Cloned Nigerian Anchor

Author: Wale Alonge

The Fleecing of Nigeria by a profligate Corrupt Legislature… our senate has become the den of thieves

While we might have all been distracted by the drama and hoopla generated by Senator from the north, we all might have missed the bombshell revelations the scandals revealed yesterday. Earlier, a ranking senator from the south made an allegation that some senior senators each received 500 million Naira padding in the 2024 budget. Padding is the code name for the legislative fleecing of our commonwealth with illegal budget allocation in the name of constituent projects. It is a blackmail tactic that Sister Ngozi Eweala made a lot of noise about as the Minister of Finance and the de facto prime minister in which she alleged that senators and House of Rep members routinely blackmail the executive to include these graft as the conditions to pass the annual budget and to fund the budgetary proposals of the executive arm.

Well, we just watched the confession video in the speech of Senator Bamidele on the floor of the senate. We might be tempted to gloss over the big news he made during that speech. He confirmed the allegation that some senators actually received 500 million Naira, an allegation by a ranking senator, which the other senators tried to shout down earlier today.

Our senate is the den of thieves, who are totally disconnected from the daily struggle and anguish of the citizens. Not only did these leeches allocate hundreds of millions of Naira to order plush SUV for meeting the majesty of their highly exulted offices while their citizen starve to death, but the rut goes even deeper.

This Senator Opeyemi Bamidele just confirmed on the floor of the senate the allegations that they each received 500 million Naira. He asked their constituencies to hold them accountable if they didn’t implement more than 500 million Naira investments in
Constituent projects like boreholes and solar panels. For goodness sake, in 2024, our senators are celebrating borehole and solar panels, both signs of retrogression and underdevelopment.

These people have no respect for us, and it’s our fault because we have abandoned politics to the worst of us and to the degenerates.

When did they change the constitution to grant the legislature the executive power to fund and implement projects using their personal bank accounts with no accountability?

We need to disband the house of thieves called the Nigerian legislature, where many are double dipping, drawing their pensions as former governors while fleecing our commonwealth through obscene renumeration plus the weekly deposits of illicit fund in their bank accounts. We all heard it on life TV when Senator Akpabio announced hefty Christmas payments into his colleagues’ accounts.

It used to be Ghana-must-go bags and mobile phone airtime and wifi credits. Today, it is direct deposits or using the budget of MDAs to launder the fund, which is then clandestinely diverted to their personal account.

We learned recently that ministers in the executive branch routinely use their personal bank account to transact official government expenditure.

Sister Ngozi Eweala made a lot of noise about the corruption ridden constituency projects, which our legislators routinely used to blackmail the executive branch to pad our annual budget or risk the budget not being passed.

No wonder the Senate has become the retirement gig for corrupt ex-governors. They are also bankrupting the country with one of the highest legislative remuneration in the world in a country with one of highest concentration of the poorest of the poor living on less than $2 a day. What an outrage.

We need to thrash the plagiarized American presidential constitution and replace it with a homegrown, institutionally, culturally, and financially compatible one.

We can’t no longer afford to support these super leeches who are bleeding us to death. They very quickly shot down today with alacrity, a member of cult of thieves who went rogue by spilling the beans about the sleece in the Nigerian Senate. We must break open the code of silence.

03/13/2024
The Sudden Exit of Wigwe: The Deeper lesson for Us All

Vanity upon vanity all is vanity is a refrain often thrown around when tragedy strikes and someone in their prime is cruelly and suddenly yanked out by the cold and unforgiving hand of death.

The phrase which in its original text reads “vanities of vanities, all is vanity. According to Dr Oliver Teare who wrote an insightful article about the phrase, in its original Hebrew translation is the most appropriate translation should read Vapor of vapor- all is vapor and can be found in (.https://interestingliterature.com/2021/07/bible-vanity-of-vanities-all-is-vanity-meaning-analysis/). It connotes the futility of our transient existence. Here today, gone tomorrow. It speaks to the futility of our insatiable quest for material things instead of seeking after wisdom.
It does not mean that our existence in life is meaningless.

What is meaningless, futile, banal and transient is our inordinate quest for the “good” things of life which in our material world often means the comfort of extravagant materialism, of women, fame, and power.

King Solomon who is thought to be the author of Ecclesiastices and reputed to be the wealthiest human to ever walk the surface of earth, was tying to convey to his readers the futility, the emptiness and the dissatisfaction of all his stupendous material possession, his mansion of gold, his countless wives and concubines. Death has the last say on them all. Hence vanity of vanities- all Is vanity.

According to Dr. Teare, Ecclesiastes is one of the more accessible books of the Bible: its message has remained the same as when it was written more than two millennia ago. The Existentialists of the twentieth century were merely rediscovering what those who’d gone before had already realised: that life doesn’t appear to come with any in-built meaning.

According to Dr: Teare, we have to create some kind of meaning and purpose for ourselves. After all, the earth has been here long before us, and will endure long after we have gone.

So life doesn’t have to be purposelesss. Our life indeed can and should have a purpose and meaning. It all depends on what we prioritize its purpose to be. It is hard to argue that the life of Nelson Mandela, or Ghandi or Dr. Martin Luther King was futile amd without purpose.

For centuries in the future historians will probably still be studying and writing about their sojourn and larger than life impact on this planet. Historians will not be recording how much wealth they accumulated but about their impact on the world.

Our life begins with a dot at birth and ends with a dot at our exit. What counts is what we fill the dash between the two dots with.

Being born at all is beating the biggest odd or winning the the most improbably jackpot ever. The probability of being born at all is so slim it is the greatest miracle giving all that have to line up perfectly for us to even be born, starting with the chance probability of our parents meeting and the odd of our DNA being the one that survived the race of life at conception.

The only certainty in life is death everything else is a chance, hence we hold the universe a duty to make this greatest gift , the gift of life, our very existence, count, knowing full well that death can come knocking at any time unannounced.

We have a duty to sow goodness into this messed up cruel world because thaf is all that will count when our sojourn on this planet comes to an inevitable, and inescapable end.

We all hold on by faith that there must be a higher purpose and existence beyond this banal existence of ours. It is all based on faith, which is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. The only thing we know for sure experientially is this life of ours.

So Wigiwe’s existence and sojourn on this side of the divide, despite his sudden untimely ending was not in vain. He left an impact in this world which people will debate for years to come.

What matter is not how we die but how we live.

03/10/2024
The carnage in Gaza: A Blight on Our Collective Humanity: It. Must End Now

It is ungodly and unchristianly to support the brutality and genocide being perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza. Legal minds might argue whether or not the wanton killing of tens of thousands of innocent children, women and the aged in Gaza meets the legal threshold of being described as genocide, but people of good conscience know what genocide looks like when innocent people are being killed on an orgy of collective punishment and retribution.

Yes, I am a Christian, but I would rather be an agnostic than worship any God or religion that supports the crudity and inhumanity taking place in Gaza and the West Bank. That was the reason I walked out of my old church in Miami with my family in 2004 during the Israelis-Hezbollah war in Lebanon when women and children were being slaughtered by Israelis bombing. At the height of the war, my pastor stood on the pulpit to justify the killing of Muslims and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as part of the fulfillment of biblical end-time prophesies. I totally lost it.

I stood up in the middle rot the sermon and was about to yell obscenities at him. My wife’s pleading and covering my mouth was what saved the day. That moment, I knew I couldn’t serve the God that my pastor pretended that p be serving. I stood up in rage with my petrified wife I tow, went to the children wings where my children were worshipping, took them up and drove off of the parking lot never to return. That church was our family church for nine years. It was the church where my children were baptized. My children have never forgotten that experience and have now become activists and advocates on behalf of Palestinians. Sadly, that is experience has shaped their attitude toward church and religion in general even though we immediately found another church where they were raised in the Christian faith. Sadly, some misguided Nigerian pastors and so-called Christians who have not read their Bible where it spoke about Christ drinking water from the Samaritan woman in the well, blindly support the Israelis on the basis of some misguided biblical injunction.

I have a firsthand experience seeing face to face the worst form of apartheid in Palestine when I spent the summer of 2020 as a visiting professor at the Palestine Polytechnic University in Hebron. I saw Israelis soldiers with guns watching over every move of the Palestinians, taking their land and demolishing their homes and farmland. I witnessed the economic strangulation of Palestinians by the Israeli authority in a two-tier economy where the Palestinians are living like refugees in their homeland, deny the right of free movement and access to the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem. I was with a professor friend of mine who had taken me and my wife to the holy Ibrahimi Mosque in Old City Hebron. My good friend during that visit wanted to show my wife and I the house where he took his fresh breath and where he spent his youthful formative years and where his family ran a shop in the Old Hebron market. Of course, we were all excited to see where this great friend of ours and gentle soul grew up. To my and my wife utter shock, as we attempted to cross the security post erected by gun-trotting teenage Israeli soldiers, my wife and I were asked to show our passports. As naturalized African immigrants with US passports, the Israelis soldiers respectfully ushered us in. He bluntly refused our Palestinian Professor friend access to cross the line of divide in his own town and place of birth. It was the first time in my entire life when being black gave us special privilege. Of course, I wasn’t fooled for a second that the teenager soldier would have sent my black butt back without the U.S. passport. We all have read about the second-class status of black Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Of course, have been a victim of racism and racial discrimination ourselves, my wife and I insisted we weren’t going to cross the security line without our Palestinian brother and friend. We also insisted on crossing that line and visiting the site. The soldiers ultimately gave in to our demand giving us just 5-10 minutes. We could sense being watched by the soldiers at the gate and Israelis soldiers at the ubiquitous watchtowers that sits atop of the site, and which dots the landscape of occupied West Bank.

I would never forget the tears I shed with young brilliant Palestinian students in a school in Nablus where I had gone with a U.S. Embassy staff to teach these teenagers about entrepreneurship. Some of these teen Palestinians were dual U.S.-Palestinian citizens. They spoke of being trapped in a hopeless enclave with no access to basic Google map, unable to partake in the global digital economy, unable to order and have anything delivered via the online marketplace. They spoke about the constant harassment and imprisonment by the occupying Israeli military.

I remember being accompanied by two armored SUV and a contingent of almost 8 heavily armed contract private security company who stood guard even at the door of the school bathroom when I went to ease myself. Mind you, this was an empty high school campus on vacation. There were just about 20 students who were bused in to receive me and the US Embassy staff from Jerusalem plus about three officials of the school. We were ushered into the town by a police rider with siren. I felt totally scandalized by this unnecessary militarization of an innocuous visit to young Palestinians and the sense of siege it created on these young souls and their community. Imagine leaving on a daily basis under such a siege. Well, that is the daily existence of Palestinians in the West Bank.

That siege does not spare anyone in the West Bank. During my Fulbright stint at the PPU, I was privileged to participate in their commencement ceremony. The special guest of honor for the occasion was the Prime Minister. The entire program was delayed for hours. It was later that we were informed that the PM motorcade was held up by Israeli security checkpoint just outside of Ramallah, the seat of power for the Palestinian Authority.

Let me be crystal clear that I condemned in the strongest term, the barbarity slighter of innocent Israeli on October 7th by Hamas. I have spoken many Palestinian friends, who in spite the daily dehumanization, also condemn in the strongest language imaginable the October 7th and who dissociate themselves from its vengeful killing as not representing them. So, this notion that anyone who condemns the post October 7th carnage being perpetrated by the IDF is being anti-Semitic and supportive of the Hamas is only attempting to impose a silence. I have agonized for several months about penning this post. The charge of anti-Semitism has been strategically deployed to silence opponents of the carnage being committed by the Israeli military. There are in fact many Jews who have come out publicly condemn the IDF. For months I had wanted to reach out to my Palestinian colleagues, but I have held back knowing that their phones are probably under constant surveillance.

I wept like a baby for weeks after watching on TV the agony of Israeli parents mourning the slaughter of their children at the music festival plus the score held as hostages. Yes, all people of good conscience must condemn the cycle of violence, revenge and retribution in the breath-taking beautiful, Holy Land. Yes, the inhumane, repressive apartheid system erected by the Israelis is a recipe for violent backlash. You cannot deny a people access to a place of peace and refuge without expecting a backlash. The reality is that violence begets violence, revenge and retribution beget revenge and retribution. The whole world must shout with one voice “Enough already”. What’s happening in Gaza and the entire Occupied Palestine is a blight on humanity. Our collective silence and the acquiescence and tacit support by some people based on misguided religious ground is beyond ab outrage. The code of silence and acquiescence must end.

We just saw scores of hungry Gazans mowed down this morning while trying to get donated food to feed their children. Yes, making peace between two peoples who have been raised for generations to virulently hate and despise one another is a hard nut to crack. Yet, peace and a viable homeland and country for the Palestinians side by side with their Israelis neighbors is the only viable way out. The alternative is the cycle of the human carnage and desolation we are all horrifiedly and powerlessly watching in Gaza. The whole world must speak with one irresistible voice. Ceasefire Now, today, not tomorrow!!!!

03/03/2024
The Empty Sanctimony of the Nigerian Diasporans

Anyone who has spent time on Nigerians in diaspora dominated social platform would be sick and tire of the their negativism, sanctimony and boasting about the system they currently live in and their constant whining and complaining about their God forsaken homeland.

They share videos of automated garri factory in Bolivia and elsewhere, berating Nigeria and Nigerians in the homeland for not doing the same thing.

Instead of coming together as a body, raise the fund, go to Bolivia which is not too far away from us, form a partnership with them and transfer the same technology to our country and make money in the process, they would rather list the reasons why it can’t be done in Nigeria. Rather they venerate other African countries like Zambia which are woefully behind us in development, forgetting that negativists and pessimists build nothing of value.

When we keep saying what’s wrong with Nigeria, ain’t we citizens or at least once citizens of that country? Some of us have no solution to Nigeria’s problem other than hauling insults at the president and anyone who expresses a contrary position. Was that how this “great” country which we now call home was built? If truth be told some of those “great” nations are not so great. They have their ugliness underbelly.
Some of them are just great packing and re-branding of themselves to the world, why we Nigerians specialize in degrading and denigrating our own homeland. Negative branding has real life consequences. Who would want to invest in a country whose citizens are constantly bringing it down by projecting negativity? No one.

Didn’t African-Americans march, fight, and paid with their lives to pass landmark legislations like the civil rights act, the voters right act and other such legislations that have brought the societal change which we African immigrants are now enjoying and have benefitted from. Yet, the struggle continues. Racial disparity and racism still exist. That is the nature of human systems. Changes are usually gradual and won not by whining but by fighting to being them about.

Every great nation we idolize today has gone through worse than what we are experiencing now. This is our make or break moment and we will not make it with our “bring him, mob at the cockpit door, negativism, constant whinning and complaining with no actionable solution proffered” attitude.

Great nations are built by the sweat, tears and blood of patriots not by lazy armchair critics, stone-throwers and whiners.

Let everyone do something to improve their local neighborhood and block by block, town by town and local government by local government, state by state, we will transform our nation.

If we think we can do better than those in power, let’s organize a coalition of concerned diasporans and get into the political arena to change the system. It’s a lot easier to be a lazy and sanctimonious armchair critic separated by thousands of miles of vast ocean. It changes nothing otherwise with the mountains of whining from Nigerians in diaspora, our country should be a great nation today.

We in the diaspora who have been exposed to systems that work have a special obligation to contribute our quota to transforming our motherland.

Sadly, many of the same leaders at the helms of affairs today including our President, were once diasporans like us making a lie of our holier than thou sanctimony. Many of us will do worse if given political appointments. We will steal and enrich ourselves like almost everyone else does. That has been the track record of the Nigerian diasporans. It is criticize from afar off and join them in looting given the opportunity.

02/21/2024
A Nation Poised for Greatness

The widely circulated video bemoaning the massive devaluation of the Nigerian Naira and our interpretation of what it portends for the future of our country, is a clear illustration of how our preconceived and implicit biases can dramatically influence our perception of the same reality.

Yes, the author of the video, which sounded like an AI generated audio, was absolutely on target in his diagnosis of the pathology of incompetent, inept and corrupt leadership that has led to the decimation of our currency valuation.

In fact, there is no daylight between you and me in our analysis of the current Hobbesian state of existence that our people are being forced to live through. No sane person can deny the reality of the current parlous existence of our people. It is all too glaring for everyone to see. Where there is a huge gulf between
us is our future orientation. You, on one hand, see no hope of a bright future for Nigeria. I, on the other hand, see a nation that emerges out of this current mess into a future full of a promise of economic renaissance and rebirth.

Even in the midst of the darkest cloud hovering Nigeria, I see shadows and glimmers of bright spots. I see incredible creative energy in the culture economy (Nigerian music and Nollywood) _killing_ it globally. I see a booming tech-economy and an emerging and thriving fintech. I see an economy that is rapidly becoming a cashless economy. From the local bukateria to the hawkers on the street, you can now almost transact business without cash. I also see an explosion of a construction economy. In my neighborhood here in Ibadan and across all the major cities in the country, there is an incredible redevelopment boom, old buildings being demolished, and in their place glistering massive edifice. It is also a reality that the Igbos are buying up the whole place from Lagos; to Ibadan, to Akure, and to my hometown Ilesha. Whether that is good or bad depends on one’s perspective. That is not the subject of this post. You can see some of the most amazing architectural masterpieces going up all over the place and a property valuation going through the roof. By the way, not all the construction are by politicians or corrupt civil servants. You will be surprised that the mechanic who fixes your car or the carpenter who calls your dad is a landlord. Rather than paying exorbitant rents, a lot of people, some misguided people, might look down on as low class, have actually managed to put up their shelter. It might not be Hollywood style edifice, but our resilient no-quitting people are beating the odds of home ownership.

Of course, on the flip side, one cannot overlook the mind-numbing and sociologically dangerous gulf emerging between the haves and the have-nots. There is unnecessary suffering and inhumane poverty ravaging the land due to the insane greed of a kleptocratic ruling class and civil servants. That is the danger that lies ahead for our country. The Nigerian rich class may be unwittingly piling up the dynamite that might be used to blow up their wealth. We must address the wealth inequality and the emerging segregation of Nigeria into a de factor caste system based on wealth.

So back to my point, while many of us, especially those of us in the diaspora, are focussed on the problems, I see dynamic people both Nigerian and especially non-Nigerians, who are capitalizing on the tremendous opportunities presented by a growing and consuming population of over 220 million people.

I see a Nigerian population, though bended by the whiplash of an economic tsunami, yet a people not broken. A resilient people who are eternal optimists, fun-loving, and future prospect-oriented. When you tell a Nigerian he is marooned in an impenetrable jungle, he takes out a matchete and starts cutting a path. That is the Nigerian spirit that will get us out of the current economic quagmire if we don’t give to the debilitating noise of despondency and hopelessness. That is what gives me hope and not some blind sense of patriotism or unhinged optimism. It is our can-do spirit, which has made the Nigerian immigrant population in the U.S. and all over the world, one of the most dynamic and successful immigrant groups in the entire world.

Yet, and sadly, when it comes to our country, the same diaspora Nigerians who have become pace-setters all over the world seem to be paralyzed by a pathology of pessimism and negativity. That is what’s so puzzling about the Nigerian diaspora.

Let me reiterate that I am as convinced that, as it is predictable that the sun will emerge in its amber glory from the east tomorrow morning, bursting through the dark night, Nigeria too will emerge out of this darkest of nights into a glorious morn. This is not wishful thinking but evidence based prognostication. The reason, I have been sounding the alarm bell is to alert my people in the Diaspora not to be caught up in the web of pessimism and negativity and in the process lose out of the innovator’s dividend. Yes, the Nigeria economy is high risk, but it is also a high reward. The Nigerian stock market, for instance, emerged as one of the best performers globally last year. That is news you will not see posted on social media. All you will see are the stories of kidnapping, banditry, and mayhem all over the country. Those too are the reality of many Nigeria, but that is not the whole truth. That is the nature of the unregulated wild Wild West world of the new social media.

Let me restate it now that it would be a catastrophic missed opportunity for those of us in the diaspora not to engage with the Nigerian economy now. Delay will be massively costly for those waiting until Nigeria becomes a mythical Eldorado. I am not talking theory. I am on the ground and seeing what our people back home are doing. Yes, there is tremendous suffering and poverty in the land, but that is not the entire story. Bad news sells on social media.

Don’t miss the boat. Yes, the U.S. will always be home for many of us. Many of us including yours truly have spent more of our existence in the US, than in our Nigeria homeland, but it would be a catastrophic oversight not to have at the minimum an escape retirement lifejacket tucked away somewhere in Nigeria.

Back to the video and how the prism each of us is using to watch it affects our perception. Yes, the video painted a jarring tale of a currency in a freefall, but it ended on a positive note. The author ended by saying that the power to change Nigeria’s future lies with all of us. That is the mindset of an optimist. So, while you watched that same video and saw no hope for our dearly beloved country, I watched the same video and saw a bright future on the horizon.

It is prudent here to state that without an optimistic mindset, a forward looking, innovative, patriotic and visionary leadership, and an unwavering effort to mobilize the citizenry to the task of nation-building, the bright future we all hope for is unlikely to emerge. So, the first dragon we must all slay is the dragon of pessimism and negativity. Pessimists never build anything great. Only optimists do.

Our country, Nigeria, is poised for greatness. No one but our pessimism and negativity can stop us.

01/25/2024
Tinubu, Now That You’ve Your Full Mandate, What Are You Going To Do With It?

The suffering in the land is approaching Armagedonian dimensions, yet legislators are distributing newly minted posh SUVs for their personal use. Governors are enjoying their jumbo retirement packages. Many of them are double dipping by collecting second salaries as ministers and senators.

The way official vehicle acquisition is done in societies that value transparency, probity and prudence is to purchase fleet of vehicles into a pool from which officials including legislators could request service. We all know what happens during change of government, officials almost always cart away official vehicles and government properties. Ours is an insane asylum where decency, decorum and normality have been turned upside down.

The insensitivity of Nigerians in position of authority is repugnant, disgusting and appalling. Yes, the Nigerian citizenry has docilely kept mute anesthesized by religion that preaches “suffer-suffer for world enjoy for heaven”.

Yet behold the day of judgement and reckoning not in heaven but on the streets and neighbourhoods of Nigeria is at hand unless our politicians take quick action to pull the brake before our country descends into a state of anarchy pushed there by unbearable suffering and depravation.

Now that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has his full mandate, he and his team had better go to work to turn the ship of state away from the iceberg it is heading towards.

Financial palliative, and the few grains of rice per family will not do the job. Major structural realignment is needed. First on the dock is to reduce the crippling cost of governance.

The insanity of retired governors collecting their pension while collecting salaries as ministers and senators needs to be put a stop to, even if only to send the signal that this government feels the pain of the longsuffering citizens. The insane jumbo emolument package for our legislators needs major review.

Our civil service is beyond bloated. It needs massive purge. Yes, it will cause short term pain, but government can ameliorate that pain with severance package. Go to any ministry in Abuja, it is like a day in Jankara market with civil servants milling around with no offices and contributing absolutely nothing to governance other than as leeches sucking the life out of our commonwealth.

We need a pruner to cut down the size of the civil service at all level, to improve efficiency while reducing cost. Too many civil servants create clogs and corruption-ridden bureaucratic inertia to slow down the delivery of services so people are forced to pay bribe to get their constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizenship like driver license and international passports.

Just like the banks and the private sector are moving toward digitalization of service, government needs to move in the same direction. Many of the services that are currently been stalled in human created bureaucratic lock-jam could be automated. Nigerians are now conversant with online banking. They can adapt to online access to government services.

Our recurrent expenditure heavy budgeting is crippling our ability to make the necessary infrastructure investment to move our economy into the 21st century

In order to stimulate industrial production in our country, the ministry of power should be absorbed under the presidency and declared as a national emergency and priority. The president must set as his top priority to achieve uninterrupted power supply by the end of his first term.

If he achieves just that one feat, he would be leaving a legacy for which Nigerians will be eternally grateful. Our foreign exchange crisis, the devaluation of our currency and the pauperization of Nigerians are all tied to the de-industrialization of Nigeria related to its epileptic power supply and our economy becoming import dependent.

With a population of 200 plus millions our economy could self sustain based on internal demand for locally manufactured good. Hence, the health of our economy, our currency valuation and our insatiable appetite for foreign currencies are all tied to our poor power generation and distribution: Fix that and our economy will take off like a super-charged rocket:

The notion that Nigeria can go back to the immediate post-independence regional constitution of the 1960s is a pipe dream. There is too much over-romanticism of the glorious 1960s which lasted only six years before the military struck. What was our population at that time?

How many secondary schools and universities did we have as a country? What percent of our citizens were admitted to the few secondary and tertiary institutions even in the southwest where free education was a policy?

What was our national GDP in 1966? This urban myth of Nigeria, especially the West, as a rich global economy at par with South Korea has gone on way too far for too long. It’s about time we debunked it.

As children, many of us lined up outside the few homes who owned televisions. Only the smartest of the smartest gained admission into the very few secondary schools that existed in the West.

After primary school, many of my classmates could not proceed to secondary school because they couldn’t gain admission under the stringent admission policies including entrance exams and interviews. Many parents had to buy ‘tolotolo’ (turkey) to secure admission for their children.

The ginny of state creation is out of the box and can never be put back. Oyo and Osun state could not jointly manage Ladoke Akintola University. So, this notion that we could collapse the existing 36 states into their old regional structures is a fallacy, and an unattainable pie in the sky.

Yes, Chief Awolowo remains the best president Nigeria never had. President Tinubu has a once in a lifetime opportunity to change that narrative. But this notion of the old western region was a harmonious Eldorado of sub-ethnic equity in the distribution of government benefits and industrial parks is another mythology we have perpetuated for too long.

The Ijeshas and the Ekitis whose cocoa and the Edos whose oil palm bankrolled the region’s economy did not benefit from the region’s industrial policy. None of the major Oodua Investment benefits accrued to the Ijeshas and Ekiti.

When people talk about return to regionalization, they need to ask the Efiks, the Ibibios and the South-South how much they benefited under the old Igbo dominated Eastern region. We need to stop deluding ourselves with the over-romanticism of regionalisation.

What the country needs to do is to give states and local government fiscal autonomy. Governors must take their sticky thieving finger off the local government allocations. The citizens must hold government officials, especially the local government where the impact of government should best the felt, accountable for the judicious use of our money.

Yes, it is our money of which they are just mere custodians we elected to serve our interests. We must clean up our applauding electoral system to give the citizens full power to elect their leaders. When politicians are able to manipulate the electoral process via rigging or by bribing the judiciary to install them via elections petition, they take away the citizens leverage to hold those in power accountable for good governance.

The Tinubu presidency has already started implementing some sort of structural autonomy via executive action by allowing states autonomy to develop their power infrastructure. But that is grossly inadequate and unsustainable. We need to codify such fiscal and political restructuring via legislative constitutional mechanisms.

There are many other steps that needed to be taken, but these are some quick wins the Tinubu presidency can take immediate action on right now that will make substantial difference in the life of the citizens. Time is fast running out. The ship is taking in water and swift action is needed to salvage the ship of state from sinking to the abyss.

10/26/2023
As Nigeria Turns 63: No Quick Road To Nirvana

The President in his Independence Day speech on Sunday 1st October, painted the picture of a nation bent in the knee by the weight of its challenges but one nonetheless, that remains unbowed and undeterred from the task of building a virile nation worthy of its destiny. The president delivered a balanced, sobering yet hopeful message that Nigerians expect from their president.

He reiterated his commitment to his reform agenda. He rightfully acknowledged the excruciating pain it is imposing on the citizenry, and announced new palliatives to ease it, principally due to fuel subsidy removal and the mind-numbing, wealth-devouring currency devaluation associated with ongoing effort to rejig the foreign exchange mechanism.

The president therefore deserves our commendation for delivering a speech which is aimed at giving us a much-needed shot in the arm to bear the pain a little longer, with the hope for a future payoff in a better Nigeria. It is obvious that the speech writers did a lot of research into past U.S. Presidential state of the union speech particularly JFK and Reagan if one critically examines its tonality, inflection and substance.

However, the President missed a great opportunity to prepare Nigerians for the long haul. He should have emphasized that given the gargantuan project of rebuilding a badly dilapidated house that his government is taking on, that diligence, patience and long forbearance, not speed must be the watchwords.

The president who was a key player in installing his predecessor who did so much damage to the country might have been uncomfortable to acknowledge that the damage to our country has been long, systemic and all-encompassing.

It would have amounted to accepting his own culpability (directly or indirectly) had the had the courage to admit that neither the political system, the civil service, the civil society, the clergy, religious nor our traditional institutions have been spared from our national rot and decadence.

It would have taken tremendous courage for the president to tell the nation that what the country is embarking on is not the kind of patch work that can be done in days. Politicians by their trade after all, are often short term focussed, looking as the clock speeds up to another looming election.

Telling the electorate to expect long term pain in the hope of a better future is not a speech that is often associated with practicing politicians. It is the reason, the “I have a dream speech” was given by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and not be a JFK.

No savvy politician will tell the electorate he has gone to the mountaintop and seen a brighter future but that he might not get there with them like King prophetically said in his speech. For politicians, pain is a dish served in small bites and intermittently.

But if truth be told, Nigerians must face the reality that the road to Nirvana will not be easy nor quick.

We didn’t get to this Hobbesian state of existence by leapfrogging and neither will we get out by it. Our suffering and pain might endure a long while but without it we have no chance. What we must do is to hold this government’s feet to fire to ensure that it stays focussed, on track and committed to its promises.

This government must also take on this difficult task of holding accountable those who have egregiously plundered our country and pauperized the most vulnerable of us. There can be no way forward without the atonement for, at the minimum the most egregious sin.

The president himself laid down the marker by singling out in his speech, the ongoing investigation into the CBN and the egregious criminality that was perpetrated by its previous governor.

Yes, it is true that very few if any in the political class can be absolved of culpability in the decimation of our country. However, the abuses that have been revealed in the management of the CBN are so egregious that they cannot and must not be swept under the carpet.

There must be severe consequences for their criminality even if it amounts to scapegoating. The many Nigerians whose lives were destroyed and the many who literally lost theirs due to the action of the former governor, deserve and demand it.

Happy 63rd Independence Day to us all.

10/02/2023
Thoughts & lessons from the Presidential Tribunal verdict

Yesterday was another decisive, epochal day when Nigeria transited another critical juncture in its fourth democratic voyage. Not a few feared that the worst may happen. But the day broke normally.

The streets were scanty as organized labour called off work. Some thought that one was staged. It was hushed tones amongst the banks. Even as they all opened for business, they shut off their doors to customers, rather abruptly by midday.

I guessed they too reasoned something may just give. Politics (election), religion and ethnicity are three issues that can be quite emotive in Nigeria, especially nowadays and it was fatally dreaded that the outcome of the PEPC was going to evoke a lot of passions and violent sentiments.

After months of waiting and of uncertainty, the PEPC has rendered its judgement. Without mincing words, today has turned out to be an awful day for Obi and his Labor Party and for Atiku and the PDP. Not only was Obi’s lawsuit dismissed with hefty cost, his challenge to the presidency was severely repudiated and reprimanded by the five justices for its frivolity, lack of merit and abuse of the judicial process.

While President Tinubu has a cause to celebrate his second victory, he and his team have a lot of work to do to restore the citizens’ confidence and faith in the democratic experiment and the electoral process.

The abysmal voters turn-out during the last election were due, in large measure, to the precipitous decline in the Nigerian standard of living and the lack of the dividends of democracy. These are also pointers to a democracy that has not met the expectations of the citizenry.

The implication is that President Tinubu must not pop out the champagne bottle yet, but he and his team must go to work round the clock, for the next four years to restore the faith of Nigerians in the democratic process. The stakes couldn’t be higher with the upsurge in military coups in the West African sub-region.

Now that the court has affirmed that President Tinubu was elected fair and square, he must get busy with delivering for the electorate. Without a doubt, his oil subsidy removal and the forex policies have imposed additional hardship on the citizens, the president and his team are sending the clear message that they are committed to delivering the goods for Nigerians.

Now let’s address the PEPC’s verdict and the lessons it sends to the Nigerian political class. One of the hallmarks of democracy is for the loser to accept the choice of the electorate, no matter how unpalatable it might be.

While it is the inalienable right of losers in any election to seek redress through the courts, we must put an end to the proclivity of Nigerian politicians not to accept electoral defeat but instead to seek to substitute the mandate of the electorate with the courts.

In an adversarial court system under which we operate, it is the responsibility and burden of the litigants challenging the declared electoral results, to prove by the preponderance of evidence that the electoral process was so flawed that it denied them victory.

Going by the pronouncement of the Judges at the PEPC, the Labor Party and the PDP failed substantially in meeting that high bar. The court therefore had no choice than to throw out their law suits. Any other insinuation only does damage to our judicial and electoral systems.

The Nigerian election tribunal should begin to impose hefty cost on litigants to reduce the abuse and waste of the court’s precious time and resources on frivolous electoral law suits. The PEPC has started that process with the fine imposed on the Labor Party and the PDP. The cost needs to be raised higher as a deterrent to politicians wasting the court’s time through the demand for frivolous intervention. Nigerian politicians must understand that there are no perfect elections anywhere in the world.

Finally, we do a disservice to our judicial system when we denigrate it because its verdict does not compute with our partisan position. In the next few days and weeks, we can expect supporters of the losing candidates to threaten the justices who severely reprimanded them for their frivolous and meritless law suit that turned out to be a fishing expedition in search of evidence.

With the hefty cost imposed on the Obi’s case, and the harsh repudiation of his case by the Presidential election petition court, it is obvious that all the legs have completely fallen off of the wobbly three-legged stool on which his suit stood.

It would be an abuse of court process to waste the Supreme Court’s time and resources on a doomed appeal. Of course, it is prerogative a vexed candidate to waste their time and resources. It is also the prerogative of the supreme court to impose additional cost on them if they choose to pursue a fatally flawed and doomed law suit.

Regarding the particular case of Mr. Peter Obi, who exemplifies the quest of Nd’Igbo to produce a candidate, a president from the South Eastern part of the country, my advice to my Igbo brethren is to throw away the shovel and stop digging. They need to start the long and arduous process of building a redemptive bridge back to the mainstream of Nigerian politics.

All is not lost but they must get to work immediately by quickly abandoning the Obi’s presidential ship to cast their nets further into the sea. I also respectfully admonish them to quit doing more damage by their vitriol and offensive rhetoric now that the court has rendered its judgement.

Such decision would be a great first step in that process of reconciliation and healing. They must take a page out of Tinubu’s political playbook. After decades of Yoruba playing tribal and oppositional politics under Great Awo’s AG and UPN political parties, Tinubu changed course.

He got a lot of flak and faced massive opprobrium from his kin who regarded him as a traitor for not supporting the misguided and myopic Oodua Nation movement.

Our Igbo brethren need their over version of Tinubu who has a track record of being detribalized and who has the political capital to bridge the gulf and build a bridge across the Nigerian ethnicized politics.

Tinubu entered into what many pundits described as the union of the incompatible with his political romance with former President Muhammadu Buhari. Our Igbo brethren must learn that tribal politics anchored on exploiting Nigeria religious divide is a loser any and every day. I pray that they heed my brotherly advice.

Our Igbo brethren have a right to aspire to the highest office in the land and it would be a great loss and very destabilizing to the polity if they are totally alienated politically. But they must trace and crawl their way back from the political abyss into which an ethnic based politics has placed them.

09/07/2023