Cloned Nigerian Anchor

Author: Ugo Onuoha

  • How not to revamp the national economy

    How not to revamp the national economy

    ALHAJI Bola Ahmed Tinubu violently shook and severely unsettled the national economy in the first few hours after he assumed office eighteen months ago. That of its own could not have been a problem. What manifested down the line was the real issue – Tinubu had no discernable plan to methodically work on an economy that, it must be acknowledged, had been dealt a severe blow by a serial bungler, one Maj.-Gen Muhammadu Buhari, the affliction who passed through here masquerading as a president. If this country were to be a human being what Buhari inflicted on it between 2015-2023 would have had more severe and deadlier outcome than the COVID-19 pandemic that swept through the globe in 2020/2021, leaving millions dead in its wake, destroying economies, and permanently impairing the health of many people worldwide, especially those with pre-existing health challenges. And Nigeria when Tinubu took the helm had pre-existing political and economic conditions. But instead of stemming the hemorrhaging, he made it worse.

    Tinubu clearly mistook naivety bordering on ignorance for courage when he declared on May 29 last year that subsidy was gone. The spirit that he said led him to act in such a manner was the evil spirit. That same spirit drove him to act in such a manner in the foreign exchange market. The combined effects of those impulsive actions are responsible for our severely depressed and damaged economy and the littering of the landscape with human skeletons. Everything that followed had added to compound the dire straits this country has been consigned to in less than two years. The greater tragedy is that the regime is still digging, assuring only itself that it was on the journey of great economic reforms. Though it has no benchmarks and timelines for its promised dividends of democracy, it keeps assuring of light at the end of the tunnel.

    It’s now obvious that this regime believes that the vigorous and mindless application of a narrow monetary policy instrument alone will cure the many ills afflicting Nigeria’s economy. Through the central bank of Nigeria (CBN), it has misguidedly pursued taming the rampaging inflation which, by the way, it caused by its own impulsive decisions early in the life of the administration through the so-called petrol subsidy removal, and the attempt at market-determined value of the Naira. Both policies have spectacularly failed in spite of the concerted efforts by the regime to put a spin to them.

    Let’s explain why we argue that the twin policies have already failed. When Tinubu announced the scrapping of the so-called petrol subsidy in May 2023, Nigeria had no petroleum resources minister and no cabinet. And 18 months down the line, the country still does not have an oil minister. Information adviser to the president, Bayo Onanuga, said this much recently in a national television interview. Crude oil generates about 80% of our national revenue, and until recently the country imports 100% of the petroleum products for domestic consumption, and has had no dedicated minister for almost two years. It only has a junior minister or what we call minister of state. Furthermore, there has been no physical manifestation of the gains from the removal of subsidy. If anything, we have suffered from the illusion of money, that is, a situation where the federal and state governments get more money from the federation account which has had no tangible impacts in the lives of the people. The national minimum wage has been increased from N30000 to N70000, but in real terms the value of the minimum wage is less than what it was about 40 years ago. Indeed, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and other workers’ unions are gearing for a further upward review of the minimum wage barely two months after it was passed into law. More than 70% of the country’s 36 states and the federal capital territory have not even started implementing the new wage.

    Every increment in salaries and wages impacts inflationary trends. In Nigeria it has been a constant case of the monetary and fiscal policies in misalignment. It’s obvious that salaries and wages are the least of the problems at the root of galloping inflation. The government is implicated with its voracious appetite to borrow in our name, and steal or spend on consumption. At a time the CBN pretends to be fighting inflation by mopping up money in circulation, bank credits to the government are experiencing a phenomenal rise. Data from the central bank showed that credit to the government rose by 89.9% year-on-year to hit N42.01 trillion in September, up from N22.13 trillion in the corresponding month last year. The clear implication is that the Tinubu regime relies almost exclusively on offshore loan facilities and domestic borrowings to run.

    According to the report, “When government credit levels rise, it indicates that it is increasingly borrowing from the financial sector, particularly from domestic banks and other lenders. This rise in borrowing generally reflects an increase in government debt, as funds are sought for financing various operations, social programmes, and budget deficit coverage”. The surge in banks’ credit to the government is in conflict with the stated drive of this administration. In August 2023, President Tinubu had vowed that his government will break the reliance on borrowing for public spending. One year on the evidence points to the contrary. Domestic and foreign borrowings have surpassed every projection, and there’s no end in sight. When a government sucks up credit from banks other potential investors are crowded out and production is negatively impacted. So where’s the basis and expectations for economic revival?

    When Tinubu spoke last year of curbing government’s appetite for credit from domestic banks it was at the inauguration of the presidential committee on public policy and tax reforms. Coincidentally, the report of that committee chaired by Taiwo Oyedele, one of the tax czars of Tinubu, which has taken the form of a bill now with the national assembly, is facing a vigorous pushback from a section of the country. Stakeholders in the north met about two weeks ago , and demanded that the tax bills be withdrawn because they will impact their people and governments negatively. Days after the north took a stand against the bills, the national economic council (which comprises state governors and others with the Vice President presiding recommended the withdrawal of the bills by the president. But the president promptly dismissed the advice fearing that If the demand of the north and the request of the economic council were heeded to, then the reforms in the revenue sector will stall, and the borrowing from the domestic financial market will continue apace with its deleterious effects on private sector investments, production and economic revival. Contrast the current uncertainty as regards the reforms in the tax laws with the urgency of the task as stated by Tinubu more than one year ago. “The Committee, in the first instance, is expected to deliver a schedule of quick reforms that can be implemented within thirty days. Critical reform measures should be recommended within six months, and full implementation will take place within one calendar year“. Obviously, all the targets have been missed, so where’s the hope for the government to avoid crowding others out of the domestic credit market? The emerging picture is not made any better by the fact that the north, apparently speaking through the controversial and outspoken Senator Ali Ndume, has committed to scuttling the tax bills in parliament. Another issue we should not gloss over is the indication that the bills appeared to show a fracture in the presidency.

    There’s yet another reason why the revival of the economy is not in sight apart from the profligacy of this regime and the admonition by the Bretton Woods institutions that we should be prepared to wait for some 15 years for a possible turn around in Nigeria’s economy, as long as we stick with the ongoing punishing prescriptions. The piggyvest saving report for 2024 which was released recently is revealing, insightful, and depressing. It said 65% of Nigerians have a monthly income of about N100,000 ($65) or less; 86% earn below N250,000 ($151) monthly: multiple income sources dropped by 10% against the corresponding period last year; and, only 3% of over 220 million Nigerians spend above N500,000 ($303) every month. The findings should be concerning to every discerning citizen. And the pathetic picture about the state of our country and its people did not end as in above.

    The report goes on to say that food remains the largest expense head in spite of findings of decreased spending from 2023. Today transport ranks as the second largest expense head, overtaking utilities and bills due to the removal of petrol subsidy. In addition, the report finds that the percentage of Nigerians saving money fell from 64% last year to 57%, while 10% of those who save do so only occasionally. In like manner, emigration as a savings goal dropped precipitously from third to eighth place, due largely to the 70% devaluation of the Naira. Also, the number of Nigerians with emergency savings decreased by 5%; over two-thirds of us lack savings for unplanned expenses without incurring debt; only 15% of Nigerians increased their savings over the past year; and, 19% who had emergency savings in 2023 no longer have any. It’s important to bear this sobering data in mind as this regime engages the overdrive to assure you about their Renewed Hope. It’s not your own hope, it’s theirs and they are very few. The few who live off their government.

    Any economic recovery driven by pointing fingers at slight movement in the gross domestic product (GDP) alone is an illusion. It is worse when the GDP is growing at a slower pace than the population rate. Economies are revived and grown by human beings. And gainful employment is key to increased purchasing power. Nothing currently indicates that any of the two is happening or about to happen. In addition, there must be trust between the leaders and the led as well as implicit confidence of the people on their leaders. These ingredients are not there. They are just not there. Even without the benefits of a structured study, many Nigerians do not believe their country is heading in the right direction both politically and economically. And without a buy-in, there’s only so much the present rulers can achieve. And Tinubu by his actions in appointments into critical offices has demonstrated that he does not care about carrying every part of Nigeria along. That will magnify his failure. Sadly, the regime’s attempt to deflect its nepotism in appointments left it in a bad place. It publicly admitted that two  geo-political zones (south south and south east) of the six zones of the country do not matter in appointments into critical and sensitive security positions.

    Ugo Onuoha: Veteran Journalist of repute is the former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Champion Newspapers Limited

  • Kid-hostages and the trial of T-Pain’s regime

    Kid-hostages and the trial of T-Pain’s regime

    THE pictures match. Perfectly. Whenever freelance and hardened criminals released their kidnapped victims, those fortunate victims looked haggard, jaded, famished, hungry, disorganised, disoriented, and generally forlorn. Fortunate kidnap victims? Yes. The unfortunate ones do not come back alive even after family, friends and relatives had paid the usual steep ransom, or the negotiated variant. The pictures and videos of the #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protests prisoners who were arraigned in an Abuja court last week were replicas of the fares we have treated to and will still be treated to in our collective march into further darkness. The message embedded therein is that no matter who kidnapped you, you will end up being treated the same way. If the street kidnapper abducts you in your home or on the highway, you will be roughened up, starved, and tried. The torture and trial are embedded in the ransom negotiations and the constant threats to kill and throw your body to wild animals. If the security agencies of this emerging totalitarian state kidnap you, you will undergo similar experience. You will be imprisoned even before you get a day in court. You will be tortured possibly inside an underground dungeon. You will be starved. Like the victim of street kidnappers, you could be killed execution style. The street kidnapper has no mandate to preserve your life. The state kidnapper has a bounding duty of care for you. But it does not. And it is not often held to account.

    It has been said that if you want to measure the health or otherwise of any country, visit its prisons. Our country does not allow you to break that sweat. They bring the evidence of our diseased country to the court of law, and put it in open and public display. That was what happened in Abuja last weekend. Some Nigerians who protested against poverty, privations, hunger, and hopelessness imposed and inflicted on them by the dumb economic policy options taken by Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s regime, were arbitrarily arrested and herded into prisons. Many of the prisoners were minors even though the government worked hard to make us not to believe the glaring evidence before our eyes. All the prisoners looked withered and weather -beaten. But as we know, especially those of us who were in Biafra during the Nigeria -Biafra civil war (1967-1970), malnutrition has a way of ravaging and savaging younger people. If the minors who were shamelessly brought to court by agents of the state were to stay a little longer in prison, the footage the world would have seen could have competed with what was seen during the civil war. The minors of Abuja were in prison for three months and their images competed vigorously with the images of Biafran kids at the receiving end of starvation as a weapon of war for three years. This administration brought our children to court ostensibly pretending to seek justice but the world saw a demonstrably insecure regime which came to court not to prosecute but to persecute and to intimidate. The regime must have reasoned that if they made an example of their present set of hostages they could succeed in cowering the rest of Nigerians who do not agree with the direction that the country is headed.

    The irony which regime enforcers may not in their life be able to comprehend is that the minors and the young adults that they brought to court for persecution were the children of Tinubu. Yes, they were to the extent that in our part of the world the president is generally, even if sometimes misguidedly, regarded as the father of the nation. Since obviously Nigeria is not yet a nation, Tinubu might as well pass as the father of the country, a benighted one at that. If Tinubu is the father of the country, then Nigerian children and youths do not really need a father. A father protects, Tinubu does not. A typical father fights for his children, this one stands aloof. A father sacrifices for his children, this one gorges the children’s dinner and ravishes the grand children’s breakfast. If the minors of Abuja manifested tell-tale signs of starvation and malnutrition, could it not be because the state is focused in serving the vanities of our president and his cohorts by providing appointed jets, spectacular yacht, fancy sport utility vehicles (SUVs), vacations abroad, and luxury mansions in choice locations.

    If this regime were to have its way it would love for the spectacle of last week to continue. That explains why a captured judge in a cowed judiciary adjourned the sham case to January of 2025. In which jurisdiction except under an aspiring dictatorship would a citizen, and a minor for that matter, be slapped with charges of treason for protesting against bad governance, deprivation, and hunger? Where else?

    Without doubt, this regime has its designs for Nigeria and Nigerians, and those designs are not for the good of a majority of the people. And in this regard, Nigerians need to pay special attention to the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). This security agency does not leave Nigerians in any doubt that they are not on the side of the people. The hackneyed slogan that police is your friend is a ruse to lure citizens to sleep. This police is a friend of the regime, and the regime alone. If you are in doubt read and analyse the statement issued in the name of the inspector – general of police by the Force’s spokesman. Study what that statement said, and especially what it failed to say. The IGP said 76 persons were arraigned on charges including ‘terrorism, arson, and treasonable felony’. The statement proceeded to claim that the ‘suspects were initially presented in court, where they were formally charged, and a remand order was issued by the court’. You are invited to note that the date the suspects were presented in court was not stated, the cadre of the court was not mentioned, the duration of the remand order was avoided, and no mention was made of legal representation for the suspects during that arraignment. Neither was it revealed the nature of the suspects’ plea. What’s the police hiding? Such number of suspects cannot be taken to court at once, and Nigerians would not get wind of it. Did the police procure a secret remand order, and which court issued it? Or was it an oluwole remand order since it seems nothing is now beyond the NPF in the service of their current masters? The police needs to come clean.

    Furthermore, the police boss said that,’Under Nigerian law, individuals who have reached the age of criminal responsibility are answerable for their actions, regardless of their age’, and that globally, accountability applies to ‘young individuals who commit serious offences:. As in this sham case the prosecution (police) is at liberty to claim that the suspects committed serious offences but it’s the court or judge that determines the severity of the crime and the punishment thereto. There’s an implied assumption in the police statement that the suspects actually committed the offences they have been charged with. In our laws it is a given that every suspect is innocent of the charges until a competent court of law vested with the requisite jurisdiction pronounced otherwise. How many conscientious judges do we still have in the country?

    A more pathetic case in this drama of the absurd was that of a man who addressed journalists within the precincts of the Abuja court. He is ostensibly a lawyer who was excited by the crumbs of the police brief on the case. This one would also refer to himself as a learned person. Really! We will reproduce much of his gibberish in support of the police and the regime and then leave you to make the call. He said: “These boys we brought to the court today are adults. Most of them are married men. None of them is a minor. Some of them are university graduates… Do you know how much it cost us to be at this level of democracy in this country? These boys are trying to destabilise Nigeria using the Russian flags and other countries, while calling on the military to remove our president. Is it fair? To even remove the state governor. If they don’t want democracy again, are we forcing them? Everybody is enjoying their fundamental human rights. Nobody is abusing their rights. Everything is moving on well in the country only for these boys for no reason started protests with Russia and other countries’ flags”. If this so-called lawyer’s statement didn’t make sense, it’s just because it didn’t make sense. Freedom of speech and freedom of gibberish are not the same. There’s need for routine house cleaning amongst lawyers.

    But there is a silver lining in the insight reportedly provided by a senior lawyer, JB Daudu, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). “The only thing obscene about the federal high court proceeding in Abuja yesterday (Friday) is the nature of the charge, which is allegedly treason. Minors and that is if they are less than 16 years are usually treated as adults when they are found committing crimes. So had they been charged for the right offences in the territory of their States where they allegedly misconducted themselves, I would have had no problems. For me the highest offences that they could have been charged for are ‘conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace’, ‘unlawful assembly’, wilful destruction of public property ‘, ‘theft’ otherwise known in the South of Nigeria as ‘Stealing’, and other offences of like nature i.e, Affray’, which are not only State Offences but bailable offences”.

    Daudu went on to submit that the attorney general of the federation has no locus to charge any of the young men “we saw in the dock for any offence committed during the #end bad governance riots within the territory of their respective States. It is a complete caricature of the Federalism that we claim to operate in Nigeria, where State Governments abdicate their responsibilities to the Federal Government and turn a blind eye to the pillaging of the rights of their citizens. For the avoidance of doubt, there was nothing treasonable in the conduct of these children or young men as discernable from the charge, and if our systems were working they could easily have been charged for offences mentioned above in Juvenile or Magistrate’s Courts, within the territory of the States where it is alleged they committed those riots induced offences”.

    He submitted and rightly so that nobody should gloss over the fact that the defendants, be they children or adults, have already spent over three months in ”very dehumanising detention conditions. This is very inhumane and a breach of their fundamental rights. It is my view that even if they committed the offences they are being accused of, (certainly not Treason) the maximum sentences that could have been handed down should have been reasonable fines and in serious cases, imprisonment not exceeding three months in the proximate correctional facility. For Daudu the case should be discontinued by the federal government, with “adequate rehabilitative compensation paid” to the victims.

    Dehumanising Nigerians is a regular fare with our rulers. If what’s going on with these minors and young adults was not with the prior knowledge of the attorney general of the federation, and indeed the president, then the police have gone rogue and they need to be reined in. There are serious security challenges across the country, and this distraction serves nobody no good. Let the children go and pay them ‘rehabilitative compensation’ to rebuild their lives. They should not suffer double jeopardy in that some of the minors could be among the 20 million out-of-school kids who are now also being visited with the rough edges of selective application of twisted laws.

    Mr. Ugo Onuoha is a Veteran Journalist & former Managing Director of Champion Newspapers Ltd

  • The missing minister and cabinet reshuffle for ‘on your mandate choristers’

    The missing minister and cabinet reshuffle for ‘on your mandate choristers’

    NO serious leader, (Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, does not qualify as one because he is a ruler), hibernates in two European capitals, first in London (UK), and then in Paris, France, or in any foreign country for that matter, for a very simple and routine task of changing his or her ministers. My recollections may have failed me at this moment, but I do not recall since 1999 when any past president – Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007), Musa Yar’Adua (2007-2010), Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015), and Muhammadu Buhari (2015-2023), going away from the country for weeks on an alleged working vacation to rest and plot on how to sack the persons who are working at his pleasure back home. Not even Yar’Adua nor Buhari who were unfortunately sick for parts of their presidential tenures (Yar’Adua actually died in office midway into his first term) travelled abroad to plot how to sack their ministers. Tinubu’s supporters will have a contrary opinion, but this president is an unserious, and certainly a tired fellow.

    The state of Tinubu’s state has been obvious for decades including while he was the governor of one of Nigeria’s wealthiest states, Lagos, between 1999 and 2007. Those who were close to him back then knew this and whispered about their concerns on the man who is now president. The late Yinka Odumakin was an admirer of Tinubu until he stopped being one, and became his fiercest critic. He, perhaps, more than anybody else, dealt body blows on Tinubu including questioning everything about the Alhaji long before others added their voices. But today is not about Nigeria’s president who has no verifiable and ‘certifiable’ information about much of his life until the 1970s. Officially he claims to be in his 70s. Unofficially, he’s said to be in his 80s. Age is a mere number. So it may not matter much. But truth matters. Among the known unknowns are his blood parents, his siblings if any, his primary school(s), his secondary school(s), his university education (fortunately, depending on where you stand in the country’s sharp and deep political divide, there may soon be a Bola Ahmed Tinubu University in Abia state in the heart of the Igbo nation), his certificates, his employment records bar one, among other puzzles. The president epitomises the word puzzle but not the one of Melchizedek, the high priest in the Judeo-Christian legend who was reputed to have no origins. All unknowns about Tinubu are actually known, though not admitted.

    Achoba ihe buru-uzo ruo ala, egbuo oba mmiri. If you are interested in killing an abominable animal or reptile, then deal with the crocodile. It is the chief of evil doers. But for the pains and privations inflicted on hapless citizens, the regime of this president aka T-Pain has been a joke. After months of assailing Nigerians with the threats of cabinet reshuffle, the administration finally did so last week. As expected it turned out to be a distraction. For a start, the cabinet change was unnecessary; and the method of effecting it smacks of illiteracy. Before we proceed further let’s quickly put one important issue behind us. If there was any need to sack any minister, the first to go should be the minister of petroleum resources, whoever that may be. Why?

    Next to Nigeria’s president in the savaging of the economy in the past 17 months is the petroleum resources minister. The minister failed to warn the president on May 29, 2023, on the foolishness and the dire consequences of his ‘subsidy is gone’ proclamation at the onset of the regime. Since then everything has fallen apart. If the economy is in tailspin (and it is), it’s down to ‘subsidy is gone’. If inflation, especially food inflation, is going through the roof (and certainly it is), it’s down to ‘subsidy is gone’. If about 150 million compatriots (the number could be far more), are living below the poverty line, ‘subsidy is gone’ is implicated. The same petroleum resources minister who should be first in the line for firing is also complicit in failing to quickly arrest the ongoing and brazen industrial scale theft of barrels of our crude oil. It has to be acknowledged, however, that there have been recent claims that the hemorrhaging in that area appears to be abating. Even if the claims are true, it would still amount to too little too late. The minister should have been sacked long before the cabinet reshuffle.

    This same minister who is still sitting pretty in the federal executive council of the federation also superintends the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL). Year-on-year studies have shown that this government oil behemoth consistently ranked amongst the most corrupt public institutions in the country. NNPCL has the dubious distinction of spending tens of billions of dollars in the past 10 years, at the minimum, executing turn around maintenance of the country’s four refineries, with no results. None of the four refineries – two in Port Harcourt, one each in Warri and Kaduna – has contributed even one litre of any petroleum products for domestic consumption in more than one decade in spite of the billions allegedly invested in their rehabilitation. In half of the years of their interminable turn around maintenance, an individual had spent about $20 billion to construct and commission what is reputed and reported to be the largest single train refinery and petrochemical company in the world. Yet, the minister who it must be said inherited the mess was not affected by the cabinet reshuffle.

    It is easy and attractive to conclude that the minister who supervises NNPCL has not lifted a finger in the nearly two years that he has been in office because the mess may be beneficial to him. Under a previous petroleum resources minister, the NNPCL boss promised, and gave specific dates for the completion of the maintenance works on the refineries, and their restreaming. He kept none of the promises, not even after moving the goal posts over and over. The previous minister left him untouched. The same NNPCL honcho has been promising the new oil minister the same thing, and failing to deliver. He is still in office because he is a sacred cow. For the appointers and this particular appointee, it’s almost clear that it has been a case of agbata eke. Or a mutually beneficial arrangement.

    Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) said when asked that “Past dates for the completion of refineries repairs in Nigeria have been a moving target”. It illustrated with the Port Harcourt refinery which it said “has had several missed deadlines”. It said that the refinery’s rehabilitation was initially expected to occur in three phases, lasting 18, 24 and 44 months respectively. These were all under Buhari. But under Tinubu in 2023, the NNPCL pledged in December that the Port Harcourt refinery would commence operations by the end of the same month. It didn’t. Later NNPCL set a new deadline for early August, 2024, “which was also missed”. Yet, again the goal post was moved to early this month. In two days this month will expire, and still no show.

    Right now nobody is making any promises about the delivery of the refineries and their products. Rather our oil minister who was not affected by the gale of sackings in the cabinet has been busy quarrelling and making up with the owners and operators of the Dangote refinery over the monopoly of Nigeria’s petroleum products market, its capacity to meet domestic supply needs, the supply of crude, in which currency to pay, the quality of the new refinery’s products, the role of NNPCL as a middle man, and other painful contestations. Our minister has no shame, neither does the NNPCL. A few months ago the duo wildly and weirdly celebrated their lining up of about 200 trucks, with pictures to boot, to lift products from what should be a rival or at best a complementary refinery, for delivery to retail outlets nationwide. It was a grotesque sight. But the irony was lost on our rulers. Earlier, Nigerians were told that a loan had been taken in our name to acquire 20% of Dangote’s refinery. It was a lie, 20% was not acquired, and the minister and the NNPCL did not tell us about the change of plan. It took the president of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, a serial investor, to burst the bubble that the money that was paid in our name would  earn us only 7% shares in the refinery. Our oil minister is still holding on to the portfolio, and the NNPCL group managing director is still calling the shots. Tell me if agbata eke has any more fitting description or definition?

    There are many more reasons why Tinubu is the current problem with Nigeria, and not his ministers. His cabinet is filled with roaches, light-fingered persons, political hacks, and “on your mandate…” choristers. There are not many in there who have credible second addresses who could look him in the eyes, and tell him the truth. And if he would not listen, then tell him to go to hell. Who? Tell me who? Like the principal many of them are baggage – carriers. Many are tainted by corruption allegations. Some of them have live graft cases which leave them with their feet under the fire. They cannot do pim. The same sorry picture appears to run across the board from the governors’ mansions in the states to the national assembly and to the judiciary. Allegations of incitement of the military to topple the democratic order, and treason charges await the rest of the critical citizens. Tinubu is the most insecure president. He has become a hammer, and everything in this country is a nail. Welcome full blown state capture.

  • INEC in America’s November election (2)

    INEC in America’s November election (2)

    “They [Republicans] said that if their candidate is adjudged as the loser, the disputations could drag up to January 20, 2025-the inauguration day of the new president. So the spectre of an inconclusive presidential election ala INEC looms in America.“

    THERE are two things that are almost certain to happen on Tuesday, November 5, 2024 – one is election, including for the president of the United States, and two, is the likelihood of dispute of the outcome of the ballot no matter how the election turned out. The expectation is that the contentions could be more pronounced and threatening if the former president who is seeking a second term on the ticket of the Republican Party, Donald John Trump, is not declared the winner. With less than two weeks to the next election, he is yet to concede defeat to Joe Biden from the 2020 presidential polls. After failing more than 60 times in courts to upturn the result of the election of 2020, the former president and his acolytes have continued to litigate the allegedly rigged election in the court of public opinion. Till date, Americans are split almost down the middle with one half claiming that the January 6, 2021 violent assault on Congress by supporters of Trump in furtherance of their grievances over the election outcome was a coup to overthrow democracy, while the other half insists that it was a walk in the park by tourists and patriots who only wanted a free and fair election.

    The disputes have not abated four years and counting. Indeed, in the intervening years, many states had reportedly fiddled with their election rules in the guise of making them stricter. But Americans claimed that some of the rule changes were blatant and brazen ploys to intimidate voters and suppress votes. In places rule changes empowered members of local election bodies not to certify results and award electors to winners of the plurality votes in their counties or precincts if members determine that the election was tainted. Mere suspicion, not necessarily evidence-based, will be enough to not certify a result. Before this year local election bodies play magisterial roles in elections while leaving disaffected parties and candidates to seek redress in law courts. Not anymore. The state of Georgia which is red (Republican), though Biden barely won it by in 2020, is presently notorious for loading some local election bodies with those who have been openly identified as Trump supporters. Trump indeed acknowledged some of these biased election managers during one of his rallies in Georgia. Thus far the Democrats have not been successful in getting the courts to remedy the situation. For the avoidance of doubts both Democrats and Republicans are into cutting corners for electoral advantage.

    This year, unless either of Trump, or the candidate of the Democratic Party, Vice President Kamala Harris, won a decisive victory, as many as two, three or even seven states may have their presidential election results disputed. That could spell trouble.

    The spectre of impending boobytraps in November manifests in other forms. In the years since after the 2020 election, some states, especially Republican-controlled jurisdictions have appointed the so-called election deniers into offices that play significant roles in election process and management. What it means is that the election deniers will no longer pretend to be apolitical in their election roles in cities, counties and states. This will be a significant departure from what it used to be. But why should this be concerning for what should be a national election to the American presidency? A lot.

    The United States presidency, and similar offices such as membership of the senate and the Congress, may be national in nature but there’s no equivalent of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to superintend the elections. In America every election is local including for the presidency. A significant dispute over an election outcome in any of the states especially in any of the seven so-called swing states this year could stall the emergence of a president in accord with the age-long timeframe for the creation of a president. In 2000 in the contest between the candidate of the Democrats, Albert Gore, and his Republican rival, George Bush Jr. it was the state of Florida that stalled calling of the presidential election results for weeks. It took the majority conservative justices of the supreme court to award victory to Bush. Later reviews of the ballots by some election experts determined that the court made a wrong call.

    Only one dispute in one state -Florida- drove the US to the precipice twenty-four years ago. And as at that time the country was not as polarised as it is today in the age of Trump. This year, unless either of Trump, or the candidate of the Democratic Party, Vice President Kamala Harris, won a decisive victory, as many as two, three or even seven states may have their presidential election results disputed. That could spell trouble. Already, some stakeholders in the two dominant parties – Democrats and Republicans – have said that the presidential election will not end on election night in November as had been the convention for much of this century. Incumbent president, Joe Biden, a Democrat has reportedly said that he feared that the election may not be violence-free, and the handover smooth. On their part some die-hard Republicans and dyed-in-the-wool supporters of Trump have said that the election will not end on the significant dates of November 5 (election day), December 14 (states’ certification of electors), or January 6, 2025 electoral votes tally and certification by Congress). They said that if their candidate is adjudged as the loser, the disputations could drag up to January 20, 2025-the inauguration day of the new president. So the spectre of an inconclusive presidential election ala INEC looms in America.

    For now Democrats and sympathetic Independents portray themselves as doves in the increasingly ill-tempered political contests in the US. But that may not be the case in the event the potential disputes over the presidential election end up for adjudication in the supreme court. The court has nine justices. The refrain is that it has a super majority of conservative justices – six. Trump alone appointed three of the six conservative jurists in his four-year first term between 2017-2021. Will Democrats accept that justice will be served in a court so composed? The recent decisions of the court in upturning precedents including that on reproductive health (Roe v Wade), and sweeping immunity for a president (in a case involving Trump) in all official actions will be concerning for Democrats. The loss of faith in the supreme court as a fair and impartial arbiter in election dispute could lead to a resort to self-help. And violence. A few months back a judge in Florida preemptively dismissed a classified documents charge against Trump, a decision that riled and rattled even some retired conservative judges. This judge was appointed by Trump, and she allegedly acted on a telegraphed message from a conservative supreme court justice, Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas who is alleged to be corrupt is a conservative and a black man.

    The American democracy is riddled with ironies and that could partly explain its claim to exceptionalism. The law appears not to be the law in the eyes of judges. The blindfolded lady holding an evenly balanced scale appears not to apply to the wielders of judicial powers in that country. For them the law is truly an ass. The law is interpreted from the prisms of whether the judge was a conservative or a progressive/liberal. In their supreme court there are no non-aligned justices, certainly not in recent years. That will be strange to any outsider. But that’s America with its exceptionalism, warts and all. It is also part of the American democracy that under certain circumstances, one national lawmaker could hold the country to ransom by, for instance, stalling promotions and possibly transfers in the military. And this is not just the conventional filibustering stunts to delay decisions inside legislative chambers. For almost the whole of last year, a Republican senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, single-handedly held up promotions in the ranks of generals in the US military. He had blocked all military promotions between February and December in protest against a Pentagon (defence ministry) policy that pays for service members’ travels to seek reproductive health care services in states where such services are not banned. The Pentagon said that the hold up affected the commanders of the US Pacific Fleet, Pacific Air Forces, Air Combat Command, US Northern Command, Cyber Command and Space Command. The senator relented even after not getting his way or policy concessions. It’s apparently part of America’s exceptional democracy.

    Any country, including Nigeria, that pretends to copy the American presidential system of government will flounder and fail. The US is a 21st century super power which relies on an 18th century constitution to run its affairs. In more than 200 years the constitution, with its many imperfections, doggy language and assumptions have been amended or altered only 27 times or so. And that could be why on inauguration day on January 20, 2025, the world could witness a convicted felon sworn in as president of a super power. Anyone who argues that Trump’s convictions on business fraud, and rape were politically motivated may be in order. But he remains a felon until the convictions are upturned. Surely, it is only in an exceptional democracy that a convict will be on the ballot in the first place.

    In addition, there are not many democracies in the world where almost every position, no matter how lowly, could only be attained through elections. Some school board members (parents – teachers associations) in some jurisdictions are elected. Attorneys-general in some states are elected and are independent of the governors. Secretaries of state in many states are elected and independent of other authorities. In other areas judges are elected not appointed. They campaign for office like regular partisan politicians. Curiouser still is that in some states in America, the governor and Lt. governor could belong to two different political parties. In July North Carolina governor Roy Cooper (Democrat) declined consideration to be Harris’s running mate because he feared he could be supplanted by Lt. governor Mark Robinson, a conservative Republican. Robinson, who once described himself as a black Hitler, is running to occupy the governor’s mansion in November’s election. In which other country will you get this combination? But America, their America.

    Americans are terrorised by their own fractious politics. But the country had been here before. There was once the firebrand ‘Tea Party’, also an insurgent faction of the Republican Party. The current Trumplican Party may yet be a reincarnation of the Tea Party in a more vicious and determined form. In this dispensation, you are a RINO (Republican in name only) and an undesirable if you opposed the undisputed party leader, Trump. The problem is that America’s fractious political contest is putting the world on edge. However, in spite of the palpable anxieties there’s still the possibility that the election would come and go…smoothly. And the world would heave a sigh of relief.

    *Concluded.

    Ugo Onuoha
    A veteran of repute, was the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Champion Newspapers, Limited.

  • INEC in America’s November election (1)

    INEC in America’s November election (1)

    “America has many contradictions in spite of its claim to exceptionalism.“

    THERE will be a significant election this year in a significant country which prides itself as the greatest democracy on earth. That country, a super power, claims that the election will be consequential, and will have ramifications for its citizens, and the whole world. For about two centuries this country has held this poll on the first Saturday in November in the election year. For this year, that date falls on November 5. The election was initially slated to be a fierce battle between two old men, one in his late 70s, and the other in his early 80s. It was supposed to be a rematch, sort of, because the duo had battled each other four years ago with the older prevailing. You already know because that country is the United States of America where the then incumbent president, Donald Trump, was defeated in 2020, and his successor, Joe Biden, was defeated from seeking a second term by a disastrous presidential debate outing on June 27. Biden came under intense pressure from his party people, and had to ‘pass the torch’ in July to his vice president Kamala Harris who is younger and more energetic.

    America has many contradictions in spite of its claim to exceptionalism. There’s is no record that it has been governed by any other means except through the ballot box, at least not in the last 200 years. It lays claim to democracy but it fails to meet the key ingredient of rule by the majority of its citizens voting in an election. Certainly, not for the election of its president. The classical definition of democracy is government of the people by the people for the people. In many climes, it is also governance by representatives who had been elected by a majority of voters during any election. Not so in the United States. In 2016, Hillary Clinton, candidate of the Democratic Party lost the presidential election in spite of winning three million more popular votes of the electorate. His rival, Donald Trump, of the Republican Party with an inferior popular votes tally was returned as the winner. The unique but apparently an undemocratic (to many outsiders) Electoral College gave victory to Trump. The candidates and the parties in that contest knew the rule and so could not complain.

    “The constitution in its 12th Amendment recognised ‘electors’. And the ‘electors’ for each of the 50 states have been determined, and the number of ‘electors’ for each state may be reflective but not necessarily proportional to the population of the state. Any candidate who secures a minimum of 270 Electoral College votes wins the presidency irrespective of the outcome of the popular votes.“

    The name, Electoral College, which determines who is elected as the US president is not in that country’s constitution. History has it that the founding fathers of the country inserted this mode of electing a president as a compromise between election of the president by a vote in Congress (parliament), which used to be the practice, and the election of the president by a popular vote of qualified citizens. Until the 1960s not many people were qualified to vote in elections. There was no universal suffrage. The constitution in its 12th Amendment recognised ‘electors’. And the ‘electors’ for each of the 50 states have been determined, and the number of ‘electors’ for each state may be reflective but not necessarily proportional to the population of the state. Any candidate who secures a minimum of 270 Electoral College votes wins the presidency irrespective of the outcome of the popular votes.

    The Electoral College has been a vexatious subject in American politics for centuries. And that explains why surveys showed that in the past 200 years more than 700 proposals had been introduced in Congress to either reform or eliminate the Electoral College. Probably, to underline its undemocratic nature, it has been recorded that there have been more proposals for constitutional amendments on changing the ‘electors’ method for determining the winner of the American presidency than on any other subject.

    Apart from politicians, America’s body of lawyers, the American Bar Association, has had cause to criticise the Electoral College as “archaic” and “ambiguous”, and its polling showed that 69% of lawyers favoured abolishing it in 1987. In addition, public opinion polls showed that Americans favoured abolishing it by majorities of 58% in 1967; 81% in 1968; and 75% in 1981. The conventional wisdom is that any candidate who wins a majority or plurality of the popular votes nationwide has a good chance of winning in the Electoral College, but there are no guarantees as implicated in the presidential election results of 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016.

    It has been suggested that the Electoral College was contrived by the founders of the US to stem the possible agitations for separation from the Union by less populated states who may feel cheated and excluded in producing the president of the country. In effect, the Electoral College was informed by the need for the accommodation of all segments of the society. However, some scholars argued that the ‘electors’ scheme was indeed the handiwork of a segment of the elite among the founding fathers who did not want to totally relinquish the election of the president to the masses.

    On November 5, two candidates  Harris (Democrat), and Trump (Republican ) will lock horns for who occupies the American presidency which is generally regarded as the most powerful office in the world. Third party candidates are usually inconsequential since none has won the office ever. Harris appears to have an edge in the race at this time but election watchers reckon that in reality, the two candidates are running neck-and-neck. The proposition for the moment is that any of Harris or Trump can win the election. And this uncertainty is down to the complexities of the Electoral College. In 2016, polls and pundits put Hillary Clinton ahead by several miles. It was expected to be a coronation of the former American first lady (she was the wife of former President Bill Clinton), senator and secretary of state. Alas, it was not. Trump, who reportedly had given up that fateful election night in 2016 in the wake of exit polls that overwhelmingly pointed to Hillary’s win, won through the Electoral College.

    That scenario may not play out the same way this November. Nobody has yet said that November 5 will be a coronation for either of the candidates. This is so because the division in American politics is deep. It has been so since the advent of Trump (descending from the golden escalator) in presidential politics in 2015. The division became deeper when Trump was declared as the loser of the 2020 election. He has refused to concede defeat. He has failed to accept that he lost. He still insists even less than one month to the next election that the election in 2020 was procured by fraud for Biden. It does not matter that he was the incumbent at the time.

    “…Next week we’ll discuss how Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) notorious inconclusive elections could play out in the November election in the US. The possibility of another round of violently contested election outcome is visible in the horizon with local election bodies planning to delay certification of results so as to provide ample time for the loser to sow doubts on the validity of the polls.”

    A lot has happened in the years between the 2020 presidential election and this year’s. There was a violent attack on January 6, 2021, ostensibly to stop the certification of the election results by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Those who stormed the Capitol Hill, the location of the parliament, chanted that they would hang the then vice president, Mike Pence. They even prepared a noose in the vicinity of Congress for Pence. And were heard chanting ‘hang Mike Pence’. By the way, Pence was on the losing ticket but he was constitutionally mandated to preside over the certification of the results of the election as the president of the senate. He rejected pressure from a section of his party to overthrow the election result. Trump, who was twice impeached by the House of Representatives and twice not convicted by the senate, reportedly watched the hours of the attack on the Capitol from the White House, and allegedly failed to lift a finger even when the life of his vice president was in danger. When he was told about the danger faced by Pence and the urgent need for him to act, he allegedly retorted, “so what?”

    In the intervening years also, former president Trump had been indicted in multiple jurisdictions, tried in two cases and convicted in at least two courts of law. He was convicted for sexual assault, and for business fraud. Trump and his supporters still rail that his indictments and convictions were politically motivated, and brazen attempts to interfere with the November presidential election. But in the eyes of the law, and at least until the convictions are upturned by superior courts, Trump remains a felon. In some other democracies a convict or felon would not be allowed to be on the ballot. But apparently not in the United States. So, he could be a felon and president of the most powerful country in the world at the same time. That could just be part of the exceptionalism of America.

    Next week we’ll discuss how Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) notorious inconclusive elections could play out in the November election in the US. The possibility of another round of violently contested election outcome is visible in the horizon with local election bodies planning to delay certification of results so as to provide ample time for the loser to sow doubts on the validity of the polls. We will also examine a ‘democratic’ setting where a single senator could hold the whole nation to ransom, a court system where judgments are informed not by the letters and spirit of the law but by the ideological leanings of the judges, and who appointed them, and a 21st century supposed beacon of democracy governed by a constitution written in the 18th century, some of which words were laid out in unclear words and fractured sentences.

  • Tinubu’s youth jamboree and Remi’s rented attire: a tragedy of misplaced priorities

    Tinubu’s youth jamboree and Remi’s rented attire: a tragedy of misplaced priorities

    By

    UGO ONUOHA

    “Our rulers are adjudicated rapists and raiders of the public treasury. But there’s no need to be so brazen and in-our-face as this so-called national youth confab appears to suggest.

    ONE of the strengths demonstrated one week ago, on October 1, by Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while he addressed the country on its 64th Independence anniversary, according to his media aide, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, was that he stood on his feet for the duration of the speech. I did not watch the broadcast because I was convinced that my early morning could be put to better use including my dawn workout. If what he had to say turned out to be that important, I could find the time to read the text at my convenience.

    As it turned out, and as usual, there was no compelling reason to read the text in light of the snippets from the broadcast that were uninspiring, distressing and depressing. Commentaries on the broadcast by independents and partisans showed that it was a rousing speech for regime choristers, and to unbelievers it was yet another underwhelming performance from Abuja.

    For those to whom Tinubu has become a god and a saviour as represented by Onanuga, the mere fact that the president made the speech while standing on his feet was an achievement of significant import. It was an unprecedented feat for which Nigerians should fawn over him. Onanuga, presidential assistant on information, was right in demanding applause from famished folks for the president for standing on his feet to deliver an address that lasted for barely 30 minutes.

    Corralling citizens to applaud the president demonstrated that Tinubu’s, and his predecessors’ neglect of funding of education has been deliberate. The more ignorant we are the easier it is for our rulers and their enablers such as Onanuga and others to gaslight us. In spite of myself I went back to watch the video of the broadcast. Even for a person who is half blind and hard of hearing, and this is no disrespect for visually impaired and hearing-challenged compatriots, the breaks in the recordings of the video, and the editing should be obvious. You do not have to be a media professional or broadcast guru to see through the cut and join of the tape.

    In simple terms what it means is that the recording was not done in a stretch or in one sitting (sorry standing). The different frames also indicated the principal was availed with breaks during the recording to sit down at intervals to catch his breath or to walk around so as to refocus before he returned to the presidential set.

    For unbelievers and naysayers who ordinarily should be treated as patriots, they saw a president who has been turned into a liar by his aides and speech writers. Or by his own making and choice. They saw a deterioration in a regime that has transited from deploying propaganda as a governance artform to one that sets up the president to be lying out-rightly to Nigerians.

    It was so bad, so shameful, and so embarrassing that Nigerians were fact-checking their president real time during a ‘live’ broadcast for what should be a solemn independence anniversary. The many lies in the broadcast including the handling of the Ways and Means federal government debt of N30 trillion, incurred between the former president who was Nigeria’s affliction, Maj.- Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, and this regime, are in the public domain. The greater tragedy is that the debt which was secretly and illegally procured, and which use has not been accounted for, will be paid for by Nigerians up to the fourth generation, in a manner of speaking. The rapacious operatives of the regime of Buhari must be having fun at the expense of the rest of us, wherever they may be. The Tinubu honchos are not doing badly in the unabating assault on the commonwealth. Even the cases of those who were caught with their hands deep inside the national till have gone cold, and as we say here, ‘entered voicemail’.

    We have not set out to agonise over the issues from the broadcast that have been sufficiently litigated in the courts of public opinion. The courts of law are actually out of the reach of the majority of Nigerians by reason of cost for a people who have been deliberately pauperised by their rulers. In any case why go to the courts where the acolytes and stooges of the rulers rule supreme. They are not bothered about your going to court, indeed they encourage you to do so knowing that their kinsmen and kinswomen are in-charge.

    “If this regime is not determined to steal in the guise of a 30-day youth conference which will cost billions of Naira, it should borrow an idea from Kenya. The template is clear, simple, transparent and less costly.”

    One of our primary concerns in this intervention is Tinubu’s proposal for a national jamboree for youths. Not surprising, the only significant detail about the plan was that the jamboree would last for all of 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, according to the president, Nigerian youths would become more united, more articulate in their contributions to enriching government policy formulations, more vigorous in participating in nation building, a sharper voice in shaping their futures, among others.

    In addition, the president announced that the ‘National Youth Conference’ will ‘address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting our young people, who constitute more than 60 percent of our population’. The conference and the conversations therefrom would unite young people to collaboratively develop solutions to issues such as education, employment, innovation, security, and social justice.

    Our rulers are adjudicated rapists and raiders of the public treasury. But there’s no need to be so brazen and in-our-face as this so-called national youth confab appears to suggest. The majority of Nigerians have been impoverished and castrated by successive regimes, and more so by Tinubu’s. They cannot do anything again in terms of challenging their oppressors. In fact they have since been afflicted by the Stockholm Syndrome where they have fallen in love with, and are in awe of their oppressors. So there’s no wisdom in setting up elaborate schemes to continue the assets stripping of the country. The organisers of the confab could as well, and as usual, dip their hands into the jar of cookies and help themselves and their masters. That would be less painful. In my Igbo nation what the rulers are planning through this bogus conference will be akin to putting the hands of the unsuspecting youngsters inside the jar to enable them steal the cookies. Is it so bad that being immoral and ammoral no longer have limits.

    Nigerian youths speak everyday in spite of strident efforts by this regime to constrict the physical and digital spaces for conversations and dialogues. Their positions are often reasoned, succinct and well known. Of course, youthful exuberance manifests here and there once in a while. If allowed to have their way our government will shut down the digital space because for them our youths are irritants. The affliction from Daura once did it for months with Twitter (now X). How much did he succeed? Even before Buhari was able to banish Twitter, many youths had created and migrated to their own virtual personal networks (VPN), leaving the evil regime with the short end of the stick and, a hollow victory. Ask Lai Mohammed, Buhari’s flippant (dis)information minister

    If indeed Tinubu is desirous of hearing the voices of young Nigerians why does he stifle peaceful protests? Why does he unleash violence on peaceful protesters by using his security goons including the armed forces, the police, the secret police, the civil defence corps, touts and sundry paid street urchins to disrupt such marches? Since the president was a master protester in his days in opposition, it is inconceivable that he does not realise that protest is dialogue by other means.

    If this regime is not determined to steal in the guise of a 30-day youth conference which will cost billions of Naira, it should borrow an idea from Kenya. The template is clear, simple, transparent and less costly. Some months ago the youths of Kenya spoke about their frustrations with their leaders through protests. The administration of President William Ruto lost the plot and then resorted to violence. The security agents shot and killed some of the protesters. The situation degenerated and the protests escalated. The regime buckled and pulled back.

    READ ALSO: #ENDBADGOVERNANCE PROTESTS

    When dialogue was agreed between the parties, the president of Kenya engaged the youths on the twitter space. The opportunity for the Kenyan government to pick its ‘own youths’ to participate in the dialogue or conversation was removed. The mechanism to intimidate and exclude vocal youths was denied. The twitter space provided a level playing field. Why won’t Nigeria copy the Kenyan template if genuinely it has not been hearing the voices of the youths on various digital platforms, and indeed on the streets of Nigeria. The same president who Onanuga boasted the other day of standing on his feet to address Nigerians to mark our independence about a week ago must have the stamina and articulation to engage youths for at least two hours on the twitter space. To do this he actually does not need to be on his feet for the duration of the conversation with the youths.

    During the rebroadcast of the Independence activities at the national and sub national levels, I was all eyes to see the new national Aso-Ebi or Akwete that was being marketed by Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, wife of the Nigerian president. I, however, did not see the attire on display. Or could it be that I was not sufficiently observant? Could it also be that the contractor, if one had been procured, did not have enough time, and mobilization to deliver the new national uniform? Since our textile industry has virtually collapsed, it’s expected that the materials for the new national uniform will be imported and paid for in hard currency, the same foreign exchange that is said to be in short supply.

    Well, paying for the Aso-Ebi or Akwete in dollars will probably not make the Naira exchange rate any worse than it is today. The pleasure of Mrs. Tinubu should also be a priority. Imagine the pride that will be instilled in us, and the courtesies that will be extended to us when we land in foreign airports, decked out in our new national attire. What a shame that none of the previous wives of former presidents ever thought of this game -changing and brilliant idea. We understand that the bug for this caught the president’s wife in a sister African country – Zimbabwe.

    The fortunate contractor/merchant who will supply the new national uniform has better hurry up because Christmas, New Year, Easter, Eid Mubarak, Isese, Iri Ji, among others are celebrations fitting for the donning of the new national attire. Naysayers should not spoil our fun by telling us that a youth conference and a national attire are not our priorities at the moment. Pray, when will ordinary folks have their own cruise?

  • Invincible Bello, his juju man and a pitiful EFCC

    “Bello, a fugitive, according to the EFCC, visited the offices of the anti-graft agency in the company of Governor Ododo in broad daylight. They loitered around in the open. They exchanged pleasantries with the operatives and the staff of the EFCC. It was even alleged that they sent a message to the chairman of the EFCC announcing their presence and the desire of the former governor to be interrogated.”
     LAST week was draining for many citizens. This opening statement sounds stupid. The question that should naturally strike anyone who has lived fairly consistently in this country for 25 years since the inception, or rather, return of rule by civilians in 1999, is how many weeks these past two decades and a half have we been spared the debilitating and wearisome drama of the absurd? How many times? And the absurdities are carefully crafted and orchestrated by a section of the ruling elite to keep Nigerians chewing their thumbnails in disgust and disbelief. But the joke has always been on us, though we do not get it. It would appear that our mumu (local lingo for collective foolishness) is factory made, or as we say in this clime follow come.
    If the truth be told, it has not always been like this. Citizens’ activisms against repressive governments from the colonial era to successive military dictatorships have been the fact of our national life. Protests by university students in the 1960s helped to abort an obnoxious Anglo – Nigerian Defence Pact early in the life of an independent Nigeria. There was also the bloody May riots of 1989 or so that moderated the Ibrahim Babangida plot for a wholesale adoption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF’s) Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) prescriptions for economic recovery. We have lost the verve as a people and the younger elements whose futures are more in jeopardy do not seem interested in looking for where the ball was dropped.
    Many decades ago, flamboyant journalist the now late Dele Giwa wrote two articles which were published about the same period. In one, he titled it: ‘Adewusi’s men can’t shoot straight’. Sunday Adewusi, also late, was the inspector – general of the Nigerian Police Force. Almost 40 years after the provocative headline, police operatives under Adewusi’s successors still can not shoot straight unless they are targeting innocent and unarmed protesters.
    Two recent examples will illustrate the state of the police – the murderous put down of the August 1-10 #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests, and the show that was put up at the Kogi state government lodge in Abuja last week. In the August protests police killed scores of Nigerians in cold blood while those who survived are currently in captivity facing charges ranging on terrorism, treason, treasonable felony, subversion and attempt to overthrow the federal government. The charges may sound phony, and they certainly do, but they are in sync with the ways of repressive regimes worldwide. However, last week the police/security details of Kogi state governor Musa Ododo and his predecessor Yahaya Adoza Bello, the White Lion, and the police of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), both federal police, shot at themselves in a firefight, shattering the peace of the Asokoro-Abuja night for a considerable length of time.
    When the dust settled in the morning of the day after, a Thursday, there were no deaths; no reports of injuries; and, there were no arrests. It would not matter that there could have been some residents of that neighborhood with heart and/or other pre-existing health conditions whose situations could have been exacerbated by that night of madness by government security agents. In a sane place, the expectation is that there may at times be collateral damage in the course of an official task by security agencies. But that was not the case in this Abuja ‘shootout’. The EFCC police and those of Ododo/Bello were merely entertaining themselves at the expense of Nigeria.
    READ ALSO:
    The sorom chia (Igbo for comic display) by the EFCC and their ‘prey’ Bello, will be a box office hit any day, and a classic in later years. Creative Nollywood must have taken note. What’s the genesis? Bello was governor of Kogi state for eight years until last January. Corruption allegations swirled around him even as a governor. He had absolute immunity, so nothing could be done to him. We have conveniently forgotten that there’s an existing court decision that a sitting governor can be investigated but not prosecuted while in office, thanks to the efforts and doggedness of the late Gain Fawehinmi, a renowned and unblemished anti-corruption crusader. Well, Bello installed his relative Ododo as governor. Then the EFCC slapped a charge of N80blllion misappropriation/money laundering on Bello. The former melted away but tied up the case in court through proxies. He did not for once appear in court. At one point he even insisted that only the courts in his Kogi state and the judges he appointed while he was governor had jurisdiction over his matter. He fought his cases up to the Supreme Court. And he lost all of them.
    Yet he would not answer to the summons of the EFCC for interview nor present himself in court for arraignment and to prove his innocence. In what has now been exposed as a contrived frustration, the anti-graft agency declared Bello wanted and caused his name to be published in the Red List of the International Police Organisation (Interpol) as a global fugitive. Interpol may have taken the notice seriously. But not Nigerians. And now with the events of last week not even the EFCC took their wanted notice on Bello seriously. Nigerians and the EFCC knew that Bello was in this country and enjoying immunity by other means. In April, the EFCC had besieged the Abuja residence of Bello but failed to apprehend him, just as it failed again last week. But this time what transpired was different. It could have been treated as comical but for its national implications.

     

    Yahaya Bello at the premises of the EFCC that declared him wanted. Yet he was not detained.

    So what was different this time? Bello, a fugitive, according to the EFCC visited the offices of the anti-graft agency in the company of Governor Ododo in broad daylight. They loitered around in the open. They exchanged pleasantries with the operatives and the staff of the EFCC. It was even alleged that they sent a message to the chairman of the EFCC announcing their presence and the desire of the former governor to be interrogated. The chief of staff to the helmsman was alleged to have told the VIP visitors that the chairman was busy and so had no time for them. The guests were allegedly told that the EFCC would revert to them to arrange for a meeting at a convenient date and time. After about four hours of loitering around what otherwise should be a security zone, Gov. Ododo, former Governor Bello and their team triumphantly left the EFCC complex.
    A report even claimed that the EFCC staff and operatives who encountered Bello were very noisy in hailing him. Bello the fugitive, Bello the villain, Bello the accused plunderer is about to become Bello the law, Bello the warrior, Bello the saint, Bello the saviour, and Bello the persecuted. There’s no doubt that the depth that the country has fallen may yet be difficult to fathom, but some tales about some things that happen here still beggars belief. A fugitive over whom you had asked for global help in arresting walks into your den noisily exchanging pleasantries with your operatives, requests for a meeting, and you let him walk away freely could only fit tales under the moonlight. The greater tragedy is that the man who heads that agency was still sitting pretty in office as at last weekend when we wrote this. And he has also not been fired by his appointer, Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But truly, that the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, was not summarily suspended preparatory to his being fired on the heels of this global embarrassment should not come as a surprise. It is a case of akwu rere ere nime ikwo puru epu or rottenness on top of rottenness equals rottenness.
    By the way, the accounts we related above about Bello’s visit to the EFCC offices came from the media team of the ‘fugitive’. So the natural question will be why not balance their claims with the position of the EFCC? Sadly, there’s nothing to balance or counter. The EFCC did not refute the story that Bello was in their premises on Wednesday, September 18. It did not deny that Bello’s company made contact with the office of the EFCC chairman while they were around. EFCC did not disclaim that Bello met some of their staff whether at the agency’s parking lot or anywhere else in the complex. The agency did not deny anything that was propagated by the media team of ‘fugitive’ Bello. All that the EFCC said in their shameless and pitiable counter press statement can be summarised in six words – Bello is not in our custody. Read it again. Do not try to digest it because it will cause you indigestion.
    Hours later that same day but this time under the cover of darkness, the same EFCC allegedly made contact with Bello’s people, established the location of the ‘fugitive’, and then dispatched a team of police ‘sharpshooters’ to apprehend him. Of course, the EFCC failed again. All they succeeded in doing that fateful Wednesday night was to humiliate and embarrass themselves, disturb the peace of the upscale Abuja neighbourhood, frighten residents and passersby, and then retreat with their tails behind their backs.
    Memes have gone viral in the social media world about the magical powers of Bello, the (in)famous White Lion, and the invincibility of his juju man or men. A marabou that could pull off a feat that could rival the biblical story of Daniel inside the den of a lion deserves more than a passing attention. Indeed, some Nigerians have suggested that instead of wasting taxpayers money on domestic and offshore trainings of the EFCC operatives with little or no results to show, it could be more beneficial if the EFCC befriended Bello, forgave him of his alleged transgressions and encouraged him to introduce the agency to his juju man or men. Fortified with such magical powers, the EFCC will easily fish out corrupt persons, bring them to court and cast a spell on judges to quickly return guilty verdicts, and pronounce long term jail sentences. This will also work well for plea bargains. The harvests will be bountiful with corrupt people being made to disgorge all that they stole from the commonwealth. Nigeria happens to everybody. It’s a matter of time.
    Ugo Onuoha
    A veteran journalist.
    He was the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Champion Newspapers Ltd.
  • DNA, japa and violence on Nigerian families

    DNA, japa and violence on Nigerian families

    “Nigerian families are currently facing excruciating struggles. And they come in various forms – economics, biology, science, bad governance at home, unemployment, abandonment of traditional values, and many more. It is no longer unusual to see families where a son lives or is in school in Canada; a daughter is going to school in the UK; a mother/wife lives in the United States; and, a husband/father, and one or two other children are home in Nigeria.”

    My last child, for now, will be 23 years old in December. He grew up calling me Daa. He learnt it from his two elder brothers and their mother. It started with my first child who couldn’t or rather refused to call me daddy. By the time he learnt to talk, which was pretty early, he preferred to simply say Daa. His mother, my wife, tried everything in the books including incentives, to make him say daddy but it just didn’t work. He would call me daddy one moment, and the next he would revert to daa. I didn’t mind it, and I prayed for my wife to let him be. So it stuck. Before the other children came my wife had joined her first son in calling me daa. So by the time other children came daa had effectively displaced daddy in reference to yours sincerely.The boys are now tweenagers (children in their 20s), and daddy has still not been able to displace daa. Instead some close family relations have since joined in calling me daa in spoken and written words. So how could anyone or anything undo bonds forged over years and decades? For some people it is as simple as tossing or flipping a flimsy coin. Not so for others.

     

    In 1958, a novel written by a Nigerian was published. It was written by Chinua Achebe. In his A Short History of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Terri Ochiagha said that ‘The publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was heralded as the inaugural moment of modern African fiction, and the book remains the most widely read African novel of all time. It has been translated into more than sixty languages, has sold over twelve million copies, and is a required text at the primary, secondary, and tertiary educational levels the world over’. Ochiagha said that Things Fall Apart was neither the first African novel to be published in the West nor necessarily the most critically valued but that its ‘enduring, larger-than-life iconocity has surpassed even that of its author’.

     

    In that book Okonkwo was the principal character and protagonist. The novel was set at a period of a clash of civilizations- that of the Igbo of Nigeria, and the English represented by Christianity. Okonkwo contrived to be a warrior and a weakling at the same time. He fought battles and won but eventually killed a child who called him father. And he killed him deliberately. The problem was that Okonkwo had a father who was a butt of his Umuofia community, and a son Nwoye, who he saw as not taking after him in masculinity and bravery. He was haunted by fear of being perceived as a weakling. He perpetually feared being defined by how his father was perceived, and how he regarded Nwoye his son as being feminine. And so Okonkwo ended up as a tragic hero.

     

    In chapter seven of the iconic book so much was said about Ikemefuna, the ‘slave child’ who called Okonkwo father. Here Achebe said that Ikemefuna had become like a son to Okonkwo though the child had been traded as part of a blood debt. The protagonist was extremely happy that Ikemefuna had been a good influence on his biological son, Nwoye. Recall that Okonkwo had previously felt that Nwoye was too feminine for his liking. Okonkwo was a warrior and a wrestling champion. Many years after Ikemefuna was traded as reparation to Umuofia by a neighbouring community which killed a young woman from Umuofia, the oldest man in Okonkwo’s community came visiting. He told Okonkwo that the village oracle had instructed that Ikemefuna must be killed for the good of Umuofia. But the old man told Okonkwo that he must not lay his hands on the boy who called him father. Okonkwo must have been shocked because he thought that the elders who gave custody of the child to him had forgotten everything about Ikemefuna.

    But he must not show weakness. So Okonkwo and a group of Umuofia men set a date and then set out on a journey with Ikemefuna during which he would be murdered. Along the way and on the strength of a pre-arranged signal, one of the men struck Ikemefuna with his machete. He missed his target. Understandably, Ikemefuna ran towards his ‘father’ ostensibly for rescue, refuge and safety. But no. Okonkwo drew his own machete, probably from its sheath and slew Ikemefuna, the boy who called him father. The men turned and returned to Umuofia. Immediately Nwoye saw them he sensed that Ikemefuna had been killed.

     

    I have gone to this length to draw parallels on family bonding and how easy or not it is to turn our backs on relationships of years and even decades. I used myself to illustrate how it would be virtually impossible to, under any circumstances or findings, turn my back on kids who have known and called me daa all their lives, and Okonkwo who would not flinch in using his hands to kill his child. It could be argued that Ikemefuna was not really his child. In the circumstance Ikemefuna could be regarded and classified as an adopted child. And in my Christian faith we, the adherents, are members of the family of God by adoption. So up until his death at the hands of his father, Ikemefuna was the son of Okonkwo. Could Okonkwo have done otherwise since the oldest man in Umuofia delivered a message purportedly from the community’s deity that the boy must be killed? What about the other part of the old man’s message: do not kill him by yourself? Beyond displaying masculinity, should Okonkwo have been part of the killing party, anyway?

    “Early this month Smart DNA which described itself as a leading DNA testing centre in Nigeria published its 2024 testings and findings in our country. The review period covered July 2023 to June 2024. It said that its data showed that 27% of paternity tests conducted at its centre came back negative.”

    Back to now. Nigerian families are currently facing excruciating struggles. And they come in various forms – economics, biology, science, bad governance at home, unemployment, abandonment of traditional values, and many more. It is no longer unusual to see families where a son lives or is in school in Canada; a daughter is going to school in the UK; a mother/wife lives in the United States; and, a husband/father, and one or two other children are home in Nigeria. The strain can be enormous and could have long lasting effects. In some cases families are permanently fractured if not outrightly destroyed. Fragments of destroyed Nigerian families litter the global landscape. And to think that families are the bedrock of every society and every country. In addition, many Nigerians are turning on traditional values and relationships. Many of us who dwell in urban areas no longer take our children to our ancestral homes for fear that they could come to harm. The fear could be real but I am minded to believe that it is often exaggerated.

     

    But the clearest of the present war on, and danger to, Nigerian families and especially couples is the fad of DNA testing. Absence of trust is primarily at the root of the increasing resort to the DNA to determine the biological relationship with a child. Yes, there’s also the reason of compulsion for DNA testing for families desirous of relocating to other countries especially in Europe and North America. But the truth is that if Nigeria provides an ‘opportunity economy’ and a measure of hope for its citizens especially the young ones, the quest to relocate may not have turned into a deluge that it has become.

    “The more troubling is DNA testing driven by the increasing lack of trust between couples over the biological relationship between father and child. We have to admit that some may not be true, but stories about sudden and acrimonious divorce are becoming rampant online and in real life. At the root of this development has been DNA test results that showed that the child or children who had called you father all their lives are not really from your loins.”

    Early this month Smart DNA which described itself as a leading DNA testing centre in Nigeria published its 2024 testings and findings in our country. The review period covered July 2023 to June 2024. It said that its data showed that 27% of paternity tests conducted at its centre came back negative. The test results showed that one in four cases, “the tested man is not the biological father of the child”. Smart DNA went further to reveal what it called “interesting geographic and demographic patterns in DNA testing in Nigeria”. For instance, it found out that 73.1% of all tests were conducted in Lagos, with a “notable split between Mainland (67.5%} and Island (32.5%}”. Figures from some other states showed that 5.5% of people who requested a DNA test were from Oyo state, 5.3% from Ogun, 4.0% from Rivers and 3.5% from Delta state.

     

    Smart DNA then drilled down to the ‘ethnic’ distribution of their clients which it described as an “interesting dimension”. In this category the Yoruba nation accounted for 53% of tests, followed by the Igbo nation with 31.3%, with the Hausa far down at 1.20%. This distribution certainly does not reflect the ethnic dynamics of the country. But it may reflect cultural attitudes “towards paternity testing and genetic science across different” ethnicities in the country. Gender and age -related insights from the data showed that the majority of tested children (54%} were aged 0-5, suggesting preference for early paternity confirmation. There was also gender bias that aligns with the mentality of many Nigerians. More tests were conducted on male children (52.8%} while the data showed 47.2% for female children. About 88.2% of men initiated the first contacts with the testing agency and women 11.8%.

     

    The reasons for DNA testing varied but trust between and among couples was the dominant issue. For instance, almost 86% of tests conducted in this centre during the period under review, June 2023 to July 2024, were conducted for what was called ‘Peace of Mind’. This would suggest that the majority of those who sought DNA testing did so to confirm biological relationships for personal reasons rather than legal cases. Immigration DNA tests (11.5%) and Avuncular (DNA testing methods for biological relatives) tests (1.22%) accounted for the others. Smart DNA said that there has been a significant leap in DNA testing for immigration purposes in recent years. It said the observed increase in emigration reflected broader societal and economic shifts in Nigeria.

     

    As it is the raw data from Smart DNA which probably reflects findings from other DNA testing centres in the country should be concerning. The data could be likened to a bikini which reveals a lot of the female flesh but hides the most tantalising. The data showed increasing trust deficits between couples, partners, and parents, and the rising appetite for japa (the local parlance for fleeing from Nigeria by desperate citizens, both young and old. This desperation leads to family separations and sometimes permanent and irreparable fractures in households.

     

    The more troubling is DNA testing driven by the increasing lack of trust between couples over the biological relationship between father and child. We have to admit that some may not be true, but stories about sudden and acrimonious divorce are becoming rampant online and in real life. At the root of this development has been DNA test results that showed that the child or children who had called you father all their lives are not really from your loins. For the man it is a betrayal and a shame. Stories abound about footballers, athletes, entertainers and sundry personages who had raised and trained children only to find out very late in their lives, and mostly after retirement from the endeavours that brought them fame and wealth that the children that they had invested on were not their biological children. For some, remarrying and raising a new family was no longer viable. And keeping a family and relationship riddled with scandals was not tenable either. They are left between the devil and the deep blue sea.

    READ ALSO:https://dailynigerian.com/divorce-rate-nigeria-alarming/

    Anybody who wears the shoes will know where they pinch. No man should pray to find himself in that situation. But such things happen. What then should be our attitude when confronted. Two things readily come to mind. In parts of my Igbo nation (it could be the entire Igbo land), and probably elsewhere in Nigeria and Africa, a child belongs to the husbandman. In traditional Igbo settings, any child born under the roof of a husbandman is the child of the man even if the pregnancy was contracted from outside. It extends to the fact that if a couple divorced, and the woman remarried and bore children in her new home, the children belong to the old husband in so far as the dowry paid on her head had not been refunded. If this be the case no Igbo person who has any sense of tradition will seek DNA testing to ascertain biological relationship with his children. But the man becomes blameless if the revelation came out because of immigration requirements. Sadly, many Igbo men have since been separated from their age-old traditional practices.

    OTHER CLIME: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/divorce-                                                    statistics/

    Secondly, love does not suddenly vanish on account of the betrayal of trust. No husband should take out the sin of his wife on his children. The children are blameless. Moreover, in my Christian faith, we are schooled to accept that we are all children of God by adoption into His family. So as much as it is humanly possible, the home should not be splintered on account of the betrayal of trust. Healing can take place with confession and repentance. The option of taking the children and driving away the adulterous woman may not suffice because merely seeing the children may remind you of what had happened. Because we are of blood and flesh this preachment would appear easier said than done. The problem is that even if you sack the woman and the children, you will still go to your grave a defeated and miserable man.

     

    For the sake of the cohesion of Nigerian families and the health of the society, this fad of a resort to DNA testing should be given a second thought. The saying may be wrong, but what you do not know will likely not kill you. Just pray and trust God that your partner is really your spouse. After all the Holy Bible says that he who finds a wife has found a good thing and also obtained favour from God.

     

     

     

  • ‘Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins,…’

    ‘Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins,…’

    READ: The Nigerian Anchor tomorrow…
    “The other day, Alhaji Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa state and a political gerontocrat, alerted the country that Tinubu is increasingly entrenching himself to make it impossible to remove him through the ballot in 2027. He was right. Unless something drastic happens, the chairman of the national assembly will be in office during the election in 2027. He is a Kept Man. Two helms men of secret security agencies were recently removed and replaced. One of the newcomers is of the ethnic stock of the president. The tenure of the in-coming substantive chief justice of the federation, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the president’s kinswoman, will run through 2027. If there’s any dispute from the presidential election, she will constitute the apex election tribunal, and probably head it. Whoever will be the INEC chairman in 2027 will be Tinubu’s lapdog. He will superintend another mago mago and wuru wuru election. The same can be said of the service chiefs. For certain, the police inspector – general will still be around given recent shenanigans with his tenure. Ordinarily and statutorily the police inspector – general should be out of office this month. He is also the president’s kinsman and was Tinubu’s aide-de-camp when he was the governor of Lagos state. Then add the issue of incumbency for a man who has no scruples in using state power for personal gain, then the picture of 2027 will be complete.”

     

    Quote from the concluding instalment in the trioligy by UGO Onuoha in THE FINGERPRINT serial.

    READ tomorrow.

  • Tinubu’s contemptuous of Nigerians

     

    “Tinubu was a two-term governor of Lagos state from 1999-2007. At that time, he was ruthless and manipulative. The only person that mattered to him then, and now, was himself. His manipulative nature and self -centredness can be attested to by a faction of Afenifere, the umbrella Yoruba sociocultural-cum political organisation.”

    IN their heart of hearts even the most ardent supporters of Nigeria’s president know that Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu is contemptuous of Nigerians. But in fairness to him, his contempt for the people did not just manifest after he was controversially and surreptitiously awarded the presidential election by the corrupt and inept ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the dead of the night on March 1, 2023.

     

    Tinubu was a two-term governor of Lagos state from 1999-2007. At that time, he was ruthless and manipulative. The only person that mattered to him then, and now, was himself. His manipulative nature and self -centredness can be attested to by a faction of Afenifere, the umbrella Yoruba sociocultural-cum political organisation. For his ruthlessness, those who have had to cross his path in his decades – long pursuit of his political and economic ambitions (which by the way cannot be separated), including survivors of the families of his rivals, have a tonne of tales to tell. They are not palatable stories. If Afenifere is today fractionalised it is down to the ruthlessness and selfishness of one man.

     

    A Legacy of Heist

    In the preceding paragraph we said that Tinubu ruled Lagos state for eight years. No. We were wrong. Until he was created as Nigeria’s president last year, Tinubu remained the de facto governor of Lagos. He still is. He is like the animal called ikiri among Ndigbo. Once this animal has its hands on a prey or its mouth in a cookie jar, it will never let go. Tinubu does not let go. Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, alluded to this avaricious nature of Tinubu in his press statement last week. Atiku named two companies which have long been associated with the president – Alpha Beta and Primero – which he alleged constituted direct financial pipelines from the coffers of Lagos state government to an individual’s bank account.

     

    Atiku had alleged in a press release that “Nigeria is rapidly transforming into a government of Tinubu, by Tinubu, and for Tinubu”, and that the “future of Nigerians has been effectively mortgaged to President Bola Tinubu, his family, and associates “, so much so that even when Tinubu leaves office, it will be nearly impossible to break the shackles. He alleged that: “Just as Alpha Beta, Primero, and others act as Tinubu’s proxies in Lagos, managing critical sectors and generating revenues for him, and his family, he has begun to replicate this at the federal level”.

     

    The former vice president spoke in the wake of the shenanigans between the state oil corporation, NNPCL, its retail arm and a private firm, OVH. Wale Tinubu’s Oando is alleged to own 49% of OVH. Wale Tinubu is reportedly a cousin to Bola Tinubu who, in addition to being Nigeria’s president, is also the country’s petroleum resources minister. NNPCL has refuted the linkage.

     

    Whether the mounting allegations of governance malpractices against Tinubu are true or not, it has to be noted that the tell-tale signs of the proclivity of the man have been in the public domain for at least 25 years. The fear of a section of the population that the president will be tempted or disposed to making Nigeria a bigger specimen of Lagos was not diminished by the boasting of Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, the president’s wife in 2023, to the effect that her family had been so blessed materially and financially that they would have no need to live off the paltry resources of Nigeria. Within 14 months her boasting which she reportedly made on the altar of God, a merciful Father and a consuming fire, has turned out not to be true. Oluremi Tinubu is said to be a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

     

    Lies About Subsidy

    Tinubu’s contempt for Nigerians started the very day he took his oath of office and oath of allegiance. Before that day actually. Right on the podium at the Eagle Square in Abuja on May 29, 2023, the president decreed the immediate scrapping of petrol subsidy. By the time he made this weighty declaration, his regime as personified by a Cabinet was not in place. There was no evidence that he consulted anybody including stakeholders in that sector of the economy. His rationalisation was that the petrol subsidy would bankrupt the country, and that his rivals to the presidency had promised to do the same during the campaigns. Both were lies because the regime is currently paying more for petrol subsidy, and the presidential candidates may have promised to remove petrol subsidy but there was no unanimity on how to do it. Tinubu took that action not because he did not know the implications and dire consequences of the move. He knew but he proceeded to do it anyway because he holds Nigerians in disdain. He probably enjoys seeing faces contorted in pain. What a pervert! This same man had in January 2012, eleven years prior, warned President Goodluck Jonathan, in an open letter, of the inevitable deleterious effects of subsidy removal. He was then the leader of the opposition party. The very things he predicted would happen in 2012 if Jonathan scrapped petrol subsidy happened in 2023 when he went against his own counsel- prices spiked, the economy nose-dived, inflation rose, poverty heightened and despondency spread.

     

     The Devaluation Woes and Petrol Scarcity

    His statement of ‘subsidy is gone’ was made in May of 2023. The very next month, in June, he devalued the Naira, and left the value of the national currency to the so-called free market forces. Again, his rationalisation was that the federal government could no longer afford to defend the Naira. Did this sound similar to his excuse for petrol subsidy removal? Tinubu yet displayed a disdain for Nigerians, lack of empathy, unconcern for the privations citizens were grappling with on account of petrol subsidy removal, and little knowledge of basic economics. Nigeria virtually exports nothing of value except crude oil over which it has no control of the price in the international market. Tinubu prides himself as an accountant with global clout but failed to realise that the massive devaluation of the national currency would only be more beneficial if the country was a net exporter of goods and services. Naira devaluation succeeded only in creating employment abroad, driving remnants of manufacturers away, forcing domestic producers to close shop, and exacerbating the import of inflation. The tragedy is that Nigeria is trapped.

     

    And to imagine that in spite of the dizzyingly devaluation of the Naira, the central bank is still defending the currency. The Tinubu regime has continued with the Muhammadu Buhari style of using the foreign reserves and hot money (foreign portfolio investments) to prop up the value of the Naira. Nigerians now scoff whenever the government boasts about the accression to the reserves because they know that at any point in time a significant portion of the reserves is encumbered.

     

    In barely one year the exchange rate of the Naira to the dollar has plummeted from about N700/$1 to over N1,600/$1. And we have not seen the end of it. The situation is worse in the petrol subsidy sector. Before Tinubu, about N3 trillion Naira was claimed as subsidy in one year. In 2024 which will be the one full year under Tinubu after discounting May – December 2023, the central bank is projecting that about N5 trillion would be expended on the same subsidy that was scrapped last year.

     

    But the projected expenditures on the so-called subsidy on petrol is the least of the problems facing Nigerians. The greater concern is that while the erstwhile subsidy regime was riddled with brazen corruption, the extant government has further made its administration opaque. For a start, there was no provision for subsidy in the 2024 national budget. However, subsidies have been incurred since January, indeed since the second half of 2023. Presently, petrol is scarce in many parts of the country. This was supposed to be one of the ills that the regime said that the removal of subsidy will cure. But in the fifteen months since petrol subsidy was supposedly yanked off, the country has suffered at least four bouts of scarcity.

     

    One litre of petrol currently sells for anything between N700 and N1,200 in parts of the country. In some locations, one litre of petrol costs as much as N2000. But the official price ranges from between N620-N750 per litre. However, as at the last count the landing cost of the product was put at about N1,150. So going by the official selling price and the reported landing price, there’s a price difference of about 50%. In other words, the proclamation last year that subsidy was gone was a lie. The NNPCL which is a cesspit of corruption has said it is absorbing the difference and that it was not paying any marketer any kobo for subsidy. What this means is that NNPCL is the sole importer of petrol; it determines the quantity it imports; it is responsible for determining the number of litres we consume in the country; and, it calculates the amount of subsidy per litre. On this issue NNPCL is a monopoly. But who will query an agency which reports to President Tinubu who doubles as the petroleum resources minister. Some other Nigerian presidents appointed oil ministers but not Buhari, and so far, not Tinubu. If this arrangement under the successive regimes of the All Progressives Congress (APC) does not mirror corruption, then it will be hard to find what does.

    *Next week we’ll continue this interrogation with a different headline highlighting political malpractices and governance malfeasance.

     

    Ugo Onuoha
    Former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief
    Champion Newspapers Ltd