THE PANDEMIC NEXT TIME: NOTES FROM AN IBADAN LECTURE
Ayo Olukotun
THE PANDEMIC NEXT TIME: NOTES FROM AN IBADAN LECTURE
Ayo Olukotun
“As hard as it might be to focus on a future crisis while we are still faced with COVID-19, we must take account of the WHO estimate that we face a pandemic threat every 5 years.”
Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of State for Health,
University of Ibadan Lecture, Friday, 8th October, 2021.
One effective way of bridging the communication gap between government and civil society is through interactive events, symposia and lectures. In this respect, policies and proposed policies would benefit from dialogues and engagements between the state and the attentive public. That is why the German social theorist, Jürgen Habermas, described democracy as a long-running conversation between the governed and those who govern.
One of the merits of Dr. Mamora’s lecture to the University of Ibadan students last Friday, at the behest of the Physiology Students’ Association of the University, is that it was interactive to the extent that the students asked him questions arising from the lecture. The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, Mamora’s colleague, is billed to deliver yet another lecture on Coronavirus to the Government College, Ibadan, Old Boys’ Association on Friday next week in what appears to be a process of continuous engagement with stakeholders and civil society actors.
Mamora’s lecture, from where the opening quote is sourced, is titled “The Battle Against Coronavirus in Nigeria: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects”. As a former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, Chairman of the occasion, observed, the lecture had come at a most opportune time in view of the ravages of what would appear to be a new variant of COVID-19 in the country which prompted government to announce only yesterday that there would be a ban on unvaccinated workers as from December 1 this year.
Remarkably, the lecture went beyond COVID-19 to look at the state of our preparedness should another pandemic break out, following a recent alert by the World Health Organisation. That particular concern is drawn from lapses in what Mamora called “pandemic preparedness” at the time when Covid-19 broke out in Nigeria early in 2020. Indeed, he alluded to doomsday prediction based partly on the status of our health care system, that bodies will literally be picked on the streets of our major cities when the pandemic really gets underway. As we now know, that scenario was averted, in part, because of the cogent response of the health authorities, including the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, which established a national Coronavirus Preparedness Group; The Federal Ministry of Health as well as the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
The lecture argued that one of the good points of official response to COVID-19 is the unity among the various organisations that had the assignment of meeting the challenge head on in the midst of a deficient health sector. Recall that Nigeria also performed extraordinarily well in 2014 when it had to deal with the Ebola virus pandemic as noted by several international agencies. The trouble, however, is that the country appeared to have gone to sleep after that remarkable success. Those odds, notwithstanding, Nigeria was able to rise up to the occasion and exigencies of COVID-19, and has indeed, as Mamora noted, been congratulated by the World Health Organisation for a good outing.
Nonetheless, the battle is not yet over, given the ability of the virus to mutate into more dreadful versions and editions of its initial occurrence. This, therefore, is the reason why Nigeria, as the lecture observed, must shed off what the experts call “pandemic fatigue” in which the populace becomes weary through protracted exposure to more than one variant of the virus.
Additionally and worse still, the country has to deal with the possibility that yet another virus may initiate a new pandemic different from COVID-19 in a few years to come. Lamentably, there is a lot of slowness, inertia and ignorance surrounding vaccination leading to a circumstance in which, as the lecture documented, whereas most developed countries score up to 50 percent in terms of vaccination coverage, Nigeria and most other African countries remain at a despairing one percent. Apart from vaccine scarcity and the fact that Nigeria remains highly dependent on a global pharmaceutical sector skewed against the Global South , there is a great deal of superstitions, half-truths and bigotry around the issue of vaccines, compounding the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy. Unless the situation changes, it will be difficult for Nigeria and other African countries to reach the level of herd immunity produced by a significant proportion of the population having been vaccinated.
This echoes the regret expressed recently by the United States ‘ President, Joe Biden, that COVID-19 is fast becoming the disease of the unvaccinated. Mercifully, however, and as the lecture indicated, government has used the opportunity of the current crisis to put in place policies such as building a more resilient system for health security, developing capacity for vaccine manufacturing illustrated by the joint venture between the Federal Government and May & Baker leading to the creation of Biovaccines Nigeria Limited. Other initiatives include the recent creation by NCDC of at least one molecular laboratory in every state in Nigeria, which are digitized as well as scaling up infectious diseases surveillance system and emergency operation centres.
Good as these steps are, let it be known that much will depend on our ability to sustain and stabilise these pertinent public start-ups and institutions. This point is made in the context of the fact that several such creations have been made in the past but soon petered out, either because they were poorly funded or loosely maintained and lacked rejuvenation designs. That is another way of saying that our pandemic preparedness should go beyond what it is currently to bring about more avenues and auspices for the maintenance over a long period of the institutions recently brought into being by government.
Of concern is the issue of vaccination hesitancy to which the lecture returns again and again, partly because it holds the key to the country’s bailout from the pandemic no matter how many mutations come around. Making a passionate appeal to the students and others, Mamora stated that: ‘The vaccines are safe. I urge you to think of innovative ways that you can contribute to the pandemic response activities.’
Obviously, stirring as this appeal is, it will not be enough to conquer the embedded vaccine hesitancy, some of them fuelled by ill-digested religious beliefs, fantastic exaggerations published in the social media space as well as tendencies of some societies to view with a pinch of salt products and things that they are not familiar with.
In the opinion of this columnist, what is required is a systematic campaign to combat vaccination hesitancy by for example, playing up societal role models who are brought up to testify to th safety of the vaccine. In doing this, we must factor an illiterate population, many of whom can only be reached through non-conventional media and traditional auspices.
Please note that sanctions, such as attempted by the Edo State Government and announced by the Federal Government will not be enough, considering that a vast majority of the population are not in white-collar jobs. Targeted enlightenment campaigns sustained over a period may be more effective in this regard.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
EXERTIONS OF OUR HEROES PRESENT:OLADIPUPO MABOGUNJE AT 90
Ayo Olukotun
Distinguished Professor Akinlawon Oladipupo Mabogunje turned 90 on Monday this week, an event marked quietly in keeping with the celebrant’s unassuming mien by family, friends and associates. Not many know in this country, to take an example, that Mabogunje won in 2017 the highest prize that can be awarded to a geographer, partly because he refused to publicize it or talk about it. He is also the first African ever to be awarded a prize of distinction, Prix Vautrin-Laude in Geography, regarded as coequal to the Nobel Prize. There is also the fact that times have changed as one will realize if you contrast the unexampled celebration of Professor Wole Soyinka when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. Outside a few laudable exceptions, our leaders are philistine for the most part and so are the majority of the followers, which partly explain why such a celebration of a national icon did not take place when Mabogunje received the award and garlands in Paris, France. I do not even recall that any national columnist considered the issue worthy of commentary, assuming that they knew about it. But these are painful matters to be discussed for another day.
Of course, given his long and distinguished career, Mabogunje has won many firsts as well as serial professional laurels. Please do not forget that we are dealing with a scholar who took his doctorate degree from the University of London in 1961, a year after Nigeria’s independence and many years before the majority of a largely youthful population were born. Someone too who became the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ibadan in 1970. This columnist does not believe that Mabogunje expected to live as long as he had, to borrow the title of his monumental autobiographical work, there is more than “A Measure of Grace” at work here. I say this because in the book published in 2011, there is a chapter entitled “Reflections in the Departure Lounge” which means that he considered himself ready for departure at least a decade ago. Providence, however, has granted him a felicitous extension of time which he has put to creative and optimal use during which he has received further accolades and awards of proven merit.
He is no doubt an intimate family man in ways in which not many easily approximate. For example, it was at the behest and urging of his son, Adegboyega, to whom he made a solemn promise when he turned 70 that by his own account, he started to put pen to paper to produce his rich and accomplished autobiography. Similarly, he narrates in the same book how indebted his life had been to his wife, Justice Titilola Mabogunje, who comes across as a soul mate, colleague and confidante. Mabogunje wore and still wears many hats including, illustratively, a boardroom personality who sits in the boardrooms of several enterprises, public and private; a reformer in the trenches of a protracted and innovative struggle for poverty alleviation, land reform, community empowerment and of course, urban renewal. Some of these roles may appear contradictory and difficult to unite but it is a mark of his ability to blend roles and situations that he was able to jell these unlikely positions. For instance, how will you like to sit in an upscale boardroom next to Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka? It is conceivable, just that it might look a bit like an upset at first blush.
Despite possessing a coat of many colours, it is his scholarship that comes to the fore as well as defines him. Author of over 2 dozen books and myriad articles in learned journals published across the globe, he is not only a pioneer but a leader whose academic excellence may be difficult to repeat, at least in this country. One of the ways of gauging his impact in scholarship, apart from his awards of renown, are the many students he has mentored and taught over time, some of whom later became distinguished in their own rights. I once attended a conference in which Emeritus Professor, Anthony Asiwaju, globally acclaimed for his work on borderlands, said that it was Mabogunje principally that nudged him in his undergraduate days in Ibadan in the direction of historical geography and eventually of borderlands, which became his forte. There are, of course, several others who passed through what could be loosely called the Ibadan School of Geography created and nurtured by him.
Mabogunje has the distinction of introducing a measure of quantification and “theory” into the study of geography, weaning it from the straitjacket of the established historical approach into which it was fixed by earlier scholars. In later years, Mabogunje would take the study of geography beyond the borders of Nigeria and Africa, becoming a consultant for many international organizations including United Nations Habitat and others interested in the study of human settlements. Despite his embrace of new trends in his discipline, he remained steadfastly a Lockean empiricist making his point, not by theory, but by a wealth of facts which are allowed to speak for themselves. In this sense, although a rigorous analyst, he was wedded, more or less, to the British tradition of empiricism in which its principal oyster was to adopt clever narrativising strategies to arrive at fascinating conclusions.
One of the principal points of departure of his illustrious career is that he spent almost as much time in policy making circles as he did in academia. From the old Western Region where he was an influential member of the think tank that surrounded Chief Obafemi Awolowo through successive military regimes to the current democratic period, his expertise was sought and used in such areas as local government, community banking, roads and infrastructure development, public service reform, lands and housing policies, poverty alleviation and others. Indeed, his advocacy of an OPTICOM strategy of community empowerment attempted with particular results in Awe, Oyo State popularized his brand of poverty alleviation and community governance.
More recently and through his influential connection with the Awujale of Ijebuland, His Royal Majesty, Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Kayode Adetona; there was created a landmark project on poverty reduction institutions and microcredit financing that became internationally famous for its outstanding results. Employing the auspices of the Ijebu Developement Initiative on Poverty Reduction, the Awujale and Professor Mabogunje as well as the late Professor Adebayo Adedeji played stellar roles in addressing the challenges of unemployment through a programme of entrepreneurship, fund management and cooperatives with notable results in uplifting the economic visage of Ijebu Ode and its environs.
One aspect of Mabogunje, perhaps little known, is his transparency and refusal over time to join the movable feast which access to power confirms. Segun Adeniyi, a Chief Press Secretary to the late President Musa Yaradua, narrated on one occasion how pleasantly shocked he was when his principal told him that there are very few Nigerians like Mabogunje who could hold several meetings with the President without asking for a personal favour. In terms of moral impact, this is an abiding takeaway for a generation adrift and a leadership with pronounced moral deficits.
This columnist wishes the old man happy birthday and several more delightful returns.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute of Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
INSECURITY: ASTONISHING GAPS IN SCENARIO PLANNING
Ayo Olukotun
Hype and hoopla have predictably trailed the indictment of the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Retd.) regime on its failure to tackle insecurity by The Economist (London) in its publication issued a fortnight ago. Though sharp-tenored, there is hardly anything the paper said regarding insecurity which Nigerian journalists have not commented previously. Those who have decided to make the publication a national issue often do not remember that the same paper endorsed presidential candidate, Muhammudu Buhari, in 2015 and even went so far as to call former president, Goodluck Jonathan, “an ineffectual buffoon”. What are important are less the style or motives of The Economist than whether there is a clear message that our leaders need to take seriously.
Hardly anyone will dispute, given the escalating and occasionally terrifying scale of insecurity, that the country, as the journal said, has become “a crime scene of destructive magnitude”. This is especially so if we take into account continuing incidences of banditry as well as the recent detonation of explosives on the Abuja-Kaduna train track and the break-in into the Nigerian Correctional Service center at Oyo, forcibly freeing about 392 inmates. Those recent activities of the ubiquitous “unknown gunmen” were preceded by such events as the attack on the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna and assaults on Correctional Service centers around the country numbering about 10 in the last 5 months. That is a way of saying that those terrorist raids that happened last week are not in the least new, and perhaps the only question to be asked is: which target will the terrorists strike next?
This brings us to a remarkable gap in our counter-terrorism agenda, if indeed we can be said to have one. Let me illustrate. The Abuja-Kaduna Rail Service became hugely popular with rising numbers of customers seeking to bypass the heavily endangered road travel, several portions of which were occupied by bandits. Passengers who could not afford to go by air–and they are in the majority–took advantage of the emergent railway service escaping the dungeon of multiplying deaths and kidnappings on the highway. It would appear then that the bandits had been put out of their murderous business, at least temporarily. Was it difficult to imagine then that sooner than later those bandits, unless they were routed, would attempt to strike at the railways which had taken off the source of their lucrative business? To project even further, someone doing scenario planning, which really is about crafting narratives with several possible conclusions, would have projected that unless diligent care was taken, even the air routes could become endangered if banditry waxed stronger.
Granted, with pandemic upsets around the globe, economic dislocations, social and physical tornadoes; life and governance have become more and more unpredictable. There is talk in some quarters that we are in an age of bewilderment marked by rank uncertainty and the demystification of established ideas. That notwithstanding, governments that wish to get ahead still do and manage to push up governance by scenario planning which simply implies that they take time to think through challenges and take anticipatory measures concerning them.
The British Government, to take an example, in the wake of increasing deaths through COVID-19 crafted two scenarios which it called a Plan A and a Plan B, anticipating a fair amount of normalcy and escalation respectively, regarding the pandemic. Plan A seeks to encourage more people to be vaccinated including offering vaccines to people between 12 and 15 years. It would also administer booster jabs to millions in order to increase their immunity among other steps. Plan B is a stricter version of Plan A and would legally mandate the wearing of face covers as well as guidance on working from home, if required. Part of the strategy in Plan B is to take off pressure off the National Health Service should more deaths occur as a result of the pandemic. As many would know, events in the last few weeks have led to the increasing suggestion of a need to shift policy to Plan B as winter approaches with the associated onset of flus and viruses related to COVID-19.
Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, may not be much of a hero or popular politician. Nonetheless, he heads a cabinet that has taken time to consider the nature of the health challenge faced by his country and had engaged in a measure of scenario planning by anticipating possible trajectories including grow-worse ones. Of course, businesses that intend on staying at the cutting and competitive edges engage in building scenarios in order to better plan and ameliorate looming disasters as do countries.
Indeed, a serious counter-terrorism agenda will include alert systems, a cartography of high-risk populations, soft and easy targets and a ranking of threats with a view to determining how best to meet perils or outbreaks of violence. A situation where bandits take whole populations captive at will or sometimes even warn that they are visiting certain territories and carry out the threats is a far different one from what we see in countries which make public announcements when they realize that citizens in some areas are at risk. To put it bluntly, is anyone up there doing any threat analysis? A related question is: when these analyses are done, are there any follow-ups? The latter question is raised in the context of revelations made by intelligence experts that alerts sent were not acted upon until disaster struck. A particular instance which occurred about 2 years ago in Zamfara State was a statement made by a professor who was the Secretary to the Government that tomes of literature were sent to the central authorities concerning the growth and development of banditry in that state but that he got no response. A few months ago, the Governor of Niger State, Abubakar Sani Bello, lamented that he had raised several alerts concerning the occupation of part of the state by Boko Haram insurgents to no avail. There are even now recent reports that some parts of the NorthWest are at risk of occupation by bandits who have had the temerity of collecting taxes from hapless local populace.
In the same connection, does it take much intelligence to predict that if bandits, as they are called, have raided with outstanding success a number of Correctional Service centers that several other ones are sitting ducks for future raids? This columnist listened on Channels Television a few days ago to the Special Adviser on Security to the Governor of Oyo State, Mr Fatai Owoseni, where he described the Correctional Service Center at Oyo as an almost abandoned site in the midst of nowhere with overgrown weeds and the roads leading to the place virtually impassable. So, are they not crocodile tears therefore to make so much fuss about the ease with which bandits overran the place?
All hope is not lost, however. If Nigeria must overcome its security travails, it is compulsory for it to revitalize its counter-terrorism efforts making use of credible intelligence gathering as well as galvanizing local communities, many of them in the throes of desperate poverty, behind government efforts to rally back. That would be a vantage point of regaining the capacity to rout bandits and insurgents.
Ayo Olukotun
ADESINA AND OPTIONS FOR REVERSING OUR INDUSTRIAL ARREST
Ayo Olukotun
“The future benefits those who anticipate and prepare…Nigeria must look beyond the industries of today into the industries of the future and develop a plan and capacity to compete.”
African Development Bank Group President, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina at a lecture to the Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria.
Tuesday, October 26, 2021.
A few years before he passed on, elder statesman, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was asked a question on what his vision for Nigeria was. Awolowo replied that first and foremost, he would like to see an industrialized Nigeria. The statesman and politician could not have foreseen that such a prospect would not materialize, not only during his lifetime but in the lifetime of his youngest daughter, the Amazon, Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo Dosunmu who turned 70 a few years ago. Let us not forget that Awolowo had kick-started an industrial future for Nigeria in the 1950s and the 1960s. At the time, countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, even China, were at the same low level of industrialization as Nigeria and depended primarily on the export of raw materials and unprocessed products. Fast forward to 2020, and we find that these other counties have become prominent industrial powers with diversified export bases and with a clear foothold in the emergent 4th Industrial Revolution. This desultory background provides a context for the lecture delivered last week by the President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, quoted at the outset of this column.
Adesina, in what can be considered a manifesto for a revitalized industrial future for Nigeria, laments the several woes and disabling environment that continue to arrest Nigeria’s industrial potential. One of the problems, as he points out, is not the lack of ideas or blueprints, for as he says, even the first National Development Plan of the 1960s envisaged Nigeria’s industrial development. Obviously, such programmes as the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, Vision 2010, Vision 2020 as well as Nigeria’s Industrial Master Plan, clearly envisaged the industrialization of Nigeria on the scale of the Asian Tigers.
The issue, however, as the lecturer noted is the lack of implementation and follow-up to bring these dreams to actualization. He buttresses the widening gap between Nigeria’s manufacturing sector and those of the Asian Tigers by pointing out that Malaysia diversified its economy away from an agricultural base consisting of rubber and palm oil through heavy investment in high-tech sectors such as electronics. Consequently, last year, the value of Malaysia’s total exports which included computers, vegetable oils, semi-conductors and machinery stood at 234 billion dollars. By contrast, Nigeria, which started the industrial race at about the same time as Malaysia, had total exports worth of 33.5 billion dollars consisting mainly of oil. In other words, not much has changed since the 1960s and 1970s despite the harvest of promises not kept and blueprints not executed.
Why is this so? Principal among the deficits and debilities of the manufacturing sector is the lack of steady supply of electricity, an albatross which has defied every successive government, high spending and several campaign promises. For sure, this is a problem that affects the Nigerian work culture to an unimaginable degree. Consider for example what the lack of steady and predictable electricity supply means to an academic expected to write world-class papers and do experiments in modern laboratories. As Adesina demonstrated, it is even more devastating for the manufacturing sector–small-scale or large scale – because any manufacturer is compelled to spend huge sums on providing their own electricity. He reveals also that it is in pursuit of solutions to this unending problem that the AfDB has invested and supplemented heavily Nigeria’s power sector.
The lecturer, also a diplomat, did not ask the question whether the sums poured into that sector had yielded commensurate dividends, but going by the continuing ailments of power supply, it can be inferred that very little improvements so far has attended foreign and internal expenditure on the sector. So, the country continues to be stranded by infrastructural limitations and inability to scale the hurdle of those accoutrements that would have aided its industrial takeoff. Unsurprisingly, therefore, rather than attract much needed foreign investment, several companies hitherto operating in Nigeria have had to relocate to some neighbouring countries where the ease of doing business is more than a rhetorical claim. That is not all.
There is also such disheveling factors as the port congestion, especially in Apapa. Quoting a Financial Times report, Adesina maintains that “the port in Lagos has become so bad that it could cost more than 4 thousand dollars to truck a container 20 kilometers inland, almost as much as it costs to ship it 12 thousand nautical miles from China”. As well known, the congestion at Apapa port, despite minimal advancements, has enigmatically continued to defy several task forces, ultimatums and proposed remedies. Other matters such as the astonishingly high interest rate, which is a disincentive to borrowing, feature in the lecture. He provides comparative data by citing the low interest rates in such countries as Japan (-0.1%), USA (3.9%), China (0.25%), and India (4%). Compare this to Nigeria’s 15% and you will begin to grasp how uphill the journey to entrepreneurship, which is facilitated in other climes by the low cost of borrowing, can be. There also is the instability of the foreign exchange sector with multiple exchange rates prevalent, providing opportunities for a non-industrial strata to make fast bucks from differences between the formal and so-called black markets.
Engagingly, a good part of the lecture is devoted to panaceas and solutions for lifting Nigeria from its current industrial backwardness. Fortunately, because as the technocrat argues, the future of manufacturing is digital, we can skip stages in what experts in industrial change call the law of combined and even development. In this respect, rather than behave like Generals preparing for the last war, we simply find how to plug ourselves into the digital wave which underlies most current manufacturing. As the opening quote drawn from the lecture suggests, this takes a lot of planning and thinking outside the box of jaded policies that have failed us. That apart, Adesina provides the concept that we should leverage on our comparative advantage in agriculture through a massive programme of agro-industrial enterprises from which several countries across the globe are currently earning windfall profits. He reveals that the AfDB in partnership with state and federal governments as well as other agencies, is currently in collaboration to turn agro-industrial manufacturing into the goldmine of the future. If the idea succeeds in spite of the usual bottlenecks, Nigeria may well be entering a new industrial age through a door that has been there all the while but which successive governments have failed to take advantage of.
Interestingly, most of the countries cited by the lecture for industrial advancement are developmental states which reorientated their politics and institutions to comprehensively drive economic development. Arising from the lecture, part of the debate should now be: is Nigeria ready to transform into a developmental state considering that these states managed to drastically reduce poverty whereas Nigeria has been fiddling with, more or less, a jobless growth model?
Hopefully, some of the ideas canvassed at the lecture will find its way into policy-making circles for collective profits.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
ANAMBRA ELECTION: A PHILOSOPHER-KING TO THE RESCUE?
Ayo Olukotun
“Until philosophers rule as kings in their cities or those who are nowadays called kings and leading men become genuine and adequate philosophers…cities will have no rest from evils.”
Greek Philosopher, Socrates, in Plato’s Dialogue.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that a former Governor of the Central Bank and a distinguished Professor of Economics, Charles Soludo, had emerged winner of the Anambra State governorship election. Soludo’s party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, won convincingly in both the November 6 and the supplementary one of November 9, beating their closest rivals, the People’s Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress by a wide margin. For Soludo, described here as a philosopher-king because of his intellectual eminence and administrative experience, the victory is a climax to a personal odyssey, an elongated political venture which began 12 years ago. His experience and eventual triumph mirror the nation’s agony in those weeks where it appeared that the election would not hold because of a siege and sit-at-home protest maintained and enforced by the Indigenous People of Biafra.
Although there was a predictable angle to the outcome of the election given that Anambra is virtually a one-party state, the odds were staked against Soludo from the onset. As he commenced his campaign through a town hall meeting, he escaped death by the whiskers when three of his security details were brutally assassinated. As late as July, his candidature hung in the balance when INEC suddenly dropped his name from the list of candidates because of a court judgement that invalidated his nomination. Undaunted and piggybacking on the support of the dominant strand in the party, Soludo fought his way up to the Supreme Court which finally upheld his candidature. So, the election, the drama and accompanying foreboding are as engrossing as the political journey of Soludo.
It is appropriate to congratulate the winner of the election just as it is to commend INEC, a few logistical hitches notwithstanding, for giving a good account of itself in what was clearly an uphill task full of uncertainties. On a broader canvas, this may well be the parable of Nigeria tossed around by sundry perils and buffetings but which may, in the end, overcome despite epic battles. A consequence of the miasma which hovered around the election is, unsurprisingly, the low voter turnout partly because of the instincts of self-preservation in registered voters. There is also the factor that IPOB’s turnaround which called off the sit-at-home strike came too close to polling day to convince skeptics that the coast was indeed clear. Besides, heavy security presence may have provided some clarity but the flipside is the accompanying atmosphere of intimidation and possible prospect of being caught in cross fires between security and IPOB.
Given the tall order, it is something of a miracle that polling took place in a somewhat placid and peaceful atmosphere in the face of doomsday apprehensions about the eruption of violence. To be sure, there were flare-ups here and there leading to the cancellation of voting in some communities as well as the ambushing of electoral staff on their way to Ihiala for the supplementary election. Those notwithstanding, polling took place, broadly speaking, in an orderly and peaceful manner; but it would have been tidier and nicer if the crisis had been resolved or ameliorated well before voting season. In this wise, the electorates would have had greater confidence that they would not lose life or limb in the process of exercising their civic duties.
For the future, INEC’s struggle with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and other glitches could perhaps have been avoided if a little more time was taken to better master the innovation; alternatively, to have provided more training to ad hoc workers who had the duty to operate the system. Philosophically, elections or indeed any other national enterprise cannot be qualitatively better than the organizational status of a country in which many things, especially in the public sector, do not work well. Elections, being only a sub-sector of national productivity can hardly rise above the familiar culprits of our national dysfunction, even with the best of intention and resources. Be that as it may, the electoral body has a couple of months to prepare for the next set of off-season elections in Osun and Ekiti in the coming year as well as the more challenging general elections later on.
This should be taken in the context of this week’s passing by the legislature of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021 which envisages the much awaited electronic voting and transfer of results. It will be worthwhile for the electoral umpire to come up with its own pathway and technique for implementing the amendment, in the likely event that the President assents to the bill.
Elections do not resolve fundamental problems and our leaders still have the assignment of continuously de-escalating the confrontation in Anambra and neighbouring states in the interest of social peace and harmony. In like manner, the unacceptable level of insecurity, though a bit diminished in recent times, should be tackled with fresh energy and inspiration so that future elections do not hold in the same atmosphere as the Anambra one did.
Soludo set a proper note when he promised to run an inclusive government, considering that for reasons stated earlier, a small percentage of the electorate voted for him. The flourish of an election victory speech notwithstanding, it would be helpful for him to bring on board and avail himself of the expertise and support of those who did not vote for him and those who were too terrified to do so. Anambra, let us not forget, is the state of former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku; former Vice-President, Alex Ekwueme; inaugural President of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe; as well as the iconic writer, the late Chinua Achebe. Soludo is encouraged, therefore, to run an impactful government commensurate with the soft power which the pedigree of its eminent citizens confer. For example, there is no reason why the burgeoning industrial cluster around Nnewi. Awka and Onitsha could not be turned into a manufacturing powerhouse on the scale of Dubai, Singapore and the Asian Tigers.
Fortunately, there is a lot of entrepreneurial energy among the people of the state which can be leveraged upon with the support from the diaspora to lay the basis for a sounder, more self-reliant and buoyant economy that reduces the gap between the ostentatiously rich and the desperate poor. In other words, Soludo should inaugurate a new advent in the politics of the state, making it a remarkable example which can provide a model for other states. As an economist with top-flight credentials and global connections, this is his hour to prove that philosopher-kings as Socrates predicted, can make a tremendous difference to governance by bringing knowledge and thinking outside the box to bear upon hydra-headed problems.
It will be an illusion to think he can accomplish this without political craftsmanship and consensus building. One of his early assignments is to bring peace to a state which is fast becoming a boiling cauldron which has consumed several of its eminent citizens.
In this respect, peace is truly indivisible and inevitable for progress.
Ayo Olukotun
IMF’S THUMBS DOWN TO OUR ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY
Ayo Olukotun
“Perception of corruption remains high…leading to low tax compliance and buy-in of reforms.”
International Monetary Fund Mission to Nigeria Report, November 2021.
Nigeria, long projected as an African giant playing on the world stage, is caught in a devastating moral and socio-economic bind. There is a downsizing of social purpose and the will to improve the human condition, not only among political leaders but in civil society as well. The intellectual vocation, in particular its mandate to inform policy-making, is in recession. Illustratively, last week, this columnist attended the University of Ibadan Convocation Ceremony where Africa’s foremost Humanities scholar, Prof. Toyin Falola, was conferred with an earned Doctor of Letters degree. The very next day, Falola substantiated his merit by presenting his latest book, “Understanding Modern Nigeria (Cambridge University Press, 2021) to the public, the first in a trilogy of voluminous books also to be published by Cambridge. Yet, hovering around the celebration was an article by Emeritus Professor, Akinjide Osuntokun, lambasting the administrators of the National Merit Award, who have consistently bypassed such a luminous scholar as Falola. This is surely a story for another day, a scandal of sorts; but please bear in mind that the NMA is supervised, not by military oligarchs or Prebendal politicians, but by very senior academics. This unpleasant anecdote is brought in to show that the treacherous crossroads in which Nigeria finds itself implicate leaders and followers alike, invoking the Biblical rebuke that “all have sinned”.
This brings us to the International Monetary Fund’s lament quoted in the opening paragraph about increasing perception of corruption in Nigeria and the deleterious consequences for economic growth. To be sure, this is not the first time the IMF has publicly criticized our anti-corruption platform. Last year, to take an instance, the Managing Director of IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, regretted that Nigeria exhibited “a culture of unaccountability and obscene profiteering at the expense of hundreds of millions of Nigerians”. You may wish to ask the question: why has the IMF come to loom so large in our policy-making and economic choices? It is simple. Unlike in previous dispensations when a measure of nationalist consciousness as well as better economic management kept the organization at arm’s length, Nigeria has plunged headlong into a season characterized by borrowing spree and the accompanying micromanagement by outsiders of our economy.
Recall for instance that last year the IMF approved at Nigeria’s behest a loan described by the organisation as “massive” of USD 3.4 billion as emergency assistance, presumably related to the management of Covid-19. It is difficult to keep track of Nigeria’s current borrowing status automatically approved by the ruling party-dominated National Assembly. Nonetheless, even the IMF was compelled to issue a warning recently concerning Nigeria’s growing and high-risk indebtedness and its consequences. You do not need a prophet to tell you that the proposed hike in petroleum prices, a familiar IMF policy mantra, may not be unrelated to our growing economic subservience.
On the issue of corruption raised by the Fund, its view tallies with those of Nigerian intellectuals, including non-governmental organizations, which have long regretted the retardation in the anti-corruption policy. Doubtless, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), will be given kudos by history for kick-starting an anti-corruption programme. Beyond that, unfortunately, there would be little to congratulate him for, partly because there has been no improvement in Transparency International’s ranking of Nigeria in successive Corruption Perception Indices during his tenure. That apart, various observers have alluded to dilations, contradictions, half-heartedness and a lack of purpose in the execution of that agenda. A few examples will make the point.
Last year, Justice Ayo Salami (retd.) headed a probe panel which submitted its report to the Presidency in an open ceremony. On that occasion, waxing eloquent, Buhari promised to employ the recommendations to institute a new culture of accountability in public service. I may have forgotten but I do not remember that anything further was heard about those recommendations including the one suggesting the prosecution of the former acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu. This is either a characteristic omission or familiar amnesia in the fight against corruption. What have become of the several cases of corruption and allegations of large scale embezzlement of public funds in such institutions as the Niger Delta Development Commission, the Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund and sundry other cases which went into oblivion after titillating the public for a while? Would you want to know what became of some heads of parastatals suspended from their posts for alleged corruption, not followed up by prosecution or sanctions, making them free to enjoy their loot in retirement? Do you want to talk about those cases which became casualties of political trade-offs as the alleged culprits played fast ones by joining the ruling party in return for turning a blind eye to their trespasses?
So, at the end of the day, we have a lot of hoopla, road shows, colourful publicity around anti-corruption, but the rewards are few and far between. Leaving aside the controversies trailing the former Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, there are so many instances, some of them dramatic, implicating high state officials including some serving ministers which apparently have been glossed over.
In a recent article published in the American Journal of Chinese Studies, Prof. Jon Quah drew a contrast between the anti-corruption policy and status of Singapore, one of the least corrupt countries in the world (ranked 3rd least corrupt by Transparency International in 2020), and China ranked in the same year as 78th by Transparency. The outstanding success of Singapore, it was claimed, rests on certain factors and attitudes which China is admonished to learn from. These are: Singapore and its ruling party exercise the political will to fight corruption and to keep the country morally sanitized. Secondly, Singapore does not confuse the symptoms of corruption for its fundamental causes and drivers. Thirdly, Singapore does not play politics with anti-corruption unlike China which leaders make anti-corruption a subject of political horse trading. Fourthly, Singapore’s anti-corruption agency is given the independence to investigate corruption cases irrespective of who is involved or which political party the culprit belongs to. Finally, Singapore has set a high premium backed by resources on its anti-corruption agency and personnel, reaping the dividends of the linkage between welfare and effectiveness.
This informative article suggests that there is nothing accidental about a structured and holistic campaign against public sector corruption. Singapore and the People’s Action Party are reaping the robust anti-corruption tradition and moral purpose begun by Lee Kuan Yew who takes the credit for being the nation’s founding father, and transformative hero, a tradition carried on by his successors. This is a much different context from a situation Wole Soyinka once described as historical throw-ups in which rulers emerge by accident or sheer persistence without a roadmap of national reinvention.
The takeaways from Singapore’s eminent scorecard apply to Nigeria which, before the page closes, can still turn around its dismal anti-corruption record. For this to happen, it must take away the lessons of genuine change, take them to heart while carrying the people along, for instance, by lessening the current human misery index.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: IMF'S THUMBS DOWN TO OUR ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICY
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Ayo Olukotun
REFORMING PREDATORY AWARDS OF DISTINCTION
Ayo Olukotun
One of the gladdening things that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has done to reshape our values is the retrenchment of our annual National Honours Award which became in its heydays a jamboree and an all-comers affair. The awards were celebrated lavishly by those who received them as they immediately changed their identities to reflect new appellations like the Commander of the Order of the Niger, Order of the Federal Republic among several others. What did the awardees do to deserve the awards? That is precisely the sticky poser, for anyone who had modest connections to a state Governor or Federal Minister could easily get their names to be included in the list of honorees which often read like a roll of people in the political space, irrespective of their performance or contribution to the national ethos. This meant that leading lights in civil society who were not politicians were often not included, no matter how valiantly they campaigned for national reform and value change.
The Vanity Fairs that this became drew criticisms from civil society which wondered whether this was anything more than an intra-mural celebration of one another by politicians who did not care that the country was continuously going downhill. So, good a thing that we have not had such ceremonies since 2014, although a few national honours were granted by Buhari, some posthumously to deserving Nigerians such as Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Chief Moshood Abiola. In the place of those awards, the current regime has emphasized, to an extent, the National Productivity Award and the Nigerian National Merit Award, both of which carry indices that are fairly easily defined and speak to the nation’s need to transit from slumbering work ethics to enhanced productivity. Of course, there are still some issues about what and what qualifies people for these awards, and the degree of objectivity that goes into the selection of awardees; nonetheless, they constitute an improvement on the annual ritual often lacking in merit which the national honors decorations became. The irony, however, is that while the state, in response to rebukes by civil society, has shifted ground; civil society itself is suffused with predatory awards usually of a cash-and-carry nature and given towards the end of each year carrying such nomenclatures as “Best Governor of the Year”. “Best Banker of the Year”, “Most Innovative Company of the Year” among others.
The majority of these awards which are supposed to recognise distinction are given to members of the political elite, in particular chief executives as well as top bureaucrats and company leaders. Newspapers and the broadcast media are particularly implicated in this running bazaar of accolades which do not make clear the basis on which the recipients became selected. This is fast becoming another Nigerian fad mirroring a corrupt public relations and journalistic culture, given that there is a large element of arrangement or pre-selection about the ceremonies which do not edify or add anything significant to the national value system.
To take an illustration, unlike many international awards such as The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which are not given annually when no one qualifies, the Nigerian version of these supposed markers of merit are given almost compulsively every year, and in many cases, to undeserving public officials. Must awards be given when no one qualifies for them? The question itself begs another question about the real motives of these awards, many of which are dished out by cash-strapped or nondescript institutions suggesting that a backroom barter may well have taken place between those institutions and the awardees.
There is nothing wrong, to be sure, in trophies or awards of distinction; this columnist has garnered a few of them. If properly conceived, such awards are agenda-setting and a fulfillment of section 22 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) which mandates monitoring of governance by the media and the upholding of accountability of elected officials to the people. Indeed, they can be regarded as surrogates of the electoral mandate in that they allow citizens to see to what extent the social contract is being actualized. What goes on alarmingly, however, can be compared to the rigging of elections to the extent that an award of excellence is forged, more or less, for undeserving public officials in the same way as elections are often miscarried through the announcement of fake results. Those who perpetuate this unhealthy syndrome may not necessarily see it that way but given that care is not taken in arriving at the winners of these awards, they merely repeat the unhappy errors, omissions and commissions of our many years of electoral heists.
What is required is a thorough-going reform of the iniquitous culture of our public award system so that they can be more credible, conferred upon deserving individuals who have shown outstanding merits in particular areas of leadership and governance in the public and private sectors. Such a reform template should interrogate whether declaring someone as “Best Governor of the Year” is not too umbrella or generic as it fails to specify what particular areas of governance the person has excelled. Here, we can borrow a leaf from the awards of merit awarded by certain media foundations which categorises excellence in media work along lines such as editorial writing, features writing and investigative reporting. Presumably, the scores in these sub-categories inform the selection of the omnibus “Best Newspaper of the Year”.
Additionally, you cannot arrive at the best if there is no competition for that position or if the ground rules of the competition are murky, hazy or predetermined to arrive at particular answers. In some cases, there is a mimicry of opinion polling which is claimed to be the framework for arriving at the answers, but as everyone knows, such polling, if and when they are undertaken, fall grossly below scientific standards, while the rules of evidence are far from clear. A reform agenda must insist that media institutions which organize these awards make clear and transparent the processes which undergird the selection of awardees.
Moreover, the awards, assuming that they are genuine, do not need to be accompanied by any ceremonies or road shows. For instance, an award made to the heroism of the average Nigerian for surviving adroitly the woes of the growing misery in today’s Nigeria does not require any celebration. Regrettably, however, those organizations which have turned the awards into a possibly lucrative pastime do not make them to such deserving entities as #ENDSARS protesters for publicizing the high-handedness in the law enforcement institutions or to the diligent teacher who in spite of low wages never misses a class, or to the Nigerian scientist who spearheaded research for a Nigerian vaccine to the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the purpose of these awards is to build and flash islands of excellence working quietly behind the lines, then it must take on board, not just politicians many of who have not served the nation well, but must include the entire gamut of nationhood. So, it will be a game changer to find one of these perennially awarding organizations spread the dragnet beyond office holders awash with cash.
It is time to do away with predatory and corrupt awards of excellence.
Ayo Olukotun
BEYOND TOMORI’S TEARS FOR NIGERIA
Ayo Olukotun
“Anytime I think of Nigeria… (sobs) I speak with passion (then sobs again) I have wept for this country on several occasions. I will try not to do such again but it looks like I am failing.”
Professor Oyewale Tomori at the National COVID-19 Summit organized by the Presidential Steering Committee in Abuja, Monday, December 6, 2021.
Crying, yelling and high octave shrieks are the inevitable gate passes of newborn babies to our world. Growing up to notice that crying and sobbing draw adult attention, children weaponize them to demand nurture, relief and regular meals. The world of adults is a different kettle of fish altogether. The older one gets, the more emotionally restrained one is supposed to become, implying that one should rarely shed tears, weep or cry, at least in public. It must be considered exceptional for a world-acclaimed virologist, and a former Vice-Chancellor to be overtaken by such overpowering grief that he actually shed tears, almost inconsolably, over the Nigerian predicament.
The world is used to top politicians and Prime Ministers of countries in the Western world choke with grief, leading to their faces being covered with tears. Recall Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister, fighting back tears as he received the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in his office; Secretary of State and former presidential candidate of the United States, Hillary Clinton, overcome with tears during her last presidential campaign; a former United States President, Barack Obama, tears-filled as he discussed the mass shooting in Newton, Connecticut, of 20 young children. Last but not the least, famed Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, almost sobbing as she left 10, Downing Street, at the expiry of an eventful and long tenure. One can go on and on, notwithstanding the controversial example of a former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who shed tears so many times that the British became weary and wary of what was beginning to look like stage-managed crying acts.
Leaving the issue of whether sobbing in public can be a form of political histrionics, especially if done by politicians, let us observe, at least in passing, that this columnist does not recall that any Nigerian President or Governor has openly fought back tears while discussing solemn or tragic matters of grave importance, including mass killings. One can remember, however, that in April this year, Senator Smart Adeyemi was so overtaken with grief while contributing on the floor of the Senate to a discussion on the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, that he broke down and wept saying that Nigeria has collapsed.
As mentioned previously, the executive arm of government at the highest levels have been marvelously immune from the kind of deep emotion and grief that overtook the revered Tomori last Monday. There are two celebrated instances of expatriates and lovers on Nigeria of tear-shedding on account of Nigeria’s dystopia. The first is Richard Joseph who broke down and virtually wept in the 1990s at the launch of a seminal book on Prebendal Politics in Nigeria. There also was in 2013 the Kenyan scholar and poet, Professor Chris Wanjala, who wept for Nigeria while on a tour of the National Theatre which he saw its opulent state when he visited Nigeria during the Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977. Wanjala was so overtaken with emotion at the desolation to which the once magnificent theatre had been reduced, that tears freely flowed down his cheeks.
So, it is not altogether strange or unprecedented, though deeply touching that Tomori could not hold himself together despite valiant efforts while discussing the Nigerian story of missed opportunities, false starts and broken promises. What exactly moved the iconic scholar to such deep grief? He provides answers in his speech.
According to him, worse than the pandemics that afflict Nigeria are grievous political diseases, namely: lack of patriotism which he described as the destroyer of our nation, self-interest characterized by him as “the burial ground of our national interest”, corruption codenamed “the executor of our underdevelopment”, and shamelessness pinpointed by the scholar as “the destruction of our national pride”.
A world-class scientist, Tomori’s lexicon can be understood within the context of an almost formulaic narrative, employing abbreviations and a laconic style on bedeviling problems about which volumes of books can be written. In other words, he came across as a fairly introverted speaker, employing idioms in an almost algebraic manner that requires unpacking. For example, Nigeria, famously described by one of its nationalist politicians as a mere geographical expression still remains just that after five decades. Is this not attributable to the substitution of self or group interests for the national interests? Very few will doubt that Nigeria, even today, is more of a market than a nation while some of its foundational problems include the lack of a ruling political elite with a national mission.
Additionally, who can doubt that shamelessness which touches upon the loss of the capacity to feel ashamed about anything, however egregious, remains an overpowering bane? Does this not explain why politicians have no qualms about making rosy promises during campaigns while they go to sleep instead of working hard after elections to achieve them? Do you want to talk about corruption, the ever present albatross of successive governments, resulting in the constant and cruel shortchanging of a traumatized citizenry?
Doubtless therefore, Tomori’s shorthand captures a good deal of Nigeria’s dilemmas, and to paraphrase Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, the open sore of a country in anomie.
The matter gets curiouser and curiouser when you look at other countries with which Nigeria started the development race in the 1960s, considering how greatly they have outpaced us. Compared to several Asian Tigers, Nigeria remains a midget in power and economic terms and certainly on indices that measure the quality of life. The quandary remains the grievous irony of a country splendidly resourced but whose people are vegetating on the margins of survival, invoking the title of a book by development economist at the African Development Bank, Professor Banji Oyeyinka, entitled “Rich Country, Poor People”.
One suspects that what else moved Tomori to tears are not just the problems, most of which are becoming endemic, but perhaps more importantly the lack of a redemptive agenda among majority of the current crop of politicians and power seekers. In a caustic and memorable remark, the scientist argues that if the youths who he says are smarter than his generation had “one-tenth of the enabling environment opportunity which good governance gave my generation, Nigeria today will be donating vaccines to Europe as India is doing and will be providing loans to China and not the other way round”. What this implies is that the scientist does not seem to see any uplifting vista in sight that will change the Nigerian story.
However trenchant and moving, a country cannot be healed by lamentations. What is important for the hour is for concerned civil society activists to join the political fray, organize, mobilize and strategise so that the country will no longer be discussed in unflattering terms. Rather, with concerted action and social mobilization of a constructive nature, it ought to begin to take its rightful place in the comity of civilized and developmental states.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
CLAMPDOWN ON #NORTHISBLEEDING PROTESTERS IS MOST UNWISE
Ayo Olukotun
“…The North had become a war zone… The United Nations had revealed earlier this year that 2.9 million people are displaced in the region due to insecurity”
Petition by #NorthisBleeding protesters.
The Punch, Thursday, December 16, 2021.
One of the ironies of governance and civil liberties in Nigeria today is that there was more space for democratic expressions under some military governments than we now have. Going down memory lane, this columnist recalls being invited as President of the then University of Ife Students’ Union (now Obafemi Awolowo University) to the seat of government, then in Lagos, to dialogue with the Federal Government after turbulent protests. The meeting was at the instance of Colonel Ahmadu Ali (retd.), himself, a former Student Union leader and at the time, Federal Minister for Education. As I recall it, other student union leaders present at the meeting include Mallam Adamu Waziri of Ahmadu Bello University, John Nnia Nwodo of the University of Ibadan and Sam Ekenna of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The atmosphere of the dialogue was cordial, collegiate and devoid of intimidation, a sign that government of that day did not dismiss student protesters as mischief makers or pawns in the hands of politicians.
Many will recall too that it was a military government that appointed then late Segun Okeowo who spearheaded the “Ali Must Go” upheaval into the Constituent Assembly which drew up the 1979 Constitution. These reminiscences are brought up to illustrate how far down the country has come from the tradition of civil expression as a form of democratic dialogue which survived, even thrived, under some military governments.
It is unfortunate and disheartening that the #NorthisBleeding protesters who had amassed thousands of petitioners in support of a cogent and articulate statement about the state of insecurity in the North were characteristically clamped down upon on Wednesday by security forces. According to media reports, there is no evidence that the protesters were violent or had constituted obstacles or threats to the free movement of persons, yet they were treated with an iron fist unknown to democratic liberty. Counterfactualise a bit and imagine that the protesters were demonstrating in support of the current regime with placards reading “Glory to Buhari”, “All hail, Lai Mohammed”, “Long live the current regime” and deduce what would have happened. You guessed right. The protesters would have enjoyed security cover with the doors of the Presidency thrown open to them. Not just that. A rousing speech would have been made, coronating them as patriots and lovers of Nigeria of a kind that is rare to find. Is this farfetched? Not in the least because almost every protest in recent years have been met with organized counter-protests with citizens carrying pro-government placards and berating, sometimes doing physical battle with the protesters.
Four years ago, when the noose tightened on Babachir Lawal, then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and in the midst of temporizing and dilation by government, leading civil society lights erupted in civil protests. What happened? A hitherto unknown Citizens’ Support for Good Governance organised a pro-government protest in favour of Lawal. Lawal himself, sidestepping the allegations against him, addressed the until then anonymous group, saying that “Baba Buhari did not anticipate the problem that we are in…The people who caused these problems are the ones challenging the government.” The rest of the story is history, as they say.
Browse through the clutch of civil protests including the extensive #ENDSARS demonstrations and you will find that this has been the standard response of this government to the protest, however legitimate or genuine. Sometimes the protesters are beaten black and blue, not by policemen alone but by a manufactured crowd crying louder than the bereaved. Why is this trend sad and depressing? Precisely because it is the very opposite of the democratic spirit and is in clear violation of sections of the Nigerian Constitution which allow for the freedom of expression.
As this columnist has repeatedly pointed out, a growing and deepening democracy is not one that merely holds periodic elections, rather, it is one that is maturing in tolerance and growing the leeway for contending opinions and perspectives. For a government that is winding down, it should be concerned that when all is said and done, what will remain outstanding is the verdict of history and to what extent the props of democracy were maintained or denuded.
Reading through the petition of the #NorthisBleeding protesters, there is nothing in it that has not been the subject of public discussion and dialogue in the last 5 years or more since insecurity, across the nation but more prevalent in the North, became a front burner issue. It is well known that hardly a day passes without new and daring vignettes about atrocity killings of swathes of innocent people, kidnap of high-profile leaders, including Emirs; attack on secondary and tertiary institutions. There have been also reprisal killings, ambushes of elite security institutions such as the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna, among others. Once a peaceful and lovely land with alluring suburbia, the North today wears the face of a land tragically tortured by bandits, sunken in grief and Hobbesian uncertainty. I recall as a young academic at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, back in the days, how we took joy rides across the length and breadth of the North. Today, ask the Senators and top politicians when last they had the temerity to pay visits to their nativities in view of the fear of becoming hostages in the den of bandits.
True, the government has sometimes heroically risen up to the bandits giving them a good run for their sophisticated weapons. On balance, however, terror remains written over that once peaceful and beautiful land. Only the other day, the gunmen had the audacity to ask communities in some parts of the North West to pay huge sums of money as a ransom for staving off imminent attacks. Before then, it was reported that in Niger State, following the alert by the Governor of the State, Abubakar Sani Bello, that Boko Haram militants had settled in some parts of the state, communities in the affected areas had to levy themselves in order to prevent being invaded by the dreaded militia. This is tragedy occurring on a daily basis below the level of officialdom and tepid assurances of safety. This columnist does not agree that a state of emergency across the Northwest will remedy the situation; to be sure, it may only escalate the dawn of militarized states. Nonetheless, the protesters have not committed any crime to warrant being treated like outlaws.
One hopes that it will not come to a time where the only voices that the government will tolerate are those of its publicists and vocal minions. It is admonished that before we move into the election season, government should reverse the tendency and habit of clamping down on protesters bringing messages that are genuine, even if unpleasant to government. To make sound policies, government should arrange to listen, not just to itself, but to opposing voices, given that there is much to be gained in adversarial analysis.
If it has the courage to do this, it will have made a lasting contribution to the growth of Nigerian democracy.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Okey Iheduru
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Ayo Olukotun
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
nigeria had two consciences forever and a day, and we all know it was achebe and soyinka.
but they were public intellectuals and world famous authors--almost untouchable, over the long haul
where the human rights heroes were to be found was in the journalists and presses who were courageous enough to stand up--like our immensely brave ken saro-wiwa, who returned to face the evil regime when he could have stayed out.
how many guardian reporters risked their necks to report on abuses? how many sowores and sahara reporters.
the collective courage is really the most impressive. tutu was a beautiful model,. as is albie sachs, his partner in moral courage.
but the little people who stand up--with no real fall-back--are to be admired. how many of y'all heard of oyono mbia? he was one such model. and the brave journalists in cameroon, never to be forgotten. all heirs of what tutu stood for. courage and integrity.
Kenneth Harrow,
Professor Emeritus
Dept of English
Michigan State University.
Ayo Olukotun
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Michael Afolayan
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Ibukunolu A Babajide
AN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things that we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
- Anonymous (circa 1764)
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Ayo Olukotun
CONFRONTING MALI’S TRANSITION WITHOUT END
Ayo Olukotun
“The military formations, the uniforms, the starch, the saluting aides-de-camp, the parade-ground precision might look, at last, like the decisiveness of purpose that Africa needs in its leadership. They camouflage a regimented sterility of ideas and social policy.”
Ruth First, “The Barrel of a Gun”.
Mali, once a poster nation for orderly and qualitative elections, has in the last two years become the butt of global derision and pungent jokes on account of anti-democratic behaviour. The so-called transitional junta presided over by Colonel Assimi Goita increasingly exemplifies how quickly a once orderly country, even if poor, can be brought down to infamy through misdeeds and decoys in the bid to perpetuate a narrow military elite in power. From August 2020 when he toppled the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar, Goita has played one trick after another to elongate his rule and to fend off pressures from the international community, especially the Economic Community of West African States, to hand over power to elected civilians after orderly elections. Initially, he staged a second coup in May 2021 with the expressed aim, among others, of disrupting the transition timetable which would have resulted in a handover this year. Not done yet, Goita insisted that elections can only hold after a national conference had been mounted, resulting in the staging of such a conference which ended in December last year.
In order to prevent the fulfillment of an earlier promise to do a handover early this year, the junta leader announced recently that a new transition would take place presided over, of course, by him and would gulp up an interval of anything between 6 months and 5 years. In other words, the supervision of a so-called legendary legerdemain for prolonging the rule of the junta beyond what is acceptable to men and women of good conscience. It was in this sad context that the ECOWAS announced a raft of sanctions including a trade embargo, freezing of national monetary assets and closure of borders to bring Goita to his knees. In the wake of the announcement of the sanctions, the junta, rather than show penitence, has so far gone for broke by threatening to recall its ambassadors, berating ECOWAS for “illegal and illegitimate sanctions” and riding a high horse to prevent doing the needful.
“Transition Without End”, many will recall, is an influential book on the transition programme so called of former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd.), who crafted a slow motion transition agenda which lasted 8 years only to annul the presidential election which was its climax. This bag of tricks plunged the country into crisis and the infamous dictatorship of former Military Head of State, Sanni Abacha, unusual in its brutality and persecution of democratic activists. So, Goita’s script is far from being novel and has been borrowed, though uncreatively, from the playbook of Babangida and is unlikely to end well unless the Malian leader retraces his steps.
To be sure, the ECOWAS leaders, the majority of them at any rate, have their own moral and legitimacy questions to answer. Questions such as the credibility of elections held in their own countries, the disconnect between them and the people, the worsening misery of the citizens they claim to govern and the reduction of polling into what is jocularly referred to as “holding elections for the Americans to notice”. This is to say that electoral chicanery and shallowness prevail in those countries that are now standing in judgment over Mali. That is why some have referred to ECOWAS as a union of West African Heads of State rather than one of the people of West Africa. That caveat articulated, ECOWAS is on course in deciding at its recent meeting in Accra to bring back the Mali junta to the path of democratic civility.
It should be recalled that West Africa, indeed the whole continent, can ill afford the contagion of coups which the Malian example if allowed to succeed can spark off. As martyred South African journalist, Ruth First, in the opening quote informed, there is much superficiality and mediocrity in the military experiment which was once thought by some to be the solution to Africa’s problems. Obviously, coup after coup, not counting counter-coups, have failed to change Africa’s fortunes. Ashamed to come through the front door of direct militarism, some African leaders such as Babangida and now Goita are using the backdoor of transitions without end to perpetuate their rule. That must not be allowed as it threatens the limited gains made by West Africa in this period of democracy with all its imperfections.
Military rule, in whatever guise, let us recall, is fundamentally unstable for it does not provide for succession but can only be moderated or terminated by the assassination of the leader. Needless to say that this is ill-suited to a country like Mali facing existential challenges from Islamic militants backed by international terrorist organizations as well as Tuareg militias holding the country by the jugular. The junta leader waxes eloquent about the need to create lasting institutions. What he does not see is that prolonging his rule by subterfuge can only abort the kind of lasting order which democracy tends to bring in its wings.
It is not for nothing that Western countries and the United Nations have voiced condemnations about the latest attempt of the junta to cling on to power through the crafty use of open-ended and indefinite transition programme. It is important to say that useful as external sanctions may be, very often, they do not bite hard and quickly enough to bring about decisive changes. Recall, for example, that Abacha clung to power desperately in the face of sanctions by the Commonwealth and the European Union. The force of sanctions and international isolation to have maximum effects must be complemented by civil society struggles within the afflicted country as well disagreements and conflicts within the state apparatus.
In the final analysis, it is only the Malians that can deliver themselves from the jackboot of their current oppressors and recreate a social compact that will return the country to the club of civilized nations. It is interesting in this regard to note that the ousted politicians must be biting their fingers in regret that they allowed situations and events to turn so messy that the coup of 2020 was greeted with widespread celebration on the streets of Bamako. It is not enough, therefore, for elected leaders to wallow fat in their comfort zones and turn the people into beasts of burden. They need to demonstrate that democracy is not just a fad or fashion to be waived at will. The taste of the pudding, as the British like to say, must be in the eating. Too often, to paraphrase an influential epigram, in between elections, the African people are slaves. This is because of the bankruptcy of successive Presidents and power dementia resulting in a dialogue of the deaf between the people and their governors.
It is a good thing that Nigeria and ECOWAS have taken the front seats in the campaign to pressurize the visionless Malian junta to return to the path of sanity and democracy. It is equally important, however, for our leaders to harvest takeaways from the Malian tragedy.
Ayo Olukotun
BABCOCK UNIVERSITY PARLEY ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Ayo Olukotun
“Oil is going to dry out. The Stone Age ended, not because there were no stones…but because new ideas and knowledge overtook them. We have to think more and invest in a knowledge economy.”
Toyin Falola, Distinguished Humanities Professor, University of Texas, Austin.
Opening remarks at the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Africa, January 6th, 2022.
For two intellectual absorbing days a fortnight ago, a mini crowd of scholars, ranking Professors, former and serving Vice-Chancellors, public intellectuals, journalists, administrators converged at Babcock University, Ilishan, Remo for the first leg of a regional conference on higher education in Africa. Billed to hold subsequently at 3 other African countries, the event had the theme: “The Impact of Private Universities on Public Universities in Africa”, and was facilitated by the Carnegie Endowment, New York, in conjunction with the University of Texas, Austin.
According to Falola, Convener of the Conference, 5 African countries namely Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa were selected for in-depth research and comparative analysis. The convener, from whose remarks the opening quote is sourced, stated that the main objective of the parley is to make impact on policy making in higher education so that Africa can compete in a world where the velocity of change is rapidly increasing.
Though the academic feast and fiesta lived up to its billings, it would have been more delicious still if top policy makers participated as well as exchanged ideas at the Conference. Imagine if Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who has declared his ambition to be Nigeria’s next President or the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, yet to declare his ambition but considered in some quarters a prospective runner, had participated in such an auspicious intellectual exercise with bearing on policy making, it could have ensured that whatever they took away from such an event would in all likelihood have impact on the architecture of Nigeria’s tertiary education.
Of course, I know that policy makers attend such conferences only as showmanship or for ceremonial reasons rather than to gain ideas and exchange perspectives. A colleague of mine narrated how pleasantly shocked he was when at a conference he attended in Rwanda recently, Paul Kagame sat through the gathering a full day, not as a dignified bystander but as an enthusiastic contributor. Narrated my colleague, “Kagame often intervened in words like ‘Prof., I really like your paper and your suggestions for policy reforms. Here in Rwanda, we have tried such and such policy but it did not seem to have worked. In the light of your paper, what other things do you suggest we could have done?’”. Going forward, it would be nice to have a Nigerian leader, for a change, who shows more than casual interest and in the flow of information and policy debate such as we had at Babcock.
Discussion and analysis ranged over the entire gamut of higher education, as we pored intently over such topics as reforming public universities, the role of academic staff unions, curriculum reform, founders and promoters of private universities, universities of education, pitfalls in funding, reintroducing merit and global standards, staff-student relations, the role of gender.
The keynote address by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Professor Toyin Ogundipe, traced the history of Nigerian universities as a case study from the lone figure of the pre-colonial days to the contemporary times where the universities have leapfrogged to over 200 with population of over 2.1 million students. This, of course, creates pressures on policy, bringing in its wake such problems as the erosion of standards, the decline of infrastructure, ineffective policy support, moonlighting by lecturers across public and private universities, incessant strikes by the academic staff union. The situation is replicated in many other African contexts except in the phenomenal expansion of universities in Nigeria–public and private. Ogundipe made a distress call to policy makers to bail out Nigerian universities, especially public ones, from the current quagmire in which they find themselves.
Part of the problem, at least in the Nigerian case is that universities have become political resources with all the syndromes that go with resource sharing, over-politicization, indigenization of Vice-Chancellors’ appointments and the intervention, sometimes unwholesome, of non-academics in the running of universities. For example, in recent years, there have been demands by indigenes of places where universities are located to produce “the next Vice-Chancellor”. There may be a political logic to making such demands but it certainly detracts from academic freedom, merit and university autonomy especially where such demands are processed through a political system and structure that are anti-intellectual.
One of the high points of the parley was the debate about the role of academic staff unions with the former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, maintaining that in Nigeria the limited gains that public universities have made such as the Tertiary Education Trust Fund and improved but not adequate salary packages have been the consequences of successive agitations by the Union. That it sometimes took protracted strikes to eke out limited concessions is not a comment on the Union, Ogunyemi insisted, but on an unresponsive political culture that is structured to answer only to ultimatums as well as strikes which normally should be last resorts. On a broader level, how much interest in education–tertiary or basic–do governments which allocated less than 10% of annual budgets really have?
Critics of ASUU maintained, however, that the strike option has been over-used to the detriment and demerit of public universities which are fast becoming strike-obsessed. There were suggestions that strikes apart, academic staff unions should do more of internal reforms within the ivory tower, including emphasizing the importance of teaching and paying detailed attention to students as most of the private universities do.
This columnist has argued elsewhere that incessant strikes are themselves the product of political bedlam in which a delinquent state sets the pace for a delinquent civil society that has come to believe, perhaps rightly, that justice or demands for reform are not granted on a silver platter.
Ideally, a developmental state, as this country once had under the regional Premiers of the 1960s and to some extent under some of the military leaders, would have set the pace for educational growth and averted the kind of educational decay that we currently have in many African countries. It should be instructive that at the height of the free education programme pioneered by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region, close to 50% of the annual budget went to education.
The Conference arrived at the verdict that public universities can learn from private universities in the areas of efficient management of resources, emphasis on teaching and teaching innovations, a more student-centered mien and ethics. In turn, private universities can borrow from more institutionalized if slower decision-making processes of public universities, due emphasis on standards and merit, putting the right accent on human and physical resources as well as the benefit of maintaining orderly educational calendars.
Many participants also weighed in on the need for private universities to be included as beneficiaries of TETFUND because after all the students are Nigerian citizens. A beautiful Conference replete with several policy recommendations which one hopes will attract the attention of policy makers and politicians.
Ayo Olukotun
JAMBOREE OF PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS, SHORTAGE OF TURNAROUND IDEAS
Ayo Olukotun
“Nigerians should deliberately search for leaders with foresight, intelligence and experience that can turn the country’s fortunes around.”
Pastor William Kumuyi, General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Christian Ministry.
The Punch, Thursday, 27 January, 2022.
Have you noticed that the list of aspirants for Nigeria’s coveted number one political office, come 2023, lengthens by the day? On Wednesday, two new aspirants namely; Senator Bukola Saraki, former Senate Leader, and Senator Rochas Okorocha, former Governor of Imo State, announced their intention to join an already elongated roll. Bear in mind that previously we had Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, All Progressives Congress Leader; David Umahi, Governor of Ebonyi State; Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State; Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello; Prof. Kingsley Moghalu; Dr. Philip Idaewor of the United Kingom branch of the APC, not counting a host of others who have either declared by subterfuge or are encouraging rife speculations that they are very much in the race. This latter group is also a long and unfolding one including current Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo; former President, Goodluck Jonathan; former Vice-President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku; Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, among others.
Conceivably, the list might billow up to 25 or more. Were the country in a routine season, there may have been no need to comment on what is fast becoming a jamboree of aspirants; however, as Pastor William Kumuyi quoted in the opening paragraph correctly recognized, Nigeria is trapped in a period which requires leaders who will “turn the nation’s fortunes around”. Of course, chorus boys and automatic endorsers of the current administration perpetually project an image of normalcy or superlative achievement by the President. Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). But those who feel the hurt and who live in the desperate travails of the hour know where the shoe pinches.
A couple of days back, a junior colleague decided to make the journey from Ibadan to Lagos by train. “Why would you subject yourself to that ordeal?” I inquired gently. He answered with the frightening narrative of how portions of the road linking the two cities had been converted into a traveller’s nightmare by acts of violence, including shooting at passenger buses in recent times. Notwithstanding that security officials claim that the attack is a one-off, those smart enough know that this predicament begins usually with a limited number of kidnappings and daring attacks on travelers. In other words, Yorubaland, which was once thought immune or relatively immune to the kind of banditry which virtually annulled the possibility of peaceful commuting by road between Abuja and Kaduna has drifted southwards, increasing the devastating national peril. That is not all. The ongoing brouhaha about fuel subsidy has opened a Pandora’s Box when the eternally opaque Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation told us that Nigerians consume fuel to the tune of 65.7 million litres daily and that it will require a sum of 3 trillion naira to underwrite the cost of the postponement of fuel subsidy removal by 18 months. Unsurprisingly, an irate Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman Nigeria Governors’ Forum fired back that “there is a lot of fraud in consumption and distribution figures”, suggesting that no one is sure anymore about the competing and contradictory figures churned out by NNPC.
Please note that this was precisely one of the cardinal sins of the Jonathan administration but eight years of so-called reformism after, we have come full circle regarding the abracadabra of subsidy, resulting in a gargantuan foreign debt and the specter of national bankruptcy. This apart, the Minister for Finance, Zainab Ahmed, confirmed recently that the deepening suffering of Nigerians as a result of high inflation is one of the reasons why the removal of fuel subsidy earlier slated for June has been put on hold. Doubtless, in an intensely political season, the electorate will be thrown all kinds of unusual favours for well-known reasons. Recall in this respect the famous words of the Swiss philosopher J. J. Rousseau, made centuries ago that “the people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it…”
Needless to say that over time, the British people have deepened their democracy to the point where it can outlast the unusual generosity of the politicians during elections, leaving countries like Nigeria in the lurch of polling-determined policies and promises that will fade out when elections are over. That is to say the country has only pushed back the frontier of misfortune for a country that produces oil but which is unable to maintain its refineries or keep its currency stable enough to avoid wide fluctuations of its exchange rate.
Moreover, successive governments have seized upon the incompetence of earlier ones to make failed promises the object of their campaigns in a never-ending cycle of violated social contracts. To the politicians playing this game, it is perfectly okay. The problem, however, indeed the crisis is that the chickens of earlier unkept promises have come home to roost with a vengeance with the result that the country is kept in the stranglehold of a dark tunnel. Browse the promises made to Nigerians in successive elections since 1999 and you will marvel the magnitude of the differences between oratory and performance.
Buhari, like Jonathan, promised to end the reign of darkness in the power sector and decisively bring up electricity generation. What do we have today? The country generates megawatts of electricity, fluctuating between a figure lower than the administration inherited or just a little above it. So what happened to the sweet promise made during campaigns of amplified and sufficient power generation? Do you want to look at the education sector where no Nigerian university is in the first 500 universities on global league tables contrasted with South Africa which has 9 public universities in the first 50 and the University of Cape Town in number 20 position? The reason for underlining the dismay of Nigerians as another election rapidly approaches is that the current harvest of presidential aspirants has been disturbingly short on policy matters much less turnaround ideas. If these gentlemen do not know, what is required is not business as usual in a nation threatened by existential crunch, but transformational and visionary leadership.
The political parties as well as the soaring number of aspirants are silent on roadmaps for redemption and reinvention. There is no mention of the woes of a distorted federal structure nor of the prospect of a national conference to renew the federal bargain. In other climes, policy making is serious business with political parties hosting policy conferences, both to feel the pulse of the people and to design a compass out of the woods. What obtains here is policy making by turnkey. Do you recall turnkey projects imported hook, line and sinker from abroad, leaving you only to turn the key? The correlate is turnkey policy-making featuring policies written by intellectual contractors with no input from our leaders.
Enough of this jamboree of soaring number of aspirants with little or no ideas for redesigning a failing state. Let the race to salvage Nigeria truly begin now.
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
WORSENING INSECURITY AMIDST ESCALATING DEFENCE SPENDING
Ayo Olukotun
“Over the last decade, political and social elites have monetized the conflicts and the resulting humanitarian crises. As much as $1.5 billion (6.9 trillion naira) has been frittered away through fraudulent arms deals”
Centre for Democracy and Development Report, January 2022.
Insecurity has returned to the front pages of our newspapers and the prime times of our broadcasting stations. Given that the media mainly reports and do not manufacture news, the recent focus on the persisting peril in the nation reflects the tragic and sordid reality of the resurgence of insecurity, not just in the Northwest and Northeast, but in virtually every part of the country. In spite of several promises solemnly made by this administration, the problem never seems to go away.
Only on Wednesday, the Senate called on the security institutions to match the declaration of bandits as terrorists with prompt and decisive counter-terrorism actions. The Senate was responding to lamentations by one of its members from Katsina State concerning the kidnap of 38 members of his community without any serious resistance. The very next day, 6 people were killed by bandits close to the same neighbourhood and several people carted away like donkeys by bandits. One of the remarks made by the Senate President, Dr, Ahmed Lawan, is that the distinguished senators are puzzled that there is no corresponding markup in output and results to the bulge in the defence budget and expeditious funding of defence.
Before getting to the nitty-gritty, please note that the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, unveiled earlier this week the heartrending statistics that last year bandits killed 1,192 Kaduna State citizens while kidnapping 3,348 people. In that same year, revealed El-Rufai, 9 persons were kidnapped daily. Importantly, observe that Kaduna and of course Zamfara states are only worse case scenarios to what is spreading national bereavement and disaster. In recent weeks, the Southwest has had its share of kidnappings with accompanying fatalities in such states as Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo, Ogun and Osun. This is presumably why the governors of Oyo and Ogun states signed this week border cooperation agreements.
Taking up the Report of the Centre for Democracy and Development quoted in the opening paragraph, a report partially corroborated by the Senate, one can ask the question regarding the linkage between the arms bazaar and diversion of funds in relationship to rising insecurity. If indeed there is a monetization of the insecurity phenomenon, then it is hardly surprising that the crisis continues to reproduce itself for the simple reason that it had become a lucrative window for emergent billionaires who have access to funds meant for arms procurement. The CDD Report went on to say that this underhanded corrupt business flourishes because of the secrecy surrounding the purchase of arms as well as the trumping of due process by the emergency norms that have come to prevail in such undertakings.
Nigeria’s problems are tragically repetitive to the extent that the massive diversion of funds meant for arms supply loomed large at the very inception of the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) administration when sensational arrests and disclosures concerning the officials of the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration seized the headlines. At that point, the issue provided legitimacy for Buhari and the All Progressives Congress who employed it to bolster their popularity. The gospel of reform today sounds hollow in view of the torrent of revelations concerning primitive accumulation of wealth by a political and military elite who are accused of prolonging the national predicament because of what they stand to gain. Obviously, not all the participants in this ungainly drama stand accused but it would have been refreshing if a few allegedly guilty souls were openly brought to book and made examples of.
Very often we have been told by political and religious leaders that they were about to name highly placed figures sponsoring terrorism in its many guises. So far however, as the CDD report makes clear, no individual, prominent or otherwise, has been named or made to face the music. It would be a pity if the current administration goes down in history as one equally corrupt or even more corrupt than the one it displaced with a campaign that it had come to cleanse the Augean Stables.
There is another side equally frustrating to the abnormality of escalating insecurity namely the enfeeblement and lack of capacity of the Police which is primarily responsible for internal security. Obviously, like several of Nigeria’s endemic woes, this is an old sore. I am aware that the Senate has been busy with such matters as amending the Police Act and embarking on what it described as holistic police reform. Noble as their intentions may be, please put the spate of activities in the context of the numerous Presidential committees on police reform which every administration has undertaken since 1999. Tomes of analyses, theses and recommendations are idling away in the archives of the Presidency on what to do with the police. Names like Parry Osayande, M.D. Yusufu who headed these panels readily come to mind.
Apart from these, there was a civil society panel on police reform which also produced its own massive sheaf of diagnoses and suggestions for remedy. In spite of all that, predatory policing is very much with us. One almost came to tears on Thursday when a former Commissioner of Police at the Federal Capital Territory narrated on national television that the amount voted as overheads for many police stations hardly exceeded 50 000 naira and that a severely under-kitted police are sent to do crowd control with no shield, headgear or appropriate equipment. This anomalous situation has been with us for several years. The pity is that no corrective regime has thought it apposite to give the nation a proper and capable police force.
Doubtless, there are many who consider state police a disturbing proposal as they are ready to reel off all the possible abuses that will go with it. What they do not understand or refuse to understand is that if the country had a virile police force that is both effective and getting results that would have been the strongest argument against state police. Alas! Kicking state police into the dustbin of national discourse is like dancing over the graves of those who have lost their lives because of an effete national police easily overpowered by criminals brandishing sophisticated weapons. In other words, corruption apart, little attention has been paid to the status, capability and effectiveness of our security institutions by successive governments including the current one. So what we get is that problems long postponed or sidestepped have come back to haunt the nation with a vengeance. What then is to be done?
A cleansing exercise must be mounted with a view to returning military expenditure and arms purchase to an even and sanitized keel even if only to demonstrate that the government is capable to take the right steps in the direction of ending the war on insurgency.
Beyond that, there is an urgent need to re-kit, retool and re-imagine the police as part of a larger project of state building. That is a required step towards freeing Nigeria from the strangle hold of terrorism and cognate challenges.
Ayo Olukotun
TI REPORT: TRAGEDY OF REFORM WITHOUT REFORMERS
Ayo Olukotun
“Se anti-corruption le a je?”
“Na anti-corruption we go chop?” – Pidgin English translation of the Yoruba (Ijesa) wisecrack.
The 2021 Corruption Index ranking issued by Transparency International a little over a fortnight ago has understandably elicited much heat and hoopla within Nigeria. The reason is that Nigeria was rated 154th position out of 180 countries polled falling five places below the 2020 rating of 149th position, scoring the second most corrupt country in West Africa described as the worst performance in recent years. In the light of the fact that the current administration has openly committed itself to the flagship program of public sector reform in the shape of an anti-corruption initiative, that dejecting assessment must be biting. Of course, the opposition People’s Democratic Party has capitalized on the dismal ranking to dismiss the anti-corruption program as a joke and a ruse. Political tirades, however, are cheap and do not a nation build, suggesting that we must go beyond them in the search for more effective policymaking.
It is unwise that Presidential Spokesperson, Garba Shehu, in a remark that can only be described as loose castigated TI for releasing what he described as “sensational and baseless report”. Shehu must have forgotten that the Assessment was not about Nigeria only but about 180 countries. That apart, TI made clear that despite repeated commitment, 131 countries out of the 180 had made no appreciable progress on anti-corruption in a decade. It would have been edifying if the Spokesperson instead of taking TI to the cleaners made some effort to understand Nigeria’s worsening ranking with a view to seeing how the free fall can be arrested.
On Monday when he appeared on Channels TV, Abubakar Malami SAN, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice attempted a more enlightening defence of the administration by pointing to other international surveys, for instance by the United Nations, which were less unflattering than TI. He went on to discuss the Government’s reaction to widespread criticisms of the pace and character of its reformist drive. Missing, however, is a sense of admission that all is not well with the programme as well as an enunciation of what the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) will do to reverse the trend. However greatly one despises TI, it is difficult to downplay its stature as an authoritative source on corruption across the globe including the developed countries or to throw its annual reports used for planning by investors and governments into the dustbin.
In an elaboration of the Report, the Nigerian Chapter of TI, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, referred to several aspects of increasing corruption, which include damning audit reports, security sector corruption, mismanagement of funds in respect of COVID-19, treatment of high-profile cases with levity as well as judicial challenges. Although CISLAC’s remarks are more like underpinning symptoms rather than causal explanations, no one can dispute meaningfully its sectoral breakdown and exegesis on corruption provided by the Organisation.
In point of fact, as this columnist observed recently, the International Monetary Fund to which Nigeria is increasingly indebted, gave a thumbs-down to public sector corruption corroborating and feeding into TI’s report which, don’t forget, is a study on perception of corruption by interviewing political and economic leaders. The iteration provided by CISLAC can be supplemented by additional symptoms such as incoherence within government concerning the anti-corruption programme, a phenomenon whereby different departments work at cross-purposes, lack of clarity concerning the programme, reluctant reformers in top governmental positions and the vicissitudes of a reformist drive in the midst of escalating misery and worsening poverty. Concerning the last factor, it must be extremely difficult to sustain an anti-corruption programme in the midst of such spectacular poverty fuelled by dire inflationary upswing as Nigeria is currently going through. The resultant cynicism in such an undertaking is captured by the opening quote: “na anti-corruption we go chop?”, suggesting that a people faced with existential crunch are unlikely to buy into high-minded reformism.
An anecdote from the history books will put the point in clearer perspective. During the government of Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator who put his country into a rigorous collectivization programme occasioning many deaths, the joke was told that the ghost of Vladimir Lenin, his predecessor in office, appeared to Stalin. Reportedly, the conversation went like this.
“Stalin, how goes it?”
“All is well, sir. The people are all with me” said Stalin.
Lenin retorted, “One more push in the direction of collectivization, and the people will all be with me.”
To drive the analogy home, many people in Nigeria today are on the brink of extinction because of the harsh economic climate, whether our leaders appreciate it or not. Such devouring circumstances are hardly the best occasions for reformism if only because the issue is one of life or death. This is not a justification of a failed anti-corruption endeavour but an underscoring of the inauspicious climate for the reform, even if it was more orderly, more purposive and more systematic than it had been.
Crucially, reforms, if they must succeed, must have reformers in the shape of a leadership that is both committed, visionary and purpose-driven; a reform movement, a reform-value education taking the form of a red book or green book, a reform project consisting of a planned and well-thought out programme, reform scenario building which will anticipate contingencies. What we currently have in Nigeria–and if care is not taken this may get worse in succeeding administrations–is at best hesitant reformers not fully convinced about or not willing to pay the price of reformism. That apart, there is no reform script which explains the many contradictions, zigzags, moral capitulations and politicization of the anti-graft policy.
If we go down memory lane a bit, in several high-profile cases including that of the former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal; former Chairperson of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina; former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Professor Usman Yusuf; it took the insistence of civil society to get a reluctant administration to act on cases of wild improprieties against them. In the case of Lawal, Buhari on one occasion claimed confusingly to have “cleared” him. More recent high-profile cases being dilated upon include suspended police officer Abba Kyari, former Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu and others.
Considering that elections are pretty close, it is unlikely that the reset advocated by this columnist for the anti-corruption agenda will take place in the twilight of the current administration. The open question now is: will Buhari’s successor be able to carry out the required rejuvenation of the reformist project now blown off course? This would have most likely been the case if the current administration is able, in spite of all, to finish strong on this and other burning issues like growing insecurity, economic upset gone gaga to mention but a few.
If Nigeria’s ranking by TI is not to worsen in the coming and successive years, then the entire programme must be rethought, reinvigorated, firmed up, and de-politicized. It cannot come as a province of political partisanship or flash-in-the-pan approach. The question now is: Will any of those angling to become Buhari’s successor pick up the gauntlet?
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Adepoju,
Please don’t give in to despair.
Nihilism is not a good alternative approach to Nigeria’s collective future.
Reconsider the following dignified word configurations, not just because
you like the profound way they sound and that there’s nothing flowery about
the ideas and directions contained therein:
“My mind has always been conditioned by a search for spiritual enlightenment and existential coherence within which I could fit my wondering queries about the world and all its manifold realities.'' (Tunji Olaopa)
''In a final sense, Bertrand Russell sowed into me the seed of an epistemic humility that flows from my religious open-mindedness to the significance of ideational reciprocity for the effectiveness of my reform advocacy. '' (Tunji Olaopa)
Generally speaking, pessimism leads to despair, and vice versa.
Through the lenses’ of Herbert Marcuse in a yet to be industrialised Nigeria how would you view the current, ongoing nightmare?
Are nightmares calculated or supposed to last forever?
Consider this man to woman lullaby (a nice fit, fitting for your Gloria)
For the really faithless, there’s a way out of an unbearable existential agony: Suicide.
I do not recommend it. At the end of his “to be or not to be”, Hamlet didn’t (he didn’t want to kiss forever goodbye to the honey)
I exaggerate not: Scattered throughout the USA- Africa Dialogue Series archives are instances of you advocating your practical alternative to Ayo Olukotun’s optimism, that the various ethnic enclaves and sub-nations currently living together under the same Federal Umbrella should be allowed to peacefully go their separate ways etc. etc. That too is a vision that you and the various other stakeholders must reconsider and hopefully come to a sane decision.,
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Ayo Olukotun
“There are over 11 inspections between importation and fuel stations. These are at the importation level and when the product arrives in Nigeria. For this (the contaminated fuel importation scandal) to happen, it means the system is completely compromised."
Hon. Aliyu Magaji (APC, Jigawa)
Thursday, February 10, 2022.
Nigeria is a country trapped in disorder and dysfunction. It wobbles from one impasse to another without seemingly learning from any of them. Thanks to weak governance, the state has been turned to a resource on which rotating cliques of visionless power holders stage a never-ending feast at the nation’s expense. In this unhappy context, the toxic fuel saga, presumably but likely not an accident, has now dovetailed into a full-blown fuel supply crisis whereby several cities are carrying on without supply while the black market is booming in view of an artificial price hike. No matter how you think of it, as some political scientists theorized, disorder has been instrumentalized to the extent that elite groups deliberately create crisis in order to feather their own nests, not giving a damn for the sufferings of the hapless majority.
Given that the fuel supply chain is central to economic activities, the minutest of disruption in that chain begets a multiplier effect leading to serial reactions with harmful consequences to a one-legged economy. In several other countries including the developed democracies, politicians and leaders who occasion “pain at the pump” are not normally allowed a second chance as they instantly drop in public esteem. But here, we hold the distinction of recycling, even extolling, politicians and technocrats who run the country aground and come back to ask for our votes and support.
The opening quote sourced from an outraged discussion at the House of Representatives last week says it all. It is hard to believe that contaminated fuel with high methanol content could escape the rigorous quality reassurance both at the source, in this case Belgium, and here in Nigeria where all the marketing companies reportedly have their own vetting mechanisms. The statement by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mele Kyari, naming four companies as the source of the problem read like an afterthought and lame justification in a context where the NNPC is the sole importer of petroleum, a fact pointed out to it by three of the companies named. The so-called explanation also begs several questions and issues especially the one concerning how Premium Motor Spirit that is so badly contaminated circumvented all the inspection procedures that are meant to discover and ferret out toxicity.
It is difficult to believe that what is playing out is not planned chaos to achieve some deliberate objectives such as ensuring that government backtracks on its policy of upholding fuel subsidy for 18 more months. That may not be the only reason but in some other climes, heads would have rolled at the NNPC with sanctions including blacklisting meted out to the companies concerned. In that wise, all the excuses and apologetics of the NNPC officials, including the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority would have been offered after they had been suspended from their positions. In like manner, such an action would have granted credibility to the so-called “major investigation” announced by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources of Nigeria, Timipre Sylva in the wake of the embarrassing event.
In corporate cultures as well as enlightened governance settings, high level officials who lead their organizations and countries to disasters or breakdowns offer to resign in order to preserve the corporate ethos and to allow for unfettered investigations. It is unthinkable, to give an example, that a British minister who has presided over the kind of bedlam elicited by the fuel importation saga will remain in office offering one excuse after another to justify his conduct. It is the lack of ethical underpinning in our democratic system that sets us back so vividly in that there is a disconnect between misdemeanor, official negligence and sanctions. Indeed, it is bizarre that in what looks like an apology, a statement credited to the Presidency was issued a couple of days back saying that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had not instructed that anybody should be queried over the contaminated fuel imbroglio.
The way we carry on, sadly, suggests that those who goof are often given more leeway to make costlier mistakes and display more brazen incompetence, given that there are no value-setting procedures for sanitizing a thoroughly rotten polity. Nobody knows how long the current nightmare of fuel shortage and scarcity will persist since nobody up there has shown interest in the identity of the culprits beyond the assurance of a major investigation, whatever that means. For all you care to know, the so-called major investigation may be no more than a time-buying ploy to bury the matter in bureaucratic abracadabra. So, if you are still wondering why the nation does not improve, especially in governance matters, while other nations are galloping forward and occupying the cutting-edge, the answer is simple. Public officials are free to turn their offices into sites of dubious experiments and gaping incompetence, even turn the nation upside down because no one will call them to account. Of course, no corporate organization run this way ever stands the test of time, and it is a mystery as a former Head of State once said that given the comprehensive disorder prevalent, the country has not collapsed.
The government could have taken the initiative and seized the moment by relieving the errant or absentee officials of their positions. Having failed to do this is sad enough but it can, if it is willing to, pick up the ball by doing just that if only as remarked earlier, to avoid chasing shadows in the name of major investigation. Remarkably in the successive crises that have bedeviled the country, the legislature, especially the Lower House, has shown more sensitivity to the suffering of the people, often speaking forthrightly to the issue at hand. Unfortunately, its adroit interventions and many committees of inquiry have had so little effect because it cannot do the work of the executive whose business it is to implement suggestions and resolutions from the legislature.
Let it be known that the woes of Nigerians which include insecurity cascading upwards, abysmal shortage of electricity, scarily high inflation illustrated by the upward climbing of food prices, unemployment figures hitting the roof have been compounded by the current downturn in the oil supply chain. Days after the NNPC insisted that it had augmented fuel supply, the queues are lengthening improbably and the de facto pump price has trebled or at least doubled in some of our major cities.
Hopefully, this too will pass, even if for now uncertainty and confusion rule the roost. As the country inches forward to another major election, it should think soberly on ways of changing the governance culture so that a country so wonderfully resourced does not stay at the bottom league of achievement or be perpetually referred to as the sick man of Africa. Obviously, Nigeria can do much better if its leaders can muster the political will to reverse the squalid Unfortunately so far, this is the road not taken.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Toyin Falola
Mr. Adepoju:
My eyes caught your last statement and the closing Amen. Prayer! You cannot contract the project of development to Amen.
But more importantly, are you “bemoaning the same subject?” You are bemoaning something different, and you can use the ladder analogy.
I have a creative side to my untalented self: Around 1670 or so, when a few shipments of enslaved people were made, those bemoaning thought it would end in 1671, and they prayed about it. Amen! They were dead, succeeded by another generation who bemoaned and also died. May their grieving be short. Amen, Amen!! More bemoaning, and they could not see far ahead into 1860. May their mourning be comforted. Amen! And in 1860, another man kept praying, this time using another God, the God of Israel, not the God of Okrika. He lived long enough to hear about the Berlin Conference, but he died in 1890, and he did not see what followed. Amen, Amen, Amen.
TF
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Indeed, "It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either."(Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot 2:21 -
Pirkei Avot / Ethics of the Fathers , a work that is studied, chapter by chapter throughout the year)
Paradoxically, throughout the non-observant world, it’s not unusual that presidential and general elections are held on the Sabbath, a day that’s not supposed to be a day of conflict and hatred, division (although there can be pockets of ethnic unity and cohesion) in the midst of the ongoing heated competition, political rivalry, contention and strife, some death and destruction and some of the inevitable rigging that often takes place in some of the elections conducted in Africa South of the Sahara.
Sweden’s next election will be on Sunday, 11 Sept 2022 (a quiet affair, results within 24 hours)
Nigeria’s next election is supposed to fall on Saturday, 18 Feb 2023 (prayers needed and it’s anybody’s guess about what happens next)
“Olukotun writes. Adepoju comments and prays”, writes Adepoju.
Inshallah, Adepoju. prays for electricity always.
It should be worthwhile to take cognizance of Laborem exercens, an encyclical on the dignity of human labour written by Pope John Paul II shortly after his visit to Nigeria as guest of honour of vice-president Alex Ekwueme
I should also like to point out that according to Islam, speaking out against evil is the second-highest level of opposing the tyranny of wrongdoing by those in power. - if you are too afraid to speak out - at least you can oppose the whatever, in your heart
Of course, Islamically speaking, the highest level of opposing tyranny and wrong-doing is not by “turning the other cheek” ….
Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: 17 February 2022 15:06
To: Prophet Paul Adebajo <adebajopr...@gmail.com>
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Salimonu Kadiri
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - TOXIC FUEL SAGA: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Salimonu Kadiri
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba
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Ayo Olukotun
OBASANJO’S ENDORSEMENT OF REBELS IN THE SEARCH FOR A NEW NIGERIA
Ayo Olukotun
“Our country Nigeria needs more of rebels. Those who will look at things in the face and say this is not right, this is not good for Nigeria.”
Former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo
The Punch, 20th February, 2022.
The opening quote drawn from a speech made last Saturday by General Olusegun Obasanjo (retd.), former Head of State underlines the constructive dimensions of rebels and rebellion, especially in a context like ours where things have really gone awry. Obasanjo’s statement was made at the occasion of the 80th birthday of a former Students’ Union leader now elder statesman, Alhaji Tayo Sowunmi. A word about Sowunmi is in order. He was the President of the University of Lagos Students’ Union when this columnist was President of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Students’ Union, a season of our national life renowned for anti-military protests. While some of us went to work in the technocracy and intellectual department, Sowunmi forfeited the offer of a blue-chip corporate job to continue in activism and made a mark as an outspoken and effective campaigner for the rights of teachers under the aegis of the Nigerian Union of Teachers as Secretary-General. He veered into politics at the onset of the Fourth Republic and decided to mark his entry into the ranks of octogenarians with an interesting book entitled “Footprints of a Rebel”. This is the backdrop to Obasanjo’s endorsement of rebels and rebellion in Nigeria’s search for reinvigoration.
At first blush, it may sound queer to advocate rebels as an answer to Nigeria’s many problems. It should be obvious nonetheless that what Obasanjo has in mind, taking his cue from Sowunmi’s career, is rebels or better still, protesters with a cause. This writer is of the view that political and social protests should be made the fifth Estate of the Realm next to the media widely known as the fourth Estate of the Realm. Not just Nigeria but our universe owes a lot to the activities of protesters, at first, scorned or derided but later granted the pride of place in public affairs because of the changes and restructuring of dialogue brought about by their protests. What would the United State be today without the historic anti-slavery protests, the protracted struggle for civil equality, the exploits of protesters such as Martin Luther King Jr. and the more recent uprisings entitled #BlackLivesMatter following the brutal killing of George Floyd in May 2020?
Readers will recall that in the wake of the uproar caused by the #BlackLivesMatter movement, a national and international dialogue ensued regarding racism, police brutality, the extension of part of the police budget to disadvantaged communities as well as police reform. In this sense, protests and protesters helped to reshape and redefine national and global political discourses drawing attention to hitherto neglected issues, bringing about in the process a fairer and more humane world. Little wonder that Time magazine gave in 2011 its Person of the Year Award to none other than “the protester”. Who can forget the changes brought about by the widespread pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa a little over a decade ago? How about the Occupy Movement which escalated the conversation about widening inequality, itself a major drawback of contemporary global political economy? Here in Nigeria, the protester or rebel has always been at the core of political change and reform. Beginning with the struggle against colonial rule, the independence of Nigeria was achieved by the toil and tears of our founding fathers and heroes past. During the years of military rule, it was difficult to silence the voice of the people who were organized by activists to showcase the power of the people. Of course, there was the heroic June 12 demonstrations, the anti-authoritarian ferment which led to the formation of the National Democratic Coalition ventilating grievances through a pirate Radio Kudirat in the struggle for democracy. That struggle had its heroes, martyrs, traitors and backsliders but it is an important chapter of our march towards a re-invented Nigeria.
In later years, protest tremors were set off by Occupy Nigeria movement whose ranks were constituted by several of the folks currently members of the ruling party. Subsequently, under the Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) regime, protests have been mounted such as #OurMumudondo, Coalition of Civil Society activists as well as the epic #ENDSARS eruptions against police brutality with national and international reverberations. The protests under the current administration are remarkable because the ruling party this time around has proved to be more intolerant of civil protests than some earlier governments which understood that protests are not a blight on democracy but an essential part of it.
It should be noted that protests even demonstrations when they involve groups and swathes of citizens are examples of what scholars have termed “nation-building from below”. This is because they flash an image of another country more united in outrage than the extant one set in its old ways. Protests do not always come from below but can take the form of defensive radicalism, to borrow Prof. Claude Ake’s term, in which an enlightened ruling elite preserves the system by adopting reforms which avert the necessity for direct and revolutionary changes. Two historical examples are the English ruling class frantically reforming the system to avert their version of the French Revolution which had broken out across the English Channel. The second is the German leader, Otto von Bismarck who introduced extensive social legislation in his country to steal the thunder of the socialists and to beat back the advance of socialism.
Structurally, wise elites don’t wait until their countries are overtaken by mass protests. They employ remote sensing capacities to gauge the people’s temper and pulse in order to introduce desired and necessary reforms. It was heartwarming for example when the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan insightfully urged that the rate of inflation and poverty were such that it would be unwise to remove fuel subsidy as that would deepen the misery of Nigerians. However, shortly after government correctly put on hold the policy for 18 months, a section of the elite that profits from oil importation business threw spanner in the works by unleashing a fuel crisis allegedly related to the supply of contaminated fuel. The crisis still persists and life had become even harder than Lawan anticipated. Disturbingly, very little is being said even by way of consolation by the responsible authorities while those who started the fire are probably laughing to the banks. Nobody has offered to resign and nobody has been shown the door for frustrating an announced policy of government and deepening the misery of Nigerians scavenging for fuel in the midst of an electricity crisis occurring side by side with an usually hot and humid weather.
Silence in these circumstances cannot be golden. In the tradition of progressive political change, it is advisable that action be taken to show that the woes and sufferings of Nigerians are loud and visible enough for the deaf and the blind to take account of.
In conclusion, protests extend the national conversation creatively and deepen democracy. Considering the turbulence often associated with them, however, far-sighted leaders anticipate them by making desired changes and perceiving keenly the political barometer.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Beyond being intolerant of protest, the current Nigerian President took part in protests against the immediate past govt in which the then govt did not interfere, but, in collaboration with the Lagos State govt and the army, massacred the Endsars protesters, with the various actors, the army, the Lagos State govt and other agents trying to cover up this evil using clumsy methods and information manipulation.
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Salimonu Kadiri
S. Kadiri
Sent: 22 February 2022 20:24
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
UMAHI: THE ROTTEN UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR DEMOCRACY
Ayo Olukotun
Earlier this week, the Federal High Court in Abuja in a landmark judgment ruled that the Governor of Ebonyi Sate, David Umahi, his Deputy, Dr. Kelechi Igwe; and 16 members of the State House of Assembly vacate their seats. Their offence? Abandoning the People’s Democratic Party upon which ticket they were elected into office, for the All Progresssives Congress in a sensational case of party defection. The lawmakers had joined Umahi and Igwe in a show of solidarity, a characteristic example of pack behaviour in contemporary Nigerian politics. The Judge had also ordered that the assembly men and women refund all the salaries which had been paid to them from the date of their defection. In the immediate aftermath of the judgment, an embattled Umahi called a press conference to lambaste the Judge and the judiciary, bristling that, “I feel sorry for the judiciary…the judgment was purchased”. So harsh were the Governor’s words that the Nigerian Bar Association had to call him to order especially as no proof was provided to the effect that the judgment was a cash-and-carry one. Barely 24 hours later, Umahi’s lawyers disclosed that the Governor and his Deputy had filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Considering that the case may now be sub judice, this comment will steer clear of the lawyers’ disputations and fireworks, and comment on the wider implications of the judgment.
Let me introduce this dimension in the following manner. How much trust should a man repose in a wife who suddenly deserted her husband’s home in a quest to marry another man? The answer is not merely blowing in the wind. It is right on our tables and is a clue, I believe, to the pervasive racketeering, distrust, disloyalty which go on in our political space. To expand the metaphoric allusion, the new husband may well ask: Could it be the day that the unfaithful wife deserted her husband that the relationship or courtship began? The answer is simply that it could not have been that. The question can be stretched further to inquire whether all along the deserted husband had taken for a wife a mole planted in his house to wreak havoc, spy on the man and give information constantly to outsiders. One can also wonder whether the unfaithful wife will suddenly turn faithful in her new home.
Of course, one could argue that political parties are not marriages, and that is correct. But you can hardly dispute that familiar to the two institutions, if they are to work, are elements of coherence, integrity and trustworthiness. As things stand today, there is a bazaar and deluge of party jumping across all the political parties to an extent that makes one wonder if we do not require another word such as association, an informal group to describe what we now call political parties. Thoroughly commercialized, subverted and disempowered are our political parties, illustrated by an infamous roll of party defectors including such names as Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria; Senator Godswill Akpabio, Minister of Niger Delta Affairs; Mr Timpre Sylva, current Minister for Petroleum Resources of Nigeria; Mr. Godwin Obaseki, current Governor of Edo State; Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation, to mention but a few. In other words and as in many other respects, Nigerian politicians have normalized the abnormal, converting it into a strategy for gaining or retaining power.
You may wish to ask: Are the defectors celebrated or cold-shouldered? Good question. We know without a shadow of doubt that the decampees have the carpet rolled out for them, hailed as heroes and the entire process, at least in recent times, usually begins with a visit to the seat of power in the Aso Rock in the case of those crossing over to the APC. The opposition party is no less guilty for they mete out royal treatment for opportunist politicians who change parties in what has become a tragic symbol and resonance of political decay in the Fourth Republic.
In my younger days in primary school, we were taught ethics and morality by morality tales which in Yoruba are called “alo”. In a didactic fashion, the instructor will unveil an event usually of a fabulous or mythical nature in order to pinpoint the disaster that befell an evil man or woman who refused to abide by civilized norms, decency or to quit perverse ways. The story will end with something like: ‘What does this story tell us?’. The class as I recall will usually chorus: ‘This tale teaches that there are consequences of a drastic nature waiting to overtake young people that refuse to quit evil and obnoxious ways’. Thereafter, the teacher will smile with approval in recognition that the moral has been well received. Has anybody wondered what lessons the current set of politicians are teaching the young ones by their conduct in so many areas including carpet-crossing and the celebration nationally of those whom have turned unfaithfulness and immorality into principles of state policy?
In earlier commentaries on this scourge, I demonstrated that party switching is not peculiar to Nigeria anymore than its public sector corruption. It occurs in developed democracies like the United States but just like the Corruption Perception Index which ranks perverse and corrupt behaviour, the instances in the developed democracies and even in some developing ones are few and far between. Illustratively, in the fifty years between 1947 and 1997, there were only 20 political defectors in the United States. This writer has lost count of how many politicians have defected to other parties in the last five years alone in Nigeria. If this were a country where absurdities are not standardized, party defection would be a subsidiary part of the anti-corruption campaign, moreso because many of those who defect do so, not out of policy disagreement but as refuge-seeking from retribution or sanctions regarding offences such as graft and looting of public property. Indeed, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, went on record a few months back as saying that by receiving political decampees with blemished records, the APC was advertising that it is just a mirror image of the PDP which it sent packing. Needless to say, he was a lone voice in the wilderness of wrongdoing and obtuseness.
However the Umahi case turns out–it is hard to predict the outcome of such cases–the PDP has scored a victory in the court of public opinion by ruffling feathers regarding the national amnesia concerning party switching. It will be edifying if a constitutional amendment is introduced with the intention of reducing decamping to barest minimum or at any rate to show that if the politicians see nothing wrong with it, Nigerian citizens do. It demotes our democracy, reducing it to buying and selling in an immoral market where the game in town is not power with purpose but power to gratify alimentary longings famously expressed in the coinage by Chinua Achebe of power being treated as a “juicy morsel”.
Those who wish Nigeria well must rise up to celebrate this moment of moral victory–even if temporary–over political squalor.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Salimonu Kadiri
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UMAHI: THE ROTTEN UNDERPINNINGS OF OUR DEMOCRACY
Ogedi Ohajekwe
On Mar 10, 2022, at 11:32 AM, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfNxqgjuD3m%3Dj79MxC5093GNDUZ-0RRXoJ%2B9bXiDHqYaHQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: 11 March 2022 21:08
Ayo Olukotun
RISING CITIZENS' WOES AND GOVERNANCE APATHY
Ayo Olukotun
“(If ordinary bread is not available) let them eat cake (a luxurious form of bread made with eggs and butter).”
Marie-Antoinette, 18th century Queen of France .
The opening quote is credited to one of the Queens of France who was so disconnected from the sufferings of the French masses that when she was told that there was great dissatisfaction over the scarcity of ordinary bread which had been priced out of the reach of the poor, she answered almost nonchalantly that if there is no bread, the common people should make do with cake. My French coach said to me that the French word translated “cake” is actually a luxurious form of bread far more expensive than ordinary bread. That is to say, she was totally oblivious of the differences between the two kinds of bread; and in any case, was indifferent to the plight of people who were disgruntled because their staple food had become too scarce for their convenience. If we translate this further into modern day discourse in Nigeria, it would amount to something like asking people who cannot afford to travel by road because of the escalating price of fuel, to go by air and stop wasting time complaining.
To bring this further home, the politicians are in a world of their own and carrying on business as usual in a season of approaching elections. How else do you explain that amidst the frustrations of the hour, the All Progressives Congress is asking that forms be sold to chairmanship aspirants at 20 million naira? Most of the politicians travel out of the country for sundry reasons at the drop of a hat and usually at public expense. That is perhaps why they are unable to hear the groans of consumers or citizens as the prices of services and products escalate.
Take for example the recent nightmare of commuters, bus drivers and car owners as they queued up for fuel for several hours, which in some cases were sold at prices ranging from 180 naira to 250 naira when it is available. Even as I write, the queues are yet to fully go away in some cities and of course, hardly anyone is talking about price hike because a situation had been created which made almost everyone desperate to find Premium Motor Spirit to go around. It took over a month and several broken promises to bring the situation under a modicum of control and to ease the plight of Nigerians. Add to this the cost of diesel required by Small and Medium-term Enterprises to run their businesses but which had jumped from 300 naira per litre to 750 naira per litre within a space of two months with no cushioning effects or policies. Bear in mind that diesel alone accounts for over 30%, if not more, of the operating costs of these enterprises, many of them already pushed to the margins of survival.
To be sure, some of the triggers are linked to the vagaries of the international market, especially the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Obviously, Nigeria is not the only country affected by these shocks, although its successive leaders are to blame for not getting their acts right as an oil-producing country which ordinarily ought to have been insulated from the worst fall-outs of the crisis. That is not all. Within the space of 48 hours this week, the National Electricity Grid collapsed twice, setting in motion prolonged blackouts in most parts of the country. As a colleague remarked, there is little or no difference between times when the grid collapses and times when it is working normally in that electricity is often not available in many parts of the country.
When this columnist told a friend that the nations electricity grid has collapsed, he replied sharply, “What exactly in Nigeria has not collapsed?” As usual, we are offered excuses, explanations, apologies, most of which are lame. For instance, we are told that in dry seasons there are challenges with water levels and also that some of the problems have to do with maintenance. Are we just discovering that water levels ebb in dry seasons? If the problems are maintenance-related, are there no workers assigned to bring the equipment up to par? At any rate, grid collapse is not new in this sector as last year it occurred in February, May, July and August including the rainy months in which water levels were not issues.
The explanations, so to call them, are improvements on times in the past when we were told by officials that large snakes were responsible for insistent power outages in some districts of the country but they do little to mollify a distressed citizenry.
Fundamentally, low and erratic power distribution has been the bane of governance and the economy. Successive administrations, including this one, have spent billions of naira without raising significantly the megawatts generated. According to Nairametrics, at least $14 billion dollars are spent by Nigerians on generators and fuels annually. Of course, government departments including state houses vote hefty sums for the maintenance of generators. The worsening power situation will play into the hands of politicians who will make even more fantastic promises than in the past with no hope of fulfilling them. What has happened to the much talked about deal with Siemens and the profuse talk about the Germans coming to the rescue of that sector? It will be interesting to know exactly how much resources have been pumped into the power sector since the Fourth Republic began with little or no improvement
Why is it that South Africa with a population of roughly 60 million generates over 51 000 megawatts while Nigeria is stalled at less than 4 000 megawatts? Do you want to compare us with Brazil, roughly the same population as Nigeria but which generates over 100 000 megawatts? Why is it that in so many crucial areas such as maintaining our refineries which would have ended the fuel subsidy albatross, refurbishing and recalibrating electric power infrastructure, maintaining educational infrastructure and paying decent wages to university workers which would have terminated frequent strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities; we are simply unable to get it right?
Talking about the ongoing ASUU strike which has kept out of campus university students for five weeks, the President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, made clear that if government wanted or had the will, it could have ended the strike in one week. What happened? Government sidestepped and postponed resolution of the matter by setting up yet another committee to study with a view to renegotiating an already renegotiated agreement. The new committee was given three months to do its work indicating that the government was not in a hurry to come upfront or quickly end the impasse.
This is a heavy list of woes for any citizenry, nor forgetting that a double digit inflation continues to make food scarily expensive, sending Nigerians to untimely deaths.
What is required is a turnaround in fulfilment of the social contract which mandates that the governors and the governed must fulfill reciprocal duties and obligations in order to make life less of a hell-hole for citizens.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute of Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
Yesterday
- >> Ayo,>> ³ Šthe politicians are in a world of their own and carrying on business as> usual in a season of approaching elections.²>> Yes, sadly tis true. And we¹ve been repeating this primary plank of ³primitive> acquisition² by our rulers for the past 60 years. No basic change. Only that> this feature relating to private enrichment at the citizen¹s expense has> seemingly grown every bolder and greater. We all know the end result this> behaviour must at some point produce. Office Holders and Aspirants too also> know. Their hope is that if the end does finally come, it will be after> completion of their term in office.>> And lest we tiresome folk of the West/ and so-called Developed and Civilised> countries say one thing more in criticism of African States, let us consider> not only our past, but more to the point our current carry-on in relation to> the behaviour of our oligarchs in the Ukraine.>> It is a most repugnant and outrageous exercise of savagery that trumps> everything their Africa Oligarch brethren may bring to bear on those lands and> folk (98ers) they control and shamefully exploit. As the media brings masses> of conflicting narratives to our attention; in the end what one is left with> is a sense that we are party to one of those fairground games of push-button/> dodge-em, or the like, where the auto-calculators, totalling the number of> towns destroyed/ 1000s of people zapped/ killed; by comparative figures of> various high-tech weaponry/ drones and the like; all to be totalled like a> banker¹s end of day tally, to give a declared winner. Š>> Humanity? Humane consideration? The pain/ destruction/ the rear/ anguish/> despair across the Ukraine and its warring fronts? ŠThese are our Rulers> authorising these Lethal engagements. ŠHow are they different from what> Nigeria¹s Rulers have been inflicting on the bulk of their 98ers since they> entered their ³In-Dependence²‹as well-expressed by Sarah Ladipo-Manyika in her> classic novel of the same name?>> Ayo, I would like to request something very simple.>> Can The Punch send out Reporters to a number of local communities throughout> Nigeria; and can they attend the often daily Meetings convened by the reigning> Natural Ruler? And can they report to us what is said? And what steps are> authorised/ suggested/ to be taken forward, by the Chief, perhaps in> conjunction with his Council of Reps/ Elders? Is it not well past time that we> hear something from these fora where actions to try to assist local folk are> often taken forward?>> Most people will know that many of the leading Natural Rulers of the Old> North, the Old West and Mid-West, still work to busy daily schedules of> Meetings in communal halls or palace council chambers, with individual folk/> families seeking help/ guidance/ clarification/ sometimes resolution of simple> personal and communal problems. In the Old East and South-East it is the same.>> So yes, keep an eye on the latest outrages perpetrated by our Elected folk;> but can we not get a far better feel for/ grip on what¹s actually going on at> Grass-Roots if we are afforded accurate info/ reports/ features on what is> going on daily at these levels? Equally, perhaps more important, might not> this also allow us to experience just a bit of Light and Laughter? Of the> festivities/ the entertainments/ the successes/ the good things that do happen> in these locales? We¹re all aware of them? We¹ve all experienced them?>> No one is denying there is not Darkness hanging heavy over most Africa lands> and their peoples.>> But also there is Light abundant. Africa folk cannot help it. It is at the> core of how Africa folk engage life.>> My fellow Euro folk still battle‹if they condescend so to do‹to grasp Africa> Light and Realities. Most fail. Why? Because their intense focus and> conditioning by the ethics and principles, along with relevant customs and> morals, resulting from virtually Exclusive focus on the ³Cognitive/ Rational/> Material,² has left in them only very small space for Heart and Kindness/ for> fundamental INCLUSION, and POWER OF GREAT LIGHT, which is at the core of every> Africa person‹though just as the Euro seldom is aware of its ABSENCE, so the> Africa person is NOT aware of its PRESENCE.>> We all have so much to Give and to Share.>> We need to Lift the heavy clouds of Darkness, so that Awareness can be> possible; so that we may share and grow and make our contribution to this life> that is ours.>> One final reminder. It comes from the huge/ Light/ spirit of my friend, Ebou> Dibba. He was a glorious and un-buttoned ³Missionary" seeking to bring the> Great Light of Africa to the Darkest of Brit. He died for his cause. In memory> and reflection his was a life of Deep Meaning/ a death that left deep his> Imprint of Light/ Caring/ Kindness and Inclusion. It is the memory of a great> man of Africa Light, that I treasure and learn still from, and aways will
Ayo Olukotun
Today
meToRichard A. Joseph& 142 moreMar 18 at 11:54 AM
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
UNPACKING NEW DISCOURSES ON OUR ECONOMY AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION
Ayo Olukotun
Nigerian universities are shut down by a warning strike now in its fifth week, thanks to official inattention, but Nigerian scholars at home and abroad continue to insert their work and forte into global discourses and the fast-paced flow of innovations. This is not the place to discuss why Nigerian scholars based at home are not visible enough on the global academic map. What is interesting for now is that Nigerian scholars in the diaspora continue to make us proud and to constitute mirror images of what Nigerian academic culture could have been if we had leaders who are not apathetic towards the generation and distribution of knowledge, especially the infrastructure that support them.
Two new remarkable books published this year deal with economic diversification, much talked about in Nigeria but little implemented as well as the struggle, if there is still one, to decolonize African studies and unbundle it from the Western hegemonic straitjacket into which it has been fixed for a very long time. The first work entitled “Industrialization and Economic Diversification: Post-Crisis Development Agenda in Asia and Africa” published by Routledge is by Professors Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and Kaushalesh Lai, both well-known scholars of Development Studies who have had stints at the United Nations University based in Maastricht, Netherlands. Oyeyinka who spent two decades working in several United Nations agencies is currently the Senior Special Adviser to Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank currently based in Abidjan. The second work entitled “Decolonizing African Studies; Knowledge Production, Agency and Voice” published by University of Rochester Press is written by Professor Toyin Falola, distinguished Humanities Professor at the University of Texas, Austin, United States.
One of the reasons for bringing these two intellectual works to public attention goes beyond the fact that they were published this year, to include the simple reason that most Nigerians may never encounter them and these include our policy makers who need them most and, regrettably, some of our academics who may never have access to them unless they order them electronically. The much talked about marriage between town and gown often does not take place in countries like ours partly because of a dearth of resources, the disinclination of non-academics to root with our intellectual culture and the increasing datedness of much of our scholarship, the bulk of which sadly takes place at the backwaters of the global academic matrix.
The book by Oyeyinka and Lai puts into impressive contexts the travails and status of African economies compared to the Asian ones, many of which transformed themselves from the relegated province of underdevelopment to the cutting edges of technological and industrial development while carrying the majority of their people along into substantial welfare upgrade. In contrast, however, African economies and societies continued to vegetate on the margins of contemporary modernization breakthroughs while leaving their populace in a lurch in which they descended from one degree of poverty to another.
According to the authors, “five to six decades after independence, African countries remain the least economically diversified and consequently extremely dependent on natural resources”. This is fairly well-known, what is not is so well-known is that on present terms the future looks bleak for Nigeria and other African counties because with one or two exceptions, the continent is yet to liberate itself from raw material extraction and the sale of commodities subject to the vagaries of the global market in exchange for manufactured goods. Why are Nigeria and other African countries not developing? Largely because of the failure to diversify their economies away from the enclave character which it has acquired over time, failure to insert themselves in scientific and technological developments, institutional deficiencies, grand corruption and the lack of developmental vision.
Hopefully and somehow, the book may reach the hands of several of those angling to lead us in 2023. It will be a shame if the next crop of leaders takes office without an economic breakthrough charter.
The second book has been described as Falola’s magnum opus by one reviewer, Oluwatoyin Adepoju, who insists that if the author wrote nothing else he would have established himself as a seminal and major thinker and theorist of post-colonial Africa. Of course, those who doubt the claim or simply wish to verify it are free to access it, if they can, as this columnist is only able to provide the preliminary taste of the pudding which lies in the actual eating. Needless to say that this is not a policy handbook iterating low-hanging fruits for the next Minister of Information and Culture; nonetheless, after all the academic prospecting, the book offers strategies on how to decolonize the Nigerian and African academies while raising issues relating to language, literature, identity, gender and totems. As Falola makes clear, the battle to free African studies and culture from their colonial umbilical cords has been a long and protracted one. As an undergraduate at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), one of my first intellectual shocks was the recounted reaction of the former Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, Hugh Trevor-Roper, when he was confronted by African students that they wanted to be taught African history. As documented in several books, Trevor-Roper answered bluntly, not to say sharply, that “There is nothing like African history. The story of Africa is the exploits of white men in Africa…”
Nobody needs to tell anyone that knowledge may be power but power–economic, social and cultural–often sets the boundaries of knowledge. After Trevor-Roper’s infamous statement, a generation of Nigerian historians who were taught at Oxford and other Western universities that there is nothing like African history began the project to decolonize their discipline from the ethnocentric stranglehold of Western academies. That resulted in the well-known Ibadan History School with names like J. F. Ade-Ajayi, Tekena Tamuna, R. A. Adeleye, Bolanle Awe among others at the forefront. Several years later, Yusuf Bala Usman, radical nationalist scholar, began a new revisionism by arguing that the Ibadan History School had run its course and achieved its limited objective. They wrote history, he alleged, as if only kings, princes and nobles were worth talking about. The masses, their livelihoods, their politics, religion and bondage had not been talked about. So, Usman undertook at the time, at Ahmadu Bello University, a process of curriculum revision which inserted the ordinary people into the writing of Nigerian history. Unfortunately, that worthy goal-setting appeared to have been shortlived because of the passing on of that great scholar.
I narrate this to show both the importance and many-sidedness of decolonization of African studies which continues to go on, though not at any real speed, in several disciplines. In some disciplines like Political Science, the work has stalled while in Economics, the dominant school is still the hegemonic neo-liberal economics shot through by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank perspectives.
Falola’s book therefore, though magisterial, will open up several rivulets even political ones such as how much of Nigerian identity and culture will our children and grandchildren trained at Oxford and Cambridge imbibe?
The two books will no doubt enrich our knowledge and database on the Nigerian project and provide clues as to how to end the protracted Nigerian nightmare.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Hardcover
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$24.99 / £19.99
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Ayo Olukotun
Ayo Olukotun
2023 AND MISSING SNAPSHOTS OF THE PROMISED LAND
Ayo Olukotun
It is not news anymore that ahead of the blowing of the whistle for political campaigns they have begun in skirmishes. Television stations, radios and newspapers are already giving rather lavish space and time to aspirants for one political office or the other. The idea, I suppose, is to gain time ahead of one’s opponent and not to fall behind in the pervasive jostling for offices. For this columnist, seasons like these present their own challenges to the extent that one can easily be accused of siding one political party or the other even when the journalist is only doing a yeoman’s job of agenda-setting. This columnist has criticized succeeding governments with nearly equal if not equal ferocity pointing up their failures, unkept promises, abandonment of the social contract, arrogance of power and a lackadaisical attitude towards governance. This is the way it should be for public intellectuals who wish to do the job of conveying the people’s feelings to those who lead in the hope that they will get a fair hearing.
Let me begin obliquely by alluding to my surprise even shock when a Federal Minister, one of our brightest, came on national television two weeks ago and stopped short of trivializing the intensity of the sufferings that Nigerians are currently going through. It was exactly a day to the All Progressives Congress’ National Convention and the journalist had asked, “What does your party have to say to the intensity of the woes of Nigerians, arising from the slippage of living standards and runaway inflation?” The Minister responded pontifically that the senior reporter ought to know that the whole world, including the advanced democracies, is going through a hard time because of the fallouts of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its economic consequences.
The minister had obviously scored a debating point but at the expense of not addressing, or at least sidestepping substantial issues. I shudder to think that if this kind of response foreshadows the character of the political conversation to come in this election season, then it is not good enough for a country that had often been promised change without doing more than skirting the borders of genuine reform.
True, the United States, the Eurozone countries are going through their own economic and social turmoils with inflation reaching an all-time high in these countries. But what is that rate? In Germany, it is about 7.3%. In France, it is less than 5%. In the United Kingdom, it is 6.2%. Without going into unemployment indices, let it be noted that Nigeria has an inflation rate of about 15%, symptomizing the galloping of consumer prices for over a year now. So this is like comparing apples and oranges in terms of the distress of Nigerian citizens compared to these other countries. That is not all. There is hardly any of these powers that are not making active efforts to cushion the standards of living crisis with policies such as actual tax reduction, rebates for example in electricity bills, subsidies among other palliatives. I stand to be corrected but this columnist is not aware that apart from the postponement of the implementation of the so-called removal of subsidy on petroleum prices which was nullified for at least two months by the importation of contaminated fuel, there is no other area in which government has shown sensitivity to the plight of the citizens. Rather, various agencies such as the National Electricity Regulatory Commission have come upfront to announce that they have increased prices in a period when the demands of unions such as the Academic Staff Union of Universities for rectification are ignored. Consequently, the comparison with other countries in which governance is taken seriously does not hold water at all but dances on the graves of those who have fallen victims of these harsh, austere times.
It would have been a relief if the Minister, as indeed other politicians, had chosen to enumerate how his party if it is re-elected will make life more meaningful, less uphill for the average and above average Nigerians.
Listening to those who have expressed the desire to rule us, there is little or no recognition of how low governance standards have fallen, much less providing a sketch of the promised land–the utopia to which they are angling to lead us. The ruling party carries on in a business-as-usual style with governors claiming as achievements the regular payment of salaries and the tarring of roads. It is sad, almost tragic, that the regular payment of salaries, if and when they are paid, is considered a spectacular achievement by office holders pointing to the mediocrity that has overtaken the political space. The main opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party majors in predictable criticisms of the APC without providing alternative visions, scenarios and programs that they will embark on should they be elected in 2023. It can be argued that the campaigns have not begun full steam and that it is too early in the day to unveil programs. This caveat is weakened, however, by the fact that the politicians are already campaigning anyway, whether they say so or not but the public is learning more about what they are against than what they are for, or precisely how they hope to make differences to the prevailing morass.
To give an instance of just how comprehensive the current rot is, recall that in the immediate aftermath of the tragic detonation of explosives and prolonged shooting of the Kaduna-bound train recently, the Minister for Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, presumably one of the most senior cabinet ministers, came out smoking that the disaster could have been averted but for the opposition of his colleagues to the request he made for 3.7 billion naira to purchase digital equipment for the railways. Subsequently, it became known that the company that was to purchase the equipment is a barely known one with a turnover of 84.9 million naira turnover. It has never before undertaken any business assignment of that caliber. It provided no description of the equipment that was to be purchased. It is owned by husband, wife and child and did not include in its application a concept note by which to judge its reliability, seriousness or integrity. In short, there is no evidence that if the contract was approved by the Federal Executive Council the equipment would have been delivered and the mishap averted.
This writer brings this anecdote up to show that a truly reformist government, if Nigeria had one, would have done things very differently with salient effects on the protracted war against terror. Who knows, to be sure, how many of such contracts have been awarded under the guise of expeditious arms purchase in the last decade or so? Interestingly, very few, if any, of those aspiring to lead have commented on this attempted high-level scam and what they would do to remake Nigeria.
If 2023 is to be more than an exercise in futility and recycling of familiar maladies, then the political elite needs to go beyond empty rhetoric to give us fresh perspectives, fresh ideas, new vistas and what they would do to turn around a country bogged down by diminution and running scams.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Michael VickersToAyo Olukotun& 35 moreMar 17 at 11:30 PM
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
WILL INSECURITY JINX THE 2023 ELECTIONS?
Ayo Olukotun
A motley of eminent persons, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye among them, and several concerned groups have expressed apprehension recently about the possibility that escalating insecurity in the country might jinx the prospects of the 2023 elections. The basis for their foreboding is not far-fetched, given the accelerating tempo of bloody unrest, killings, escapades, audacious attacks on mass and elite transportation around the country, the Northern part especially. One of the most recent and frightening of these murderous activities of terrorists is the explosion of bombs on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line, the killing of at least eight persons as well as the carting off to a hideout of no less than a hundred passengers. As we speak, most of these hapless passengers are still in captivity with the terrorists alternately demanding ransom and threatening to kill all of them if ransom is not expeditiously paid to them.
Rising statistics of victims apart, there is something tawdry and unwholesome about a gang of hoodlums holding the Nigerian state to ransom with the state looking helpless or wearing the face of helplessness in what has become a characteristic scenario. The Kaduna attack was especially worrying, partly because the city is one of the most fortified urban centres in Nigeria and because there was a concerted onslaught on road, rail and air transportation within a number of days. Of course, going by road from Abuja to Kaduna has always been a distressing, often fatal, option with many losing their lives or ending up in the kidnappers’ den. But attacks on railways and the Kaduna airport are novel, drawing the lament from many whether there is a plan to seal off Kaduna from the rest of the country in order to make it extremely vulnerable.
There are several contending theories about how Nigeria came to this treacherous pass; some argue that what is playing out is a consequence of an incapable state which has over time underdeveloped its institutions of law enforcement, others maintain that insider collaboration with terrorists is a potent factor, considering how easily entry was made for example to the elite military institution, the Nigerian Defence Academy. This latter theory has been blown up in some quarters to include the possibility of religious sects with sympathy in high places, muscling their way into state capture with the objective sooner than later of a religious revolution. Such opinions have pointed to the tardiness or reluctance of the current government to deal with those it claimed to have fingered as sponsors of terrorism. Whatever tentative inferences and conclusions are drawn from these hypotheses there is little doubt that there is a clear and present danger in several of the scenarios being enacted.
As public intellectual, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, alerted recently (The Punch, Monday, 11 April, 2022), it is difficult on present terms to know what to expect were Nigeria to be invaded by a foreign adversary. What Odinkalu did not say is that any such invasion would be preceded by the kind of terrorism currently afflicting Nigeria, considering that the groups masterminding these forays would have gained intimate knowledge of the capability, levels of weaponry, morale and resistance levels of both the military and the police. Granted these are not necessarily the seasons of gunboat diplomacy if we exempt the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but far-sighted nations are smart enough to maintain their institutions of warfare–offensive and defensive–on the cutting-edge of battle readiness.
This brings us to the question raised by the title of this intervention, namely, the prospects of the 2023 elections being derailed by spreading terrorist and insurgent penetration. Objectively, a country can hold elections in the face of turbulence and actual terrorist escapades as has happened in several countries especially in Latin America, parts of Asia and even Central Africa. One may not like the Philippines’ brand of democracy in view of its several flaws, but you cannot dispute that in spite of a protracted campaign including a militant Islamic insurgency, it has successfully held elections. In other words, on the face of it, little prevents elections from holding next year unless the matter has degenerated into anarchy or more widespread bloodletting. Indeed, last year’s gubernatorial election in Anambra State is an example of an election that held in unlikely circumstances in the face of a sit-at-home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra. But is that all to the matter? I doubt it, for even in the case of Anambra State, there were casualties even among the Independent National Electoral Commission officials when a bus in which they were travelling was ambushed by so-called unknown gunmen. That apart, many prospective voters commonsensically stayed away from the polling booths as self-preservation is the first law of existence. That is to say that were the omens clearer and the circumstances less fraught, there would have been a higher voting turnout in that election.
As some expert surveys have revealed, two principal reasons for low voter turnout in our elections are: distrust of the electoral process and gathering insecurity. In recent years, thanks to improved performance and credibility in INEC, there is decreasing pessimism about the conduct of our elections. Regarding insecurity however, INEC has no control, since its workforce were not recruited on the basis of their military prowess or ability to survive dangerous attacks. It is those who are assigned and mandated by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) to secure and defend the Realm that can deal with that. So, even if technically elections can be held in contentious and violent circumstances, such elections will carry the debit and drawback of extremely low voter turnout, especially in those areas where terrorists hold sway. That is not all.
It is well known that the locations of the terrorists are for the meantime in the rural areas where the weight of law enforcement is barely noticeable because there is continuing resistance to the introduction of state and local police. If elections are to be held in these same rural areas where the bandits’ republics are located, this will pose a threat to election administrators and even to law enforcement who may be deployed without full battle readiness.
True, for now, the terrorists have not announced a political agenda, being more interested in the lure of easy cash from ransom but who says they may not develop one and actually begin to attack the infrastructure of elections or persons in the wake of performing their civic duty of voting. At any rate and as this columnist has consistently argued, it is strange, if not tragic, that it is the terrorists that are steps ahead of law enforcement and not the other way round.
Considering that government has flatly turned down the option of using mercenaries to smoke out the terrorists from their dungeons just like former President Goodluck Jonathan did in 2015, it must brace up to do what the mercenaries would have done. It cannot both reject that option and sit back watching the terrorists amass capability and fine-tune their strategies.
The warning about a botched election on account of insecurity ought to jerk all stakeholders especially the military and the police wide awake and into frenzied action.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
PERSISTING ASUU STRIKE AND GOVERNANCE CRISIS
Ayo Olukotun
Nigerians in these vulnerable and harsh times trudge on like a specie of humanity sentenced to lifelong imprisonment with hard labour. To grasp this scenario, you must have some familiarity with Yoruba mythic literature illustrated by Daniel Fagunwa’s book entitled “My Journey in a Forest of a Thousand Demons”. These were journeys without maps, without known destinations, full of dread and uncertainties. In like manner, Nigerians are not sure if the 2023 election will hold or not, neither are they certain about when their wards will graduate from our strike-ridden universities, a consequence of an anti-intellectual temperament in official quarters. They are not sure they will have electricity in view of the serial collapse of the national grid. They don’t know if the journey they are about to commence will land them in the tragic company of kidnappers.
Listen to government officials and top politicians relate to this downturn and you will hear something like “The whole world is going through hard times and Nigeria is no exception”. Of course, this is half-truth which glosses over the intensity of the plight and pathos of the average Nigerian, many of whom can no longer cope. They also will not tell you what many other governments respecting the social contract are doing to cushion the shock. Very few governments, if any, will sidestep a strike of university teachers and administrators about to enter into the ninth week in the case of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Speaking on Sunrise Daily, Channels Television, on Wednesday, the National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, revealed that very little has happened since his Union declared a warning strike in February. Contrast this to the enthusiasm with which many political players, presumably with deep pockets, are putting themselves forward for the Office of the President. As far as I can remember, none of these aspirants has spoken about the ASUU strike or the abysmal neglect of human resources in Nigeria which would have given us hope that the tide will turn once they get to power. The prevalent attitudes regarding the strike are to blame the victims, ventilate one’s frustrations on striking lecturers or harvest entertainment value from it as in the case of the banters that accompanied the issue of Divine Ikubor aka Rema.
The truth which the politicians will rather not confront is that there are fundamental issues at stake which have to do with the backwater position of Nigeria in the global knowledge map, the virtual collapse of education, the continued migration of Nigerian youths whose parents can afford it to overseas universities; and the mortgaging of the future of Nigeria to hegemonic interests and to countries which have the good sense to build a knowledge economy, prioritise innovation; thereby fast-forwarding their places in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Consider that while all the wrangling and stonewalling are going on, the country continues to nosedive educationally relative, not just in comparison with the advanced economies but also to the emerging economies including several African countries. Illustratively, last year’s ranking of universities in emerging economies by the Times Higher Education Survey found that no Nigerian university featured in the first 100, showing that the Giant of Africa, so-called, is fast becoming a midget in terms of output in higher education. Of course, it has long been known that hardly any Nigerian university is in the first 400 when it comes to global ranking of. When I began my career as a university teacher, my institution was a truly international one with several British and American colleagues in the midst of a student population that had a sizeable number of foreign students. Tell me, today how many expatriates have remained in our tottering universities either as lecturers or students? It all began with governments that treat university teachers with contempt partly because they are excluded from the cash-and-carry business which has produced emergent billionaires.
We have often heard it said that Nigeria is a commercial proposition, a market rather than a nation with unifying ideals. What is less noticed is that even markets ought to have ground rules in order to flourish, otherwise they may descend into trading jungles. Recall that the late Professsor Claude Ake, referring to Nigeria, employed the words ‘booty capitalism’, suggesting that very few rules are adhered to in our market culture. That is partly why politicians who have stashed away resources send their wards abroad, but feign ignorance when the lot of the children and wards of the average Nigerian who attend the stranded public universities are discussed. If Nigeria is indeed a proper market, the political elite will be interested in the conditions and factors for the sustenance of that market.
The story was told that one of the reasons why Former President Umar Yar’Adua approved the FG-ASUU agreement of 2009 was because of a riveting anecdote told by one of the participants explaining that the state of Nigerian science laboratories is worse than what once obtained in many of our secondary schools including Government College, Keffi, which the late President attended. A graduate of Chemistry from Ahmadu Bello University, Yar’Adua reportedly stood up and said something to the effect that if matters had degenerated so alarmingly, government has a duty to do all it could to restore our prostrate ivory towers. Thirteen years later, a Needs Assessment Panel which confirmed the state of decay of our universities and token efforts at redemption by successive governments the picture of desolate intellectual centres painted in 2009 remain largely unchanged. Instead of overhauling the centres of learning, governments have continued to multiply the universities without attention to planning, resources or the need to uplift the percentage of budgetary allocation to education which has stood still at roughly 7%.
The point being made is that what we have on our hands is a governance crisis symptomized by the virtual abandonment of a crucial department of our national life by a political elite that has the capacity to raise humongous resources at political party rallies but does not see education as a foundational national imperative. The governance crisis also kicks in when you consider that we have an elite that does not prepare for emergencies until they hit us with a bang. Churn out all the statistics that you can about the disrepair in the educational or health sector, they will not impress today’s brand of politicians. It took the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to alert our leaders to the structural infirmity of the health sector; also because they could no longer jet out of the country at the drop of a hat since the Western countries were equally afflicted. In the same manner, succeeding administrations have slowly killed the educational sector through persistent underfunding, inattention and the political rascality of establishing universities without factoring funding requirements.
If the 2023 elections, whose fate is dangling precariously in view of insecurity, eventually holds, the electorate must hold the politicians down to minimum requirements of educational rehabilitation. The reason why there is a riot of presidential aspirants is that the political tribe can get away with almost anything because they are not accountable to the electorate.
Civil society should rise up to reclaim its mandate as the epicenter of Nigeria’s democratic assumption.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba
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Ayo Olukotun
GLUT OF PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANTS AND THE LURE OF OFFICE
Ayo Olukotun
A few weeks ago, this columnist observed with concern and consternation that the number of aspirants for the 2023 election was lengthening by the day without corresponding uplift in turnaround ideas that the country desperately requires. That lament notwithstanding, the number of aspirants has continued to soar especially among the ruling All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party.
At first blush, one should give thanks that so many individuals have decided to enter the fray, some of them promising to turn the tide of Nigeria’s fortunes which had considerably ebbed. On deeper inspection, however, one comes to the realisation that many of the aspirants have been around for a long while and cannot be said to have performed exceptionally in previous dispensations, a few honourable exceptions notwithstanding. Like the National Merit Award, which once upon a time was bestowed on all comers among the political elite, there is nothing, generally speaking, distinguished about the rank and file which currently clutter the political space as presidential aspirants.
To bring the point home, and as this columnist argued in a much earlier forum, if the country has so many politicians who have performed meritorious, then why is it in such a mess? So someone claims to have had experience spanning 25 years in various political offices but can hardly point to anything lasting or seminal he/she has achieved. It is not that alone. As the country has slipped into further and deeper decay, one looks in vain for the most part for constructive policy suggestions that these office seekers have made over time to ameliorate the crisis. In other democracies, legislators who wish to contest elections and move to the executive branch often point to speeches they made, opinions they expressed, motions they initiated that made differences. If a presidential aspirant was in the Senate over a two or three-term period and is not remembered for remedial initiatives, why should anyone trust such a legislator with a higher calling? Take for example the issue of restructuring which remains a sore policy plank in the current Republic. If a presidential aspirant did not go on record for or against on the matter, how will he suddenly develop bright ideas on the perennial agitation for State Police which most people agree is one of the answers to soaring insecurity?
Often, I have wondered aloud whether the political elite comes alive only at election times only to hear no evil and see no evil when elections have ended. For those in the ruling party, this has been attributed to the fear of criticising the helmsman, Major General Muhammad Buhari (retd.). But in a democracy, criticism is a duty because leaders who know their onions can learn from criticisms even when they are adversarial. Besides, it was exciting to note that at some intervals and perhaps to break the unholy silence, Buhari’s wife, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, raised alert about the state of the Aso Rock Clinic, the unsatisfactory performance of social investment and poverty alleviation schemes among others.
Curiously, the PDP which had the task of providing alternative programmes and governance ideas do not do much better apart from almost predictable critical remarks about extant policies. Most of these were done in the party’s name and not by individual politicians seeking to build a platform around compelling ideas of governance and perhaps also a movement that will be the game changer. But now, and in spite of arbitrarily high and humongous nomination and expression of interest forms fees going up to 100 million naira in the case of the APC; aspirants fill up our political spaces, the latest being Professor Ben Ayade, Governor of Cross River State, and the presumably imminent declaration of former President Goodluck Jonathan on the APC platform. These declarations which have by no means ended have not been without a touch of drama as in the case of the oedipal confrontation between the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and current Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo SAN. The drama which may not have ended pertains to Osinbajo’s antecedents as a former member of Tinubu’s kitchen cabinet and trusted figure in the Tinubu political family.
To be sure, these almost umbilical political attachments do not prevent Osinbajo from running but it shows up a streak of incoherence among the ruling party that two senior politicians from the same political group and who normally should share a fellowship in terms of governance ideas are now at loggerheads because they both want to be Nigeria’s President. The same perspective applies to many of the top ministers in Buhari’s cabinet who, if the APC had an ideational plank, would have banded together in brotherhood coalescing around a unifying spokesperson and contender. Even allowing for geographical and ethnic disparities, there is little logic in the South East which claims that it is “its turn” to produce the next President having close to 15 aspirants. This depicts political warfare in which no one trusts the other and there is no unanimity of purpose.
Of course, the political parties will sift through the bedlam and produce a candidate respectively but the parties’ job would have been made easier if they were not dealing with such a jamboree of contenders. That apart, whatever bitterness is generated may linger, perhaps even escalate, after the choice of candidates are made.
This brings us to the question: Why everybody, so to say, must have a go at the number one office, not respecting political kinship ties or the possibility that one person from the same political lineage may be as good as another? Partly, this is a reflection of the poverty of our democratic culture marked by costly ego conflicts, the lack of ideas and ideological moorings from which political parties ought to derive their bearings.
Besides, the lack of alternative careers that are both rewarding and give room for eminence explain the lure of office holding as a perpetual watering hole and lubricant for politicians even when they have overstayed their welcome. In a setting in which office holding, at any cost, has become the preeminent career while other possible alternatives have been debased and sorely impoverished, staying in office becomes the only refuge in such a depressing situation.
There are several examples of politicians in the Western World who are invited to teach at elite universities, spend time doing their memoirs, initiate new careers which in time can become as profitable if not more profitable than the political calling. Once upon a time, Nigeria had illustrious professionals in the legal and judicial professions whose skills were sought globally, for instance, judges like Akinola Aguda, T. O. Elias, Bola Ajibola had famous stints outside Nigeria in the course of their careers. Hardly anymore. The universities once on the world map had been denuded and deliberately malnourished. So are the other professions. This may well be the main reason why there is little or no peace in the political arena because it has become the only lucrative haven for talented Nigerians.
The simple answer is to build a political culture that downgrades office holding by reducing the cost of governance and making politics coequal to the other noble professions.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
PARTY PRIMARIES: PROJECTIONS AND PERMUTATIONS
Ayo Olukotun
Barring any unforeseen, the primaries of the parties convened to throw up candidates for the presidential, governorship and National Assembly elections will be held in the next couple of weeks thereby accelerating the journey to the 2023 elections. The road to the primaries has been populated by much excitement, hoopla, twist and surprises. Unprecedented in our history, to cite one example, is the large number of aspirants that turned up in the big parties especially within the ruling All Progressives Congress which fielded about 30 presidential aspirants while the Peoples Democratic Party came up with 15.
Concerning the ruling party, it was as if anybody who could possibly run decided to enter the fray, not minding the rarefied sum of 100 million naira imposed by the party on the aspirants or old political ties dating back, in some cases, to three decades. One recalls that when in 2015 the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) was running for President on the platform of the APC, it was difficult for him to come up with the stipulated amount of 27.5 million naira which, according to him, his bank manager kindly extended to him as a loan. Four years later, not taking account of Buhari’s harrowing experience in 2015, the party raised the cost of forms to 45 million naira. Those relatively modest sums, if you call them that, prepared no one for the humongous amount of a hundred million naira which, according to those who have done the arithmetic, is more than the salary in four years of either the President or the Vice-President. This is the issue. If a retired General of Buhari’s calibre had to raise a loan to pay the cost of forms in 2015, is it not discriminatory, at least towards the professional class, that the APC was asking for a hundred million naira for those who wished to contest for the Presidency? If as it turns out the money exceeds the salaries of any Nigerian official appointed or elected for 4 years, then tongues are bound to wag as to how the aspirants were able to obtain that money, notwithstanding the shenanigan of those claiming that their “supporters” paid a huge chunk of the amount.
Those may be matters for another day but future scholars inspecting the character of the current transition will no doubt raise awkward questions about that decision. A related issue is that as the number of aspirants soared, the whole thing was beginning to look like a game or a script written by some people behind the scenes. In one particular instance, still on the comic side, two presidential aspirants attended each other’s declaration for the Office of the President and even expressed goodwill messages to each other. One interpretation is to see this as good sportsmanship. In most other countries, sportsmanship is displayed in congratulating one’s opponent after the game is over. The possibility of a script by a hidden hand bears close inspection. Some have theorized that Buhari himself is an undeclared aspirant for the office he currently occupies. There is no hard data yet to support the hypothesis, but please recall that on Wednesday a senior lawyer, Robert Clarke SAN, called for the postponement of the 2023 election so that government could better deal with insecurity. Some, including Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, smelt a rat in the proposal and warned against the prospect of tenure elongation through the backdoor.
If there is credibility to the Buhari candidature, then the harvest of aspirants bordering on farce can be understood as turning a serious game to a parody by unnecessarily multiplying the number of aspirants from every nook and corner of the country. Some others in search of explanations contend that a particular geographical region is playing a game of divide-and-rule in order that its own aspirants might stand better chances in view of the bedlam and political arson in other geographical regions. Whatever explanations are upheld or touted, it is difficult to understand how the scramble for the presidential office of a highly indebted country, which in a sense remains the world’s poverty capital bedeviled with several other problems, became so heated at the outset.
Noticeably, the opposition PDP has for the first time since inception jettisoned its eminently sensible policy of zoning of presidential aspirant for an all-comers affair. Time will tell what the real motives of the about-turn are and whether the new policy is targeted at a particular zone or region and whether the country as a whole will be the better or worse for it. If the APC follows suit, we may well have the spectre of two Northern presidential candidates battling each other for the presidential office after eight years of a Northern presidency. If it does not pan out that way, the country may witness a fair amount of polarization of a North versus South variety as occurred in 2015 with Buhari and former President Goodluck Jonathan slugging it out. Talking about Jonathan, it is not clear what has become of his much talked about presidential ambition on the platform of the APC which in 2015 sent him packing as a clueless leader.
As my colleague, Punch columnist, Dr. Abimbola Adelakun pointed out recently, the very proposition of a new Jonathan presidency indicates that not much has changed in Nigeria between 2015 and now. I buy the argument to the extent that if the promise of change had been validated, the idea of a Jonathan presidency would stink to high heavens at the very mention of it. That argument can be extended to include many of the aspirants who have been going around making rosy promises without telling us why earlier promises failed to be actualized. That is another way of saying with regret that had the ante of governance been raised in the last seven or so years, those unlikely to accelerate the tempo of change will be nowhere to be found in the upcoming elections. True, one or two names stand out peripherally in the list of office seekers. But on the whole, the nation may be singing from the old hymn sheets that have continuously led us in the perpetual race to the bottom in which we find ourselves.
Without sounding pessimistic, it is unlikely that on present terms and unless a miracle happens, the forthcoming elections will be our point of departure for a new Nigeria. One illustration that makes the point is the unwillingness or tardiness of political appointees including members of the Federal Executive Council to resign their offices in order to contest for the primaries. After a lot of back-and-forth of section 84(12) of the Electoral Act 2022, it took Buhari’s directive to get appointees to see the need to resign their jobs in order to stand elections in the current season. The directive, notwithstanding, some of the aspirants are in court trying to overthrow the legal requirement for them to resign their offices. That is to say if they have their way most or nearly all of them will sit pretty in their appointment while campaigning for the Presidency of the Republic.
That certainly is not a healthy signal that this crowd of aspirants really mean to change anything.
Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: 12 May 2022 17:46
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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - PARTY PRIMARIES: PROJECTIONS AND PERMUTATIONS
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Ayo Olukotun
ABUJA-KADUNA RAIL: NRC’S ASTONISHING MISPLACEMENT OF PRIORITIESBY AYO OLUKOTUN
Earlier this week, the Nigerian Railway Corporation announced that it will resume services on the Abuja to Kaduna rail route next Monday, 23rd of May. The operation of the corporation on that route, it will be recalled, was suspended ‘’indefinitely’’ since March 29, the day after armed bandits stormed passengers travelling on that route killing at least 8 of them, wounding some and carting off to captivity close to 50. Since then, a few of those taken captive by the terrorists have been released while the majority languish in the den of the bandits. Understandably, relations of those taken captive had protested recently the plan of the NRC to commence services at a time when their relations are still vegetating in the hands of the terrorists. A spokesperson of the captives’ relations lamented what appears to be amnesia on the part of the railway authorities and the Ministry of Transportation. They went further to allege that in spite of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd)’s instruction that the railway authorities should open a situation room to inform family members of the captives on a regular basis about the progress of the rescue effort, nothing of the sort had been carried out. The family members said there have been very little communication between the railway authorities and themselves and that they have been kept in the dark concerning goings on around their captured relatives. As a result of the communication gap therefore, they have threatened at a recent press conference that they will disrupt any attempt by the corporation to resume transportation services. It is difficult not to empathise with these Nigerians who have been thrown into disarray, panic and considerable anxiety as a result of the terrorists’ attack and capture of their loved ones. On the face of it, the resumption of train operations on that route ought to bring joy to many who for fear of being murdered by terrorists in the course of road travel had taken refuge in travelling by rail. As recently as Tuesday this week, to give an example, devastating raids were carried out by terrorists on the road route between Abuja and Kaduna leading to scores of passengers reportedly losing their lives or ending up in captivity. That being so, the reopening of another window should have been a source of relief; unfortunately, however, it is not. Why is this so? Partly because the statement by the NRC reads more like a commercial advertorial concerned mainly with clients of the corporation which it described as its ‘’valued customers’’ than with the travails of those who were kidnapped by the bandits as well as relations of those who lost their lives and the many who remain in captivity. In that vein, the corporation which claimed to have improved its services in the area of safety enjoined its prospective passengers ‘’to cooperate with the NRC in order to enjoy improved service delivery, safety and comfort’’. In a situation such as this, nonetheless, matters ought not to have been addressed so glibly. To take an instance, considering that the March 28 incident is not the first of its kind on that route and given the enormity of the assault and the persisting ordeal of those kidnapped an uptick in assurance as well as demonstration of empathy are required in the place of a bland commercial announcement that neither assures anyone or show a human face by sympathising with the afflicted. To bring the point home, after the controversy on the much-criticised efforts of the former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi to purchase digital equipment for the safety of the passengers. Pretty little had been told to the public concerning what steps had been taken to upgrade safety of the passengers. Naturally therefore, lingering questions remain, questions such as, what new safety equipment has been purchased? Has this safety equipment been tested to ascertain their reliability, and a related matter, have test runs been conducted by the NRC in order to determine that their operations are now bandit attacks proof? If the corporation had carried out any of these quality assurance exercises, it had failed at least in its recent statement to inform the public concerning them. Crucially, it would have been humane to take the opportunity of its announcement to inform its valued customers as it put it concerning the efforts that had been made and are being made to rescue those who have remained captives since March in order to further allay fears that any passenger who suffers such a mishap is very much on his/her own. This brings us to the larger issue of how Nigerians who survive disasters are treated. In the aftermath of the bandits’ attack, a flurry of visits by State officials to the hospitals and site of the tragedy ensued. Thereafter, the matter subsided apart from occasional statements by government spokespersons. For the most part, these statements carried or conveyed no particular gravity being routine almost casual. Obviously, as was revealed by the relatives of the captives, no action followed Buhari’s instruction to the NRC to set up a situation room and inform regularly the affected families. One of the mysteries in the current administration concerns how regularly instructions, ultimatums, even warnings from the president are flouted. On one occasion, during the herdsmen farmers conflicts in Benue state which occasioned several deaths, Buhari got to Benue state to realise that the then Inspector General of Police whom he had ordered to stay in Benue state for a while had left the place for another state. Another example, before the ongoing strike by university teachers escalated, the chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke informed the public that after a particular meeting attended by Buhari, the president assigned 3 top level officials of government to meet with ASUU leaders and resolve the evolving log jam. According to Osodeke, nothing more followed that instruction as no one talked about it or even pretended to carry out the instruction until the matter snowballed to a national crisis. This lag between official pronouncement and implementation raises several issues, one of which is the disconnect between dereliction and sanction. The matter is whether officials according to a theory in paralinguistics read more the body language of higher authorities rather than their statements, thereby selecting what instructions to carry out. The final possibility is whether some officials for whatever reason actually sabotage their principals by doing nothing until matters becomes desperate. However, the matter is decided, the NRC is admonished to delay the resumption of its operations on the Abuja-Kaduna railway route pending informative and detailed assurances regarding whatever new safety gadgets it had acquired if any. Beyond that, it is important for the corporation to demonstrate the milk of human kindness with respect to the tragedy that befell its ‘’valued customers’’ in March and liaise closely with government regarding the fate and prospects of those of its customers who continue to be tormented by terrorists. Such open show of affection and the human touch will be more eloquent than a million advertisements calculated to raise sales and preserve market share.
Prof Ayo Olukotun is a Director at the Oba (Dr) Sikiru Adetona Institute of Governance, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
WILL 2023 MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF NIGERIANS?
Ayo Olukotun
Politics narrowly conceived as the process by which political leaders are thrown up, offices distributed and administered has never served Nigeria well. Mr. Peter Obi, former Governor of Anambra State and presidential aspirant, before he stormed out of the People’s Democratic Party a few days ago, pinpointed the bedlam and abnormalities in the ongoing party primaries aptly: “Businessmen are looking for dollars to run their businesses while aspirants to high office are spraying dollars to woo delegates to vote for them”. Truth be told, in some respects, the military were better managers of resources and more objective, though not necessarily transparent, as administrators than the current set of politicians. This is not a defence of military rule against which I crusaded as Students’ Union leader and national columnist. But it should at least hint at the level of depravity to which what goes for politics and governance in Nigeria has sunk. As this column is being typed, there has been no electricity for three consecutive days in my neighbourhood and nobody has explained why this characteristic deficit has persisted. But for the ubiquitous generator, it would have been impossible to turn in this script. Times without number, the National Electricity Grid has collapsed and what we get at the end of the day are lame excuses or alibis.
Needless to say that this is only one example of the human condition in Nigeria as the campaigns for offices in the forthcoming elections proceed. The governance omissions and logjams are myriad; they include the closure of university campuses for over a hundred days as a result of protracted strikes by teachers and administrators, the inflation rate, rising to a crescendo, eating deeply into the comfort zone of salary earners many of who get broke midway through the month; gripping insecurity constantly claiming lives and limbs, soaring debt crises as well as decay in health and infrastructure. Given this background, the question to raise is: Are these campaigns, seriously speaking, about improving the living conditions of Nigerians or are they vanity shows and ego displays in the search for power?
I doubt it because one of the people aspiring for the Presidential office said that he had been in power at various levels for 23 years, in other words since 1999 when the Fourth Republic began. Another one said recently that he had been a legislator since 1999 and has garnered considerable experience in law-making. The point to make is that if the experiences were accumulated in a better governed country, it would have been a plus. But knowing as we do that matters have gone from bad to worse over the years with every successive government performing poorer than the one it displaced, this marathon expertise can certainly not be a qualification for recycling them into more responsibility. One feels like shouting: “What exactly were you doing in the various offices you have held when the country has so badly degenerated during your periods of service?”
One of the giveaways indicating that most of the campaign speeches we have listened to so far are insincere is that they are promising us the promised land, without as much as indicating that the journey there will not be an urbane cruise from the current dystopia. It beggars belief for someone to promise that he will institute world-class education in our universities within a few years considering how badly torpedoed the current state of affairs is. To be credible, such a promise ought to flash that such a journey will be in stages and that the terminus may take two decades given that it is easier to destroy than to reconstruct. Any presidential aspirant promising to revive our fallen institutions in four years, even eight, is being less than honest and has decided to substitute sugar-coated rhetoric for the hard work of governance. Is this the time for rosy promises or one for hard-headed analysis tinged with visionary arithmetic?
The point here is that on several fronts Nigeria is in a crisis of governance, of institutional decay and of an economy careering out of control. You don’t resolve a crisis by mere rhetoric unless you are joking or merely playing on words. Take for example the vexing issue of national insecurity. The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El Rufai revealed the other day that the Ansaru terrorists are currently present and operating in some parts of Kaduna State. Of course, this is not the first time that a governor will make such a revelation. El Rufai’s revelation is actually frightening when you consider that Ansaru is practicing a form of insurgent governance in which terrorists carry out civic duties, distribute food to the poor, collect taxes and even defend indigenes against bandits. Anyone familiar with the trajectory of this radical sect knows that what they are doing is a preface and forewarning to the long-term occupation of places where they settle. It is amazing that Nigeria has been reduced to a guinea pig callously used for experiments by foreign adventurers disguising themselves as charity organizations or evangelists. This is just one dimension of the sinister growth and development of terrorism in Nigeria which, for some reason, the authorities have been unable, for several years, to vanquish.
Any prospective leader promising to turn the tide must not invest in glib catchphrases and sound bites but must show clarity about the nature of the current danger in its many manifestations. As far as I have seen, it does not appear that many of our aspirants at national and sub-national levels have studied the problem seriously much less proffer workable solutions to it. It is no use regretting that, to borrow a religious aphorism, tares were sown by Nigeria’s adversaries while its leaders slept. Tempting as that is, what is more important, going forward, is that if Nigeria will become a more habitable place in the near future; then those who are seeking leadership positions ought to show that they have the acumen and authority to tackle the multidimensional crises that the country currently finds itself engulfed.
The economy is another sore area of concern, for a sick economy and a weak pocketbook are precursors to social restiveness, youth revolts and other forms of unpleasantness. We may not necessarily require an economics expert to rule us but someone ignorant or poorly informed about the way global and national economies work will be a disaster, not the least because he can easily be arm-twisted by global institutions and national technocrats. With the debt rate so high and economies around the world so fragile, someone who has a good grasp of economics will fit the bill. Unfortunately, however, the playing field has been twisted in such ways that intellectuals who have no godfathers cannot even afford to pay the costs of expression of interest and nomination forms thereby locking them out of the power arena.
On current terms, the chances of the election year becoming the beginning of a rebirth for the country are not bright. We must keep hope alive, notwithstanding, and encourage the citizenry going through tempestuous times to make the wisest judgment possible in the circumstances.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
ATIKU’S MESSAGE OF UNITY IN A DISUNITING AMBIENCE
Ayo Olukotun
“Most of us leaders in the North have a concept called fairness. What is fair is that after 8 years (by 2023) of presidential rule by a Northerner, presidential power should go to the southern part of Nigeria.”
Senator Muhammed Abba-Aji, a former Executive Secretary of the North-East Governor’s Forum
Sunrise Daily, Channels TV, Tuesday, 31st May 2022.
Last weekend, the opposition, Peoples’ Democratic Party, held its Convention and primaries to elect its presidential candidate for the 2023 elections. There are different versions trending in the national and international spaces concerning the magnitude of dollarisation in the exercise; although to be fair, this is not an exclusively PDP syndrome. However, we must take seriously the evidence supplied by major actors who attended and participated in the event. One of them, Dr. Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, initially an aspirant who later withdrew, berated the exercise as “obscenely monetized”. Two other aspirants who stayed the course, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa and Senator Shehu Sani, recounted on national television recently the egregious levels to which outright seduction with dollars reached, notwithstanding the presence of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission. Corruption is not new to our politics. What should worry us, nonetheless, is whether it is attaining more heights as well as becoming more open and blatant.
One international weekly, The Economist, has an annual award for what it calls “The Most Improved Country”. Against this backdrop, what is most disconcerting is rather than Nigeria being most improved, it may earn at a title like “Most Regressed”, considering what we have on our hands increasingly. Bad as that is, that is not the main burden of this intervention. Let me begin to articulate my most pressing concern obliquely by introducing a heart-rending story published on Tuesday in our newspapers. The report has it that close to $1.60bn of substandard pharmaceutical products were dumped on Nigeria by Indian pharmaceutical companies. Ironically, Nigeria is mentioned by the same report to be the first country to introduce pre-shipment analysis in the Indian town of Mumbai which makes one to expect that it should be the most immune from the racketeering of the Indian drug dealers. The moral here is that we are often very correct on paper but extremely feral in practice.
To swerve back to politics, the Southern governors some months back, and possibly out of apprehension that in most cases the unwritten rule of zoning the Presidency to North and South alternately was about to be breached, organized a meeting and issued a communiqué strongly admonishing that the presidency should return to the South following what would be eight years of Northern presidency. There was controversy, to be sure, about the declaration but that did not prevent several Northern leaders from speaking out on the side of the affirmation even while disagreeing, in some cases, with the emphatic nature of the statement.
In the case of the PDP, it was not an unwritten rule but a written constitutional imperative which was complied with in the 2019 elections when former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, if my memory serves me right, was the only presidential contestant and candidate from that party. The astonishing turn this year is that the party first annulled its own Constitution by a press release stating that anyone was free to be an aspirant, and impliedly a candidate, in both the primaries and national elections. Before the statement, the respected Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, former Senate President and current Chairman of the party threatened to resign if the zoning formula was tampered with, with the consequence that a Northerner emerged as presidential candidate. Apparently, the hurricane set in motion to achieve this singular objective proved too strong for Ayu’s moral quibbles. So we now have in that party Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Senator Walid Jibrin; Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu and presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, all of them from the same geographical part of the country.
If this is not a civilian coup in which the constitution of a party is not just turned aside but entirely overthrown in order to produce the exact opposite of what its authors intended, then I don’t know what else qualifies for that expression. Even if the party constitution did not so expressly state it, common sense does in the context of a federation in which centrifugal forces are strong. That is why the 1999 Constitution (as amended 2011) provided for the operation of federal character in appointments and several other matters that pertain to national politics.
Outside Nigeria, there are federations or close-to-confederations as in the Swiss case which expressly rotate their presidencies to achieve balance and arrest a possible monopoly of power by one section of the country. This columnist thinks that it is somewhat amusing that Atiku has chosen to call himself a unifier, notwithstanding the violation of one of the fundamental tenets of our federalism which is its inclusive mandate. The matter is not over because other parties including the All Progressives Congress have not concluding their primaries. But in a scenario where Atiku succeeds Buhari as President of Nigeria, and is re-elected, the North would have held power for a total of 16 years. I believe that is what Senator Abba-Aji was referring to when he talked about fairness. Nobody or hardly any persons wins a presidential primary without having planned it for months or years; so this could not be said to have been an accident. As an elder statesman, a privileged one at that, the PDP presidential candidate ought to have known or foreseen the damage which this swerve and blow to the elementary canons of a united federation would have on the psyche of those who are excluded by this new form of political monopoly.
Of course, as Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, revealed, while the hegemonic plot was being hatched, some Governors from the Niger Delta region were offering themselves to be Atiku’s vice presidential candidates irrespective of their presence at the Southern Governors’ meeting referred to earlier. Such anti-heroes are not unknown in Nigerian history. They populate the entire spectrum of our political activities. As I have often said, Nigerians have a penchant for sleepwalking into avoidable tragedy. In every misadventure, there will arise opportunists, public relations practitioners of the negative kind who will justify the unjustifiable. This is not the place for this columnist to remind the nation how before recent elections those who had alternative suggestions about choices were shouted out of court by those who had personalist agenda. But we all have a stake, let us remember, in this country and truth must not be trampled upon.
The moment I saw several aspirants more than usual from the South, I smelt rat and arrived at the conclusion that there was a game afoot. I may be severe but I doubt, if on present terms, the political elite in its current state can be trusted with the delicateness, tact and statesmanship that this country requires to survive.
Sadly, even if Atiku does not win, it may take a while for disaffected citizenry to forget his controversial triumph. One can only hope that in spite of all, the future will not be as bleak as it seems.
Ayo Olukotun
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES: APC GOVERNORS’ ENNOBLING GAME CHANGER
Ayo Olukotun
Harvard historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in his monumental account of the John F. Kennedy years in the White House, it was, who recounted JFK’s anecdote by which he derided automatic critics of government. According to Schlesinger, Kennedy, renowned for charm and wit, told the story of how one of the perpetual critics of government undertook a journey by sea, lost his bearing and got stranded on an island in the Caribbean where he had never before visited. Said Kennedy, as narrated by Schlesinger, the critic still trying to find direction in his locale blurted, “Which is the government here? I am opposed to it.” The morale is to play up the folly and irrationality of opposition to any and every government, even before finding out enough about it.
There is nothing wrong, it should be said, with holding the feet of governments and political actors to the fire of criticism. What is amazingly unfair if not downright unscrupulous is for one to prepare critical remarks ahead of evaluation and never to give commendation when it is due. Needless to say that this columnist has never believed or practiced that kind of naysaying which does no good both to the critic and the criticized. It is against this backdrop and in the context of last week’s rebuke on this very page of the People’s Democratic Party’s choice of a Northerner, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, as flagbearer that I give kudos to the 13 Governors of the All Progressives Congress who engineered and fought for an ennobling game changer. I argued last week that it goes against the grain of power sharing and federal character to anoint a presidential candidate from the Northern part of the country after what will be eight years of presidential rule by a Northerner, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Lest this columnist is misunderstood and more so as a political scientist, it is reductionist to attribute success or failure in governance to ethnic or religious identity.
Of course, there are other several intervening variables including what Chief Obafemi Awolowo was fond of calling mental magnitude. There also is preparation for office which is not dependent on how often one runs for any office, passion and desire to make a mark rather than merely satisfy the craving for office. That said, it is difficult to dispute that in a fragile multi-ethnic and multi-religious polity as ours the power and symbolism of nativity cannot be discounted. That is why our Constitution in spite of its flaws introduced bridge-building strategies such as federal character and equity in appointments which have been applauded as noble features–even if not fully observed–of our federalism.
This brings us to the almost heroic efforts of the 13 APC governors at the recently concluded Convention and Presidential Primaries to stand against shenanigans which, presumably, would have returned the Presidency to the North for another 8 years. As well known, there were spirited efforts below the table to anoint a presidential flagbearer from the North by circulating information purportedly emanating from Buhari. Following the publication, however, of a leaked memo traced to the 13 governors, the governors held a press conference boldly announcing their resolution based on the principle of fairness. Apprehensive that this was not enough to turn the tide, the Governors sought audience with Buhari in order to emphasise their convictions. Speaking on behalf of the group, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, told journalists that they would like to go on record as standing for what they believe is right and just. According to him, 16 years of Northern presidency, the possible outcome of current scheming, will dangerously alienate a section of the country and portray the North as carnivorous power mongers.
It is a tribute to the statesmanship of this group that they stood their ground and carried the day in a manner that refreshed many of us and flashed that there is still hope for Nigeria. Really, when you think of it, it is common sense but in a season of anomie where common sense has become extremely scarce, strange twists and turns can occur. Objectively, it is possible, employing the power of money, influence and pedigree, for the North to monopolize power for 16 years. What is not factored however is how to resolve the legitimacy problem, if not crisis, this would have created in the other part of the country.
Political scientist, Professor Larry Diamond, in an influential book on Nigeria’s First Republic said that one of the reasons for the early collapse of that republic is because the operators and players ignored a fundamental rule of driving in a narrow and treacherous terrain. In such context, Diamond remarked you don’t just obey the rules or adopt a legalistic approach but it was necessary to have bent over backwards in order to ensure the safety of all of those people driving. This is the logic, I believe, which in my view the PDP either ignored or deliberately flouted by throwing up another Northern candidate, a former Vice President, probably because of his presumed electability. But is his electability, the same thing as legitimacy or even capacity to govern? I don’t think so because while politicians who repeatedly lose elections will soon be out of business, the result of perceiving electioneering as all that counts has landed us in a quick-fix mode in which the figures tally but the woes continue to multiply. If winning elections is all that counts, then the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, because he came to power by what was regarded as a free and fair election with terrific and murderous consequences, not only for the German but for the entire world.
Part of the problem, a structural one at that, is that the politicians have only a short term preoccupation dominated by winning at any or all costs not caring whether winning in some instances can promote unfavourable even tragic consequences. The merit of the APC Governors’ struggle is that it took account of realpolitik and moral imperatives of fairness and justice required to grant a new lease to a tottering Federation. Their position emanates from values which we once had in the past whereby politicians and technocrats sometimes recluse themselves in order not to upset a delicate balance, I recall Chief Simeon Adebo discussing in his memoirs how he reclused himself from a particular United Nations office in order not to gain an unfair advantage. Unfortunately, partly because of the legacy of military rule with emphasis on fiat, the increasing ruthlessness of our capitalism, the desperation due to the age factor of some of our senior politicians and the enthronement of jungle political culture in which anything goes, we have lost these dear and life-sustaining values. Having made a choice, the PDP can no longer reverse it but must live with the consequences of that choice.
We now have a presidential race ahead of us, possibly neck-to-neck between APC National Leader, Senator Bola Tinubu and Atiku, the choice of the PDP; not discounting lesser parties with hopefuls such as Mr Peter Obi and Senator Rabiu Kwankanso. Whatever the eventual outcome, the country will require the broad-mindedness and statesmanship displayed earlier this week by the 13 APC Governors.
Ayo Olukotun
A LAGGARD CIVIL SERVICE AND OUR ENDURING BUREAUCRATIC CHALLENGE
Ayo Olukotun
“Within the Civil Service, it becomes quite the norm that there are too many people doing nothing, too many doing little and too few people doing too much”
Tunji Olaopa, Retired Federal Permanent Secretary and Professor of Public Administration.
A country’s organizational texture, its capacity to cohere, make things happen, innovate, adopt new technologies and ideas are crucial determinants of capability to develop, lift itself out of ruts, and invite itself, if no one invites it, to the charmed circle of the world’s most developed nations. Look around the globe, especially the East Asian growth miracle countries and you will see the validity of this statement. Indeed, countries which have undisciplined, corrupt, slothful and non-managerial civil services and institutions take far longer time to develop, tending to go round in circles not the least because their civil services lack the discipline and purpose to move their societies forward.
In recent weeks, our civil service has come under renewed focus because of the outcry and protests of federal pensioners over delayed entitlements as well as the arrest by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris, over allegations of fiddling dangerously with close to 80 billion naira of national funds. Considering that one of the functions of the civil service is to keep and husband a state’s finances, this allegation of gargantuan misappropriation can be likened to a gatekeeper who in the course of theft virtually makes away with the gate itself leaving the house widely open for serial looting.
To put the matter in perspective, we may paraphrase the famed writer Chinua Achebe’s coinage by saying there was a civil service. Recall civil service stars that once held sway in this country such as C. O. Lawson, Allison Ayida, Simeon Adebo among others, well known both at home and abroad, and you will see how rapidly down the slope the current civil service has travelled. There are too few names these days that one can associate with elan, fresh ideas, transparency and innovative capacity. On the contrary and sadly, the national memory is tormented by the escapades of such civil servants as Abdulrasheed Maina, Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team who was sentenced to jail over 2 billion naira fraud and Mrs. Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita who left the service in controversial circumstances relating to a contract involving 3 billion naira.
This is not to say that there are no worthy civil servants in the category identified by Olaopa in the opening quote as the “too few people doing too much”; nonetheless, they are regrettably few overshadowed by the majority categorised by Olaopa as “too many people doing nothing.” It is not even clear whether they are doing nothing or they are doing things which can put Nigeria in harm’s way in the shape of the haemorrhaging of its resources.
Why is this important? Partly because in the architecture of governance the civil service is an institution with enormous leeway and importance. Some of its mandates include the formulation and implementation of policies, serving as advisers to the political class, ensuring the continuity of governments, constituting the storehouse of governmental information as well as safeguarding the resources of government and keeping records of how those resources are employed.
To my mind, this is almost the full span of governance if we exempt the political functions allocated constitutionally to the members of the political class. To put it bluntly, next year, whoever becomes Nigeria’s President, may take the Oath of office, only to find that he has, apart from ministers, official companions in civil servants who are dispirited, laggard, waiting only to make fast bucks at the borders of new policies and generally, the sort of personnel who do not care much about the developmental race. This is to say that unless the civil service is re-energized, re-tooled and re-imagined, all the talk about climbing the developmental ladder in a hurry will not amount to much.
Britain may not be a civil service paradise. Its critics talk about red tape, a toxic work environment bureaucratic in-fightings among other ills. That, notwithstanding, its civil service and other governmental institutions have passed a threshold of competence from which Nigeria can take away some lessons. An anecdote may make the point clearer. Some years ago, a colleague of mine who had just returned from the United Kingdom, where he undertook studies in Pyschiatric Medicine and doubled as a lecturer, rushed to my office in an enthusiastic mood. He barely greeted me before dropping on my table a letter from the British Tax Office authorising to be sent to him a refund of taxes he paid in excess of the stipulated amount. The money, the letter read, was going to be paid to him in a couple of days from the receipt of that letter. Hearing such an elevating report, I rose to the occasion and the two of us took dance steps to celebrate the good news. The money which was sent to him subsequently was enough, when changed to naira, to buy him a car which he wasted no time in purchasing.
The takeaway for a Nigerian, obviously, is: Will Nigeria ever grow at the rate it is growing to a stature that tax authorities can refund excess payment of tax to anyone, much less to someone living outside our shores? That incident ought to pinpoint the gulf between countries with civil services that work efficiently and those where the bosses and several of their minions are almost perpetually “not on seat”. Needless to say that there is a connection between the work culture of the political class and that of the civil service. Mr. Allison Ayida, federal Permanent Secretary to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, at the time Minster of Finance, it was who revealed that Awolowo impacted the work ethic because while most other ministers (they were called commissioners at the time) came late to the office and required their Permanent Secretaries to do the bulk of the work and pass files to the Minister for approval, Awolowo came early to the office, did most of the work on the table and passed the files to the Permanent Secretary. In other words, he gave guidance, leadership and vision to the civil service of his time.
One doesn’t know what goes on these days but it may well be that several Ministers are leaving strategic work to their permanent secretaries who may either gainfully employ the opportunity or pass it up in indolence or nonchalance. The point to make, however, is that if an administration leaves the civil service rudderless and leaderless or if it falls short of commitment to efficient governance, it has no right to expect more than dithering from the civil service.
Overall, however, and given the strategic role of the civil service; it is important in case anyone is listening to do an overhaul of the civil service with a view to returning it to the glory days. This would entail less politicisation, more merit-based norms, checking corruption at source and not when the horse has already bolted from the stable as well as revamping the work ethics. Until and unless these are done, 2023 may be a mere mirage in improved governance terms.
Ayo Olukotun
ANGUISHED NATION STRANDED BY ITS LEADERS
Ayo Olukotun
The Nigerian State, as most others on the continent, wears a colour of abstention or grand isolation from the people who are supposed to be its centerpiece. Motions of rulership can go on, elections and pseudo-elections can hold and be celebrated, new laws can be promulgated now and again by our legislators without taking into account, except in occasional speeches, of the sufferings, the woes, existential problems of the people. The template was borrowed from the colonial prototype of the so-called Government Reservation Areas inhabited by District Officers who made calculated contact with the “natives” who lived far below in a town like Jebba, for example, where the GRA was located far up a high hill. Minimum government, far removed from the brunts of hardship which the people bore.
For the second time this year, the country is in the throes of a fuel crisis accompanied by unending queues, characteristic bedlam at fuel stations and a mysterious arithmetic in which Premium Motor Spirit is sold at prices ranging from 170 naira to 300 naira. The other time, it was contaminated fuel imported from Belgium but which took a whole month to subside; this time around, it is about elusive pricing and dispute between marketers and the authorities concerning at what price PMS should be sold. As usual, we have been told that it is a minor disruption but some experts are predicting that we are in for a long haul while queues choke the life out of the felicity in such cities as Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
Ideally, the global energy crisis ought not to have such great impact on economic and social well-being of an oil-producing country. But everybody knows the stories of import dependence, broken down refineries, rapacious cartels, mismanagement and bureaucratic corruption within the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the sole importer of fuel. Ironically, as the crisis brewed, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in an interview with Bloomberg, accused the Western powers of double standards in that they subsidize fuel prices in their own countries on the one hand while on the other breathing down the neck of Nigeria to remove fuel subsidy. Good point but are we just knowing that? All the economic history books have told us that late industrializers do not practice undiluted free market but a form of state capitalism with nationalist oars which is how many of them managed to catch up with those on the frontline. That point should be qualified by the presence in our situation of racketeers in high places who turn economic nationalism into auspicious private theft, but that is a matter for another day.
Our misery in this respect is complicated by the unlovely reality that economic nationalism cannot be practised when the nation barely exists except as a concept and in academic jargon. This echoes Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka’s poignant question, “When is a nation?” For now, Nigerians are spending precious and quality time in fuel queues, scavenging for the increasingly scarce PMS priced out of the reach of many even when Buhari says that subsidy is not being removed.
Hopefully and to put a little bright spot, the much awaited Dangote Refinery, all being well, will cushion the perennial breakdown in the fuel supply chain, although it will still raise queries about why it needed an entrepreneur to resolve a persistent and important riddle which the Nigerian state has abysmally failed to resolve.
That is not the only problem facing us. Two days ago, the Senate revealed that terrorists and bandits have virtually taken over several forests in parts of Kwara State and Niger State. A more frightening version of that warning was issued recently by the Prelate of the Methodist Church Nigeria, His Eminence Samuel Uche, who spent a couple of weeks with terrorists who abducted him and freed him recently after the payment of ransom on his behalf. In a post-event press conference, Uche is reported to have said that Fulani kidnappers claimed that they are already stationed in bushes in the South-South and South-West, including the vicinity of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway waiting for a signal to strike (Dailypost, June 1, 2022). Of course, this could be mere boastfulness but like a colleague illustrated recently, if someone threatens to blow off your head do you wait to find out whether all he has is a toy gun or actual deadly ammunition? In the same vein, a gang that successfully kidnapped a high-ranking religious leader and held him hostage for weeks had already displayed enough stamina and resources to outwit law enforcement. Therefore, it may be foolhardy to take its words as empty rhetoric.
Indeed, the subsequent massacre of worshippers at Saint Francis Church, Owo, should be investigated as to what extent it is in direct confirmation of the threats of Uche’s abductors. This is a peculiar juncture in Nigerian history as evidenced by a similar revelation by Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El Rufai that a classmate of his who was released from captivity recently testified that he overheard his abductors saying that the part of Kaduna State where they are hibernating is more pleasant and conducive to their work than the Sambisa forest where apparently they had hitherto dwelt. This nation is not very good at putting two and two together when it comes to existential security matters. However, it would be tragic if the government does nothing apart from promises and twitches until the country or parts of it is wiped off the map by insurgence and terrorism.
God forbid that this should happen, but are we reading the omens correctly? It remains to be seen whether the recent deployment of police contingents to the Kaduna-Abuja road by the Inspector-General of Police, Alkali Baba Usman, will avail or will merely end up like its forebears which failed to stem the haemorrhaging of lives. So whether we like it or not, Nigerians are in a desperate bind crying out for deliverance and escape. Nor is that all.
In spite of repeated promises, the electric power situation has gone from bad to worse, attended by serial breakdowns of the National Power Grid in the face of upward cascades in the unit price of electricity. Only recently, the Nigeria Labour Congress put it aptly when it said that Nigerians are paying for megawatts of darkness. It would have been nice to say that there is an end in sight but one is restricted from so declaring because of several unkept promises on the part of government, not only on this matter but in several others.
The other issues agitating many Nigerians include the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities which has passed the 130-day benchmark and cognate strikes by the other unions in the universities amounting to a paralysis of public higher education except in private universities. Needless to talk about the deadly inflationary spiral added to the misery, poverty and degradation in the land.
Is there an end in sight? The answer is blowing in the wind but for the sake of much distressed and stranded humanity, the authorities should jerk themselves awake before too many people pass on out of hopelessness, despair or the pangs of hardship on a huge scale.
Ayo Olukotun
INSECURITY: THE TERRIFYING SILENCE OF THE POLITICAL CLASS
Ayo Olukotun
Let me begin by giving a rough and ready account of how I spent the week in terms of what information dominated me and my time. On Monday, a former student of mine called to report that a retired Professor of Biology formerly at Ahmadu Bello University, Duro Adegboye, had been kidnapped by bandits somewhere in Kogi State. A well known face on campus at the time, the news spread like wildfire especially in the social media with prayer groups springing up to beseech God that his life is not wasted like many others had. The next day, the Punch published a report that Ansaru terrorists had ordered that there should be no campaigns or queuing to register for the Permanent Voter’s Card in parts of Kaduna. The same day, I think it was, the news broke nationally that the Governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle, is arranging for the people of his state to get guns so that they can defend themselves individually against bandits who have taken over some local governments.
On Wednesday, a politician from the Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State disclosed on national television that several communities in his area had paid over 200 million naira to bandits in order to be allowed to go to their farms, yet they are still being terrorized on a daily basis. According to him, Ansaru terrorists allegedly wearing military fatigue operate freely in that same local government (Sunrise Daily, Channels TV, Wednesday, June 29, 2022).
This is quite a mouthful for less than a week in this country of ours. Let us ask the question, amidst all these occurrences, when was the last time a notable politician or member of the political class addressed a press conference drawing attention to tragic occurrences, escalating toll of deaths and rising number of terrorists of different descriptions maintaining governance by forcibly occupying parts of Nigerian territory? Apart from governors such as Mallam Nasir El Rufai, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu and a few others, the majority of politicians and our leaders, including those who love Nigeria so much that they want to govern it, have been dreadfully and terrifyingly silent on these awkward developments to the point that one could wonder whether these are non-events. No matter how desperate matters become, it would seem as if a good chunk of the authorities including most of the politicians are under oath not to discuss these matters. Why is this important? Precisely because the conspiracy of silence gives one the feeling that something sinister is afoot since one never knows who the next victim could be as well as the plurality of forces, national and international, that are behind all of these. Alarms have been raised several times concerning the growing encroachment and spread of terrorists, several of them of non-Nigerian extraction on our soils but mum is the word as far as the politicians are concerned.
True, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) has given the instruction several times to security forces to deal with bandits and terrorists. What we hear daily, however, is that these groups are waxing stronger, occupying more of Nigerian territory to the point where they can now give orders that political activities relating to the 2023 elections should be stopped. At one point, El Rufai raised the alert about growing terrorism in Kaduna State suggesting that we should consider foreign mercenaries to turn the tide. This was shortly after a train travelling between Abuja and Kaduna was ambushed and nearly fifty Nigerians were either killed or abducted. Reportedly, the governor was either cold-shouldered or told to keep his cool for nothing of the sort is being considered as policy. Did the political class follow up or seek to clarify this official response? This columnist does not remember any such follow-up. A little later, forty worshippers were sent to untimely deaths at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, by unknown gunmen. While the people of Ondo State mourned, political party activities continued as usual and at the Convention and primaries of the ruling APC among others, only one aspirant made mention of the tragedy and requested that a minute silence be observed in their honour. So, catastrophe, the mass slaughter of Nigerians take secondary importance to electioneering, even if all that is happening is what one of our political scientists described as “voting without choosing”.
Voting without choosing is a story for another day but it is aptly coined to apply to situations where voters’ choices have been immensely constrained by the managers of the system, but that is not my point for now. What the political class needs to explain to us is why they have maintained this kind of undignified silence in the midst of dire national travails. Recall that when an American citizen was abducted and taken to Nigerian soil, a swift operation was mounted for the rescue of just one citizen. In our case here we are dealing with graduated destruction of our territory, its virtual takeover by insurgents and terrorists with Nigerians apprehensive for their lives and all we could hear from those aspiring to govern is “make sure you get your PVCs”. Is this a new kind of politics in which the country is invited to live a lie and believe that all is well even if the scale of punishment and deaths run riot?
Truth be told, most of these terrorists have been with us for quite a while. Several states have been held hostage by bandits operating in rural communities, some of them reportedly collecting taxes and levies from a hapless populace. Some governors including that of Niger State, Abubakar Sani Bello, have openly cried out about the plight of his people. It would have been gratifying and somewhat remedial if at least the leading lights of the political class are championing national discourse on ways by which Nigeria can be saved from this atrocious grip but mum, for the most part, is the word. It is as if so long as elections can be held, however narrowly, the politicians will be too glad to celebrate their personal victories even if the nation under them is on an upscale siege.
When I was an undergraduate at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) as well as President of its Student Union, I recall that the Chancellor, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, drew attention to grievous national issues, sometimes before they became tortures to Nigerians. His outspokenness bounded by data-driven analyses caught the attention of a grateful nation which was comforted that someone up there knew what they were going through. Others in the same mould included Alhaji Aminu Kano, the late Gani Fawehinmi who taught the nation that as the cliché goes, a stitch in time saves nine.
In several countries around the globe, if there were to be disasters that would claim several lives, advance warnings are given, emergency preparations are made, politicians show concern just to mitigate tragedy.
All hope is not lost, however. The political class and those in authority can still rise from their current posture to empathize with Nigerians, to fend off the capture of communities and to call to order the belligerence of terrorists presuming to give orders to Nigerians.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
ASSAULTS ON KUJE AND PRESIDENTIAL CONVOY: MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
Ayo Olukotun
Last week, when this columnist lamented the curious and mysterious silence of the political class on insecurity going gaga, little did I know that bigger assaults on the Nigerian State were just ahead. On Tuesday, attacks by presumed terrorists were made on the presidential convoy which had gone ahead as an advance party to Daura, the hometown of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) in preparation for his arrival to celebrate Sallah in his nativity. I am not all that young, nonetheless I do not recall any such incident in my adult. An equally disquieting confrontation claimed by the Islamic State West Africa Province to be their handiwork occurred on Tuesday night, when in a dramatic raid and forcible entry into the medium security correctional institution at Kuje, close to 800 prisoners were let loose.
Jail breaks have escalated in the last three years encompassing the incidents at Jos, Kano, Owerri, Oyo among others. That notwithstanding, the Kuje bombardment is in a class of its own, given its proximity to the very seat of government, the close to sixty Boko Haram prisoners lodged there and the apparent ease with which what was supposed to be a fortress was demystified. A miffed Buhari visited the scene, probably on his way out of the country, and asked questions which sounds rhetorical as to why it was so easy for the terrorists to organise, arm themselves and successfully unleash such an attack without being effectively resisted, combated or immediately arrested. He went on to express disappointment at the disheveled state of the country’s intelligence, wondering if there were no CCTV cameras to at least record the frightening incident. The questions are pertinent but they raise further questions, one of which is: Are we to believe that in the process of routine communication with the nation’s chief security officers or his appointees the true state of the prison was not known? If indeed this is the case, then the questions might only be opening a Pandora’s box concerning the true state of our security infrastructure and elite institutions.
Consternation has raged back a nd forth with security experts weighing in to ask how a nation which military prowess was once admired on the continent came to this sorry pass. For those who do not yet understand the gravity of the situation or indeed its wider implications, let me build the scenario hypothetically that this was an invasion of the nation’s capital. Imagine the circumstance whereby between 11pm and 1am, there were loud gunshots, explosions and raids in Abuja with no one apparently able to stop them. God forbid, but this would mean that an enemy group had successfully occupied Abuja and taken the country captive. The hypothetical scenario may appear far-fetched but bear in mind that every invasion by foreign adversaries is preceded by test-runs or what strategists call reconnaissance. In other words, what just happened in Kuje and on the journey to Daura are best productively viewed as a foreign adversary mounting surveillance attacks in the preparation for a bigger project of destruction.
One does not have to be an expert in strategy to understand the logic of escalation in warfare once the enemies within and without have successfully located the soft underbelly of the target and undertaken successful dress rehearsals for the big catch. Sadly and tragically, a once luminous and potentially great country has been reduced to a porous entity by a combination of factors which may include dereliction, sabotage, complicity of insiders, substituting pronouncements for strategy as well as failing to take the necessary steps to secure the country in the face of enemy action that has gone on for several eyes.
Of course, there are several conspiracy theories about these events including whether there is indeed a plot to lay Nigeria waste in order to turn it into a sitting duck for an army of occupation. Yes, we cannot go by conspiracy theories, but please remember that in security and warfare, one of the key insights of para-linguistics is that it is not only what people are saying that counts but what they may be strategically omitting to say or talk about. That is to say if a government continues to give assurances of being on top of a situation and has pointedly refused to seek international assistance while swathes of Nigerians continue to lose their lives and important institutions such as the Nigeria Defence Academy, Kaduna, and the Kuje correctional center are being successfully stormed, then the discourse must be widened beyond flimsy talk.
Up till today, it is a mystery beyond the rhetorical questions posed by Buhari that such challenges including occupation of territory had taken place while a good section of the political class, a majority, can be said to be sleeping on duty. Nigerians are slowly becoming witnesses of their own long running captivity, partly because those in positions to make their views known have chosen to trade silence for office. Go across the Atlantic and take note of how forty ministers including other high state officials resigned their positions en masse in order to force the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to resign his office. I know that we don’t have a culture of resignation on principle but one of cringing and lobbying desperately to either gain or retain office. That may, in fact, be one of the reasons why many in the political class cannot afford to volunteer a statement or mount a press conference to talk about national security; but if politicians fail, must the entire nation be dragged along the path of infamy because of their silence?
This is not a time to hide behind idle slogans, politically correct speeches and postures devoid of gravitas when the nation is so mortally afflicted and youths are escaping the distress and uncertainty with the anthem “ja pa” (get out of the country real fast). For those whose preeminent concern is to rule the country, it may not matter how bad things get so long as they can rule either as chairman of their local governments, members of the House of Representatives, senators and president or vice-president.
As I mentioned last week, we once had politicians who did thorough research to pinpoint governance issues and to propose solutions eliciting widespread debates on topical issues. With a few honourable exceptions, this is no more the case. Apart from the interventions of the legislature often treated contemptuously by the executive, nobody is talking outside of civil society activists and a few state governors.
It would be nice to imagine that what have taken place this week would jerk a slumbering nation awake and that Nigeria will be pulled back from the brink of catastrophe but will this happen? If this hopeful scenario will play out, then those directly responsible must be made to account for their conduct which has unleashed on an already troubled nation terrorists, hitherto kept in the correctional institution at Kuje. Second, all the advance warnings and intelligence briefs such as the occupation in parts of Niger and Kwara State, should no longer be treated with disdain but should attract vigorous attraction.
Finally, like nations that aspire to live long and thrive, counter-insurgency and combating insecurity should no longer be treated with kids’ gloves.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
JOHNSON: TAKEAWAYS FROM A BRITISH PRIME MINISTER’S DEBACLE
Ayo Olukotun
Once a while, it is refreshing, even therapeutic, to turn away from one country’s diminishing fortunes and state of siege in order to take a look at what is going on in other lands. To do this is not just an intellectual adventure, but an attempt to prospect for comparative lessons and takeaways. It is so easy to be overwhelmed and sorrowful concerning Nigeria’s current low ebb when you consider, for instance, that over a week after Kuje correctional facility was attacked and over 600 prisoners freed, nobody in position of responsibility has thought it wise to either educate the public or resign over an event that, if we stretch it, could easily have been the invasion and takeover of Nigeria. Notice that terrible and volcanic as the incident was, the politicians are having a ball, wallowing in their private fortunes and imaginaries over how they will govern the country and presumably share the spoils of office, even if the nation under them is slipping into a huge hell hole.
So, let’s take a break and consider Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister’s travails and largely self-inflicted woes and how the British citizenry restored the sanctity of democracy. Johnson is a well educated and privileged politician. He attended Eton College and Oxford University, came to power three years ago in a landslide victory which got many comparing him to Margaret Thatcher, a Conservative stateswoman who changed the political and economic architecture of British life. But, Johnson as the British would soon find out is no Thatcher, given that apart from Brexit, he does not have to his credit any lasting policy innovation that would rank him in the class of Thatcher. That is not the worst disappointment as there have been several British Prime Ministers that were mediocre and apparently bereft of governance ideas.. Johnson’s distinction, as we may call it, lies in his ability to get enmeshed in one scandal after another, and his capacity to change the story as public pressure is piled on him with each scam.
As some have observed, his chaotic marital status including marriage to 3 women and a host of mistresses began to reflect in his handling of British public life. True, a happy marriage does not necessarily translate into capacity to govern; nonetheless, marital disasters could well affect and afflict leaders battling for records in high office. The other thing that may have been consequential for Johnson is his antecedent as President of his debating society at Oxford which predisposed him to majoring in rhetoric, optics, style which are his immense nichés as opposed to substance, clarity of ideas and simple honesty. The noose began to close on him after a clutch of scandals including an ill-fated attempt to change parliamentary rules in order to save an embattled ally. Johnson narrowly survived but that did not deter him from trying the patience of the British in other ways or banking widely on his luck.
Among the key scandals that he was involved is the one that broke out over his attendance of a party in the course of a Covid-19 lockdown, a policy which as Prime Minister he was expected to lead and drive. That apart, there were issues raised about who paid and how much for the renovation of his apartment at 10 Downing Street, and for holidays in the Caribbean Islands. After a period of staying in denial and extended debate, the burden of evidence pointed to the suggestion n that private individuals including a rich Conservative politician bankrolled the two activities, contrary to the rules.
In a country like Nigeria, these ethical violations would not have been issues in the public space because the standards or ethics are extremely low, anyway, not to mention the capacity of leaders to downplay and wash off public concern about their ethical standards. This is not the case in Britain which operates a largely unwritten constitution resting on conventions, traditions and what we may even call gentlemen’s agreement.
Before the Pincher scandal involving Johnson’s deputy Chief Whip of Parliament, Christopher Pincher, who was involved in sexual scandals about which Johnson feigned ignorance, there had been in June a narrow survival by Johnson of a Conservative party vote of no confidence which found 41% of Tory Members of Parliament voting against him. A more calcular and integrity-driven figure would have thrown in the towel at that point but Johnson struggled desperately to remain in office until the Pincher affair broke all pretenses to a modicum of decency on the part of Johnson. In the wake of the Pincher affair, at least 20 cabinet ministers and other state officials including the high profile Ministers of Finance and Health resigned their portfolios in order to shame Johnson into resignation. It is strange if not perverse that a country like Britain known more for whispering rather than abrasive talk, matters could degenerate to the storm which had overtaken Johnson. But it had come to a choice between Johnson and British democracy, and the nation rose in revolt against repeated assaults by the Prime Minister on the British legacy and ethical fibre.
For a country like Nigeria where nobody resigns from public office even when all hell has broken loose on them, this is a big problem because no matter how bad things get, the culprits will cling to office and continue to run riot. In the past, it was thought that the legislature could act as a check on an underperforming and errant executive as it did during the ill-fated third term attempt by former President, General Olusegun Obasanjo (retd.) but over time, this power has been whittled down into almost nothingness. What we have now is a cozy relationship bordering on the incestuous between the executive and the legislature. This means that the executive can more or less disregard
“noises” from the legislature because the so-called hot speeches and probe upon probe increasingly take the form of entertainment, diversions or vehicles for titillating a fatigued public. Is there any chance in Nigeria that any minister or head of parastatal can resign even things go heavily awry? I don’t think so, for even those ministers that were forced to quit in order to contest the presidential primaries witnessed some of them begging to come back as ministers after losing the primaries. How about civil society once described as the epicenter of Nigerian democracy? This once magnificent institution of oversight has lost a great deal of its moral lustre partly because several of its leading lights have been incorporated into government either at federal or state levels. This means that if we had a situation, talking hypothetically, in which the country descends into a leaderless or rudderless circumstance, civil society cannot be relied upon to speak with clarity. God forbid that Nigeria should become a sitting duck for capture by extremists or terrorists, but even if that was about to happen, how many voices will be raised in civil society?
What is required beyond mere electoralism is for our institutions to work to the point where as in the case of Boris Johnson, the chief executive can be fined by the police for transgressions. Sadly, this does not appear to be the offing.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Dele Layiwola
Ayo Olukotun
OYEYINKA’S PANACEAS FOR TACKLING NIGERIA’S DEVELOPMENT REVERSAL
Ayo Olukotun
“In the early 1990s, Nigeria’s palm oil production accounted for 43 percent of the total world production of palm oil. However today, Nigeria is currently struggling with less than 2 percent of global output. From a major exporter, Nigeria has become the largest importer of Malaysia’s palm oil in the sub-Saharan Africa Region.
Professor Banji Oyeyinka, Paper delivered to the 8th Edition of the Annual Distinguished Lecture Series of the Nigerian Society of Engineers on Tuesday, July 19, 2022.
Public discourse in Nigeria is overwhelmingly dominated by politics, a feature which the late Professor Claude Ake once described as the “overpoliticization of social life”. We carry on as if once the political kingdom is manifested among us Nigerians can live happily ever after. This has regrettably led to the shunting aside of many fundamental issues that are consequential for the uplift or alternatively, the decline of the nation. It is refreshing, therefore, that one of our leading political economists, has returned our attention to issues which cohere around the development shutdown or, in his words, development reversal of Nigeria .
As the opening quote suggests, on too many fronts, including agriculture, the nation is not merely static but is undergoing development reversal. Stagnation or arrest is a shade better than reversal, considering that reversal connotes not just a shutdown on critical frontiers of growth and development, but a situation which reverses the progress made in earlier decades. It also indicates that countries which had several things to learn from Nigeria in earlier times had overtaken it on crucial indices of development, human survival and insertion into the technological age.
To buttress his analysis, Oyeyinka who is currently Senior Special Adviser to the President of the African Development Bank on Industrialization gave the examples of China and Nigeria in the development race. According to him, forty years ago, Nigeria’s income was six times that of China. In 2019, however, Chinese income had ascended to nearly 3.5 times that of Nigeria not to talk of the lamentable fact that Nigeria has continuously looked up to China for serial loans, experts and imported goods. In other words, a country to which China was subservient had rushed past Nigeria in its ascent to global power status, influence and industrial prominence. Needless to say that China is not the only country that has left Nigeria way behind. There are others such as Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea which succeeded in diversifying their economies and export bases, an agenda long articulated in Nigerians successive development plans but hardly implemented. That is not all.
The lecturer brings up the fact that between 1980 and 1996, Nigeria’s poverty level cascaded upwards from 28 to 66 percent; going up further, by 2020, to include or leave stranded 83 million Nigerians in poverty. It is projected that this figure will increase to 90 million Nigerians in 2022. Taking into account that there have been many poverty alleviation programmes launched with fanfare in those intervals, Nigeria can be described as the sick man of Africa swimming in a plethora of development programmes with very little to show for them. Why is Nigeria in this mess?
The lecture provides explanations such as: the poor quality of governance, weak leadership the failure to invest in science and technology which would have provided the capability to produce goods of high quality, monumental corruption, the lack of vision and focused leadership among others. According to him, while rich nations have accumulated over time a proficient stock of knowledge and scientific capability which enable them to industrialize, innovate and transform their economies, countries like Nigeria have failed to promote scientific expertise and technological development except in blueprints that would have resulted in the ability and capacity to produce high value goods. Illustratively, Nigeria which has the second largest oil reserves in Africa is a net importer of Liquefied Petroleum Gas. Not just that, as a result of the breakdown of the country’s refineries, the country has been pushed to the extremely narrow path and cliffhanger of fuel importation with the never-ending controversy on fuel subsidy. Oyeyinka’s point here re-echoes some of the observations made by the Academic Staff Union of Universities which had been on strike for over 150 days because of breakdown in negotiations between it and the Federal Government. Even before the strike, our research institutions, most of them at any rate, are comatose and there is no systematic harnessing of the reaearch output of our universities as a device to jumpstart a knowledge economy. Oyeyinka argues that because knowledge and inventions are cumulative, countries like Nigeria which have pushed themselves to the periphery of global knowledge generation are unable to benefit from the massive uptake of scientific discoveries which has enabled industrial transformation in the East Asian countries, including China.
To put it starkly, Nigeria has been left behind in the industrial and development races because it has grossly neglected to develop its scientific infrastructure and to build a national scientific stock that could have assisted it to leapfrog stages of industrial growth and development. To bring the point further home, he cited the example of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex commenced in 1979 with an estimated project cost of $650 million. Many years later and after spending over $5 billion, the project remains uncompleted and a monument of national embarrassment. In contrast to this scenario, South Korea which flagged off its steel project at about the same time as Nigeria became a major steel exporter on the world stage, creating close to 65 000 jobs in the industry and now makes an estimated $60 billion per annum. That is not the end of the story. In view of the failure of Nigeria’s steel enterprise, the country spent about 2.1 trillion naira, roughly $10.5 billion in importing steel into the country. This is an example of a double whammy in which an uncompleted or virtually abandoned project sparks off a haemorrhage of public finances to import products which would have been readily available in the country had the project been completed.
One of the issues raised by the lecture concerns the connection among leadership, governance and development reversal. Providing comparative lessons from Asian countries which successfully industrialised within two decades and managed to drastically reduce poverty, the point was made that leadership failure is one of Nigeria’s repeated problems, if not crisis. In contrast to a situation where every prospective leader comes to power with a bouquet of campaign promises that are never fulfilled, the picture is drawn of how the Presidents of South Korea, China and Singapore employed a disciplinary ethos to rally their nations behind them for transformational development. That is to say that Nigeria lacks elite consensus on developmental goals as well as manifests a laid back posture in leadership in relationship to issues of industrialization and development. Given that the country has become a junkyard of abandoned projects and development fiascos, what then is to be done?
Oyeyinka suggests the establishment in Nigeria of a developmental state driven by visionary and purposeful leadership that can galvanize a demoralized followership in the journey to national industrial greatness. Regrettably, however, there has been little discussion around these issues in the current political campaign season.
Emmanuel Udogu
Opinion
Against the backdrop of this poignant piece on the development imbroglio in Naija is the contemporary commercialization of the NNPC. I watched an effulgent ceremony marking its inauguration on Arise News last night. It is a paradox that amidst the celebration, pomp and pageantry, marking its birth, the nation’s oil refineries are not operational.
Dr. Reuben Abati’s brilliant analyses on the pros and cons of this commercialization of the NNPC last night (on Arise News) were spot-on and in sync with my concerns on the project. Some analysts, in the other news channels on the matter of commercialization of the NNPC, argued that while the idea remains great the “NIGERIAN CULTURE” is likely to be a bane and, indeed, wahala on an excellent policy that many consider to be long overdue.
On what is to be done to catapult Nigeria to greater heights developmentally, I would suggest that our "new patriotic leaders" should study the "Chinese model;" that is invite her best and brightest from the diaspora and Nigeria itself (for example, Dangote, et al) and challenge them to lead the new NIGERIAN RENAISSANCE.
Ike Udogu
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Ayo Olukotun
INSECURITY: A NATION SLEEPWALKING IN UTTER PERIL
Ayo Olukotun
“You can’t imagine what is going on in Abuja. I went through DSS Report. 44 reports were given (to the authorities) before the attack on Kuje Prison.”
Hon Idris Wase, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives,
Nigerian Tribune, Wednesday, July 27, 2022.
Shocking as the revelation quoted in the opening paragraph is, it is not the first time that the intelligence community would send distress messages to the authorities and they would either be ostentatiously ignored or sidestepped until the tragedy alluded to actually occurs. Intelligence is not just what the Department of State Services write up in their reports but includes such alerts as were raised by the Governor of Niger State, Abubakar Bello, two or so years back that Boko Haram had gained footholds in his state and had even hoisted their flag. As far as this columnist recalls, there was no official response to that information except in the Senate where some senators even shed tears, shouting their heads hoarse, that the country was fast losing the battle to terrorists. One of the concerns at that time was that Niger State is extremely close to Abuja and that this meant that Abuja was within striking distance of Boko Haram. In the same vein, the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El Rufai had warned serially that Kaduna is being slowly submerged by terrorists belonging to Islamic State in West Africa Province and other Islamic militant groups. I do not recall that decisive action had been taken with respect to El Rufai’s heads-up.
Go farther back in time and recall that during the tenure of a former Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, the Secretary to Government, a Professor, lamented that they had sent tomes upon tomes of the activities of the bandits to Abuja but had received little or no response. There are other examples but the point to be established is that there is nothing new in the successive non-response of our security bureaucracies to intelligence reports as mentioned by Wase. As they say in public administration, non-decisions are also decisions. So, those who are pretending to be surprised by this frightening trend may only be shedding crocodile tears, especially now that Abuja is increasingly besieged. To make that clearer, schools are being closed down. The recent graduation at the Nigerian Law School had to be shifted to another venue and a medium reported recently that the parents were asked not to come. It is not that alone. The recent ambush by terrorists of soldiers belonging to the Nigerian Army Presidential Guards Brigade, which came upon the heels of the waylaying of the advance party of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), is indeed an ominous sign of how uncertain matters have become. But are we just knowing that insurgency and terrorism escalate and go from bad to worse unless they are tackled with determination? If terrorists attacked the Kuje correctional facility and there were gunshots fired for several hours with little or no resistance, are these terrorists not passing the message that they are increasingly in control?
In several articles in this column, I had drawn attention to various aspects of terrorism in the hope that those who have the mandate to respond would do so. For several years, these strange invaders, including the Ansaru who cleverly embedded themselves into communities acting as friends and patriots, only recently showing their hands when they issued an order that electoral campaigns should be stopped in Kaduna State. Stranger than fiction, we may say, but those who have the responsibility to have acted before now may know and may need to tell the nation why they failed to do so. Similarly, I have frequently lamented that the political class is fixated on elections without first securing the minimal conditions of holding elections in a perilous season such as the country is currently in. A good chunk of the political class may be conveniently chloroformed or has chosen to be self-chloroformed, but the citizenry, thankfully, are not. One notices that in their reactions to the ultimatum given by minority leaders in the Senate to Buhari on Wednesday as well as threat of punishment, presidential spokesmen took turns to lambaste the senators. I hope they enjoyed writing those pieces, but for goodness sake, is the scoring of debating points the overriding issue that Nigeria faces now?
On Wednesday, Sunrise Daily Channels Television, a security expert, Ladi Thompson, warned that the terrorists Nigeria is currently dealing with are extremely sophisticated and crafty and that we need to have our wits about us in handling them. Their sophistication, according to him, may include stirring up trouble, operating in the interstices of a corrupt and compromised country in order to gain leeway. Was anyone listening to Thompson’s warnings and admonitions? If our leaders were listening, they are yet to show the kind of acumen required to collate the facts and appropriately respond. More so, as no punitive measure had been meted concerning the ease with which the terrorists gained access to Kuje, spent at least 15 minutes in giving Quranic lectures and shared money to the inmates (See Daily Trust, Friday 8, 2022).
In many other climes, heads would have rolled the very next day that tragedy occurred. However, in today’s Nigeria the authorities are apparently still investigating what went wrong. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of the politicians see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. They are overly concerned to rule Nigeria, not minding what becomes of it. Have we all been reduced to morons watching these ungainly drama go from one stage to another with only few people crying foul? One recalls that during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, who by the way was notoriously derided as “clueless”, the former President had the pluck to tell the nation that there were Boko Haram sponsors in his cabinet, at the time. These days, we don’t hear anybody saying such things but we remember that the current government’s assurance that they had names of sponsors of terrorism was not followed up but apparently unceremoniously buried.
I write with passion on this subject because if matters go further awry, I would not like my children to ask me a question like, “Daddy, as a columnist, what exactly did you do or say when the nation got on these tenterhooks?” If that question would be uncomfortable for me, it ought to b extremely uncomfortable for those who we have elected to lead us. Interestingly, most of the talk and goings-on regarding official responses to insecurity appear to be coming from the legislature. True, security may not necessarily be discussed in the media but if the President, as he did in June, gave an order that the victims of the Kaduna-bound train attack should be released by force, then we can at least measure efforts by results. Needless to say that the victims are still vegetating in the stranglehold of the terrorists.
My prayer and plea for all those who have the wherewithal to release Nigeria from the current straits will arise with fresh determination to consider what the verdict of history will be. If matters degenerate further, more promises will not do. It is time for decisive action.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Ayo Olukotun
INSECURITY: THE OPPORTUNITY COST OF DILLY DALLYING
Ayo Olukotun
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us.”
John R. R. Tolkien, Oxford Professor and writer.
As the opening quote drawn from distinguished academic and poet, John R. R. Tolkien, indicates, there is something strategic about the use or misuse of time. Time can be frittered away or hoarded to good and lasting effect. Time can be employed to manipulate or to create, deceive, disguise or to upgrade individuals and nations. That is why great nations have learnt to keep strategic reserves of minerals, grains even ammunition thus preparing their nations for adversity or existential challenges.
As a country, we have not been fortunate with planning and planners. Adversity often catches us napping. Remember that at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, influential virologist, Oyewale Tomori, stated that our preparation for the pandemic is equivalent to an army manufacturing weapons at the war front. In other words, we were unprepared in terms of health infrastructure, resources and the scientific research. Notice too that it has taken the ongoing siege on Abuja for our leaders to wake up from a seeming slumber concerning insecurity and for what is beginning to look like a serious counter-attack on terrorists who have made daring attacks on security institutions and even the centre of power. The point to note is whether we could not have done all that we are now doing long before now. Indeed, future historians will debate why it took all the recent happenings and hoopla to arouse us to spirited action. Historians will also marvel why it is that hardly anyone is sanctioned or eased out of government when glaring lapses or what looks like insider collusion occur.
A few years back and shortly after the inauguration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) administration, we had gained what was described as a tactical victory over insurgency in the North East. The government and its publicists were basking in the euphoria of that achievement, more so as ending insecurity was one of the cardinal campaign promises of Buhari and the All Progressives Congress. As it turned out, this was a short-lived moment of reprieve in a long running drama of bloodshed. Two or so years later, the State Department of the United States warned that the Northwest and the North Central would soon become other theatres of bloodletting because terrorists from the Sahel and the neighbouring West African countries were infiltrating our borders and settling down in those areas. Was there much attention given to that warning? The answer, I must say, is blowing in the wind.
One after the other, the states in those parts of the country became boiling cauldrons replete with kidnappings, abductions and increasingly widespread orgies of violence. One of the curious aspects is that very few of the perpetrators of violence were arrested, much less prosecuted leading to widespread complaints of one-sideness. In Katsina State, Buhari’s home state, the citizenry were increasingly besieged to the point where the Governor of the state, Aminu Bello Masari, apologized to the people for failing to fulfill a vital part of the social contract,, namely the preservation of human lives and property. Zamfara, another hot-spot, similarly witnessed increasing number of deaths, abductions and violence. Soon, the mobile theatre of deaths would move to Kaduna which appears today to be the epicentre of the Republic of bandits and terrorists. Is there any evidence for this?
According to the Kaduna state government sources, between January and March this year, 360 persons lost their lives as a result of banditry and communal clashes while in Kaduna Central Senatorial District alone, 1389 were abducted. As retired Colonel Stan Lambo, a security expert, expressed it on national television last week, “Is it when every Nigerian has been buried that it would be admitted that the country is in a security crisis?” Interestingly, the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, publicly admitted last week that there is indeed a crisis in the security department, following the invasion by Boko Haram terrorists of the Kuje correctional facility and the attack by ambush on the Presidential Brigade of Guards.
To be fair, before now, there were intermittent official responses to the gathering tide of murderous assaults, but obviously, they fell far below what appeared to be the increasing advance of the terrorists and occupation of settlements across the map of Nigeria, especially the Northern and central parts. In central Nigeria, for example, there were large scale displacements of populations leading to the rapid growth of Internally Displaced Persons as well as widespread killings with some villages wiped out in murders and mayhem that mimic genocidal conflicts. Even the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, narrowly escaped assassination in a remarkable onslaught on his convoy. Only his sprinting skills saved him from the jaws of death. To return to Kaduna, there were attacks on the Nigerian Defence Academy, the airport and two attacks on the Abuja-Kaduna train, the latter one with very tragic consequences.
The point about this narrative is to show the systematic manner in which the bandits and terrorists have carried out their deadly business without, it would seem, much challenge. Obviously, therefore, the counter-offensive being talked about and which appears to have been launched with Buhari’s recent command to the armed forces titled “End This Madness”, may require a much longer time than if it had been undertaken with vigour and directness two or three years back when legislators across the North were crying out that they could no longer visit their constituencies. It is not clear till now why there was this filibustering or dilation and, a related point, why the option of foreign military assistance in the shape of mercenaries was ruled out once it became clear that the terrorists were gaining the upper hand, at least in some respects. The stark puzzle is why would the North explore the opportunity of increased funding for the military to build up our military capability, considering that the terrorists had a steady supply of ammunition mainly from international sources. .
It would appear that only the recent attack on Kuje which shocked the nation and the entire world revealed that the country was in a desperate position, not just militarily but also economically as the Excess Crude Oil Account has been depleted and we are not earning any dollars because of oil theft on an unimaginable scale. One notices a certain audacity in recent weeks about the terrorist advance as they went so far as boasting that they would kidnap both the President and the Governor of Kaduna State.
What then is to be done?
The administration should not wait for further international embarrassment of our security forces before it urgently considers all legitimate options that can be deployed to save the country from its current state. At a minimum, El-Rufai’s outcry about the need for foreign mercenaries should be further examined side-by-side a massive mobilization of all security institutions coupled with the rousing of the energies of the civilian populace. We can no longer postpone the introduction of state and community police, as obviously, all crime is local. The time for that is now.
The opportunity cost of further dilation is perhaps better imagined than computed.
Ayo Olukotun
MABOGUNJE: THE PASSING OF A REMARKABLE SCHOLARLY ICON
Ayo Olukotun
“Mabogunje was not just a national hero, his international reputation helped him to make Nigeria and Africa proud in the international community.”
Distinguished Humanities Professor, Toyin Falola,
Premium Times, Friday, 5th August, 2022.
The passing on, last Thursday, August 4, of foremost African geographer and development expert, Professor Akinlawon Mabogunje at the ripe age of 90 will undoubtedly leave a huge gap in Nigerian and Africa’s intellectual community. As the opening quote from influential Humanities scholar, Toyin Falola, alluded, Mabogunje’s influence went far beyond the shores of Nigeria and even Africa to roam around the entire globe, testified to by the serial laurels and awards of distinction that he won. He worked right till old age, dutifully attending to scholarly matters in his Bodija, Ibadan office. One of his landmark achievements is his clinching in 2017 of the Vautrin Lud Prize, the highest possible prize that any geographer can win, that is also regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
As well known, he was not only an outstanding scholar, he was also a policy maker, policy advisor as well as a practitioner of human development especially in the areas of poverty alleviation and urban development. One of his key projects in this area is the community governance experiment at Awe, Oyo State where he put into practice some of his pet intellectual ideas woven around the OPTICOM (Optimum Community) model. This writer cannot confirm the source of this model which gained ascendancy during the premiership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in The Western Region. The idea could have been suggested to Awolowo by Mabogunje who was an influential member of the politicians’ think-tank. It could also be that the idea came from Awolowo and was popularised immensely and theorized by Mabogunje. Either way, Mabogunje will be long remembered for his achievements and contributions in this area.
Born in October 18 1931 in Kano where his father was a civil servant, Mabogunje attended the Holy Trinity Church School in Sabon Gari Kano and later, United Native African Church School. After leaving Kano, he moved to Mapo Central School in Ibadan from where he gained admission to Ibadan Grammar School. He then moved to the University College, Ibadan, for his first degree in Geography. He subsequently took a Master’s degree from the University of London, a year before Nigeria’s independence and bagged a doctorate degree from the same university in 1961. Returning subsequently to lecture at Ibadan, he became a full Professor within a little over a decade after his PhD. From there he went on to make seminal contributions to his discipline. A devout family man, the intimacy of his marriage to Justice Titilola Mabogunje is conveyed in his monumental autobiographical work entitled “A Measure of Grace” published in 2011. So also was his relationship with his children which include Professor of Medical Microbiology and former Acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Folasade Ogunsola, who on Thursday last week announced his demise.
Worthy of mention are the various policy roles connoting policy significance held by Mabogunje. These range from his membership of the Census Board to that of the Federal Capital Territory Commission, membership of the Western Nigerian Economic Advisory Council, membership of the Federal Public Service Review Commission, chairmanship of Nigerian Council for Management Development among others. I must not fail to mention that Mabogunje played a star role in the establishment of Ogun State University (now Olabisi Onabanjo University) and became its inaugural Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council. Two years ago, Mabogunje summoned me to his office to broker a ceremony at which he handed over his entire library both in Ibadan and Ijebu Ode to principal officers of the University as a gesture of enhancement and intellectual legacy. Needless to say that this academic treasure constitutes a most valuable addition to the already well-resourced library on the University’s main campus.
Important too is his role in the poverty reduction, microfinance and employment creation programmes at Ijebu Ode pioneered by the Awujale of Ijebuland, His Royal Majesty, Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Adetona in partnership with Mabogunje and the intellectual think-tank around the revered monarch. Mabogunje brought to bear on the project his previous experiences in other places and his international reputation as a leading urban development technocrat. It is well-known that this programme is one of the most successful in the country and well beyond it, and has been frequently studied at home and abroad. In other words, he straddled town and gown rising above the typical academic bookworm imprisoned, so to say, in the laboratory or library to make sterling contributions to development at local, regional and national levels. It is remarkable that , as far as I know, he did not venture into active politics. Indeed, he evinces a measure of disdain for most politicians who he sometimes referred to as “those rascals”. Nonetheless, he made important contributions to the shaping of national policy making becoming a revered ombudsman and policy engineer.
What is not in doubt is Mabogunje’s moral influence and character. I listened to former Chief Press Secretary to the late President Musa Yar’Adua narrate an anecdote alluding to a remark made by Yar’Adua to the effect that he held several meetings on policy issues with Mabogunje, some of them one on one. According to Adeniyi, not once did Mabogunje ask for a personal favour from Yar’Adua even though he had ample opportunity to have done so. It is easy to excuse or explain Mabogunje’s behaviour by arguing that he was already rich, but that would be beside the point, if we take into account the fact that most Nigerians consider the state arena as one of resources and booty from where they can generously draw. Obviously, therefore, the geographer was also a moral compass and standard bearer from whom Nigerians can draw inspiration.
This writer had, of course, known Mabogunje mostly by reputation, until we met at an international conference in the course of an academic project under the Obafemi Awolowo University /University of Florida Governance Scheme. The man stood larger than life and was referred to reverentially by other scholars from around the globe. Nonetheless, he came across a as a humble person who wore his eminence lightly as if he was determined that younger scholars would get the very best out of him. In later years, as the pioneer occupant of the Professorial Chair endowed by Awujale at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Mabogunje played a key role both in the formulation and implementation of our research design on grassroots governance. He joyfully chaired our methodology workshops, freely gave advice and admonition, and it was a pleasure for him when the year after I presented a copy of the book published on the project to him.
There is no doubt that Nigeria and Africa have lost a luminous intellectual star. It is pertinent to inquire that given the prostrate state of Nigerian education with campuses closed for close to 6 months with government officials pretending that they don’t understand what’s going on, whether the system can produce another Mabogunje or whether the intellectual future of the country has been irretrievably mortgaged. The answer is important to answering the question of what shape the destiny of Nigeria will assume.
Professor Ayo Olukotun is a director at the Oba (Dr.) S. K. Adetona Institute for Governance Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
INSECURITY: IS YORUBALAND THE NEXT BATTLEGROUND?
Ayo Olukotun
The word “battleground” or more correctly “battleground state” is familiar to students of American electoral politics where it refers to swing states which are critical for the outcome of elections in the United States. But this usage comes from a pacific, non-violent register describing or predicting the fortunes of the major parties. It is not in this sense at all that the word “battleground” is used in this write-up. Here and tragically, the reference in the Nigerian setting is to whether the nightmare of insecurity which has claimed many Nigerian lives, traumatized many more is going to shift to Yorubaland in the foreseeable future.
This may appear speculative or overly pessimistic but students of Media and Public Communication know that one of the functions of the media is to act as remote sensors predicting the future and future events long before they occur. Of course, it is not only the media that have this role, it is also part of the functions of a vigilant government, especially one that is besieged or surrounded by adversaries. The question can then be asked, Why has Yorubaland come under the radar of the galloping insecurity in the land? Precisely because in recent months, there have not only been direct attacks on that part of the country, the Owo massacre of June 5 being a sensational example, but also occasional raids here and there as well as alarms.
As this columnist has repeatedly maintained, the science of futurology is not one of our finer points and we are not exactly a nation that plans but rather one that trudges from one narrow escape to another, responding to emergencies rather than foreseeing them. It is a good thing, at least for a change, that security forces were able to arrest the perpetrators of the cruel massacre of worshippers at St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State, with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor going on national television to announce their names. One can count the number of times in which this has happened but it remains to be seen whether this is a trend-setting example of a new resolve or is just a one-off in a long night of insecurity and terror.
Before the names were released to the public and news of their arrest made the rounds, the Yoruba militia, Amotekun, had intercepted a gang of young men numbering about 120 who were travelling from several states in the North to, if their story is believed, Akure also in Ondo State. According to the Amotekun leader, these youths did not appear to know much about their mission or about the nature of their assignment in Akure, so rightly, they were apprehended and handed over to the Police. There appears to have been several such incidents in recent times. It is significant that it was not the Police that made this important discovery but the civil protection agency established by the Governors of the states in the South West. In the same manner, there have been recent reports of arrests in Ogun and Osun States while Lagos is reportedly under a measure of surveillance attended by “stop-and-search” exercises. This is sequel to alerts of possible raids by bandits and terrorists and the specific discovery in Ogun State of an alleged terrorist who had actually applied to be a security man in the state capital before his arrest.
In point of fact, the Yoruba Generalissimo and Founder of Oodua People’s Congress, Aare Gani Adams, had raised several warning signals concerning the possible invasion of the States in the South West by terrorists and bandits. He is not the only one who has done so. The immediate past Prelate of the Methodist Church Nigeria, His Eminence Dr. Samuel Uche, made the same frightening revelation after he was released by terrorists who held him captive for a few weeks earlier this year. In a press conference he held following his release, Uche made clear that his kidnappers whom he described as Fulani claimed that their militias were already stationed in bushes both in the South South and South West parts of the country, including the vicinity of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway waiting for a signal to strike (Dailypost, June 1, 2022). Although remarkably, a few commentators disputed the cleric’s claims without investigating them it is unlikely that such an eminent religious personage would have engaged in sensation mongering, more so, as he was describing his experience in the den of kidnappers. Even if it turns out that Uche had exaggerated, a security-minded government and people would have taken precautions because if it turned out that he was right, it would then be too late to regret that no one took him seriously.
At any rate, one does not have to be a military strategist to know that if terrorists made an attack on Sunday morning in a church in Owo, it is unlikely that those terrorists arrived there on the same day that they made the attack. It is more likely the case that they had been lying in wait in surrounding bushes around the vicinity of the town where they struck.
I do not know—I wish I did—whether there exists somewhere in the archives a strategic map of the country. But if it does, such a map should indicate the various hideouts of terrorists around the country.
It will be recalled that for some years there have been claims that armed herdsmen, some of which allegedly speak French, were captured on satellite images in surveillances conducted by a Yoruba socio-cultural group. In the same report, following the murder of Mrs. Funke Olakunri, daughter of Afenifere leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti on the Ondo-Ore highway in July 2019, statistics were released that terrorist cells in forests and hideouts in many parts of Yorubaland numbering close to a thousand exist.
Of course, such data are subject to verification but one cannot, when dealing with matters of life and death, trivialise, sidestep bits and pieces of evidence coming from different sources. To be sure, even on social media, there have been such reports by people who claim to have escaped death by the whiskers, describing locations of terrorists in parts of Yorubaland. Strangely, and as this writer has often lamented, the politicians have shown little or no interest concerning security matters, apart from occasional jeremiads as to how deadly the country has become.
The current awakening in the South West over security is timely and right on the money but it is not enough.
It is important for civil society leaders, including those in the diaspora, to strengthen Amotekun which is biting more than it can chew. This is because the circumstances of its birth, as in every other non-state security outfit, ran against the tide of official frowning at any semblance of state police. What is at stake here is an existential challenge to the destiny and future of nationalities that constitute Nigeria. Therefore, the discussion even goes beyond the postures and utterances of politicians who may or may not see the danger posed by these tendencies.
To forestall a Zamfara-like scenario occurring in Nigeria means that all hands must go on deck to prevent Yorubaland and similarly afflicted places from becoming the next battleground for terrorists.