, and Zaki Biam in Benue State, two years later where military operations killed hundreds of people extrajudicially.
“Those who make such comparisons are mistaken,” a retired top military officer told me over the weekend. “In Odi and Zaki-Biam the communities were harbouring persons believed to have committed crimes against the state. Okuama was savage militancy.”
Perhaps one thing common to the three, however, is the increasing mismanagement, if not weaponisation of conflicts by politicians, a posture that has further damaged and compromised an undertrained, undermanned, underfunded and under-equipped military. Command and control is fuzzy.
In a crime scene like Okuama, for example, a commanding officer has to worry about what his chief would say and where Abuja stands with the private armies and local strongmen. Being in good standing with the host states, and of course, the morale of his troops, are also not far from his mind. The art of serving many masters, itself an enemy of a single-minded mission, complicates the terrain.
Tail wags dog
It’s hard to say at what point the tail of a savage few started wagging the dog of what by several accounts had been a largely peaceful community. It’s improbable that the major and his men who went first would have done so if the community had a reputation for collective savagery. Now, the entire community has a bad name and a difficult future.
The memory of the dead deserves justice and it’s just as well that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made this clear. Perhaps, also, it is time to review the role of the military in domestic conflicts.
Sadly, the harvest of heart-wrenching violence in many parts of the country today, and in this instance, the Niger Delta, was largely seeded during Nigeria’s civil war. During the war, swathes of the region were ruined and radicalised by the extrajudicial killings of thousands of innocent civilians. We can’t afford to let the mission to Okuama haunt us 57 years from now.
If two wrongs don’t make a right, we’ll do well to avoid a third, not just for the sake of the dead and their grieving families, but also to break this cycle of violence and grief.
My Muslim friends know how much I enjoy Ramadan Iftar—the sumptuous meal with which they break their fast in the evening. I am therefore regularly invited to their homes to feast. There are even places where I have a ‘permanent seat’ at the table. Over the years, Hajiya Kulu Abba Kyari, Princess Hassana Onoyiveta and Hajiya Zulahatu Adamu Waziri have also made it part of their annual Ramadan agenda to send Kunu, Kose (Akara) and other delicacies to my family. But I had an Iftar with a difference on Tuesday atthe Al-Habibiyyah Mosque in Guzape, Abuja where I joined in serving packs of jollof rice and eggs to more than 2,000 underprivileged young men. It was done in a seamless manner that did not take away their dignity, thanks to the visionary leadership of Imam Fuad Adeyemi. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
In 2024, according to a 29 January publication of the World Bank, “food security is likely to remain one of the critical challenges for the world to face.” Anticipating this problem, putting in place the necessary structures and identifying sufficient resources, the World Bank added, are “essential for effective policymaking and developing responsive plans.” Unfortunately, there are no indications that Nigerian policymakers anticipated the current challenge of hunger, which has been worsened by government’s reforms on foreign exchange rates and petrol subsidy removal. Even if we assume the government anticipated the dire situation, it is doubtful that it has put in place serious measures to tackle the challenge. Today, we live in a country where desperate citizens are now needlessly dying in the process of trying to find something to eat.
Last Sunday in the Bauchi State capital, no fewer than four people, including women, lost their lives along with scores of others who were injured in a stampede during food distribution at Shafa Holdings Company Plc. Ahmed Wakil, the Bauchi State Police Command spokesperson, who explained that the tragedy occurred when hundreds of young men and women scampered for the food being distributed, also confirmed that of the five people rushed to the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital Bauchi following the stampede, “four were confirmed dead by medical doctors.”
Less than 48 hours before the Bauchi tragedy, two female students at the Nasarawa State University in Keffi also died while 17 other students were injured following a stampede inside a hall on the campus where bags of rice were kept. At the instance of Governor Abdullahi Sule, students of tertiary institutions in the state were to receive two 7.5kg bags of rice and NGN5,000 each as ‘palliatives’ to cushion the effect of the difficult times in the country. The explanation provided by the National President of the Nasarawa State Students Association, Yunusa Yusuf Baduku, on last Friday’s stampede, depicts a high level of desperation. “After our arrangement for the distribution of palliatives to the students that was to be held at the university’s convocation square, they (students) suddenly arrived at the venue in their numbers and overpowered security,” Baduku told reporters. “They (the students) broke through the gate into the hall where the bags of rice were to be shared. Unfortunately, most of our female students sustained injuries. We rushed several students to the school clinic and Federal Medical Centre Keffi. I learned that two female students died from suffocation.”
This same desperation accounted for the death of seven people in Lagos State on 23 February during the distribution of 25kg bags of rice at a discounted price of N10,000 by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). Three days earlier, the NCS had announced that it would facilitate the direct disposal of food items forfeited to the federal government at NCS’s zonal headquarters in Yaba. That was what attracted the crowd. “Unforeseen challenges arose when we ran out of stock and announced the continuation of the exercise the following day, leading to a regrettable outcome,” spokesperson for the service, Abdullahi Maiwada, explained. “The crowd became desperate and charged through our barricades in search of rice bags inside emptied containers. In the stampede that ensued, some fatalities and injuries were regrettably recorded.”
Before I continue, it is important to stress that food insecurity is a global challenge. For instance, statistics from the 2022 Household Food Security in the United States released by the Department of Agriculture reveals that 44 million American people are food insecure while 49 million turned to food programmes in 2022. But we must accept the reality of our dire situation as a nation. In part because of recent economic reform policies, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) , which measures the rate of change in prices of goods and commodities, increased to 31.70 per cent in February compared to 29.90 per cent in the preceding month. Perhaps more troubling, going by the figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), is that food inflation rose to 37.92 per cent in February 2024 up from 35.41 per cent in the preceding month and from 24.35 per cent in February last year. In a country where citizens, on the average, spend about 60 per cent of their incomes on food and where more than 40 per cent live below the income poverty line, the continuous spike in food inflation should be concerning to policy makers and the rest of us.
Ordinarily, one would expect a sense of urgency, especially from the federal government, but nothing seems to have changed in Abuja. According to a report by The Cable, an online newspaper, as many as 40 of the 63 government-owned enterprises have allocations for ‘welfare packages’ in their 2024 budgets. The sums so allocated by ten of these agencies collectively amount to N83,495,293,002. Here is the breakdown according to the newspaper: Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), N50,426,691,710.60; Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), N13,617,615,408; National Agency For Food And Drugs Administration Control (NAFDAC), N6,673,059,750; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), N5,319,679,087.60; Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), N2,512,603,454; Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), N1,224,697,757; Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), N953,729,000; Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), N950,000,000; Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), N925,976,298; Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), N891,240,537. These welfare packages are mostly to augment the already hefty remunerations of just a few thousand staff members of these agencies and should not be confused with their salaries, allowances, pension and health insurance benefits. What this shows is that government can find the money within its present budget to provide succour to the increasing number of our citizens reeling under the pangs of hunger. If properly structured, the N83 billion welfare packages for a few staff of the ten agencies can make a world of difference to millions of people who would otherwise go to bed hungry. That much I learnt from the Al-Habibiyyah Mosque in Abuja on Tuesday.
Based on the reports I had read about the ‘Al-Habibiyyah Society Food Programme’ and how organised they are, I decided to visit last Tuesday without notice. I arrived at exactly 6.15PM and mingled with the crowd within the mosque’s premises. Shortly before 7PM, I sought to see the Imam, Fuad Adeyemi, who I was meeting for the first time. He was most gracious to me. I was surprised to learn that the money with which they feed thousands of people daily for 30 days come from donations by individuals, including in some instances non-Muslims. But there are now three challenges. One, due to the economic situation in the country, the number of their donors (as well as quantum of donations) has reduced. Two, the number of people who come for the free meals (and since nobody is asked any question it stands to reason that beneficiaries cannot all be Muslims) has increased. Three, according to the Imam, the prices of foodstuffs have also dramatically increased. That was how they moved from chicken and beef to egg as the protein component for the jollof rice.
With the Maghrib prayer (to mark the end of the day’s fasting) concluded Tuesday evening, one of the volunteers (a prominent man who had identified me), asked whether I would like to join in serving the food. I didn’t hesitate. The mosque has seven doors. Six were used as serving points. I led the group that served in one. All the people to be served sat in rows and filed in a single line when it was their turn. Distributing the food packs was seamless and efficient. It took just 18 minutes from the beginning to the end to serve about 2,200 people. At the end, there were two other lines by the mosque’s main entrance door. That was for the ‘Oliver Twists’ who desired a second ration from whatever remained after everybody had been served.
Although the food bank has been on for the past 20 years, it wasn’t part of Adeyemi’s original plan. He had set out to teach mostly well-heeled Muslims and others how to read the Quran in Arabic within four months. The informal academy later expanded into regular Friday prayers, then reflections and teachings during Ramadan. The idea of the food bank started marinating in 2003 after a group of women said they needed food to feed their families. Members of the society taxed themselves to support the women. The Imam then set up a committee on how to formalise providing food for the needy during Ramadan, headed by Kunmi Olayiwola, (a former senior colleague at Concord newspaper now an insurance broker.) In 2005, the Imam (who graduated with a master’s degree from the Nigerian Defence Academy) was able to clarify the plan while participating in the American State Department International Visitors’ Leadership Program in Washington DC. After he encountered a Santiago-based Catholic Reverend Father offering a food bank to the needy. Back home, during the Ramadan of that year, the Al-Habibiyyah Food Bank became formalised. From a few hundreds, the beneficiaries have expanded to thousands who are served hot meals daily for the 29 or 30 days of Ramadan.
I commend Imam Adeyemi for what he is doing and call on public-spirited individuals and corporate organisations to support his efforts so he can expand their food programme beyond the Ramadan period. More importantly, relevant authorities should learn a lesson in food distribution logistics at the Mosque. You don’t have to dehumanise people or put their lives at risk just because you want to give them food – whether raw or already cooked.
I hope the authorities in Abuja and the 36 states are paying attention to developments around us. The United Nations World Food Programme has projected that no fewer than 26.5 million Nigerians will “face acute hunger in the June-August 2024 lean season.” It is described as “a staggering increase from the 18.6 million people food insecure at the end of 2023” even as “rising inflation, high food prices and food shortages across the country have left millions of people in Nigeria struggling to feed themselves.”
Enough said!
Senegal, Faye and Destiny
Bassirou Diomaye Faye will on Tuesday be sworn in as the 5th President of Senegal. But it was the structure of his mentor, Ousmane Sonko, that has catapulted him to power. Sonko, a popular opposition figure and leader of Patriots of Senegal (PASTEF), had been disqualified from contesting on account of a contrived defamation conviction. He was subsequently detained with his 44-year-old protégé and tax inspector, Faye for leading the street protest that upended President Macky Sall’s attempt to self-perpetuate in office. With both ‘dissidents’ released a few days to the election and PASTEF banned, Faye contested as an independent with the endorsement of Sonko. The rest is now history.
It is remarkable that twice, the people of Senegal have thwarted attempts by an incumbent president to elongate his tenure. In 2012, President Abdoulaye Wade, then 85 (will be 97 in July) was defeated by Sall, after the former had tampered with the two-term limit, using the constitutional court. This time, the same court upended President Macky Sall’s move to postpone the election. Samson Itodo, Executive Director YIAGA Africa, a civil society group, has summarised the three significant lessons from the election in a brilliant manner. The first one is the strength of critical institutions in Senegal, a country that has never witnessed a military coup since independence. “Despite Macky Sall’s insistence on extending his tenure and changing the date of elections, the constitutional council stood up against the president and said, ‘no we must respect the constitution and the constitution provided that by April you ought to leave office’”, Itodo said.
The second lesson identified by Itodo is that of leadership anchored on public trust. “Leaders need to learn that when your time has come to an end, please leave because you are not the only one who can solve the problems.” I want to put the third lesson more graphically: A people united can never be defeated. “One of the things we celebrate about Senegal is the resilience of the people,” Itodo said. “The people of Senegal have taught us as people that we have power in a democracy, we just need to use that power and use it consistently.”
I congratulate the people of Senegal, but Faye must also understand that as the youngest elected president in Africa, he carries not only the hope of his people but that of a generation in a continent where there has long been an assumption that the wisdom of Solomon had something to do with the age of Methuselah!
The Message of Easter
Like it happened two years ago, Christians will mark Easter at a period Muslims are observing the Ramadan fast and I want to repeat a story that best exemplifies the message of Easter. It was reportedly told by the late Charles Wendell Colson, a former special counsel to President Richard Nixon, who resigned from office in the wake of the Watergate scandal in 1974. Colson was also jailed for his role in that scandal but following that experience, he became an Evangelical Christian leader who founded Prison Fellowship International.
According to Colson’s story, during the Second World War, a group of American prisoners of war (POWs) were made to work in a prison camp. One evening, 20 POWs were lined up after the day’s work and when the shovels handed them were counted by the prison guard, only 19 were found. In rage, the prison guard demanded to know which of the prisoners did not bring his shovel back. When no one responded, the guard drew his gun and said he would shoot five men if the guilty prisoner did not step forward. After a moment of tense silence, a young soldier, aged 19, stepped forward with his head bowed down. The guard grabbed him and shot him in the head. He then turned to warn the others that they would suffer a similar fate if they exhibited the same carelessness. When the prison guard left, the 19 remaining POWs gathered the shovels only to discover there were 20. The guard had miscounted.
In his commentary on the story, Pastor John Piper wrote: “Can you imagine the emotions that must have filled their (the remaining 19 POWs) hearts as they knelt over his (their slain colleague) body? In the five or ten seconds of silence, the boy had weighed his whole future in the balance—a future wife, an education, a new truck, children, a career, fishing with his dad—and he chose death so that others might live…”
As I wish my Christian brethren Happy Easter, may the resurrection power of our Lord Jesus Christ avail for us all.
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Fortuitously, we now have some discordant voices coming from northern political elite, once united only by their opposition to our independence article of faith – “that each federating unit develops at its own pace without interference from others”. This is however coming after over 50 years of our nation’s nightmare, 15 years of Boko Haram’s mindless killings and devastation, nine years of terrorism by immigrant herdsmen and 10 years of banditry by subsistence farmers and cattle herders.
For other federating nationalities held down by the conspiracy of the dominant, this was nothing but a betrayal of the ideals of visionary Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and the first Premier of Northern Nigeria who was assassinated in 1966 by misguided young soldiers.
First was the hypocrisy of Ango Abdulahi’s Northern Elders Forum who, after serially betraying the aspirations of the northern masses that look up to them for direction, like the proverbial Ostrich that hides its head in the sand, now turns around to find whipping dog in President Tinubu and his less than one year old administration. Speaking on the abduction and release of the Kuriga school children, it declared: “The Northern Elders Forum firmly declares that enough is enough… Unfortunately, just months into the Tinubu administration, there have already been clear signs of failure in providing the vital aspects of security of life and property to citizens.”
Of course no one should hold brief for President Tinubu. The buck stops at his table. But it is sad that the northern leaders continue to live in denial. Except northern leaders, every discerning person cannot but see the linkage between the self-inflicted crisis in the north and their feudal system which is ideologically opposed to any form of egalitarianism including sending children of the poor that are today on rampage to school.
But it was just as well that there was the dissenting voice of Dr Shehu Mahdi, President Buhari’s former controversial executive Secretary of NHIS, who chose not to be economical with the truth. For him, northern leaders are the scourge of the north and they alone can find peace for their people. For him, “With northern vice president, northern Speaker, northern head of the military, northern NSC, Northern Secretary etc, it is time for northern leaders to lock themselves up in a room, look at themselves in the mirror and admit they have failed their people and resolve on how to bring peace to our lives”.
But sadly, it has not always been like this. Ahmadu Bello, the great grandson of Sultan Muhammad Bello, the second Sultan of Sokoto after Usmanu Dan Fodio, was proud of his ancestry. Some even described him as arrogant for referring to the Bantus of Benue trough as his great grandfather’s slaves. But he was a decent and selfless leader. His controversial northernisation policy was designed to protect his people. And it “reflects the cotemporary desires for modernization, struggle over who would direct and benefit from such changes and concern over the cultural and moral scaffolding of independence Nigeria”. (Douglas Anthony, Decolonization, Race and Region in Nigeria, Northernisation revisited (International Journal of African historical studies Vop.51, No.1 (2018)
Ahmadu Bello’s policies were never designed to impede the development of Nigeria but to make the north more competitive in an emerging Nigerian state where most of the ethnic nationalities wanted their own nation within the greater Nigerian nation state. If Ahmadu Bello and his northern pathfinders had insisted on 50% of membership of the national assembly in 1950, it was a survival strategy in an emerging Nigeria where the less educated north unlike other nationalities did not have their first doctors and lawyers until mid-fifties.
He and his group copied what was good from other regions and strived to build a formidable northern bureaucracy and academic institution. We have no evidence that ABU that produced a world-acclaimed intellectual such as the late Professor Ayodele Awojobi, alias ‘the Akoka Giant’, whose PhD thesis from UK University was said to be responsible for off-shore oil mining on the high seas, and the famous architect, Fola Alade, the designer of abandoned Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi could not be said to be inferior to the nation’s other institutions.
Ahmadu Bello, a man of great vision, will today be probably troubled in his grave to discover that beneficiaries of his visionary leadership have become ethnic irredentists collaborating with less endowed military soldiers of fortune who joined the military in order to climb the social ladder (many initial recruits were picked from motor parks in Kaduna while Buhari attested to the magnanimity of Ahmadu Bello who picked him up from his Daura village saving him from remaining a herdsman) to foist disruptive and self-serving policies such as quota system that kills meritocracy and creation of more LGAs for the north without objective criteria beyond cornering resources of more productive members of the union.
That the north at the beginning was not as economically endowed as the south, the major incentive for the 1914 British amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates was a settled issue. But there is no evidence that Ahmadu Bello and his northern political elite opposed revenue allocation based on derivation all through the constitutional debate leading to independence. Instead, he went on to supervise the groundnut pyramids, the sources of revenue for building the biggest business conglomerate in Africa as well as other infrastructures including roads, Ahmadu Bello Stadium and Ahmadu Bello University and was still able to provide security for the whole of the north.
The rain started to beat us after the civil war with the emergence of northern soldiers of fortune and self-serving northern politicians who found Bello’s shoe too big. Murtala Muhammed destroyed the academia and bureaucracy without which a nation decays; Shehu Shagari smoked while his NPN wrecked the economic ship of state despite Awo’s warning it was heading for the rocks. Babangida destroyed our budding industries by opening our nation to importation of goods from Europe and its satellite nations. He manipulated the religion sensibilities of the north by illegally taking the country into OIC. Abacha who according to Alli Mazrui was too unintelligent to know fears, stole the country blind while he waged a five-year war against Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups. Abdulsalami Abubakar authored the 1999 constitution derisively referred re to as ‘Decree 24’ by Nigerians. Finally, Buhari, caged by Fulani ethnic irredentists left the country more divided than he met it.
But it is not getting better with only 33% of Boko Haram infested Bornu in school, 70% of Nigerian out-of-school children from the north and with a large expanse of ungoverned territories spanning over 200 kilometres from Kaduna to Zamfara.
The question those who care about our country are asking is whether the northern leaders including NEF, Gowon, Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, herders’ patron such as Lamido Sanusi Lamido, are aware of these ungoverned territories. And if they are, why did they not rein in Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders’ Association before they carried out their threat to make Nigeria ungovernable unless they were given license for open grazing in places like Rivers, Ekiti, Ondo and Oyo?
Why would they not persuade those who killed and confiscated their victims’ land to relocate to Kano following ex-governor, Abdullahi Ganduje’s undertaking to rehabilitate all herdsmen in Kano? There was similarly not a whimper from northern elders as the battle line over attempt to export armed killer herdsmen from north’s ungoverned territories to Ondo’s reserved forest over which daggers were drawn between President Buhari’s ‘loyal gate keepers’ and the late Governor Akeredolu of Ondo.
Northern leaders not only betrayed Ahmadu Bello, their illustrious forbearer, they remain the nation’s cancer.
From the description of the VIP treatment given the two Binance executives abducted by the Nigerian government in a Mohammed bin Salman’s Ritz-Carlton style, one gets the impression that they did not think their tactic through. They detained the men (Nadeem Anjarwalla and Tigran Gambaryan) deemed economic sabotages, still allowed them several privileges, somehow forgot to put them on a watch list, and one of them managed to escape. Nigeria’s handling of the Binance affair suggests that their detention and proposed trial were half-hearted. So desperate was the government to find a scapegoat that they invited Binance officials, detained them, and demanded $10bn from their employers.
The government alleges that some unscrupulous elements use Binance for money laundering, terrorist financing, currency speculation and market manipulation, thus distorting the Nigerian economy and weakening the Naira against other currencies. Nigeria also accused them of offering taxable services without remitting taxes to the country. The government said over $21.6bn was traded by Nigerians whose identities were concealed by Binance. These accusations are grievous, and I agree that they should be addressed. However, it was foolish to arrest, detain the Binance officials, and demand money. Even the bandits that abduct schoolchildren for a living are far more tactical. By doing that, Nigeria overplayed its hand.
People like to come up with how the United States similarly extracted $4.3bn from Binance to justify the detention of Anjarwalla and Gambaryan, but seem to forget that the US—despite the leverage it has over Binance since the country is their major market— did not resort to abducting company officials and demanding payment. They spent years piling up evidence and going to court. Their prosecutors demonstrated that Binance violated federal anti-money laundering and sanctions laws through lapses in its internal controls. They failed to report more than 100,000 suspicious transactions involving designated terrorist groups including Hamas, al Qaeda, and ISIS. Prosecutors also alleged that Binance’s platform supported the sale of child sexual abuse materials and was among the largest recipients of ransomware proceeds.
Nigeria has relatively little leverage over transnational corporations like the US does, and we would have done far better by addressing the situation through the instrument of the law, diplomacy, policies, technical expertise, and moral suasions. If Binance has not been remitting taxes to Nigeria, we should create a policy framework and technical structure that facilitates it. The fact that they sent two of their workers to Nigeria suggests good faith on their part. We should have worked hand in hand with the company to resolve the issues raised.
But trust Nigerian officials. They like gragra. Thinking through situations can be too tasking for them, so they quickly resort to the sole weapon of their warfare: force. Everything must be remedied through a blatant show of force. What exactly did they think they would achieve by abducting two Binance officials and demanding $10bn?
Think about it: if you were the CEO of Binance and asked to give up information regarding transactions worth $21.6bn in exchange for two company officials, would you? You would consider that paying the ransom might not secure your company officials. Besides, if you allowed yourself to be blackmailed, what would stop other broke countries and individuals from seizing your officials and demanding payment you respond? So, how should you respond?
Well, you will first disconnect the men’s access to any of the company’s operating systems so that they will have no means of giving up valuable information, even under duress. You will make the necessary diplomatic and legal moves to get your officials released, but you will also steady yourself to wait out Nigeria. What you will not do is hand over money or information to the abductor. Even if those men die in Nigerian custody, it would still be far cheaper to pay their families some compensation than to yield grounds. Even if you pay their families N100m each, it is still not up to one per cent of the sum at stake.
I listened to a television interview where a talking head said Nigeria should extradite Anjarwalla. Why keep escalating errors? It was bad enough that Nigeria started what it had no idea how to finish, it is imprudent to keep expending resources over inanity. Did anyone study the company organogram to determine that these “executives” are central to decision-making in Binance to the point that taking them hostage ever made sense? Even now, it is more than likely that their job with Binance has been terminated. If an abducted employee manages to return in a dramatic escape, you would rightly wonder if it were not a ploy by the abductors to get access to the company by other means. In case the abducted had been brainwashed, you would either place him on an administrative leave or pay him a severance pay. Of what use would further pursuing Anjarwalla be to Nigeria?
The trouble with the Binance affair is the Nigerian tendency to blame spurious factors for its economic woes. Nigeria vs. Binance is a recrudescence of that time when CBN governor Godwin Emefiele blamed abokifx—a website that reports exchange rate figures—for tanking the national currency. I thought that had to be one of the most thoughtless moves ever in the history of national banking until the present administration repeated it with Binance. At some point, they started arresting BDC owners for driving up forex through their speculative activities. There was also a time when the Emefiele clown also blamed the Nigerians who collected Business Travel Allowance and ended up not travelling abroad for driving up the exchange rate. Everything, except the real issues of our mono-economy as administered by our perennially visionless leaders, is to be blamed.
It does not seem these people think through the implication of blaming national woes on singular entities. Not only do you display imprudence by thusly broadcasting your vulnerability, but you also give yourself away as inept and lacking the capability to think through situations other countries face but choose to approach with reasonable solutions.
The Binance charade is another misstep by Nigerian leaders dealing with transnational corporations in the age of the internet. We are so wired into demonstrating forcefulness on issues that require rational judgment that we seem to forget that our local gragra ways go nowhere on the international market. Unlike our local cases where a tomato review gets a poor woman arrested, global capitalism is complex and cannot brook the puerility of the Nigerian extrajudicial methods. We did the same unsophisticated thing with the then Twitter (now X). We even inaugurated a committee of old men to go to Silicon Valley to negotiate with Twitter, but what came out of it? Twitter comfortably neglected Nigeria and their share price did not even drop. They proved that the Nigerian market is negligible in the global scheme of things. Binance too had no problem barring Nigerians from its app and that in itself is quite telling. If we were a profitable market, they would not have walked away from us so easily.
I hope the incident teaches our aged leaders who like to make a show of how much they support youths, digital economy, and global technology that the world is no longer what they know it to be. The internet has changed the world in such drastic ways that countries like Nigeria where lawmakers debate social media regulations waste their time. To succeed in the new world being unfolded, you must drop gragra tactics and commit to learning so you can propose reasonable solutions.
As for Gambaryan, they should let him go his way. That these men were labelled “executives” and sent to Africa does not mean they have any real power in the corporation. Even if you abduct their CEO for $10bn, you will be surprised how the company board of shareholders will rather give him up than give up money. Binance trades capital, not sentiments.
It comes to no surprise to hear the emergence of the popular crossdresser Idris Olarenwaju, popularly called Bobrisky, as the ‘Best Dressed Female’ at Ajakaju - the Beasts of Two Worlds - movie premiere that took place recently at Circle Mall, Lekki, Lagos State. However what is somewhat shocking is the reactions this award has sparked amongst some showbiz celebrities and other Nigerians.
The movie’s producer, Eniola Ajao, awarded ‘Best Dressed Female’ and ‘Best Dressed Male’ to Bobrisky and the ex- BBNaija housemate, Groovy, respectively. Bobrisky, who identifies as a female, was awarded N1 million, while Groovy also got N1 million. Bobrisky wore an all-black regal outfit with a cape and a staff, scintillating the aesthetic perception of the producer, Eniola Ajao and perhaps many others who attended the movie’s premiere.
Ever since this entertainment news filtered out, Nigerians from various strata of lives have taken to the social media to criticize the decision of awarding Bobrisky the ‘Best Female Dresser’ who isn’t ontologically female. Friday Omosola beautifully captures the reactions and criticisms in one of his recent articles in Premium Times, 25th March, 2024, Beasts of Two Worlds: Reactions as Bobrisky emerges ‘Best Dressed Female’ at movie premiere. According to Omosola, Actress Dayo Amusan, who attended the premiere, walked out after Bobrisky was named the winner. In a video on her Instagram page on Monday, the actress condemned the award. She expressed disappointment in the judges who picked Bobrisky, which she considered disrespectful to the women who attended the event.
Amusan in her exact words said as reported by Friday Omosola - “I attended the premiere of a colleague yesterday, where they announced that the Best Dressers would be chosen, “one female and one male. Let me clarify: the winner could be anyone, but certainly not a Crossdresser. I mean, what’s the issue here? I don’t understand it’’. She continues, “I can’t fathom the judges disrespecting every woman present. You had to select a winner, both a female and male, best-dressed, and yet you undermine the effort of all the women, thereby awarding the ‘Best-Dressed Female’ title to a Crossdresser. I don’t understand; what’s wrong with us?”
Expressing shock at Bobrisky’s emergence, actress Toyin Abraham questioned the event organizer’s decision. Abraham, in a video that captured her, Bobrisky, and others at the event, expressed shock that the Crossdresser beats all female celebrities and guests to emerge as the winner. She said, “Bobrisky as the Best-Dressed Female? If I give you an uppercut! Are you all insane that Bobrisky is winning ‘Best Female’? Are you crazy? Well, you better share some of that money with me.”
Similarly, the controversial singer, Habeeb Okikiola, alias portable, condemned Bobrisky’s win. The 30-year-old singer argued that awarding Bobrisky, a male, ‘Best Female Dresser’ meant that the judges were promoting homosexuality. He stated, “Is Bobrisky a woman? Doesn’t he wear an artificial bum and breasts? There were beautiful actresses at the event, but the judges deemed them unworthy, yet a male was awarded ‘Best Dressed Female’. “The Ogun-born singer criticized the judges for awarding Bobrisky, believing it had set a destructive precedent.
He expressed concern that children exposed to such attitudes might emulate the path of cross-dressing. “Our children will now imitate Bobrisky, a man who does not possess feminine features, simply because the judges honoured him with an award. Those who should be in prison or punished for disobeying religious commandments and the country’s laws are being celebrated,” Portable noted. The ‘Zazzu Zeh’ crooner labelled the judges who deemed Bobrisky worthy as a crazy set of people. He warned Bobrisky not to come to Sango-Ota, Ogun State, dressed in female attire because he would be dealt with.
Furthermore, social media influencer Daniel Regha stated that Bobrisky winning the ‘Best Dressed Female’ award insulted every female attendee at the premiere. Regha said the organizers were not the only ones at fault; those who joyfully or playfully acknowledged his win should also be blamed.
An X user, Oluwabunmi Micheal (@Harwolyehmi1), criticized actors Femi Adebayo and Odunlade Adekola for being at an event where Bobrisky won such an award. He argued that presenting Bobrisky with such an award implies that Nigeria has lost its values. Another X user, Sir Dickson (@Wizarad10), supported actress Dayo’s anger, stating that it was valid. He emphasized that awarding Bobrisky with such an award was detrimental and sent a negative message to society, especially to the women at the event. “A man should not be winning ‘Best-Dressed Female’ for any reason.” (https://twitter.com/Harwohyehmi1/status/17721519)
Why isn’t it a surprise that Bobrisky won the ‘Best Female Dresser Award’? Bobrisky identifies as a female, one of the ‘gifts’ of relativism to our modern world. He has consistently and boldly pitched his tent with the female gender and has used the same energy to denounce muscularity. He announced recently that he has acquired the female genitalia and has successfully transitioned into womanhood. He advertises himself on most social media platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. He has bold fashion choices, unapologetic self- expression and a fondness for controversy. ( https://guardian.ng> life> bobrisky) In other words, Bobrisky has worked for who he is today.
Eniola Ajao and all those responsible for the award understood this clearly. One core point those who reacted and criticized his award hinged their dissatisfaction on is his gender and not on the quality and sophistication of his dress and style. Let us not forget, he has the freedom to identify as whatever. Yes, it might not be the best choice or a morally correct choice, but that is his choice and most importantly for him, his brand. Perhaps the movie producer, the organizers and judges at the premiere respected his preferred identity; they focused on his feminine dress sense, which flawed all of the Toyin Abrahams’.
Nigerians shouldn’t forget that this is an event in the circle of entertainment industry where all modern and aberrant live styles are showcased. Why don’t we think it could perhaps be a strategy to advertise Ajakaju? The producer needs to trigger Nigerians to get to the Cinemas to check up this movie. Bobrisky’s award could generate that trigger because he is a controversial celebrity, like it or not. Boom, Portable has released a song, ‘’Brotherhood’’, to shade Bobrisky. There is no time one would listen to this song without remembering the circumstance of its emergence. At the end of the day Ajakaju goes viral.
I don’t claim to know the criteria for Bob’s emergency but I think his personality and style of dress for the premiere gave him away for the award. Ajakaju (Beasts of Two Worlds), Eniola Ajao’s debut movie, tells the story of a powerful lady named Ajalara, who lives in two worlds – who is both human and animal. In like manner, Bobrisky in his true self, lives in two worlds, masculinity – physical strength and will power - feminity, ‘’a quintessential nature of womanhood that is ontologically in all women. It characterizes the finesse with which most women execute their duties.’’ (Timothy Etsenamhe, the Genius of Women, 2009) Also, his style of dress depicts that of a warrior with mystical power, who slays and plunders like Ajalara, and a king like King Towobola, who ventures into the forest to confront Ajalara.
I am surprised that many Nigerians are batting on-eyelids because of Bobrisky’s award. The world of entertainment, especially Nollywood- a portmanteau of Nigeria and Hollywood, a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigeria film industry, is a make - believe world. It is often imaginary, illusory, and delusional. Eniola Ajao and the judges did their job well, after all said and done, by awarding a delusional brand like Bobrisky as the ‘Best Female Dresser’ at the premiere of Ajakaju in order to make their product controversial and sensational. Guess what? On Good Friday, 29th of March 2024, you would find people in cinemas for Ajakaju perhaps in proportionate numbers with those in the halls of Churches for the passion of Christ.
When Henry Adams, the 19th century American historian, states categorically that “A teacher affects eternity,” he translated his observational experience into what millions of people all across the world today can relate with. According to him, either good or bad, “he can never tell where his influence stops.” Teaching is a vocational calling that radiates through many generations. And this is one grateful member of one generation demonstrating immense gratitude for the gift of many teachers who impacted my coming-of-age. I contend that there should be no memoir that does not dedicate a chapter, at least, to the immense influence of teachers in the formation of anybody that considers their lives worthy of autobiographical projection. I do, and my memoir dedicates such a chapter to the myriad of influences on my intellectual and professional maturation. Prof. Adebayo Okunade—teacher extraordinaire, distinguished professor, erudite academic and astute administrator—is definitely exemplary.
I could almost bet that my old teacher will turn 70 this year. Of course, he is one mentor that I have been looking for the best moment to celebrate for a range of reasons that will be obvious in a moment. It however turned out that his septuagenarian attainment is still one year away, as he clocked 69 and not 70 a few weeks ago. By the time I reached out to him to confirm this fact, I had finished penning this tribute. And why not, he deserves to be celebrated in advance. I am not just celebrating Prof. Okunade’s pre-septuagenarian achievement, I am also wrapping that together with our shared clan affinity. We both hail from Aáwé town in the Afijio local government area of Oyo State. For me, there is a way I read the hands of Providence in my sociocultural evolution, my intellectual maturation, my professional path in life and those that have been put on my paths in life.
It is not surprising that Prof. Okunade came from a teaching parentage. But his parents were not just school teachers, but they were one of those who brought the best of their sociocultural and moral experiences into the molding of their children and the wards under their care. Being an ọmọlúwàbì is the best moral and pedagogical framework that the Yoruba allows for the upbringing of children, and the molding of a good society. I benefitted from such an upbringing too, and I know what it means to see the world through that prism. Add that moral package to a sound pedagogy, and you immediately understand how influential Prof. Okunade was to my intellectual development.
I came into first contact with Prof. Okunade at the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, easily one of the best secondary schools (in my time) in the entire Oyo zone, stretching from Oke Ogun to Ogbomoso. I had just resumed for my Higher School Certificate (HSC) in 1978. And he was my Government subject teacher. With him, the study of government became by far one of my very best learning formative moments. It was with him that I first became conscious of the Socratic method of interlocution—a pedagogical engagement that enables students to grasp knowledge without assaulting their minds with facts. Okunade’s pedagogical excellence consisted in transforming our numerous engagements in and outside the classroom into seminal spaces for processing discourses, discussions and debates. Given my growing reputation as a bookworm, it was almost inevitable that I would be noticed by this smart teacher who was well-versed in both national and international politics and governmental processes. And so, it became something of a constant ritual for us to gather around him, especially outside of the classroom, to pick up significant items of public discourse or current affairs touching on government policies, national politics or international incidence.
The 1978/80 years were a most significant period in Nigeria’s political development, and the second republic was about to get underway. The study of government in secondary school was also animated by the prospect of a return to civil rule and the much-awaited Nigeria’s greatness. On the intellectual part, there was an ongoing ideological discussion on the nature of the Nigerian state. Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Prof. Billy Dudley were at the forefront of the attempt to unravel what it means to say that Nigeria, despite political independence, was still “a mere geographical expression.” This furthers our discussions in those upper secondary school seminal engagements around the nature and meaning of federalism and the role it could play in Nigeria’s unfolding political development. On the political part, we were witnessing a reprise of the pre-independence rivalry between the Action Group (AG), the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in the shape of the Unity Party of Nigeria, the National Party of Nigeria and Nigerian People’s Party (NPP) and others. And Awolowo’s democratic socialism and Azikiwe’s neo-welfarism were already in the public domain as ideological templates.
And we have in the then Mr. Okunade an astute Socratic interlocutor who could play the devil’s advocate with the many contending and contrary political and ideological positions on offer by the different political parties. He would be a Zikist in one session, a robust leftist in the mold of Tunji Braithwaite’s National Advance Party the next, and then go on to defend Awolowo’s democratic socialism thereafter. This capacity to robustly engage with contending ideas and arguments left a very deep impression on me that would come in handy when I made up my mind to study political science at the University of Ibadan, and met him again as my teacher. While engaging us on the subject matter of Government, he had just his first degree in political science, and was already on the academic trajectory, studying for a master’s degree in the same department. By the time I would join the department as an undergraduate student, he was already on his way up the ladder that would eventually lead to his becoming a professor in due season. We did not miss a bit in picking up from where we left off in terms of critical engagement, and even more at an advance stage as an undergraduate student and even at graduate studies. His academic and research profile was already shaping up in terms of public administration scholarship and specifically local government studies, and was further broadened when he went to the University of Essex in the United Kingdom to study for a LLM in International Human Rights Law.
My lifelong relationship from Olivet High to the University of Ibadan means that I would keep drawing on his influence and wisdom all through my professional development. Apart from being critical to shaping my doctoral thesis and my post-doctoral research direction—including facilitating a path-shaping relationship with the late Professor of Philosophy, Olusegun Oladipo—he is also a significant influence and support in the establishment of my pet project, the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP) in 2016.
Prof. Bayo Okunade’s scholarship must have been taking shape since he began engaging us in discourses around Nigeria’s national political development in the twilight years of the 1970s. There is no political scientist in Nigeria who would not be drawn into Nigeria’s federal-federalism debacle, and especially those who were there from the beginning like Prof. Okunade. He is very emphatic, for instance, and contrary to the outcry, that restructuring does not constitute the expected panacea to Nigeria’s federalism predicament. For example, he argues, restructuring is not an ideological construct with one objective for Nigeria, conceptually speaking. Different power blocks and elite interest want the concept to achieve different things for them. And this speaks to the fact that even if restructuring becomes constitutionally entrenched, its success will be dependent on concessions that those who have the capacity to manipulate the system for their selfish interest give to the delivery of the Nigeria development project and purpose as give and take.
Here, we begin to see the outline of Okunade’s argument—the subject of is celebrated inaugural lecture—about the leadership challenge in Nigeria. According to him, the resolution of Nigeria’s national question is impossible without an antecedent determination through the recalibration of the leadership deficit. The leadership issue, which he calls on fellow political scientist to elevate to the level of curricular program, significantly encapsulates Okunade’s constructivist perspective on social engineering and how this impact the establishment of a well-ordered society founded on public administration, human right, the rule of law and good governance. The relationship between public administration, human rights and democracy therefore situates Okunade’s research portfolio squarely within the context of Nigeria’s political development. And we are able to see clearly why the leadership deficit constitutes, as his inaugural lecture’s title suggest, a big challenge. And for someone steeped in the studies of federalism and democracy, I suspect it was not too radical to opt for a federal system that empowers local governance as a critical arm of democratic governance that empowers the people. I have like him published lots of opinion pieces on how the principles of social capital and subsidiarity could enable the grassroots as the most proactive context for democratic participation and developmental mobilization. The leadership deficit therefore goes right to the very heart of Nigeria’s constitutional anomaly.
The near-septuagenarian professor has an influence that spans many generation of students each of whom can write pages about the indelible humanity of Adebayo Okunade and his pedagogical direction. I struggle to accept Michael Morpurgo’s words that “It’s the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom.” This is because a good teacher can be undermined if the classroom or pedagogical dynamics are not right. An Okunade placed within the classrooms of both the Olivet Baptist Hish School and the department of political science, University of Ibadan, significantly to my academic and intellectual endeavors. And as he climbs on to the seventh floor by God’s grace in the months ahead, I can boast that he does not just wear the medal for my teacher for all times he is also my friend, brother and co-conspirator in institutional re-engineering.
[BOOK REVIEW] Basorun Seinde Arogbofa:The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for both Young and Old - Olukayode Ajulo,SAN
AdminIt is imperative for me to start by expressing my profound appreciation and admiration for the author, Baba Basorun Seinde Arogbofa, OFR, PEN, who, at 85, found the time and strength to craft this diamond of a book as a worthy legacy to people across generations.
Not a fiction but a factual compendium fertilized by personal experiences that shine through its 166 pages like diamond, the author, in every chapter, proves that old age and, indeed, ageing is not about rickety bones, disappearing muscles and sunken eyes, but also the summation of how an individual spent his adolescence, youth and adulthood.
This fact is attested to by another living legend of our time, Baba, Chief (Dr.) Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti, OFR, who, in his beautiful piece on pages vi-viii, entitled: A Centenarian on the Marble, concurs that: “I see the book as a vade mecum (always be with me) for all grades of life-young and old. It is not tied to only old age; it argues however that what we become in old age is largely a reflection or a continuation of what we started as young people. The seeds of old age, according to him, are sown during our younger days.”
0:2 The Review:
Aptly titled: The Philosophy of Growing Old-A Personal Experience for both Young and Old,the book, published by John Archers (Publishers) Limited, Ibadan, richly recommends itself as a necessary companion for all ages, beautifullytaking off in Chapters 1 and 2 with the definition of old age and its onset.
The author, in subsequent chapters, devotes copious pages to comprehensive examination of the process of growing old, as well as the fears and myths that drive most people, including young people, to scary limits in their dread of ageing.
As the author explicitly discusses in Chapters 7 and 8, the fears include sliding from vibrancy to redundancy, demure disposition to most issues of life, fear of failing health (pages 90-103), cognitive decline, dwindling finance and associated problems (pages 81-89), shrinking population of friends and acquaintances, goals, responsibilities, and societal impacts often associated with ageing.
But Baba, in this great book, does not leave the reader without hope. He discusses extensively how people can find and sustain happiness at old age (Chapter 6). In 13 pages in Chapter 9, the author also proffers ways people can develop the courage to accept and deal with old age.
He also explores the legacies people can bequeath to family and humanity, and the fulfillment old people must seek before theirinevitable encounter with death. But he submits that old age and ageing need not be all gloom and doom, emphasizing, however, that all depends on how the individual laid his bed in his/her youthful and adult years.
As in everything, the author underscores the significance of positive attitude, discipline, adaptation, meaningful lifestyle, effective time management, socializing, worship, showing love, and more love, among others, as sine qua non(necessary condition) for enjoying the twilight of age.
On page 120, the author highlights the importance of working to bequeath worthy legacies noting that, “…as an elder in the family you must strive to leave something worthwhile…..It could be a good name, which, people say, is better than silver or gold, a good name that can open doors for your relations, and not close doors against them…”
On page 123, Baba Basorun Arogbofa succinctly delves into various sectors of the society and lists the necessary virtues or legacies that could be left behind.
The author reflects on his own journey through life and shares the principles and steps he embraced to navigate the challenges of aging. The book encourages readers to embrace these principles and incorporate them into their own lives, as they shape personal growth and determine how well the individual copes with every stage of aging.
The author drives the point home on Page 102, citing one touching event that occurred when he author was 77, and he had to be operated on.“Just before the operation started,” he reminisces, “I took time off from them, looked up to God, my Creator for a communion, and went into a reverie. My action was infectious and everybody appeared silent for a short time I was in communication.”
The import of the above event, a core principle in navigating through life is: God is the author and the finisher of our faith. This Biblical principle, which the author’s father imbibed and stoutly believed in, pops up in the second paragraph of the book’s prologue of the book (page xv) wherein the author reveals how he envisaged the values passed on to him and his siblings, and soon naturally lived by them as he once hoped. The principle, he notes, is essential and will serve every ma/woman well throughout life-as toddler, adolescent, young adult, adult, middle age, old age and growing old.
One notable aspect of the book is its well-structured chapters, although I personally feel that the question of "when" should have been addressed before discussing "what is in old age." Nevertheless, the author's thought process is excellently presented in each chapter, with a particular focus on five cardinal values associated with old age.
These cardinal values include honor and respect, outstanding wisdom, discipline, high valuesystem, accord, as well as proper care and kindness. The book emphasizes the importance of these values in old age and how they are passed on from generation to generation.
03: Conclusion:
As already established, Baba Arogbofa’s book,The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for both Young and Old, is a valuable read that provides real-life experiences and serves as a guide to sustainable living and financial security. The book highlights the bright sides of old age and underscore the avoidable challenges of growing old. Though the advice comes so early in the book, Chapter 3 to be precise, it gives a sterling conclusion and golden advice on the subject matter, when he quotes the saying that “as one grows older the sky gets darker slowly’, and counsels that, “every wise person must prepare for this critical stage of life, so as to meet its challenges. As in the philosophy of the scouts, the wise must always be prepared, and the preparation must begin by the age of 40, so as not to belong to the fabled fool at forty who becomes a fool for life.”
And to truly enjoy old age, the author recommends the timeless ideal of devoting time to inspiring things in the environment, things that promote happiness and increase prosocial emotions (like generosity and kindness), accepting death as inevitable and developing the right attitude towards that stark reality (Chapter 11), worship God and love all that is good and noble.
Overall, the book, The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for both Young and Old, is a great intellectual work brimming with wisdom. It is well researched, spiced with true life anecdotes, and written in elegant prose. The writing is as compelling as the message. The book recommends itself as a necessary companion for all men and women that desire happy old age regardless of the challenges; it is a precious resource for researchers on quality and purposeful living, geriatrics and gerontology.
The book is also an excellent gift to those of us in leadership positions as the issues espoused by the author comes with the cryptic message that the state must pay more to the welfare of the elderly. Though some states are doing excellently well in making ageing easy for the senior citizens, more states need to execute policies that improve the living conditions of the elderly in the areas of geriatric care, medications for the aged, transportation system that make commuting for the seniors enjoyable, as well as monthly allowances necessary to meet their most basic needs.
In my years of service in the temple of justice, I have been an advocate of better life for the vulnerable. And senior citizens, people who have given the best parts of their lives in dedicated service to Fatherland, have become not only vulnerable but are fast becoming endangered species of homo sapiens; suffering crippling deprivations, ill-health and poverty.
Therefore, time is NOW for us to show love to the seniors by executing policies and programmes that make old age not to look like a curse or plague. And on this note, let me use this opportunity to acknowledge the Government of Ondo State for their consideration and inclusion of the elderly and physically challenged persons, as at today, the state has taken care of 12337 elderly from the Social Registry across the 18 Local Governments in Ondo State, I will however and nevertheless further ask that much more should be done by our governments, corporate entities and spirited individuals.
I humbly and most respectfully urge all Your Excellencies here present to please, give a deep thought to this humble hint. Gbogbo wa ni a maa dagba, ti a si maa darugbo ni agbara Edumare. (We shall all grow old by the power of the Almighty).
In closing, and like I have said unequivocally, The Psychology of Growing Old: A Personal Experience for both Young and Old, by Baba, Basorun Seinde Arogbofa, is a great literary work by all standards. (I think Baba deserves a loud ovation). However, since there is nothing perfect under the sun, even the best of men, I would encourage the editors to be a little bit more thorough in their editing to avoid the minor typographical and punctuation errors observed in a few instances. I offer this advice because I am convinced this gem of a book will be a best-seller and it would compel reprinting over and again.
The author’s use of deep Yoruba proverbs is excellent, especially with the accompanying transliterations. This should make readers from other cultural backgrounds comfortable and very much at home in absorbing and interpreting the message. A little improvement could be useful. For instance, it would have been more beneficial to include references to other regions and cultures to enhance understanding and inclusivity. Even, without this, the book is still worth timeless offering to all those who seek knowledge.
Nobody must leave this hall without grabbing copies for self, family and friends.
Dr. Olukayode Abraham Ajulo, OON, SAN
Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria
A Review By Dr Olukayode Abraham Ajulo, OON, SAN
Those who say if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria know what they are saying! Not only is the case of corruption killing Nigeria futuristic, it has already happened to us; only that Nigeria is yet to be buried. Corruption, we have always had with us but it has now become endemic. The epidemic nature of corruption, in which everything, anything, and virtually everyone is compromised is why there is consternation and worry.
There is no country or place in the world where there is no corruption. In the less corrupt nations of the world, the incidences of corruption are marginal and far-in-between and there are mechanisms to checkmate it and punish culprits. In such communities, laws are enforced and enforceable reward and punishment systems are not toyed with. Every effort is made to let everyone know that corruption or crime does not pay.
It is the understanding that one would almost likely get caught, no matter how long it takes, and that punishment would be meted out, that dissuades many in saner climes from engaging in criminal activities; not that they are better human beings than those of us here. Hence the saying: “The long arms of the law”! But where the arms of the law are short, as they are in Nigeria, then, the propensity for corruption will know no bounds. Scripture says in Isaiah 59:1 that God’s hand is not short; hence He is able to deliver! God knew not to allow His hand to be short. We ought to take a cue from that!
Corruption is as old as humanity; hence God Himself said in Genesis 8:21 that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”. Corruption, interestingly, exists because it performs a function. Theorists of Functionalism of corruption posit that whatever exists, exists to perform a function. It is like the economists’ theory of demand and supply. Once there is the demand for a product or service, the supply aspect will automatically pop up.
Ever had a policeman flaunt Matthew 5:25 in your face? That scripture quoted Jesus Christ as saying: “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison”? Says William Shakespeare in Merchant of Venice: “An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek. A goodly apple rotten at the heart. Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! Take note, Bassanio, even the devil can quote the Bible for his own purpose”
But there are things the authorities do that inadvertently promote corruption - like when the penalties for simple infractions are harsh; offenders will find a compelling need to “settle” or “quickly agree” with the adversary!
Can Nigeria win the war against corruption? Has it even started? With a National Assembly that pads budgets, thereafter going ahead to shamelessly defend it, flaunting it in our face, to security agents that allowed a high security detainee to escape the country - where do we go from here? Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and his fellow coupists of January 1966 ain’t seen anything, as they say, when they accused the politicians of the First Republic as “ten per centers… who make the country look big for nothing”
Far too many more outlandish occurrences have made Nigeria the laughing stock of the international community. A detainee was put in a posh apartment, was allowed access to the phone, and was escorted to Jumaat service, and you wonder how he managed to escape from custody! He would be a fool not to - that is, if it is not the same security officials that even escorted him into the aircraft!
Once the price is right! I first heard that statement said about one of our judges: He reportedly calculated how many more years he had to sit on the Bench; added up his salaries, emoluments and retirement benefits and found that the amount he was being offered to throw an election petition case was many times more; he chose to play ball! The price was right! There are few people in this country today who will not think twice once the price is right and the chances of getting caught and getting punished are very remote! It was a military president here who reportedly said everyone has a price. If the person says no, it means the price is not right! Jerk it up!
In saner climes, by now heads would have rolled over the Binance executive, Nadeem Anjarwalla's escape from custody. The National Security Adviser's office reportedly confirmed the escape. The Tinubu administration would have earned the respect of many if the confirmation of Nadeem's escape had also been followed with announcements of resignations (the NSA's inclusive?) or of heads that have rolled for this national embarrassment.
To be sure, with this kind of dereliction of duty, not much will be achieved in the war against insecurity. It is not only the arrest of the lesser officials that we need if this country must move forward. The leaders at the top must take responsibility as well. Now, we are begging the Interpol to come to the rescue. When they finish laughing at us, maybe they will!
Talking seriously, I have wondered, each time his case comes up and he gets disappointed by the court, why Nnamdi Kanu has been wasting his time in court - adjournment today, new charges tomorrow - when he should just have done the needful. I am sure you know what I mean! If the price is right, you know!
Ndigbo has more than enough cash to throw around! Put your money where your mouth is, men! Those who devise all manner of ingenious methods to smuggle just about anything in and out of any country should be able to smuggle a blockhead out of detention. Or is the price not right! One school of thought, again quoting the scriptures, says “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household!”(Matthew 10: 36). Think about that!
Everyone suffers when a country is tarred with the brush of corruption. To start with, nothing works at home. Like Fela crooned, everything is upside down. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” ( Proverbs 29:2). Tell me, are Nigerians rejoicing today or they are mourning?
And that is not to say that there are no dots of righteous men in positions of authority in this country today but they are very few in numbers. They are far outnumbered by the wicked ones. And this is also not to say that the leadership may not be minded to rule righteously but the odds against them are daunting, especially where they lack the political will to do the needful.
Once they have entrenched themselves in positions of authority, wicked men and women are not easy to dislodge - be it in political offices, in churches and mosques, in the private sector; name it! Every tree bears fruits of its kind, says Jesus in Matthew 7: 17 - 20: “Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire”
To hewn down the bad trees that are bringing forth bad fruits and cast them in the fire is the challenge that faces the country. Who will bell the cat? I once worked with a governor and was perturbed that many of his aides were not supporting his dream project. I consulted one friendly aide and solicited him to go with me to intimate His Excellency with my findings. To my amazement, he not only declined to go with me but also advised me, “in my own interest”, not to try it. Asked why, he volunteered that the wicked ones I wanted to complain about were in the majority in that government. “They will just squeeze you and smash you with their sheer numbers”, he said.
I felt sad and was crestfallen. “Then His Excellency will not know that he has (green) snakes under his (green) grass”, I moaned, but my friend assured me His Excellency would know. How, I asked? “When he looks behind him and finds no one!” That is why, even when they are well-meaning, leaders hardly achieve much when in office. That is also why they often get wiser only after they leave office.
Can Reuben Abati be correct, then? Do demons bear rule in our Government houses? When the devil tempted Jesus with all the riches and glory of this world, it is instructive that while Jesus refused to bow down and worship Satan, he did not contest the devil’s emphatic statement that it was in his power and authority to give the world to whomever he pleases. (Matthew 4: 1 - 11). Food for thought!
[OPINION] Nigeria's "Oil Curse": 'Paradox of Plenty' or 'Poverty of Paradox'? - Richard Odusanya
AdminNigeria is blessed with vast natural resources and rich environments. It is generously endowed with productive land and valuable natural resources, which include renewable resources (such as water, forestry, and fisheries) and non-renewable resources (minerals, coal, gas, and oil). Natural resources dominate many national economies and are central to the livelihoods of the poor rural majority. These resources are the basis of income and subsistence for large segments of Nigeria's population and constitute a principal source of public revenue and national wealth.
Nigeria’s "Oil Curse" is a phenomenon called the ‘Resource Curse’. This is sometimes rendered as ‘The Paradox of Plenty’ or ‘The Poverty Paradox’. It’s factual, and perhaps, Nigeria —and her developmental inertia —seems to be the most plagued, in the whole Godless world, by this curse. Resource Curse is the phenomenon of countries with abundant natural resources having less economic growth, less democracy, or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources.
Whereas, this contribution argues that current approaches to conflict resources uphold a specific conceptualization of the relationship between natural resources, war, and peace, which is premised on the so-called ‘resource curse’ theory. This theory expounds a ‘paradox of plenty’ whereby states rich with natural resources experience poor economic growth and an increased likelihood of violent conflict. Within this context, natural resources (oil, minerals, diamonds, timber) are defined in terms of their role in increasing the risk of conflict or acting as an obstacle to peace.
Thus, for example, viewing history through an evolutionary lens and perspective: Yes, it is important to report what is happening in our beloved country Nigeria, and be outraged by Insecurities, Pain, Misconduct, Outright Unprofessional and 'Gross Mismanagement' at the Central Bank. Uncharacteristically, given that, the struggle by the government to woo investors is more or less like a mirage because of some of the factors that affect efficiency and time consciousness....we need to pray for our leaders to be conscious of their responsibilities and not be carried away by the perks of office. However, as a country, It’s not all doom and gloom.
On the flip side, amid the economic challenges in Nigeria, with $1 presently exchanging below ₦1,300.00 (one thousand and three hundred naira), yet basic goods are unaffordable, hope wanes. Since the inception of the Muhammadu Buhari government in 2015, a change initiative led to a decline, marked by economic turmoil and illegality. The Apex Bank (CBN), tasked with financial stability, contributed to the economic downturn through embezzlement and outright Profligacy. It is important to emphasize hope, restoration, and positive change for the well-being of Nigerians who have endured the consequences of a faltering economy and questionable governance.
Of course. As long as there is breath there is hope. For one reason or another, Nigeria is considered the giant in Africa. However, Nigeria as a country is presently beset with many problems including institutionalized corruption, poor social infrastructure, struggling educational systems and facilities, epileptic power supply, youth unemployment, etc. Yet, we still have not given up. It underscores the essence of 'Leadership - which is undoubtedly what we need as a nation. What else has God not provided to make Nigeria a great nation? Natural/human resources; Arable land/good weather?
I think it is important to remember that the story isn’t complete until you’ve won! Things may not be going the way you expect at the moment, but don’t despair. Keep affirming your trust and confidence in the Lord by praising Him for perfecting all that concerns you. Refuse to give up, and rejoice in Him for being your deliverer and rescuer. Consider for a moment the inspiring story of Paul and Silas. Things couldn’t have looked more hopeless for them as they huddled in chains in the dark dungeon of a Roman prison. Instead of cringing in fear and hopelessness, they praised God all night and experienced a mighty deliverance (Acts 16:23-36).
As a strong advocate of good governance and fair society, I want to conclude this article focusing on the 'Paradox of Plenty' or 'Poverty of Paradox' with revolutionary and resurrection messages. For me, the Easter period this year is quite distinct. It's time to RENEW-HOPE in our beloved country Nigeria. As we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, we must remember we have a hope greater than anything in this world. We are Resurrection people.
Finally, permit me to share the RESURRECTION message from Floyd Williams Tomkins Jr. An American Episcopal Priest, and Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, USA. Floyd solemnly posited: “Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness.”
EASTER-IN-VIEW.
Richard Odusanya
The escape of Nadeem Anjanwalla, one of the two detained executives of Binance Holdings Ltd, from the DSS custody in Abuja is the most embarrassing security breach of the Tinubu administration and it’s a clear pointer to the porosity of our fight against terrorism and financial crimes. Elsewhere, such lapses would automatically lead to the sack of the security chief, arrest of the guards and their supervisors and the resignation of the supervising minister. But in Nigeria, the government will move on as if nothing happened. So far, the government has remained tightlipped.
Anjarwalla and his colleague, Tigran Gamabaryan, together with their company, Binance Holdings, were facing charges of tax evasion, money laundering and other offences in the Federal High Court Abuja. The two men have been in DSS custody since February 26 when they arrived the country. Anjarwalla is Binance’s Africa regional manager and Gambaryan, a US citizen is its compliant officer.
The company is facing serious criminal charges including nonpayment of VAT, company income tax and complicity in aiding its customers to evade taxes through its platform; failure to register with FIRS for tax purposes and unwillingness to collect and remit various categories of taxes to the federal government, thus contravening Section 40 of the FIRS Act of 2007. In addition, Binance is accused of encouraging speculative currency trading on its platform which was responsible for the drastic fall in the value of the Naira. The two men are co-defendants in the case.
A criminal charge was filed against the two executives before a Magistrate Court in Abuja, and on February 28, the court granted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) an order to remand the duo for 14 days. The court also ordered Binance to provide the Nigerian government with the data/information of Nigerians trading on its platform. But the company refused to comply with the order and the court extended the remand of the officials for an additional 14 days to prevent them from tampering with evidence. The court then adjourned the case till April 4. Meantime, the government has revealed that over $21.6 billion was traded by Nigerians whose identities were concealed by Binance. The government also believes that some dubious persons were using Binance for money laundering, terrorist financing, currency speculation and market manipulation, distorting the Nigerian economy and weakening the Naira against other currencies.
These are very serious indictments that border on serious economic sabotage against the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Whosoever aided and abetted the escape of one of them should be treated as an economic saboteur and an enemy of Nigeria. According to Premium Times, Anjarwalla, 38, escaped on Friday, 22 March, from the Abuja guest house of the DSS where he and his colleague were detained after guards on duty led him to a nearby mosque for prayers in the spirit of the ongoing Ramadan fast. A British citizen with a dual Kenyan citizenship, Anjarwalla is believed to have fled on a Middle East airliner. Security officials are however puzzled that Anjarwalla left the country although his British passport, with which he entered Nigeria, had been seized by the Nigerian authorities.
I am not puzzled. Rich people can wangle their way out of any tight situation, especially in a nation of corrupt officials. For a man who was detained in a comfortable setting in a guest house and allowed use of telephones, it is no brainer that he was able arrange for his Kenyan passport to be sent to him, and with that he fled Nigeria. It is also likely that Anjawarlla had also compromised our security guards with huge financial inducements. In December 2019, Nissan chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, escaped from a house arrest in Japan to his country, Lebanon, in what has been described as a most daring escape of the 21st century.
The escape of the Binance executive is the latest in the long string of security challenges that has plagued the country in recent months, the recent being the kidnap of over 140 school children in Kaduna and killings of 17 soldiers and six policemen in Delta State. Although President Tinubu has shown some courage in tackling insecurity, there are indications that there are powerful fifth columnists who are willing to sabotage his efforts. The persistent killings of peasant farmers in North Central region and the inability of the security forces to stop them smacks of collusion between some elements in the security forces and the terrorists. The upsurge in violence in the Niger Delta, especially the persistent massacres of soldiers and policemen is seen as an attempt to plunge the region into another orgy of violence in order to disrupt oil production. A prolonged cessation oil exports may lead to an unprecedented economic crisis and immense social upheavals.
In many jurisdictions, Binance is mired in legal controversies. In February, Binance Holdings Ltd agreed to pay $4.3 billion fine in a plea deal to settle criminal money laundering charges levelled by the US Department of Justice. Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, pleaded guilty and agreed to resign. His criminal trial has been postponed to 30 April by a US court. The government must seek to bring Anjawarlla back to face the law and all those who are complicit in his escape should be punished.
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To make your dreams come Trululu.
Delulu is thinking that you will wake up one morning, set out as usual to go about your business and you will, by luck, meet the popular Instagram philanthropist, Asherkine. Then he asked you what you wanted, and you told him 50 million naira, and he credited your account immediately.
Boom!
E don better for you. Delulu is having fee-fee imaginations such as you find in a Ghana-Must-Go bag filled with dollars. Boom! Your fortune turns around. From a poor person, Dangote begins to pick up your calls.
Delulu is when you are single to a stupor, yet stay indoors every day with zero social life and communication skills and hope that your life partner will miraculously appear in the form of Angel Michael to propose to you in your room. Delusional single!
Delulu is thinking that by recording a dance video to an artist’s song, as Moses Bliss’s wife did, it will also earn you your conjugal bliss. It is thinking that by joining Bro. Theo to chant and sing “No Glory in this World,” you will bag your own full package American babe. Boom!
Delulu is hoping that you will one day find out that your father is not your biological father and you are Femi Otedola’s son. Or that your father, Falola Idan, has babanla bastard money and has only been pretending to be poor so that he can teach you humility. Or that you are a trust fund kid and will only be able to access the billion dollars your parents have kept for you when you are 42. Baba Falola, die now so that I can collect my inheritances at First Bank. Boom boom!
Delulu is thinking that you will sleep, wake up and miraculously have all the things you have ever wanted at the snap of a finger without you working for it. Delulu is wishing you were a genie or had superpowers to make your dreams come true at the wave of a magical wand.
Abracadabra!
Yes, all of these can happen to you, as has happened to some people, but what are the chances? It is like tossing a coin; the probability that it will fall on a particular side is very slim.
Delulu is living in a world of fantasy, thinking and imagining things that may or may never happen. Delulu is you having vivid imaginations. Delulu is the Gen-Z term for “delusional,” Solulu means “solution,” while the ajasa, trululu means “true”. Delulu is the Solulu;therefore, it means that being delusional and living in the world of your imagination is a way to create the life of your dreams and escape the harsh reality of the present world.
The slang, Delulu is the Solulu, went viral following a TikTok video by Moses Wong, in which he said, “In this generation, being delusional is one of the key factors to being happy.” While the slogan might be a Gen-Z term for thinking and staying positive, the idea is nothing new. Universally, the law of assumption states that by believing the things you want already exist in your life, you will manifest them into reality. This positive thinking tactic is a strategy for creating the life of your dreams; if you want something desperately and you believe you will have it, the forces of the universe will attract them to you. Why do you think millions flood the religious camps every month?
Delulu is choosing to think positively and be optimistic even in the face of a harsh reality. Nigerians are a perfect example of delulus. Nigerians catch cruises with everything; we use everything about our situation or the situation of the country to crack jokes. Once we lament about it and it seems like the echoes of our voices are not heard, not to talk of our voices themselves, because we cannot kill ourselves or start dying from depression, we resort to laughing and cruising about our predicament, even when we know that nothing about it is funny. Our sense of humour seems to be what gets us through the tough times. We have probably made peace with the opinion that delulu is the solulu to make the Nigerian dream come trululu. The great Nigeria we dream of is in our minds. A Nigeria free of corruption, insecurity, economic struggles, leadership crisis, and other national problems is only real in our minds, and this assures us that Nigeria will be great again. We may not know how or when, but this is our delulu as a nation. This delulu is easy to imagine but difficult to experience.
Delulu is all about living life even when all odds are set against you, when the walls around your life are crumbling, and your whole life seems to be on fire. Delulu believes that even though you walk “through the valley of the shadow of death”, you fear no evil. It is passing through fire and not burning, walking through water and not drowning.
Delulu is when you manage to soak garri with groundnut due to sapa in Tinubu’s economy, but you make yourself believe you are eating “groceries and floating berries.” Delulu is when you are the owner of the largest conglomerate in the world and No. 1 on the Forbes list, but in reality, you keep making excuses to start up just one business. You are delulu when you start calling yourself a CEO because you just started a popcorn and groundnut business in front of your house. In your delulu, you are the big man who runs the town with big money, spending like sweat, wealthy enough to afford anything. But in reality, you avoid whatever you cannot afford.
Being Delulu is having unrealistic fantasies and beliefs. The way children are tricked into believing in themselves as they grow up is by making them delusional. With the advent of comic cartoons, such as Power Rangers, Barbie, Cinderella, Frozen and the like, children begin to see themselves as these characters to the extent of behaving like these characters until they grow up to realize that those characters were never real and their delulu can never be trululu, except they choose to collect witch so they can fly at midnight.
As funny and harmless as it may sound, delulu can be negative. You may be having delulu about how to japa from the country, while someone somewhere is having delulu about bombing up a town so he can be rewarded with ten virgins in paradise. There may be someone out there who considers his or her delusion fun enough to enter into a school, shooting and killing innocent schoolchildren just because his mind is powerful enough to conjure up such thoughts and imaginations.
Delulu, in and of itself, is not bad, but it becomes a problem when you dwell in it for so long that it begins to blur out reality or makes you want to slack or become an idiot. There is a way imagination or living in your mind too much can affect your life and mentality such that irrespective of facts and reality staring you in the face, you adamantly choose to believe the falsity your mind is wrapped in. Delulu may stem from other people, the things you read, watch or listen to. Try Twitter for a month and see. You are welcome! The things you expose yourself to gradually begin to have a hold on your mind, so strong that even if the origin of the delulu later comes to say they were wrong, you are already a goner because nothing can change your deluded mind. Like that, psycho is entering small small.
Having fee-fee imaginations can be a good way to escape reality for a while and create the life of your dreams; delulu can help you go on a trip to the Bahamas without leaving your bed in Ajegunle, but if you live in that delulu longer than you should, your life may never become as good as you have imagined. Let your delulu instead ginger you to work harder so that all your nice dreams will not just be in your head. Rather than keep hoping that you are Elon Musk’s secret child who will inherit all his money, strive to be an Elon Musk for your children and generations yet unborn. Your parents may not have given you a trust fund, but they work hard and smartly to make your children trust fund babies.
Remember, if you can dream or imagine it, you can be it. But delulu without action or hard work is not the solulu to make your dreams come trululu. Of all the people who think that Toyin Falola uses juju to write over 200 books, their delulu has taken them to the mountains and valleys to write their own books, but they are still praying for solulu without trululu. When next you sleep, and you dream of living in a mansion by the ocean, abeg, never wake up! Or should I have said I pray that you will never wake up so that you don’t face your dululu? Or should I ask God to let you continue to sleep forever as your solulu?
Trululu
PRECISELY 22.5 kilometres south-west of Sokoto, there used to exist a community called Satiru. In March 1906, it was extinguished from the face of the earth. Three years earlier, in July 1903, the British had massacred Muhammadu Attahiru, the 11th Sultan of Sokoto together with over 1,000 of his followers, decapitating him in Burmi (near Bajoga in present day Gombe State, North-East Nigeria) and then displayed photographs of “the beheaded Sultan of Sokoto throughout Northern Nigeria”.
Many among the faithful in the region at the time regarded Frederick Lugard and his lot as infidels. The fate of Sultan Attahiru inspired, as Lugard would later complain in his 1906 annual report, “a series of local ebullitions in favour of some Mahdi or reformer”, claiming a mission to rid the people of these infidels.
At the beginning of February in 1904, Satiru’s district head proclaimed himself The Mahdi and his son, as Prophet Isa (Jesus). Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru II, whom the British installed the previous year after killing his brother, arrested and detained the Mahdist pretender, who tragically died in detention. His son, Isa, succeeded him.
In January 1906, an itinerant preacher, Dan Makafo, arrived from French Niger (Niger Republic) to boost Isa’s insurgent claims. The following month, when the neighbouring community of Tsomo were reluctant to accord him recognition as prophet, Isa and his followers attacked the village, reportedly killing 14 and declaring a Jihadist rebellion against the British infidels.
Unlike in 1904 when they encouraged the Sultan to deal with Isa’s dad, the British chose in 1906 to handle Isa’s impertinence by themselves. On Saint Valentine’s Day in 1906, the Acting Resident, Mr. Hillary; his assistant, Mr. AGM Scott, and a force of over 70 mounted infantry led by Lt. Francis Blackwood, approached Isa and his rebellious followers in Satiru. The absence of mutual intelligibility did not much help mutual suspicion. Communication quickly broke down between both sides and in the ensuing chaos, Isa and his followers killed Hillary, Scott, Blackwood and 29 of their troops, leaving the remainder to retreat in disarray.
On March 10, Lugard’s forces returned to Satiru. They comprised 573 rifles, 70 armed police, a 2.95-inch gun and several Maxim guns. Confronting them were Isa and over 2,000 of his followers armed with traditional weapons. It was a mismatch. Lugard quotes what happened next: “Someone gave an order, everyone fired, then a whistle blew, everyone stopped and there was no one left alive in the front.”
According to Jonathan Dewhirst, “in total it was estimated that Satiru lost over two thousand men killed, with over three thousand women and children captured. By half-past two in the afternoon the mission had ended, and the town burnt to the ground. The Sultan destroyed the ruins utterly, and decreed that the town should never be rebuilt.”
Isa was killed in the massacre. Dan Makafo was apprehended with five remaining leaders of the rebellion. Sultan Attahiru II had the six of them convicted by the Sokoto Native Court for rebellion and murder before executing them.
Lugard wrote a racy account of the extermination of Satiru in his 1906 annual report, exulting that the situation “demanded a signal and overwhelming victory for the restoration of our prestige and the prevention of any such rising in future.”
Nine years earlier, in February 1897, General Harry Rawson led an expedition that massacred its way through the Benin, ransacking the city and its civilization in retribution for an incident recalled by Queen Victoria in her diary of January 12, 1897 as follows: “A number of English officers & civilians, including doctors &c who went on a friendly mission, but imprudently not armed, were attacked & fired upon by the King of Benin.”
Satiru was almost assuredly the most egregious but by no means the only example of such punitive colonial expeditions. Lugard described the policy as one entailing “a terrible retribution” with the stated goal being to “render any further appeal to arms unnecessary in the Sokoto Province for very many years”.
On the centenary of the extermination of Satiru, historian, Richard Gott, recalled that this was a vain hope, pointing out that “active Islamic resistance continued in Northern Nigeria until the 1930s, remaining a permanent concern and irritant to colonial officers.”
Some could argue with justification that this resistance continues until the present day. Not unlike the colonial period, martial retribution has not prevented assaults on uniformed symbols of the Nigerian state. Instead it has guaranteed it.
In the last week of October 1990, youths in Umuechem, an oil-bearing community in Rivers State, protested against Shell Petroleum, alleging acts of pollution that had decimated their environment, livelihoods and well-being. Shell invited the police to quell the protests, which had been largely peaceful.
In the early hours of October 31, a squadron of the Police Mobile Force invaded the community shooting at random “in a purported attempt to locate three of their members who had not returned the previous evening”. Over 80 members of the community were reported killed and nearly 500 houses destroyed or burnt by the police. A judicial commission of inquiry into the Umuechem Massacre later found “no evidence of a threat by the villagers and concluded that the Mobile Police had displayed ‘a reckless disregard for lives and property.’”
Umuechem did not quell restiveness in the Niger Delta. Instead, it appeared to inflame the region’s youths and radicalise them. The brutal murder by armed gangs of 12 police officers in Odi, Bayelsa State in November 1999, led to bloody reprisals on the orders of President Olusegun Obasanjo “which may have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians”.
As Chief of Army Staff, General Victor Malu oversaw the reprisals in Odi. A mere two years later, in October 2001, the killing of 19 soldiers in his community, Zaki Biam, in Benue State, led to similar reprisals in which “more than 200 people died at the hands of the soldiers”. Over the three-year period from 1999 to 2002 alone, CLEEN Foundation and the World Organisation against Torture, OMCT, reported “over fifty separate and documented incidents” and “over ten thousand Nigerians have reportedly been victims of extrajudicial executions at an average of over 200 executions per incident”.
Fourteen years later, the excuse for the Zaria Massacre was that an un-named member of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, IMN, as the Shiites of Nigeria are mostly called, had desecrated the epaulette of an Army General. Full casualty count has never been established but the official inquiry acknowledged that it took nearly 50 soldiers using 14 lorries, over six hours to dispose the bodies in mass graves in Mando, near Kaduna.
Half a century ago, on Christmas Eve in 1974, a soldier was reported missing in Ugep, Cross-River central. Soldiers sent by the commanding officer to look for their colleague set upon the villagers “killing innocent men, children and raping their women who were eagerly waiting to celebrate Christmas”. Thirteen people were reported killed and over 100 injured. Days thereafter, the body of the soldier was found in a gutter in the village. An inquiry later showed that the soldier who was “given to drunkenness and suffered occasional epilepsy” had “choked on his sputum and died”.
There may be little comparison between the circumstances of the reported death of the soldier in Ugep in 1974 and what transpired in Okuama, Ughelli South in Delta State 50 years later. Remarkably, the Okuama incident occurred in the month of the 118th anniversary of the extermination of Satiru.
President Bola Tinubu has rightly communicated the revulsion of all right-thinking persons at the mass murder of three senior officers of the Nigerian Army with 13 men under their command, followed by the desecration of the remains. He has also given the armed forces a free hand to ensure that “the offenders will not go unpunished” and promised to honour the memory of the fallen soldiers.
A dispassionate Board of Inquiry must get to the root of how these soldiers met their unconscionable fate, who was responsible, and how they were deployed on the mission that consumed their young lives. It is time to turn the page on this cycle of escalation, retribution and bloody reprisal that has prospered for 118 years since Satiru.
A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu
I HAVE been to a number of budget ‘defence’ sessions in the National Assembly, and some were like bazaar sessions with buying and selling going on.
On some occasions, I watched a ‘Distinguished Senator’ who was a Committee Chairman, perform. He was unperturbed that he was sitting in public with journalists present. He left no one in doubt that he was sitting, primarily to extract juice from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, appearing before him. Like a corrupt police officer at a counter, he made all sorts of demands, with members of his panel nodding their heads.
He would ask what provisions in the budget had been made for him and his team or, how did the chief executive of the MDA expect them to work so hard on budgets and get peanuts in return? If, for example, the government official explains that there are travels, including overseas provided for in the budget for the ‘Distinguished Senators’, he would ask for an increase in the number of trips.
He would then pause as if lost in thought, and then enquire how much foreign airline tickets cost and, frown that the proposed budgets do not adequately cover the cost of first class tickets. At the end of session, having hiked the proposed budget, he would assure that the new proposals would be passed and that he would soon visit the MDAs concerned. He was a sanctuary of corruption in the National Assembly.
There is an ‘Honourable Member’ who uses his knowledge of forensic accounting to intimidate the MDAs who are, in many cases, led by chief executives who are ready to play ball. He would tear down particular budget proposals, engage the chief finance officer of the MDA in what may seem to be professional arguments on the budget proposals. After wearing out the confidence of the finance officer or intimidating him, he turns to the now hapless chief executive, offering to help the MDA with its seemingly tattered budgets proposals.
Essentially, binary budgets are passed annually by the National Assembly; one submitted by the executive and the other, by the legislators. In considering the former, the National Assembly grafts its own budget on that submitted by the Presidency.
While signing the 2018 Budget allegedly under protest, then President Muhammadu Buhari accused the National Assembly of ‘padding’ it by introducing 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion.
He wailed that the insertions “relate to matters that are the responsibility of the states and local governments, and for which the Federal Government should therefore not be unduly burdened.”
Conversely, he said the National Assembly made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration. He claimed that: “Many of the projects cut are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation. Some of the new projects inserted by the National Assembly have not been properly conceptualised, designed and costed and will therefore be difficult to execute.”
He further revealed that “many of these new projects introduced by the National Assembly have been added to the budgets of most MDAs with no consideration for institutional capacity to execute them or the incremental recurrent expenditure that may be required.” In other words, the new insertions were, basically, duplications, yet the funds are approved.
As President, he clarified that: “The logic behind the Constitutional direction that budgets should be proposed by the executive is that, it is the executive that knows and defines its policies and projects.” Despite this, and his knowledge that the budget was packaged in criminality, Buhari signed it.
The defence of the NASS by then spokespersons, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi and Abdulrazak Namdas was that it had the powers to do what it deems fit with the budget.
Its argument was that: “Adjustments and reductions in the locations, costs and number of projects approved were made in order to address geo-political imbalances that came with the executive proposal. The introduction of new projects was done to ensure the promotion of the principles of Federal …Character as contained in Section 14, subsection (3) of the 1999 Constitution…”
It added that: “The number of projects had to be increased in order to give a sense of belonging to every geo-political zone of the country to ensure socio-economic justice, equity, fairness, and to command National loyalty.”
If the claims of the NASS were true, all it needed to do was to return the budget to the Presidency for necessary adjustments, rather than rewrite it or, write and pass its own budget.
After signing such budgets annually, Buhari again, wailed openly while signing the 2022 Budget that 6,576 new projects had been smuggled into it by the National Assembly.
Since I am not sure a gun was held to President Buhari’s head while signing those budgets which we all know border on criminality, my conclusion is that the racketeering was mutually agreed by both arms of government and was beneficial to the perpetrators.
Interestingly, there is a continuum: then Senate President Ahmad Lawan, returned to the Senate albeit under controversial circumstances, while then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is currently the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu.
Given this culture of impunity, the claims by Senator Abdul Ningi of PDP Bauchi, that the 2024 Budget was padded by N3.7 trillion or over 10 per cent of the N28.78 trillion budget, did not come as a surprise. He, as an old Senator, has been part of this culture. Therefore, his claims or revelations must have startled his fellow ‘Distinguished Senators’. They neither gave him the floor to explain himself, nor provide facts why they think his claims were frivolous. They simply suspended him for three months. The sin Senator Ningi seems to have committed is that having been invited to the table, he did not observe the ethics that you do not talk while eating.
A similar punishment was inflicted on Abdulmumin Jibrin in 2016 when as the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, he revealed that the 2016 Budget was padded. He had gone to the extent of naming the then Speaker, Deputy Speaker , Chief Whip and Minority Whip of allocating N400 billion to themselves in the NASS Budget.
During the session on Ningi, another Distinguished Senator, Jarigbe Jarigbe, Cross Rivers North, was exposing some of his colleagues for collecting humongous amounts of at least N500 million each. His microphone was quickly switched off before he could inflict more damage.
Some claimed such monies were for constituency projects. Who supervises such projects; who oversights them? Do they pass through the normal public procurement and contract processes? Side-tracking criminality does not change its essence.
There is unarguably a progressive value erosion in our country. This is happening increasingly, and there is no hope of it abating soon. This cankerworm is significantly influenced by westernisation and globalisation but with the shared responsibility of local catalysts like collapsed family systems, near extinction of communal oversight and accountability, abdication of moral reinforcement by religious centres, failure of governmental institutions and a skewed education curriculum that pays little attention to proper moral education and developing cultural personality identity.
The social-moral code which governs how individuals behave in a community setting has literarily collapsed in most of our communities. Religious morality has been subdued by a craving for wealth and fanaticism not founded on love, truth, or honour. The elevation of money or accumulation of pecuniary wealth in the public space has become Machiavellian as the “end that justifies the means”. The ‘get rich quick syndrome’ is normalised. The effect of this malaise is evident to all; we see it, feel it, and analyse it, but beyond that, what do we do?
The most critical to my mind is the moral dimension of our public affairs. The decay is evident on a national scale. This is not to say that the other dimensions of our moral decadence are less critical. This column will, however, focus on the morality governing the conduct of public affairs, which needs to be more relevant. The decay is growing at a rate similar to our advancement as a country and the extent of our globalisation. It is as though the more advanced and interconnected we are with the rest of the world, the more immoral we become. Some recent manifestations of the decay in our public morality standards will help us appreciate the extent of the decay.
Historically, Nigeria has often witnessed corruption scandals of fantastical proportions at different times that have shown our decline from morality, as my friend Dr Lasisi Olagunju captured in his recent column ‘The History of scandals’. Each succeeding corruption scandal and sleaze makes the last one look like a child’s play in comparison, both in the audacity of maleficence and the amount of money involved. In the 1970s, Nigerians witnessed the “cement armada” scandal when the military government issued import licences to companies to import vast amounts of cement to build military infrastructure. The corruption in the cement price, the quantity supplied was far less than paid for, the demurrage paid for real and imagined ships carrying cement at the Nigerian ports, and the local and international court cases that ensued left a sour taste in our collective mouths.
The 1980s were marred with the infamous “rice scandal”; the government spent over $4 billion to import rice to feed a hungry nation. The rice was nowhere to be found, the monies grew wings and flew into thin airs, and Nigerians and the international community marvelled at our leaders’ sheer level of wickedness and moral bankruptcy.
In recent times, Nigerians have seen the abdication of moral responsibility by those charged with handling our public affairs in favour of self-interest and material gain. You remember the Dasuki-gate. Billions of dollars meant for combating terrorism and insecurity cannot be accounted for, and the same insecurity has ravaged our communities. You remember the billion-dollar fuel subsidy scam of the 2000s and its sad, lurid details. In this democracy, people collected subsidy payments for petrol vessels that had never come here or existed and falsified the amount of petrol supplied. A few well-connected Nigerians got away with murder in the subsidy scandal.
Most recently, there was the Senator Ningi Budget padding scandal of the national assembly. The presidency presented a budget of about ₦27.5 trillion to our National Assembly, but controversy has trailed the budget with no solid explanation as to what happened. The story of magical ubiquitous solar lights and boreholes still haunts the integrity of the budget. This budget manipulation allegation is a moral question for the National Assembly. It has brought issues of transparency, abuse of power, the conflict between public interest and personal interest, and issues of fairness and equity to public attention. These issues raise questions about whether our national assembly has any moral responsibility.
The most disturbing aspect of these scandals is that we do not learn lessons from them, and most perpetrators go unpunished. Nigerians are used to that and expect little accountability and responsibility from our leaders. Impunity reigns supreme, and things have fallen apart. Moral responsibility is an excellent sign of leadership, but this is vanishing in Nigeria. No leader ever takes responsibility for either failure of oversight or being complicit in a failure of the system to compensate morally for the pain associated with such failures.
No one resigns, apologises, or cares about the people, the victims. The reward for corruption in Nigeria is that perpetrators are given better opportunities to ply their trade. They are valuable to the corrupt system that requires the stealing of public funds to prop it up. Nigerians are used to hearing the names of people they believe should be in jail in new juicy appointments. In comparison, in Egypt, the transport minister, Hisham Arafat, resigned on moral grounds in late February 2019 after a deadly train crash in Cairo killed at least 25 people and left 50 others injured. Please understand that the minister was not driving the ill-fated train. But he resigned on moral grounds.
One of the most striking features of contemporary Nigerian politics and politicians is that paradoxically, political rhetoric is increasingly moralistic while the actual ability of public officials to achieve moral ends is in decline. Our public officials see only shades of grey and operate in a world of contradictions, extreme selfishness, greed, deceit and double-speak. The moral corruption of our democratic process contributes substantially to a moral breakdown in all areas of society. Nigeria’s societal moral values, which govern the conduct of politics, business, and government, have often been corrupted. A society’s moral values define what people see as acceptable behaviour for themselves, what they believe behaviours they exhibit that others will approve of or not and what society collectively accepts or rejects as acceptable behaviour by individuals.
The various crises engulfing the contemporary Nigerian state manifest the breakdown of morality in almost all spheres of the country. The gruesome murder of 16 military personnel last Thursday while responding to a distress call during a communal crisis between the Okuoma and Okoloba communities in Delta State is a product of the failure of morals in the communities. The fact that youths who control both money and firepower in our communities no longer have respect for constituted authority and community elders indicates how low we have gone in morals. Our military, which we should revere for protecting us, has come under attack by the same people it is protecting. Daily, we are bombarded with stories of how our military personnel are dying at the hands of fellow Nigerians – bandits, terrorists, secessionists and now village vigilante groups. This is absurd and shows how low we have come as a society.
Chinua Achebe argued that a functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy, educated, participatory followership and an educated, morally grounded leadership. We do not have either morally grounded leadership or healthy, educated, participatory followership. It is little wonder our democracy has failed to rise in leaps and bounds. The importance of cultivating a solid moral foundation, both as individuals, politicians, and public officials and as a community, should be a priority programme. We must halt the drift, review our current modus operandi, look back into the pressures that have destroyed our public moral standards and values, and seek to rebuild our society based on meritocracy, fairness, and selflessness. We must focus on moral reinforcement rather than materialism.
The decline of moral values in our communities, particularly in politics and public life, should be a central concern. Politics does not rise or fall on the private righteousness of leaders. Leaders’ self-interest should always be tempered by moral conscience. We need to strengthen the guardrails of national morality such as the Judiciary, ICPC, EFCC and the Code of Conduct Bureau. We must effectively demand moral uprightness from public officials and celebrate those who uphold such high moral and ethical standards. We should have more role models of people with merit and resounding accomplishments.
We must bring back the mantra that morality and hard work are worthy virtues and celebrate successful Nigerians in sports, art, music, science and technology, academia, business and entrepreneurship, and public leaders who shine as beacons of hope for a better, morally stable, and scandal-free society, where men and women of goodwill and conscience will thrive for the benefit of humanity.