Ten years ago today, 276 girls were abducted in the night from their school in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. The attack by Boko Haram pricked the conscience of the world. From London to Washington, protesters held placards reading #BringBackOurGirls—the hashtag the girls’ families had posted to pressure their idle government into action. It would take almost three weeks for then-Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan even to make a public announcement. Critical time had been lost.

When this March, 137 children were tragically taken from a school in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria, the shadow of Chibok lay ever present. Why, Nigerians and the world asked, after the passage of a decade was such an atrocity still happening?

This time, unlike Chibok, the girls and boys were brought back a fortnight later, the security and intelligence agencies deployed immediately to rescue them. Nevertheless, legitimate concerns over kidnappings persist in Africa’s most populous country. Success in Kaduna has brought families relief and praise for the military, yet the government bears no illusions: The scourge of kidnappings must be routed once and for all.

It begins with recognizing the changing nature of the threat. Boko Haram translates to “Western Education is Forbidden” and reflects an ideological impetus as jihadi insurgents opposed to the very idea of a Nigerian state. Today, Boko Haram are splintered, and mass abductions are primarily the work of criminal gangs. There is no ideology here: kidnapping has become an illegal industry rewarded with ransoms. Within days of the Kaduna attack, the abductors were demanding 1 billion naira ($600,000).

Nothing was paid. As president, I have been clear that ransoms stop. Resolution through payment only perpetuates the wider problem. This extortion racket must be squeezed out of existence. Meanwhile, the costs for perpetrators must be raised: They will receive not a dime, and instead security services’ counter action.

But compressing the kidnap for ransom market only addresses the pull factors. If we are to avoid funneling the same people into other crimes that cause normal Nigerians to feel insecure, we must address the push factors: poverty, inequality, and a paucity of opportunity. Criminal gangs can find easy recruits among those without either a job, or the prospect of one.

Some 63 percent of Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. They are bearing the economic consequences of a failure by successive governments to get to grip with the Nigerian economy. Fiscal and monetary albatrosses have grounded the country’s flight, when surging demographics demand high economic growth to just maintain current standards of living.

A decades-old fuel subsidy was exhausting paltry public finances. By 2022, the cost had ballooned to $10 billion—more than the government’s combined spending on education, health care, and infrastructure in a budget of $40 billion. Currency controls that artificially propped up the naira deterred investment and led to shortages of foreign exchange. For decades we have been financially ransoming ourselves. When my government took office last May, we faced a pile of debt obligations.

Just as with kidnappers, we had to be tough with the economy. Unsustainable market distortions had to be removed. As expected, floating the naira caused it to plunge. Given Nigeria is a net food importer, the average shopping basket has consequently risen in price. The removal of the fuel subsidy, in a country where many businesses and households rely on generators for power, has also had far reaching effects. These reforms have caused pain across Nigeria; they are still painful. Yet there is no better alternative: These and other difficult reforms are necessary to arrest the economic rot that lies at the heart of insecurity.

Green shoots are now visible. In the first quarter of this year, foreign currency inflows have almost matched those for the whole of last year. A multi-billion forex backlog at the central bank has been cleared, giving foreign investors’ confidence to invest in Africa’s largest economy, safe in the knowledge they can repatriate earnings. The naira has begun to stabilize after its initial downward trend and has made huge gains against the dollar.

Talk of macroeconomics might seem remote from the challenge of insecurity. But without the fundamentals in place, it is impossible for an enabling environment where the private sector thrives, jobs are created, and opportunity is spread across the country. It is how we ensure children can go to school without fear.

For any who may have doubted our direction, it should now be clear. There will be no more ransoms paid—not to kidnappers, nor toward those policies which have trapped our people economically. Nigerians, and their economy, will be liberated.

Bola Tinubu is president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

This article was first published  April 15, by Newsweek Magazine

TUESDAY WITH REUBENABATI

The Yoruba Nation ‘Secessionists’ of Ibadan

On Saturday, April 13, a group of 18 masked persons dressed in army camouflage, armed with rifles, charms and Oodua Nation flags attempted to take over the Oyo State House of Assembly and Government Secretariat to proclaim the emergence of a Yoruba Nation. They caused some commotion as they insisted on hoisting a flag, but the rag-tag team of insurrectionists were soon overpowered and arrested by officers of the Nigerian Police Command. Well, not quite. They resisted the police but when soldiers from the 2 Div. of the Nigerian Army arrived on the scene, the Oodua boys took to their heels.  Cowards! They should have waited and argue with the soldiers over the integrity and sovereignty of Nigeria. But the twist in the tale turned out to be the appearance of a woman on several platforms – Modupe Onitiri Abiola, who endorsed the action of the Oodua 18 and proclaimed that a Democratic Republic of Yoruba had emerged with effect from April 13, 2024. The additional twist in the tale is that the woman introduced herself as a widow of Chief MKO Abiola, the undeclared winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, pillar of sports in Africa, entrepreneur, philanthropist and a martyr of democracy. 

Nigerians are probably used to persons, groups – ethnic and socio-cultural – threatening to leave Nigeria and declare their own separate country, to as they argue correct the mistake of 1914, so-called, or to seek meaning in a new association. Afterall, in February 1966, Isaac Adaka Boro, an Ijaw ethnic minority rights activist, formed a group known as the Niger Delta Volunteer Force and declared the formation of a Niger Delta Republic.  He and his group fought the Nigerian Forces for 12 days before they were overwhelmed, arrested, tried for treason and thrown into jail. This was the first major rebellion against the Nigerian state. The same year, following the Unitary Decree No 34 of the Aguiyi Ironsi military government, the people of Northern Nigeria were so dissatisfied with the turn of events in Nigeria, they openly talked about “Araba” – meaning “let us separate.”  In January 1966, there had been a military coup which resulted in the death of Northern leaders and others, notably Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Northern Region Premier, Chief Ladoke Akintola, Premier of the Western Region, and Festus Okotie-Eboh, Minister of Finance.

The coup was led by Kaduna Nzeogwu, an Ibo man, and with that collapse of Nigeria’s First Republic, the new leader was also an Ibo man, General Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, the first military Head of State of Nigeria. The North had wanted to separate but eventually there was a counter coup in July 1966, which ousted the Ironsi regime, which further widened the centrifugal ethnic fissures in Nigeria. In July 1967, the Ibos fought back. Led by Lt. Col. Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, they declared the Republic of Biafra, meaning they were determined to secede from Nigeria. The war that ensued lasted three years – 6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970. That was 54 years ago, but there are signs that the civil war in Nigeria has not really ended.  Nigeria took a turn for the worse. The rain began to beat us.

The separatist spirit would again show up on April 22, 1990 in the coup speech by Major Gideon Orkar whose plan, as announced, included the excision of five Northern states of Bauchi, Borno, Katsina, Kano and Sokoto from Nigeria. The Orkar group was convinced that the people from these five states were the problem with Nigeria and they should just get out and form their own country. Thus, Orkar and 41 of his colleagues wanted to seize government and re-draw the map of Nigeria. They were captured by government troops, charged for treason, convicted and executed by firing squad. However, the fact that treason attracts the punishment of death has not deterred those who think that Nigeria must be dismembered, or that the map must be re-drawn. The year 2012 witnessed the emergence of a separatist, nativist, Igbo nationalism, anti-Fulani, neo-Biafra group called the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB) which aims to restore and actualize the dream of Biafra. IPOB is led by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who has been facing trial for treasonable felony since 2016. Before IPOB, there was also Radio Biafra established by Mazi Kanu in 2009, there was Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra led by Ralph Uwazurike (1999) and there was the Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM) led by Benjamin Igwe Onwuka (2012). There have also been talks about the possibility of an Arewa Reepublic.

A common thread in the foregoing is that every attempt at separation in Nigeria has been driven by frustration with the Nigerian arrangement, protests against bad governance, cries of marginalization or victimization, with ethnic identity and questions of federalism, religion and resource control thrown into the mix. For example, in 1993, following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election which denied MKO Abiola, a Yoruba man, victory, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) was formed to defend Yoruba rights and to remind the Babangida military junta that Yoruba people would not be cheated.  OPC was founded and led by Dr. Frederick Fasheun. It was also known as the Oodua Liberation Movement, or the Revolutionary Council of Nigeria. There would later be a more militant faction of the group, a breakaway faction, led by Gani Adams, who is now the Aaare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, that is the Yoruba Generalissimo, defender of the Yoruba realm. The OPC never really pushed the idea of leaving Nigeria: the group, Fasheun or Gani Adams faction has consistently focused on defending Yorubaland against any form of attack or aggression from other groups and to protect Yorubaland, covering both the South Western states and Itsekiriland in the Delta. The Itsekiri are cousins of the Yoruba. They share cultural, linguistic and political heritage

What we must note is that the Yoruba who had been maintaining a pacifist, federalist position in the matter soon began to talk about secession too, with the emergence under the Buhari administration (2015 – 2023) of the likes of Professor Banji Akintoye, and the militant Sunday Igboho who announced an Oodua Republic with a group known as Ilana Omo Yoruba in response to what they considered the Fulanization of Nigeria by the Buhari government and the assault on Yoruba territories by Hausa-Fulani herders. Ideologically, their objective was to protect Yoruba territory against Fulani invasion, to avoid a repeat of the seizure of Ilorin, a Yoruba town, in the 19th century.  The group petitioned the United Nations.  The mainstream Yoruba position however had always been restructuring and federalism, as canvassed by the Awoist group, the OPC and the Afenifere. The idea of an Oodua Republic looked like a fall-back position.

Sunday Igboho’s activism and militancy telegraphed what happened in Ibadan on Saturday. He is a self-determination activist who went beyond Professor Akintoye’s theoretical disposition to ask for an immediate declaration of an Oodua Republic. Of course, the Nigerian state went after him. He had to spend three years in exile and only recently returned for his mother’s burial. But that is another story.  It would be recalled, however, that in April 2021, more than 100 self-determination groups stormed Ibadan to declare an Oduduwa Republic, and a Yoruba nation. They included the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS), the Youth Initiative, Itsekiri National Youth Council, Ilana Omo Oodua and the Homeland Group. They were dispersed by the police. Now in 2024, we have a Mrs Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, leading a relatively unknown Ominira Yoruba group, trying to take over power in Oyo State. Special attention should be paid to the fact that the group has been disowned by both Professor Banji Akintoye and Sunday Igboho whose real name is actually Chief Sunday Adeyemo. Professor Akintoye says the group must be an agent of the Fulanis still desperate to destabilize Yorubaland. Igboho says he does not know the group, and that they are so “low-brained”. Akintoye and Igboho seem convinced that the Ibadan secessionists must be insane. No Yoruba leader has come out to identify with Mrs. Abiola’s group.

My take however is that the Yoruba elite cannot distance themselves from what has happened. Each and every one of them who has been calling for this or that or else, is guilty. I refer them to Ebrahim Hussein’s Kinjekitile, a 1979 play written by the Tanzanian playwright on the Maji Maji war. The lesson of that play is that a word when spoken develops a life of its own, beyond the author of the word. You can break a community, nation and even the world, by the power of words spoken. Those who ask that the mistake of 1914 must be revisited and that Nigeria must be renegotiated have their point, but let them also think about the effect of their pronouncements. MASSOB created IPOB. Nnamdi Kanu gave birth to Simon Ekpa. Self-determination, the right of a people to decide their own destiny is a fundamental right under the UN Charter (Article 1 sub. 2), and we have seen that in the case of Kosovo, and Abhkazia, and the unresolved, ongoing cases of Kurdistan, Northern Cyprus, Quebec, Scotland, Western Sahara, Tibet and Taiwan. Nonetheless, the April secessionists of Ibadan led by Mrs Onitiri -Abiola and others of their ilk must be reminded that whereas Nigeria is a signatory to international laws and conventions, it remains a country governed by specific domestic laws, and this is where I think Mrs. Abiola and her band of 18 soldiers are in troubled waters. Section 2 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution states clearly that Nigeria is “one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign state to be known by the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” Section 37 of the Criminal Code prescribes the death penalty for anyone who tries to tamper with Nigeria’s sovereignty. The offence is defined as treason. In Sections 40 – 43 of the same Code, the law refers to treasonable felony which attracts the punishment of a life imprisonment. Mrs Abiola and her gang have definitely ran foul of the law. They must be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted. Mrs. Onitiri-Abiola is said to be abroad; proceedings should be initiated post-haste for her extradition and interception wherever she may be in the world, and made to answer for her sin.

She reportedly disclosed with her own mouth that she is a widow of Chief MKO Abiola, a man who struggled and died in the process, to rescue this country from sheer hopelessness. In 1993, every section of Nigeria, including the North voted massively for Abiola in what was acknowledged as the freest and fairest election ever conducted in Nigeria. He was both a hero and a martyr of democracy.  And just like that, here comes Mrs. Modupe Onitiri-Abiola, one of Chief’s many wives, suddenly showing up from Alhaji’s harem, many years after, spitting on his grave and legacy.  Is she truly of the MKO stock? I think the Abiola family owes us a duty of issuing a statement to clarify at least one point: that Mrs. Onitiri-Abiola does not speak for the family. MKO Abiola is one of Yorubaland’s major icons of the 20th and 21st centuries, and a Nigerian hero.  It is sad that anyone at all, would dare associate his name with less noble causes.  

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must feel personally embarrassed. He is President of Nigeria from the Yoruba stock and his own people, whoever they are, are trying to take over government? It is either he is terribly disconnected from his own people or he is not paying enough attention to certain details. The other month, he came to Lagos and on his way to the mosque, his own people trooped out to complain about hunger. When he came back home for the Eid-el-Fitri festival, a week ago, he conveniently restricted himself to Ikoyi and worshipped at a place not farther than the Dolphin Estate. Wait a moment. Are Yorubas in a position to even claim that they are marginalized now that they have their own kinsman and half of the tribe of Lagos in government? President Tinubu must address “the peculiar mess” that occurred in Ibadan on April 13. He should find out if there are certain fifth columnists seeking to embarrass his government, using Yorubaland as their play field. He took an oath to defend the Nigerian Constitution. Every Nigerian leader that I have worked or interacted with insists that they are sworn to an oath to protect the indivisibility of Nigeria under their watch. Tinubu must wake up. He must not allow a situation whereby his own people are the ones calling for the dissolution of Nigeria while he is President, whatever all the textbook arguments may be. Mrs. Modupe Onitiri-Abiola must be given the Nnamdi Kanu treatment!

We had Chief Olabode George on The Morning Show (TMS) of Arise News yesterday and he drew attention to the failure of intelligence in the Ibadan matter. The old man was right. I share his view. How on earth did the Yoruba secessionists plan, organize and move to the Oyo State Government Secretariat without anybody catching a whiff of their intentions. Their spokesperson lives abroad. They must have been in touch with her through phone calls, messages and all that. And nobody picked that up? They even bought and wore military camouflage. And all the spokespersons of the Service Chiefs will come and tell us that they are committed to the defence of the sovereignty of Nigeria? Please how do you and your troops defend this country when you sleep on duty? And where was the station manager of the Department of State Security (DSS) in Oyo State and all the other agencies?  They must all be called in for questioning. Sleeping on duty is not allowed. And one more point, where was the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps?  It is the duty of that agency to protect and defend public infrastructure. Section 3 of the Civil Defence Act as amended (2007) gives the agency broad powers “to assist in the maintenance of peace and order and in the protection and rescuing of the civil population during the period of emergency.” The agency also has powers under section 3 (f) “to arrest with or without warrant, detain, investigate and institute legal proceedings by or in the name of the Attorney General of the Federation in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…” Where was Civil Defence even if the other agencies failed?

The bigger issue that we have to deal with perhaps is the increasing, creeping failure of the Nigerian state. Much fewer people today believe in the idea of Nigeria. This is why we have people challenging the state either through secessionist or separatist moves or complete abandonment of the country, the Japa phenomenon, with many believing or thinking that they would be better off in foreign lands. When Nigeria becomes attractive to its own people, we would have managed to create a nation.

The former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Prince Uche Secondus has sent out an advisory to PDP leaders assembling for the party's 98th NEC meeting tomorrow to do everything humanly possible and within the law to rescue and restore the party’s glory.

Speaking ahead of the party’s long-awaited National Executive Committee, NEC meeting tomorrow, the former National Chairman said the former Governor Neysom Wike’s busybodying gimmick should not distract them as the drowning Minister of FCT, is trying hard to create a non-existent crisis in the party to make himself relevant before his boss President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is already getting fed up with his nuisance of bringing politics into the governance of the FCT.

By deviously trying to create the impression that he is in a tussle of supremacy with the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the party and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Wike who is copiously losing political relevance everywhere from Rivers to Abuja is trying to give the impression that he is a factor in PDP and holding it for his APC interest.

‘The critical structures of this party, NEC, BOT, National Caucus, forum of Governors, Chairmen of states and National Assembly caucus of the party must rise to the challenge and isolate mischief makers and meddlers like Wike and move the party forward.

The former National Chairman then charged the party leaders not to fall into Wike’s trick by giving him undeserved relevance which he no longer possesses. I expect the founding fathers and other dedicated members to rise to the challenge and return this great party to its glory by ensuring as they always do at critical moments that nobody or group is greater or bigger than this party.

Signed

Ike Abonyi
Media Adviser

The Federal Government paid about ₦205bn as electricity subsidy in the third quarter of last year, according to data obtained from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) latest report.

The commission’s third quarterly market report revealed the government incurred a subsidy obligation of about ₦205bn in 2023/Q3 (average of ₦68bn per month), which is an increase of ₦69bn compared to the ₦135bn (average of ₦45bn per month) incurred in 2023/Q2.

This increase in subsidy payment, according to the report, was largely attributable to the government’s policy to harmonise exchange change rates due to the absence of cost-reflective tariffs across all electricity distribution companies (DisCos).

In the absence of cost-reflective tariffs, the government undertakes to cover the resultant gap (between the cost-reflective and allowed tariff) in the form of tariff shortfall funding.

This funding is applied to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) invoices that are to be paid by DisCos.

The amount to be covered by the DisCo is based on the tariff that they are allowed to charge and set out as their Minimum Remittance Obligation (MRO) in the periodic tariff orders issued by the commission.

The NERC said the rise in the government’s subsidy obligation meant that in Q3/2023, DisCos were only expected to cover 45 per cent of the total invoice received from the commission.

The development comes on the heels of a report by NERC, that DisCos did not remit about ₦50bn to the power sector in the third quarter of last year.

According to NERC, the DisCos failed to remit about ₦50bn to NBET in Q3/2023.
Under the market remittance section of the Q3 2023 Quarterly report, NERC said that the cumulative upstream invoice payable by DisCos was about ₦208bn, consisting of ₦167bn for generation costs from NBET, and ₦41bn for transmission and administrative services by the Market Operator (MO).

Of the amount, NERC said the DisCos collectively remitted the sum of ₦158bn consisting of ₦124bn for NBET, and about ₦34bn for MO), leaving an outstanding balance of ₦50bn. This translates to a remittance performance of about 76 per cent in 2023/Q3 which is down by about 19 per cent, compared to the 95 per cent recorded in 2023/Q2.

In 2023/Q3, the MRO-adjusted invoice from NBET to the DisCos was ₦167bn, while the total remittance made was ₦124bn, which translates to a 74 per cent remittance performance.
The remittance performance of DisCos to NBET in 2023/Q3 (74 per cent) was a 25 per cent decrease compared to the 99 per cent remittance performance recorded in 2023/Q2.

The notable decline in remittance performance by DisCos is a result of the 18 per cent decrease in remittance in 2023/Q3 (₦124.53bn), compared to 2023/Q2 (₦152.48bn) even though the MRO adjusted invoice in 2023/Q3 (₦167bn) increased by about 9 per cent compared to 2023/Q2 (₦154bn).

The total revenue collected by all DisCos in 2023/Q3 was about ₦268bn out of the ₦349bn billed to customers. This translates to a collection efficiency of 76 per cent.

The DisCos’ overall collection efficiency increased by 1 per cent from 75 per cent recorded in 2023/Q2.
This is explained by the fact that, although there was a marginal difference in total collections in 2023/Q3 (0.09 per cent) compared to 2023/Q2 (₦268bn), the total billings declined by 1.4 per cent (compared to ₦354.61bn in 2023/Q2).

All DisCos except Eko and Abuja recorded improvements in collection efficiency in 2023/Q3 compared to 2023/Q2. The DisCos with the most significant improvements in collection efficiency were Kaduna, Ikeja and Yola with about 5 per cent, 3 per cent and +2.9 per cent increases in collection efficiency respectively, between 2023/Q2 and 2023/Q3.

Eko and Abuja DisCos had 3.1 per cent and 1.2 per cent decreases respectively in collection efficiencies.
The overall increase in collection efficiency in 2023/Q3, NERC said, could be attributed to the implementation of various collection campaigns by DisCos, to improve remittance from post-paid customers.

“The most proven method for reducing collection losses is the installation of meters (especially prepaid meters for non-maximum demand customers).

“Therefore, DisCos are expected to utilise one or more metering frameworks provided for in the NERC MAP and NMMP metering regulation (2021) to improve end-use customer metering in their franchise area.
‘’This will reduce commercial and collection losses and will ensure the flow of funds to upstream market participants in the sector.

“Furthermore, DisCos must also continue to evaluate options for improving the optimisation of their energy delivery in line with the Service Based Tariff (SBT) regime to ensure that sufficient energy is supplied to customer groups/clusters with the highest collection efficiencies.

“Prompt payment of upstream invoices is critical for securing the availability of generation and transmission capacities. The waterfall regime pushes DisCos to boost their collections because most of their allowed revenues rank low in the waterfall.

In 2013, the CBN set up an escrow mechanism as part of the conditions for the Nigerian Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility (NEMSF) intervention that was extended to the DisCos.
Under this arrangement, all the revenues of the DisCos are escrowed, with DisCos only having access to these funds after relevant deductions to meet their loans have been made.
This escrow mechanism also provided visibility into the financial performance of the DisCos concerning collections.

[ThisNigeria]

The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has decried what described as insensitive and undeserving allocations in the 2024 federal budget.

Obi, who had previously called for a total review of the 2024 budget, said the appropriation act showed various misplaced priorities which are tilted against the poor in our midst.

A statement by Obi’s media team signed by Dr Yunusa Tanko, the former presidential candidate said he could not understand how the National Assembly Hospital would get N15 Billion for one year which is five times more than that of the National Hospital and six other premier Teaching Hospitals in the country.

The statement quoted the former Anambra State Governor thus: “I will remain persistent in my expressions of deep concern about the 2024 budget because of its critical importance to the lives of the citizens, especially the poor in our midst.

“I will continue to do so until the end of the year as a matter of patriotic engagement. This is because the many negatives of the budget have far-reaching implications for the development of our dear nation and the well-being of our citizens.

“It is evident that there are items in the budget that do not align with our current circumstances, and it is imperative to call for a review and appropriate virement. Allocating our scarce resources to high-priority areas of need is essential for the well-being of the nation.

“For instance, allocating N15 billion solely for the National Assembly hospital is unacceptable, especially when it exceeds five times the budgetary allocation to **The National Hospital** or the combined capital vote of our six major teaching hospitals across the nation, namely; University College Hospital, Ibadan; University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu; Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria; Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife; Jos University Teaching Hospital and University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. This disparity reflects a low level of care for the rest of society.”

He also questioned the budgetary allocation of N15.3 billion for the National Assembly library project and procurement of books, including the e-Library, in a country without a National Library, saying it is disappointing.

“The National Library has been under construction for the past 20 years, and its budgetary allocation for 2024 is less than 1B Naira, which makes the National Assembly Library budget 15 times more.
“Again the National Assembly Library budget is more than the combined budget of the top national universities’ libraries that desperately need the Libraries for research, teaching and learning purposes.

“Furthermore, allocating N10 billion for the Senate’s and House of Representatives car parks and the National Assembly Recreation Centre, while allocating less to the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, is concerning.

In an era where science, technology and innovation are crucial for the nation’s future, such allocations demonstrate a lack of foresight and basic awareness of global trends and urgent national priorities.”

“This level of insensitivity to the present situation and challenges faced by the people should not be tolerated by any development-minded nation.

“Every scarce resource must be directed towards productive sectors of the economy. It is time for our nation to reassess its priorities, revisit the budget, eliminate frivolous expenditures and channel our resources properly for the benefit of the people. No great nation is built on a foundation of waste and frivolity, ” he said.

[Leadership]

The United Kingdom has said that it is clear that Israel is “making a decision to act.”

He spoke following Iran’s missile and drone attacks launched toward Israel on Saturday which were intercepted and neutralised with the help of the UK, the US, France and Jordan.

According to Reuters, the Foreign Secretary, who spoke with reporters in Israel, also said that the UK wanted to see new sanctions on Iran, saying “They need to be given a clear unequivocal message by the G7.”

Cameron said, “It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act,” and that “We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible.”

He said he was in Jerusalem to “show solidarity after that appalling attack by Iran”, saying:

“It’s right to have made our views clear about what should happen next, but it’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act.

“We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible. And in a way that, as I said yesterday, is smart as well as tough.

“But the real need is to refocus back on Hamas, back on the hostages, back on getting the aid in, back on getting a pause in the conflict in Gaza.”

While in Israel Cameron is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, as well as visit the occupied West Bank.

[DailyPost]

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje says he remains the National Chairman of the party, boasting to the Kano State Government that he is unshakeable.

In a viral video, Ganduje was seen amidst a host of party supporters saying that he had met with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, adding that the President guaranteed his position as the party chairman.

He said, “Yesterday (Tuesday), I met with the president and I explained to him and he said he is also thankful for what you did. What was done is shambolic. He said you should be patient enough. This seat they are looking up to still stands unshakeable.

“Tell Kano State Government that the seat of National Chairman of APC in Nigeria is on Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. We are here unshakable.”

Daily Trust reports that recently, the APC had accused the Kano State Government of sponsoring elements in Ganduje Ward to announce the suspension of the National Chairman.

However, the government had swiftly denied any involvement, labelling it an “internal crisis” within the APC.

Meanwhile, a Kano State High Court on has affirmed Ganduje’s suspension.

The court, while granting an exparte order, also restrained Ganduje from further parading himself as a member of the party.

The order, a copy of which was cited by Daily Trust, was granted by Justice Usman Malam Na’abba, on Tuesday.

The order followed an exparte motion filed Haladu Gwanjo and Laminu Sani by their counsel Ibrahim Sa’ad.

The plaintiffs, who identified as executive members of APC Ganduje ward, said they brought the motion on behalf of the executive members of the ward.

Gwanjo, who identified as the party’s ward Legal Adviser, was the one that announced the suspension of Ganduje two days ago.

The court ordered, that henceforth, Ganduje should desist from presiding over all affairs of the National Working Committee (NWC) of APC.

[Dailytrust]

No fewer than 29 suspects were on Wednesday arraigned before the Chief Magistrate Court for involvement and roles in aborted invasion of the Oyo State Government Secretariat on Saturday, April 13.

They were arraigned on seven count charge bothering on treasonable felony, unlawful society, illegal possession of firearm, going armed and conduct likely to cause breach of peace.

The offences, according to the Investigative Police Officer, Bakare Rasaq, an Inspector with the State Criminal Investigation Department, Iyaganku, Ibadan is contrary to and punishable under Section 516 of the Criminak Code, Cap 38, Vol.II, Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria, 2000.

The number is an increase of eight more following the parade of 21 suspects erier by the Oyo Police Command. 

The case with charge number Mi/520c/2024 is between the Commissioner of Police vs the 29 suspects. 

Details Shortly…

[TheNation]

A Nigerian-born medical doctor, Dr Seyi Oyesola is one of the popular and intelligent inventors in the medical world as he co-invented “hospital in a box” called CompactOR (Compact Operating Room) in 2007.

The “Hospital in a Box” was a portable set with the capability of bringing surgical care to all parts of the African continent.

According to information on Wikipedia, the CompactOR was movable and could be delivered to rural areas and other places with jeep or helicopter. 

Another amazing feature of the “hospital in a box” was that it could be set up in just ten minutes with a complete operating room with all the relevant surgical tools including the defibrillators, EKG monitoring, anesthesia and surgical lighting. 

It was solar paneled and could perform oral surgeries like the removal of wisdom teeth, removal of cataracts, gall bladders and appendices, and has successfully been used. 

The estimated cost of the basic hospital in a box was less than £50,000 (around US $77,350) which was about one fifth of the cost made available for the same services.

Oyesola was born in Nigeria but grew up in Cleveland, the United States. He graduated from high school in 1975 and came down to Nigeria where he obtained his Bachelors of Science Degree from the University of Lagos in 1986. 

Dr Seyi Oyesola practised in Nigeria for a short time before going to the United Kingdom and the US for specialised training in anesthesiology and critical care.

He explained that the idea and passion behind the creation of ‘hospital in a box’ was the experience of how people died from simple treatable and manageable illnesses like trauma, burn and heart attacks in community hospitals and health centres, when he came to the country to practise in 2015.

This was where the innovation on improving the health sector in the country began. He worked in the University of Lagos where he rose to lead a team of young doctors in anesthesiology.

Dr Oyesola was appointed consultant at Medway Maritime Hospital in the UK. In 1998, he joined the University of California, Los Angeles as a visiting Assistant Professor. In 1999, he became a consultant in anesthesia and critical care in the UK National Health Service (NHS). He also taught at the medical simulation center of the Imperial College School of Medicine in 2001.

Aside from the invention, he participated in performing the first successful kidney transplant at the Delta State University Teaching Hospital in 2014.

He has worked for more than 25 years on the special needs in anesthesiology and critical care, bringing innovation, developing high-tech medical equipment and training to African hospitals as well as visiting rural hospitals.

Oyesola’s achievements include co-authorship and publications of 8 articles on medicine, co-development of CompactOR, establishment of Practice Ventures in 1996, a company that developed and supplied high-tech medical equipment and training to African hospitals.

He also had a successful TED Global talk in 2007 on hospital in a box, he has a Membership of Professional Associations, Association of Anesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Society of medicine, Intensive Care Society, UK and Royal College of Surgeons (Anaesthesia) Ireland.

[Vanguard]

The Kano state high court has affirmed the suspension of Abdullahi Ganduje as national chair of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The court, while granting an ex parte order, also restrained Ganduje from further parading himself as a member of the party.

On April 15, APC executives in Dawakin ward, under Tofa LGA of Kano, suspended Ganduje over alleged corruption.

However, the working committee of the APC in Kano subsequently nullified the suspension and punished the ward executives.

More to follow…

[TheCable]

“Can the Yoruba Christian really avoid sharing things Islamic? If you are a pentecostal Yoruba Christian and you will see it as a sin to celebrate the next Sallah with me, what you will need to throw away will be more than my food. You will stop praying entirely in Yoruba because almost all the key words in the established Christian payers are taken from Arabic/Islamic texts. You will stop calling prayer ‘adura’ because it is from the Muslim ‘Du’a’. You will stop using the word ‘aanu’ (mercy) because the word is rooted in an Arabic word. A new word has to be coined for alafia (peace, wellbeing) because its root is also Arabic. Sermon will stop being called ‘iwaasu’ because it is from the Arabic ‘wa’z’. You will, furthermore, need to change your wardrobe and come up with new designs beyond what you call Yoruba dresses.”

The audience at the 1903 (third year) lecture of the Royal African Society in London listened with rapt attention as African nationalist, Dr. Edward Blyden, took them back to antiquity when “the most enlightened nations of Greece, Asia, and Egypt” held the opinion that “God revealed himself only in Africa.” Great men of that period, including Alexander the Great, rushed to the great oracle of Africa to drop offerings and “learn the will of God.” A few centuries after that epoch, Blyden lamented, Africa, the “first home of God” where He “buried His great truths” had travelled full circle and had come to be identified by the ‘civilised’ world of the 19th century as “the last home of the devil.”

“Now, things have so changed that it is the opinion of some that God is everywhere except in Africa,” Blyden agonized in the lecture which was on ‘West Africa before Europe.’ He went on to predict that “Africa’s turn will be sure to come again” when it would reclaim its place as the “refuge for seers who see and for prophets who prophesy.” Blyden said when that time would have come, an utterly materialized and exhausted Europe would go back to Africa to learn about God. The lecture is in the July 1903 edition of the Journal of the Royal African Society, Volume 2.

Just a hundred years after that lecture, the Blyden prophecy has come true. We’ve reclaimed our place as “the first home of God”. Nigeria, which houses the highest percentage of Africa’s population, qualifies to be celebrated as the global “refuge for seers who see and for prophets who prophesy.” Across faiths, we incubate and hatch men of God and gods of men – in their thousands. We speak and act for God here without counting the costs.

There is something cool about setting precedents. The immediate past Oyo State Governor, the late Abiola Ajimobi, won a second term election in 2015 and pronounced himself Koseleri (it-has-never-happened-before). Nigerians enjoyed an unprecedented three-day leave from work last week. In some places, the holiday lasted the whole of the week. The abstinence from work was the country’s way of celebrating Muslims’ 30 days of total abstinence from day-time meals – and from all sins. Allowing one abstinence to provoke another abstinence made all of us pious and sinless. It was surreal. The holiday should have endured till eternity.

While the holiday lasted, some friends shared their sallah experiences with me. They thought another koseleri was happening in Yorubaland: their pentecostal Christian neighbours refused to eat their food. “They said it was sin to share in our feast,” one of them said, sadly. “That was not who we are”, another added. I told them it is not really a new strain in Yoruba Christianity. I have RCCG and Deeper Life friends who celebrate and dine with me during Ileya. I also have RCCG and Deeper Life friends in whose mouths our good old eran Ileya (sallah ram meat) has lost its holiness. The twists started before the close of the last century when pentecostal Christianity came in costumes of fundamentalism.

Can the Yoruba Christian really avoid sharing things Islamic? If you are a pentecostal Yoruba Christian and you will see it as a sin to celebrate the next Sallah with me, what you will need to throw away will be more than my food. You will stop praying entirely in Yoruba because almost all the key words in the established Christian payers are taken from Arabic/Islamic texts. You will stop calling prayer ‘adura’ because it is from the Muslim ‘Du’a’. You will stop using the word ‘aanu’ (mercy) because the word is rooted in an Arabic word. A new word has to be coined for alafia (peace, wellbeing) because its root is also Arabic. Sermon will stop being called ‘iwaasu’ because it is from the Arabic ‘wa’z’. You will, furthermore, need to change your wardrobe and come up with new designs beyond what you call Yoruba dresses.

British Africanist J.D.Y. Peel’s ‘Christianity, Islam and Orisa Religion’ published in 2016 addresses some of these on pages 162 and 163. It says the agbada dress which you proudly assert as yours is a donation from Islam, perhaps from persons more northerly than northern Nigerians. Anglican missionary, Henry Townsend, in 1847 saw agbada’s acceptance and growing popularity and wrote that the “Mohammedan costume is become very fashionable with the young and gay” and “is by no means put on as a religious peculiarity.” If you read David Heathcote’s ‘The Embroidery of Hausa Dress (1977), cited by R.O.R. Kalilu’ (1997), you will have a clue that the embroidery (jakan) on your agbada “developed from Mali (and) is associated with Quranic scholars and teachers.” You must have heard the saying: Ise agbada kii se Imale (poverty of lack of agbada does not afflict a Muslim). I heard that from the genius of Yoruba Sakara music, Yusuf Olatunji.

There is no escaping the oneness of the world. Do the anti-Muslim pentecostal realize that Bible chapters and verses are numbered in Arabic numerals 1,2,3 etc. The word, ‘Algebra’ is from the Arabic al-jabr. Indeed, the whole “method of equation solving” in Mathematics is from Arabic.

When we speak about what Lord Lugard did with Southern and Northern Nigeria in 1914, we use the word ‘amalgamation.’ Scholars have agreed that ‘amalgamate’ descends from the Arabic al-malghama which means what ‘amalgam’ means.

In your everyday lives, you can’t escape words that have Arabic ancestors. The ‘sugar’ in your tea is from the Arabic word ‘sukkar’; cotton is from ‘qutum’, your overcoat got its ‘jumper’ name from the Arab’s ‘juppa.’ We can go on and on and conclude that it is pointless and fruitless for my Yoruba pentecostal friends to seek to run away from dining with Muslims and their Islam.

Now, the insular Christian has ideological bedmates in Yoruba Islam. There is this Imam in Ogbomoso shown online last week emitting fire and pronouncing everyone outside Islam as hell-bound. His voice was divisively loud and his penal tongue baleful. I listened to him and wondered where he was coming from. I once discussed clerics like this with the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi. “Taa lo ko won ni kewu (who taught them Quran/Arabic?)” was the oba’s rhetorical response to our worries. True, we should ask questions of competence when we hear such papal pronouncement from supposedly learned people. What he said was not what my Mallam taught me in Madrasha. If God had willed, He would have made all of humanity to belong to one nation (see Quran 5:48; see Quran 42:8); and one religious community (Quran 16:93). But, in His wisdom, God didn’t; instead, “to every people”, he sent “an apostle” (Quran 10:47). The Yoruba forbid saying or hearing what that Imam said about other religions. It is unYoruba to speak the language of perdition – they say man is not God.

It is in the character of the Yoruba to celebrate persons who speak with decorum. The highly regarded, thoughtful Chief Imam of Offa, Alhaji Muhyiddin Husayn, was at a Laylatul Qadr event in Ogbomoso a few days to last week’s sallah. His sermon at the programme was a tour de force on how to have a calm sea of peace. I heard him warn against unguarded utterances. He told the Chief Imam of Ogbomoso to win acceptability with character and close his running tap of hot words: “It is when you stop uttering words that words will stop uttering themselves,” he told the Imam. He added that bad words can’t win wars: “if you’ve seen war before, you will fear war” and “war knows no friend.” He cited examples with his own ascendancy experience. “The years I spent warding off attacks were enough as a man’s full tenure,” he said. But, he added, you would win if your tongue is bridled, if you do right and respect elders and pay hate with love. “One can gain an office with force”, he counseled, “but it takes patience and wisdom to sit there in peace.” Words, they say, draw kola nut from the pocket and can also draw sword from the pouch. The consequence of not listening to reason is having one’s milk spilt and the mug broken.

Ask master-potters if refiring can make whole again a broken pot. It is there in the experience of our fathers that a pot once broken, cannot be mended. There are several lethal pronouncements in Yoruba history with the pot metaphor at the centre. That is why we emphasize peace and unity in all our affairs.

The story of Islam and the Yoruba is the story of how leaf becomes soap. Scholars from the earliest of times have always marveled at how the Yoruba seamlessly combine opposition and accommodation when it comes to religion and religious matters. Fundamentalist Christianity and radical Islam have neither comfortable bed nor cushion seat to relax and flourish in Yorubaland. And they won’t tomorrow. There is no family without both Muslim and Christian wings. In books and arts, we encounter moderation and cross-religious handshakes that emphasize the Yoruba moderation in matters of faith.

I read Gbadebo Gbadamosi’s ‘Odu Imale: Islam in Ifa Divination and the Case of Predestined Muslims’ published in the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, June 1977. In it, I encountered discussions on Ifa verses which tell us of Yoruba Muslim clerics, “their dress, travels, and the patronage which they enjoy from the people.” Ifa speaks of “Babamale ‘Bewu gereje/ti yio fi gbogbo aye se ofe je (the Muslim man/ who wears voluminous garment/ who will have the whole world as free bounty).” I read Razaq Kalilu’s ‘Bearded Figure with Leather Sandals: Islam, Historical Cognition And the Visual Arts of The Yoruba’ ((1997). Here, the author asks the reader to note earlier works which suggest that Sango, the third Alaafin of Oyo, was “favorably disposed to Muslims” to the extent that he got an oriki: “Ogbori odo s’aluwala ‘male (He that sits on a mortar to perform ablution like the Muslim.”

Whether Christian, Muslim or nothing, humanity is one – or supposed to be one. One hundred and fifty nine years ago, Harvard-trained American scientist, Pliny Earle Chase (1820-1886), sought to use similar words and word-sounds found in Yoruba and other ‘world’ languages to prove what he called the “universal brotherhood” of man. In a 39-page seminal article published in an 1865 edition of the ‘Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,’ Chase did a painstaking comparison of some Yoruba words and word sounds with some others found in Arabic, Latin, Greek, English, Hebrew, Chinese, German, Coptic, Gothic, French, Dutch, Egyptian, Italian, Finnish, etc languages. He examined similarities in sound and meaning of prefixes, suffixes and midfixes found common across Yoruba and those other languages. He, in particular, draws our attention to what he calls “the marvelous grammatical affinity that exists between the Yoruba, Egyptian, and Coptic Languages.” Copiously using T.J. Bowen’s ‘Grammar and Dictionary of the Yoruba Language’, he argues that it could not have been mere fortuitous occurrence of coincidences that “auro” (owuro)- morning/dawn in Yoruba is “aurora” (dawn) in Latin, just as “awari” (search) in Yoruba shares sound and meaning with the English word “aware”. He writes that there is “oro” (wealth) in Yoruba just as its Latin sound-mate, “aurum”, means gold. Chase notes with considerable interest that the word ‘duro’ means “to stay” (or stand firm) in Yoruba, and ‘duro’ in Latin means hard, harden, toughen, become stern. Incidentally, I also found that there is a similar Hebrew word, ‘dura’ which, among others, means ‘endurance.’ Chase’s conclusion is that humanity is one vindicating the Biblical assertion that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts, 17:26).

The world lounges under a fatal canopy. You should be following the escalated bloodshed in the Middle East. The standards and the double standard. It may still get worse. Just as it is in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, carrion birds are hooting at noon; ravens, crows and kites are flying above the “sickly” world. But, what we need is love to defeat war. And, we will have this if we are able to take care of the devil in race and religion. It is difficult. Daniel Defoe, in his ‘The True-Born Englishman’ (1701) writes that “Whenever God erects a house of prayer,/ The Devil always builds a chapel there; /And ’twill be found, upon examination (that) / The latter has the largest congregation.”