Category: Colums

Toward the democratisation of education in Nigeria and the role of the State (2), by Usman Sarki

The Nigerian state, by necessity and its very essence, should be the guarantor of the well-being and welfare of all Nigerians without exception or discrimination. The doctrine of the state and its principal purposes as outlined in Chapter 2 of the 1999 constitution, provide the normative frameworks on which the provision of services to Nigerians are predicated. Although

not enforceable, they nevertheless aspirational principles that should be factored into the foundation of the Nigerian state and fabrics of the government, so as to create the necessary conditions for equitable access to education among other vital services.

The attempt at the democratisation of education therefore, should be both a legal and an administrative object, whose purpose should be the creation of common outlooks towards the acceptance of the fact that all Nigerians belong to one nation and have a common patrimony. This in essence, means having a unified outlook towards the extension of the privileges of being educated to each and every Nigerian regardless of his or her place of birth, ethnic or religious background, social or material conditions, age or gender.

This may be a far-fetched assumption or supposition, but upon reflection and careful consideration, it might be the much needed panacea to the challenges now confronting our country on several fronts, principal of which are poverty, the downward slide in the quality and standard of living, unemployment, illiteracy, insecurity, and a host of other negative factors.

With the democratisation of education and the provision of a level playing field for as many Nigerians as possible, the conditions will be created for the achievement of a near egalitarian society based on common outlooks and shared interests, underpinned by patriotism and love of country. At a certain level, enforcement of certain objectives like enrolment into schools, recruitment of qualified teachers, rooting out of corruption in

The Nigerian state, by necessity and its very essence, should be the guarantor of the well-being and welfare of all Nigerians without exception or discrimination. The doctrine of the state and its principal purposes as outlined in Chapter 2 of the 1999 constitution, provide the normative frameworks on which the provision of services to Nigerians are predicated. Although

not enforceable, they nevertheless aspirational principles that should be factored into the foundation of the Nigerian state and fabrics of the government, so as to create the necessary conditions for equitable access to education among other vital services.

The attempt at the democratisation of education therefore, should be both a legal and an administrative object, whose purpose should be the creation of common outlooks towards the acceptance of the fact that all Nigerians belong to one nation and have a common patrimony. This in essence, means having a unified outlook towards the extension of the privileges of being educated to each and every Nigerian regardless of his or her place of birth, ethnic or religious background, social or material conditions, age or gender.

This may be a far-fetched assumption or supposition, but upon reflection and careful consideration, it might be the much needed panacea to the challenges now confronting our country on several fronts, principal of which are poverty, the downward slide in the quality and standard of living, unemployment, illiteracy, insecurity, and a host of other negative factors.

With the democratisation of education and the provision of a level playing field for as many Nigerians as possible, the conditions will be created for the achievement of a near egalitarian society based on common outlooks and shared interests, underpinned by patriotism and love of country. At a certain level, enforcement of certain objectives like enrolment into schools, recruitment of qualified teachers, rooting out of corruption in

the school systems, etc, will have to be consciously adopted by the state, as its primary responsibility in the democratisation of education. Various attempts that have been tried in the past and found wanting for different reasons, might perhaps have worked if the deliberate and conscious application of the might of the state has been brought to bear in the regulatory environment.

It is actually a contradiction and a paradox, to see the state enforcing regulations in business and commercial ventures but manifestly failing to do so in the most important aspect of every nation, which is education of its citizens. We have seen how the regulatory environment is tightly controlled and supervised in the collection of taxes, the telecommunication industry, the sale of petrol and electricity and other commercially oriented services, where increases in tariffs and prices are enforced by the state while no room was allowed for the citizens to express their reservations about such arbitrary increases even if they are necessary.

Opposed to these developments, the education section has been left open, with parallel services being provided by governments and the so-called private sector proprietors, where the distinction in quality and accessibility are glaring and manifestly skewed against the less privileged members of the society. In such an environment, it is questionable whether there is any intention to achieve egalitarianism in outlook and attachment to the sense of nationhood, when people are deprived of the most basic and the most essential of all services which is education.

Enforcement can only be the function of the state and its instruments of coercion and its capacity to establish a functioning and credible regulatory environment. Local governments, state and federal authorities therefore have responsibilities in providing the conducive environment for educating of our people at all the relevant levels. Herein lies the crux of the matter, and the defining role of the state in the provision of

relevant levels. Herein lies the crux of the matter, and the defining role of the state in the provision of education in Nigeria. It is not enough to simply “deregulate” the environment and open the educational sector to all comers, thereby commoditising this vital service and rendering it out of reach of the vast majority of the citizens.

It is not enough also to allow the curriculum and general administration of education to be established by proprietors without taking into consideration the broader aspects of accessibility, equality, quality, affordability and inclusivity as the basis of a democratised educational system in our country. In the long run, the democratisation of education should proceed in tandem with the democratisation of ownership and control of the country’s means of production, which is actually one of the key aspirations of Chapter 2 of the 1999 constitution which has never been addressed or even discussed rationally.

Socio-economic governance and the role of the state within the contexts of both domestic regimes and of international law and human rights, are structured around rights and entitlements of citizens and the civic spaces in all countries that aspire to be democratic and progressive in both outlook and substance. The essence of globalisation is actually to narrow down global and national dichotomies and level the playing field in terms of a universal framework for the enjoyment of rights and privileges such as social, cultural, political and economic rights. International normative frameworks like the Universal Declaration of

As we noted earlier, the principles on which the democratisation of education should be based should include issues of accessibility, quality, affordability and inclusivity. While these can be legislated upon as acts of state, it is also important that actions should go beyond these to include the provision of relevant infrastructure across the board in all local government areas and states, to cater for the educational needs of all Nigerians. It is also imperative that policies around functional measures like distance learning and online education, community schooling, adult and women’s education, special schools for persons with disabilities, vocational and skills acquisition centres etc, are factored into the overall national appropriations policies to ensure the provision of enough resources to support such indispensable services.

Lastly but not the least, a unified and progressive curriculum development based on the needs and purposes of communities and the nation, must be considered a vital aspect of the democratisation of education in Nigeria. Alongside this, teacher training and the production of highly motivated and empowered teaching cadres would be an absolute necessity in the advancement of education in Nigeria to be at par with global best practices.

Human Rights (UDHR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of Migrants, the Social, Political, Cultural and Economic Covenants of the United Nations and various other universally applicable human rights regimes, have provided the legal basis for the treatment of citizens in humane and civilised ways, including in the provision of the conducive environments for their mental, spiritual and cultural development. It is only an enhanced and widespread programme of the democratisation of education driven by state policies that can deliver all these aspirations and root them in the civic culture of any nation.

February 5, 2025
EFCC loses case as court acquits Fani-Kayode of forgery charges

Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation, has been acquitted and discharged of the charge of medical forgery leveled against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Justice Olubunmi Abike-Fadipe of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, freed the former minister on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, while delivering a ruling on the no-case submission filed by his counsel, Norrison Quakers (SAN).

Justice Abike-Fadipe held that the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against the ex-minister.

The judge said Fani-Kayode had no case to answer because the prosecution failed to link him to the offence.

The judge said, “The extrajudicial statements which remain, and are intended as evidence, cannot be used for any purpose other than to contradict the person who made the statement when he is in the witness box.

“I have carefully studied the evidence of the prosecution witnesses, and I cannot find where the defendant committed the offences being alleged.

“The prosecution has failed to establish a prima facie case which would require the defendant to open his defence.”

As a result, the judge acquitted and discharged the defendant on the alleged offences.

Speaking to journalists after his discharge, Fani-Kayode said he’s overjoyed that he’s finally free because he has been in and out of court for 18 years.

The EFCC had slammed a 12-count charge against the ex-minister following his alleged use of forged medical report(s), which he tendered before Justice Daniel Osiagor of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos. The anti-graft agency was prosecuting him for an alleged N4.9 billion fraud.

One of the counts reads: “That you, Femi Fani-Kayode, on or about the 11th day of October 2021 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, by fraudulently used a false document titled: Medical Report on Olufemi Fani-Kayode 60 Years/Male/Hosp. №00345 DATED 11/10/2021 before the Federal High Court, Lagos Judicial Division in charge No. FHC/L/251C/2016 which document you purported to have been issued by Kubwa General Hospital.”

According to the EFCC, procuring and executing documents by false pretense contradicts section 369 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015.

Meanwhile, during the trial, the management of Kubwa General Hospital, Abuja, denied admitting Fani-Kayode as one of its patients.

The hospital’s head of medical records, Bassey Amah, also testified before the court that the hospital did not issue the medical report the ex-minister presented.

February 4, 2025
Emefiele counters EFCC’s move to call more witnesses

Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has urged the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja to prevent the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from calling additional witnesses in his ongoing procurement fraud trial.

Emefiele’s lead counsel, Matthew Burkaa (SAN), argued on Monday that since the EFCC initially listed only 10 witnesses in its proof of evidence, it should not be allowed to introduce more.

However, the EFCC’s prosecuting counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), opposed the application, stating that additional testimonies were necessary for a fair and thorough trial.

Oyedepo emphasised that barring the EFCC from calling more witnesses would violate the agency’s right to a fair hearing. After hearing arguments from both sides, Justice Hamza Muazu adjourned the ruling until March 20.

Emefiele is facing 20 counts of criminal breach of trust, forgery, and conspiracy in the case marked FCT/HC/CR/577/2023. He is also accused of abusing his position as CBN governor to confer corrupt advantages on two companies—April 1616 Nigeria Ltd and Architekon Nigeria Ltd.

During Monday’s proceedings, the EFCC’s 10th witness, Salawu Gana, testified that the contract awarded to April 1616 for the procurement of vehicles for the CBN adhered to procurement laws and CBN guidelines.

Under cross-examination by Emefiele’s lawyer, Gana stated that the CBN Procurement Department evaluated all submitted quotations and awarded the contract to April 1616 because it offered the lowest price.

He also said Emefiele only approved the contract based on recommendations from the CBN Tenders Board and that the vehicles were supplied and April 1616 was paid as recommended by the board.

According to him, Emefiele was not a member of the CBN Tenders Board and no evidence exists linking payments from April 1616’s bank account to Emefiele.

He stated further that Emefiele was neither a director, shareholder, nor signatory to April 1616’s bank account.

Gana also testified that Emefiele did not influence the procurement process in favour of April 1616 and had no direct oversight over procurement staff.

The EFCC, through its counsel, presented bundles of exhibits related to the bidding process for 45 different contracts involving April 1616, RT Briscoe, and Globe Motors. However, Gana maintained that April 1616 won the contracts because it submitted the lowest quotations.

February 4, 2025
JP Morgan delegation meets Edun on investment opportunities

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, and a high-level delegation from JP Morgan, have met to review investment opportunities in Nigeria.

The Ministry’s Director of Information and Public Relations, Mr. Mohammed Manga, in a statement last weekend, said the delegation was led by Dapo Olagunju, Head of JP Morgan West Africa.

The meeting, which was held in Edun’s office in Abuja, was part of a fact-finding trip organised by JP Morgan, aimed at exploring investment opportunities and economic strategies in the region.

The delegation, which included major investors with significant holdings in Nigeria’s Eurobonds and local securities, was part of an exploratory visit organised by JP Morgan for a diverse group of international institutional investors seeking insights into the nation’s economic landscape.

During the discussions, according to Manga, the Minister highlighted Nigeria’s recent economic milestones, including a successful Eurobond transaction completed without a road-show due to strong global investor engagement.

He emphasised President Bola Tinubu’s ongoing efforts to attract foreign investment through strategic international engagements and reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to market-driven reforms.

Edun also pointed to key developments in the energy sector, including new agreements with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) aimed at expanding electricity access to 400,000 Nigerians in the first instance.

On inflation, the Minister assured investors that the Central Bank of Nigeria is implementing orthodox

monetary policies while the government works to boost agricultural production and stabilise food prices.

February 3, 2025
2027 realignment of forces gathers momentum

In three months’ time, May 2025 to be precise, the Tinubu administration will be two years in office. As it happens usually, politicians are already looking at the next elections in 2027. And as such, political gatherings, realignment and permutations have since started. In this interview, Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in the 2023 polls, says the realignment of politicians is necessary for the emergence of a new mentality that can properly position governance and Nigeria. To him, for the sake of children and grandchildren, Nigerians should not for vote for President Bola Tinubu and APC in 2027 if they want to get out of their present situation. Excerpts:

This administration will be two years in May, but it appears politicians are already doing the permutations and strategizing for 2027. It is looking like they’re not even concerned about how this administration rules. Don’t you think it’s too early for us to start talking about the 2027 elections, when the administration still has over two years left?

No, it’s not too early. It depends on what activity people are engaging in. Nigeria is a very big country. I’ve been in Adamawa State and it is just one of the states in the North-East. We have North-West which is larger, and we have North-Central. Then, we have the entire South comprising the South-East, South-West and South-South. So, it’s a very large country. Infrastructure is not as developed and there is diversity in the country. So, consultation is very important. Hearing people out is very important. And politics is not the same thing as elections. So, on many occasions, you want to engage with your party members. Sometimes, you engage with the communities outside your party. Sometimes, you need to win people over to your side, and this requires a lot of persuasion. So, every community you go to, you need to go to another one and another one; so, it’s part of the process. The government should be governing; meanwhile, what we are doing does not disturb the government. Sometimes, it gives feedback to the government about how people are thinking.

For instance, I just came back to do this interview with you, I received a lot of information about Adamawa. And I think the government of the day needs to send people to Adamawa to come and hear what the people are saying. People are saying that this government is not doing well at all and we are learning lessons from that.

It looks like politicians are just going where they tend to get something. Almost every politician wants to be on the side of the ruling party and this may not give room for viable opposition. Does that not give you a cause for concern?

Well, we are on course; at least, it’s very hard for you to hear that there are people from the SDP crossing over anywhere. Those who are crossing around have been crossing for some time. They are known for that. In politics, different people have their own mission, and we are not in the business of criticizing other people about their personal choices. The only person I’m qualified to criticize is a person who is in government, making decisions on behalf of the public, spending government money in public buildings and using public facilities. But for other persons who are doing their own politics, I leave it to them, but we will never be one of those who will cross to join the ruling party. We will remain those who are galvanizing Nigerians for better governance.

We, as SDP, if you listen to our National Chairman, Shehu Musa Gabam, our National Secretary, Dr. Olu Agunloye, and many people in our party, our mission is to get a consensus across the country. It is to say that we need better governance in this country, and we need governance around Chapter Two of the Constitution and around the manifesto of the SDP; we are a little to the left. That is how we have been since our creation in the Third Republic. And what we are trying to do is to maintain a minimum contract with the people, and we are recruiting politicians who are not with us to say, you cannot have a period of every four years to

oppose somebody. In 2015, we opposed Jonathan. We opposed Buhari. We now oppose Tinubu. No, you must have a governance consensus about good governance, security, welfare, investment in social investment for the people, balance the economy, create a strong Naira and have low inflation and a high employment. So, you want to do all of that, and that is what we’re going about doing. So, we are not limited to those who have grievances against the government of the day or those who are defecting from party to party. We welcome everyone provided that you understand that the platform we’re building now is a platform that wants to talk about consensus around governance, so that when the election is over, the people can be sure of the minimum dividends of democracy.

You feel that what the government has on paper is different from what is on the streets because you talked about the issue of tax reform, the subsidy and the floating of Naira that it shouldn’t have gone hand in hand. What do you think Nigerians expected of this government that they are not seeing?

It’s my prayer on behalf of the Nigerian people and for the sake of Nigeria as a republic that President Tinubu turns a new leaf. I hope that some benefits of the painful measures he has taken would go to the people, and I hope that he would hear more. He should not be in a cocoon or in a bubble, thinking that by juggling numbers and statistics, he is going to feel that he is helping the economy, or that he will actually start to think in terms of how the people are faring, because welfare of the people is the essence of the economy. But we are also hoping that Nigerians will have hope that if the government of President Tinubu doesn’t get it right, that that is not the end of hope for Nigeria, and that they can invest their hope and trust in an alternative platform like ours and on alternative programmes that we propose. So, I wish President Tinubu every success in life and every success in his administration. I hope that he would occasionally go out and hear directly from the people. It might be a big mistake to think that Nigerians can wait for as long as it takes for all their slow motion programmes to trickle down, but I’m not in his party. I’m not his supporter and I’m not in his government. I only wish him well because he is the leader of Nigeria, but if he doesn’t take the advice, and persist the way he is going, and not understanding that people are suffering and dying, people are being left behind, and that there are measures he can take which may not align with his Bretton Woods neoliberal approach to governance in the last two years, then maybe people will be happy to embrace SDP as a better alternative to implement those measures that will better their lives.

After the 2023 general elections, some parties went to court. You have the likes of Labor Party, APGA, Accord Party and PDP. There has been crisis in the political space of every political party in Nigeria, and that makes it very difficult for opposition parties to be able to checkmate the ruling party in the country.

Well, I think the political parties should learn from the SDP, because after we had our primary in 2022, no one went to court. All those who lost the primary election to me, worked on my campaign for the

presidential election. We had many grievances with the result of the election, with the process, but we did not go to court against Tinubu or APC or INEC. We decided to learn our lessons. And those areas where INEC didn’t do well, we have made advocacy about them. Those areas where we as a party feel short, we have expanded our base and we will work better to strengthen our structure. We are working on that. There is no challenge to the leadership of Shehu Gabam as our party’s National Chairman. The SDP has no case, either at national, zonal, state or local government level, and we have participated in every governorship election since then. When we were not treated fairly in Kogi where we won and they robbed us, the candidate at the party’s branch in Kogi went all the way to the Supreme Court. We did not blackmail or blacklist anyone, and we have been engaging since then. And nobody in the leadership of our party has submitted his CV or résumé to President Tinubu that we are looking for anything that the government can offer; we are not interested. What we are interested in is to build our party and to go across the country and unite the people of Nigeria and to see that the problems of the human development indices, where we are lagging behind become part of why we do politics. And we are trying to build our politics around the issues, so that we can resolve the issues, and people can live well. So, we are not part of those political parties that are in crisis or trying to join the big government or trying to destabilize anyone. What we are doing is building large tents, calming our system down, and almost everybody who has come across the SDP is a nationalist. They want to do what is right, starting from national chairman to the least person in the party. And that is the spirit. So, if other political parties decide to come and join us, or at least resemble us in many ways, including in how they carry out their affairs, I think the opposition will be more viable. They will be stronger, and they will be based on issues, not based on sentiment or negativity, ethnicity or religion. It will be based on the promises contained in our Constitution, the fundamental objectives on the direct principle of state policy, that we are going to keep security, welfare and a robust economy to the Nigerian people, and that is the promise of SDP. So we are not involved in any crisis, and we don’t have any factions.

There were rumours that your party chairman met with a former Governor of Kaduna State (El-Rufai) and some other political figures, and called themselves ‘The Alternatives.’ Some felt you should have been there as the SDP presidential candidate. Yet, you said you don’t have a political party crisis, but your Chairman is meeting with some other political figures in the country, are you not worried about that?

He is doing what we elected him to do; win to make the party stronger. You know, he is a young man with a lot of political experience, and in many of the crises you find in politics today, he predicted them many years before he came to the SDP. So, whatever he is doing, he is reporting back to the party. He is the number one functionary of the party. He is playing his own role. I am playing my own role. The person he went to meet, former Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna, is a senior brother to me, a national asset, one of the few people in political circles that you cannot say he is there for himself and there are other people. So, sometimes you go and meet people who are well known to the media, and the media will want to make speculation about them. I just came back from the North now, and I went to meet political leaders. Some of them are 80 years old. Many of them have been in politics since the First Republic. I went to meet with them. We kept the media outside. So, we are talking to people. So, he is not the only one who is talking at a lower level. Many people are joining the party and I welcome El-Rufai to the SDP. If he doesn’t want to come early, I will go and make sure he comes. I will need many more people like that to join our party, because what we want is a large party. You cannot doubt the capacity of El-Rufai. You cannot doubt his ability to work very hard. When he wants to work very hard, you may have disagreements with him on many issues, but you cannot say you don’t understand him. He is a man who can get a lot of things done, and we need to talk to people like that. So we are talking to other people whom the media may not be interested in. So it’s not a personal agenda of the national chairman; it is a mission he reports back regularly to the party. We are also consulting with other

people who wouldn’t want to be in the media. We are consulting with ordinary Nigerians, because it’s not El-Rufai that is going to save the SDP or save the country. It is the people of Nigeria. I have been in the North for a few days; people are listening to El- Rufai. People are listening to other people, and there are so many people who are even in the ruling party, who say, why are you neglecting us? We want to talk to you as well because if anybody loves Nigeria, he needs to know that coming together to get our politics right is the right thing for us to do now. So the SDP is not anti-Tinubu. The SDP is anti-under-development, anti- poverty, anti-insecurity, anti-devaluation of currency, anti-lack of transparency and wastefulness. We are anti–unemployment and Tinubu just happens to produce a lot of those things now. So sometimes, when we talk about it, it will look like, oh, we are against the president, but we’ve been talking about this thing for a long time even under Jonathan. We are consistent about that.

Yes, you said the SDP is not anti-Tinubu, but you are against his policies. How do you differentiate the man from the policy he makes?

The policies predated Tinubu. We started this journey from SAP when we devalued our currency. We did so many other things, and when the PDP was in government, they did a lot of good things, but there are some things they did that I didn’t agree with. For instance, I didn’t agree with them for failing to boost the industrial capacity of the country and even many of the enterprises that they privatized did not start to function well and we are leaving a lot of people behind. Our textile industry is gone. Our petroleum industry is just about to restart a good thing now, after two decades of doldrums. Our agriculture is not working. So, it doesn’t matter that President Tinubu is there now, whoever is there now, our criticism will be the same, but many people are disappointed that President Tinubu whom they thought would be able to do very good work has not managed to show that. But I’m not disappointed. That was why I opposed him. That is why I

ran against him last time, and that is why I’m going to run against him now, if the opportunity comes my way. The issue is that speaking against traffic jam doesn’t mean you hate drivers.

Speaking against hunger doesn’t mean you hate the Minister of Agriculture. Speaking against poor grades doesn’t mean you hate the Minister of Education. It is that these are things we shouldn’t have. I don’t like an epileptic power supply, but it doesn’t mean I hate the minister in charge of power. It’s just that these are not good things to have. So, the President is making a lot of Nigerians poor, he is leaving millions behind, and a lot of money is being spent in the budget and outside the budget, which is not reflecting on the welfare of the people. It doesn’t matter who is there. These are not good things. And these are things even the President himself, when he was in the opposition, campaigned against, and I believe that in his heart of heart, he should not be satisfied. I don’t think that his vision for himself is that two years after being in power, people will still be shouting hunger everywhere, under development will be everywhere, and unemployment will be everywhere. The currency will be so badly damaged to this point; inflation will be going to almost the middle of the double digit. So, I don’t think he wants all of that. And I believe that he is probably struggling on his own, trying to figure out how to right some of these wrongs. And our job is to provide alternatives, because there are certain easy options, valuable options that President Tinubu is not considering, which shows to me that he has given serious thoughts to the method he is using now. And he genuinely believes, even though wrongly, that these methods are going to work. I hope they work, but I know that historically, they have never worked, and I’m trying to prepare Nigerians for an alternative that will be better than this. But I wish the President well, and I pray for him every day. I tell everybody, if you want to pray for anybody in this country, before you pray for me, pray for president Tinubu because anything he does has an effect on the security of Nigerians or the welfare of Nigerians and the progress of the country. However, when he is having wrong-headed policies, it is my duty to point them out. Not only that, it is my

duty to proffer alternatives to Nigerians and demonstrate to Nigerians that these alternatives are better, and that when you have an opportunity, just walk away from Tinubu and APC and their policies for the sake of your children and grandchildren, seek alternatives. Consider the SDP and our platform. There is no enmity in that.

February 2, 2025
EFCC politicisation and criminality started with Obasanjo, by Dele Sobowale

“Revolutions end up in the hands of mad men. Besides, if the power is great enough, it will make its own mad men by its own pressure” – Saul Bellow, 1915-2005, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 217

When a national newspaper thundered on its front page that EFCC BATTLES INTERNAL SCANDALS AS OPERATIVES LOOT RECOVERED ASSETS, it was obvious to me that the creation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in 2004, which, for Nigeria, was a revolutionary measure aimed at taming corruption had ended up in wrong hands. I am not talking about the current Chairman, who has actually inherited a bad situation. No.

The rot started much earlier; as early in fact as the administration of President Obasanjo who passed the law to create it. The story, which appeared on January 25, 2025, mentioned only recovered assets. But, in reality, some hooded EFCC agents actually rob, at gun point, people, whose premises, homes, hotels and offices, they invade in the middle of the night without court order. They cart away assets without taking inventory and deliver what they choose, if they choose, to the office.

Deliberately and inadvertently, we have allowed the EFCC to become like a bunch of cats engaged to manage a fish shop. I expect the EFCC spokesman or somebody to write a rejoinder, stating that only a few criminally-minded officers are giving the commission a bad name. I agree and disagree. Yes, it is possible that only a few people are engaged in such nefarious activities. But, the silence of others, have rendered them as accomplices. Furthermore, most people, worldwide, who hold Nigerians in low esteem, have met only a handful out of 230 million. Thus, I am treated with disdain and suspicion at every airport globally.

Whether the EFCC likes it or not, its image is being battered by the actions of corrupt officials, high-handedness, lack of professionalism – even when carrying out routine official duties. We frequently receive

news of courts dismissing EFCC for media publicity even before accused persons have been served with court orders. Recently, the commission asked a court to issue warrant of arrest for Oba Otudeko on account of allegations made against him. The court turned down the request while pointing out that Otudeko was not properly served notice of the hearing. This is not the first time EFCC would be admonished by the courts for clearly unprofessional conduct. The question is: why does the EFCC continue to fall into the same manhole?

IT STARTED EARLY

“Morning [sometimes] shows the day.”

Politicisation of the EFCC started very early; almost as soon as the law creating it was signed by Obasanjo. Malam Nuhu Ribadu, who was the first Chairman, did not fully meet the requirements stipulated by the law. But, the all-powerful President pushed the appointment through all the same.

Ribadu started like a whirlwind; very soon, several Governors were being investigated; and prosecution started. Nigerians, imbued with the Machiavellian spirit, cheered the new national hero without looking closely at the discriminatory and sometimes unconstitutional methods adopted.

Ribadu was the Man of the Year award winner according to several newspapers and the darling of young Editors. But some of the things he did were questionable. The EFCC went after Governor Festus Dariye of Plateau State because the man had a small disagreement with Obasanjo. Because Governors have immunity from prosecution, EFCC could not directly touch him.

So, Ribadu went after eighteen State legislators; accused them of corruption; invaded the State House of Assemble with armed policemen; and then got the remaining six lawmakers to impeach the eighteen who had not been tried in any court. The six went further to impeach the Governor. Meanwhile, N100 million of the funds Dariye allegedly embezzled was given to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to finance its 2003 elections. Dariye was eventually convicted; but it took a courageous Justice of the Federal Court to declare EFCC’s actions illegal.

The same trick was played on Bayelsa State with Alamieyeseigha in order to get him convicted and Jonathan elevated as Governor; and to some extent Ibori. An attempt was also made to get Attah into EFCC net which failed woefully because Attah took the unusual step of dragging the EFCC to court and defeated the commission. I was in court with Attah throughout his ordeal until vindication. What many Nigerians did not know was the fact that Alamieyeseigha, Ibori and Attah were the ‘Three Musketeers’ of RESOURCE CONTROL – the struggle which eventually resulted in 13 per cent derivation which the Niger Delta States have been enjoying since. Attah wrote the book, to which I wrote the foreword.

But, the credit for 13 per cent derivation belongs to the three former Governors.

Meanwhile, Obasanjo was totally opposed to RESOURCE CONTROL; he wanted the oil-producing states to receive only 1.5 per cent derivation but only for onshore production and nothing for offshore production. Only the tenacity of the three Governors saved the Niger Delta from the sad fate Obasanjo had in mind for the people. Out of vindictiveness, Obasanjo made sure that the three Governors paid heavy prices for their defiance. He sent the EFCC after them.

Only truth and honesty saved Attah. By contrast, the EFCC also charged to court former Governor Odili, an ally of Obasanjo, who stood aloof from the RESOURCE CONTROL effort. Odili got a perpetual court injunction from another court against investigation and prosecution of himself and members of his administration. The EFCC had the option of getting that perpetual injunction vacated; but till today has not exercised that option.

WAR ON VICE PRESIDENT ATIKU

“A truth that’s told with bad intent/ Beats all the lies you can invent” – William Blake, 1757-1827, VBQ p 254

When former Vice President Atiku announced his intention to run for president in early 2006, he inadvertently started a war with Obasanjo – who was determined that Atiku would not be his successor. Among the weapons unleashed upon Atiku was the EFCC which probed the VP’s management of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund, PDTF. Ribadu, predictably, “indicted” Atiku and provided Obasanjo with the excuse needed to illegally take over the PDTF.

Later, however, a Senate Ad Hoc Committee, headed by Senator Danjuma, investigating the affairs of the PDTF, had this to say about PDTF and other matters involving Obasanjo: “I was shocked, disturbed at the extent of gross abuse of office, privileges, and misapplications of public funds by both the President and Vice President…Page 45 [of the Ad Hoc Committee’s Report] says PDTF was paying for services outside its mandate and this was a regular feature…” That was after Ribadu had issued a report exonerating Obasanjo of all blame on mismanaging PDTF funds.

When another Senator suggested that another probe be conducted, Mrs Danjuma replied: “I do not see any need for another investigation [especially] if it was to be conducted by Ribadu’s EFCC which has disgraced itself] because this is enough; it speaks for itself that funds were misplaced against the Constitution and against the people of Nigeria.”

PDP: CORRUPTION INCORPORATION. P 198)

The Senate Ad Hoc Committee was able to discover several instances of illegal and fraudulent misapplications of public funds by Obasanjo (including payment of N250 million to a famous lawyer) from PDTF funds; which the EFCC failed to see…

FEMI FANI-KAYODE: TELLING LIES AS HISTORY

I read Femi Fani-Kayode’s piece published in several newspapers and ordinarily would not have bothered to join issues with him; until I got to the point where he described his father Remi Fani-Kayode as “an innocent man”. That was not how I would describe the man who drove a Land Rover Jeep to Inalende Street in 1963 where our family house was directly opposite that of Honourable Lanlehin. I was tossed over the fence by my stepmother with money stuffed in my pocket to go to Ogunpa Motor Park to board a bus for Lagos. Half the people in our house have not been seen till today after the invasion. Innocent man? Many of us wonder why the soldiers left him alive.

To be continued

February 2, 2025
Who says atomistic PDP cannot die? By Tonnie Iredia

Some years back, it was common practice among members of Nigeria’s former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to describe their political party as the largest in Africa. None of us outside the party bothered to authenticate the claim. Perhaps some people just believed it because the party was Nigeria’s biggest, judging by the overwhelming number of elected political office holders it produced from the level of a local council to the presidency.

Indeed, the PDP won the Presidential elections of 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011. At a point, its party chieftains boasted that their party would rule Nigeria for a minimum of 50 years. But the PDP which is visibly an atomistic entity – one that is permanently at war with itself, would incur huge challenges.

In the last 6 years, the PDP, now in the opposition, has been embroiled in one crisis or another which it has been unable to resolve. To start with, the party behaves as if it relishes being a headless body as it always rubbishes every chairman it has had. Although some members imagined their founding chairman, Solomon Lar to be too charismatic to be rubbished out of office, his tenure was not hitch free. The harassments of his successors spoke volumes. Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh, Okwesilieze Nwodo, Vincent Ogbulafor, Adamu Muazu, Uche Secondus together with the indomitable Ahmadu Ali (the Garrison Commander) were all virtually rubbished. Thus, PDP members do not appear conscious of the adverse effects of a headless body; otherwise with what does such a body think?

Whereas some PDP members often greatly disagreed with critics such as this columnist for calling them out, each time they displayed political immaturity, intolerance and avoidable tension, we have since been proven correct by the unending crises in the party. The case of chairman Bamanga Tukur was particularly annoying as party executives gave him sleepless nights for attempting to reform their palpably corrupt national secretariat. In 2015, the late media icon, Raymond Dokpesi was appointed to chair a committee to rebrand

the party ahead of its national conference. Dokpesi’s speech at the conference which was well attended by many was titled “PDP is not dying and certainly will not die.” If Dokpesi’s team successfully allayed public fears of a one-party state, this column projected other observations.

First, as large as the forum was, it was different from the usual flamboyance of the PDP. The normal bright colours of the party were not there; Abuja was not brought to a standstill as the party was used to doing whenever it organized any activity in the past. The paucity of media coverage was also observed as only Dokpesi’s Africa Independent Television gave the event partial LIVE transmission which was interrupted at a point and replaced by the coverage of another event – the 7th Anniversary of Edo governor Adams Oshiomhole. Could it be that the PDP did not have the financial muscle to sustain a LIVE coverage? Again, I didn’t see party leaders such as former President Goodluck Jonathan, his former Vice, Namadi Sambo, Alex Ekwueme, Ken Nnamani, David Mark and the popular leader Anthony Anenih who had been advertised as confirmed participants at the conference.

The national executive of the party later distanced itself from Dokpesi’s earlier apology for what he called the party’s past mistakes. The then national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, later told the media that Dokpesi’s apology was his personal opinion. Unfortunately, Dokpesi’s posture was more realistic as Nigerians often showed that they deprecated PDP’s attitude of self-denial. The party being a human organization that is not infallible made so many mistakes in its 16-year rule; a notable example being its constant effort of sweeping issues of public interest under the carpet. Allegations concerning the inappropriate purchase of armoured vehicles and the daily hiring of private aircraft against two influential female ministers were similarly discountenanced by the then PDP government.

A party that lacks unity of direction would always have crisis and PDP has since had too many. At different times, it lost powerful chieftains. One reason the party lost the 2015 general election was a sudden defection of its governors in 5 states namely: Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa). The then Jigawa governor, Sule Lamido managed to remain but the way his own presidential ambition was thwarted particularly, the coincidence of the pursuit of his children for corruption charges as soon as he announced his presidential bid was irritating. A dramatic example of all PDP losses was that of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who publicly tore his PDP membership card in the presence of his party ward chairman and over 300 other members at a gathering in Abeokuta.

The 5 governors that left the PDP during Goodluck Jonathan’s administration were not the last to do so. Two others, Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) and Ben Ayade (Cross River) left PDP to join former President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. Speculations that some incumbent PDP governors and other political office holders are working towards joining President Bola Tinubu’s administration may not be far-fetched. Researchers who may be interested in searching for what is repulsive in the PDP may begin by examining the high degree of self interest in the party. The general impression that Nigerian politicians often defect from their parties because such parties have no ideology needs to be further illuminated. Political office-holders defect to only the ruling parties while those who defect from the ruling parties are only searching for another platform that can guarantee their candidacy in future primaries

It is self-interest that explains the current controversies surrounding the office of the national secretary of the PDP. In other climes, political party executives would resign from office as soon as it becomes clear that they no longer enjoy the confidence of their members. But here, the PDP national secretary cannot see his

lack of popularity. He would rather wait for a court order and if what comes is not favourable, he would disobey and then embark on a long litigation process through the hierarchy of courts notwithstanding the turmoil in his party. His predecessor, Iyorcha Ayu did not leave office even though he had promised to do so if a northerner emerged from party primaries as presidential candidate. When will the current acting national chairman in the interest of party unity and progress, allow the appropriate zone to fill the position?

The PDP has continued to engage in circumlocution choosing different chieftains to resolve grievances of certain party members as if the main cause of the grievances is unknown. Everybody is blaming FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike as the cause of PDP’s problem but no one has the courage to suspend him. We hear Wike ought not to have accepted to serve in the APC government, but none of the reconciliation committees says anything about Wike’s defence that the party executive approved for him to take the post. Another offence of Wike is that he spent huge sums of money building the party. What did other governors of the party do with their own money? A state governor is the official leader of the PDP in a state, why is the party unable to sanction all those disputing Governor Sim Fubara’s position in Rivers state?

PDP is the party that introduced zoning to Nigerian politics, but it is the only party that thinks it is in order to continue to support the emergence of only a Northern presidential candidate. By the time this happens again in 2027, PDP will give birth to many more reconciliation committees. After that, it will tell the nation that APC officials are the ones luring PDP members to the ruling party. In Edo state, Nigerians are being told that it is the APC that lured elected PDP councillors to disown their own chairmen and vice chairmen with whom they were jointly elected. Well, with continuing implosion, PDP leaders will not have to waste time claiming to be the largest in Africa; they will instead find out if anyone is still with them.

lack of popularity. He would rather wait for a court order and if what comes is not favourable, he would disobey and then embark on a long litigation process through the hierarchy of courts notwithstanding the turmoil in his party. His predecessor, Iyorcha Ayu did not leave office even though he had promised to do so if a northerner emerged from party primaries as presidential candidate. When will the current acting national chairman in the interest of party unity and progress, allow the appropriate zone to fill the position?

The PDP has continued to engage in circumlocution choosing different chieftains to resolve grievances of certain party members as if the main cause of the grievances is unknown. Everybody is blaming FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike as the cause of PDP’s problem but no one has the courage to suspend him. We hear Wike ought not to have accepted to serve in the APC government, but none of the reconciliation committees says anything about Wike’s defence that the party executive approved for him to take the post. Another offence of Wike is that he spent huge sums of money building the party. What did other governors of the party do with their own money? A state governor is the official leader of the PDP in a state, why is the party unable to sanction all those disputing Governor Sim Fubara’s position in Rivers state?

PDP is the party that introduced zoning to Nigerian politics, but it is the only party that thinks it is in order to continue to support the emergence of only a Northern presidential candidate. By the time this happens again in 2027, PDP will give birth to many more reconciliation committees. After that, it will tell the nation that APC officials are the ones luring PDP members to the ruling party. In Edo state, Nigerians are being told that it is the APC that lured elected PDP councillors to disown their own chairmen and vice chairmen with whom they were jointly elected. Well, with continuing implosion, PDP leaders will not have to waste time claiming to be the largest in Africa; they will instead find out if anyone is still with them.

February 2, 2025
Letting ‘lesser’ sports breathe, by Patrick Omorodion

The Bible tells us that “people perish for lack of knowledge”.

And the government of Nigeria at a time worsened the situation by removing history as a subject in our schools curriculum. Tell me, what did they aim to achieve with that decision. Thank God the subject has been reintroduced in our schools curriculum. Our pupils and students need to be taught the correct history of Nigeria.

Why did I bring this up? Of course, our political class, the military politicians, so to speak, made us believe that football is the king of sports in the country and therefore adopted it as number one sports.

Sports, particularly cricket and football were first introduced to Nigeria by the British Colonial administrators in the 19th century.

History tells us that English missionaries and army personnel added impetus to the spread of the games. We are also told that the first recorded football and cricket matches in Nigeria were in 1904.

Nigeria Cricket Association (expatriates) was formed in 1932 while the indigenous cricketers responded with a Nigeria Cricket Association (indigenous) in 1933.

In the same vein, football association was formed by the expatriates in 1933 but the indigenous people officially formed theirs as Nigeria Football Association, NFA in 1945.

Again we are told that in 1951, a joint board of control for cricket was inaugurated in Lagos with each association retaining its identity. Nigeria Cricket Association (NCA), an amalgamation of both expatriate and indigenous bodies, eventually evolved in 1957. The name was however, changed to Nigeria Cricket

Federation (NCF) in 2006.

Most schools in Nigeria in the early years, before and after Independence, were run by missionaries and so they made Cricket popular in those schools.

The incursion of the military into our political life changed all that. They found football to be the opium of the masses

Dr. Michael Omolayole, a fan of this Column said during their days, they could just roll rubber together and start playing it on the streets. I will never forget the words of one sports administrator in Oyo State during the military era that, “football is a propaganda machine for government”.

Civilian governments followed in that stead by making football the number one sport in the country and devoted more time and resources to its promotion and for competition rather than development.

That was how cricket and other sports now categorized as ‘lesser’ sports suffered neglect and poor funding.

A brief history of the rise of cricket here will suffice as obtained from their archives.

‘Following its first recorded international match in 1904, Nigeria and its neighbour Ghana played each other on numerous occasions. In 1959, Rex Akpofure made history by becoming the first Nigerian to captain a joint Nigerian team (expatriates and locals) in a series against Ghana. Prior to that, in 1954, a match between Nigeria and Ghana was played to mark the golden jubilee of cricket relations between both countries in which the Nigerian team was captained by Eddy Hughes (a Nigerian).

In 1964, Nigeria expanded its international horizon by establishing contact with the Gambia and Sierra Leone. West African Cricket Council, WACC was formed in 1965 and a quadrangular tournament featuring the four West African countries of Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone commenced in 1976 with Nigeria being the pioneer host. Nigeria won the first 10 editions of the WACC Quadrangular from 1976 to 1997.

The Nigerian team toured East Africa in 1973 over six weeks, playing in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. The team won two, lost two and drew six international matches during the tour but won most of the friendly matches. In February 1974, a return tour was undertaken by Tanzania to Nigeria. The earliest exposure of Nigerians to cricket in the UK was organised in the 1950s and 1960s by Unilever (UK) in co-operation with colonial civil servants, company staff on vacation and Nigerian students or summer visitors in the UK.”

From the above you can see that cricket is as old as football if not older. Just that focus is now more on football by the government. However, the arrival of the current president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, NCF, Mr. Uyi Akpata has changed the fortune of the sport. He and his team embarked on strategic planning and investment, they didn’t wait for government funding.

And today, the cricket revolution is unfolding faster than anticipated, as the NCF boss postulated himself.

The country’s female U-19 team, the Junior Yellow Greens, made history at the recent ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in Malaysia. A remarkable feat for a team making its debut on the world stage.

According to Akpata, “Our development plan was showing that we should have been here by 2028, but these girls just keep redefining the standards. It shows that when you invest a lot, the results come through, even faster than expected.”

The two men at the helm of affairs at the National Sports Commission, NSC, Shehu Dikko and Bukola Olopade were so excited that they splashed dollars on the girls.

It should not end there though because it would amount to giving them fish to eat rather than teaching them how to catch the fish themselves.

These so-called lesser sports should be encouraged. They need infrastructure for training and competitions. Their athletes equally need better welfare packages like their counterparts in football get.

Only that way will the country benefit from its potential in the sport sector. This is my message to Dikko and Olopade today. I wish both of them successful tenures.

February 2, 2025
IMF/WTO verdicts: Corruption, absence of rule of law harm Nigeria’s economy, by Olu Fasan

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Trade Organisation, WTO, both have a remit to monitor and review the economic developments and policies of their members. The aim, for the IMF, is to ensure that countries manage their economies and finances well to prevent financial instabilities both nationally and internationally. For the WTO, the aim is to make sure none of its members pursues autarkic, beggar-thy-neighbour trade policies that could harm their economies and those of other members, upending the global economy.

Thus, under Article IV of its Articles of Agreement, the IMF conducts what is known as Article IV Consultations with each of its members every year, studying their economic policies and practices, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses and providing policy recommendations. Similarly, under Article IV (4) of the WTO Agreement, the WTO undertakes a Trade Policy Review, TPR, of each member-state to ensure their trade policies are consistent with WTO rules. However, unlike the IMF, the frequency of the WTO’s TPRs is determined by each member’s share of world trade. For that reason, given Nigeria’s minuscule share of world trade, at about 0.49 per cent, its TPR takes place every six or seven years, and, since the WTO was established in 1994, Nigeria has had six TPRs to date.

Now, believe me, I have read virtually all the reports of the IMF Article IV Consultations on Nigeria over the past ten years, and have read all the reports of WTO’s six TPRs on Nigeria, the latest published in November 2024. Why? You may wonder. Well, the fixation is borne out of my professional interests as a trade lawyer and a scholar in international economic and trade law and policy, a subject I taught at the London School of Economics, not to mention once being a researcher at the WTO in Geneva.

Over the years, Nigeria’s successive Article IV Consultation and TPR reports made a damning reading because they constantly highlighted the structural weaknesses in Nigeria’s economic and trade policies and lamented the country’s stubborn refusal to implement the policies recommendations of the IMF and the WTO, thereby failing to tackle the defects.

However, the 2024 Article IV Consultation and TPR reports were a bit different. Both the IMF and the WTO recognised and commended the economic reforms introduced by the Bola Tinubu administration, notably: the removal of the fuel subsidies, the floating of the naira and the scrapping of the CBN’s list of 43 import items for which foreign exchange could not be purchased in the official forex market. Nevertheless, the IMF and the WTO acknowledged that Tinubu’s reforms had produced adverse consequences, particularly with skyrocketing inflation, massive depreciations of the naira and acute food insecurity and hunger. They implied that the lack of proper sequencing of the reforms, the absence of effective mitigation, such as genuine safety nets, and “persistent loose financial conditions” should be blamed.

But what really struck me in the reports is the attention that both the IMF and the WTO gave to how endemic corruption and the absence of the rule of law pose existential challenges for Nigeria’s economy. The WTO states: “Corruption, coupled with weak enforcement of the rule of law, remains significant barriers to private sector-led growth in Nigeria.” On its part, the IMF devotes a whole section to the issue, under an annex titled “Towards stronger anti-corruption and rule of law in Nigeria”. The IMF points to studies showing that “reducing corruption in Nigeria to the level observed in benchmark countries (for example, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morrocco or South Africa) could boost growth by 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points annually”, and “lowering Nigeria’s level of corruption to that of South Africa could increase the amount of infrastructure obtained from each publicly invested dollar by 12 per cent.”

Of course, everyone knows that Nigeria is a fantastically corrupt country, where, as the IMF puts it, “corruption is entrenched at all levels of government activity.” But few people in this country link corruption to Nigeria’s economic performance. I mean, if reducing corruption to the level in South Africa could grow Nigeria’s economy by 1.5 per cent and could increase the amount of infrastructure obtained from each dollar the government spends by 12 per cent, why are Nigerians lethargic about the level of corruption in their country? Why are they behaving as if corruption is a victimless crime that has nothing to do with them?

Sadly, although few talk publicly about this, corruption is the Achilles’ heel of the Tinubu administration.

But what are the main sources of the endemic corruption? Well, the first is the pervasive lack of government transparency. Nigeria is a country where government activity is shrouded in utter secrecy – secrecy about how contracts are awarded and to whom; secrecy about how budget allocations are spent; secrecy about how Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, spend public money. Public disclosure, a common practice in civilised nations, is a rarity in Nigeria. Despite the existence of the so-called Freedom of Information Act, it’s easier to squeeze water from a stone than to have access to government information. The IMF calls for the passage of the Whistle-Blower and Witness Protection Bills. But even if the bills were passed into law, a government that uses Cybercrime laws to suppress freedom of speech and of the press would hound and intimidate whistle blowers.

There’s a multitude of agencies, policies and initiatives purportedly designed to tackle corruption in Nigeria. Yet, large-scale corruption persists. Why? Because such “anti-graft efforts” are devoid of transparency, accountability, honesty, sincerity, credibility and political will. And, of course, because the fish rots from the head down, the battle is lost ab initio!

Now, the other main source of corruption in Nigeria is also well-known: the absence of the rule of law. With respect to the economy, this is more noticeable in tax administration and port and customs operations. For instance, according to the WTO, over 90 per cent of all consignments undergo physical inspection prior to customs clearance, despite the existence of a risk management system, while businesses make about 200 unofficial tax payments per year. Why? They are symptoms of an utter disregard for the rule of law, fuelled by corruption! Sadly, such abuses permeate every section of the Nigerian economy.Truth is, the IMF and the WTO are right: Nigeria’s chronic and acute governance, corruption and rule-of-law problems are real obstacles to its economic progress. But who’s listening?

January 30, 2025
2027: North is powerless against Tinubu (1), by Ochereome Nnanna

In exactly four months, those elected in 2023 will be celebrating their second year in office. Shortly after, the politics of 2027 will increasingly occupy the attention of politicians and Nigerians as a whole. Such is the dialectic of politics and government in a democracy.

I was prompted to address this topic by the utterances of some Northern politicians and activists, especially those threatening to snatch power from President Bola Tinubu in 2027. On this topic, the North (the heavy political, Muslim North, that is), are still divided. To be sure, this bloc, with the South West and state power in tow, played the leading role in putting Tinubu in power in 2023.

However, some are already regretting their action due, partly, to Tinubu’s draconian hunger and poverty-inducing economic policies, subsisting general insecurity, extreme nepotism and Tinubu government’s self-isolation from the realities that the ordinary Nigerian faces daily.

To add salt to their injury, Tinubu’s bold and revolutionary tax reforms (especially the derivation-rewarding VAT component), have brought out many Northern leaders and politicians across party lines in face offs with the president. I will take as my samples two voices that have gone so far as to threaten the president’s second term ambition with the North’s electoral power. One is a professional noisemaker and rabble rouser. The other is a tested politician. The tested politician is Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State. He said the North will show Tinubu their “hue” in 2027.

Bala is the Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum. He contested in the PDP presidential primaries in 2022 and lost before hurrying home to retrieve his second term ticket from his carefully handpicked placeholder, Ibrahim Kassim, whom he promptly rewarded with reappointment as Secretary to the State Government. Funny, Kassim resigned on 14th December last year over his rumoured

governorship ambition in 2027, which generated rancour between him and the Governor.

It is generally believed that Bala Mohammed will present himself on PDP platform as the North’s arrowhead to unseat Tinubu. Bala is also a slick political dealmaker. As an All Progressives People’s Party (ANPP) Senator, he supported the “doctrine of necessity” that enabled former Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to assume power when President Umaru Yar’ Adua died. Jonathan rewarded him by appointing him Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on 6th April 2010.

Shortly after, the senator decamped to PDP. Since then, he has been the major pillar of the party in Bauchi State and the North East. Despite his perceived sabre-rattling, nothing stops Bala Mohammed from making a deal with Tinubu before 2027 and going back to his original party, now called the All Progressives Congress (APC). Tinubu is the kind of president who can bring people like Bala over if he deems it necessary. The current sabre-rattling could merely be Bala’s positioning for 2027, one way or the other.

Now, the noisemaker, Yerima Shettima. He operates under the platform of Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG, sounds like compressed natural gas) and Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF). Yerima is threatening Tinubu, yet he has no electoral value. But he sure packs plenty of nuisance. The most annoying thing is that because he shares the name: Shettima, with our amiable Vice President, His Excellency, Kashim Shettima, many people, especially Southerners, often mistake them for each other.

It was this Yerima and one Abdulaziz Suleiman that fronted the laughable “Igbo quit notice” issued by CNG and others in August 2017. Ironically, it was Kashim Shettima, as Governor of Borno State and Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum that cornered Yerima and his group and made them swallow their ultimatum. VP Shettima is a notable friend of the Igbo nation. Yerima was also made to lead a delegation of his fellow

attention seekers to Owerri to sign a “peace pact” with Ralph Uwazuruike’s MASSOB, which had nothing to do with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the group actively pushing for Biafra exit from Nigeria at that time.

It was also Yerima’s voice that was captured in an apparent viral telephone conversation with former Governor Adekunle Amosun of Ogun State. Yerima was spewing his usual trash against the Igbo, buccally haemorrhaging about how the Igbo should be “cut down” in Nigeria, while Amosun did his best to persuade Yerima to tame his outburst. Till today, many Igbo still erroneously believe it was Kashim Shettima that perpetrated Yerima Shettima’s Igbophobic outbursts in 2017. Yerima cowered and never came out to own up.

You will never see this fellow involved in the search for a lasting solution to the North’s millions of out-of-school almajiri children, tackle the deep-seated poverty there which makes Nigeria the “poverty capital of the world” and end the multi-faceted insecurity, Boko Haram and herdsmen terrorism, banditry and mass abductions for ransom which threaten not just the North but the whole country. You will never see him among groups strategising to foster peace and unity among Nigerians, which will also benefit the North. All Yerima does is weaponise the North against the rest of Nigerians in the dumb belief that he is promoting Arewa’s interest. He and his cohorts are mere attention seekers and should be ignored.

No region has the sole power to grab power. It was possible for the North during the military era. But under democratic dispensations, there must be alliances between the North and at least, one major bloc, such as the six states of the South West or the eleven states of the South East and South-South. Secondly, no region is capable of electorally unseating an incumbent president, unless certain conditions exist in the polity to aid them. Finally, Tinubu is the last political leader you can expect to deny his second term, his abysmal performance in government notwithstanding.

These are issues I will discuss in the second and final take of this article.

January 29, 2025