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![[OPINION] That police officer in Okoya’s mansion - Abimbola Adelakun](/media/k2/items/cache/10931d4fff42acfc1cfde3bd81436d76_L.jpg)
In response to the outcry over their manner of handling the sons of Nigerian billionaire Chief Razaq Okoya, Subomi and Wahab, over alleged naira abuse versus their priors, the EFCC finally issued a public invitation for those boys to appear at their office on Monday. Respectfully summoning those boys for an investigation was a far cry from their approach to confronting the same “crime” when it involved the child of a non-billionaire just last year. The same EFCC that wrote a tame letter to the Okoyas ferociously stormed Pinnock Estate to arrest Bobrisky (Okuneye Idris). They were so carried away by the sensation they generated that they turned Bobrisky’s arrest into the defining trophy of their institutional life. So, what happened to all their boasts about “we are very serious about restoring the dignity of the naira”? They even mentioned setting up a department dedicated to tackling naira abuse.
In any case, I do not think that the Okoya boys did anything that warranted their invitation. Their act was not that serious, and it would not have been taken as such by the public if the EFCC had been reasonable. I have always thought of the whole idea of criminalising “naira abuse” as specious. Abusing a currency cannot be achieved by pursuing those who indulge in harmless fun with money; it is always about the (in)actions of the agents and institutions whose activities torture the economic value out of it. Restoring the dignity of the naira will not be achieved by elevating the paper notes into a national fetish but through serious political and economic activities that enhance its value. The EFCC must know this already, but they still had to invite the Okoya boys because they set themselves up to an iberiberi standard which they must now uphold. That is why you do not make ridiculous laws. Enforcing them makes you look stupid.
The EFCC is not the only organisation that finds itself in the crosshairs of Nigerians over the Okoya boys’ issue. Even the police whose officer appeared in the video helping the boys to hold the bales of naira as they played now must explain themselves to the public why they did not act on the supposed naira abuse. In justifying themselves, the spokesman for the Nigeria Police Force, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, noted that the officer had the duty to prevent a crime or at least not participate in it. On that score, I agree with him one hundred per cent. Even if there is no offence called “naira abuse” listed in the books somewhere, the officer should still have known better than to participate in such a silly display. If he let the boys use him as a prop, you can bet his interaction with them off-camera will be unprofessional.
Where I depart from Adejobi is his failure to recognise himself and his organisation in that officer. If he looks well enough, he will see that unnamed officer as a metonym of the police impotence when interacting with a higher power. The Nigerian police is one organisation that knows how to rage, but only at people who have little or no power. There is a reason that the people they serially arrest, detain, and on whose behalf they even defy the courts to incarcerate extendedly for frivolous crimes like “cyberbullying” or “cyberstalking” in a matter involving the rich and the poor are mostly the economically weaker party. Their understanding of what constitutes crime and punishment is driven by personalities and not necessarily principles, and that is why it would never have occurred to anyone in either the police or the EFCC to storm the Okoya mansion to arrest those boys. Their postured zeal always capitulates to a higher power (aka money, which, of course, buys the political capital that protects the Okoya family from police indignities).
So, for Adejobi, if the police organisation right up to its topmost cadre cannot maintain principled professionalism, why should that lowly officer be different? If his bosses get so regularly swayed by money power that they hold themselves back from the ethical discharge of their duties, what can anyone expect from an officer confronted by billionaire sons holding cash he has probably never seen before? I do not know why Adejobi thinks the officer could have straightened out those boys when even his own bosses do not have a record of doing so in their dealings with rich people. If the police find the picture of their officer serving money cringey, it is good because they at least get an idea of how the public views their lack of self-assurance.
Instead of merely scapegoating him, they should take some time to consider how the psyche of the officers they send to the houses of wealthy Nigerians is impacted by being in such an environment. Poorly paid officers cannot but be intimidated by the wealth and power of folks who are also (often) haughty, making it hard for them to be consistently professional. That is why police officers assigned to wealthy Nigerians usually become servants.
There are countless cases of police officers who have become gatemen, drivers, nannies, and even handbag carriers. Female politicians (or consorts) use policewomen to carry their accessories like designer handbags. They must derive satisfaction from accessorising themselves with an officer of the state serving their vanity. Remember that video Davido posted of himself where, in his background, a police officer was washing his Rolls Royce? If not an ego trip, who buys a vehicle like a Rolls Royce and uses untrained hands like that of a random police officer to clean it?
These things happen every single day across the country. When the manifestation of police servitude cuts too close to the bone in its depiction of their organisation, PROs like Adejobi throw a fit. They recall that one single officer while the rest of his poor colleagues continued to wash plates for the madams at the top.
If there is any reason that the officer in the Okoya mansion could not challenge those boys as his bosses expected him to, it is because the police system does not autonomously run as an agency staffed with professionals who approach their duties with the self-assurance of knowing the law and enforcing it detachedly. They are vulnerable to the intimidation of power and that spirit percolates right through to the smallest officer deployed to the spaces occupied by rich and powerful people. If the EFCC and the police could not confront the Okoyas, do you blame a powerless officer for not being able to stand on his two feet before those boys?
In justifying why the police officer had to be recalled and punished, Adejobi reportedly said he was never attached to the young men. He was supposed to be on guard duty at the Okoyas’ family business, Eleganza. Several things are instructive here. One is that Eleganza is a private company that has been in business long enough to pay for the services of a security agency to guard their facilities. Why impose an officer on them at the expense of the public already starved of efficient policing too? The fact that the Eleganza administrators forwarded the officer to their house to serve their children suggests they find police security redundant. Why retain him then? There must be some self-glorifying feeling to having a police officer in your house to run your errands.
If the officer’s bosses knew that the family had reassigned him and they did not withdraw him, it demonstrates the poverty of their organisational self-understanding. If they had no idea that the officer was reporting at the Okoya mansion instead of at Eleganza, then it calls into question their operational efficacy and their ability to provide “security.”
![[OPINION] What next for Ogoniland? - Donu Kogbara](/media/k2/items/cache/266011d1afbd62eb867a8e7eb911acc5_L.jpg)
Last week, I was invited to the presidential villa to meet President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser (NSA).
The reason given was that I am an “important Ogoni Stakeholder” and I was really surprised to have received such a flattering summons because I have been a vocal opponent of Tinubu since 2022.
OK so I made my way to this meeting on Tuesday alongside other senior Ogoni stakeholders.
We were told that the government wanted to find out what it could do to persuade us and our brethren back home to support its interest in resuming oil operations on our ancestral turf.
Ogoniland quit producing oil in the early 1990s at the height of the Ken Saro Wiwa crisis – a very complicated situation that cannot be adequately summarised in a few newspaper paragraphs. But let me provide a potted history anyway for newcomers to this tragic story.
Saro Wiwa was the face of a robust campaign that focussed on Shell Petroleum’s environmental abuses. The Ogoni leadership was deeply divided. Some moderate Ogoni leaders (my late father Ignatius, for example) favoured negotiation with the authorities. Saro Wiwa and the youths he controlled favoured a more radical approach.
Eventually, 4 blameless Ogoni chiefs – my uncles Edward Kobani, Albert Badey, Theophilus Orage and Samuel Orage – were murdered.
Some Ogonis blamed the Nigerian army for this fratricidal outrage. Others blamed Ken and his fans. The then head of state, General Sani Abacha, also regarded them as guilty; and they were executed.
Shell Petroleum, which was accused of colluding with the Federal Government, was forced to retreat. Numerous attempts to resolve the impasse have failed. The rift with Shell was never healed. Other companies that have expressed an interest in taking over from Shell have been rejected. And Ogoniland has yet to recover – politically, socially, financially, psychologically – from the trauma, bloodletting, bitterness and absence of significant economic activity.
Most members of the delegation that went to meet President Tinubu on Tuesday bear emotional scars linked to this sorry state of affairs.
I frequently find myself furiously dwelling on the fact that the bodies of my assassinated uncles have never materialised. If I feel like this, imagine how the children of the disappeared victims feel! Anyway, I applaud Mr President for including both pro- and anti-Ken individuals on his guest list and for appealing to all of us to put the past behind us and embrace the spirit of reconciliation.
He urged Ogonis to set aside historical grievances and work together to achieve peace, development, and a clean environment.
“We cannot in any way rewrite history, but we can correct some anomalies of the past going forward. We cannot heal the wounds if we continue to be angry,” the president said.
I and most of the Ogonis I know feel neglected, marginalised and cheated. There has never been an Ogoni Governor, Deputy Governor, Chief Judge or Speaker of the State House of Assembly.
The President promised to prioritise peace, justice and the sustainable development of Ogoniland, then directed the NSA to coordinate inclusive negotiations with Ogoni leaders. The Rivers State Governor, Sir Sim Fubara, was also at this meeting and made all the right noises and sounded sincerely committed to working with us to enable Ogoniland to enjoy a brighter future.
A separate meeting at the NSA’s office was immensely cordial, though too short (because it was quite late in the day) to accommodate those who had hoped for in-depth discussions about the best way forward.
The Chief Executive of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, and Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, the DG of the DSS (who is married to a Rivers woman!) joined us and assured us of maximum cooperation.
I personally think, on reflection, that the best way forward is for Ogonis to create a detailed and sophisticated masterplan for our region, in conjunction with expert development consultants.
All that remains now is to keep one’s fingers tightly crossed that regular consultations at community level will ensue and that Mr President, the NSA, the NNPCL CEO, the DG DSS and our Governor will keep their promises and not try to be too clever by half!
I am trying my best to give all of the above the benefit of many doubts (my own doubts as well as doubts expressed by other Ogonis who don’t trust this government or ANY Nigerian government).
I will maintain an open mind. But I will be the first to complain very loudly if this project is not handled ethically and efficiently.
![[OPINION] The politics of pardons, the pardons of politics - Owei Lakemfa](/media/k2/items/cache/d62bbccbd80701ef306057689480cfae_M.jpg)
President Joe Biden within seven weeks from December 1, 2024, granted over 2,500 pardons including for his son, Robert Hunter Biden.
Hunter had been convicted on a nine-count charge for tax felony amounting to $1.4 million, evading tax assessment and filing false tax returns. He faced a maximum 17 years in prison. His sentencing was scheduled for December 16, 2024. But fifteen days before, Biden not only pardoned his son, but also granted him immunity from additional or new charges that can be brought against him especially by the Trump administration. It stated that Hunter has immunity: “For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024”
His predecessor and successor, President Donald Trump in one day, on January 20, 2025, issued over 1,500 pardons. Both men within seven weeks granted over 4,000 pardons. The process the two political rivals are basically abusing, is the power of pardon granted the United States, US President under Article II Section 2, Clause 1 of the American constitution. This provides that: “The President…shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.”
However, there remains a problem Trump still needs to solve over the Capitol Hill violent invaders against whom he claims “ a grave national injustice” had been perpetrated. The US Constitution grants the President power to pardon people convicted, but not power to halt on-going trials. Now, some of the judges have merely dismissed the cases. This leaves open the possibility that charges can brought against the accused in future. There are still some 300 such cases pending which judges might be holding up or delaying. Perhaps Trump can learn from Biden granting his son immunity from any prosecution.
Biden with his total 8,064 pardons granted from 2021 -2025 holds the record of granting the most pardons in US history. While the pardons granted this week by Trump, were basically to free convicted criminals who levied war against the state in an attempt to reverse the 2020 Presidential Elections which he had lost, some of the pardons by Biden were to correct cases of historical injustice the White establishment had visited on American Indians and African Americans in its bid to maintain supremacy and dominance over the country.
I first heard the name, Leonard Peltier on August 12, 2024 at the International Conference to End Colonialism In The World which was held in Abuja. The Opening Address was from Puerto Rican freedom fighter, Oscar Lopez Riveria who had spent 38 years in US jails. I had remarked that Africa’s Nelson Mandela had spent 27 years in jail and that as far as I knew, Riveria had been the longest serving political prisoner in history. But Kazi Toure, of the International People’s Senate National Jericho Movement, USA and, former US political prisoner, corrected me. He told me about the then 79-year old Indigenous American Indian freedom fighter called Leonard Peltier who was in his 49th year in US jails.
Peltier was serving two life sentences for allegedly killing two Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams on June 26, 1975 in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The immediate dispute was over the Indians insistence on self-determination and, Native Treaty Rights. The agents had gone to serve arrest warrants. The American state and system including the FBI knew Peltier was innocent of the crimes. The FBI had forensic evidence proving that the shots that took the lives of the officers did not come from Peltier’s gun, but chose to suppress the fact at the trial. It also manufactured fake affidavits and distorted facts.
Peltier had been denied parole including at a July, 2024 hearing and, was not eligible again for parole until 2026. He was a leader of the American Indian Movement, AIM which the state wanted to destroy. AIM had in 1973 taken over the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation. This led to a 71-day standoff with federal security forces. The increased clashes led to the face off two year later for which Peltier was sent to prison.
The injustice done to Peltier had turned him into the symbol of the indigenous peoples’ resistance and a living legend. It was for this and the insistence by the FBI for a pound of flesh from the American Indian people, that saw him spend half a century wasting in prison. Appeals by international figures including Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the actor, Robert Redford did not move the American establishment.
As the Biden era was winding up, the local and international activists who for decades had pushed for presidential pardon, decided to make a last second push. On Wednesday, January 15, 2025, Kazi posted an appeal by freedom activists titled “Tell Biden: FREE Leonard Peltier!” The appeal was that people should call President Biden that day and the next on 2024561111 or text the White House on 302404 0880 with the simple message: “Grant Leonard Peltier Clemency” I thought the campaigners for a last second clemency were simply optimists.
I did not think a Biden would have the courage to grant Peltier pardon especially when the FBI and the establishment were openly opposed. In fact, FBI Director, Christopher Asher Wray wrote Biden this month saying that Peltier must not be granted clemency. He repeated the false claim that: “Peltier is a ruthless murderer who has shown a complete lack of remorse for his many crimes.”
But as Biden was handing over power to Trump on Monday, January 20, 2025, the White House issued a statement that Peltier was now a free man! He is to be released from a Florida federal detention on February 18, 2025. Biden’s release of Peltier, is a healing process for the indigenous American Indian people who have faced genocide. Another healing process Biden set off was his posthumous pardon for Pan African Prophet Marcus Garvey who was falsely accused in 1923 of mail fraud.
Garvey who wanted to unite all Black people in the world, had set up empowerment businesses. When one of them, the large Black Star shipping line collapsed, the racist American establishment used that as an excuse to charge him with “mail fraud” over the sale of the company’s shares. Using a corrupt judicial system, he was railroaded into prison. His connived conviction was then used in December 1, 1927 to deport him to his native Jamaica. Pardons in the US have essentially become weapons to be wielded for political purposes rather than to further the aims of justice.
![[OPINION] No tears for Mudashiru Obasa - Ikechukwu Amaechi](/media/k2/items/cache/a8dd712a194d28c8ac870ddd8a020e35_M.jpg)
It is no longer news that the former Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, was ousted by his colleagues on Monday, January 13, 2025 while he was holidaying in the U.S., thus bringing his 10-year cruise on the Lagos gravy train to an abrupt stop.
Obasa was first elected in 2007 to represent Agege Constituency 1 and subsequently emerged Speaker in June 2015, chalked in an unprecedented third term, becoming powerful, or so he thought. And because, as the 19th century writer Lord Acton remarked, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he got carried away and became conceited.
He started seeing himself as a political kingmaker, treating his colleagues condescendingly and had no respect for Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. But apparently he didn’t reckon with the Igbo proverb which says that “when an idol becomes too powerful and arrogant, it is told the wood it was carved from.” That was exactly what happened. His colleagues said that much when they accused him of becoming an existential threat.
Tobun Abiodun, who represents Epe Constituency 1, alleged shortly after Obasa’s ouster that he was impeached to save Lagos State and the House of Assembly. Accusing the former Speaker of gross misconduct and unconscionable abuse of office, Abiodun said Obasa’s impeachment had become inevitable. “The members of the parliament today have decided to change the leadership of the House.
You know the constitution made it clear that the House has the power to regulate its proceedings. The members felt they have had enough of the leadership of Rt. Honourable Mudashiru Obasa… We have resolved to work together and ensure that we move the parliament to the next level. We cannot open our eyes and allow the parliament to dwindle. We owe the constituents a duty of ensuring that the sanity and integrity of the House are restored. We have unanimously agreed to carry out this action to save our image, and save the state.”
One of his crimes was his undisguised lack of respect for Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Matters came to a head during the 2025 budget presentation on November 22, 2024 when he declared that he was neither too young nor lacked the requisite experience to run for the governorship “I have made it a personal task to mobilise people on the platform of Mandate, which has been misconstrued by some political detractors as being a selfish aspiration on the ground for me to become governor of the state,” he crowed impetuously.
“There is the need, however, to correct this wrong impression. My concern is about building our party, and whatever we do is mainly for this cause. To the blackmailers who have embarked on the mission to distort and redefine our mission, let me state it unequivocally here, our intention is to promote our party on the platform of Mandate. Becoming governor is secondary; it is something that I have not given serious consideration. Nevertheless, that does not mean I am too young or lack experience to run; whereas, those who have been before me are not better off.”
Of course, one of those that was there before him is President Bola Tinubu. Obasa’s needless outburst was political indiscretion stretched too far, a sacrilege reminiscent of the Nza bird, one of the smallest birds in Igbo folklore, that bumped into a sumptuous meal and after having his fill challenged his “Chi” (personal god) to a wrestling match. Little wonder that the same lawmakers who unanimously passed a vote of confidence in him, turned around barely two months later to sack him ignominiously
Obasa must have realised by now that he actually did not belong to the ‘owners of Lagos club.’ When they met to decide his fate, he was not even summoned to defend himself. He was not emotionally intelligent. Now, he has become a political leper that no one wants to openly associate with. The visits to his house have drastically reduced. As the 2027 political signalling in Lagos State becomes clearer, things will get worse for him politically. It will even be more so as his capacity for political patronage shrinks.
Today, Agege, his constituency is calm and the people have moved on. His few hangers-on who wanted to demonstrate at the Lagos State House of Assembly were quickly rounded up by policemen and taken away in a Black Maria even as they were singing, “on your mandate we shall stand.” That is the nature of politics. As Ndigbo would say, onye bu igu ka ewu na eso – a goat follows whoever has palm frond. Loyalties have shifted and there are no apologies.
But Obasa’s ouster shouldn’t be an end in itself. The lawmakers are within their rights to choose who leads them. They have exercised that right by replacing Obasa with Hon. Mojisola Lasbat Meranda, who has also made history as the first female Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly. But it is not just enough to impeach him. In moving the impeachment motion under ‘Matters of Urgent Public Importance,’ which was adopted by 32 out of 40 members of the House, Hon. Femi Saheed made allegations of financial misconduct, abuse of office and authoritarian leadership against Obasa. Most recently, there have been reports alleging that he approved the withdrawal of ¦ 43 billion for lawmakers’ vehicles. Most of these allegations were made by the lawmakers themselves, so it should be assumed that they are not frivolous.
It behoves, therefore, the State Assembly to submit a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe the fraud allegations against Obasa and the anti-fraud agency to do the needful. Not only that, Obasa claimed to have received a bachelor’s degree in Law from Lagos State University in 2006. But recently, a document which surfaced on the social media reveals that his name is not in the record of legal practitioners in Nigeria. The document, a response by the Supreme Court to a verification request by an anonymous petitioner on his status as a lawyer, was dated July 24, 2020 and signed by one Gertrude Karenton-Mordi on behalf of the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court.
Titled, “Re: Verification of Mudashiru Ajayi Obasa as a Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria,” the apex court, according to the document, advised the impeached Speaker to come forward with relevant documents for enrolment, as his name was not found in their records. Addressing the petitioner, the apex court wrote: “We acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 23rd July, 2020 on the above captured subject matter. This is to inform you that we have checked our records and cannot find the name: MUDASHIRU AJAYI OBASA on the numerous Rolls of Legal Practitioners kept in this Honourable Court.
MUDASHIRU AJAYI OBASA is at liberty to come to this Honourable Court with his Call to bar and qualifying certificates for enrolment. If he has done a change of name, he is expected to show proof of same.” Supreme Court spokesperson, Dr Fetus Akande, has confirmed the document, acknowledging that, “It emanated from our office.” Obasa’s apologists insist it is a non-issue because law degree, or in fact any university degree for that matter, is not a prerequisite for becoming a lawmaker or even Speaker.
That is true. The immediate past governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Masari, became Speaker of the House of Representatives without any. That is how low the bar is when it comes to leadership in Nigeria. But it is a crime to ascend political office with forged certificates. I know that Obasa can challenge his accusers to cast the first stone if they can. And the truth is that they cannot. But that should not be the norm. Ours should not be a country where certificate forgers call the shots in public office without any consequences.
![[OPINION] Would GDP rebasing make any meaningful impact on real income? - Isiaq Ajibola](/media/k2/items/cache/b06420a77cd1480a60ff146ec6ad731a_M.jpg)
In the last few months, there have been talks about rebasing the two important economic indicators, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
While the GDP calculates the value of all goods and services in the economy within a year, the CPI calculates the average change in prices over time that consumers pay for a basket of goods and services. It is a key measure of inflation and reflects the cost of living.
Both have a base year, which is compared with other years in the compilation. For example, the last rebased year for GDP in Nigeria was 2014.
Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that it would release the results of the newly rebased GDP and CP1 by the end of January. This has excited stakeholders in the economy because rebasing the two important economic indicators would mean increased national income for the country.
This is because the result is likely to lead to an increase in per capita income in Niger. After all, the GDP is expected to expand as a result of the inclusion of new economic activities in the new calculation.
According to the press release issued by the NBS on Monday,” The activities of some sectors of the economy have grown tremendously since the last rebasing, making them significant among other sectors of the economy. They include Marine & Blue Economy, Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Information and Technology, Innovation, and Digital Economy activities. ”
When rebased, Nigeria’s GDP is expected to expand, reflecting a more accurate picture of the economy’s true size. Consequently, per capita income — GDP divided by population — is likely to increase, even if real incomes remain unchanged.
Given these insights, it is safe to say that the result holds profound implications for Africa’s largest economy. As these figures are updated to reflect current economic realities, the outcomes could reshape perceptions of Nigeria’s economic standing and influence policymaking, investment, and citizen welfare. This is certainly a good music to hear for most of Nigeria. But would it increase real growth in the economy?
In retrospect, Nigeria’s GDP nearly doubled during the rebase of 2014, making it Africa’s largest economy, surpassing South Africa. This was because the rebasing accounted for new industries like telecommunications, entertainment (Nollywood), and e-commerce, which had grown significantly since the previous base year of 1990.
While this statistical adjustment doesn’t necessarily translate to immediate improvements in living standards, its implications are far-reaching.
Pundits who are concerned about real income growth. They have concerns about statistical figures that would create an impression of higher income for an already improvised economy where the majority of the citizens are multidimensionally poor. They fear that people might be worse off in the face of a likely increase in inflation, which has climbed to 34.80% in December, up from 34.60% in November 2024. This marks the fourth consecutive monthly increase, driven primarily by heightened demand during the festive season, leading to price surges in food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Food inflation slightly decreased to 39.84% year-on-year in December, compared to 39.93% in November. Notable price increases were observed in staples such as yams, sweet potatoes, corn, rice, and fish.
These inflationary trends have exacerbated Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis, with more than 60% of the population living in poverty and many spending over 63% of their income on food.
However, an increase in gross income and per capita income as a result of the rebasing would neutralise these negative effects. Here are a few factors that will advance the positive impact.
First, Nigeria’s standing in global rankings, portraying the nation as more prosperous, may increase. This can positively influence international investors, who often consider economic indicators like GDP and income levels when making decisions. A rebased GDP could bolster confidence in Nigeria as an investment destination, potentially attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).
Secondly, the higher per capita income will prompt policymakers to re-evaluate socioeconomic strategies. For instance, the government might shift its focus from poverty alleviation to wealth distribution and middle-class expansion. This is closely related to the objective of the Tinubu tax reforms, which was recently embraced by the Nigerian Governors Forum. ( NGF) .However, this could also mean a reduction in access to international aid or concessional loans, as Nigeria might no longer qualify under certain global thresholds for low-income countries.
At the same time, a rebased GDP that highlights underrepresented sectors such as technology, entertainment, and services could spur efforts to diversify the economy. Policymakers might prioritize these emerging sectors, reducing reliance on oil and addressing the vulnerabilities associated with fluctuating global oil prices.
Yet, CI rebasing will provide more accurate inflation data, influencing monetary policy. This could lead to better-targeted interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to control inflation and stabilize the naira, directly impacting the cost of living for Nigerians.
The Nigerian creditworthiness would also increase because the debt-to-GDP ratio would be reduced. In the eyes of international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, Nigeria may be viewed as a more creditworthy nation. This can result in better access to loans with favourable terms and reduced borrowing costs.
The increased GDP will also enhance the access of Nigeria to international markets. Higher income levels can pave the way for Nigeria to join more exclusive economic groups like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), providing opportunities to influence global economic policies.
Closely related is the fact that Nigeria’s elevated economic status can enhance its bargaining power in negotiating trade deals, enabling access to more beneficial terms in international trade agreements.
Similarly, there will be an Improved Human Development Index (HDI): High per capita income often correlates with better health, education, and living standards, which can boost Nigeria’s HDI ranking. This improved ranking can reflect positively on Nigeria’s global image and attract international partnerships.
Nigeria will also likely graduate from Aid Dependency. With higher income levels, Nigeria may reduce its dependence on international aid, transitioning towards self-sufficiency and enhanced economic sovereignty. That may likely attract global talent and partnerships. A wealthier economy can attract global talent, investors, and innovators seeking opportunities in Nigeria’s growing markets.
Other countries and organizations may seek partnerships with Nigeria, recognizing it as an influential player in the global economy.
More importantly, and at this time in our national life, a stronger economy backed by higher per capita income can stabilize and strengthen the naira in international currency markets. A stronger currency enhances Nigeria’s purchasing power globally, reduces import costs, and fosters economic stability.
The real income will, therefore, at the end of the day improve, as economists would say, all things being equal.
All things have been equal because the government plays a pivotal role in making real income improve.
This must be sustained by infrastructure development and human capital investment that will maximize these benefits and ensure inclusive growth that uplifts all Nigerians.
For ordinary Nigerians, the implications of the higher income could lead to improved access to international markets and more jobs due to increased investments.
On the whole, the planned GDP and CPI rebasing represents a critical step in modernizing economic measurements and aligning them with current realities. While the increase in per capita income will bolster Nigeria’s image and offer new opportunities, it also highlights the need for deliberate actions to address poverty by all Nigerians, policymakers must ensure that statistical growth is matched by real improvements in living standards.
Ajibola, former MD of DailyTrust, writes from Abuja.
![[OPINION] Kaduna Nzeogwu & co did not start Nigeria’s problem - Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo](/media/k2/items/cache/1acd846781d044370248c65dbac0f208_M.jpg)
On January 15 of every year, Nigerians remember what they were told was the most tragic incident that destroyed the ideal nation their founding fathers were building. That was the day Kaduna Nzeogwu and his co-conspirators executed a coup that ended the First Republic. As horrific as the events of that day were, that was not where the water entered the husk of the melon.
This year, Senator Shehu Sani argued that Nigeria has yet to recover from the assassination of Sir Ahmadu Bello and others killed on that day. It is hard to quarrel with Sani’s perspective. Even for people like Sani, who were not born when the incident happened, those interested in ensuring they did not forget had etched the narrative into them. It is a time-tested survival mechanism for humans to tell stories to younger generations to guide them in navigating their world. This ancient system of teaching the young about experiences started when our human forbearers were still living in trees.
Unfortunately, our forefathers noted that those who did not know where the rain started to beat them would never know where it stopped.
In the last few days, I have been recalling my conversations with the University of Ibadan-trained historian, Professor Chieka Ifemesia, who recently joined our ancestors. The core thesis of Ifemesia’s analysis of Nigeria’s malady was that “two ideas of nation-building have conflicted in Nigeria since amalgamation.” The clouds had been gathering since 1914, but it was in 1953 that the rain started to beat us, not in 1966.
By the year 1953, southern leaders were ready for Nigeria to become an independent nation. They were pushing for a three-year plan that would have granted Nigeria independence in 1956, one year before Ghana. The only problem was that the leaders of the north felt their region was not ready.
The north feared the south would dominate the new nation. As a result, the north argued for a delay. Their leaders believed that if given a few years, they could catch up on the number of northerners who had gone to school and were qualified to take part fully in governing Nigeria.
That was the country’s mood when, on March 31, 1953, Anthony Enahoro moved a motion at the Federal Parliament in Lagos for Britain to grant Nigeria independence by 1956.
Immediately, southern politicians in the Action Group and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) joined him. The leaders of the north insisted on a gradual process. Ahmadu Bello proposed a compromise: the Enahoro bill should state self-government “as soon as possible” rather than “in the year 1956.”
The southern leaders’ insistence on 1956 led to all parties walking out of parliament, leaving the British colonial administrators in Nigeria at a loss as to whom to negotiate with.
As northern leaders left parliament, Lagos’ crowds jeered them on their way home. Northern leaders returned to Kaduna and issued a statement. In their 1953 statement from Lugard Hall in Kaduna, northern leaders listed eight points that the southern leaders had to meet before they would return to Lagos.
For all intents and purposes, the northern leaders were ready to leave the country. Southerners like Samuel Akintola, Anthony Enahoro, and other pro-independence politicians took their campaign for independence to the north.
That was how the riot of 1953 started.
On May 15, 1953, Northern People’s Congress supporters staged a demonstration to show Akintola and his team that they did not support their mission in the north.
The next day, Saturday, May 16, 1953, the Kano Native Authority withdrew the permission initially granted to Akintola and his group to hold their meeting at Colonial Hotel, Kano. Subsequently, mobs stormed the hotel and threw stones at Akintola and his fellow independence activists inside.
Initially, two people died. Then, the mobs moved to Sabon Gari.
By Sunday, May 17, it had escalated into a full-scale inter-ethnic crisis. The mobs chanted anti-Yoruba songs as they went on a rampage. British authorities called in the military to help quell the situation. By the time it was over, 46 people, mostly southerners, were dead.
The day after the riot, the British colonial government imposed a state of emergency in Northern Nigeria before they regained control of the situation. The British administrative officers also conducted a probe. At the end of the probe, their statement read: “No amount of provocation, short-term or long-term, can in any way justify their behaviour… the seeds of the trouble which broke out in Kano on May 16 (1953) have their counterparts still in the ground. It could happen again, and only a realisation and acceptance of the underlying causes can remove the danger of recurrence.”
That was the crux of Nigeria’s problem. The British identified the existence of the seeds of the trouble that broke out in Kano on May 16, 1953. They warned it could happen again unless Nigerians realised and accepted the underlying causes.
Of course, Nigerians neither realised nor accepted the underlying causes. Meanwhile, the seeds in the ground continued to absorb water and oxygen as their embryo’s cells enlarged. Again, for emphasis, one underlying cause is Ifemesia’s argument: the two conflicting ideas of nation-building that have plagued Nigeria since amalgamation.
After the riot, Ahmadu Bello and the northern leaders in the NPC issued another list of demands. This time, they presented it as a condition for their return to the Federal Parliament in Lagos.
The demands of the northern leaders included safeguards ensuring regional autonomy. The negotiations for Nigeria’s unity went so well that Ahmadu Bello was comfortable staying in the north as premier while he sent his protégé, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to Lagos to serve as prime minister.
This is the uncontested sketch of what happened in 1953.
However, the underlying causes of the 1953 riot in Kano were neither addressed nor accepted. And nobody uprooted the seeds of the trouble in the ground. When they manifested again in 1966, it was not just rain this time; it was thunder and hailstones.
Whether in 1953 or 1966, we understand that if there are two players in a story, there are at least three perspectives: one from each player and a third from a neutral observer. Finding a neutral observer is not as easy as it seems. Those who consider themselves victims often have more compelling stories. Those considered perpetrators also hold what they believe to be interesting narratives—if only anyone cares to listen attentively.
In most deeply devastating human events, different players at different times cross the line that separates victims from perpetrators. Even when history, the ultimate arbitrator, renders its verdict, it struggles to pinpoint the exact moment of no return—the moment when identifying and accepting the underlying causes could have prevented the tragedy.
As humans, we have continued to do the easy part—pointing fingers and apportioning blame—rather than the difficult part of working toward a solution to prevent a recurrence. And when history repeats itself, we blame our stars rather than our inaction.
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History, Afrodiasporic Literature, and African Folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others. His upcoming book is called “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”
![[OPINION] Umo Eno, Akpabio and the politics of 2027 - Etim Etim](/media/k2/items/cache/ae295ae2e4cfec073938ef1ca3b36f29_S.jpg)
The 2027 political season is arriving a bit too early in Akwa Ibom State, and as usual, the starting point is mudslinging and salacious political publications targeting at the incumbent governor and his predecessor. This week, an NGO, Network Against Corruption and Trafficking (NACAT) filed a petition at the EFCC and ICPC alleging that there was ‘’wanton corruption and embezzlement of public funds orchestrated by former governor Udom Emmanuel’’. The petition is dated January 21, 2025 and signed by its operational manager, Stanley Ugabe. A week before the petition was delivered to the anti-graft agencies; a group known as Concerned Members of the All Progressives Congress in Akwa Ibom State, wrote an open letter to President Bola Tinubu in The Nation newspaper of Monday, January 13, 2025, in the form of an advertorial in which it made a number of spurious allegations against Gov. Eno; Udom Emmanuel and Mr. Ekperikpe Ekpo, Minister of Petroleum (Gas). The open letter alleges that the three leaders are scheming to support a PDP presidential candidate of Northern origin in 2027 and that their ultimate goal is to frustrate the reelection of President Tinubu.
The letter is copied to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio; APC National Chairman, Abdullai Ganduje and NSA, Nuhu Ribadu. There are 10 signatories on the letter, representing the 10 federal constituencies in the state, but in actual fact, the names are all fictitious. I have been a prominent member of APC in Akwa Ibom State since November 2014 and participated in three governorship elections since 2015 as a communication strategist. I am in a position to know at least one of 10 persons who can buy a newspaper page for N1.2 million to place an open letter to the President. Those names do not just exist. I have been well informed from within the APC that the sponsors of the advertorial are the same as the brains behind the petition against Udom Emmanuel. Their objectives are to embarrass the former governor who is a PDP leader and the political godfather of Gov. Eno; make the governor look bad before the President and create problems for the governor and his reelection bid. The last paragraph of the advertorial says it all: ‘’Given your extensive experience in presidential politics, we trust that you won’t fall prey to Gov. Umo Eno’s deception. It’s time to activate plans to win Akwa Ibom State and secure your reelection’’. There is no single mention of the Senate President, who is the leader of APC in the South-South region, in the letter apart from indicating that he was in copy. That’s quite telling!
I have spoken to a lot of people within the APC in the state and I have discovered that the advertorial was sponsored by people with two major agenda: One, they are uncomfortable with the cordiality between the Senate President and the governor which was deliberately built by the governor, contrary to traditions. They are enraged by the simmering rumours within the APC that the governor might defect to the party, and that would upstage the existing political arrangement/structure in the APC. The second agenda is to stop the governor from going for second term. They do not necessarily believe that he would defect; but they want Akpabio to cut all ties with him and launch a political assault to weaken him and set the stage for APC to take over the state. The thinking within this group is that if Akpabio does not deliver the governorship seat to APC, his chance of being reelected Senate President would be slimmer. Akpabio is the only Senate President since 1999 to come from a state governed by an opposition party. Some party members believe that this is a major minus for him as far as 2027 is concerened, especially with Senator Oshiomhole poised to challenge him for the position.
The inclusion of Ekperikpe Ekpo in the publication is befuddling to many, especially those outside Akwa Ibom State. He is from the same senatorial district with Akpabio and was an Akpabio acolyte until the Senate President nominated him for the ministerial position and convinced President Tinubu to approve the appointment in spite of the need to spread appointments to other zones. But in recent months, there’ve been speculations of a frosty relationship developing between the Senate President and the Minister due to the latter’s perceived interest in gubernatorial politics. The Minister has reacted sharply to the advertorial, stating that he is not building any alliance with anybody to sabotage Tinubu’s reelection as alleged in the publication. Rather, he expressed his unalloyed loyalty to the President. Gov. Eno has also denied allegations of working against the President’s interest. The governor’s press secretary, Ekerete Udo wrote in a statement: ‘’The undisguised intent of the purveyors of the inane advertorial was to cause a strain in the widely acknowledged warm relationship the governor enjoys with President Tinubu; the Senate President and the Minister…the governor has not formed any such clandestine alliance as the group falsely and maliciously stated’’.
As for the petition to the EFCC and ICPC, neither Udom Emmanuel himself nor the governor has made any public statement. But, if history is our guide, I can tell how far this may go. In 2016, some persons, led by a lawyer who is now late, wrote a similar petition against Akpabio, alleging his misuse of security votes just as the accusation against Udom Emmanuel. It was Akpabio’s successor (Udom Emmanuel) who rose to defend Akpabio to the extent of filing a court case against the EFCC. The court ruled against the EFCC, barring it from investigating Akpabio’s tenure. Eight years later, Udom Emmanuel is a victim of a similar petition. How do you think his successor, Pastor Umo Eno, would manage the situation? History often repeats itself rather strangely in Akwa Ibom politics.
The tumult of 2027 is around the corner. I can only hope that the governor will brush this aside and concentrate on his agenda to the people.
![[OPINION] Trump’s Message from God for Africa - Azu Ishiekwene](/media/k2/items/cache/60173fb8a7be24d85d7c004878c9a0fd_S.jpg)
It’s hard to argue when U.S. President Donald Trump says that God saved him to save America. Not only is a rational argument often suspended or lost when God enters the matter, but Trump’s return as the 47th president defies logic.
A leader’s job is never done. But how do you rationally explain Kamala Harris’s defeat in the presidential election and, along with it, the routing of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in the Congress? If the election were a boxing match, it would have beaten the record of Vitali Klitschko vs Shannon Briggs’s 2010 fight as one of the most one-sided in boxing history.
Biden’s sins
And it’s not a laughing matter. Trump was a joke, but God, they say, uses jokers to teach serious people some lessons. I don’t mean his sordid personal record just yet. I mean where Biden had taken America compared to where Trump left it in 2021. Recovery from COVID-19 was largely exemplary, thanks to Biden letting data and science lead. The management of inflation on his watch (average 5.2 percent) has been the envy of most of the world, especially Europe.
The negotiations with Big Pharma to review the prices of prescription drugs saved taxpayers billions, not to mention the benefits of peace of mind.
He added 16.6 million jobs, achieved the lowest unemployment in five decades, and invested over $300 billion to rebuild roads and bridges. In contrast to climate change denier Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, even though experts have described climate change as one of the world’s biggest threats in the next two to ten years, Biden returned America to the agreement and aggressively pursued investment in clean energy.
Forget the record!
But it turned out that whatever logic or facts might offer, God had other plans, according to Trump. It could only have been divine because how come voters didn’t remember Biden’s record or, if they did, we are now told the record didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was how they felt at election time – a concept obviously outside the realm of logic.
Follow divination
Trump’s sordid record didn’t matter in this solemn divination, this act of God. At the peak of his trials, Trump faced 91 criminal counts and multiple indictments. He was convicted on 34 counts for falsifying business records during his hush money trial and impeached twice. Just at the door to the White House, he was sentenced for a felony but received “unconditional discharge.”
Voters knew his record up until November 5; nothing was secret. Yet, in a divination that spared him to redeem America—one of the few countries, apart from South Africa, Sweden and Finland, where a candidate can be elected even with a convict’s milestone around his neck—Trump won resoundingly.
It’s pointless trying to figure it out. Trump is here to finish what he couldn’t in his first coming. At the Inauguration on Monday, he announced a glorious new American dawn, the very purpose for which 1) the hand of fate made voters turn a blind eye to Trump’s chaotic record and 2) God saved him from being killed twice. Who can argue against that?
While we’re getting used to the political science of feelings and divinations over facts and logic, it might be helpful to ask what this second missionary journey means for Africa. It does seem that God saved Trump not only to save America from itself but also to save America from Africa.
Relief, at last
His victory is a relief for several countries with strict LGBT laws. Nigeria has an anti-LGBT law that criminalises same-sex marriage and public display of affection by persons of the same sex, with a fine of up to 14 years imprisonment.
It battled to hold its ground against US pressure for over a decade. When Biden was going out the door, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed a law banning homosexuality in the military – something that may have played out differently if Harris of the Democratic Party had won.
But Nigeria’s anti-LGBT laws are not even close to those of Uganda, which imposed the death penalty, a move that Biden described as “a tragic violation of universal human rights” and on whose watch Uganda was removed from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), among other reprisals.
Tanzania and Ghana were not too far behind a backlash under Biden for their stringent anti-LGBT laws, a misery from which they have now been delivered. In his second missionary journey, Trump has condemned all forms of “social engineering” and declared from day one there are only two sexes in the US – male and female.
This second coming is not only about the sexes or gender. Money—well, not precisely real money—is involved, too, for Africans. Crypto is getting popular on the continent. Data from Creditcoin’s blog suggests that African youths, particularly in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, are playing big. One source says that 35 percent of those aged between 18 and 60 in Nigeria owned or traded crypto assets in 2022.
The year before was a nightmare for crypto traders in Nigeria after the Central Bank banned trading in crypto assets, and it has been a long winter since. Well, the new crypto godfather has just arrived on the scene. In what signalled a brave new dawn for the token and its youthful lovers on the continent, Trump and his wife, Melania, launched personalised cryptos and became crypto billionaires hours before the President’s inauguration.
Flipside
Yet, the flipside of this balance sheet is concerning for Africa. AGOA, which provides duty-free access to over 6,000 products from the continent, is due for renewal this year.
Some African countries have benefited significantly from it. For example, Ghana’s exports to the U.S. grew from $206 million in 2000 to $2.76 billion in 2022. Kenya’s AGOA-related apparel exports grew from $55 million in 2001 to $603 million in 2022, while South Africa’s automotive exports also increased. Angola and Nigeria have also gained.
These gains are at risk from Trump, who described “tariff” as the most beautiful word in the dictionary.
Trump’s America First policy means the continent may have to look out for itself, which it does poorly even at the best times. This is hardly good news for subregional institutions like the ECOWAS, whose fragile multinational security arrangement was recently further weakened by the exit of four West African countries.
Nor are swathes of African migrants still trying to find a footing in the U.S. going to see Trump’s second missionary journey with its promise of criminalising migration as funny. The President’s attack on the bishop of Washington who asked for mercy for migrants tells the whole story.
Ask God
It doesn’t matter. Trump is not pretending he is on this mission to save the world. He’s not in it to save the climate, make his neighbours happy, champion a global moral force for good, or prevent chaos in international trade. He is sure not on this journey for Africa that was not on the ballot when he was elected, warts and all.
Conservatives, especially African evangelicals, who love him do so for the same reason Christians swear by Israel in the mistaken belief that it is a Christian country. It is not, in the same token, by which Trump’s piety is skin deep. But that is immaterial now.
Anyone who doubts that Trump is on a divine mission can take up the matter with God.
Ishiekwene, Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP, is the author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It.
![[OPINION] The Golden Age Of America Begins Right Now – Trump - Isaac Asabor](/media/k2/items/cache/03d91e702ed61b84a0a6fe565010ba7a_S.jpg)
In his highly anticipated inaugural speech today, Donald J. Trump painted a vivid picture of an America on the precipice of a transformative era. With characteristic bravado, he declared, “The golden age of America begins right now.” Whether one agrees with his politics or not, the speech has sparked a conversation about what this “golden age” could entail for the nation and the world.
Without a doubt, his speech is a vision rooted in optimism. This is as Trump’s address was steeped in optimism. He outlined a vision of economic prosperity, national security, and unity that resonated with many of his supporters. Promising to prioritize American jobs, revitalize manufacturing, and rebuild the country’s crumbling infrastructure, Trump’s rhetoric centered on bringing “forgotten Americans” back into the fold.
In fact, it is a vision that appeals to those who feel left behind by globalization and technological change. By focusing on “America First,” Trump aimed to position himself as the champion of the average worker, pledging to reverse decades of policies he argues have harmed the middle class. His emphasis on reinvigorating domestic industries and creating jobs for Americans struck a chord with voters who yearn for a return to a time when American manufacturing was the backbone of the economy.
However, achieving this golden age will require more than words. Trump faces a deeply divided nation, skeptical allies, and an array of domestic and global challenges. His promise to restore America’s manufacturing dominance may clash with the realities of automation and global supply chains. Moreover, his hardline stances on immigration and trade could strain relationships both within the country and abroad.
Critics argue that Trump’s rhetoric oversimplifies complex issues. Economic revitalization, for instance, is not merely about bringing back jobs but also about adapting to the future. While Trump’s focus on traditional industries resonates with many, the global economy is rapidly evolving, with technology and renewable energy playing increasingly critical roles. Policies that fail to address these trends may risk leaving the United States behind in the global race for innovation.
Trump’s foreign policy vision, marked by his commitment to an “America First” doctrine, raises questions about the country’s role as a global leader. While his supporters see his approach as a much-needed recalibration of America’s priorities, critics warn that disengagement from global institutions and alliances could weaken the nation’s influence and security.
At this juncture, it is germane to ask, “What Does a Golden Age Look Like?” To answer the foregoing question, it is expedient to say that the term “golden age” evokes images of flourishing prosperity, cultural renaissance, and national pride. To achieve this, America must address systemic issues such as income inequality, racial injustice, and climate change. A true golden age would involve lifting all Americans, not just a select few.
Trump’s speech touched on these themes but left many specifics unexplored. His administration’s policies will ultimately determine whether this vision materializes or remains a rhetorical flourish. While his supporters believe he has the boldness to deliver, skeptics question whether his plans will deepen the divides he promises to heal.
One critical aspect of a golden age is inclusivity. Trump’s presidency has been marked by polarizing rhetoric, and bridging these divides will require a concerted effort to foster unity and understanding. The administration must prioritize policies that benefit all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. Only by building bridges rather than walls, figuratively and literally, can America achieve a truly golden age.
One of the most striking aspects of Trump’s speech was his call for unity. “We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny,” he proclaimed. While lofty words, they serve as a reminder that America’s strength lies in its diversity and shared purpose. For this golden age to take root, Americans from all walks of life must find common ground.
Trump’s call for unity comes at a time of deep political and social polarization. The rise of social media has amplified divisions, creating echo chambers where differing perspectives rarely intersect. For Trump’s vision to succeed, the nation must engage in meaningful dialogue that transcends party lines and ideological boundaries.
The role of the media in this process cannot be overstated. A free and fair press is essential for holding leaders accountable and fostering informed public discourse. Trump’s often contentious relationship with the media underscores the need for both sides to engage constructively. Journalists must continue to scrutinize policies and rhetoric, while the administration must recognize the press as a vital institution rather than an adversary.
Central to Trump’s vision of a golden age is economic transformation. His promise to bring back jobs and revive industries resonates with workers who have seen factories close and livelihoods disappear. However, achieving this will require innovative policies that account for the complexities of the modern economy.
Investment in infrastructure is a promising starting point. Rebuilding roads, bridges, and public transportation systems not only creates jobs but also lays the foundation for long-term economic growth. Similarly, prioritizing education and workforce development is crucial for equipping Americans with the skills needed to thrive in a rapidly changing job market.
Tax reform and deregulation are also key components of Trump’s economic agenda. While these measures may stimulate business growth, they must be implemented carefully to ensure that the benefits are broadly distributed. A golden age cannot be built on policies that disproportionately favor the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and working poor.
Trump’s speech emphasized a shift toward “America First,” signaling a departure from traditional foreign policy norms. While this approach appeals to those who feel that the United States has shouldered an unfair burden in global affairs, it raises questions about the country’s leadership role.
The challenges of the 21st century, including climate change, cyber security, and global health, require international cooperation. Trump’s willingness to engage with global partners will be critical for addressing these issues effectively. A truly golden age for America must also contribute to a more stable and prosperous world.
Donald Trump’s inauguration marks the beginning of a new chapter in American history. His promise of a golden age is ambitious and inspiring to many, but it comes with significant challenges. Whether his administration can rise to the occasion remains to be seen. As the nation embarks on this journey, one thing is clear: the next four years will shape not only the future of America but also its place in the world.
The golden age may be here, but its realization depends on unity, innovation, and a commitment to values that transcend party lines. Only time will tell if Trump’s vision becomes reality or a missed opportunity. For now, his words serve as both a rallying cry and a challenge to a nation ready to define its destiny.
![[OPINION] Trump’s return and beauty of American democracy - Jide Oluwajuyitan](/media/k2/items/cache/027c6f1b85eac0541fbd71ae769e15e8_S.jpg)
As President Joe Biden, the 46th American president bowed out yesterday after 52 years of service to the nation he passionately served as a parliamentarian and president and Trump took over as the most powerful leader in the world in a seamless transition, devoid of the uneasiness and anxiety that heralded his first coming, it was the beauty of the American system that was in display.
Trump’s landslide victory over both Biden and Harris is but once again a confirmation that all politics is local. No matter how much Trump is derided by the rest of the world over what was considered his infantile behaviour, character deficit and right-wing world view, it is the Americans who wear the shoe that know where it pinches.
And lastly, the unexpected outcome of the American presidential election also once again confirmed the major weaknesses of the democratization process -free and fair election the hallmark of participatory democracy which is capable of throwing up anyone.
Biden had exploited what has turned out to be unfounded fears about Trump’s threat to democracy and the battle against Trumpism a “fight for the soul of the nation” to cruise into power in 2020. First, in order to rescind some of the Trump policies, Biden on his first day in office, issued executive orders that took back the US into the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, cancelled the US withdrawal from the World Health Organisation and a number of other executive orders in the areas of immigration, health care and environment.
In spite of the control of the presidency and both houses of Congress by the president’s party, after the 2020 mid-term election, three significant pieces of voting rights and electoral-reform legislations, including the For the People Act, passed by the House in March 2021; the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, passed by the House in August; and the Freedom to Vote Act, introduced in the Senate in September. (The first two bills were later versions of legislation passed by the House in 2019) were all blocked in the Senate by Republican filibusters, which could be overcome only with the support of at least 60 senators.
Finally, believing he, and his party knew what the people wanted without asking them, Biden became a victim of his own hubris. On December 13, 2022, Biden signed into law the “Respect for Marriage Act which formally repealed the federal Defence of Marriage Act (1996) which had defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman and had permitted states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage performed in other states.
Biden had earlier alienated the power American Pentecostals who supported Trump by appointing Pete Buttigieg, a gay as U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Biden also went on to sign an LGBTQ executive order which advanced equality on June 15, 2022.
Of course, the unexpected outstanding performance of Biden and his Democratic Party in American last mid-term election was American women’s show of gratitude to the president and his party’s crusade over women’s right to control their bodies But their dismal performance in the last November election was American women’s rejection of the notion that institutions of state manned by individuals who have no children can decide for parents how best to groom their children. If there are American adults who today exhibit evidence of maladjustment as a result of challenges of growing up, parents don’t want confused state officials to tell their five year old boys and girls about their right to change their sex.
Biden, a veteran of foreign relations having served as Foreign Relations Committee chair twice (2001–03; 2007–09), was no less haunted by his mishandling of foreign issues with domestic issues content by failing to rise to the occasion as the leader of the world. His unconditional support for Jonathan Netanyahu was to set him up against moderate democrats, students, first time voters and American Arab voters and the rest of other world leaders that had expected him to use his moral voice to provide leadership for the world in disarray.
But then Biden could not give what he did not have. He instead on October 2023 secured Congress aid package $15 billion in additional military assistance for Israel in its war against Hamas. It was true Hamas started the war with the unprovoked killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers. But informed members of the international community understood the act was out of frustration by Palestinians after over 50 years of Israel’s occupation, scores of rejected UN resolutions with tacit support of the US.
Israeli response in form of massive invasion and destruction of a ‘caged’ Gaza resulted in the death of over 45,000 Palestinians mainly innocent children and women.
Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of schools, hospitals and mosques, blockade preventing water, food, medicine, electricity, and fuel from entering the territory, was declared disproportionate response by the Pope, genocide by the United Nations and the rest of the world leading to issuing of warrant of arrest of Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister ‘for crime against humanity and war crimes committed from at least October 8 2023 until at least May 20 2024”.
Biden, a Catholic who takes Holy Communion every day and the only man with leverage on Netanyahu kept insisting Israel has the right to defend herself.
And finally, Trump’s triumph was one more evidence of the major weaknesses of democracy-free and fair election the hallmark of participatory democracy which often involve group bargaining. Democracy is capable of throwing up anyone including, outright idiots who do not know their right from their left or even those who have no faith in democracy at the expense of those who have faithfully served their nation in the military, bureaucracy and parliament such as John McCain in 2008, Hillary Clinton 2016 and Biden and Harris 2024.
In fact, the apprehension of most enlightened Americans during Trump’s first coming was the parallel between Trump, his rhetoric and Adolf Hitler. Like Hitler and most far right politicians, Trump had blamed economic and social crises in America on outsiders. And sounding like Hitler before the Jewish final solution, he had said ‘we have problem in this country. It is called Muslims; we know our current president is one, he is not an American”…”They have training camps where they want to kill us; we want to take our country back”. He blamed China for America’s economic woes and the menace of drug and unemployment on Brazil.
Like Hitler, Trump does not believe in political parties. Just as Hitler used Nazism as springboard to take over power, only to later destroy the leadership of the party as well as the party’s values before taking upon the world as a dictatorship responsible for the death of over 11 million people, six million of them from Israel, Trump hijacked the Republican Party to secure the party’s presidential ticket. Like Hitler, he went on to assault the core values and the soul of the Republican Party. And just like what Hitler did to his party leading members, Trump had humiliated leading light of the GOP before the far-right Republicans, particularly members of the Trump-led MAGA movement, who generally supported Russian President Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, the authoritarian leader of Hungary took over.
Trump was against the Fourteenth Amendment which confers citizenship on all children born in America and threatened to deport all such children. Worried Americans back then could not but see the parallel between this and Hitler’s ‘bastardisation’ policy which considered children born in Germany but of non-German parents inferior and could not be given citizenship because citizenship was by blood of the Aryan race.
Trump neither believes in free press or shares the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, the American founding father and the principal author of American declaration of independence (1776) that “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”. Today Trump has undermined confidence in the free press, creating his own alternative reality through lies propagated by Fox news and other platforms that supported him.
Trump’s ‘I am the only one who can fix America’ is not markedly different from Hitler’s delusion that he was ordained to protect the Aryan race.
But Trump’s 2020 defeat despite his failed insurrection and his return to the White House yesterday after four years in the political wilderness speaks to the resilience of the American system. It shows the American system has an in-built mechanism to prevent any America from taking a precipitate action which poses danger to American democracy.
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[OPINION] Renewed Hope 2025 targets for health through the magnifying glass - Fredrick Nwabufo
Admin![[OPINION] Renewed Hope 2025 targets for health through the magnifying glass - Fredrick Nwabufo](/media/k2/items/cache/25b5ad64f44ff2ab2c571e9bf77b0455_XS.jpg)
A healthy nation is a productive one. Health is existential and ranks extraordinarily on the pyramid of desiderata. Since 2023, the President Tinubu-led administration has foregrounded healthcare, making it a nucleus of its policy decisions and prescriptions.
For instance, in the 2024 budget of Renewed Hope, the first in the life of the administration, health, and other contributing sectors to the human capital index received due attention. Also, in the yet-to-be-passed 2025 budget estimates, N402 billion has been allocated for infrastructural investments in the health sector and another N282.65 billion for the Basic Health Care Fund, N188 billion for vaccines, and N40 billion for malaria vaccines.
A brief review of the past year
The Tinubu administration prioritises Nigerians – their health, social welfare, and otherwise. 2024 was a significant year for the administration in the health sector with many tangible outcomes. Over 53,000 frontline health workers were trained in the past year to deliver integrated, high-quality services in keeping with the objective of training 120,000 health workers by December 2025.
Also, the blanket of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) was expanded with over 2.4 million citizens enrolling in the national health insurance scheme in the year and with 10 million Nigerians under its sturdy cover.
Nigeria also secured a EUR1 billion European Investment Bank financing mechanism and a $1 billion Afreximbank financing mechanism to support incoming manufacturers in the health and life science sectors.
In addition, the health sector witnessed significant investment interest with over 70 new healthcare manufacturing companies with 22 large-scale projects in talks with international financiers, and more than 10 value-chain verticals already being established in the country.
2025 targets for health
The year, 2025, comes with a dispensary of possibilities, considering the streak of outcomes in the previous years. It should ordinarily be a year of new quarries, fecundated grounds, and consolidation.
According to projections by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, about 40 percent Level 1 primary health facilities will be enhanced and advanced to Level 2, widening the capacity and reach of facilities capable of delivering integrated Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services across all states of the federation.
Over 60,000 frontline health workers will also receive training in comprehensive SRH service delivery in 2025, aiming to achieve feasible quality improvement in family planning (FP) and post-abortion care (PAC).
Also, there will be a fulsome activation of the free C-Section and VVF repair programme in 50 percent of the 172 priority local government areas, which account for the highest burden of maternal deaths in the country.
In addition, the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp), a mechanism for driving efficiency in healthcare service delivery, will ensure that performance and financial management officers are engaged in all 774 local government areas to supervise the construction of primary healthcare centres, as well as manage their operations with fidelity to transparency and efficiency.
The Presidential Initiative to Unlock the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC) achieved some milestones in 2024, and it is expected that the initiative will consolidate the gains and execute more multiplier interventions and programmes.
PVAC is a crucial all-wheel vehicle established by President Bola Tinubu to unleash the potential of the health sector and unlock the arteries in the healthcare value chain by increasing local manufacturing of pharmaceutical products to least 70 percent of total consumption by 2030; increasing the total direct full-time employees working in the life sciences manufacturing sub-sector to at least 50,000 (up from the current workforce estimated at approximately 20,000); establishing at least two commercial vaccine plants across the health sector; establishing at least five new medical supplies and diagnostics plants, and doubling Nigeria’s pharmaceutical market share in Africa to at least 15 percent.
In 2025, PVAC says it will focus on the priority areas of market shaping, advancing local manufacturing, regulation and policy advocacy, and execution of special projects.
Some of its interventions will include expanding the range of health products and medical technologies manufactured domestically to strengthen Nigeria’s healthcare value chain, further addressing regulatory hurdles, advocating policy changes required to advance healthcare businesses across the sector by providing support to manufacturers, as well as working with public sector bodies.
Also, it will include implementing strategic, high-impact projects on behalf of the government to enhance local manufacturing capacity and improve health outcomes, addressing critical gaps in the healthcare sector.
In addition, establishing three to five manufacturing plants for pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, diagnostics and LLINs; leveraging global knowledge hubs to improve technical capacity for local manufacturing; supporting new manufacturers in obtaining WHO pre qualification and implement enabling ecosystems interventions; accelerating implementation of Executive Order and engage EO Technical Working Group to implement import duty and VAT exemption for manufacturing equipment and materials.
By the same token, it seeks to successfully deliver projects that support the establishment or expansion of local manufacturing facilities for essential health products and technologies and launch initiatives that improve healthcare access and outcomes for underserved populations, ensuring alignment with national health priorities.
Also, the Renewed Hope Medical Relief Programme once approved by parliament as proposed by President Tinubu, to be implemented through the Presidential Initiative to Unlock the Healthcare Value Chain (PVAC), will see the federal government purchasing drugs, medical consumables, test kits directly from local manufacturers and distributing via technology-enabled public-private partnership, to 73 FTHIs, 37 general hospitals, and 8,800 PHCs receiving funds from BHCPF. This will subsidise the cost of medicines, channel activated real demand to Nigerian manufacturers, lower costs, and ensure quality.
The National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System (NEMSAS), a special-purpose entity which serves as the foundation for organising and institutionalising emergency medical services across Nigeria, says some of its future aims include the procurement and equipping of tricycle and boat ambulances, which is in process with the plan of distributing over 700 tricycle and 30 boat ambulances to rural communities across Nigeria; advocacy and behavioural change communication: each state is expected to implement a robust community level advocacy exercise to drive demand and utilisation of RESMAT services; formal launch and commencement of RESMAT operations; monitoring and evaluation and plan for scale up to 37+1 states.
Already, NEMSAS has supported some states in establishing State Emergency Medical Service Governance and Operational Structures. Some of these states are Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe, Nasarawa, Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Plateau, Taraba, Delta, Ogun, Osun, Rivers, Yobe, Jigawa, Kebbi, Adamawa, Borno, and FCT.
NEMSAS says in regions and universities where it is fully operational, individuals facing emergencies—such as complicated pregnancies or deliveries—can dial the national emergency short code (112) or a designated 12-digit number from their institution or state. An ambulance will be dispatched to assess their situation, provide initial treatment, and transport them to the nearest hospital at no charge.
To deepen access to critical emergency services and bridge EMS chasms in areas with limited NEMSAS coverage, NEMSAS seeks to launch the Rural Emergency Service and Maternal Transport Programme.
The World Bank through the IMPACT project is supporting a pilot of this programme, in 15 IMPACT Project states namely: Bauchi, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe, Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba and Yobe.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) itemises some of its key development benchmarks for 2025 to include public health legislation: passing of the Public Health Emergency Management and NCDC amendment bills, development of Public Health Emergency Management Standards and Structure for states in line with the SWAp Agenda and subnational EPR mentorship; health promotion and disease prevention for priority and epidemic prone diseases on all media platforms, improved national and subnational awareness, AMR/IPC implementation, surveillance and early warning systems (including SORMAS optimisation through a national digital transformation agenda); laboratory and diagnostic capacity optimisation (including genomic sequencing and a standard service menu for state (subnational) laboratories); expand laboratory network and capabilities; response, medical countermeasures, and event (outbreak) management actions (including risk profiling, simulation exercises, IPC, and stockpiling), and reduce outbreak mortalities.
In addition, other targets include increasing national efforts in public health emergencies, human resource capacity development (including field epidemiology and laboratory training, integrated training for surveillance officers); public health emergency training, case management training core personnel and SURGE staff, and definition of the minimum human resource competencies for state EPR programmes), including leadership training and performance review of outbreaks of priority and endemic prone diseases (Lassa fever, Meningitis, Diphtheria, Measles, Cholera, Influenza-like illnesses, Mpox and Yellow Fever).
Looking through the magnifying glass, 2025 is shaping up to be another stellar year for Nigeria’s health sector under President Tinubu.
Fredrick Nwabufo is the senior special assistant to the president on public engagement
![[OPINION] Recognising The Arrival Of Old Age - Lindsay Barrett](/media/k2/items/cache/d7e08e6d34975948d48e111a053496b0_XS.jpg)
I turned 83 years old on the 15th of September 2024 and recently realised that I have outlived a substantial proportion of acquaintances whom I encountered in the active and useful years of my life. If I was able to visit Jamaica, where I spent my childhood and adolescence, I would hardly find anyone with whom I attended school or with whom I played when I enjoyed a typical Jamaican boyhood. Nevertheless, these days I find myself wishing that I could return to my natal home not necessarily to see old friends so much as to experience old sensations.
This desire I believe is actually a sign of the arrival of old age as the wish to experience juvenile memories is a function of geriatric nostalgia. As I confront daily existence, especially by trying to overcome the unfortunate circumstance of the reduction of mobility and social intercourse occasioned by the loss of my left leg to diabetes in my 79th year, I feel compelled to reflect on various events that I have witnessed in the journey so far. However, this compulsion generates a terrifying sense of loss and anxiety over one’s own chance of survival when such reflections reveal the serial departure of scores of individuals who were either younger or not much older than myself.
This anxiety coupled with gratitude for my close family’s devotion to my welfare has rendered the consciousness of the importance of divine faith alive in my awareness. While I still entertain some misgivings about the use of religion to satisfy the opportunistic advantages of some of its practitioners I try my best to respect and honour the true belief of the advocates of the best principles of faith.
That is to say that I recognise the need for faith among the believers because my own circumstance makes me hope for divine intervention to make life be more than suffering. I reflect on this issue constantly these days because I am in need of faith as I recognise that old age has arrived.
![[OPINION] Political economy of Tinubu’s tax reform bills - Jide Ojo](/media/k2/items/cache/2fec73773737ff50135fe63098a85167_XS.jpg)
Taxes, tariffs, duties and levies are ways the government rakes in revenue to run institutions of governance and finance provisions of physical infrastructures including social amenities.
Taxation is as old as humanity so much so that it is even in the holy books. Zacchaeus in the Bible is said to be a tax collector while Jesus himself paid tax.
Remember the popular phrase of giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God, what is God’s. Biblical records about tax payment can be found in Matthew 17:24-27 and 22:15-22. During the pre-colonial era, Yoruba people paid isakole and owo-ori, which are forms of taxation.
Really speaking, most people don’t want to pay taxes for different reasons. Many Nigerians believe that the government is rich enough with proceeds from crude oil and gas sales and does not need additional income to run its affairs.
Some refuse to pay because of the assumption that there is no accountability and transparency from the government on what it has done with monies paid by those who complied, especially proceeds from Pay As You Earn, which is deductible from the salaries of workers. Corruption is one of the barriers and impediments to voluntary tax compliance.
Many Nigerians are also of the opinion that they are not earning enough to enable them to pay taxes. Research has shown that many corporate organisations making super profits in Nigeria and the super-rich people in the country do not pay commensurate taxes if they pay at all.
As part of his economic restructuring, President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday, August 3, 2023, inaugurated the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms with Taiwo Oyedele as its chairman. In October last year, the President sent four tax reform bills to the National Assembly for passage.
The bills are: the Nigeria Tax Bill, which harmonises all the major taxes, such as corporate income tax, personal income tax, VAT etc.; the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, which provides a framework for tax management covering taxpayer identification, registration, assessment, collection, enforcement, etc.; the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, which seeks to replace the FIRS with the NRS to perform a broader role of revenue administration in Nigeria and drive collaboration with subnational governments and MDAs and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill meant to transform the JTB to JRB with an expanded mandate and enhanced role for cooperation and tax harmonisation.
The bill also sets up the office of the tax ombudsman to protect taxpayers and advocate for tax simplification.
A December 3, 2024 tweet on the X handle of Taiwo Oyedele (@taiwooyedele) says, “Altogether, the bills offer a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s tax framework to drive economic growth, support Nigerian households and position the country as a competitive economy within the comity of nations. These reforms reflect a commitment to equity, efficiency, and sustainable development.”
It is noteworthy that since the bills were sent by President Tinubu to NASS for passage, there has been a lot of pushback by many northern elites including governors, senators and House of Representatives members.
Among those who spoke out against the bills were Governors Bala Muhammed of Bauchi, Prof. Babagana Zulum of Borno and Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State.
Senator Ali Ndume also did not hide his disdain for the bills. The bone of contention in the bill majorly was the revised sharing formula for the distribution of the Value Added Tax.
Recall that under the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, this was very contentious to the extent that the then Governor Nyesome Wike of Rivers State had to drag the Federal Government to court over what it considered to be an inequitable sharing formula of VAT.
The Northern Elders, Arewa Consultative Forum and many powerful northern power brokers queued behind their governors and federal lawmakers to issue subtle threats to President Tinubu, indicating that they would not support his reelection bid in 2027.
Indeed, on October 31, 2024, the National Economic Council asked President Bola Tinubu to withdraw the Tax Reforms Bills from the National Assembly to allow for wider consultations and consensus building.
Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, said that formed part of resolutions reached at the 144th meeting of the National Economic Council at the State House, Abuja.
On December 3, 2024, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, in a statement said President Bola Tinubu had directed the Ministry of Justice to work with the National Assembly to address the concerns raised by different quarters on the tax reform bills.
It is important to highlight some of the salient provisions of the four tax reform bills.
According to the earlier referenced tweet by Oyedele, changes to income tax laws will attract remote work opportunities in the global business process outsourcing sector, enabling Nigerian youths to thrive in the digital economy; goods, services, and intellectual property exports will benefit from zero-rated VAT and other incentives to enhance Nigeria’s global trade competitiveness; tax exemptions, including zero per cent corporate income tax, VAT, and withholding tax, will apply to small businesses with annual turnover of N50m or less; minimum wage earners will be exempt from personal income tax, while over 90 per cent of workers across the private and public sectors will see a reduced tax burden.
Essential items such as food, education, and healthcare will enjoy zero per cent VAT while rent, public transportation, and renewable energy will be exempted, providing relief for low-income households that spend nearly 100 per cent of their income on these necessities.
Furthermore, over 50 nuisance taxes are to be repealed, with the remaining levies harmonised into a few numbers of taxes.
Corporate income tax rates will reduce from 30 per cent to 25 per cent over the next two years, and earmarked taxes on companies will be replaced with a streamlined single levy; businesses will benefit from input VAT credits on assets and services, eliminating the minimum tax on loss-making and low-margin companies.
This will lower production costs and stimulate investment; a redesigned tax framework will ensure progressive personal income tax, VAT, and capital gains tax while safeguarding low-income earners.
Taxes on foreign currency-denominated transactions will be payable in naira, easing compliance for businesses and reducing pressure on the exchange rate; VAT revenue will be distributed among states based on an equitable model to reward economic contributions, rather than the current model which is skewed in favour of states with head office locations where VAT remittances are usually made; the introduction of tax ombudsman to improve the tax system by protecting vulnerable taxpayers and advocating for fairness and lastly, a strategic framework for fair taxation, responsible borrowing, and sustainable spending will be established to guide the fiscal system.
In a rider to those points, Oyedele said, “These tax reforms aim to alleviate the rising cost of living, foster economic equity, and create a business-friendly environment to attract local and foreign investments.”
It is heartwarming to note that the Nigerian governors who were initially against this bill were able to meet with the Taiwo Oyedele Presidential Tax Reform Committee last week and ironed out their differences.
In a communique issued by the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and Governor of Kwara State, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, the forum reiterated its strong support for the comprehensive reform of Nigeria’s archaic tax laws.
The forum endorsed a revised Value Added Tax sharing formula to ensure equitable distribution of resources: 50 per cent based on equality, 30 per cent based on derivation, and 20 per cent based on population.
Members agreed that there should be no increase in the VAT rate or reduction in Corporate Income Tax at this time, to maintain economic stability. The forum advocated for the continued exemption of essential goods and agricultural produce from VAT to safeguard the welfare of citizens and promote agricultural productivity.
The meeting recommended that there should be no terminal clause for TETFUND, NASENI, and NITDA in the sharing of development levies in the bills and lastly, the meeting supports the continuation of the legislative process at the National Assembly that will culminate in the eventual passage of the Tax Reform Bills.
This is a classic case of using political solutions to resolve economic conundrums. Commendable!
X: @jidejong
![[OPINION] A country without referees - Lekan Sote](/media/k2/items/cache/b143ef727ea27a3d272a4bdfea397004_XS.jpg)
American President Gerald Ford, in a posthumous eulogy read by his son, Steve, at the funeral of another American President, Jimmy Carter, his immediate successor, affirmed, “Honesty and truth-telling were synonymous with the name Jimmy Carter.”
This assessment by a president about another president is the exact opposite of what a Nigerian would probably say about a fellow Nigerian, both knowing that “honesty and truth-telling” will be antonyms to their characters as Nigerians.
That is a sad, but true, commentary on the character of the average Nigerian that prompted former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, to say that “Nigeria and Afghanistan are possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world”, to the hearing of Muhammadu Buhari, a sitting President of Nigeria, who hardly knew how to react to a biting insult.
The best that former President Buhari could muster was his trademark wide Cheshire cat grin, a “Yes” that Nigeria was “fantastically corrupt” and the underwhelming comment that he “was shocked and embarrassed” and would rather “demand… a return of (Nigeria’s) stolen assets (hidden in Britain), than “demand an apology” from ex-Prime Minister Cameron.
And to appear to be pushing what is no more than a half-hearted demand of his boss, the then Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu. revealed that at that time, $37bn of stolen Nigerian money had been routed through Britain.
A joke that made the rounds in Lagos in the mid-1980s stated that when it looked as if an aircraft on an international flight was about to crash, the flight stewards thought of the most effective way to persuade the frightened passengers to don the parachute and dive into the sky.
To the gambling Americans, they said it was a 50-50 chance of survival. The Americans weighed their options, took the parachute and jumped out. The Japanese took the parachute when they were told that it was a matter of honour to be brave and jump out with the parachute.
It became a royal problem to persuade Nigerians to dive. No one knew how to get them to accept the parachutes. Until a retired pilot, who had lived in Lagos, offered to help. When he got the all-clear, he simply walked into the fuselage and announced, “Nigerians. It is illegal to jump out!”
In less than a jiffy, all the Nigerians on the aircraft jumped the queue, collected and wore the parachutes and saw to it that they all jumped out ahead of other nationals, who stood puzzled that the motivator for Nigerians was the zest to breach rules.
Following is another interesting story. A video gone viral showed a young lady, presumably a Diaspora Nigerian, in a rented boat trying to appease some gods by throwing US dollars into a lagoon. After the ritual, she was asked what she liked about Nigeria. She answered, “I like that I can pay my way through anything,” in the most casual manner.
These stories are probably a summary of the disdain that Nigerians have for orderliness, ethical guardrails and the rule of law. It also shows that any Nigerian state actor, in any official capacity, can be bought to compromise on any rule or policy.
To quote the character, Basi, in Ken Sawo-Wiwa’s TV series, “Basi & Company”, “It’s a matter of cash.” More uncouth Nigerians would use the phrase, “Cash for hand, back for ground,” in the capsule of transactions between a prostitute and her clients.
What all these negatives say of Nigeria is that there are no referees to call out those who engage in wrongdoing. If anything, it is those who are expected to caution and make Nigerians obey the rules that invite them to disobey the laws.
It was rumoured that a Nigerian estate developer who died under the rubble of one of his buildings was encouraged by Lagos State officials to raise the building beyond the level that was originally approved for him.
A referee maintains fair play by interpreting and enforcing rules, making impartial decisions on infractions, keeping stock of scores of the game, and ensuring that a player’s behaviour complies with laid-down rules and guidelines.
In today’s Nigeria, no one seems to be responsible for compliance, and those who should maintain the rules are the culprit-in-chief in the disgraceful act of breaching laid-down rules and regulations. Indeed, the average Nigerian seems to think that rules are to be breached.
When a boss restrained a company driver from driving against the traffic, the driver told him that no one obeyed highway codes anymore and continued breaking the highway codes. When the boss asked the unruly driver to be fired, the HR Manager was interceding on behalf of the errant driver.
You may not be too surprised that Nigeria endures so much impunity, with the two referee organs, the judiciary and the media, created by the Nigerian Constitution for dispensing justice and ensuring fair play, are hamstrung by the same Constitution!
Section 6 (6,c) absolves the government of responsibilities to Nigerians by saying, “The judicial powers… (that) shall be vested in the courts… shall not… extend to any issue or question as to why any act… or any judicial decision is in conformity with the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy… in (Chapter II of the Constitution).”
What this convoluted jabber is saying is that the Constitution, grundnorm of Nigeria, gives no guarantees that the government shall provide security, welfare, an efficient economy, adequate educational and health services, and safeguard the air, land, forest and wildlife to Nigerians. In other words, the judiciary cannot compel the executive arm to perform its constitutional duties.
The Father Christmas Section 22 of the Constitution gave the Nigerian media the power “to uphold the Fundamental Objectives… and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people”.
But Section 45(1) withdrew that, along with a slew of other fundamental human rights, like the right to life, personal liberty, freedom of thought, association, and right to live or own property in any part of Nigeria, “in the interest of (the generally ill-defined) public safety, public order, public morality, or public health, or for the purpose of protecting the rights of other persons”.
Where the hands of the judiciary and the media have been tied behind their backs by the Constitution that created them, they would hardly make any impact, especially when you consider how much the military culture impacted the socio-cultural lives of Nigerians.
The military ruled Nigeria, for 29 of the first 39 formative years of the Nigerian state- from 1960 to 1999- when the military packed their baggage of impunity and disrespect for the rule of law and returned to their barracks.
When a predator Nigerian tells his victim to go to court or gets his less connected compatriot beaten up by friends in the military barracks, he is simply boarding the time-machine, back to the days when a connected Nigerian gets what is not due to him by associating with a senior brass of the military government.
To borrow a phrase from Lasisi Olagunju, a columnist with Nigerian Tribune newspaper, “We cannot become (like the countries that are prospering so well) until we have blind laws that recognise no class (and) no ethnicity.”