To clarify the ongoing discussions surrounding the partial demolition of the National Mosque in Abuja, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike has taken a firm stance, ensuring that his administration’s intentions are accurately understood.

The Minister directed the Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Engr Shehu Ahmed Hadi, to comprehensively explain the government’s position regarding the planned demolition and compensation plan within 24 hours. This decision comes from concerns raised by the National Mosque Management Committee, which seeks compensation for land affected by road expansion.

At a meeting with members of the Abuja National Mosque Management Committee, chaired by Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, Minister Wike dispelled allegations that his administration was pursuing policies detrimental to any specific religion. He emphasized his respect for the Sultan of Sokoto, who also presides over the National Mosque, underscoring his commitment to supporting such a significant religious institution.

Minister Wike explained, “Anything that has to do with the National Mosque, of which he is the president; I will always give it support. No government will not support the management of the national monument. We must ensure that worship centers are well taken care of.”

Wike further cautioned against exploiting religious sentiments for political gain, stating that religious bias did not drive his government’s decisions. He urged against using religion as a divisive tool and emphasized his commitment to the welfare of all FCT residents and Nigerians.

“We are not targeting any religious group or ethnicity; we are doing what we can for the good of all FCT residents and Nigerians at large,” Wike reiterated. He added, “Don’t allow politicians who do not have the capacity to face me in any way to use religion as a weapon against me.”

In a show of support for religious unity and peaceful coexistence, Minister Wike pledged that the FCTA would continue to provide assistance for maintaining both the National Mosque and the National Ecumenical Centre, acknowledging their significance as national monuments.

Etsu Nupe, while expressing gratitude for the meeting, urged the Minister to support the maintenance project of the mosque, which had faced delays. He also requested more time to develop plots allocated to the National Mosque Management Committee by the FCTA.

The Minister’s commitment to addressing concerns and fostering unity among religious communities sends a positive message regarding the government’s intentions. It aims to ensure that the National Mosque and other religious institutions are well-preserved for the benefit of all citizens.

The President of the 10th Senate, Godswill Akpabio on Wednesday met with President Bola Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

Akpabio speaking at the end of the meeting with the President emphasised the unity and maturity of the Nigerian Senate, even amidst disagreements.

The Senate President while addressing State House correspondents after the closed-door meeting with President Tinubu said, “In the parliament, sometimes you disagree to agree. But we will never get to the point of throwing chairs. The Senate is too mature, full of matured people.”

Akpabio’s visit to the Aso Rock Villa comes hours after the lawmaker representing Borno South senatorial district, Ali Ndume, stormed out of the chamber.

The crisis started in the Senate after the commencement of the day’s session on Tuesday when Ndume raised a point of order to draw Akpabio’s attention to alleged procedural errors he committed.

Ndume had referenced a motion on the need for re-opening the Nigeria-Niger border, which was moved by the Senator representing Kano South senatorial district, Sumaila Kawu which Akpabio allowed to be debated without first having the official title of the motion read as the normal procedure.

Ndume, standing on Order 51 of the Senate Standing Rules, requested that the Senate President allow for the correction of any error made or observed during plenary.

Akpabio, while Ndume was still speaking, swiftly ruled him out of order, saying it could not be revisited since he had ruled on issues raised.

Ndume during the argument picked up his documents and a few other belongings and stormed out of the Senate chamber.

His action, unexpected, led the Senate to dissolve into a closed-door session.

The Senate President after the meeting with Tinubu, however, dismissed any crisis in the legislature.

He stated, “We are all working in one accord. There is no problem at all. Even if some people disagree with some of the happenings in the Senate, it is only the majority decision that is going to prevail.”

Akpabio further explained that any arising disagreements are swiftly handled in closed sessions, ensuring unity and solidarity are maintained.

The Senate President, while highlighting the Senate’s commitment to the nation’s interests, said, “We are politicians, no permanent hatred but permanent interest. That interest is the interest of the nation.”

He emphasised the Senate’s role in supporting the President and his administration through legislation and oversight functions, all aimed at moving the country forward.

In his meeting with President Tinubu, Akpabio said he discussed the upcoming 10th Assembly retreat taking place in Akwa Ibom State.

He sought the President’s support for representation at the retreat, which was granted.

Akpabio added, “I came to inform the President of the first 10th Assembly retreat which is taking place tomorrow in Akwa Ibom State.

“We are moving the Senate all the way to Akwa Ibom for the next four days.

“Thereafter, I will be travelling personally to Angola to attend the internal parliamentary union, so before he sees me, it will probably take another nine days. So, I needed to inform him.”

A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Dele Momodu has opened up on the reason he refused to support former president, Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.

According to Momodu, he refused to support the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015 because he saw bad signals that Buhari was leading the country to Golgotha.

Momodu stated this while replying a netizen who said he supported the PDP flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar because he wants to remain in the opposition.

The netizen had written, “That’s a confirmation that @DeleMomodu knows that @atiku is not winning the election and because he wants to remain in the opposition, he supported the loser.”

Reacting, Momodu said the X user logic is warped. He insisted that he would only support a government that is sympathetic to the plight of the Nigerian people.

According to him, “Warped logic. I will support a government that appears very reasonable and sympathetic to the citizens of Nigeria. I could have supported APC in 2015 but saw the bad signals early that BUHARI was leading us to Golgotha… APC is already astray less than six months now.”

The compromised international community and the rest of humanity must hold Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his US and European allies responsible for both the October 7 brutal murder of about 1,400 Israeli soldiers, innocent women and children by Hamas terrorists and Israel’s retaliatory indiscriminate bombing of caged people of Gaza resulting so far in the death of over 3,000 Palestinian civilians including women and children.

Netanyahu claims the Jews owned the land of Israel because they occupied it 3,500 years ago before the Arabs he described as colonialists exiled them from the land in the 7th century. That was just an attempt at revisionism. Jews, through Sarah and Arabs through Hagar were siblings. Abraham, their patriarch came from Ur in present day Iraq in search of a land he was told was flowing with milk and honey. His children, including Joshua waged vicious wars before securing a land which turned out to be a desert, with a ring of deep craters, hills and valleys of death.

But Israel’s story is the story of migration in all societies. However, unlike other societies including America, Canada and Australia taken over by new invaders, Israel as admitted by Netanyahu had the support of Christian Zionist sympathisers and of course powerful European nations to take their land back.

In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem becoming an international city. While Israel embraced the plan, it was rejected by the Arabs. With the help of powerful European nations trying to atone for centuries of savagery against the Jewish people in both central and eastern Europe, Israel overpowered the Arab and had by 1967 occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai peninsula while Palestinian refugees lived in Gaza and West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The status quo has remained the same ever since. 

With the Norway Oslo Peace Process, Israel and Palestinians after years of bloodletting recognized the quest for self-actualization by both as legitimate and therefore recognized the right of each other for statehood. Not long after, Benjamin Netanyahu then opposition leader called the Oslo accord “a mortal threat to Israel”.

With Netanyahu’s electoral upset in 1996, Israelis accelerated building of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories while frustrated Hamas organized suicide bombers to kill people in Israel. The Oslo deal eventually collapsed. Netanyahu, the longest serving Israeli leader perhaps after Moses has done everything ever since to prolong the nightmare of the Israelis and Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s strategy is the exploitation of the innermost fears of the Jewish people – the survival of their hard won state and preservation of their religion and cultural values. Desperate to retain power after some electoral setbacks in recent years, he formed an alliance with the ultra-right that has always opposed the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

The result was continued expansion of settlements in the Palestinian occupied West Bank. This was to lead to endless clashes between about 700,000 new Israeli residents and aggrieved Palestinians dispossessed of their homes and land. Netanyahu’s periodic police raid left over 300 Palestinians dead with as many in Israeli prisons. The immediate cause of current hostility according to Hamas was the storming of Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam by Israeli police who took away some worshippers.

Netanyahu celebrates Moses’ law of “an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth” despite Ghandi’s warning that such will make the world go blind. He forgets the essence of Moses law for the rebellious Jews with hardened mind was to prevent disproportionate vengeance since one cannot find peace by hating and getting your own back but by forgiveness and grace.

While Golda Meir, 4th Israel’s Prime Minister believed violence was not the answer to violence and lamented that while “Israel can forgive the Arabs for killing Israeli children, they cannot forgive them for forcing Israelis to kill Arab children”,  Netanyahu celebrates violence believing Israel was invincible especially after its acquisition of nuclear power with the support of America and Europe who stood against similar quest by other nations in the Middle East including Iraq, Libya and Iran.

Golda Meir confessed “while it is true Israel won all their wars, Israel paid for them”. For her, a leader who does not reflect deeply before sending soldiers to kill is not worth to be a leader, because “there is no difference between the person who kills and the person who send him to kill, if anything the latter is worse”.

But for Netanyahu who last week mobilized 350,000 Israeli youths that have known nothing but violence and intense hatred in the last 30 years, his strategy has always been an appeal to their sense of patriotism before sending them on a mission to bomb not just Hamas terrorists but  women and children that constitute two third of caged Gaza residents.

Netanyahu understands that Israel is haunted by the spectre of the Holocaust. As Golda Meir puts it: “Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust. Israel was not created to disappear. Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave”.

Netanyahu was seen last week lionizing some of the mobilized Israeli youths he was sending to Gaza on a suicide mission, which the Oslo accord he killed would have prevented.

As for the US and Western Europe, history has shown they love neither both Palestinians, Israelis, Africans nor anyone but themselves. Their avowed solid support for Israel has largely been driven by guilty conscience. Precisely because of centuries of humiliation and persecution of Jews across Europe, they lack the morale courage to promote cause of justice as Israel, out of a sense of misplaced aggression and fear of another Holocaust, continues to visit sins of Europe on their caged Palestinian cousins in the occupied territories.

It is on record that because Europeans envied the Jews because of their economic success during the middle ages. Jews were denied citizenship, of their rights and barred from holding posts in government and the military by European rulers. In both central and eastern Europe, they were treated as second class citizens confined to the ghettos.

The 1096 crusaders terror and massacre were directed at the Jews. In the 12th century, Jews were falsely accused of sacrificing of Christian children at Passover to obtain blood for unleavened bread. 

The resentment and religious prejudices that followed their economic and cultural successes led to their forced eviction from several European countries including France (1112), England (1290), Germany (1350s), Portugal (1496), Provence (1512), and the Papal States (1569). Those who refused to convert from Judaism to Christianity faced persecution during the 1492 Spanish Inquisition.

For 27 years, Netanyahu has played politics of fear to remain in power. Europe’s centuries of anti-Semitic campaign led to six million Jews being incinerated during the Holocaust.

 It is therefore time for Jews and Arabs that have more that binds them together start loving each other.  On the negative side, I have searched without finding a difference between Hamas terrorist who slaughtered women and children and Jews who bombed women and children put inside a cage called Gaza from where there is no escape.

On the positive side, they should remember that Abraham was the father of both Ishmael and Isaac; that Moses, the father of Hebrew religion was married to Zipporah, a Midianite Arab woman (Exodus  verse 21) and that Ruth  who became the grandmother of King David was a Midianite from  Moab, today’s Jordan ( Ruth 1.1.)

Arabs and Jews are one and the same. They should stop killing their own children. As Golda Meir predicted: “There will be peace between Israelis and Arabs when they start loving their children more than they hate us”.

President Bola Tinubu has approved the commencement of academic activities at six out of the 14 new universities established during President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, disclosed this on Wednesday after a closed-door meeting with President Ahmed Tinubu at the State House in Abuja.

He said the government has decided to stagger their implementation with a focus on six of the Institutions in agriculture, education and medicine.

“We’re starting with about six, two each of agriculture, colleges of education and medicine,” he said.

He added that the President’s decision stems from the fact that the take-off of the universities require funding, adding that it will not be prudent to start up all the institutions at once.

“ Honestly there are very many, probably about a dozen of them, if not more than a dozen or 14. That’s the number and you know tertiary institutions are highly capital intensive, they need a lot of money, especially at that takeoff stage, for infrastructure, staff recruitment and all other needs.

“So by the time you want to start off about 12, 14 institutions at once, it is a very heavy burden on the finances of the government. So, that’s why,” he said.

He said the government did not step down the approval of the remaining institutions because most of them are specialized institutions; colleges of education, agriculture, medicine are institutions that will support some of the mandates and priority areas of the government.

“We will have a need for trained teachers which colleges of education will provide and the same thing with agriculture.

“So, that’s why the government has not stepped down that approval. Instead, the president in his wisdom said we stagger their implementation on the grounds of funds, essentially,” he said.

The minister stated the Tinubu administration plans to be conservative about the pace of development of tertiary institutions and explained that its priority is on institutions that provide skills that enable its graduates to stand on their own.

He also revealed that President Tinubu has given the go-ahead to complete the abandoned multi billion-naira National Library Complex in Abuja as an important educational institution for the nation.

The minister noted that all relevant stakeholders including the government, the consultants and the contractors involved will work together to review the project to determine what is left to be done and the cost.

The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has dismissed two of its personnel and sanctioned 35 others for alleged misconduct and acts inimical to their calls of duty.

Its Public Relations Officer (PRO) Umar Abubakar said the personnel’s behaviour constituted a threat to the security of the organisation.

In a statement yesterday in Abuja, the NCoS spokesman explained that the dismissal was part of efforts to ensure discipline of its personnel and entrench international correctional best practices.

[Nation]

Last Friday, the Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Haruna Garba, while intimating newsmen about the epidemic of “stolen manhoods” in the nation’s capital and adjoining towns, noted that about 62 cases have been reported since September 21. Of this figure, Garuba said 51 were false. The “suspects” who raised the alarm have been charged to court for “giving false information and inciting public disturbance.” I am genuinely curious about two things: first, the eleven cases remaining and, second, how the police ascertained those lying.

A ready answer would be that those men were checked by competent medical personnel and found “intact.” If they were truly lying, what would they have gained from inciting the public and subjecting some poor innocent victim(s) to potential mob justice? That is a question I am sincerely invested in getting answered. What if these men’s claims, though not factual, also carried no intent to deceive? What if they claimed their penises were stolen because they were struck by a psychosomatic condition?

There are two sets of responses I have seen to this phenomenon of missing penises. On one side are the believers, people who take every instance of alleged occult or supernatural occurrence at face value. Every story about money ritual, spirits and ghosts, shape-shifters, demonic agents, is to be believed and defended as a manifestation of “African Science.” These are the ones who boast that Babalawos in villages without potable water or electricity can suspend natural realities. To challenge their thinking is to give yourself away as an inauthentic African suffering bouts of colomentality and cannot acknowledge that Africans have indigenous ways of knowing that which supersedes modern science.

The other set is the sceptics who dismiss these stories outright as impossible. Sometimes, they would superciliously berate the primitivity of African minds that will not let go of stupid village tales and embrace the logicality of “science.” It seems to me that the police fall into this second category. The series of warnings they have issued about “false alarms” suggest they are taking the rationalist position. But what if the sceptics’ position is just as unfounded as that of the believers?

What we call the “stolen manhood” phenomenon is neither new nor even “African.” Penis panics have been recorded in various forms of literature for centuries. Now diagnosed as “Koro,” the condition describes a state of anxiety where a man believes his penis is shrinking, retracting, or disappearing altogether and that he would consequently die. While medical studies have their own term, the society where it happens has always found some abstract or material factor to blame. In Central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was attributed to witches. In Singapore in 1967, they blamed the phenomenon on pork poisoning. The price of pork fell drastically, and the hysteria only died down after public officials campaigned that the cases of disappearing penises were a psychological issue. In China in the 1980s, they blamed theirs on the “fox spirits” migrating from place to place. Those spirits were believed to possess beautiful women, and some were consequently killed. The men in the communities it happened were so consumed with fear of losing their penises that they walked around with various contraptions attached to keep them from disappearing.

In Africa, cases have been recorded in Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Congo Republic, Central African Republic, and Cameroon. Across time and space, the various documented cases have a certain consistency that suggests that the bodies of those men truly experienced something that their minds translated into being robbed of their genitals. Medical literature says that the retraction these men felt could be reversed in hours or even days. So, if someone is taken to the hospital after they have raised the alarm and their penises are found to be functional, it does not mean they lied initially.

In a place like Nigeria where belief in the occult is rife, such accusations are not to be taken lightly. In public places where the alarm is raised, there is always an ignorant bloodthirsty mob waiting to unleash violence. In 2001, at least 12 cases of lynching over stolen penises in the South-West were reported. Between Nollywood and religious houses, people have been so fed an idea of evil that they imagine that some forms of evil can be destroyed for good.

These people only need to hear a man accuse another of stealing his penis, and they would transmute into beasts to launch judgment. Such alarms—and the violence that inevitably follows—are almost always a male affair. While there are a few documented cases of women who have claimed their breasts were missing, Koro is more popularly documented in men. That peculiarity partly has to do with the male anatomy where the penis is an offshoot and partly with social construction of manhood.

Anthropologists have found that the phenomenon of stolen penises correlates with economic stress and social anxiety that keep men from evolving through demarcated social stages. The penis is a biological and physical symbol of what we designate as the becoming of a man: physical and emotional maturity, procreation, and even economic independence. It is the one thing that separates men from women, and that is why the male fears of feminisation—of not being man enough—revolve around that part of their body.

The anxieties of not measuring up to social standards of manhood define men throughout their lives. There is a joke that men will swallow just about any potion that promises to increase their virility. It is funny because it is true. There is a reason urban centres in Nigeria are replete with all kinds of concoctions brewed by “native doctors” promising to make a sex machine out of insecure men.

Today’s Nigeria has enough stress to rob a man of manhood. That is why looking inside the men’s underpants to determine whether they still have their penis or not produced such an inadequate result. If 51 out of 62 cases examined turned out to be “false alarms,” the police should be curious if their meter for adjudging these issues is not falsely calibrated.

Nigeria faces a protracted economic crisis and social upheaval that trigger angst in people every day. Whenever you thought things could not get worse, it does just that. There is no sense of social progress, and many Nigerians are justifiably angry, desperate, and frustrated. Walk on the streets these days, and you practically feel the tension exuding from people and making them restless.

Now and then, a person launches into an outburst about being robbed of the very biological instrument they need to assert their personhood and a crowd of men for whom the cultural neurosis resonates jump out of their idling spaces to enact an extreme violence they hope would assuage their deficiencies and reassure them they can still do the things men are supposed to do—be a defender. What that momentary feeling of rage gives them is a feeling of control. In that one moment, they presume they have identified a source of the evil robbing them of vital life sources. Destroying it is cathartic.

While I understand why the police cannot afford to brook “superstition,” I also think they should be open to understanding cultural psychology. Those men—I do not know how many of the 62—raised the alarm because they had a physiological disorder fed by sociological conditions. Treating them as liars does nothing to educate a society that believes a penis can be stolen, and the supposed thief can be apprehended and punished. At best, the police are merely reactive. It would be more productive if they embarked on public education to preempt manifestations of Koro in public places and the violence that typically follows.

My February 2013 column, ‘Public Service in Private Interest’, related how our public service has proven incapable of mobilizing scarce resources for the advancement of the common good. “While the world is tending towards smaller and more efficient government, what we have in our country today is a behemoth that largely serves its own interest”, I argued in the piece, drawing attention to the fact that sacrifice is alien to the average Nigerian politician. On Tuesday, former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) deputy governor, Dr Kingsley Moghalu spoke for many Nigerians with his crisp X (formerly Twitter) post: “There is a real problem when Nigeria is set to borrow another $1.5 billion from World Bank for budget support, and SUVs worth N160 million each are reportedly to be bought for 360 members of the house of representatives. We are not yet serious as a country.”

This recurring issue touches on transparency and accountability in the Nigerian public space. But we will never be able to address it until we stop being selective in our approach. That’s the main challenge. Following a similar controversy four years ago, after the National Assembly voted to procure SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) for each of the 479 members, then Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, responded rather angrily. “To say that a senator of the Federal Republic cannot ride a jeep in Nigeria is an insult. The outcry over it is very unnecessary and insulting to the institution of the National Assembly and status of the federal lawmakers,” Abdullahi argued at the time.

However, it is in his justification that we can understand the mindset of the lawmakers. “When I was a Permanent Secretary, I know what ministers get. Each of the ministers move in convoy of three to four utility vehicles without anybody raising any eyebrow while some people, either because of ignorance or mischief, always cry to high heavens anytime management of the National Assembly wants to buy just one utility vehicle for a lawmaker,” said Abdullahi in 2019. “The work that we do at the National Assembly is more than the work of ministers and as representatives of the people, the money we spend on daily basis to all forms of indigent people, far outweighs whatever they, as ministers, or executive officers spend.”

This clear case of ‘Whataboutery’ is a tactic used to draw attention away from an issue by pointing fingers elsewhere, especially when accountability is demanded—an art perfected by Nigerian politicians. But Abdullahi also made a point that we should not ignore if we must deal with this vexatious issue that borders on insensitivity to the public mood. The entire National Assembly annual budget is a fraction of the funds being managed by Director-Generals in several federal government agencies. Unlike the lawmakers, these are people who did not go through the rigour of expensive elections. The same goes for Ministers. That these public officials are given a free pass on issues of accountability is why our federal lawmakers usually feel irritated whenever they buy their expensive cars and Nigerians make a fuss about it.

In August, for instance, it was reported that each of the 48 Ministers appointed by President Bola Tinubu would be given four official vehicles likely to include a Landcruiser, a Prado Jeep and two Hilux trucks. At the current market rate, everybody can do their arithmetic. That report has not been denied, yet it is not generating uproar like that of the lawmakers. So, effectively, the federal lawmakers are saying that focus should not only be on their Prado Jeeps—Nigerians should also look at those who add Hilux Vehicles to their own official fleet! In the United States from where we photocopied the presidential system of government, federal cabinet members aspire to be in the Senate. In Nigeria, Senators forfeit their seats to take ministerial appointments. We can connect the dots on where the ‘juice’ is.

I sympathise with our Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members for the way Nigerians pick on them, without holding ministers to the same standard. But I must say very quickly that they are missing the point. Lawmakers are expected to exercise oversight over the functions of the executive. And they cannot do that effectively with a mercantile approach to their job. Besides, many of our lawmakers compromise their authority with the way they relate with those over whom they should ordinarily serve as a check. At a made-for-Nollywood session three years ago, current senate president, Godswill Akpabio (who was then Niger Delta minister) told members of a House of Representatives committee to their faces that they are no better than legislative contractors. When a female lawmaker interrupted by questioning his claim, Akpabio dismissively retorted: “I just told you that we have records to show that most of the contracts in NDDC are given out to members of the National Assembly…”

The ‘Honourable Minister, please off the Mic’ retort that followed is not only etched in the memory of many Nigerians, but it also prevented Akpabio from further spilling the beans, although the ‘uncommon transformer’ must have forgotten all that now. The people can also recall that in 2005, Haruna Yerima, then a member of the House of Representatives, made a public confession after highlighting how members extort heads of the MDAs (ministries, departments, and agencies) they are expected to oversight. “Most of us come here to make money,” Yerima charged. “Most of our debates are beer parlour debates. No research. We argue like ordinary people on the streets.” Despite explaining that he did not mean to impugn the integrity of the whole House but rather to expose some individuals who were giving the legislature a bad name, Yerima was suspended with recommendation that he be taken to “a psychiatric hospital for examination.”

Whatever may have been the outcome of that psychiatric evaluation assuming the ‘legislative mandate’ was carried out, the issues Yerima raised eight years ago have refused to go away. So, the National Assembly must understand that this controversy goes beyond the acquisition of some expensive Jeeps, it is about whether public officials should continue to revel in ostentatious lifestyle at the expense of millions of Nigerians who are going through harrowing times. It is also about the moral authority to demand further sacrifice from the people. “We have an audacious vision of accelerated revenue collection and achieving an 18 per cent tax-to GDP ratio in the next three years to ensure financial sustainability and reduce the nation’s reliance on borrowing,” the new Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Chairman, Zach Adedeji said on Monday. But how do you expect citizens to pay tax when the revenues so generated would be spent to feed the vanities of some political fat cats? How many of our public officials would expend as much as a hundred million Naira of their own resources to purchase a vehicle for themselves, even if they have the money? By sanctioning such a jumbo amount of money just for one car, has the National Assembly not unwittingly endorsed legislative ‘ways and means’ (in their oversight of the MDAs) for members to keep up with their high maintenance status?

However, I subscribe to the notion that we cannot continue to pick only on the lawmakers about a problem that is also widespread within the executive, and at all levels. For instance, one of the newly elected governors has decided to spend between N3 to 5 billion to erect a new office because, as he argued, “It’s when you make your abode or office befitting that will add value and appeal to investors. Filthy environments and poor architectural outlook can discourage.”

In my column four months ago, ‘My convoy is longer than yours’, I concluded that while human nature often predisposes people to act mostly in pursuit of self-interest, the essence of government is to subordinate the personal convenience of individuals to the imperatives of the common good. In saner climes, rolling back conveniences, no matter how little, are usually some of the first steps public officials take when their country battles the kind of socio-economic challenges that we grapple with in Nigeria today. “Yet, the crisis of present-day Nigeria is that there is little in our code of public conduct that encourages moderation or sacrifice,” I surmised. 

Let me make it clear here: I do not begrudge lawmakers or ministers who go about in expensive vehicles. My only concern is that for this democracy to survive, it is in their enlightened self-interest not to turn a deaf ear to the groans of the people.

BRI Reunion in Beijing

When you give roses to others, according to Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his keynote address yesterday to mark the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, “their fragrance lingers on your hand. In other words, helping others is also helping oneself. Viewing others’ development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make one’s own life better or speed up one’s development.” The initiative, according to Xi, is “based on the belief that flame runs high when everyone adds wood to the fire and that mutual support can get us far. Such cooperation seeks to deliver a good life not only to people of just one country, but to people in other countries as well.”

I arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for the 2023 edition of the Media Cooperation on Belt and Road which coincides with the larger BRI conference that has become an annual global event. No fewer than 131 media practitioners and managers from about 90 countries are participating this year. Although inaugurated in 2014 with sessions held in September/October every year, there has not been another in the past three years because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, from the 2017 edition in Dunhuang, Gansu Province of Western China to the 2018 edition in Boao, Hainan Province and the 2019 edition held in Beijing, I have been privileged to speak at these sessions. I will also be delivering a keynote speech today.

In all my interventions, I have always advocated a more beneficial relationship between China and Africa. In my 2018 speech titled, ‘Of China, Africa and ‘Colonial Master’’, I particularly stated that given the enormous financial investment China has made in Africa “it is in her interest that the relationship be seen as one based on shared humanity and prosperity, not as a new colonial master coming under the guise of loans and lopsided trade.” This aligns with the underpinning philosophy behind the BRI, as encapsulated by the Chinese president who initiated the idea. “We live in a world where history and reality meet, where opportunities and challenges coexist, and where humanity as a whole rise or fall together” according to Xi. “Countries must assist each other in times of need and choose win-win cooperation if we are to share the fruits of development.”

Four years ago in Beijing, I was inducted (along with 25 others from five continents) into the Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) Council which serves to promote harmony and development within the BRI implementing countries. Coordinated by ‘Peoples Daily’, the official newspaper of the central committee of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), with membership from 182 media organisations across about a hundred countries, the objective of the BRNN is to promote “mutual assistance, collaboration and exchanges among members.” My focus of course has been more on how Nigeria should adopt a strategic approach to managing relations with China and there can be no better time for that than now.

In August this year, the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) projected that by 2030, China will overtake the European Union (EU) as Africa’s biggest trade partner, with agriculture one of the areas being targetted. According to the report, bilateral trade between China and Africa rose 35% in 2021 from 2020 to $254 billion, with exports from the continent hitting a record $106 billion. Noteworthy in the report: “Nigeria is Africa’s biggest importer from China while South Africa is the biggest exporter.” The question for the Nigerian authorities, especially at such a time as this, is: What should we learn from South Africa so that we can also begin to derive maximum benefits from our relations with China? 

This conversation has just started.

The Ondo State House of Assembly on Wednesday revealed that lawmakers in the House are open to a political solution to the impeachment process against the state deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.

The spokesperson of the House, Olatunji Oshati, stated this following the intervention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) national leadership.

Naija News had earlier reported that the APC leadership met with some members of the assembly and some party leaders in the state over the impeachment process against Aiyedatiwa.

The statement released by Oshati reads, “Following the intervention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by Dr Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, the APC members in Ondo State House of Assembly have agreed to consider the possibility of a political solution on the impeachment proceedings against the State Deputy Governor, Hon. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa.

“At a meeting held in the APC’s National Secretariat in Abuja on 17th October, 2023 at the instance of the National Chairman of the Party, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the National Reconciliation Committee set up by the Party under the Chairmanship of Rt. Hon. Aminu Bello Masari, members of the APC in Ondo State House of Assembly, led by the Speaker Rt. Hon. Olamide Oladiji, and the Ondo State leadership of APC led by Engr Ade Adetimehin, all agreed that a political solution to the impeachment was possible and proper.

“The Hon. Speaker restated that the House was only exercising its responsibility under S.188 of the 1999 Constitution, having received a petition accusing the Deputy Governor of some allegations of gross misconduct and abuse of office. He, however, expressed the desire of the House leadership to further consult with members of the House cutting across party lines, on the political solution as proposed by the APC.

“The House therefore hopes that in the same spirit of genuine wish for a political solution, the Deputy-Governor would take immediate steps to withdraw the multiple court cases he filed over the same impeachment. This would allow the stakeholders to freely discuss the settlement proposals and prevent actions or comments over a matter that is still subjudice.”