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SUNDAY 1-DEC
Hearn confirms Joshua’s 2025 return date
https://reubenabati.com.ng/sports/hearn-confirms-joshua-s-2025-return-date
Why Nigeria Needs Tax Reform – Oyedele
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/why-nigeria-needs-tax-reform-oyedele
Okpebholo, APC Jittery Over Exposure Of Systemic Rigging In Edo, Lies To Cover Fraud – Obaseki
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/okpebholo-apc-jittery-over-exposure-of-systemic-rigging-in-edo-lies-to-cover-fraud-obaseki
CBN tells Nigerians to report cash withdrawal issues from December 1, banks to face penalties
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/cbn-tells-nigerians-to-report-cash-withdrawal-issues-from-december-1-banks-to-face-penalties
Local Government Autonomy….Concerns Mount Over Non-execution Of Supreme Court Ruling
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/local-government-autonomy-concerns-mount-over-non-execution-of-supreme-court-ruling
Tinubu Tax: North’s anger grows as youths attack Deputy Senate President
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/tinubu-tax-north-s-anger-grows-as-youths-attack-deputy-senate-president
OAuGF report reveals huge financial infractions in NNPCL, NUPRC, NMDPRA
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/oaugf-report-reveals-huge-financial-infractions-in-nnpcl-nuprc-nmdpra
Rivers: N27bn IGR behind Fubara, Wike rift, INEC now APC member – Adeyanju
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/rivers-n27bn-igr-behind-fubara-wike-rift-inec-now-apc-member-adeyanju
‘I Am Against Tax Reform Bills, It Gives Some States More Advantage’ – Ningi
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/i-am-against-tax-reform-bills-it-gives-some-states-more-advantage-ningi
[STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE] President Tinubu Congratulates New NUJ President And Executive Team
https://reubenabati.com.ng/news/state-house-press-release-president-tinubu-congratulates-new-nuj-president-and-executive-team
[PRESS RELEASE] President Tinubu Approves Funds for UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Institute in Nigeria
https://reubenabati.com.ng/news/press-release-president-tinubu-approves-funds-for-unesco-media-and-information-literacy-institute-in-nigeria
Trump threatens 100% tariff on BRICS countries over currency plans
https://reubenabati.com.ng/news/trump-threatens-100-tariff-on-brics-countries-over-currency-plans
‘From Secular To Sacred’ - Filmmaker, Mike Bamiloye Reflects On Transformation To Gospel Drama
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/from-secular-to-sacred-filmmaker-mike-bamiloye-reflects-on-transformation-to-gospel-drama
Darey Art Alade and wife Desola mark 18th wedding anniversary
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/dare-art-alade-s-wife-deola-celebrate-18th-wedding-anniversary
Sokoto NLC Suspends Planned Strike Over ₦70,000 Minimum Wage
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/sokoto-nlc-suspends-planned-strike-over-70-000-minimum-wage
Nigeria needs collaborative leaders for national progress - Peter Obi
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/nigeria-needs-collaborative-leaders-for-national-progress-peter-obi
How Tinubu’s fiery critics became spokespersons, loyalists
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/how-tinubu-s-fiery-critics-became-spokespersons-loyalists
2027: Atiku, Obi deny joint presidential bid after reunion
https://reubenabati.com.ng/feature/2027-atiku-obi-deny-joint-presidential-bid-after-reunion
Tax Reform Bill: Atiku Calls For Transparency, Inclusivity In Debate
https://reubenabati.com.ng/news/tax-reform-bill-atiku-calls-for-transparency-inclusivity-in-debate
THE world seems unaware that a peace process of seismic proportions is under way. Islam is a religion with over 1.8 billion followers but its two broad movements, the Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia and the Shiites led by Iran have been in disagreement for long, sometimes leading to violent confrontations. A major difference between the movements is that while the Shiites believe that the religion should be led by descendants of the Prophet (SAW), the Sunnis do not. Over the ages, other differences emerged. However, the 1979 Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeni which abolished the 2,500 old monarchy and radicalised the populace, led to a further divide with the Iranians being anti-America and the Saudis being pro-monarchy and pro-America.
This polarisation has led to violent conflicts in parts of the world, one of the bloodiest being the Yemeni Civil War now in its eighth year. The war saw the Houthis who are minority Zaydiyyah Shiite Muslims, overrunning the capital, Sanaa and large parts of the country. Only the military intervention by Sunni-dominated countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, UAE, stopped the march of the Houthis to the sea.
Those countries carried out crimes against humanity such as deliberately bombing schools, school buses, markets, hospitals, marriages, funerals and other civilian targets. But holding off the Houthis has also come at high costs for the Saudis who have had to endure missile attacks on their towns. Also, the UAE has broken off from the alliance by backing anti-Saudi rebels in South Yemen.
One of the most devastating wars today is the Syrian Civil War which began on March 11, 2011. It is a war in which the majority Sunni groups led by the terrorist al-Nustra Front and the Islamic State, ISIS, with the backing of the US, some Western allies and Gulf States, tried to uproot the government of President Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite Shiite. The latter was able to rally minorities in the country, including other Shiite groups, Jews and Christians. It also has the backing of Russia and Iran.
The war has claimed some 600,000 lives and reduced the country to ruins. The Syrian War witnessed one of the greatest mistakes in world history. In planning the war, a Western-Gulf States alliance established a Sunni organisation, the ISIS which was trained in Jordan, funded by the Gulf States and armed with weapons purchased mainly from the US. It was intended to take out the Shiites.
But like a Frankenstein monster, the ISIS spun-out of control and like a mad dog, not only attacked the Syrian government and its supporters, but also the Iraqi government put in place by the US. ISIS which was also peopled by international fighters initially encouraged by the West, created an Islamic Caliphate from lands it grabbed mainly from Iraq. It became a mission of America to put down the monster it had helped to create.
The Civil War in Iraq was triggered by the invasion of Western powers led by US and Britain under the false premises that that the country led by President Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction which it was about to use. Hussein was from the minority Sunni which accounted for 35 per cent of the population. The invasion led to the majority Shiites and the minority Kurds reaching for power.
The ‘Arab Spring’ revolt which actually started from Tunisia before spreading to the Gulf, made a windfall in Bahrain where the populace demanded democracy. The problem was that neither the Western powers nor the Gulf States would allow democracy in a country where the Shiites are the majority and the ruling Al Khalifa monarchy is a minority Sunni. Democracy would mean the end of the monarchy and minority Sunni rule.
Since the Bahrain military, despite its violent crackdown could not overwhelm the populace, a decision was taken to bring in the overwhelming firing power of the Saudi and UAE against the civil society. The foreign invasion began on March 14, 2011. While the Saudis sent in their national guard, the Emiratis sent in armed policemen, the Kuwaitis sent their navy, while a 7,000-strong American military force waited in their base 10 miles from the centre of the pro-democracy protests.
Three years later, the invaders were still in Bahrain. Seven years ago, Saudi Arabia and Iran decided to severe relations while their proxy wars escalated. So, you can imagine the shock waves around the world on March 10, 2023 when it was announced that both countries had decided to restore diplomatic ties and work towards peace. It was the outcome of a four-day discussion by both sides in China!
Both countries agreed to resume diplomatic relations, re-open their embassies and missions within two months, respect each other’s sovereignty, and ensure non-interference in internal affairs of states.
The agreement also provided for a meeting by their foreign ministers to implement the agreement, arrange for the return of their ambassadors, and discuss means of enhancing bilateral relations. They also reached back to the old Security Cooperation Agreements they signed in the fields of economy, trade, investment, technology, science, culture, sports, and youth, and agreed to implement them. China, the peacemaker joined the two countries in their pledge to work towards enhancing regional and international peace and security.
The immediate implication of this is the prospects for peace in parts of the world, including Yemen, Syria and Iraq and better cooperation amongst Muslims in places like Lebanon where the Hassan Nasrallah-led Shiite group, Hezbollah, has built a formidable military force. In a quick follow-up to the peace deal, a Saudi delegation was on April 9 in Sanaa, capital of the Houthi-controlled half of Yemen for peace talks, the most promising so far. The talks with an Omani delegation as observer, aim to stabilise a truce and cease-fire, complete withdrawal of foreign forces from Yemen, lifting of restrictions on air and sea ports, prisoner exchange, resumption of Yemeni oil exports, and a comprehensive peace plan for Yemen.
These peace talks would be a prelude to a wider one that would bring in the rival Saudi-backed Yemeni government in Aden and a rebel offshoot funded by the UAE. Reconciliation still seems far off as the two different economies, central banks and currencies would need to be merged. There does not seem to be much enthusiasm for the Iran-Saudi Peace deal in the West mainly because it has strived to portray China, the peacemaker, as a belligerent country and a danger to world peace. Secondly, the agreement signifies a major shift of Saudi Arabia from the Western orbit. Whatever be the case, the face of universal Islam will change with the Iran-Saudi Arabia Peace Agreements.
In 2019, Professor Wole Soyinka had a fascinating conversation with Christiane Amanpour of CNN. When he was asked about the right to give and take offence in a democracy, he said, “We’ve got to learn to give offence if we believe that we are on the right side of history.”
I recreated his relationship with Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, in my film, Other Side of History, which he has seen, set before Nigeria’s Independence.
I am Igbo. I am openly a supporter of Peter Obi. I am also a Soyinkaphile.
In 2019, Professor Wole Soyinka had a fascinating conversation with Christiane Amanpour of CNN. When he was asked about the right to give and take offence in a democracy, he said, “We’ve got to learn to give offence if we believe that we are on the right side of history.”
I recreated his relationship with Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, in my film, Other Side of History, which he has seen, set before Nigeria’s Independence.
I am Igbo. I am openly a supporter of Peter Obi. I am also a Soyinkaphile.
I want to say, it is, sometimes, difficult to understand the cryptic words of Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka.
When he talks to me, I listen attentively, so I don’t miss anything he says. When he sends me an email, I go back to read it. At least, three times. Could this be what I call the economy of language?
The Wole Soyinka I know is Igbo-centric and is a vital force for the inclusive fight for humanity in general. No matter the current heat, I must plead with young Nigerians and supporters of Peter Obi, to believe me, when I say Professor Soyinka supports Peter Obi. In private and even in public, he always stressed how it is important to have an Igbo President or let the Igbo have their own country. He also wants a competent person to lead the nation.
If you had two people, an Igbo and a Yoruba, come to Professor Soyinka for help, I can tell you, without mincing words, that he will attend to the Igbo first. He may not like this, but I found out over the years. A Yoruba friend of mine once described me as ‘Soyinka’s gatekeeper.’ It didn’t end well between us. We practically stopped talking, because of that appellation.
Just weeks ago, he broke his silence and came out, publicly weighing in on my imbroglio with the British educational establishment. It was after that, he started speaking to the press. It was because of this Igbo boy that he left the quietness of his life, to speak to the media. People were genuinely shocked that he would attach his name in defence of me. I was also shocked. It brought me to tears. I will remain eternally grateful to him.
In 2021, I visited Frederick Forsyth in his hometown. We spoke about Ojukwu. The moment I asked if he met Wole Soyinka, he brightened up: “Is he alive?” He asked me. I said yes and he asked me to do a video and send it to Professor Soyinka. After making that video, which I sent to Professor Soyinka, Mr. Forsyth told me that the last time he saw Professor Soyinka was in Biafra. They sat under a tree in Biafra and talked.
I have stories to tell you: on February 9, 2019, Professor Wole Soyinka, while ‘recruiting’ people by himself, to get on the Campaign Team of Professor Kingsley Moghalu, wanted me to do a documentary on Professor Moghalu, whether in Igbo or anything. I had never met Professor Moghalu then. So, Professor Soyinka said to me afterwards: “Regarding Moghalu – I’ve let him know that you’re available to do a documentary for him but it turns out his team already has an on-call documentarist, so I’ve left them alone.” He took the Moghalu Project seriously. We would have asked why.
Wole Soyinka loves Igbo people. Sincerely, If we are going to label him a ‘tribalist.’
Right now, we are all emotional. I understand why. But, I want you to remember that Professor Soyinka said he was in touch with Mr. Peter Obi. Perhaps, there was a tangible reason why he didn’t ‘endorse’ him publicly. The Soyinka I know is a fierce loyalist. When he loves you, it is hard for him to turn his back on you.
Let me plead with Obidients – and every lover of Peter Obi – that, it is impossible that the great Nobel Laureate is against them. Knowing Wole Soyinka – having followed him personally as a child, he stands for liberation from dictatorship and anarchy.
Soyinka speaks from a place of love and concern for our democracy. If we could listen to his voice of rage, he talked about investing his energy in the ‘new kid on the block.’ I remember him saying his dream was to see an Igbo President before leaving this world.
At 88, Wole Soyinka is technology savvy. He uses his iPhone and MacBook efficiently. He is the most modern man I know. He can defend himself, but I want to assure every supporter of Peter Obi, that as tribe goes, the Nobel Laureate wants an Igbo President and as political movements are involved, he is also not against the Obidient Movement. I can strongly assure you that!
Someone asked me yesterday: “What are you going to do about the attacks on Wole Soyinka? Did you see the posts by David Hundeyin?” I replied: “David can decide to attack me tomorrow if he feels like it. He is not 16 years old. He can’t be compromised.” It’s the democracy we all want, where we can agree and disagree.
Many of Peter Obi’s supporters are not Igbo. They are Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Nupe, Edo – from all tribes. His fierce supporters like David Hundeyin, Rinu Oduala, and Aisha Yesufu are not even Igbo. I tell you, Kongi is not against us. If anything, he wants the ‘new kid on the block’ to be president.
Nwelue is an award-winning writer, filmmaker and founder, La Cave Musik & Battus Books
I listened to Senator Jarigbe Agom of Cross River North a couple of days ago on the Morning Show of ARISE TV Morning Show, where he opined that competence and capacity should dictate who becomes the Senate President, and not the region. He added that the Senate should go for the best candidate without much consideration for their religion. A day earlier, Senator Ndoma-Egba had opined that the Senate President should be zoned to the South-east in order to appease the zone and perhaps balance the power equation. Both of these persons who spoke are from the South-south zone and ordinarily are expected to understand the geopolitical ingredients that are desired, to balance the algorithms of power; unfortunately, they fall short.
The two issues they raised border on geopolitics and religion; two dominant issues that have become recurring decimals in the politics of our country. For a plural country like Nigeria, having multiple and multi-dimensional interests competing for attention within the subnationals, it is of political benefit to ensure participation, inclusiveness and balance of power and sentiments to promote a culture of belongingness and trust, so as to minimise the frictions and tempers in the polity. Balancing those factors should not be anchored on the plank of a sense of entitlement, but on the preponderance and quality of the arguments of the various competing zones, with a view to deepening our democracy and national growth.
The 10th Assembly Senate Presidency has expectedly become another thorny issue following interests from the respective geopolitical zones; and an understanding of the prevailing sentiments and emotions within the polity would help power players know how to bequeath and accord power across board. When the then APC presidential candidate, now President-elect emerged in 2022, he chose a fellow Muslim as his running mate. He altered the Muslim/Christian doctrine. He stated unequivocally that the rationale for his choice was based on his understanding of the prevailing issues and how he will garner votes at the elections, and not an Islamisation agenda as suspected. The protestations that attended his choice were from within and outside of the ruling party. Close associates of his, deserted him as his voice got drowned in the cacophony of voices especially from the Christian community, who saw the move as a deliberate affront to them. This reality also boosted the chances of a Southern Peter Obi, a Christian, who indubitably flourished his campaign on the theme of Christianity, even to saying at some point that, “Christians and the church should take back their country”. This faith and or same faith issue is very sensitive and we must be careful in handling it.
The complexities associated with balancing power in plural countries or societies are multifarious. In any plural society, both national and subnational entities must feel a sense of inclusion and regard for their concerns in the process, in any power distribution activity. In the case of Nigeria, there is always the tendency to view Nigeria from only a tripod configuration, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa, thus subsuming other interests as though their interests are secondary. It is a wrong-headed reading of the entire gamut of minority rights. In the context of the 10th Assembly Senate Presidency, the issue of geopolitical balancing is both auspicious and compelling. The issue of religion is also important. Having a president and vice of the country, of same faith, being first and second citizens, it is expected that a Christian Senate President and perhaps the Speaker of the House of Representatives will be of other faiths; except if we deliberately want to stir the hornet’s nest to provoke avoidable sentiments and emotions. I don’t think the President-elect and his deputy would want to travel that route, knowing full well that they both need a stable polity to stimulate good governance to deliver on their electoral promises. The geopolitical zone to be most considered and her merits is also important. I am advocating for the South-South zone to be accorded the position.
The South-south zone contributed so much to the success of the ruling APC in the last election. This zone has always been the stronghold of the opposition PDP, but in this 2023 election, the ruling APC was able to make a foothold in the zone, topping Rivers State votes, and coming second in the other five states with over 45% of the votes. That was audacious! The South-east zone had a different ball game. The presidential election outcome was abysmal for the ruling APC in all the five states of the South-east. In the fullness of such ridiculous outcome, Senators from the ruling party emerged, scoring as much as 42,000 votes in some cases, and others even more; but at the presidential election, they abandoned their candidate, Asiwaju Tinubu, in what I considered a conspiracy to humiliate him. The votes from all the five states of the South-east hover around 80,000. When one considers that both Senate and presidential elections held on the same day, hour, and minute and in a seamless process, the theme of conspiracy becomes obvious. Furthermore, the South-east zone senators have had the opportunity of being Senate President on five different occasions in the last 24 years; Enwerem, Okadigbo, Wabara, Anyim and Nnamani are all from the South-east. Some other senators from the South-east have served as Deputy Senate President for 12 years also. It means they have dominated the Senate for circa, 20 years. Bidding for the position at this time would amount to taking the handshake beyond the elbow; and ask yourselves, if the APC had lost the presidency, as the South-east rooted for, would they be asking to become Senate President?
I do understand that there is no morality in politics because of some bizarre realities which have become the second nature of politics. But, there has to be balance of power to minimise the seen and unseen mitigating factors that stand against building a cohesive and stable system. Our power play needs to stimulate constructive engagement, collective bargaining, conversational politics, thus, good governance and wholesome progress. The South-south zone is undoubtedly the resource base of this nation. It is of utmost importance to deliberately and consciously factor in the interest of this zone now to avoid protestations and vibrations that may hurt the zone and the nation at large. Also, the character, content and antecedents of the individual for this position must be scrutinised for performance and sound leadership. Merely asking for the Senate Presidency with a sense of entitlement, is to me, a depraved assessment of the issues that have so far dictated our collective engagement and led us to where we are. The South-south geopolitical zone has persons of capacity and sound leadership orientation who can fit the bill. An individual who would be perspicacious in leadership of lawmaking, not allowing the assembly be dubbed a rubber-stamp one. They must be someone who understands the political dynamics in the country and can connect to them. The individual must be generational in thoughts to fit into the expectations of a contemporary digital age in the country. The South-south, unlike Senator Jarigbe Agom opined, parades eminently qualified persons who can up the ante in the Senate and constructively partner the executive arm of government to deepen democracy through lawmaking and other relevant responsibilities.
I have deliberately left out the North-west zone for obvious reasons: It is a predominantly Muslim dominated zone, and except the APC would want to sustain the narrative of Islamisation, nobody from the North-west zone should contemplate joining the race. Nigeria is very fragile at this time and the need to take selfless and patriotic decisions so as to stabilise the country is germane. The North-west zone has also enjoyed the privilege of producing our outgoing president for eight years; she should settle for the Deputy Senate President, while the South-east should settle for the Deputy Speaker. The North-central should have Speakership of the lower house while every other principal position should be shared altruistically to accommodate competing interests.
Within the South-south geopolitical zone, we have a ranking Senator, Distinguished Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, of quintessential and cerebral orientation, noted for quality service delivery and superlative performance; his antecedents are verifiable and he can deliver on the expectations of the 10th Assembly. It is not for nothing they call him “uncommon transformer”. Senator Akpabio, is not only a team player, he is also very astute, a reformer and transformational leader. He is reputed for several achievements both as the Governor of Akwa-Ibom state and Minister of the Niger-Delta Ministry. In the eight years he served as Governor of Akwa Ibom State, the state became a huge construction site, turning a typical agrarian community to an urban centre with several infrastructural projects ranging from Airport, Hospitals, schools, hospitality business, human capital development, empowerment programmes, and to several interventionist projects that were started and fully completed under him, that have stimulated and anchored the economic growth of the state.
As a Minister of the Niger-Delta Affairs, within three years, he completed the NDDC Headquarters that had been abandoned since 1994, relocated the NDDC to its new office, built roads, built barracks and several other projects of economic value to the people of the oil rich region as well as starting and completing a forensic audit of the commission. Akpabio has the temperament and comportment to serve in the capacity of the senate president with equanimity and doggedness. Akpabio is a man of grit and courage, he has charisma and applies intelligence. He will deploy his huge political goodwill to balancing all the factors across the country.
Also from the South-south, is former Governor of Edo state, former labour leader, and former National Chairman of the ruling APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Though a first timer to the Senate, he’s going to be one of the huge assets of the Senate either even in the Senate President capacity, if the rules permit; and or in other capacities thrust upon him. Oshiomhole is a resource material any day, any time. He’s deep in knowledge of contemporary issues, and understands the place of leadership in any human endeavour. Comrade Oshiomhole is a leader to reckon with having moved the ante in Edo State from 2008 to 2016 which till date represents the only evidence of growth of that state. His sense of service delivery has remained nonpareil. As a governor, his performance in Edo state was exceptional causing his peoples love for him to be perennial. As a product of struggle, Oshiomhole is a good asset in any institution he belongs. As we look forward to an interesting 10th Assembly, it is expected that there will be a healthy interplay of forces that would help to deepen democracy and consolidate on our laws for national growth and prosperity.
The 10th Assembly is expected to be forward-looking and utility-driven. It should robustly dissect and interrogate issues with a sense of patriotism and not parochialism. It must earn the support and respect of the populace to avoid the stigmatisation of a rubber-stamp assembly. Its relationship with other arms of government must be constructive and objective, and the overall interest of the country must be uppermost in its politics of lawmaking. There is currently, national apathy and broken tongues and tribes. There is also lack of national cohesion and conversation.
The 10th Assembly must create platforms to engage Nigerians, stimulate national discourse and promote a sense of ownership across board. They must come up with laws that are therapeutic to our national healing process. The buy-in of everyone to create a sense of collective engagement that will accommodate all is highly needed; be they minority and or majority groups. The 10th Assembly and the APC must get it right; and allowing the South-south to preside over the 10th National Assembly will be the first step in this right direction.
*Afegbua, a former Commissioner for Information in Edo State and political analyst
Nigerian superstar, David Adeleke, aka Davido, released the visuals for his hit song ‘Unavailable’ featuring South African singer, Musa Keys on April 11, 2023.
While the director of the Zulu-themed video, Dammy Twitch was lauded for his artistic prowess, the video has been widely criticized for introducing Davido as the King of Afrobeat.
In the opening moments of the video, a female voice could be heard saying (in a mix of isiZulu and English), Greetings. You are listening to Timeless FM. After a long time of wondering, where is he? And what is he doing? I’m here to confirm that the King of Afrobeat is back baby!
I’m talking about Davido. He’s back with a brand new album. And I’m talking hit after hit. Thank you Davido. Thank you.
Afrobeat vs Afrobeats
The terms afrobeat and afrobeats have long been conflated. While they may appear similar both in writing and pronunciation, they are two distinct genres.
According to Wikipedia, afrobeat (without an “s”) is a West African music genre that involves the fusion of traditional musical styles such as fuji, folk, highlife and American funk, jazz, and soul influences, with a focus on chanted vocals, complex intersecting rhythms, and percussion.
Afrobeats on the other hand is less of a style per se, and more of an umbrella term to describe popular music from West Africa and the diaspora that takes in diverse influences and is an eclectic combination of genres such as hip hop, house, jùjú, afrobeat, R&B, highlife and soca.
Seven persons were reportedly burnt beyond recognition in an accident that occurred along the Lagos-Ibadan highway.
The fatal crash occurred at 9:21 am, a few metres after the Saapade Bridge.
The Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, said a total of 27 persons were involved in the crash, 25 of whom were male adults.
The FRSC spokesperson in Ogun, Florence Okpe, said 17 male adults and one female adult sustained injuries while “a total of seven persons were burnt beyond recognition.”
According to her, a Toyota Sienna, marked BWR762PV, and a Mazda bus, with registration number BDN18 LG, had a head-on collision and went up in flames.
Okpe blamed the driver of the Sienna bus for “excessive speed and route violation.
She stated, According to her, the Sienna bus driver had driven against traffic, thereby colliding with the Mazda bus. “Unfortunately, there was a fire outbreak.
Some of the injured victims were taken to Victory Hospital in Ogere, while others were taken to Idera Hospital in Sagamu, she further disclosed.
The remains of the dead victims were deposited at the FOS morgue in Ipara.
Association of Emerging Artists berates ‘Gangs Of Lagos’ for depicting creatives as criminals
Editor 1The National Association of Emerging Artists (NAEA) has expressed displeasure with the promoters of the ‘Gangs of Lagos’ movie.
NAEA said it was disappointed with the portrayal of artists as “criminals” by the producer and director Kemi Akindoju and Jade Osiberu.
The group made this known in a statement recently released by its spokesperson, Unadey Jones.
The statement partly read, “Casting artists as criminals have harmed the pop cultural fabric of Nigeria and upholded harmful musician stereotypes.
The director cast singers Chike, Pasuma, and Zlatan Ibile in gangster roles in the movie.
Chike, particularly, played the role of Ify, aka Panamo, a rising artist who was involved in gangsterism and was eventually killed by his gang members to cover up a secret.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has also described ‘Gangs of Lagos’ movie as a cultural misrepresentation.
The State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mrs. Uzamat Akinbile-Yussuf, frowned at the promoters of the movie for depicting the Eyo Masquerade as a gun-wielding villain while adorning the full traditional regalia.
Earlier, the Prince Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu, the Apesinọla Ẹyọ Ọba Alakẹtẹ Pupa Ọkalaba Ẹkun, a cultural group, ordered the promoters of ‘Gangs of Lagos’ to withdraw the movie immediately, describing it as ethnic profiling, sacrilegious and outrageous trash.
American singer, Billie Eilish reveals she’s obsessed with Wizkid’s song
Grammy award-winning American singer, Billie Eilish has revealed the song that she is currently obsessed with.
The ‘Happier Than Ever’ crooner disclosed that ‘Flames’ by Nigerian Afrobeat star, Wizkid is her favourite song at the moment.
She revealed this during a question-and-answer session with her fans on Instagram.
A fan asked her “[what] song you are obsessed with these days?”.
Billie Eilish then replied with a picture of ‘Fames (Who’s Gonna Know)’ by Wizkid.
‘Flames’ was contained in the Nigerian singer’s fifth studio album ‘More Love, Less Ego’ which was released last year via Starboy Entertainment, Sony Music and RCA Records.
Following a viral video in which police escorts attached to a prominent Kano-based musician, Dauda Adamu Kahutu Rarara were shooting bullets into the air like village hunters, authorities in Abuja have waded in. “The NPF has condemned the unprofessionalism and act of indiscipline displayed by the policemen caught in the video that is trending where some policemen were seen firing shots to rob the ego and hype a musician in Kano city”, according to a statement by the Force spokesman, Olumuyiwa Adejobi. “The police officers have been identified and arrested. They will be brought to the force headquarters for an interview and necessary disciplinary action. Such an act is unpoliced and cannot be condoned.”
Whatever “unpoliced” may mean, it is unfortunate that this misuse of police officers persists. And that is because those who should protect the dignity of their rank and file have commercialised personnel deployment. Today, a Force that is constitutionally responsible for law and order has become one in which its rank and file are deployed to run errands for whoever can pay for their services. The two orderlies of Rarara may face disciplinary action but that amounts to treating symptoms rather than the disease. I don’t know of any other country where such high numbers of police personnel are deployed on guard duties.
If we scratch the surface, we may discover that the mutual distrust and barely disguised animosity between the police and ordinary citizens they serve is traceable to low self-esteem and suspicion that their worth and work are not appreciated. Yet, those whose duty it is to enhance their dignity are the very people who turn their men and officers into servants of the high and mighty of our society.
In a recent story, ‘Insecurity: Worries over growing number of police escorts attached to VIPs’, The Guardian newspaper raised serious issues about police personnel attached to private businessmen, political appointees, actresses and even their children, noting that this security protection is at the expense of citizens and has become a public nuisance. “In traffic situations, ‘the big man or woman’, or their children and nannies, could be seen seated in the vehicles behind. Trucks in quasi-military motorcade trail them. Inside are police officers, on secondment to these Very Important Persons (VIPs). At traffic bottlenecks, these officers, armed with AK-47 rifles slap bonnets of nearby cars, dishing orders to other road users: ‘Move. Clear. Give way’”, according to the report which detailed the ugly scenes many of us experience or witness daily on Nigerian roads.
For years, despite security challenges that plague the nation, the status symbol in Nigeria is to go about with as many police orderlies as possible. And you don’t even need to hold public office to enjoy such indulgence. Foremost stand-up comedian, Atunyota Alleluya Akpobome, aka Ali Baba, once shared his experience:”I spent three hours today directing traffic on Alfred Rewane Road (Ikoyi, Lagos). The drivers obeyed until three gun trotting policemen jumped down from two escort vehicles… to do their priority traffic control. I told one of the officers to take it easy because if I had not been there helping with the traffic, they wouldn’t have made it this far. ‘Oga dey hurry’, one said. I walked up to the vehicle and asked oga to wind down. But another set of three armed policemen alighted from the escort Prado Jeep by which time the gun brandishing officers had made way for our very important personality…10 security details attached to one man! Anyway, what do I know? Shebi I am just a comedian.”
In my August 2022 column, ‘Police Orderly, Not Maiguard’, I raised this same issue. A retired Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) sent me a note after reading it. “Segun, your column this morning is only for the record, it will not correct the ills. It is a self-inflicted malaise as you rightly pointed out. No IGP, I repeat, no IGP can stop it because none has the balls. We all saw on television the recent burial of the Queen (of England). How many dignitaries did you see with orderlies? And everything went perfectly. The weekend is almost here, go to any socials, you will see the nauseating abuse of police personnel. I have over the years confronted the high echelon of the Force on it. All I am always told is ‘Oga, don’t worry, we are working on it’. Notwithstanding my statutory entitlements regarding orderlies and aides as a retired AIG, I have refused to activate the entitlements. Let them serve the public instead. Segun, I feel both angry and frustrated by what is happening in the police…”
Like the retired AIG, I too am angry and frustrated. I cannot count the number of columns I have written on this vexatious issue as well as on the need for improved welfare package for the police. But even if I am beginning to sound like a broken gramophone, I will continue to harp on the fact that unless we deal with it, we will never resolve our security challenges. Besides, police personnel are the ones paying the supreme price for serving these big men and women. In a recent piece, ‘Bulletproof Saviour’, I alluded to the five people, among them two policemen, who lost their lives when gunmen ambushed the convoy of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah. Two additional police officers were also injured. A month later, it was the convoy of a popular Christian cleric, Apostle Johnson Suleman, that was attacked by gunmen. Seven people, including three police officers, were killed. At about the same period, the lives of four policemen were gruesomely terminated when the convoy of a former Imo Governor, Ikedi Ohakim was attacked by gunmen in the state. In each of the three incidents, and many similar others that claimed police personnel, the target of the attacks and members of their families escaped because they were being driven in bulletproof vehicles. Meanwhile, their police escorts are condemned to some ramshackle Toyota Hilux vehicles.
If there is anything that the Rarara video shows, it is that there is a crisis of mission in the police. We can only hope that the next administration will deal with it. And for emphasis, I am rerunning the August 2022 column to insist that our policemen must stay true to their role as law enforcers, not Maiguards!
As the principal custodian of peace, order and security in a constitutional democracy, no institution is arguably more important than the police. But so abused is this law enforcement authority in Nigeria that most of their personnel have been reduced to playing guard duties for members of the business and political elite. It therefore came as no surprise when the Police Force Headquarters announced last week that one ‘Professor and human rights activist’ as well as her housemaid, brutally assaulted a policewoman “due to the refusal of the orderly to breach professional ethics by carrying out menial and domestic chores at her house.”
While the said professor and accomplice have been charged to court, I am surprised that the police could publicly express outrage over a self-inflicted problem they have refused to deal with. We must recall that more than a decade ago on 5th April 2012 in Calabar, Cross River State, the then Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, warned police orderlies to cease carrying handbags belonging to politicians and others for whom they provide security. In explaining that the duty of an orderly was to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their principal and not to run demeaning errands, Abubakar said, “So, VIPs should take note that when we give them orderlies, they are not supposed to be turned into house boys and house girls.”
Pushing the responsibility to accord dignity to those being served presupposes a lack of professionalism on the part of their personnel, but police authorities can also not feign ignorance about the abuse to which those personnel are being subjected. And the reputational damage such inflicts on the Police Force. From holding plates of food at parties for fat cats who cannot dish their own meals, to carrying bags at airports, it is as if many of these law enforcement agents have been deployed to run errands for our big men and women. Some orderlies even shine shoes for their principals in the public. And by refusing to streamline the list of those entitled to police/security protection, all manner of people, including renowned ‘419’ fraudsters and kidnappers, go about with police personnel in a status-obsessed society.
I am delighted that the Police Service Commission (PSC) understands where the problem lies by calling for a review of the operations of the Special Protection Unit (SPU). “The commission frowns at the abuse of police orderlies by Nigerians who now use them as status symbols or convert them to house helps who clean, cook or do menial jobs”, said the PSC in a statement by their spokesman, Ikechukwu Ani, who condemned the attack on the policewoman. “With the security problems ravaging the nation, there is an urgent need to free many police officers loitering in private houses and following big men around.”
That precisely is the point. Statutorily, only the president, vice-president, governors, local council chairmen, legislative principal officers in the states and at federal level, magistrates and judges are entitled to police protection. But this privilege has over the years been extended to just about anybody who can pay, leaving ever fewer personnel for real police work. Such is the level of degeneration that many go about with contingents of policemen in Toyota Hilux vehicles that have become part of the convoy of every prominent person in Nigeria. To worsen matters, the number of policemen deployed to serve political office holders is mind boggling.
In April 2017, following a public altercation between the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike and then Inspector General of Police, (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, the Force Headquarters released a statement, apparently oblivious of its implication. Responding to the claim by the governor that the IGP had marked him out for execution, then police spokesman, CSP Jimoh Moshood gave the number of police personnel attached to Wike as 221. The same number serves each of the other 35 governors, according to Jimoh. Highlights he provided were beyond scandalous. “The breakdown is as follows: One ADC (SPO); one CSO (SPO); one Unit Commander (Special Protection Unit) SPO; one Escort Commander (SPO); one Camp Commander (Counter Terrorism Unit) SPO; one Admin officer (SPO) to administer the Police Personnel, 54 Inspectors of Police; 136 Police Sergeants and 24 police corporals,” said Jimoh who concluded the statement with this self-indicting line: “Obviously, the total number of 221 police personnel attached to His Excellency, Mr Nyesom Wike, the Governor of Rivers State, is more than the strength of some Police Area Command formations in some states of Nigeria.”
I found it quite shocking at the time that the police would publicly admit allocating 221 of their personnel to protect one man in a nation so challenged by insecurity. When you multiply that number for 36 governors and add those allocated to other elected and appointed political office holders at federal and state levels, you get a picture of the number of policemen performing ‘mai guard’ duties. And we have not included those serving bankers, businessmen of all hues, the idle rich and even ‘professors’ in unidentified universities.
The very idea of using our police personnel as a private army undermines their integrity and self-worth. We need to put an end to this abuse. No case has brought home the illegal use for which many of our policemen are deployed better than the 1st June 2018 shooting at a political rally in Ekiti State by a policeman “attached to 20 PMF, Ikeja Lagos State where he was posted on guard duties”. Although the politician who conspired and removed the said policeman from where he was posted by his squadron commander was said to have been arrested by the police, the fact that nobody has been brought to trial over the incident is telling. Till today, nobody knows the politician concerned and the case has ‘entered voicemail’ as they say.
To refresh the memory of readers on that sordid episode, the Ekiti State Police Command revealed at the time that the mobile policeman who accidentally shot Senator Opeyemi Bamidele during the All Progressives Congress (APC) rally was on “illegal duty”. According to Caleb Chukwuemeka, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), the accused policeman was procured from Lagos to Ekiti State by an unnamed politician. “He is attached to 20 PMF, Ikeja, Lagos State, where he was posted on bank guard duties somewhere in Ikeja. The policeman came on illegal duty to Ekiti State. A politician, who conspired and removed the said policeman from where he was posted by his Squadron Commander and came to Ado-Ekiti with him for an unofficial reason has also been arrested.”
Who is this politician? What has happened to the arrested policeman? These were questions left hanging while the case was quietly swept under the carpet. In fact, many believe that the response by police authorities to the current case was spurred not by any sense of outrage but rather due to social media interest. That is not good for the police. For the institution to regain public trust, they must begin to deal with the issue that concerns the dignity and welfare of their own personnel. When police personnel begin to perform domestic chores for husbands, wives and concubines of government officials, council chairmen, traditional rulers, celebrities, high net worth individuals etc, it impacts negatively on the image of this critical institution.
Given the current period of national security emergency, the misuse of police officers and other security outfits should not be allowed to continue. With a police force of approximately 350,000 serving a projected population of about 218 million, Nigeria is far from the United Nations recommended ratio of one policeman to 400 citizens. So, this issue needs to be addressed. Maintaining public order and safety, enforcing the law, and preventing, detecting, and investigating criminal activities are the primary responsibilities of the Police. They cannot play such roles effectively if most of their personnel are running errands, including for those with no visible means of livelihood.
ENDNOTE: I have nothing more to add!
• You can follow me on my Twitter handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com
Donald Trump consolidated his record in demagoguery when he became the first former US president ever to be criminally indicted and arraigned in a Manhattan court on April 4.
He was the first US president to complain about an election he won and also the first to openly express support for the body-slamming of a reporter. He has the distinction of introducing “shithole countries” into the presidential lexicon. And on top of this improbable political career, Trump is also the first US president to be impeached twice.
With 34 counts of criminal conduct hanging around his neck, mostly charges of fraudulent bookkeeping, it appears that the days of Trump’s improbable political infamy are far from over.
Others have come close. According to a report by TIME, President Ulysses S. Grant was technically the first US president to be arrested for speeding on a horse and buggy in 1872.
Richard Nixon came very close too. He was forced to resign after the outbreak of Watergate but before he could face potential criminal prosecution, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him.
Bill Clinton also came quite close. He was impeached but was later acquitted, and escaped criminal charges by the seams of his pants, after negotiating for penance in civil damages.
But Trump, the very epitome of improbability, trumps them all. He is on the verge of outdoing even his own record in demagoguery, yet it is only fair to presume him innocent as he gets his day in court.
As prosecutors negotiated details of Trump’s arraignment with his lawyers, whether or not he would be handcuffed, mug-shot, finger-printed and so on, I kept wondering what would have happened if this surreal drama was playing out in an African country – any African country.
Of course, the process in the US, so far, has been widely praised as the triumph of strong institutions, the model that developing democracies around the world should aspire to. That’s a fair point, even though the trial of former President Jacob Zuma in South Africa, though under different circumstances, was also a significant moment.
Perhaps, it might be useful to inspect this playbook of American exceptionalism a little more. Let’s assume, for example, that on the eve of the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari pressed charges against the leader of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
The smouldering embers from the spectacular row in 2003 between Abubakar (then the vice president and his boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo) was a big deal then.
The details of that dispute, involving large amounts of public funds, were so messy that if Buhari wanted to embark on a fishing expedition, the government might have found grounds to bring charges.
And indeed, as if in some form of rehearsal, close associates of Abubakar were questioned, briefly detained and released without charges. Also, whether or not Atiku could travel to the US on account of speculations that the FBI had a warrant of arrest against him in respect of a business transaction with US Congressman, Mr. Williams Jefferson, trended in the runup to the 2019 elections.
It would have taken extraordinary nerve for the government under Buhari to formally bring charges against Abubakar, his main rival and leading opposition candidate on the eve of the elections. And even if Buhari’s government succeeded in doing so, it would have been interesting to hear what the US and other Western countries would have said.
Would they have praised Nigeria as a good example in upholding the rule of law or would such a step have been deemed fraught and politically motivated, especially in light of the pending elections?
I have nothing but contempt for Trump’s politics and style and would be pleased to pave him a road of thorns as he attempts to return to the White House. His presidency was a disaster.
But fair is fair. It is difficult to imagine that the prosecution would come up with this raft of charges against him – and press them in court now – if he was not interested in running again in the 2024 elections.
Those who think Nigeria’s scenario cited is far-fetched may wish to consider what is shaping up in Senegal, Nigeria’s western neighbour. In that country, President Macky Sall who has been in power since 2012, has nearly perfected plans to run for a third term in next year’s presidential election in breach of the Constitution. To give the impression that the race against himself would still not be an easy one, however, he is also planning to create his own opposition candidate.
He has slammed the main opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, with charges of criminal libel and is determined to produce enough distractions to tie him up in court ahead of the polls.
It may be convenient to argue that Sall is neither Biden, nor Ousmane, Trump. In any case, French-speaking West Africa has been more susceptible to instability and unconstitutional changes in government often triggered by flawed elections.
Yet, it depends on who is making the argument. In the eyes of millions of Trump supporters, there’s hardly a difference between a Sall who fiddles with the Constitution to secure an illegal third term and a Biden on whose watch Trump is facing criminal charges even when President Biden’s private garage is littered with dozens of classified documents shipped off from the White House when he was vice president.
How is the rule of law served when the Department of Justice sleepwalks over dozens of classified documents found in Biden’s garage from the Obama era, while Trump, the leading opposition candidate, is hobbled by criminal charges on the eve of the next general elections?
Unlike obstructionist Trump, Biden has said he would cooperate fully with the Department of Justice. Still, it would be interesting to know how tons of classified documents got to his private think-tank at a time when he had no legal basis to move them out of the White House.
If this were happening in an African country, would the US and its Western allies accept that the incumbent has nothing to do with the trial of the leading opposition candidate; that it is simply the law taking its course?
When matters get to a head in Senegal as may well be the case before the 2024 presidential election, would the US or France have the courage to call out Sall – or perhaps the increasingly authoritarian Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio – for mounting roadblocks in the way of opposition candidates?
It’s easy to yield to the seduction of American exceptionalism. Yet, apart from well-documented, but carefully preserved dark secrets of US waywardness, we have seen, especially in the last 10 years, that the US is not the undimming beacon that it often pretends to be.
The elections that brought Biden to office were marred by allegations of programmatic flaws. The US must therefore be held to the same standards that it holds the rest of the world.
The trial of Trump on the eve of an election in which he would potentially be running against an incumbent who himself is not exactly smelling of roses, is interesting. It would give the world a good opportunity to see if America practises what it preaches.
Who knows? The improbable Trump may well take demagoguery into the Guinness Book of Records by becoming the first US president to overcome a criminal trial and defeat an incumbent. And even if he doesn’t, he would still have set the record as the first US president who went down trying.
Azu Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP
In March 2014, at a time Boko Haram terrorism ravaged the country, 12 northern Nigeria governors travelled all the way to Washington D.C. to make a case against President Goodluck Jonathan before his American counterpart Barack Obama. These governors, who got a chance to meet Obama’s National Security Adviser Ms. Susan Rice, accused Jonathan of sponsoring the terrorist attacks. According to media reports—still archived online—Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State launched the attacks by reading a laundry list of the president’s sins to the high-ranking officials attending the meeting. Two governors specifically named as joining Nyako to attack Jonathan were Governors Rabiu Kwankaso of Kano and Kashim Shettima of Borno. It got to the point that the Nigerian Ambassador, Prof. Ade Adefuye, reportedly had to intervene and stop these men from “washing Nigeria’s dirty linen in public.”
If you wondered what the novelist Chimamanda Adichie’s name was doing in the same sentence as that of the vice president-elect, I am sure you made the connections now.
Adichie’s recent open letter to US President Joe Biden highlighting the ill-conduct of the February presidential election did the All Progressives Congress just as dirty as some of them once did Jonathan. While the US government is unlikely to publicly react to the letter, her account still delegitimises a government that characteristically looks to powerful western institutions for legitimacy. Before Adichie’s essay was published, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, had gone to Washington to market the last election as “the freest and fairest in the history of Nigeria.” For him to feel the need to travel to justify their government to journalists and international observers who must have been following the whole drama online, they must have been quite anxious to be taken seriously. Then came the open letter.
For an incoming presidency already under all kinds of scrutiny, Adichie’s letter must be a body blow. From the frenzied responses and the accompanying hormonal howls from the usual attack hounds, that letter’s contents must have touched their rawest nerve.
Expectedly, they accused her of “colonial mentality,” “anti-patriotism, and of course, “tribalism.” Since we are here, they might as well clarify if Shettima and his jesters’ crew who sidestepped all the local institutions and headed for Washington were on an agenda of decolonisation. And why did they not return there when the government of Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) similarly failed to control banditry? Which patriotic virtues drove Shettima to de-market his president in 2014 but restrained him under Buhari’s debilitating regime? It was all self-serving politics.
The APC and their supporters thundering over Adichie’s letter and the irreverence of the Obidients must combine weak memories with moral inconsistency. From all the noise they have made about Obidients in the past week, one would be forgiven for imagining that an online mob of partisan political supporters is a historically unique phenomenon. They seem to forget that it was that Buhari was once outed for inaugurating a troll farm to battle online opponents and sow discord. Apart from the shadowy ones of the Buhari Media Centre who routinely creep out of the underbelly of the internet to muddy issues, he also appointed a retinue of media aides who probably outnumber his economic team. To justify their salaries and also establish some social relevance, those ones have spent the past eight years identifying and attacking supposed enemies. So how is it possible to have an atmosphere where trolling is accorded presidential gravitas, and you would not have formally created the same enemy you claim you want to destroy? If anything, the online ferocity we are presently seeing owes a lot to the Buhari regime’s formalisation of trolling.
It is amazing how people see Hitler and Mussolini in the Obidients when Buhari’s supporters are those whose election politics have serially inflicted physical violence. In 2011 when Buhari lost the election, they went on a rampage and killed an estimated 800 people. They were the ones who almost killed the man who named his dog “Buhari.” They once attacked Charley Boy in Abuja for protesting against Buhari. In April 2021, two anti-Buhari protesters were whipped in Kogi State by some Buhari supporters. Following that incident, Kogi State officials put an official statement justifying the violence saying, “We are placing it on record that the fanatical following of Mr President by Kogi people is borne out of our faith in his integrity and quality leadership.” How do you expect a society where the state legitimates violence not to face reprisals from those fed up but lacking commensurate political power?
The obvious lesson from all this is that the toxic politics that the APC sowed is overripe, and the rotten fruits are falling on their faces. The weapons of warfare that the APC used against the PDP while it was the “opposition” party are also widely available for those seeking to supplant the APC. Thanks to the internet, we have entered a historical phase where politicians seeking the highest office—and for whom the odds align—will get an online army of supporters to propagate their message and counterbalance those deemed the establishment. Every generation employs the tools at its behest to propagate the politics of its time, and this is no different. As it was in 2015 so is it in 2023 and will likely be in 2031. Unlike earlier eras where self-promoting politicians set up media houses to drown out opponents, social media now grants similar narrative power to people who would otherwise have been unheard. If they can form a mass, they can be heard. And jarring the ears of those inured to chaos entails not just shouting but lots of irreverence to boot.
The less evident part is that vengeful politics has been a good strategy for the APC. If it took Shettima from Borno to Aso Rock, it must have some viability. And if it works for them, what motivation do they have to give it up? And if those tactics work for one side, what stops the other from appropriating them?
To maintain their hold on power, they must keep holding up the specter of “the enemy” so that their supporters can concentrate their primal energies on trying to destroy it. But they must also be discovering how terribly exhausting such venomous politics can be. I am amused some aides of the incoming president have resolved to battle the Obidients to demonstrate that “nobody has a monopoly of madness.” I wish them good luck as they spend the next four years of their lives exchanging bitter words with the zestful users of the internet. Not only will they keep the rest of us entertained now that the present cohort of media aides appears battle weary, but they will also hopefully combust themselves in the monomaniac pursuit of the enemy they created in their own image.
In their bid to punch up and down at their enemies, both online and offline, they would have repudiated every allegation of righteousness and national interest once levelled against them. The good thing is that by the time they are done with their agenda of de-monopolisation of madness on Twitter, they would have disavowed every pretence of patriotism, every sliver of virtue, and every intellection they ever postured in their previous existence. I sincerely hope they do not get tired until they are entirely stripped of all pretences.
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This is my third agenda-setting piece in as many weeks specifically directed to the next governor of Akwa Ibom State. In the first instalment, I asked the new governor to sell off or put the government’s private jet exclusively used by the governor on lease. I reasoned that the continued use of the 13-year-old Gulfstream has become a major drain on our resources. In this edition, I am proposing that the new administration should set up a committee of eminent professionals that would think for him and guide him through the labyrinths of the issues he would be dealing with. Given the many decisions that a governor takes and the varied influences under which he operates, it is imperative that he sets up a think tank (or whatever name he chooses to call it) that will think for him, plan for him and ferret out ideas that would be of invaluable help to him. The body will advise the chief executive on which projects or programs are of optimum value to the people, where they should be located, and those that should be jettisoned. I have noticed that many policies or projects of the government are either not well thought out or are not properly aligned with other initiatives of the government. So, we have a situation in which certain programs and projects are not of any value to economic development of the state; or where they are of any value, they are performing at suboptimal levels. Some other and programs do not even achieve their key objectives and have become drainpipes to our lean resources. Just a few examples:
The government has been building a multi-billion Naira Worship Center in the last several years. Gov. Udom Emmanuel claims that it is a befitting place of worship to the people. But others like me believe that it is sheer waste of resources for a government to spend huge resources to build places of worship. I reason that it is not the business of the state government to erect worship centers for the citizens. Near to the Worship Center in the heart of the city is a 21-storey building commissioned two years ago by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The governor had announced that it was being built as an incentive for EXXONMobil to relocate its headquarters from Lagos to the state. But before the building was even completed, the oil company announced its exit from the state, and the building has remained unoccupied in the last two years. That is another huge waste of resources to the people and the government. Clearly, Mobil did not ask the government to provide it with a building. It turned out that the company was already finalizing plans to exit its operations in the state when the government was erecting the building. In 2015, the Akpabio administration left behind a fully completed and furnished 12-storey hotel, and entered into an agreement with the Sheraton Group to manage it. But the succeeding administration of Udom Emmanuel did not open the place for business until a few months ago. These three examples illustrate the need for a governor to seek advice from an independent set of professionals before embarking on certain projects. I can mention more cases.
Gov. Udom Emmanuel’s coconut factory established two years ago to refine oil from coconut, is a clear case of policy misalignment and clumsy conception projects. The government built the factory for refining of coconut without planting the coconut palms. Now, the factory has been ready and commissioned for two years now, yet there is no single coconut tree to harvest and feed into the factory. The implication is that, in accounting terms, the machines in the factory have already depreciated for two years without refining a litre of oil. The factory has become a big waste to the state government. So, if the machines were manufactured for a five-year life span, it therefore means that the factory would be fully depreciated even before it begins production since there is no coconut tree ready for harvest soon. It is the ineptest project management program that I have ever heard of in my life! There are also many cases of farming communities that do not have access roads, yet there are many other communities that have more than enough just because the governor is from that part of the state.
These few examples clearly illustrate the fact that our leaders could sometimes be driven by irrational logic in project conception and execution, perhaps influenced by political considerations and other factors. It is therefore imperative for them to have a body of smart, accomplished, experienced and independent citizens who have the capacity to think dispassionately and advise the governor on matters of this nature. If Mr. Udom Emmanuel had relied on a policy think tank or a well-informed advisory body for guidance, he would have been well advised to plant coconut palms first, wait for fruition before establishing the refinery. That would have ensured availability of the raw materials before the factory was set up. But by setting up a factory before the raw materials are even planted, the governor had placed the cart before the horse! And the state is the worse for it. Similarly, such a body would have advised the governor not to waste money erecting a monument for Mobil, since an oil company is capable of erecting its own place.
A think tank, or policy institute, performs research, policy formulation and advocacy on social, political and economic issues, security, science & tech, among others. Members of a think tank usually come from different backgrounds, and they should be knowledgeable men and women who can give the government independent ideas and advise against frivolous and kneejerk actions. Its functions should be limited to policy formulation, advocacy and advisory. The key objectives are:
1. Advise the government on the major problems to tackle and how to tackle them in such key areas as education; job creation, poverty reduction; etc.
2. Liaise with federal agencies and provide the government with important research information on all aspects of social and economic sectors in the state;
3. Advise government on all employment opportunities that are available for Akwa Ibom people in both the public and private sectors and suggest ways that our people would take advantage of such opportunities. In many federal parastatals, for example, there is no Akwa Ibom person in the middle and senior management cadres.
4. To serve as a sounding board and adviser to the government.
Membership of this body should be drawn from the private and public sectors with the financial services industry well represented. They will help guide the next governor from decisions that result in waste of resources.
With the conclusion of the 2023 general election, it is time to review what has happened to our democracy. Since 2015 we seem to be on a climb towards consolidating democracy. This sentiment is supported by the fact that we have completed for the first time a ‘democratic’ transition from one party to another. In Africa, democracy’s major challenge is for incumbents to be defeated and they go home peacefully. Nigeria achieved that in 2015. This achievement is not a trifle. Joseph Schumpeter considers it the essence of democracy. In his view, democracy is the reality that incumbents can be defeated, and they willingly go home. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, the reality is that attempts to defeat incumbents in elections have easily led to civil conflicts and the loss of democracy itself.
But this singular achievement, significant as it is, does not mask the fundamental flaws of Nigerian democracy. The practice of democracy in Nigeria leads objective assessors to the conclusion that Nigeria is not yet a democracy. If democracy is measured by free and fair elections that are grounded in protection for fundamental human rights and impartial working of state institutions, then Nigeria is not yet a democracy, in spite of the fact of party-to-party transition. Nigerian elections always fall far short of democratic quotients. Robert Dahl lists six conditions of democracy: effective participation, equality in voting, gaining enlightened understanding of public issues, exercising final control over the agenda and inclusion of adults. For there to be equality of votes, you must guarantee to citizens opportunities to freely form opinions, freely express those opinions and organize themselves publicly in defense of such opinions. Where there are legal or illegal prohibitions of the right to organize or where state authorities repress opponents of incumbents and confer advantages to incumbents, there is no free and fair election and no equality of voting.
Dahl admits that there is no ideal democracy where there is complete political equality yet argues that there must be sufficient institutionalization of these features in a polity to qualify as a democracy. To be a democracy it is not enough to have laws that promise citizens fundamental rights, or laws that declare equal citizenship. Those laws must be faithfully implemented. The reality of these rights and not their mere articulation in sacred texts and constitutional documents is the measure of democracy in a society.
This brings democracy closer to the rule of law. It is not a happenstance that there has been no truly democratic society that is not a rule of law society. Of course, we will continue to argue about the reality of the enjoyment of these rights as many members of the society are excluded, whether women and children, as in Athens, or women children and blacks in Antebellum United States. But until there is significant rule of law, democracy can never take shape. The struggles of many post-colonial African countries with democracy may be explained by their weakness institutionalising the rule of law. Although these countries, like Nigeria, may have incorporated bill of rights in their constitutions, their politics lacks the effective checks and balances that undergird and define democracy. Democracy would be thoroughly lacking in a society where there is no separation between public and private spheres, where state institutions are normatively oriented to serve the political interests of the ruling elites and where the coercive force of the society is neither professionally managed nor diffused.
Democratic elections require that there is competition and contestation. Where there is monopoly of power or total control of state institutions, especially those that punish or reward, then there can be no competitive election in the real sense. If incumbents are not constrained by either administrative rules or by balance of force, it means that there would be no real competition and contestation. Therefore, there will be little prospect for effective participation and equal voting. This is the case with the 2023 general elections.
In the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly Elections, the election management body helped to rig the election for the incumbent political party by mysteriously shutting down the technological safeguard of transparent and credible election- the electronic transmission of result in real time. This undermined the integrity of the election results. Why would a commission that issued a regulation on electronic transmission of results and officially communicated to Nigerians and diplomatic community its commitment to follow through on the regulation now refused to activate that guarantee of transparency and credibility of results? In March 18 Governorship and House of Assembly Election, voters of Igbo ethnic descent were forcefully prevented from voting because the presidential candidate, the incumbent Governor of Lagos and his political surrogates accused Igbos of interfering in Lagos politics and mobilized the people to resist that. The Police did not intervene to protect the citizenship rights of Igbos.
The story above illustrates the truth of the insights from Robert Dahl who argued in his book, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, that democracy (polyarchy) is only possible where there is real contestation for power. There will be no contestation unless the institutions of coercion have internalized the norms of neutrality and professionalism or there is a diffusion of power such that no single person or group has overwhelming control of the economic or coercive power of the state. In the 2023 elections, we learnt a hard way that unless we can guarantee the professionalism of the security agencies and the election management body, that is ensure that they are operationally neutral of political and economic interests in the society, we cannot have any realistic prospect of having democratic election.
The rule of law approach to state building provides better perspectives to understand the failures we have suffered as a nation. Since the end of colonialism there has been a strong advocacy for democracy. The democratization movement has been largely a failure in some of the transitional and so-called emerging democracy. The problem is that democracy proponents have lost of the history democracy. Democracy is a struggle for equality. This struggle is practical but results in basic changes in law. The underlining institutions of democracy, the reason democracy works, are defined by transformations in law. Without the Magna Carta, with the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution and without the laws that expand the franchise to excluded persons, there would have been no democracy in the western democracy.
The law reform project failed in Nigeria and the rest of Africa as highlighted by Mamdani Mahmood and other African scholars. This failure, as Robert and Ann Seidman wisely noted, is the failure to use law to redefine the institutions of coercion and production and distribution in the post-colonial African states. Free and fair election requires that the security agencies are created and defined in a particular manner that guarantees that they are professional and neutral. Now professionalism and neutrality may sound like technical concepts. But they are first and foremost a matter of legal institutionalization. The manner the police, the election management body and other institutions that intervene in election matters deliver their mandates is the real determinant of free and fair election. The construction of these institutions in a manner that promote political equality is the essence of the rule of law.
After the shambolic 2007 presidential election, President Yar’Adua instituted a comprehensive review of the electoral system. This resulted in the radical propositions in the Justice Uwais report. The report was largely unimplemented. The proposals by Justice Uwais committee if fully and wisely implemented would have transformed the legal institution of elections in Nigeria. Those reforms that changed the legal relations in society are the heart of rule of law reform. As Professor Douglas North makes clear, institutions include all rules, procedures and humanly designed constraints and enablers of action. When we speak of the critical institutions of democracy, we mean those legal relationships in the society that prevent certain actions and mandate others. If such legal relations are wise, effective and make political equality a reality, then we are getting closers to democracy. If state governments can easily mobilize state institutions to work for them, then there is no rule of law. If rules and norms constrain them from so utilizing these institutions to terrorize their opponents, then that is a rule of law state that promotes electoral democracy. Rule of law has the dimension of substantial justice because it aims at the promoting civil and political as well as social economic rights of the people. If our laws do not actually protect these rights, then we cannot get to electoral democracy.
This invariably means that being truly a rule of law state precedes being a democratic state. If we don’t first ensure that our institutions work according to the principles of the rule of law, we cannot transition to democracy.
I hereby reproduce the Tribute I paid to Judge Bola Ajibola 5 years ago!
“Prince Bola Ajibola is a unique role model and his life is a study in academic brilliance, courage, perseverance, persistence, patience, patriotism, enterprise, focus, humility, selflessness, modesty, human decency and moral rectitude. A book for all ages and all generations! Bold, outspoken, courageous and kind hearted, Ajibola is one man whose door you knock with tears in your eyes and depart with smiles on your lips. His leadership and human relations skills are without compare and his patriotism and nationalism are beyond reproach.He takes his religion very seriously the same way he commits to humanity and services to both.”
This is a special tribute to a very special man. A very unusual man. A most under-celebrated icon of immense and immeasurable proportion. A man who towers well above several men and women who have unfortunately high-jacked national and international applause, much undeserved, to themselves.
I know many people may query my choice of the title for this tribute and may be wondering whether I was wishing Prince Bola Ajibola dead or insinuating that he had already collected his *Boarding Pass* to the other side of the *Continuum*. Far from it. It has always been my cardinal principle that people who are good should be told while alive and active that they are good, and those bad should be told so. Not elegies at the grave side which would be of no use to the dead.
One time Prime Minister of Canada Mr Jean Chretien was asked if he was bothered by what the press might write after his demise; the usually witty gentleman quipped “I won’t be there to read it!”
If one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, Michael Jackson had been shown the unprecedented love showered on him at his death, he would have died a happier man.
So, I declare that I wish Uncle Bola Ajibola more years of meritorious and active life in the service of Allah and humanity. He has not finished his mission. And he’s not about to by the special grace of Allah.
And those who may still be worried about my choice of title should find solace in the fact that I already drafted the pamphlet of the programme of proceedings for my funeral in addition to choosing the transparent plastic casket my remains would be cased in and the spot to be interred at my Ashi Bodija residence, whenever my body could no longer accommodate my *Breath of Life.*
Now back to our main subject. And I have *Wikipedia* as my reference:
Omoba Bolasodun Adesumbo «Bola» Ajibola KBE [The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire] (born March 22, 1934)[1] was an Attorney General and the Minister of Justice of Nigeria from 1985 to 1991 and a Judge of the International Court of Justice from 1991 to 1994.[2] He was president of the Nigerian Bar Association from 1984-85. He was also one of five commissioners on the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, organized through the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Born on March 22, 1934 in Owu, near Abeokuta, Nigeria, to the Owu royal family[3] of Oba Abdul-Salam Ajibola Gbadela II, who was the traditional ruler of Owu between 1949 and 1972, Ajibola attended Owu Baptist Day School and Baptist Boys’ High School both in Abeokuta between 1942 and 1955. He obtained his bachelor›s degree in Law (LL.B) at the Holborn College of Law,University of London between 1959 and 1962 and was called to the English Bar at the Lincoln’s Inn in 1962. He returned to Nigeriato practice the Law, specializing in Commercial Law and International Arbitration.
He was the chairman of the panel set up by the Plateau State government to probe the 2008 Jos riots.[4][5] He established *CrescentUniversity* in 2005 in Nigeria which is an Islamic and co-educational institution.
I had wanted to write this tribute since 2005 when Judge Bola Ajibola was appointed the Chairman of the 50-member Ogun State Elders Consultative Forum in Abeokuta. I found in that appointment a confirmation of the esteem I have held Prince Ajibola when I met him in his very active and articulate days as the fire-brand President of the Nigerian Bar Association [NBA] [1984-1985].
Ogun State Elders Consultative Forum paraded heavyweights like emeritus Professor Theophilus O. Ogunlesi, Nigeria’s first professor of Medicine, Justice Sogbetun, Professor Akin Mabogunje, Sir Kessington Adebutu, Chief AA Degun, Professor Adebayo Adedeji, Apena Adebisi Macgregor, Dr Ona Soleye, Ambassador Koleoso, Professor Anthony Asiwaju, Chief Olu Okuboyejo, Professor Biyi Afonja, Ambassador Segun Olusola, Olori Yetunde Gbadebo, Asiwaju S A Onafowokan, Ayora Kuforiji-Olubi, Dr Lateef Adegbite and Dr Sunny Kuku [ the youngest of the group listed] who was chair of a sub-committee. I kept postponing and postponing.
*Then came Sunday August 12 and the Punch of that day spurred me to action.*
*In reporting the wonders performed by Islamic Mission for Africa Model College, Abeokuta, the Punch* wrote: Former Attorney General and Minister of Justice Prince Ajibola SAN has given glory to Almighty Allah on his immense joy at the overwhelming performance of excellence by the students of one of his educational establishments at the just concluded WAEC Examinations. Ajibola thanked God for strengthening him to have madeIMA International Model College happen and for the College’s feat which netted for it A1 parallel in Mathematics at the African standard examination. This is proof of Allah’s endorsement of the sacrifices of this global figure who served his fatherland as Minister for over six years without taking salary.
*The Crescent University* Abeokuta [CUAB] the peak of the educational establishments of the Olori Omo Oba of Owu Kingdom is today one leading private university in Nigeria with its excellent stride as ‘citadel of moral and academic excellence’ emphasized the Sunday Punch.
When *Crescent University* celebrated her 10th Anniversary [2005-2015] the elated Founder and Proprietor, former World Court Judge enthused: “This is a fulfilment of our dream of nurturing people of academic and moral uprightness in the sight of God”, adding “we do not want you [the students] to become educated beasts”.
The University which is a perfect reflection and image of its founder may be the country’s answer to all the problems facing other Nigerian universities. The University has never recorded a single day of strike or closure in the last twelve years and has not recorded a single case of cultism. From a humble beginning with accreditation in Banking and Finance the University now boasts over 20 accredited programmes with Colleges of Law, Social and Management Sciences, Natural and Applied Sciences, Information and Communication Sciences and Environmental Sciences topping the chart.
All these Prince Ajibola has accomplished without beating drums about them.
Because of his commitment to human capital development and enthronement of excellent morals in our youths Prince Ajibola sold virtually all he had to found the *Crescent University*.
I must add that Judge Ajibola is very rich in humour and jokes and if you do not want your ribs cracked up, you may be advised not to engage in dialectics with this bundle of wit, witticism, and syllogisms.
Brought up in the royal palace; dignity, royalty, elegance, comportment and decorum always ooze out of his usually well ironed agbada.
With contacts and connections all over the globe, and with a wide network of leaders of thought throughout Nigeria Judge Ajibola is at home in Kano as he is in Calabar and very much in good company as he is in Australia and in Austria.
Prince Bola Ajibola is a unique role model and his life is a study in academic brilliance, courage, perseverance, persistence, patience, patriotism, enterprise, focus, humility, selflessness, modesty, human decency and moral rectitude. A book for all ages and all generations!
Bold, outspoken, courageous and kind hearted, Ajibola is one man whose door you knock with tears in your eyes and depart with smiles on your lips. His leadership and human relations skills are without compare and his patriotism and nationalism are beyond reproach.
He takes his religion very seriously the same way he commits to humanity and services to both.
A man of unimpeachable integrity Judge Ajibola is one leader who would/could have pulled Nigeria out of its morass if he had turned his attention and immense talents and brilliance to politics. Unfortunately, Nigeria has no need for such an upright man who would not steal, would not lie, would not kill or get people killed for him and would not tamper with his female Ministers’ under pants!
[OPINION] Policy Options for Incoming President: Defence and Internal Security - Femi Olufunmilade
Admin"AT least 80 children have been abducted by bandits in the Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
The children, who are between the ages of 12 and 17, were kidnapped on Friday morning, according to BBC Hausa. /Some parents of the abducted children who spoke to the British media outlet said the victims were in the bush fetching firewood at about 8am when the assailants rounded them up and marched them into the forest." - The Punch, 8 April, 2023
"FORTY-SIX persons were reportedly killed on Wednesday as suspected armed herders unleashed a deadly attack on the Umogidi community of Entekpa Adoka district in the Otukpo Local Government Area of Benue State. The fresh attack came a day after suspected herders invaded the community and killed three persons on Tuesday. /On Monday, the Igbobi community in the neighbouring Apa Local Government Area of the state was also attacked, with three persons killed./It was gathered that the armed herders returned to the Umogidi community on Wednesday evening, shortly after the burial of the three persons earlier killed in the Tuesday attack." - The Punch, 7 April, 2023
THE above reports of serious security breaches in two Nigerian states indicate that nothing has changed in terms of our security challenges as the swearing-in of our next president is less than seven weeks away. Within the past six days, the Benue figure has risen to 136!
ELSEWHERE, any of the two reports would be a cause for a broadcast by the Head of State to calm horrified citizens, in which he would detail actions taken already to rescue the 80 school children abducted in Zamfara and apprehend the killers of the 136 compatriots in Benue.
MEANWHILE, a battery of media operatives would be at the scenes of crime, giving a steady stream of live reports under the rubric of "Breaking News" or "Developing Story".
BUT here in our bloody Nigeria, these are no longer Breaking News. They are Normal News. In Benue, for instance, as at February, Governor Samuel Ortom had put the figures of those killed by so-called Fulani herdsmen at 6,000, while, earlier, he gave 1.5 million as the figure for Internally Displaced People in the state occasioned by the same gang of unrelenting assailants.
WHAT is clear from the foregoing is that there are forces entrenched within the political class, particularly in the North of Nigeria, promoting insecurity. Or, how do we explain a situation where a truce of sorts enveloped the election period, only for hostilities to resume upon the conclusion of the elections?
SOME people who are stakeholders in the election obviously wanted it to go on without the encumbrance of insecurity. They wanted maximum turnout of voters. That achieved, they've now resumed the orgy of killings and abductions.
UNLESS the shadow actors in the promotion of insecurity are dealt with, the incoming president might labour in vain in fighting the scourge. President Tinubu must wake up early enough to the palpable reality of saboteurs in high places within the political and security circles. Not only to tackle insecurity decisively, but for his own safety. There's fire on the Aso villa mountain! We need to hasten to make this point bordering on intelligence analysis before delving into technical issues.
SO, the task before our incoming president, beyond the charms of the presidency, are indeed perilous. And the question is: what new thing has he got up his sleeves to put a quick and lasting end to these unwarranted butchery and immiseration of innocent Nigerians?
IT would be 40 years in three years time one became a political science undergraduate. We were taught at that level that the fundamental duty of a state (or government) is the protection of lives and properties of citizens. In Thomas Hobbes classic "The Leviathan", we were informed that anarchy was the order of the day before the emergence of government. Hobbes said in that state of anarchy he termed "State of Nature", there was "no mine nor thine". In other words, whatever you thought belonged to you could be taken from you by someone stronger than you.
THUS, "life was brutish, nasty, and short"! Life was so intolerable that men summoned a summit of reason, whereupon they agreed it was in the best interest of all to surrender their reckless show of power to the authority of a superior who would manage their affairs in such a manner that none would be injurious to the other, and would mete due punishment to whosoever disturbed public order.
IT is against this philosophical tenet regarding the essence of the state that under the United Nations system, despite the non-interference clause in the UN Charter, sister nations are authorised under the auspices of the Security Council, to intervene militarily in nations where the government is no longer able to protect lives and property. That is the doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect".
A young military officer told me some years ago that if not that Nigeria was a big country, the magnitude of deaths and destruction he had witnessed in some states in Nigeria were enough to call on the UN to intervene. But Nigeria is bigger than Sierra Leone or Somalia. We can afford to lose citizens by thousands in a state, while reassuring the world that ours is still a safe and stable country because the reports they're getting are isolated cases. We even berate our local media for reporting too much of such news. We charge them to report things like the completion of the Second Niger Bridge, the rice revolution occasioned by the Central Bank's Anchor Borrowers' Programme, the imminent takeoff of Air Nigeria, upcoming Dangote Refinery (Africa's largest) etc. And so on.
TO those of us into security studies, the fact that there is hardly a state in Nigeria today in which the military isn't engaged in Internal Security Operations (that is, police duties), underscores the seriousness of our security situation.
THAT got me interested in the security agenda of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Much earlier, I had concluded it's more of a long-term plan. But we need urgent measures to save lives!
THEREFORE, I wish to share some of the measures I had put down as quick-fix approaches to tackling insecurity.
THE first is CIVIL MOBILISATION FOR SELF-DEFENCE. This entails training vigilantes in vulnerable communities in such states as Zamfara, Sokoto, Niger, Benue, Taraba Kaduna and others in the use of assault rifles germane to countering the firepower of sundry bandits and terrorists laying siege on their homelands.
I'M talking about defensive training to protect and defend their communities and farms against hostile forces. They are no substitutes to the military or the police or allied security agencies. Their task is to provide the first layer of resistance to hostile forces before help would arrive from the police or the military. This will put an end to a situation where their communities are invaded and people are picked up like snails on a rainy night in the forest. Or, stout and sturdy men get slaughtered by some lightweight urchins from the Sahel.
THE vigilantes shall comprise young men and women screened and certified as good indigenes of their communities by their local authorities. They will be organised into platoons and their job shall be a freewill service to their communities, while they keep their regular vocation. And while they need not be paid by the government, the government shall provide them with training via the nearest military formation to their community. The template of the Civilian JTF in Borno state is akin to what I'm recommending.
THE second measure is the STRENGHTENING OF STATE -OWNED SECURITY OUTFITS like Amotekun in the Southwest states, Benue Volunteer Guards, Ebube Agu in the Southeast, and similar outfits established in the states as self-help security machinery. Help them by way of approving the use of weapons commensurate or superior to what the armed groups ravaging their peace carry. Help them with logistics and training where required and so on.
THE foregoing are low-hanging fruits in the context in which we acknowledge that the regular security forces controlled by the Federal Government have been overwhelmed by hydra-headed spate of insecurity.
THE second measure is RECALL OF RESERVISTS. This is still part of immediate measures. The reservists are those military, police, and security personnel who are in retirement but are still mentally and physically agile enough to return to active service. Again, the recall process shall be voluntary and it shall entail fitness test. The service will not be free because these are people who had already served and paid their dues to our country. They will be entitled to some honoraria. The aims of their recall are as follows: to beef up the numerical strength of our forces and agencies where paucity of personnel has been a chronic challenge, and to make an infusion of experts in counterterrorism operations.
ON the latter score, I once supervised an army general who graduated with a PhD in Strategic Studies seven years ago. The title of his thesis was "The Challenges of Combating Terrorism in the Sahel Region of Africa". In researching this thesis, he undertook fieldwork in Niger Republic, Chad, Burkina Faso, and, of course, the northern part of Nigeria. Subsequently, he was appointed GOC 8 Division, Sokoto, and, later, Commander of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), N'djamena, Chad, among others. He's below 60 but already retired. There are scores upon scores of his kind now teaching on our campuses or working abroad as mercenaries who should be recalled, if need be, as contracted mercenaries, to avail us their invaluable skills in ending insecurity so the incoming president can concentrate on executing his development agenda.
TO avoid the trouble of seniority in dealing with their juniors now in command positions, I prefer the experts should be engaged as mercenaries such that they can request for a team to work with in the military under their own command. And they should be given specific tasks. For example, the ubiquitous bandits that for a long time now have posed a greater challenge than Boko Haram or ISWAP should be effectively put of action in a proactive, intelligence-led nationwide operation. Governor Nasir El-Rufai has said several times they should be bombed. His views were captured in a report by The Nation (1st April 2022) titled "El-Rufai: It's time to bomb bandits out of existence". He's not alone, the Emir of Muri had had cause to call for their lynching, unless they left his territory. This was in the Sahara Reporters (22 July 2021) with the caption: "Emir Declares War On Fulani Herdsmen In Taraba, Gives 30-day Ultimatum To Vacate Forests".
DEALING decisively with the bandits is a core security imperative to Nigeria today
because, unlike Boko Haram, they are able to penetrate the nooks and crannies of Nigeria under the dubious cover of "herdsmen". But the palpable reality, which many of them caught or sighted by victims have revealed, is that they are mostly foreigners from the Sahel. Not the Nigerian herdsmen. My colleague, Biodun Solola, abducted at the Omotoso axis of the Benin-Lagos highway on 26th April and released 1st May 2019 after paying ransom, told us his abductors spoke French. He noted emphatically they were not Nigerians. But that's not to rule out local collaborators. As a matter of fact, we have have seen cases where, when locals apprehend them and hand them over to security agencies, they are soon let off the hook by order from above!
I cite a prominent example. There was this notorious so-called Fulani herdsman known as Iskilu Wakilu. He was terrorising the farming communities of Ibarapa, Oyo state, killing, raping women, sacking whole communities, abducting for ransom etc. The command post of his terrorist operations was Kajola.
IT was in the heat of Sunday Igboho's entry into the fray in the Igangan axis of Oke Ogun where his kinsman, Dr. Fatai Aborode, had been abducted and killed after ransom was paid! People were deriding the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Chief Gani Adams, of complacency in the face of a siege on Yorubaland. Whereupon, he decided to prove his martial prowess and his care. He sent some of his men to capture the dreaded Iskilu Wakili alive. They got him, navigating an hailstorm of bullets. They triumphantly drove him to a police station in nearby Igbo Ora from where they moved to Police Force Headquarters at Iyaganku, Ibadan. To the shock of everyone, Iskilu was given a chair to sit upon like a VIP at the police headquarters, while his three captors who believed they just conducted citizens' arrest in aid of the police were locked up in cells for usurping police duties! They were even arraigned in court and were only released after languishing in detention. That was in early March 2021, but they were not discharged and acquitted by the court until June 2021. That was long after Iskilu had been released to go home in peace. The three OPC men were Awodele Adedigba, Dauda Kazeem, and Hassan Ramon. You can Google "Iskilu Wakili" for more on this bizarre story of promoters of insecurity in high places.
THE third measure President Tinubu must adopt is rather trite but valid: LAW ENFORCEMENT. Must ensure all bandits or terrorists arrested for criminality are prosecuted for the public to observe. People complain loudly that they rarely see anybody being prosecuted for all the killings and destruction of livelihoods raging in the country! This is another low-hanging fruit capable of deterrence. It will stem the tide of impunity. When the lawless, rampaging killer "herdsmen" see their mates standing trial and facing public execution for their crime against innocent Nigerians, they will have a brain reset, whether they are foreigners or locals. As Martin Luther King Jnr puts the matter, "Judicial acts may not change the heart, but it will, at least, restrain the heartless"!
THE fourth measure is COMPULSORY RANCHING OF CATTLE. A holistic approach is needed. Hence, for the sake of genuine herdsmen caught between the pressure of diminishing grazing fields and the menace of cattle rustlers, the incoming Tinubu administration should revisit the politicised panacea called ranching. The issue couldn't be resolved because of President Buhari's divided loyalty as a former herdsboy. He had told us he was plucked from the grazing field by an uncle to go to school. His approach to the killer herdsmen menace had been riddled by bias and atavism. That's why the criminals became emboldened and utterly brazen in the acts.
IN an age the whole world has embraced ranching, the country watched in disbelief at different times when Buhari had pushed for opening up of grazing routes across Nigeria for herdsmen! He said they used to be there 60, 70 years ago!
HIS alternative to nationwide grazing routes was nationwide "Ruga". Meaning, acquiring vast acreages of land hither and thither as grazing reserves. Something Nigerians unable to recover from the dread of the killer herdsmen found ominous and perilous. Hence, they resisted it firmly and resoundingly from north to south. They believe the scheme is a ploy at land grab.
ADDING fillip to their suspicion was the fact that when another former herdsboy, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state, gave an open invitation to herdsmen in difficulty across Nigeria to report in Kano state at a massive grazing reserve he had graciously earmarked for them, his offer was largely spurned. A report in the Premium Times (4 February 2018) filed by Muhammad Ahmad and Samuel Ogundipe was captioned "Herdsmen-Farmers Crisis: Governor invites all Nigerian herdsmen to settle in Kano".
PRESIDENT Buhari neither supported Ganduje financially in this laudable effort nor lent his voice to the invitation to the herdsmen to sedentarise at the grazing reserves. It was thus clear the goal of Ruga was indeed nationwide land grab.
HAPPILY, Governor Ganduje is Tinubu's political ally and bosom friend. He should begin to engage him as well as the incoming governor of Kano state on developing a world class ranching facility in Kano. This is another low-hanging fruit. But he should expect opposition from Fulani irredentist forces who are going to argue that nomadism is a culture - a way of life - of the Fulani. It's how he deals with challenges of this sort that will alert Nigerians as to whether he's truly in charge or just marking time as president and commander in chief of the armed forces.
THE fifth measure is NATIONAL SECURITY SUMMIT. We recall that in the early days of General Olusegun Obasanjo in office as an elected president, one of the strategies he adopted to grapple well with the enormous challenges he met were sectoral summits he convened one after the other.
I commend this strategy to President Tinubu as it's capable of yielding a wealth of intelligence and knowledge on each sector germane to formulating appropriate policies and taking the right decisions. In this regard, he should start with a summit on national security. Importantly, he should accord retired military and security officers priority in the choice of invitees. Some of them marginalised deliberately while in service will tell him eye-opening things that will help him. In defence and security, intelligence is key. That's why Sun Tzu in "The Art of War" remarked thus: "An army without intelligence is like a man without eyes and functioning ears"! The analogy is even more true of a commander in chief without real time actionable intel! So much for immediate measures and low-hanging fruits!
THE Tinubu blueprint, as noted in the opening of this piece, deals fairly well with long-term measures, but there's a lacuna that should be filled. That is the DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOCHTONOUS MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. In simple terms, we are talking of domestic production of arms and ammunition for the military and other security agencies.
PRESIDENT Tinubu should prioritise the transformation of the Defence Industry Corporation (DIC) that has been stagnating in Kaduna since 1964. He should decentralise its operations and create subsidiaries in viable centers across Nigeria. Ironically, Proforce, a private company in Ilishan Remo, Ogun state, is doing a lot better, manufacturing armoured personnel carriers for the army, police etc and foreign markets to boot! Involve the private sector more and more. That's how the most powerful country in the world - USA - stays on top.
ARMS and ammunitions are among the most expensive commodities in the international marketplace. No country can have a robust defence and internal security, relying on importation for all its needs. If all that President Tinubu can achieve in this regard is domestic production of all the rifles required by our military and other security agencies, he would have achieved a lot indeed.
FINALLY, the Tinubu blueprint says nothing expressly on the issue of STATE POLICE. It's at best couched in vague verbiage that needs not be rehashed here. But it is one of the long-term measures he needs to work on seriously. It's no news that the Federal Government can't even fund its own police adequately. In all the states, it's the state governments that fill the huge gap. They build police stations, buy patrol vehicles and provide money for lots of routine things germane to the smooth-functioning of the Nigeria Police in their respective state commands.
IN December 2019, I was on a research visit at Johns Hopkins University in the State of Maryland when, as a result of some incidents on campus, the state government licensed the University to set up its own police. I shook my head wondering why it's taking eternity to embrace state policing in Nigeria at a time the centralised policing system had failed spectacularly!
THE major argument against state police is the fear it would be abused by state governors to witchunt their political adversaries. Yet some fear it could be used by some states to secede from Nigeria. But my logic teacher didn't teach me that something good should be condemned because it can be abused. Even Marijuana has been found to have some medical benefits.
NIGERIA is the only federation in the world running a unitary policing system. Federations like USA, Canada and India, among others, all operate decentralise policing. In Canada, it's only one province that did not set up its own police but rely absolutely on the federal police for its security. Same can apply in Nigeria. It will not be compulsory for states that lack the resources to float an independent police. They will continue to enjoy the services of the federal police.
WHAT is needed to allay the fears of possible abuse of the state police is to set the guidelines for its operations. In this regard, the mandate of the Police Service Commission (PSC) should be expanded by law to encompass regulatory authority over state police formations. This also requires its membership should be expanded to include at least an experienced retired police officer from each state of the federation.
THE guidelines should spell out the qualifications for the licencing of a state to set up its own police, modalties for personnel recruitment, training, mode of procurement of specified range of arms and ammunition, conditions of service, operational jurisdiction, and punitive measures for abuse of state police, which may include temporary transfer of command and control from an erring state to the PSC.
FOR the sake of my children who have no country other than Nigeria, I wish Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu sound health (physical and mental), courage, fair-mindedness, and divine wisdom to tackle the onerous but surmountable security challenges awaiting him as Nigeria's incoming president.
**** *Olufunmilade* , is a Professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies and Pioneer Director Buratai Center for Contemporary Security Affairs, Igbinedion University Okada, Edo State, Nigeria.