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Curses and magical beliefs are woven together in African politics. A study found out that virtually all African leaders come to power emboldened by beliefs in local magical spells. Francisco Macias Nguema, first president of Equatorial Guinea from the time of the country’s independence in 1968, till 1979 when he was overthrown, was a perfect fit of this. A strongman and one of the most brutal dictators in human history, Nguema reportedly killed between 20,000, to 80,000 out of the total Guinea population of about 200,000 to 300,000 people. This led to his country being nicknamed the Dachau of Africa. The Dachau Concentration Camp, built by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany in March, 1933, is located in the medieval town of Dachau in Bavaria, Southern Germany. It was where Hitler’s hounded political opponents were warehoused. Nguema was perceived, as Nigerians perceived General Sani Abacha during his reign, to be mentally unstable. Medical reports that backed this up emerged even from his early career. For instance, a report in 1968 by the French foreign intelligence service, SDECE, claimed that Ngueman suffered mental disorders and venereal diseases. Claims of this ruthless dictator’s mental situation were further compounded by his rumoured addiction to regular usage of drugs like cannabis. This, he was said to consume through its edible drink derivatives of bhang and iboga which have strong hallucinogenic effects.
More importantly, Nguema believed strongly in magic. While he was president in the 1970s, he openly advertised steep romance with sorcery. For him, voodoo was a vehicle of instilling fear in the people of Equatorial Guinea. He often dropped the narrative at public events that his occult powers were drawn from a collection of skulls he arrayed in the presidential palace. The belief that Nguema was as well a sorcerer permeated the nooks and crannies of Guinea. He also flaunted frequent conversations he claimed to have had with the dead, most especially with the same persons he had ordered their execution. To reinforce the narrative of his spiritual invincibility and supernatural reputation, Nguema arranged his own escape from sponsored assassins. Thus, in 1979, upon his ouster in the coup masterminded by his nephew, Teodoro Obiang Ngueman Mbasogo, Nguema was ordered to be executed by firing squad. However, it became a herculean task sourcing his executioners. No one dared volunteer to execute the old sorcerer. The belief which permeated the whole of the minds of citizens of Equatorial Guinea was that Nguema was a mythical shapeshifter. He had the powers to make a return journey from the land of the dead in the form of a tiger and thus seek vengeance from his executioners. It was so bad that the government of Mbasogo had to import Muslim executioners from Morocco who eventually carried out his death sentence. As the last breath escaped his nostrils, Nguema was rumoured to have cursed Morocco. In a country plagued by belief in sorcery, sympathetic magic and witches, Morocco’s crisis which came later were attributed to the tiger, Nguema, which laid curse on Morocco for lending Mbasogo the sharpshooters who brought his life to an end.
In the light of this, how powerful are curses, or how effective is their perception? In the killing of 17 soldiers of the Nigerian Army in the Okuama Community of Delta State on March 14, 2024, discourses on the curse of oil came to the front burner. Oil resource, generally held to be a blessing to nations, is in the same mould believed to be a curse to them. Nigeria and Venezuela took their rightful positions in that narrative. Were the soldiers martyred in Okuama part of the curse of oil on the Nigerian soil?
Discourses on the link between resources and curse gained currency in the early 1970s. The proposition put forward was that, countries that are richly endowed with natural wealth are most times plagued by violence, do not do well economically, politically, and socially when compared to poorly endowed countries. Two scholars, Paul Collier, a British development economist and Anke Hoeffler, German economist, political scientist, were known for their pioneering works on resource curse. They concluded that resources directly invite loot-seeking rebellion, as well as sociopolitical and institutional decay. Indra de Soysa, (2015) too, in “Oil and the ‘new wars’: Another look at the resource curse using alternative data”, Development Studies Research, 2:1, 64-76 argued that there were empirical evidence which supports the ‘resource curse’ argument in that oil abundance raises the probability of political violence.
This can only be the explanation of the gory scene in Okuoma community in oil-dominant area of the Niger Delta where seventeen soldiers which included a commanding officer, two majors, one captain and 12 soldiers were brutally murdered. The troops from the 181 Amphibious Battalion deployed in the Bomadi region were reportedly ambushed after they heeded calls to maintain peace between two communities who were locked in skirmishes over land. After their killing, the soldiers and officers were said to have been maniacally decapitated and butchered in the most horrendous manner. While some had their hearts ripped out of their chest cavities, others’ bodies were thrown into the river. Reports claimed that some of the recovered bodies had their stomachs ripped out. Incessant clashes over land, many a times deadly and requests for compensation for oil spills by energy companies in the Niger Delta are singsongs. None of these compares to the inhuman killing of these soldiers and officers which has raised critical questions in need of straight answers.
The question that agitates the minds of many compatriots is whether and how an innocent and dispassionate intervention to keep peace among two fighting communities could have earned the soldiers this level of beastly killing. While many have volunteered tongue-in-cheek analyses of the most logically coherent thing that could have led to the horrendous killing, perhaps the most profound of such was offered by former editor of The Guardian newspaper and Niger Delta leader of thought, Abraham Ogbodo. Ogbodo granted Arise TV interview last week. And he said: “It is not true that a misunderstanding between an Urhobo community and an Ijaw community could actually bring that level of crisis, that level of tragedy that we witnessed. It is not true. It’s not about communal crisis. What level of communal crisis? The combined population of those communities will be less than 2,000 human beings. Where will they get the capacity to wreak that level of havoc? To deliver that degree of tragedy, where will they have the capacity? It’s not possible. It’s like a crime taking place in all these drug enclaves in Latin America, and you will be looking for something else other than drugs. There is no crime that happens in Niger Delta that does not have crude oil and the arising benefits, and how those arising benefits can be allocated,” he said.
A very critical issue raised by Ogbodo was the nature of the military intervention. “What was actually compelling about a peace mission in that place that will require the strategic team going for a tactical mission? So, it shows that there are so many things underlying that we are not talking about. If it was actually for a peace mission, wouldn’t it have been for those community leaders to be summoned to the base in Bomadi for discussions to be held? This was not done – instead, the entire leadership of the battalion went to Bomadi and be so exposed, and if a mission like that was being carried by the strategic team, why was there not enough tactical cover that they were just gotten and taken out like that so cheaply? The Nigerian military! That is uncalled for. So, you will see that there are so many things that are wrong.”
Those rhetorical questions are key to resolving the fog that surrounds the killing of the soldiers and officers. To be sure, their loss has bored a huge crater on the heart of the country. From whatever prism one may look at it, Nigeria and, especially, their immediate families, may never recover from the losses. Apart from the huge investment Nigeria made into their trainings, many of their family members may never be the same again after the departure of these breadwinners of theirs. Having once suffered the death of a loved gallant soldier, it is easy for me to decouple the nature of the grief that envelopes the families of those slain military men. The goriness of their deaths makes the need to unravel the crime urgent. Doing so will also bring closure to agitations that lead to life-threatening incessant violence that happens in the crime scene, apologies to Ogbodo, that the whole Niger Delta region has become.
We have heard, since the agitations from the Ken Saro-Wiwas, of how resource-wealthy states like Nigeria are perennially enmeshed in provision of lower levels of public goods in terms of education, health and general wellbeing of the oil-producing communities. Researchers of resource curse have also found out that there is a general malaise among governments of resource-rich countries which reflects in their neglect of citizens and institutions of the oil-bearing communities. There is a growing intensity of social anger accruing from communities like Okuama against the operators of state. It is anger at how their nature-endowed resource has given access to easy money and unearned income by undeserving buccaneers in Nigeria. The truth is, if successive governments had prioritized the peace of oil-bearing communities and had taken a more than casual interest in it, the officers barbecued like chickens for a festival in Okuama may be alive today.
The truth is that, soldiers and policemen posted to oil-bearing communities are not innocent peace-keepers. They are grossly enmeshed in the crude craze that is the daily existential pursuit of Niger Delta communities. It is not news that soldiers deployed to oil-rich communities are alleged to be heavily enveloped in the oil-bunkering trade. Some of them even possess their own bunkering crew. This is a pestilence in the Niger Delta. Indeed, illicit trade in crude oil and violence are said to be the only thriving industry in Nigeria’s oil-producing communities. In the words of Ogbodo, “everything is subordinated to oil.” This is in agreement with scholarly arguments which say that resource wealth gives birth to weak institutions that are lax in maintenance of peace and security. Groups within the state then capitalize on this weakness to organize armed violence which they deploy to capture rents. The result is that a resource-dependent state like Nigeria is landlord to persistent violence in its oil-bearing communities. This is because institutions that are expected to bring peace and harmony like the army and police are either too weak to monopolize violence, cannot stop the oil resource itself from inviting looting or have become part and parcel of the problem. In the process, the financing of gory violence by individual state actors like the one in Okuama becomes a fait accompli.
There is also the resource jealousy and resource monopoly angle to the killing of the soldiers in Okuama. The resource-bearing communities see the rest of Nigeria as parasites reaping where they did not sow. On visits to Abuja, the communities see glittering streets paved by their oil money, compared to the despoliation of their lands and the crude-smeared waters they drink. They also know that fat leeches in power and their accomplices from other parts of Nigeria acquire toad-like stature from the wealth of their oil. Niger Deltans thus naturally develop a revenge complex against these Nigerian bugs. Take a look at the list of 17 soldiers killed in Okuama. You will discover that a particular section of the country takes a giant share of the fatalities. None of them is from the Niger Delta. This reflects how the Nigerian state sucks the nectar of Niger Delta while leaving its withered land to its fate.
The macabre manner in which those soldiers and men were murdered was not ordinary killing. It bears the traits of a revenge killing, or a Muti murder. A widespread killing tactic in South and Southern Africa, Muti is a form of human sacrifice. It is meant to achieve power, energy or good fortune and undertaken only after body parts have been precisely harvested while the victim is still alive. The aim is to allow the victim’s shrill cry go up to the sky, in the belief that it would summon deities. Only yesterday, a media report said the Defence Headquarters had confirmed recovering decomposing hearts of some of the soldier victims of the Okuama tragedy. Gouging out hearts, if not for ritual purposes, is a sadistic revenge method that is not undertaken by run-of-the-mill criminals. Could the murderers have been allies of the soldiers and thus saw them as betrayers?
It must be said that some other scholars have said that it is not wholly true that all oil-rich countries suffer the curse of chronic instability and violence. Nor that these countries’ resource opens up warfare in the oil-bearing communities. And that, like the rumoured curse placed by Nguema on Morocco, is a figment of imagination. This was the path trodden by Ross Michael (2012) in The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. While Venezuela, Angola and Nigeria affirm the greed thesis of oil resource, states and countries like Texas in America and Saudi Arabia show that the thesis may not be entirely true. These are countries not fraught with Nigeria and her allies’ oil curse manifestations.
The way out of the curse of oil is effective practice of federalism. States where oil resource is found should be allowed to administer it while they pay royalties to the federal government. If we do this, militancy and crises over land which necessitate soldiers being drafted to make peace would be a thing of the past.
Nigeria must unravel the killing of the officers and men of the Nigerian Army who met their untimely deaths in Okuama. Unraveling it will need openness and getting to the brass-tacks of the matter. It must be done by an independent entity, independent of the military. The military cannot be the accuser and judge in its own case. The first thing to examine is the claim of the peace mission that the felled soldiers were alleged to have come to Okuama for. There are claims that the Urhobo and Ijaw that make up the community were not at war with each other; at least not to the level that could warrant “a peace mission”. So if this is the case, why would a whole battalion invade a community that is not at war, with the most plum of its officers? Second, did the “peace-keeping force” fire first at the members of the community, as claimed by some of them? At what point were the officers and men ambushed? In answering these questions, we would be drilling into the base of the issue. It must be done for the sanity of the country.
Please ensure that your brain is in gear before activating your mouth. That is the honest advice I will freely give to all public officers today to save them from everlasting embarrassment guaranteed by the damning reality that the Internet never forgets. What you say today will easily be recalled at the click of a mouse 20 years from now to the embarrassment of your grandchildren.
Nigerians have been on social media overdrive in the last few weeks, bemoaning one gaffe after the other made by public officials who ought to know better. Compared to their crocodilian counterparts of the First Republic, some of these contemporary publicity grabbers are mere agama lizards. The rot didn’t start today. But I think that it is about time we tried to halt the trend.
Thankfully, the incumbent Minister of Information has, so far, shown that he understands what his job entails and is determined to do it without honing dissimulation to a fine art or amassing enemies for the government. Mohammed Idris has stayed on the message, demonstrating that his earlier vocational exertion as a newspaper publisher was time and money well spent.
Unlike Idris, however, some people in the public space have comported themselves in such a way as to set the social media on fire. And, since they move from gaffe to gaffe, from howler to howler, from boo-boo to boo-boo, they inspire a steady stream of lampooning diatribes and skits on social media.
Verbal Diarrhoea
Of all the afflictions with which the gods of Misspeak can bedevil a man, logorrhoea, or verbal diarrhoea, is the heavyweight champion. Since the beginning of time, wise men have made invocations to Providence to set a guard at the portals of their mouth lest they self-destruct by advertising their vacuity with that selfsame orifice in the lower part of their otherwise comely face.
Logorrhoea, is a communication disorder which manifests as a tendency to extreme loquacity and repetitiveness, which can cause incoherency. In a private citizen, it could be a source of entertainment, but in a public official, it is a danger signal that a square peg has squeezed itself into a round hole.
All religions warn man to beware what comes out of his mouth. They say it in different ways, but the message is unmistakable: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh! More people have been led to the gallows by the garbage that issued forth from their mouths than the lethal weapons of war dreaded by all and sundry.
Even if the various major religions didn’t say so, common sense ought to make us realise that the tongue is a double-edged sword. Elsewhere in the world, when you are appointed to public office, one of the first things you do is to engage a professional groomer or public relations expert who puts you through the mill, from personal projection to public perception. This is a professional sphere which our politicians ignore to their peril. It is therefore not surprising that whenever some of them open their mouths, a lot of garbage spews forth.
Emotional Intelligence
It is so unfortunate that the public space in Nigeria has become such an all comers affair that certified bags of gas are routinely recycled from one realm of governance to another in such a way that a former gubernatorial tornado is converted to a ministerial volcano while another ‘omniscient’ ex-governor is elevated beyond his level of emotional intelligence to turn every public speaking opportunity to an occasion of complete disconnectedness and exhibition of bad judgement.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. There are five key elements to this quality: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
You attend an important private event at which some government VIPs are among the guests and you are saddled with the burden of listening to a totally vacuous man who had left his mind behind at home or wherever else he had ventured from. Whether his speech is accommodated in the programme or not, he insists on hugging the microphone, and he does so until the audience is so offended that it is only good breeding that is stopping them from using the device as a battering rod to beat some sense into his head.
Instead of cursing the darkness, I am prepared to light a candle. And, as my humble contribution to national development, I am happy to share the following ‘Public Speaking 101’ lessons with our esteemed public officers.
One of the most common types of public speaking is informative speaking which is integrated into many different occupations. Before opening your mouth, please decide what the purpose of your speech is. If it is informative, then pack the necessary info in a logical and systematic format to enable the audience to follow step by step, but don’t jumble various goals together in a rambling staccato. The audience will quickly decode that you’re just another empty barrel of wind about to explode.
If your intention is to persuade, reassure or motivate others to change their beliefs, take an action, or reconsider a decision, then concentrate on doing that instead of trying to speak like an entertainer or making a political speech at a funeral thereby advertising your lack of good breeding.
As someone in the public eye, please note that no speech is insignificant. Just one ‘minor’ speech can end your political or professional career. Being able to think through problems and analyse the potential costs and benefits of solutions is an essential part of critical thinking and of public speaking aimed at persuading others.
Every government programme has a purpose. If you must weigh in at a public event, be sure of your facts and stay on the message. One of the areas in which our public officials have been found to be deficient is in messaging. When you tell them that correct messaging gets half of the job done, they think you’re trying to sell them an ‘otapiapia’. And God help you when you advise them to seek the help of a public relations professional— they think you’re trying to midwife a contract!
Thought Leader
The truth is that if you want people to follow you, you have to communicate effectively and clearly. Even if you are not yet in the official leadership position of your dreams, effective public speaking can help you become a “thought leader.”
In summary, you will do well to remember the following:
Don’t just ‘happen’ at an official occasion. Practice and prepare! Know your audience. Your speech is about them, not you. Arrange your material in the most effective manner to attain your purpose. Watch for feedback and adapt as you go along. Be yourself. Let your positive personality come through. Inject a funny anecdote in your presentation, if necessary. Don’t read unless you have to. But have a prepared outline. Body language carries most of the message. Good delivery does not call attention to itself, but instead conveys the speaker’s ideas clearly and without distraction. Grab attention at the beginning, and close with a dynamic end.
If you are not interested in grasping the rudiments of public speaking and adhering to its pillars, you have no business being in public office. It was for the benefit of people like you that Abraham Lincoln said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt”.
Gumi’s World
Has anyone been taking note of Sheik Gumi’s tacit support for some terror suspects as demonstrated in stories and video clips in circulation on social media? I am the first to admit that the man knows many things ordinary mortals like us don’t know — and the authorities seem circumspect in reining him in. Strange.
In the summer of 2020, I wrote an article titled, “Tony Elumelu: God’s Gift to Africa,” which was later published as a chapter in my book, ‘My Lockdown Diary: Reflections on Nigeria and Covid-19 Pandemic.’ At the time, the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) marked its 10th anniversary and admitted its 6th cohort in the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.
Elumelu is the Chairman of UBA, Africa’s global bank, and Chairman of Heirs Holdings, an African investment conglomerate with interests in financial services, healthcare, insurance, energy, hospitality, power, real estate, and technology.
Once you have a vision to do something, avoid distractions as much as possible and don’t allow anything to hold you back. Remember that there are always days of little beginnings. The holy book even admonishes us as follows: My people perish for lack of vision (Proverbs 29:18). This Bible verse is often explored at leadership development seminars. Without a long-term plan or goal (a vision), you cannot achieve anything in life.
The flip side of that coin is to acquire knowledge so that once you pick your spot, you can become an authority on the subject – your area of expertise. We must therefore constantly seek to expand the frontiers of knowledge and craft the desired vision to accelerate growth and development in any field.
This is what Elumelu has been doing: dreaming, crafting visions and acquiring knowledge. Ideas rule the world, and the TEF founder has been running with his ideas by investing in different sectors of the economy.
On top of that, he is Africa’s leading funder of young entrepreneurs.
When he moved into philanthropy, Elumelu, with the support of his wife, Awele, a medical doctor, launched the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2010. His primary objective was, and is, to create enduring prosperity and social wealth in Africa by empowering young men and women.
The TEF Entrepreneurship Programme began with the first cohort in 2015. I was one of the pioneer mentors.
By prioritising young entrepreneurs in Africa, the Tony Elumelu Foundation is investing in the future of the continent. These young business owners and employers have gone ahead to create over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs, grossing over $2.5 billion in revenue – a significant impact in a decade.
During that period, the Foundation trained over 1.5 million young Africans on the digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed over USD100 million in direct funding to 20,000 young men and women.
The initial goal was to empower 10,000 entrepreneurs in 10 years, but all that, as we can see, have changed with time.
TEF is funded by an annual grant from Heirs Holdings and supported by other companies in the group. In the first five years, TEF spent over N2 billion to achieve its objectives. Each Tony Elumelu entrepreneur is given a non-refundable seed capital of $5,000 to start their own business.
But the number of grantees grew gradually with support from partners such as Google, African Development Bank, EU, UNDP, etc. This is why Elumelu is calling for a global coalition to expand the reach and impact of the entrepreneurship programme, and unlock the huge economic potential of Africa.
“Instead of giving seed money to only 1,000 young entrepreneurs, I’m envisaging a time when we can fund 100,000 entrepreneurs,” Elumelu said on March 22 (his birthday) when the new beneficiaries – the 10th cohort of the 10-year-long TEF Entrepreneurship Programme – were unveiled at the UBA Amphitheatre in Lagos.
Elumelu says we should spread opportunities and democratise luck for our young ones. This is his passion, as he is on a mission to empower young Africans to become wealth creators. He is quick to remind anyone that luck, chance and mentorship helped him to get along on his journey to the top.
He is always excited when he listens to TEF impact stories across the continent. These captivating stories are the joys of entrepreneurship which Elumelu needs to fire on all cylinders as he embarks on another decade of transforming lives.
Indeed, most of the TEF entrepreneurs are doing well, while some are failing or have failed. That is to be expected in the topsy-turvy world of entrepreneurship. However, you only need to listen to their testimonials and see how philanthropy can be used to leverage influence and impact in the way TEF under Elumelu’s leadership has done it.
The icing on the cake is that after 10 years of impact in African philanthropy, the Harvard Business School has launched the Tony Elumelu Foundation as a case study. Harvard researchers intend to examine the role and impact of the Foundation and its unique approach to catalysing entrepreneurship in Africa.
Harvard Business School will also explore the economic philosophy known as Africapitalism created by Elumelu. Africapitalism is anchored on the strong argument that the private sector must play a pivotal role in Africa’s development, and that investment in strategic sectors must seek social and economic returns.
Other billionaires in Africa should emulate Elumelu by creating a legacy of impact in any area of human endeavour. Their interventions should aim at improving the lives of Africans by changing the existing narrative of poverty into prosperity. Humanity is a precious gift, and we have a duty to nurture and preserve it.
In 2024, over 150,000 entries were received from the 54 countries in Africa, according to Somachi Chris-Asoluka, CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, but only 1,104 made the cut through a rigorous selection process carried out by Ernst & Young (EY), with 65 percent male and 35 percent female distribution.
As you would expect, Nigerians dominated the final shortlist with 53 percent, Benin republic had 10 percent, while the rest of Africa was 37 percent.
The criteria used were: feasibility of each pitch, market opportunity, financial understanding, scalability, and leadership and entrepreneurial skills. The beneficiaries of the 10th cohort have already identified what they will spend their seed money on, but I was not surprised that a majority of them (381) want to invest in agriculture and create agribusiness.
It is the only way we can boost food security and eliminate hunger and package agricultural products for export. Nigeria can become the food basket of Africa in view of our vast arable land.
On the industry distribution listed presented by Ernst & Young, we also have information technology (133), beauty & fashion (118), manufacturing (80), education (64), professional services (63), green economy (57), medicine & healthcare (41), media & entertainment (34), logistics and transportation (30), energy and utilities (28), construction (25), tourism & hospitality (23), and FMCG (18).
There are a few categories not listed in this article but when added, would bring the total number of beneficiaries by industry distribution to 1,104. It is always a struggle to come up with the final shortlist because the pitch is highly competitive.
From the over 150,000 entries received, 69.8 percent came from West Africa, 0.5 percent from North Africa, 21.1 percent from East Africa, 4.5 percent from Central Africa and 4.1 percent from Southern Africa. But this is not a West African event, neither is language a barrier. We need more participation from the rest of Africa.
Research, advocacy, and training are strong pillars of the Foundation that was set up with the following objectives: supporting entrepreneurship, enhancing competitiveness, policy intervention and leadership development.
Elumelu is fond of telling his young entrepreneurs to “hang in there and be positive about your future.” He also says we must spread prosperity in Africa. “The easiest way to spread prosperity in Africa is to identify young entrepreneurs and support them to start their own business,” he told the audience at the unveiling of the 2024 beneficiaries last Friday.
“We are happy to see our young ones prospering, and we would like to partner with other global institutions for more impact,” the TEF founder continued.
“Today is a day of impact, gratitude and reflection. God has been kind to me and my family. It is not from the abundance of our wealth that we are funding young entrepreneurs, but it is from the realisation that the spread of poverty is a threat to everyone. We cannot live alone in prosperity.
“I’m indeed happy that in our lifetime, we are able to impact the next generation.” Let us continue to spread opportunities, democratise luck and improve lives.
Braimah is a global public relations consultant and marketing strategist. He is also the publisher/editor-in-chief of Naija Times (https://ntm.ng) and Lagos Post (https://lagospost.ng), and can be reached via hello@neomedia.com.ng.
Count it all joy, dear readers, if I am summoned by Nigerian legislators after the publication of this article, for it is most likely I will be invited only once, tongue-lashed, and asked to remove my shoes and frog-jump back to my house. For heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), they cannot be that lucky. They can be invited thrice a week — sometimes by the same committee — and subjected to intense embarrassment in front of cameras and not allowed to utter a word of explanation. Newspaper headlines the following day will be: ‘Lawmakers uncover N30bn fraud under Gorimapa’. Mr Gorimapa will spend the rest of his life trying to explain that the allegation is not true.
Welcome to the world of legislature in Nigeria, where blackmail, intimidation and extortion are common tools to acquire instant billions of naira. They are well disguised as statutory functions. If you talk too much, the lawmakers will wave the constitution in your face and tell you that they are only doing their job. Of course, the constitutional responsibilities of the legislature are: representation, legislation and oversight. They, on paper, represent the interests of their constituents who voted them into office. They ostensibly make laws for the country’s peace, order and governance. They, theoretically, oversight the executive arm for accountability and transparency.
If, in reality, they genuinely discharge these responsibilities with a sense of duty to God and country, Nigeria would be a far better place. Healthcare, education and critical infrastructure at national and subnational levels would be among the best the African continent has to offer. We would not be lamenting about public hospitals lacking basic equipment, drugs and personnel; public schools with empty libraries and laboratories; or public roads punctuated by potholes and craters. If the lawmakers sincerely perform their constitutional roles with an utmost sense of patriotism, I can confidently declare that the executive arm will not be getting away with murder all the time.
Before I proceed, I need to be clear that I am not saying the legislature is solely responsible for the sorry state of the nation. Definitely, there is enough blame to go round the executive, judiciary, media, civil society and the general populace. Nobody can claim innocence in the underdevelopment of Nigeria. This article only focuses on the role of the lawmakers, given current controversies in the polity. My intention is to look at the dubious quota the lawmakers are contributing to the state of the nation. They do not have the powers of the executive and the judiciary, but if they exercise the powers they have diligently and purposefully, they can enable and entrench good governance.
I am also not saying all lawmakers are bad. That would be unfair. There are many lawmakers out there putting in a decent shift in spite of the difficult and sleazy environment. Also, the lawmakers, especially at the national level, have commendably risen to the occasion on a number of times, providing important checks on the executive, stopping overbearing presidents from becoming democratic dictators, blocking the “Afrodemocracy” third term agenda, and exposing executive malfeasance. And can we ever forget the timely invocation of the “doctrine of necessity” to fill the power vacuum left behind by the terminal ailment of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2010?
Indeed, I rate the legislators highest on lawmaking — and I refer not just to the 469 members of the National Assembly but also the 993 lawmakers in the 36 states of the federation. Where they have often failed to deliver is in representation and oversight. You may be expecting me to talk about the budgeting, but that is part of lawmaking. They process the appropriation bill and turn it into law. In a way, I have covered that ground. But, in the real sense of it, they naturally discharge the two other functions of representation and oversight through the budgeting process — by purporting to factor in the interests of their constituents and oversighting the implementation by the executive arm.
But what do we see? “Representation” is usually about self rather than the constituent. Some lawmakers have come to think that paying medical bills and school fees is what representation means. But this is only a product of a system that has left the people behind, a system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and sustains itself through the entrenched beggarly culture. For instance, no UK constituent will send an SMS to the MP asking for money to pay school fees or hospital bills: the state provides free, quality education and health care to its citizens. In Nigeria, a lot of the funds end up in the pockets of the politicians, who then go on to play Father Christmas.
If the lawmakers truly represent their constituents, schools will not be teaching chemistry without chemicals, neither would hospitals be in want of paracetamol. They have the powers of budgeting and oversight. Some lawmakers think buying grinding machines for their constituents is the real meaning of representation. Yes, handouts are politically useful, but representation is more than giving out handouts. It is true that there is pressure from their constituents to buy wheelbarrows for “empowerment” and this is partly driving the extortion, but constituents can also see how their representatives have been transformed to billionaires overnight, so they want their own “share”.
Perhaps the most odious trait of Nigerian lawmakers is in the area of oversight, where the beast in them is often unleashed. President Bola Tinubu, while breaking the Ramadan fast on Wednesday with members of the House of Reps, specifically pleaded with the National Assembly to exercise restraint in the incessant invitation of agency heads. No week passes without the lawmakers summoning them and threatening to issue warrants of arrest against them if they fail to appear — all this in an unnecessary attempt to flaunt their constitutional powers. Ultimately, at least from what we hear all the time, this is not really about promoting accountability. Yes, you know what I mean.
I have spoken to many agency heads in recent times and many are worn out by the harassment from the legislators. The extortion is too much. The waste of time, money and energy is unsustainable. One agency head told me: “In a month, some MDAs receive between 15 and 20 invitations to public hearings and interactions from various committees. All letters clearly indicate that the heads of agencies must attend and no representation is allowed. They will ask you to submit information that has already been submitted either to them or to another committee. The sheer number of documents we have to send… if recycled, it will save millions of dollars in paper importation.
“These submissions, at times, date back to 15 years and yet they ask that they are submitted in a few days. These submissions are in hundreds and sometimes thousands of pages. And you are supposed to submit 30 to 50 copies each. The worst thing is that they hardly read them. They have so-called consultants who are engaged to look for lapses and problems, not solutions. Same consultants set up questions for the members of the committee to ask MDAs during the hearings. The aim is always to harass and embarrass us for other ulterior motives. They do this in conjunction with the press corps who are used to spread spurious allegations if you do not ‘co-operate’ with the legislators.”
Another agency head told me: “The worst part for me is that some of my colleagues will cancel appointments to fly to Abuja only to be told the hearing has been moved or cancelled. Matters that have been looked into and closed by the previous National Assembly will be resurrected. This is the most vicious and desperate National Assembly ever. The impunity is something else. They tell you to your face that they spent money on elections and tribunals and need to recoup. They are not even hiding it. They brazenly ask you to pad budgets and tell you not to worry about how they will get the money out. They tell you they have special project contractors or consultants who would handle it.”
I do not suggest, by any strand of imagination, that the executive arm is full of saints and lovers of Nigeria. I do not propose that the arm is the epitome of accountability. For all you care, intimidation, extortion and blackmail by legislators may be their own way of getting “a piece of the action” — but we know that even on that front, most are well taken care of, aside the fact that they also take good care of themselves. My biggest worry is no longer about the corruption, which is sickening enough, but the impunity. Our legislators at national and subnational levels — 1,462 of them — need to endear themselves to Nigeria by truly representing them and making them their utmost priority.
I know the drill: this article will be deliberately interpreted as an attempt to blackmail the legislators and stop them from doing their job. To the contrary, this is actually an appeal to them to do their job — and do it properly, in the interest of 200 million Nigerians. There is no way Nigeria can make progress if the legislature does not creditably perform its responsibilities of representation, lawmaking and oversight. In presidential democracy — as opposed to the parliamentary system — there is a reason the powers of the executive and legislature are separated. It is to avoid having an omnipotent president. It is for checks and balances. But in Nigeria, it is more about bank balances.
AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…
FALLEN SOLDIERS
The gruesome killing of 16 officers and men of the Nigerian army in Okuoma, Delta state, is so painful. Under no circumstance should people kill an agent of the state. It is a direct attack on the state. And this should never be justified or defended by sane people. I know some people are still in 2015/2023 elections mode and are spewing rubbish trying to justify the killings — but imagine that the soldiers had not exercised restrain and had opened fire on the attackers instead. We would be talking about Okuama massacre by now. Still, military response has to be mature to avoid a repeat of the disproportionate reactions to the previous incidents in Odi, Zaki Biam and Bama. Unfortunate.
UNKNOWN ARRESTERS
On March 15, 2024, Mr Segun Olatunji, editor of FirstNews, was reportedly taken away from his home by armed men. Although there are suspicions that it is one of the security agencies, perhaps the military, but there is yet no word on him. No agency has claimed responsibility. This makes it even scarier. Abduction of journalists was very common under military rule (naïve campaigners for a return of military rule may find that fact useful) but how can this still be happening in a democracy? On August 1, 2019, social media influencer, Abubakar Idriss, aka “Dadiyata”, was abducted by armed men at his house in Kaduna state. Till today, there is no word on his whereabouts. Disturbing.
VIRGIN ISLAND
Rev Fr Emmanuel Edeh, chancellor of the Madonna University, set social media on fire last week. At the university’s convocation, he declared: “It is only in this university that girls who have entered as virgins graduate as virgins. You can join our university as a virgin and graduate as a virgin. Tell me any other university in the whole world that can maintain this. That is why people from London, America, England, Germany, when you meet them, they will say Father, we want to marry a girl who is a virgin. And they don’t tend to get that until they come to Madonna University.” I am not interested in the big debate. I just want to know how the man of God knows they graduate as virgins. Intriguing.
CLARIFICATION CORNER
Last week, I commented on the case involving Senator Orji Uzor Kalu in which I said that the Court of Appeal blocked his retrial on technical grounds. That is not exactly the case. Kalu’s conviction in 2019 had been upturned by the Supreme Court on technical grounds — that the trial judge had been promoted before he delivered the judgement. The case that was thrown out weeks ago by the Court of Appeal was a civil one. The EFCC is trying to re-arraign Kalu but a high court blocked it. In its appeal, the EFCC did a shabby job in its filings and the Court of Appeal threw it out. The anti-graft agency is now expected to do things properly and proceed with the case. It is not over yet. Clarified.
The two striking, and commendable, developments for our consideration today are: (1) The Presidential Directive inflicting a temporary foreign travel ban on public officers, covering Ministers and heads of MDAs, and (2) The signing into law of a bill by the Abia state governor, Alex Otti, stripping all former governors and deputy governors of the state of pensions and other perks. The two interventions are significant policy investments in responsible management of public resources.
It is now left for the legislative arm of government, the biggest and probably the most shameless drainpipe of our democracy, to take notice and do and take similar measures – if it ever will. There are genuine concerns that the National Assembly is carrying on as if its profligacy is something to show off with.
The directive banning all public-funded foreign trips for Federal Government officials from April 1, 2024, is obviously intended to compel a conscious commitment to reducing the overall cost of public administration. More than that, it is designed to curb avoidable forex outflows. In addition, the overall effect will induce what can best be described as greater backward integration, if it is strictly monitored and well managed.
Many of our MDAs are ever so ready to prance off to foreign lands for training and capacity building programmes that are available here in Nigeria. Meanwhile, over 90% of the trainings that are choreographed outside the country are not only available locally, but are actually carried out by Nigerian consultants. So, there may be uproar, as the DTA and other perks go up in smoke for the next three months. There will be media drivel about why a blanket ban is wrong and how ministers must travel out to make things happen for us and for Nigeria. But no matter. This is a three-month suspension, after which I imagine there would be a review to determine the impact, gains and lessons learnt.
So, it is time for greater realism on the part of those who operate as public functionaries without paying attention to the economic realities around them! Since it is the president that must approve every outward movement of ministers and similar ranking public officers, the new development imposes on the presidency the task of being more careful in its assessment of the reasons behind every request for foreign trips. It is also expected that the new presidential directive will not affect critical trips, certified to be so, in the national interest.
Coming less than two months after the president cut back on his own local travel costs and that of government functionaries, this is both commendable and instructive. Commendable because it spread the notion that the presidency is sensitive to feedback from its operating environment. It is instructive because, coming after the public outrage that greeted the massive entourage to Lagos last December, it suggested a new resolve to better manage state protocol and security officials.
The January cutback on the presidential entourage for domestic and local trips, to no more than 25 persons for foreign trips and no more than 20 persons for local trips made a lot of sense. And then this clincher: Presidential local security is to be managed by agents at his destination, instead of him ferrying people from Abuja for capacities that exist everywhere all the time. Now, to Otti’s wise move.
Otti’s Intelligent Totality
The Abia State House of Assembly passed into law a Bill for a ‘Law to Repeal the Abia State Governors & Deputy Governors Pensions Law No 4 of 2001 and for other Matters Connected Therewith.‘ The state governor, Alex Otti, signed the “Abia State Governors and Deputy Governors Pensions (Repeal) Law, 2024” into law 48 hours later. With his signature on the document, the payment of pensions to former Governors and their Deputies in Abia State was scrapped for good.
Hear Alex Otti on the matter: “Even before this new law came into place, a lot of people who have followed our views in national discourse understand that we were not going to continue the practice of paying pensions and allowances to this set of former government officials. So, it’s all about governance, it’s all about stewardship of our people and I believe that a leader who believes that leadership is business has lost his way. If you want to take up all the resources that belong to the people you are leading, I am not sure that is morally correct. We all know that it is not the best for the country, for this state and for workers who are hitherto owed for months; for pensioners who are still struggling to defray several months and years of arrears from 2014”.
In reaction, former governors of the state, including Orji Uzor Kalu, Theodore Orji and Okezie Ikpeazu, have since announced that they had so far not benefitted from the law. Some of them have even described the new law repealing the pension provisions as unnecessary, since the law itself was not being implemented.
But here they err. Otti did the right thing in repealing a law anyone can easily invoke in future to declare that he is being owed a backlog of arrears as a former governor, or former deputy governor. A naghi ama ama!
In this connection, let us consider the case of Yari a former governor of Zamfaara State Government. On October 17, 2019 he wrote his successor on: “Grant of Pension and Other Allowances for Former Governor, Former Deputy Governor, Former Speaker and Former Deputy Speaker of Zamfara”. The letter said: “I wish to humbly draw your attention to the provision of the law on the above subject matter, which was amended and assented to on the 23rd of March 2019. Yari’s complaint was that he was paid the monthly upkeep allowance of N10 million and a pension, equivalent to the salary he was receiving while in office, for only two months.
He wanted his arrears; and went out of his way to educate his successor; that the law (which he, the former governor, hurriedly made before leaving office) did not see the pension and upkeep allowances as privileges that could not be paid, hence, the need to request him to kindly direct the settlement of the total backlog of the pension and upkeep as provided by the law.”
Abdul’aziz Yari Abubakar wrote his successor, Bello Matawalle, because of the law and also because he believed that he was within his rights. The entitlements were his priority, warranting an angry letter, in a state where he left no commendable legacies and where he did not perform any miracles in the payment of the paltry entitlements of pensioners while he was governor. So, Alex Otti’s law has vitiated the possibility of any former governor, or deputy governor, from Abia state trying to do an Abubakar Yari on the state in future.
Just so that we see the extent of the folly that now passes for sanity in elite political circles, the letter from Yari came from the “Office of the Former Governor.” Is there such an “office”, recognized by law? Is this office, if it exists, a creation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Is the office of the former governor an elective, appointive, or presumptive one? What are the duties of a fomer governor, since he has a letterheaded paper to that effect. Is the action of the former governor, of a private citizen putting the national Coat of Arms on his private stationery, and using same as the crest for his private correspondence, not a criminal act?
It is easy for us to see Yari’s letter as an attempt by a private citizen to secure personal advantages for himself under false pretenses. But it is not easy to know what was on the man’s mind as he signed his letter in the red ink colour of officialdom. This singular fact is a more serious matter than what the former governor said in his letter to the state government, demanding his presumed entitlements.
Beyond Zamfara state, several other state governments have similar post-service legislation for governors and their deputies. Jigawa lawmakers said that the huge severance packages provided for their former office holders was a way of discouraging them from corrupt self-enrichment while in office.
Akwa Ibom State, under governor Godswill Akpabio, provided N200 million annual pay for ex-governors. This was in addition to life pension, a new official car and utility-vehicle every four years, one personal aide, adequate security, a cook, chauffeurs and security guards at a sum not exceeding N5m per month. The governor and spouse are also entitled to free medical services for a sum totaling N100m per annum, as well as a five-bedroom mansion in Abuja and Akwa Ibom.
Gombe State offered a N300 million executive pension benefits to its ex-governors. Kwara State included 300% of salary as furniture allowance, as well as two cars and a security car replaceable every three years. That is in addition to a well-furnished five-bedroom duplex, five personal staff, three State Security Services personnel, free medical care and much more.
For Edo state, the “Pension Rights of the Governor and Deputy Governor Law of 2007”, gave a former governor a 200-million-naira house, plus 100% of the salary of the incumbent governor for life. This is in addition to an officer not above Salary grade level 12 as Special Assistant, a personal secretary not below grade level 10 who shall be selected by the former governor from the public service of the State.
Former governors and former deputy governors of Osun State have their pension at the rate equivalent to the earning of the respective incumbent office holders. Lagos State, under its Lagos Pension Law, gives a former governor two houses (one in Lagos and another in Abuja), estimated to cost between N500m and N700m, respectively. It also gives him six brand new cars every three years, furniture allowance of 300% of annual salary every two years, among other frills.
While Rivers offers 100% percent of annual basic salaries for ex-governors, one house anywhere of his choice in Nigeria, three cars every four years, 300 per cent of annual basic salary every four years for furniture and 10 percent of annual basic salary for house maintenance, among other frills. Kano State provides 100% of annual basic salaries for a former governor, a furnished and equipped office, a 6-bedroom residential house, free medical treatment within and outside Nigeria where necessary, two drivers and a provision for a 30- day vacation within and outside Nigeria. We say nothing about other states. We also say nothing about the entitlements of deputy governors and principal officers of the state houses of assembly.
Alex Otti’s move is a wise preemptive strike at the lovers of plunder. Why would he not get rid of a law offering perks to people for whom the revenue mobilization and fiscal allocations commission already made adequate provisions?
Let the other tiers of government follow the president’s example on travel costs, even as we look forward to a further downward review of the current national budget. Let other states of the federation follow Otti’s example of weeding out looting opportunities – for a better Nigeria.
Marriage is becoming a risky business by the hour. Instead of enlarging the family, it is reducing it. When your son or daughter marries, you expect grandchildren as dividends. Now, your initial investment gets liquidated in a pool of blood, without recourse to you. One infuriated sick and weak girl just grabs a kitchen knife and carves up your son in a flash, ripping out your heart and dreams of being surrounded by happiness in your old age. One silly boy in a moment of uncontrollable blinding fury stabs your daughter in the throat, leaving you reeling in that kind of pain no parent can recover from. Wives killing their husbands. Husbands killing their wives. How did our innocent babies become murderers? How did we miss it? What did we do wrong, or failed to do that is filling our doorsteps with shoes of mourners and our once happy homes with wailings and gnashing of teeth? Did the Bible not promise that our children will surround our tables and that we will not cast our young? So, what is going on? It is bad enough that more and more young marriages are failing. It is already a sad testimony that more women are becoming breadwinners and telling our sons when to snore in their own beds. But this added blood and gore and loss and unending pain… Or are you not worried?
Sure, the latest tragedies happened far from you but they are really closer than you think. If you still think these recent spousal murders do not really concern you, take a look at your daughter, your son and tell yourself you can vouch for the spouses they will end up with. And if your children are already in their 20s and of marriage age, swear you are not a teensy bit concerned about the suitors milling around them. That fine-boy-no-pimples full of smiles and politeness, does he have anger issues? Is he a keeper, a reaper or a taker? That babe who is already calling your son ‘Ayo mi’ (my joy) or ‘honey’, can you trust her with your greatest treasure, your brilliant caring son?
There is no retirement age for parents. We are parents for life. Our job is cut out for us and we must do it with all our heart and might. There is really no short cut. This is our calling until we are called home by He who chose us for this assignment as daddies and mummies. Of course, the temptation to hand over our daughters and our parenting jobs over to our in-laws the day we give them out in marriage will always be there. But it is a temptation we must resist as soon as the effects of red wine and champagne wear off. Yeah. Wine-carrying, celebrated destination wedding ceremonies with the captains of industry and 10 governors in attendance is what it is, just another party. The marriage itself begins the following day. And let’s not forget that the young bride and groom had lived a protected life up until their wedding day. They were chauffeured to primary and secondary schools, assisted in picking their universities. Their NYSC postings were arranged by daddy. Their first jobs too via daddy’s connections. This is the first time they would be taking huge steps on their own. They probably will still be using daddy’s mechanic and mummy’s travel agent and caterer. Don’t bother denying it. We are all guilty of over-parenting. We all look forward so much to the days our children will get married that we forget there are things we must do, that is, beyond the small chops and assorted meals from here to China.
Raise your hand if you did a proper background check on your son’s wife before the wedding. Seriously? Yeah.
Let me stress this point then. You must investigate your daughter’s suitor, your son’s intended. Don’t be overly excited by the diamond ring he gave her or the rich family she comes from. You must do your research. You must ensure you are not handing over your treasure to a pig who’ll go play in the mud with it. Most parents hardly ever do that background check before calling the wedding planner. Is he abusive? Does she throw flower vases at television sets? Does his father beat his mother? Is her mother cantankerous? Before you fix the wedding date, make sure you are not funding a ceremony that will put your child in an early grave. That is the pre-wedding warning.
However, marriage is the critical point. While I think it is a sin to meddle in your children’s marriage, I also think it is a crime to push our children into the deep end of the pool without providing life jackets. Parents should let new couples totter, falter, fall even but be there to help them back on their feet. Watch from a distance but watch you must, keenly, discreetly, wisely. The fear of failure and what the society would say make a lot of new couples die in silence. Without being intrusive, nudge your daughter or daughter-in-law to speak freely. Call her to accompany you to a party you don’t want to attend alone. Start a topic that will help her open up. It could be a new television series, a movie with a relationship or marriage theme. And being a busy politician or high flying executive is not an excuse. I open such topics with my girls while they are helping me pick an evening dress, do my make-up or while we are watching a movie that I had picked for that purpose. I have also had such intimate talks with my son as he drove us to church.
Fathers, let your son-in-law accompany you to events, golf course, church, mosque. What’s wrong with an occasional barber-date together? Get your grooming Saturday in sync. It helps you see through what they may be trying to hide without asking probing questions. You have gained an extra child and that should be an advantage.
Stop by unannounced occasionally too and make such visits brief, very brief. Take along gifts. Those unannounced visits help you to catch them without rehearsed speeches. Hug the wife, she will wince or grunt if she has been kicked or punched. Does she have puffy eyes, discoloured cheeks or walking with a limp? If every time you go there, there is always a story why a piece of furniture is broken or cracked, one of them may be violent, hurling coffee mugs at the television or kicking flower vases.
And if you discover that one of them is abusive, don’t expect them to sort it out on their own or with their pastor. An abusive wife or husband is a sick person. He needs help. She needs to see the appropriate doctor. It is an emergency! If the abusive partner refuses to get help, retrieve the one that belongs to you to safety. My mother used to counsel that a safe small corner on earth is better than a big space in the grave. You cannot fold your arms and hope she will stop slapping your son while she graduates to stabbing him. If he has pushed her down the staircase once and you leave her there, who will you blame when your church elders arrive with sober faces to break the news of your daughter?
Of course I know my pastor, and many other pastors reading this, will object to my ‘retrieve-your-child’ solution but I prefer my pastor chides me to him telling me ‘it is well’ later. God forbid. If a sick spouse gets help, the marriage can get back on track and everybody gets a chance to live happily ever after. And read the Bible too.
These are critical times. Do what you need to do. Do not allow another woman’s sick and weak child remove your front teeth.
First published seven years ago.
THE United Kingdom, UK, has become the chief mourner, wailing over the presidential election in Russia which gave President Vladimir Putin a new term.
For a country at war and under all sorts of sanctions, it might have been expected that the Russian election would be postponed indefinitely. But it not only held, there was also a reported voter turn-out of 74.22 per cent.
The British media reported that: “Reuters journalists saw an increase in the flow of voters, especially younger people, at noon at polling stations in Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, with queues of several hundred people and even thousands.”
My family has tried but it's not enough — Michael, who lost eye and leg in industrial accident
There are also some facts about the election which have not been disputed. There were over 94,000 polling stations which opened daily for 12 hours from 8 a.m. Russians in 144 countries abroad, including the UK, cast their votes in 295 polling stations. Voters also voted on online. Given the country’s size, the world-wide election, and the fact that Russia is at war, only eight electoral incidents were recorded where there were attempts to set polling station buildings on fire.
Internet service providers in Russia reported that there were over 90,000 Denial-of-Service, DdoS, cyber-attacks from Ukraine and North America targeting the Central Election Commission, State Services portal and other government websites.
Additionally, Ukraine tried to sabotage the election by repeatedly shelling Russian regions and oil refineries during the three-day election. Also, thousands of anti-Putin demonstrators protested at polling stations inside Russia and abroad over the February 16, 2024 death of jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.
In the final outcome of the election, Putin defeated the presidential candidates of the New People Party, Vladislav Davankov; the Liberal-Democrat Party of Russia, Leonid Slutsky; and the Communist Party’s Nikolai Kharitonov.
The UK could not condemn Putin for having a fifth term probably because like Russia, its Prime Minister has no term limit. A British Prime Minister like Sir Robert Walpole spent 20 years, 314 days in office, while William Pit the Younger, spent 18 years, 305 days in office.
I do not subscribe to a president spending more than two terms in office, but it is not in our place to dictate term limits for countries.
Expectedly, the Russian election was condemned by many Western countries. Studying their statements, one got the impression that some might have been drafted before the election was held.
Perhaps the most strident was that by the UK, issued by Foreign Secretary, David Cameron. Without providing any evidence, it claimed that there was “suppression of opposition voices during the Russian election”. Expectedly, it was unhappy that elections also took place in some of the breakaway regions of Ukraine.
Although the turnout was far higher than the 66.7 per cent in the 2020 United States presidential election and, the 67.3 per cent in its 2019 general elections, the UK claimed that: “These Russian elections starkly underline the depth of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war. ” It added that: “Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy.” Really, the turnout does not mean anything?
The UK, from its colonial history, assumes that democracy is what it thinks, and any election it does not like, is not democratic. So it supported the ‘democracy’ of Apartheid South Africa, and declared that those like Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo and Walter Sisulu who rejected the Apartheid system, were “terrorists”.
But it is not only external elections it rejects, the British establishment also condemns elections won by those considered to be anti-establishment. For instance, there was a by-election on February 29, 2024 into the Rochdale Constituency in the UK Parliament. This followed the death of Labour MP Sir Tony Lloyd. The established parties were in for a rude shock as George Gallaway, the outsider from the Workers Party of Britain, caused a Tsunami. He won 40 per cent of votes, overturning a 9,668 Labour votes at the 2019 general election.
Gallaway won12,335 of the votes, David Tully of the Independent came a distant second with 6,638 votes, Paul Ellison of the Conservative Party was third with 3,731 votes, Labour’s Azhar Ali was fourth with 2,402 votes and Iain Donaldson of the Liberal Democrats came fifth with 2,164 votes. All hell seemed to have broken loose, especially when Galloway is not only pro-people but also campaigned openly for a stop to the on-going Israeli genocide in the Palestine.
A shocked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a hasty press conference outside No 10 Downing Street where he said Gallaway’s victory was “beyond alarming” . He wondered how British voters could have voted overwhelmingly for a candidate who “dismisses the horror of what happened on October 7”, when he said Hamas murdered 1,200 people in Israel.
Tory Minister, Greg Hands said of Gallaway’s re-election as an MP: “I think it’s not a good day for the country, it’s not a good day for anybody. I’ve been an MP now for 19 years and I’ve seen George Galloway now represent three different constituencies. Each time he’s let down those constituents and not been re-elected.” He vowed to put Gallaway at arms length in parliament because “somebody who has an extremist view of the world is not somebody that I engage with”.
But Gallaway after being sworn-in said he had not come to parliament to make friends: “I’ve always loved the building – the people in it not quite so much.”
On Prime Minister Sunak’s attack on him for winning the election, Gallaway said: “I despise the Prime Minister. And guess what? Millions and millions and millions of people in this country despise the Prime Minister. I do not respect the Prime Minister at all.”
Although Western countries have lined up to condemn the Russian election, they are generally silent on the refusal of Ukraine’s Voldymyr Zelensky to conduct election which fell due this March. He said the martial law which he had declared, precluded election from being held. So, he is likely to stay in power without election for as long as he wants, or until he is thrown out.
Putin in defending Russian democracy said: “The whole world is laughing at what is happening (in the United States). This is just a disaster, not a democracy”. Apparently, in reference to the four criminal cases against Republican candidate Donald Trump, Putin added: “…Is it democratic to use administrative resources to attack one of the candidates for the Presidency of the United States, using the judiciary among other things?”
On the Russian election, the UK is like a person insisting that his neighbour is sick, and since the latter insists he is healthy, decides to take medicines on his neigbour’s behalf.
[OPINION] A Culpable National Assembly, A Failing Nigerian State and A Democracy in Crisis: Whither Nigeria? - Usman Bugaje
Admin
Being a Text of a Press Conference
Held on Thursday March 21, 2024
At NUJ Press Center kaduna
“When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime. You are being ruled by criminals”. -Edward Snowden
Gentlemen of the Press,
The recent events in the National Assembly – the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi, his resignation from the Northern Senators Forum, and the removal of Senator Kawu Sumaila from the PRO position – expose a troubling trend. These developments raise serious concerns about a culpable National Assembly and a failing Nigerian state, leaving many to wonder: Whither Nigeria?
These events unfold against the backdrop of a Nigerian state that has demonstrably failed to fulfil its constitutional mandate. The constitution, to which both the executive and legislative arms have sworn to uphold, guarantees the security and welfare of Nigerian citizens. This failure is compounded by attempts to stifle public debate. The recent silencing of senators through microphone control exposes a leadership seemingly complicit in the very issues it should be addressing, such as the alleged budget padding, a blatant act of legislative looting.
Meanwhile, the real victims of this charade of democracy are the ordinary Nigerians; Impoverished and marginalized, they are daily struggling to survive with no hope on the horizon. The Arewa Movement for Good Governance (AM2G) feels compelled to address this existential crisis facing the nation. We urge Nigerians to raise their voices and demand accountability from their leaders.
You may recall that, at the presentation of the 2024 budget, it was alleged that the actual budget box was empty; the National assembly has not come clean on this allegation, beyond verbal dismissal of the allegation, which is to be expected. There were also allegations that members were given a certain amount in dollars to take their eyes off the budget and simply approve it, again corrupting the budget process. Yet again there was an allegation that the N160m USVs was part of the bribery for the members of the NASS to rubber stamp the budget. Perhaps most disturbing was the celebratory song sung by legislators, with the chorus "on your mandate we stand." This display of misplaced solidarity with the executive branch, which is unwarranted and unprecedented, raises questions about the legislature's commitment to its role of holding the executive accountable. This capitulation, as it were, and the absence of a rigorous debate on the principles of the budget, a well-known parliamentary practice where the objectives, structure and the pegging of the crude price benchmark are discussed, have given away the National Assembly as a willing accomplice in the massive looting of the public treasury that has today become the budget process. That between the passing of the budget and the signing of the budget it was hardly a day, shows a great haste; quite intriguing.
Admittedly, this looting has been on for some time now, some would say from the fourth assembly inaugurated in 1999; the amounts then was in hundreds of millions. Over the quarter century this looting has grown geometrically into billions and with this assembly trillions. Now we should understand why this country has refused to grow and developed; now we can see why we spent billions of dollars in electricity without a substantial increase in megawatts of electricity and the culprits are going scot free; now we can see why our economy has been shrinking and ending up in shambles; now we can see why our youth cannot find jobs; now we can see why our country is on this dangerous trajectory, heading for the rocks; now we can see why this country under this rogue politics has no future at all. Now we should see where exactly the problem is and now we should see why we can’t keep quite. Now some specific issues:
- Suspension of Senator Ningi – this appears to be a panic measure that violates the principles or representation in a democracy. It is clearly an evasive move to distract attention from the issues raised. It is also unfair for an issue of this magnitude to be swept under the carpet without a thorough investigation to prove beyond doubts to the Nigerian public, who ostensibly elected these Senators to represent them, that the Senators are not culpable. From the video clips shown by the media covering the NASS, we found it intriguing that after the suspension and as Senator Ningi was walking out of the chamber with the heap of evidence in his hands, no senator appeared to show any compunction. This suggests a conspiracy of silence in the supposedly hallowed chamber, or is it a chamber of shame. It apparently did not occur to the Senate that they were judges in their cause or worse still, they were the prosecutors and the jury at the same time. We are forced to ask the question, Distinguished Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, what is distinguishing in this behavior? Where is your conscience? What do you want us to think of you?
- Padding of 2024 budget – today there are mountains of evidence that massive, some would say outrageous, padding has taken place in the 2024 budget. Even as, Senator Ningi was not allowed to present his evidence, as he was shouted down and his mic was being switched of now and then, in what little he was able to expose, there were enough malfeasance and fleecing to be worried about. We may argue on the figures but Bugetit, an expert institution on budget has confirm a lot of Ningi’s allegations. It has confirmed the hiking of budget of the MDAs by N1.27T, it has confirmed that while the budget submitted was for about N25T, the budget that went out for signing was over N28T. The devil is in the details. Many of the figures in the budget were opaque and this opacity would appear to be deliberate to hide the fleecing that is buried in the budget. The senate was clearly hiding something and that is exactly the point at issue. These are public resources and the public must know what happens to their resources. Can the senate come clean by opening up and subjecting the budget to a thorough investigation? Isn’t transparency and accountability a key feature of democratic culture and processes? Don’t they have a moral and constitutional responsibility to submit themselves to public scrutiny?
- Constituency Project – this has been a thorny issue between the executive and the legislature. It needed not to be so but for our ‘cash and carry’ politics. The well know practice which defines the fourth republic is for legislators to be contractors of their constituency projects. The allocation of these projects appeared to be shrouded in secrecy as even the senators themselves are kept in the dark about what their colleagues are getting. It is also clear that that allocation was selfish, arbitrary, and unscientific, and all these in the 21st The Senate President was alleged to have amassed a humongous amount distributed across several budget lines, while some ranking senators claimed that that they got nothing. Some who appeared on television evaded direct questions as what was allocated to them. If such secrecy and inequity is practiced at the highest level of our legislature what do we expect to be the quality of our laws? If these same people are supposed to run oversight on our executive arm what do expect to happen? Can we in good conscience trust these people?
- Budget process – the whole budget process appear to be messy. There are key steps in any budget process and those that have been practiced in the NASS budget process that have been abandoned this time. Budgets must start with revenue because it is allocation of resources for development, you need to be certain about what is available to be spent. Some of the revenue sources in this budget are the sale of government assets without details, making the revenue sources suspicious and unreliable. There are other key steps like consultation with key government revenue and planning institutions which have not been adhered to. The budget office and the public procurement office are also supposed to bet the costs and this could not have been done; for, in this budget a single borehole costing a ridiculous sum of N193m or a single street light costing an insane sum of N184m, making the whole budget laughable. Seun Onigbinde of Bugetit has revealed even more baffling atrocities when he showed how many projects were allocated to MDAs that have no capacity for execution or even relationship with the projects. This is overwhelmingly exhibited in the ministry of Agriculture, which has been allocated about 600B for projects that have nothing to do with Agriculture. He explained that one school notorious for this is the Federal Cooperative College, Orji River, building town halls hundreds of kilometers away from the school. One is forced to ask what kind of people do we have in the executive and legislative arms of government? Is this stupidity or criminality or both? Doesn’t this explain why so much money is spent every year and so little is seen on the ground? How can this insane and laughable budget address the developmental challenges that budgets are meant to address? How can the power of the purse given to the legislature by the constitution be a license for such irresponsibility? For how long can this country bear this affront? Where are the young people whose future is being destroyed by this class of politicians?
- The Northern Senators Forum – we are waiting to hear the explanation for the intriguing deafening silence of the Northern Senators Forum. We thought Senator Ningi, their chair and Senator Kawu Sumaila their PRO were representing them when they stood up to these alleged atrocities in the Senate. Their silence as a body appears to suggest that they have no courage to show up for the fight against the alleged inequity and transgressions. We thought the issues raised by Senator Ningi are issues which affect their constituencies, the people who ostensibly sent them there to represent and protect their interest. Are they betraying the trust of their constituencies? Are they suggesting that they are an accomplice in the alleged crime that is unfolding in the senate? Are they willing tools of the Senate President or his boss the President in the alleged subversion of the interest of their constituencies? How did they come about their new leadership? Could the suspicion that they were appointed by the executive be true? Will they have the courage to come clean on these and several other roles they seem to be playing?
Distinguished members of the press, it is very evident that our democracy is in crisis. Our democracy is not delivering development and with the kind of National Assembly that we have today, and we can see why. Our democracy is impoverishing the citizens, more citizens are daily falling below the poverty line and many are trapped into multi-dimensional poverty. Our democracy is not creating hope on the horizon for the teaming youth who cannot even go to school and those that managed to go through school cannot find jobs. Our democracy is losing its meaning, losing its value and losing its luster. Our democracy is stripping us of our dignity, of our honor and of our humanity. There is urgent need to restore our confidence in democracy before we lose our senses. Once we get to the point where we lose our senses that will be the end of anything sensible.
What to do?
- Halting and freezing all funds that are suspect until a thorough investigation is done.
- Instituting independent investigation including civil society like CISLAC and BUDGETit.
- The young people should endeavor to engage these political institutions and defend their future which is being destroyed by a rouge democratic culture.
- Leaders of civil society, especially those who were in the trenches in the late 90’s, fighting to restore democracy, must come forward to give a policy direction and build an elite consensus on the future of this great country.
- We must all focus on the leadership recruitment process, we must develop criteria for suitability of political offices. To be sure, the criteria in the constitution is only a criteria for eligibility. We must not confuse eligibility with suitability. Character, competence and courage of conviction must be part of these criteria.
I thank you and God bless.
Usman Bugaje, Convener, Arewa Movement for Good Governance AM2G.
A few days ago, during the 25th anniversary of Madonna University, Fr. Edeh made remarks about virginity in the school. Whenever virginity is mentioned, it immediately brings to mind the gender disparities in our society and the historical exploitation of women. Why is it that virginity is always associated with women in our customs? There is no equivalent term for a virgin man. This aside, the reference to virginity by Fr. Edeh has sparked widespread discussion. What is it about sex and related topics that incite such heated debates? Why should we be concerned if students who entered Madonna as virgins graduate as virgins?
I have previously stated that sex and its associates rank high in the hierarchy of desires. Once basic needs like food and shelter are met, man spares time and money in pursuit of sexual pleasure. This is a societal problem, affecting both humans and animals. Have you ever seen lions fight to the death over territory? It's not the territory itself that intrigues the lion, but the prospect of having exclusive access to females.
Modern civilization has exacerbated this problem by irresponsibly stimulating the sexual impulse, leading to increasingly immoral behavior. Our fathers would have pretended not to hear what Fr. Edeh said. Not any more! Many individuals now see no issue with using their bodies to earn money, and there are few moral restraints on desire. While our ancestors downplayed this issue, the current generation has magnified it through various forms of stimulation, advertising, emphasis, and display, promoting the dangerous notion that inhibition is harmful, whereas restraint – the control of impulses – is a hallmark of decency.
In the past, many of our mothers married as virgins. Today, however, youths driven by hormones may question why they should restrain their sexual desires. Instead of valuing purity, they boast about their sexual conquests and shamefully talk about “ body count.” Numerous terms have been coined to describe various forms of sexual deviance.
Fr. Edeh, perhaps owing to his age and vocation as a Catholic priest, belongs to an older school of thought. He understands that unchecked youth, devoid of customs, morals, or laws, may ruin their lives before realizing that sex, if not restrained, can lead to chaos for both individuals and society. I understand that in his schools, students have limited freedom to leave campus, reducing opportunities for sexual escapades. Is it right? This is a subject for another day. With the confidence of someone who has exercised restraint, he made his statement. However, given current societal trends, what he seeks to prevent may still occur in his school without his awareness.
Nevertheless, considering the nature of his school and the constraints in place, Fr. Edeh is justified in making his statement. It's akin to discussing the Catholic Church, which provides numerous avenues for spiritual growth. Despite this, many fail to take advantage of these opportunities. In the end, should the blame fall on the Church or the faithful?
I stand with Fr. Edeh and find it troubling that many are attempting to discredit his statement. To illustrate the prevailing mindset, Bidemi Edwards came forward to admit that she did not graduate as a virgin, implying that even the most devout societies have their deviants.
Verificationist among us are currently working on Fr. Edeh’s statement.
It is not a surprise that President Bola Tinubu has ordered investigations into last week’s slayings of 17 army officers and soldiers in Delta State. It was the most gruesome attacks on the Nigerian military in recent times, and as the commander-in-chief said, ‘’it was an attack on our country’’. I should, however, remind the President that there are many unfinished investigations into previous disasters in the country. In fact, the word ‘’investigation’’ has become the most frequently used expression in Nigeria’s official lexicon. Whenever there’s a crisis in the land – and there have been many of them - there’s a 100 percent chance that the government will promptly promise ‘’urgent investigations to get to the root of the problem’’, but the outcomes of those inquiries are hardly ever known. It would appear that a promise of investigation has become an escape route for public officials buffeted from every angle by all sorts of problems.
I join others in condemning the murders of 17 army officers and soldiers in Okuama village, Bomadi LGA of Delta State. The investigators have their jobs cut out for them. What was the mission of the army in the area and who gave the order for the mission? We have been told that the soldiers were in the community for ‘peace mission’ over land matters in a small community of not more than 2,000 people. Is it customary for a military operation led by a lieutenant colonel and a major to be involved in land disagreements? I should also invite the investigators to take note of the fact that Okuama might not be the only community in the Niger Delta where soldiers regularly visit. The region itself is not a stranger to this sort of thing. Remember Odi in 2001?
While we are still investigating Okuama, I recall that in May 2013, over 10 officials of DSS and 55 police officers were slaughtered by a militia group known as ‘Ombatse’ in Nassarawa State. Reports said that the security officers were lured into an ambush, disposed of their weapons, brutally murdered and burnt by the cult group. Frank Mbah, who was the Deputy Force Public Relations Officer then (he is now a DIG) had promised full investigation, noting that the police will track down the killers. ‘’Enough is enough’’, he told journalists. The investigators were expected to answer some numbing questions: What was the mission of the security officials, who authorized the ill-fated operation and how were they lured into the ambush? Eleven years after, there has not been any update on the matter. And we have all moved on. Well, except the families of the departed who might still be mourning their loss.
Last December, the Nigerian army mistakenly dropped two bombs on a crowd of people in Tudun Biliri village in Igabi LGA of Kaduna State, killing over 100 of them. The villagers were celebrating a religious festival at night, but the military mistook them for a gathering of terrorists and quickly dispatched two drone bombs. There was a national outrage and the military authorities were expectedly embarrassed by such carelessness. President Tinubu was only six months in office, but he managed to make the right noises, promising ‘’prompt investigations’’. Both Kaduna and the federal government scrambled to salvage the situation and save face. The governments and the military high command promised went further to pledged to rebuild the Tudun Biliri village. Four months after, we are yet to hear of the updates on the investigations and the extent to which the village has been rebuilt. More crises are on the way…
A few weeks after the Tudun Biliri bombings, terrorists invaded three LGAs in Plateau State between Christmas eve and Boxing Day, killing and maiming over 200 villagers. Again, there were the usual official movements and motions. The state governor, Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang, quickly issued a press statement, condemning the ‘’dastardly act’’ and followed it up with appearances on TV talk shows. He spoke of invasion of his state by terrorists and the helplessness of the governors as chief security officers. ‘’As I speak to you, terrorists are occupying some schools in the area and they may launch more attacks’’, he said. Vice President Kashim Shettima visited Jos and held town hall meetings with political and religious leaders. There were the usual talks of ‘’nibbing the crisis in the bud’’ and instituting a high-powered investigation to get to the root of the matter’’. The National Assembly even invited the service chiefs into a closed-door session ‘’to find lasting solutions to the crisis’’. As at this hour, we have not heard of a single arrest being made and the outcome of the ‘’full scale investigations’’. The country has moved on…
We cannot easily forget March 28, 2022, when terrorists planted explosives on the Abuja-Kaduna rail tracks. The device exploded when the train travelling from Abuja to Kaduna ran over it, killing eight passengers while many others were kidnapped by the terrorists. Again, investigations were promised, and again no word has been heard on where we are on that. Our country is full of many other unfinished investigations into cases of buildings collapse, extra judicial killings, accidental discharges and even that notorious case of a snake swallowing millions of naira belonging to the government.
Since May 29, a new wave of investigations has come upon us. The CBN and many of its actions, including the Anchor Borrowers Program are under scrutiny. The Senate is planning to look into the N30 trillion ‘Ways and Means’ of the Buhari era, and at the same time, some Northern groups are calling for a probe into the Senate’s N3 trillion budget-padding matter! Talk of investigating the investigator!
What then do we do with all the litany of investigations in the land? Can we have a judicial committee to investigate all cases of unfinished investigations?
More...
I have received a mail in which the writer has expressed curiousity about events of past centuries and those of the present time. He contends that there have always been disasters. He states that human beings have always fought wars and there have always been natural disasters. In the writer’s own words:
“Just curious! In religion, signs of the end times have always been talked about from time immemorial. So, thoughts of perilous times are nothing new.
“History tells us that the world has been tumultuous and treacherous from the beginning. In my opinion, people react to events without deeply reflecting on grave historical pasts that surpassed what’s happening today. Think about famines, pandemics, record-setting floods, tornadoes, high levels of evils and wickedness of leaders/followers and wars of ancient civilizations that wiped out millions of lives! That was even before the population explosion and advent of today’s technologies in communications, healthcare and great strides in modern warfare.
“The four horsemen of apocalypse have always been and will most probably continue to be around us. Not to diminish the teachings of our faiths (especially the controversial Book of Revelation on Armageddon). Our great-great grand parents have talked about end-times. I am unsure if that will be truncated before or after our own great, great grand children.
“I am just curious.”
It is true there have been wars, all kinds of wars–major wars that are sometimes referred to as shooting wars and those that fall under the category of minor conflicts. There have been wars between nations and within nations. Nations have been known to fight civil wars, inter-tribal wars, and conventional wars. History books, the internet in particular in modern times, are quick to remind us of the World War 1 (1914 – 1918) and World War 11. The latter took place from 1939 to 1945. Both clinched the awful barge of the deadliest hostilities in human history. It is common knowledge that they were total wars in which the so-called world powers were directly involved. The wars claimed nearly 8 million lives, some 3 million of them in gory genocidal extermination. The Roman Empire lasted 500 years in which nations were held in subjugation at gunpoint. Societies were raided and people were carried into captivity after deception or bitter conflicts such as during slave trade. There was Somaliland Campaign of between 1900 and 1920. There was the Sudan revolt of 1900. For three years (1900 – 1903), there was uprising in South-West Madagascar. In Kenya, 1911. There was French conquest of Dendi Kingdom of 1901.
When we consider the ravages of epidemic and pandemic afflictions, the scale of destruction by hurricanes and tornadoes sweeping through lands, the question is then asked if anything can be worse. According to livescience.com, about 5,000 years ago, an epidemic wiped out an entire village in China. The bodies of the victims, old, young, children and middle-aged, were gathered inside a house and set on fire. The speed of the ravages did not permit time for proper burial and the site was totally abandoned; there has never been any habitation there again since the horrible experience. The epidemic in Athens about 430 B.C. claimed 100, 000 lives. According to reports, they battled sudden attacks of “violent heats in the head, redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.” What was called Antonine Plague killed more than five million people in the Roman Empire that held sway from 27B.C. to 180 A. D. The plague is gloatingly regarded as a spoil of joys of victory which soldiers brought back to the Roman Empire from war against Parthia.
According to scientific records, there were no fewer than 20 epidemics in pre-historic times, all claiming millions of lives. Then came COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019. It infected no fewer than 75 million people globally. About 6.4 million people died from the pathogen. About 100 years earlier, that is 1918, the pandemic similar to COVID-19 reportedly killed 50 million people. At the time, says livescience.com non-availability of vaccines and antibiotics accounted for the high death toll. When all these are put together, a great many can’t but wonder what the End-Time could still have in store for mankind and the planet earth.
In the higher knowledge spreading on earth in these times, mediated In The Light of Truth, we learn that we are in the End-Time already. By End-Time is meant the Time of the Holy Spirit Who is the Will and Justice of the Most High; it is the Time of the return of the Star of Bethlehem and the time of Everlasting Gospel of and by the Son of Man that is for all mankind. The Lord Christ said at the approach of His exit from the earth, that He would send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who would remind mankind of what He had taught them and lead them to further truths, thus completing His Work. The Spirit of Truth will reprove the world of sins and of righteousness and will bring judgment.
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness, and of judgment; Of sin because they believe not on me; Of righteousness because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
The Lord went further: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall He speak…All things the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.” John 16: 7-15. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 14: 26. “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me.” John 15: 26. “I and the Father are One.” John 10: 30. (Dakes’s Annotated Reference Bible). Further establishing His Origin and therefore His Authority, the Lord Christ said “Believe me: I am in Father and my Father is in me.” John 14: 11. (King James Version).
The exit of the Lord Christ was premature by the way, brought about by the conspiracy of the priestly and political establishments of His Time who saw Him as a threat to their power and influence and were determined to get rid of Him. The priests had taught wrongly but the Lord Jesus Christ had brought Light and Life to teachings about life and existence, and about eternal life. He taught about the Laws of Creation which bear the Will of the Most High and gives expression to It. He had said He had come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill It. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5: 17. He said what a man soweth, that shall he reap. “Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Galatians 6:7.
From the Lord Christ’s address to His Disciples, there were very important points to note. He promised to send a Comforter. The Disciples were downcast following hints of His departure to rejoin with His Father, the Almighty. The second point is that the Comforter is the Holy Ghost Who is also described as the Sprit of Truth and Who would be sent by the Father in His Name. His Mission was going to remind mankind of what Jesus had taught them and bring further truths which He could not teach them because they could not bear them. The third leg of the Mission of the Spirit of Truth would be to bring judgment. It is obvious that the Lord was talking about another Person other than Himself. We can note that He used third person singular pronoun as grammarians would put it. Yes, He would come back but only in the clouds and He would not be seen by mankind anymore and yet He would fulfill His Mission. His predicted Successor, therefore, was the Spirit of Truth from the same Origin as Christ.
What we human beings have focused are the upheavals and affliction and come to the conclusion that there is nothing new. Upheavals are not the only features of the End-Time, the extension and conclusion of Christ Teachings of Truth makes even more poignantly the feature of the End-Time.
Just as the Star of Bethlehem accompanied the Lord Christ beaming the Rays of Love, the Spirit of Truth is also to be accompanied by the same Star but this time beaming the Rays of Judgment.
It is said of this Star called The Great Comet in higher knowledge: “It is thought that it brings upheavals of an incisive nature. But this star portends more.
“It can be called the Star of Bethlehem, because it is of exactly the same nature as that was. Its power sucks the waters up high, brings weather catastrophes and still more. When encircled by its rays the earth quakes.
“Since the event in Bethlehem there has been nothing like it. Like the Star of Bethlehem, this Star has also detached itself from the Eternal Realm of Primordial Spirit at such a time as to take effect on this earth exactly when the years of spiritual enlightenment are to come to all mankind.
“The Star takes its course in a straight line from the Eternal Realm to this part of the Universe. Its core is filled with high spiritual power; it envelops itself in material substance. Unerringly and unswervingly the Comet pursues its course, and will appear on the scene at the right hour, as already ordained thousands of years ago.
“The first direct effects have already begun in recent years. For anyone who wishes neither to see nor to hear this, and who does not perceive how ridiculous it is still to maintain that all the extraordinary things which have already happened are of everyday occurrence, there is naturally no help. He either wishes to act like an ostrich out of fear, or he is burdened with an extremely limited understanding. Both types must be allowed to go serenely on their way; one can only smile at their easily refutable assertions. But the knowing ones could also be told where the first powerful rays are striking. However, since the rays are gradually also encompassing the whole earth there is no use in being more explicit. It will take years to come to this point, and years before the Comet again releases the earth from its influence.
“And then the earth is purified and refreshed in every respect for the blessing and joy of its inhabitants. It will be more beautiful than it has ever been. Therefore every believer shall look forward to the future with tranquil confidence, and not be alarmed at anything that may happen in the coming years. If he can look up with confidence to God no harm will come to him.- -“
The purification has long begun. With the coming of this special Star and daily approach towards our world and its Rays encompassing the earth coupled with the already anchorage of the Light, the Power of the Holy Spirit on earth, there is unremitted pressure of the Light on earth, on every creature, the earth crust, the entire cosmos, causing also climate change to ensue. With the pressure comes the awakening of all that is dead. In the Beyond, touched by the pressure, and sensing there is no more time left, souls are in dire existential struggle to come back to the earth to atone for misdeeds of previous earth lives and make progress. With the pressure also there is intensification and acceleration of events. In decades past, a striking event of a tragic proportion would be the talk of the world for months. Today the same event or similar to it in severity hardly lasts a day before it is replaced from public attention and erased from consciousness. It has been overtaken by worse and intensified calamities.
We learn in higher knowledge that inconceivably long ago, the journey of man was beautiful. Herbert Vollmann says in his treasure book, A Gate Opens: “The Bells of Paradise were ringing as they departed, and even at the last moment they caught this silver-clear tone, and cherished it deep in their young hearts. Then the little points, whirling merrily, sank into the world-embracing depths. The time came when these delicate little flames had blossomed forth in purity into human spirits…” At that stage they could link with home and with attendant awakening of the beautiful tone they had experienced upon leaving home that was Paradise. Vollmann states that it “was the time when planet earth revolved in luminous orbits, and fresh heavenly dew fell on it each day.”
After a while discords were heard in place of echo in the Dome of Heaven. “The holy singing of earthmen had died away.” Progressively man deviated from the Will of the Almighty and forgot his origin. In place of the longing, the yearning for Truth and eternal Life, the greater part of mankind put the craving for earthly things, the desire for pleasures of the lowest kind, for power and influence. With degeneracy, there were acrimonies, twisted thinking, tension and wars. Killer diseases, drought, famine, earthquakes, landslides and floods, all consequences of the deviation from the ordinance of the Will of the Creator in His Creation. The situation has gone worse over time despite all the helps sent down — the Prophets and the Teachers of mankind. The upheavals will heighten with continuing pressure of the Light which brings about intensification and acceleration of events, of purification to rid the earth of pestilential elements, engender renewal and prepare our world for the Millennium, the 1,000 years reign of peace, when only the Holy Will of the Almighty Father will reign supreme, the reign of the Holy Spirit. Mankind are now in the prophesied era of enlightenment when we are reminded of the Teachings of the Lord Christ and are led to further Truths!
The initial lull in the activities of terrorists, bandits and militants visiting pain and death on Nigerians was probably to test if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s approach would be different from those of his predecessors. Sadly, the nightmare of haunted Nigerians has returned and now in full swing. Over 280 schoolchildren and some teachers abducted from Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, by bandits on Thursday, March 7, are currently marooned in the forest with their captors. A fresh attack on the same Dogon-Noma community, Kajuru Local Government Area in the early hours of Saturday, barely three days after left one dead and eight women kidnapped. A renewed attack on Sunday resulted in the harvesting of an additional 87 captives.
The nation’s nightmare continued with Sunday’s mindless killing of 17 gallant soldiers of the 181 Amphibious Battalion, Bomadi Local Government Area of Delta State by irate youths while on a peace mission to Okuoma community over land dispute.
Once again, as tragic as the above incidents are, the two different events are mere symptoms of our unresolved national question. We cannot continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different result. A people that refuse to learn from history will be punished by history. Our leaders enjoy playing the ostrich instead of helping us to confront our own demons.
For instance, where will bandits get ungoverned forest to hide 285 children in a strong northwest region, with state police, community police and forest guards heavily armed to secure communities and their forests? And what will be the business of highly trained military personnel with local land dispute in a Bomadi LGA, not created and funded from Abuja but created, funded and run by the natives?
President Tinubu however must take full responsibility for the continued nightmare of Nigerians. The buck stops at his table. He asked for the job and had 20 years to prepare for it. Kuriga was preventable because the president was familiar with the April 14, 2014 abduction of 214 Chibok schoolgirls and fruitless search by Babagana Monguno’s (the National Security Adviser (NSA) 100 jet fighters. President Tinubu could not have suddenly forgotten that the February 19, 2018 carting away of 110 students of Government Girls’ Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, in 11 trucks by suspected Boko Haram terrorists in military fatigues was blamed by the international community on absence of governance.
President Tinubu understands the nature of our crisis of nation-building and the solutions canvassed by Nigerian stakeholders since 1970. Some two months back, Wole Soyinka, regarded as the conscience of the nation, was with him in Abuja to remind him of the imperative of restructuring. Just last week, Akinwunmi Adesina, an internationally acknowledged Nigerian star during his presentation of the Awo Foundation lecture, spoke of the possibility of “a united states of Nigeria”. And just this last Monday, Emeka Anyaoku, another recognized Nigerian star who spoke at the gathering of ‘The Patriot’, a group initiated by late Professor Ben Nwabueze and Rotimi Williams both of whom regretted foisting a unitary constitution on the country in 1979, where he reminded us that like most multi-ethnic societies, the federal option is the only way of liberating individual and groups from the tyranny of the state.
These three and a handful of their tribe spread across the country and in the diaspora are the only few members of the Nigerian tribe we know. Others who publicly swear by their “Nigerian-ness’ only do so because such offers an opportunity to secure political office, oil block, or fraudulently take control of the commanding heights of the nation’s economy. Majority of us are Hausa Fulani, Zango Kataf, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, Edo, Tiv, etc. citizens.
The implication of this is that if the police as a vital state institution is defined by society, we don’t in the real sense of it have federal police but police that wear the colours of ethnic nationalities. And this is why the police is not answerable to the state but to ethnic groups, powerful individuals and the highest bidder including criminals. We could not have suddenly forgotten how President Buhari’s IGP Ibrahim Idris told Nigerians that terrorists who killed, maimed and confiscated the community land of victim condemned to IDP camps were ghosts.
A structure that sustains an IGP’s arrogance in selectively determining which states laws to implement cannot effectively address states’ security challenges. This is why it has been tales after tales from one IGP to the other even as killings by terrorists and kidnapping by bandits continue in many of the states.
President Tinubu understands where the rain started to beat us and has not got the luxury of playing the ostrich.
Our founding fathers bequeathed onto us a working federal constitution. Military adventurers in search of a vision of better society they were ill-equipped to understand starting with Aguiyi Ironsi came up with the 1966 Unification Decree 34.
Eleven of Gowon military messiahs were found to be men with feet of clay. Murtala Muhammed destroyed academia and bureaucracy, the two institutions without which society decays.
Fast forward to the Babangida regime in 1985. While he was busy turning the nation to net importer of labour of other societies by ceding the commanding heights of the economy to mostly dubious and ill-equipped members of the governing elite interested only in asset stripping, he was christened “Prince of the Lower Niger’’ by grovelling intellectuals and received the National Economic Society of Nigeria’s (NES) highest honour for his handling of the economy.
Obasanjo started massive centralization of states institutions. As an elected president, he sold our patrimony in the name of privatization. And without understanding that no modern state has ever developed since the 18th century without the central role of political parties, he destroyed PDP, AD and ANPP in the name of “mainstreaming”. Out of office, perhaps as an admission of failure, he in 2018 inaugurated a short-lived movement he claimed “will mobilise our population for unity, cooperation, development, rule of law, employment, law and order, justice, integration, peace, security, stability, welfare and well-being”.
If only on account of the humongous amount stolen under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, those who claimed he was the answer to the national question served none but themselves.
We have seen how Muhammadu Buhari frittered away goodwill of Nigerians for eight years while being held hostage by terrorists visiting death on Nigerians.
Well prepared Tinubu, unlike his ill-prepared predecessors who instead of learning how other multi-ethnic societies face their own demons played the ostrich while self-serving members of the governing elite demonstrated their lack of faith in the country by stealing the country blind, has an edge. From his experience from the trenches and strategic studies, he understands very clearly that lack of faith in one’s country arises from social discontent, marginalisation, injustice and denial of quest for self-actualisation, all of which find expression in social strife, sabotage of economic activities, rebellion, militancy and sometimes civil war.
Our nation has experienced these manifestations since the military misadventure into politics in 1966. If his predecessors did everything except addressing the causes of these malcontents, President Tinubu has his work cut out for him.
Much of the conversations regarding the sad and unwarranted attack on the men of the Nigerian Army in Okuama community of Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State have bordered around reprisal. Everyone seems concerned that the dead soldiers’ colleagues will go on a rampage. Several media reports that members of the Okuama community have reportedly gone into hiding, either fleeing into the bush or seeking refuge from neighbouring communities. Some reports keep recirculating one single photo that purportedly shows Okuama being razed by wrathful soldiers. The preoccupation with retaliation is understandable, given Nigeria’s history.
We all remember a similar incident in Odi community in Bayelsa State, in the same restive Niger Delta region, where a gang killed soldiers (and police officers) over issues of oil resources within their environment, the devastation it has caused, and the general degradation of their relationship with the Nigerian state. Nobody can forget the military response to that incident. From sexual assault to mass murder, Nigerian troops dealt with Odi. Two years after that incident, the military also invaded Zaki-Biam communities in Benue State after some members of their community abducted and murdered 19 soldiers. Several reports estimated that no less than 100 people were killed to avenge the death of their officers. Another unforgettable incident involving the Nigerian troops is the 2015 massacre of the Shiites. While not exactly a reprisal, the Shiites had reportedly stood in the path of the motorcade of then Chief of Army Staff Tukur Buratai. At least 350 of them—going by official figures—were killed for it.
I am bringing up these sundry histories not to relativise what happened to the soldiers in Okuama but to point out how the brutality of the Nigerian troops has overshadowed the humanity of their fallen soldiers. We have focused so much on what the troops will do to get even and redacted the supreme sacrifice of these soldiers’ lives in the process. The people who died are humans too and they left loved ones behind. Elsewhere, the focus would have been on the lives they led, not on the ferocity of their unforgiving peers. Their humanity must not be lost in our sight even as we get jittery about possible retaliatory attacks.
What is also being obscured in the discussions around the recent attack is that the Okuama killing is one of the many that have consumed Nigerian soldiers since the country started warring with—and within—itself. There are many—and God knows, too many! —reports of Nigerian officers getting killed within the warfront called Nigeria every time. Those casualty rates might not be worse if they fight an enemy nation outside the country’s borders. The frequency with which these Nigerian soldiers get ambushed calls into question everything from the larger structural problems of Nigeria’s insecurity to the training and intelligence reports these soldiers received, down to the character of the people within communities where these attacks are perpetuated.
For instance, at least 50 Nigerian soldiers were reported killed in an ambush in Gorgi, Yobe State, in March 2020. Before then, in 2018, there was another one in Zari village in Borno that claimed the lives of 48 soldiers. Also, 34 soldiers (and eight policemen) were also reported killed in June 2022 after being ambushed by gunmen who had attacked a mine in the Shiroro area of Niger State. The soldiers had been deployed to search for mine workers—including four Chinese—who had been reported kidnapped. Like the Okuama case, the soldiers were also responding to a distress call when they were surrounded and brutally murdered. One year later, in the same Shiroro area, another 36 soldiers were reported killed in twin attacks. Just last August, another 36 were killed in Chukuba, Niger State.
Look, I could go on and on cataloguing the series of ambushes Nigerian troops have faced in the course of their duty to the nation, but it is starting to get too morbid. Please also note that I have deliberately excluded the many occasions where soldiers got killed as a result of direct attacks by bandits and terrorists. The ones I listed here are those reported as an “ambush,” and they mimic the Okuama killings (that is, troops attacked and killed while responding to distress calls or on a supposed peacekeeping mission).
There are some vital factors to note about the frequency of the ambushes. One is that the fear of reprisal has not stopped the attacks on Nigerian troops. Whoever was behind the Okuama killings knew very well what the military could do to them or their communities in return, but even that was no deterrence. They still went ahead and killed those poor officers gruesomely. That suggests that, in reality, the reputation of the military as ruthless when provoked does not have the force people tend to associate with it when the thought of reprisal looms in their imagination.
Everyone talking about reprisal thus seems to have overlooked an essential detail in its serial weaponisation: its limitations as a strategy. If the goal of levelling down a community for daring to kill soldiers was to inspire fear, then it is a tactic that has serially failed judging by the number of soldiers that have been ambushed within just a few years. Rather than people in these communities balking at the thought of killing soldiers, they seem more intrigued to test the will of the military. Nigeria has degenerated so badly that the violence the state is legitimated to carry out through units such as its militaries to control the outburst of other violence from among the citizenry has lost its firepower. Violence is not dissuading violence; it is rather inspiring violence.
That was why it was in poor form for the president, Bola Tinubu, to give the military “full authority” (whatever that was supposed to mean in practice) to bring those behind the killings to justice. As a supposedly democratic president, he should know better than put the “full authority” to ensure justice in the hands of the military when he knows there is still something in Nigeria called “the police” and “the courts.” The military was not set up to do justice; why apportion the responsibility to them? Given their history of retaliation against offending communities, why send them to go do “full justice”? He might as well just sign an execution order against the poor people of Okuama!
Our focus on Okuama and its aftermath should also not occlude the circumstances that led to the death of the poor soldiers. Several of the conflicting accounts explaining why the soldiers went to Okuama seemed like people trying too hard to alleviate the moral impact of the murder. Nothing justifies murder, simple. That said, the government owes us some clarity on what happened in Okuama. How did the soldiers die? What weapons or training did their assailants have that they could overpower so many trained officers? What pre-existing relationship did they have with their killers that precipitated the attacks on the soldiers?
In a press release by lawmaker Rt. Hon. Francis Waive representing Ughelli North, Ughelli South, and Udu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, he noted the population of Okuama as “only a few hundred inhabitants” and wondered how a few people would inflict such damage. Like him, I am also curious to understand how the attack happened—the people involved, whether they had external help, and how they even mustered the confidence to stand up to armed soldiers. How did it happen that soldiers on a supposed peacekeeping mission ended up dead? There are many missing details that the military and the people of Okuama owe us, and the focus on reprisal is not helping the story to get clearer.
Come Wednesday, I will be in Asaba, Delta State as one of the faculties at the Nigerian Army Quarterly Media dialogue. With the theme, ‘The imperatives of military-media partnership for the attainment of national security’, it is part of their efforts to secure the buy-in of critical stakeholders as they tackle the challenge of insecurity in Nigeria. Incidentally, 12 years ago in the same Asaba, I was one of the speakers at the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference under Lt General Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd). Unfortunately, the mood will be different this time considering what happened last Thursday when some criminal gangs in Ughelli South Local Government ambushed troops of the 181 Amphibious Battalion after which the commanding officer, a Lt Colonel, two Majors, one Captain and 12 Soldiers were gruesomely murdered.
I join millions of Nigerians in commiserating with the families of the deceased and the Nigerian Army. As President Bola Tinubu rightly noted while granting full authority to the military high command to apprehend and bring to justice those responsible for the “unconscionable crime against the Nigerian people”, the unfortunate tragedy “demonstrates the dangers faced by our servicemen and women in the line of duty.” I also agree with the president that “As a nation, we must constantly remember and honour all those who have paid the ultimate price to keep our nation safe, strong, and united.”
From available reports, the CO and his troops did not die in a gun duel with the criminal gangs. They were ambushed and executed after which their bodies were cannibalised. No army in the world would allow such audacious barbarism against its officers and men to go unpunished. Meanwhile, I have read several posts either to excuse the bestiality as a ‘mistake’ because victims were taken for fake soldiers or provide justification on the pretext that the military had taken sides in the communal conflicts. For me, there is no defence for what happened. More worrisome is the recurrence of these killings of military troops by communal warlords in a nation where people who have lived together for centuries are now up in arms against one another.
Exactly three years ago (in March 2021 to be specific), a Captain and 11 soldiers were mowed down while trying to keep peace between the Bonta people of Konshisha local government and their neighbours, the Ukpute people of Oju local government in Benue State. As I explained at the time, both the Bontas (who are Tiv speaking) and the Ukputes (Igede speaking) are predominantly peasant farmers. The two groups have also cross settled in several villages along their boundary and even in some cases inter-married. Following a violent crisis at the time over the ownership of a parcel of land, troops were sent in to restore order only to run into an ambush orchestrated by one of the parties in the dispute. According to a statement by the army, not only were the soldiers brutally massacred, “the bandits proceeded to burn all the eleven soldiers and their officers beyond recognition while their weapons and ammunition were carted away.”
That the circumstances of the Delta killings bear similarities to what happened in Benue State three years ago is why the authorities must do more than perfunctory knee-jerk reactions. Between January 2018 and August 2022, according to a report by the National Boundary Commission, no fewer than 676 persons were killed in various communal land disputes across the country. In 2021, Patrick Okigbo’s ‘Nextier SPD’, a development research firm, also revealed that communal clashes accounted for 14 out of the 890 conflict incidents and 80 out of the 3,787 casualties that year. From north to the south, but mostly in the latter, many contiguous communities that have lived together for decades are at war over lands that are not put to any productive use. And it is the poor of our society, expendable ‘youths’ that do the fighting while those supplying the AK-47 and other deadly weapons are secure in the knowledge that they, and members of their immediate families, are far away from the theatres of war. And that nobody would ever try to fish them out for punishment.
In a January 2018 column, ‘When a Nation Becomes Funeral Home’, I used the chilling December 2023 report released by the United States-based Human Rights Watch, ‘Leave Everything to God: Accountability for Inter-Communal Violence in Plateau and Kaduna States, Nigeria’ to illustrate this point. In that report, authorities were indicted for “taking no meaningful steps to address underlying grievances” or bring to justice those responsible for “tit-for-tat killings” with victims targeted for extermination, “often in horrific circumstances”. What this has created is a serious national security challenge.
Ordinarily, restoring law and order is the primary responsibility of the Police. Not the Army. But in most communities across the country today, belligerents no longer fear the police. No incident perhaps demonstrated that better than what happened on 7th May 2013 in Nasarawa State. On that tragic day, 63 police officers and 10 state security service (SSS) operatives sent to restore law and order were gruesomely murdered. Today, in most theatres across the country, this recurring mayhem over land disputes is hardly ever quelled until military troops are drafted in. That is the genesis to the tragedy in Okuama.
However, even in this moment of anger and pain, the military should be methodical in their approach. Two things should happen. One, they need to investigate the circumstances under which the troops were in the area and get all the details as to what transpired. Two, they must fish out all the culprits and bring them to justice, however long it takes. In doing that, they should avoid anything that suggests applying collective punishment, especially on residents of Okuama community. On that score, those who trivialise the bestial killings by peddling dangerous narratives are not helping matters.
The most thoughtful intervention on this tragedy has been from elder statesman and leader of the Ijaw Nation, Edwin Clark, who knows the slain officers personally and admitted speaking to them on an unrelated issue shortly before their death. Describing what happened as “very shocking, very barbaric and wicked,” Clarke called for a collaboration between the military and the communities to fish out the culprits. “I was so sad when I heard that Lt Col. Ali was involved because on Thursday, 14 March (same day the troops were killed), I spoke to him about my younger brother, Col Bernard Clark (rtd), who died recently and was to be buried on (last) Friday,” said Clarke who defended the action of the military in the aftermath while at the same time appealing for restraint. “I had to contact him (the deceased CO). And he told me he was in a vehicle and that he would speak to me later, only to hear that he was among them. At that time, he was speaking to me from Agbor in Delta State.”
I am aware of the anger within the military and justifiably so too, given the barbaric manner the lives of their officers and men were terminated. But the application of Odi or Zaki Biam principle would be unhelpful in the circumstance. Both in international law and the laws of war, collective punishment is prohibited, based on the fact the actions of one or a few individuals should not attract punishment for innocent people. A cornerstone of justice systems worldwide, as one writer puts it, “is the presumption of innocence (while) collective punishment flips this principle on its head, presuming guilt by association.”
Let me make myself clear once again. The criminals who killed our soldiers deserve no sympathy. But I am also aware that those who committed such a heinous crime would have left the scene, knowing the gravity of their deed and what would follow. So, apprehending them (and their collaborators) would require intelligence gathering and painstaking efforts. Under an atmosphere of collective punishment that often reduces sense of remorse and heightens perceived grievances, the military will not get the requisite information they need. Besides, it could exacerbate the initial problem they were trying to solve, especially now that the two sides in the dispute are on the propaganda offensive in a bid to profit from the tragedy. The military should not fall for their tricks.
A Day at the Lekki Free Zone
During a recent encounter with Mr Haresh Vaswani, who I was meeting for the first time, a mutual friend said jocularly that he was sure I would have at least two of his (Aswani’s) company’s products in our house. I expressed my doubt. When the friend identified the company as Tolaram Group, a Singaporean family business to which I wasn’t familiar, I became even more curious. Until he mentioned Indomie Instant Noodles as one of their products. Indomie is without doubt one of the biggest brands not only of Noodles but also of any products in the country today.
Incidentally, Aswani, who chairs Tolaram Group in Africa has been in Nigeria for more than three decades and is also the Honorary Consul-General of Singapore in our country. As I would learn, Indomie is just one of the many premium household products either being manufactured by the Tolaram Group or in which they are the main distributor. Dano Milk, Colgate toothpaste, Power Oil, Hypo cleaner, Kellogg’s, Pringles, Coco Pops are some of the others. But what Aswani focused on that day is the Lagos Free Zone (LFZ), a project he described as Nigeria’s first privately owned free zone with a fully integrated deep-sea port, covering an area of 830 hectares. In Lagos a few weeks ago, I visited the LFZ. Fully equipped with world-class infrastructure, a single clearance window for ease of doing business, and integrated with the Lekki deep seaport spanning 90 hectares, I was dazed by what I saw.
Built in partnership with China Habouring Engineering Company (CHEC), the Lagos State Government and the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA), construction of the Lekki Port was commenced in 2012 when Babatunde Fashola was governor and is to date the single largest private infrastructure investment in the country. That such a significant investment of about $2.5 billion would be committed along the Lekki Corridor is an indication of the potential of that axis for the development of both Lagos and our country. The Lekki Corridor stretches from Victoria Island along the Peninsula to Epe with the Expressway serving as its primary artery. In my chat with the LFZ Managing Director, Dinesh Rathi who took me on a tour of completed facilities, what they are trying to create within the economic zone which entices businesses with tax breaks and simplified procedures, “is a ‘city within a city’ that integrates industries, residences, and commercial spaces, all functioning seamlessly together.”
The Lekki Corridor, as Rathi explained, is divided into four quadrants. The fourth quadrant is where the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Lagos Free Zone, Dangote Fertilizers & Refinery Complex are domiciled. “It is a dynamic region on the rise. It offers exciting opportunities for businesses and residents seeking a modern and vibrant environment,” said Rathi who reeled out the benefits of the Lekki Port equipped with modern facilities, including those not available in either Apapa or Tin Can Ports. For instance, the Lekki Port has five ship-to-shore (STS) cranes for loading and unloading intermodal containers from ships and 15 rubber tired gantry (RTG) cranes. Completed in April last year, the Lekki Port recently welcomed its first transshipment vessel and consistently receives an average of one vessel per week since its launch, according to Rathi.
I was also taken through the history of the Tolaram Group. Established in 1948, and structured as a holding company, it boasts a diverse portfolio spanning various sectors, including fintech ventures which, according to Rathi, “involves providing innovative solutions for financial services and transactions in emerging markets.” Additionally, their infrastructure and industrial projects contribute to building essential structures and industries that form the backbone of economic activity. Some of the facilities I saw include a modern fire station, an expansive truck park, the Colgate factory where I was taken through production processes, several warehouses, a medical facility, police station, residential tower, solid waste management centre, security command center, helipad and three banks. To ensure a reliable and cost-effective energy source for its tenants, as Rathi explained, the LFZ has secured a 20-year Gas Infrastructure Development Agreement (GIDA) that will connect it directly to the national gas transportation grid. To actualise this, a consortium already formed to develop the main pipeline and distribution network within the zone, ultimately delivering piped natural gas to each tenant. The agreement, I was told, also incorporates an LNG solution.
I left the LFZ feeling more optimistic about Nigeria and the prospects for economic growth with the right policies and incentives for investors, local and foreign. But on my way back to the Island, I spent several hours in traffic gridlock along the same Lekki-Epe highway. I can only imagine what would happen on that axis during the coming rainy season and the years to come. This is one of the issues that would have to be resolved by the Lagos State government for the dream of the Lekki Corridor, the LFZ and other big businesses along that axis to become a reality. The federal government can help resolve that if they expedite action on the Coastal Road that has been in the pipelines for years. But for the Tolaram Group, I believe they have taken a huge bet on Nigeria. I hope it pays off. Both in their interest and that of our country.