The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) has cautioned Nigerian citizens travelling through Switzerland regarding the possession of laser pointers at their airports, a statement issued on Friday by Gabriel Odu of Media, Public Relations and Protocols Unit of NIDCOM said.

This advisory follows the recent detention of Dr. Andrew Etsetowaghan at Geneva Airport for carrying a presentation pointer in his hand luggage after the pointers had been banned in Switzerland since June 1, 2019 of which he was not aware

Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman/CEO NiDCOM, noted that many immigrants might be unaware of this regulation and urged Nigerian travelers to exercise caution to avoid similar incidents.

Dr. Etsetowaghan, a public health expert and Project Director at the Centre for Clinical Care and Clinical Research Nigeria, was detained on May 25, 2024, after attending a United States Department meeting in Geneva.

Dr. Etsetowaghan , who was part of an official delegation ,recounted his ordeal saying  “Upon going through security at Geneva Airport, I was informed that my presentation pointer was not allowed in Switzerland.

“I was detained, had my belongings and documents seized, and was subjected to several hours of interrogation and solitary confinement in a cell.

“Despite my compliance, the treatment I received was inhumane, including limited access to bathroom facilities and being forced to sign documents in French under duress.”

He called for measures to prevent such incidents in the future and urged a review of the procedures and better awareness of the banned items to ensure travelers are well-informed.

Reacting to the incident, NiDCOM emphasized the importance of raising awareness about such prohibited items in Switzerland Airports and urged Swiss authorities to enhance their communication on such regulations, describing Etseowaghan’s ordeal as “avoidable”.

[Leadership]

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, Nyesom Wike, last week, drew the ire of Nigerians during the commissioning of a road named after Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, when he ordered some newly appointed Permanent Secretaries to bow before President Bola Tinubu.

President Tinubu had named the road from Northern Parkway to outer Northern expressway in Abuja after the playwright, following the recommendation by the FCT minister.

In a post via his X on Tuesday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said the highway would now be called Professor Wole Soyinka Highway.

Naming the road, President Tinubu highlighted Soyinka’s contributions to literature and his role in elevating Nigeria’s global cultural standing.

The president also asserted that the novelist had brought honour and fame to Nigeria through his contributions to literature and commitment to human rights and social justice.

Tinubu added that the gesture was a fitting tribute to a man who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth, freedom, and artistic excellence.

He said: “Professor Wole Soyinka has brought immense honour and fame to Nigeria through his unparalleled contributions to literature and his unwavering commitment to human rights and social justice.

“Naming this highway after him is a fitting tribute to a man who has dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth, freedom, and artistic excellence,” the president said.

Commending Wike for his recommendation, the President also said: “Your recommendation to name this road as ‘Wole Soyinka Way’ is well received. He is our foremost playwright, novelist, and Nobel Prize winner, who has brought fame to Nigeria; a pride of international acclaim.

“Thank you for thinking that way. We accept your recommendation on behalf of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Recall that Soyinka has been under fire in recent times for saying that the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, was unfit to lead the country.

The poet said this had become evident with the conduct of his supporters, popularly known as ‘Obidients,’ during the electioneering period of the 2023 general elections.

Soyinka stated that Obi’s failure to intervene in his supporters’ attacks on others with opposing views online was a sign that he was unfit to become Nigerian president.

However, with the road named after him by the President, many had started to connect one and two to arrive at a conclusion that it was a reward well deserved for Soyinka’s acerbic attacks on the Labour Party presidential candidate, Obi.

As Nigerians were still struggling to wrap their heads around the propriety or otherwise of the highway naming after Soyinka, the FCT minister, again, stirred the hornet’s nest.

Wike caused a frenzy after he ordered the newly appointed permanent secretaries to bow before President Tinubu in appreciation of their appointment.

He stated that the Permanent Secretaries had lost the hope of rising to the peak of their career, and should be grateful and appreciative that President Tinubu had helped them to attain that height.

Speaking during the event, Wike said: “Most of them have never dreamt in their lives that they will ever get to the peak of their careers. That is very important; not just the infrastructure every day.

“So, if you permit me, I don’t know those beneficiaries; I don’t know whether the Permanent Secretaries are here. Come out, come out.

“You are the beneficiary here; you are supposed to be the agents of the Renewed Hope Agenda, come out.

“Both women and men, everyone; face here and take a bow before Mr. President; you are the lucky ones. Your Excellency, these are the first set of permanent secretaries that you made.

“Head of service, are you not a permanent secretary? And that is their head of service. These are the technical teams now that we have. So I want to sincerely thank you.”

Wike also said most of the Permanent Secretaries had been visiting churches and mosques, praying for the new position.

He added that they should be happy that God has answered their prayer and that they could only express their gratitude by bowing down before the President through whom their prayers were answered.

“Now, most of them have been going to churches and mosques. They have been praying that God should help them to be head of service. But it was not there before.

“For them to be head of service, it was not available. But now, you have made it available. I know some of their pastors who have been praying for them.

“So, I also told them that they should pray for me to recommend them to you. That is also very important.

“Your Excellency, this road was awarded in 2020. In fact, this is the fastest; not the one that was awarded 15 or 16 years ago.

“It was awarded in 2020 at the cost of N30.6 billion, and luckily, this is the one that has never had variations,” he said.

On March 12, Tinubu appointed Atang Samuel as head of the civil service in the FCT. He also appointed some permanent secretaries in the FCT.

The permanent secretaries were Adam Babagana (North-East), Wanki Adamu Ibrahim (North-East), Asmau Mukhtar (North-West), Dogo Bodinga (North-West), Olusa Olusegun (South-West), Adetoyi Rabiu Kolawole (South-West), Grace Adayilo (North-Central), Olubunmi Olowookere (North-Central), Ibe Prospect Chukwuemeka (South-east), and Okonkwo Florence Nonubari (South-south)

However, while some Nigerians saw Wike’s action as a joke and laughed over it, others saw it as a serious insult on the sensibilities of not only the permanent secretaries involved, but also on the entire country.

But, as some Nigerians were still attacking Wike for reducing the position of a permanent secretary to such a low level, by ordering them around as if they were his domestic staff, Wike repeated the drama on another occasion.

This time, it was the turn of the six area council chairmen to take a bow before the President.

The FCT minister, who ostensibly was aware of the barrage of attacks on him for ordering the permanent secretaries to bow before the President, did not feel he did anything wrong.

Instead, he wondered why Nigerians find it difficult to appreciate somebody’s good works, and were always willing to criticise unnecessarily.

Speaking at the second event, he said: “Some Nigerians can never see anything good in what we do. They keep criticizing and asking: how can you ask people who are Permanent Secretaries in their level to come out and take a bow?

“Instead of them to comment that Mr President has done well by giving hope to these people who had no hope before. Their anger is that the Permanent Secretaries were asked to come out and take a bow before Mr President.

“Today, I want to call on the agents of the Renewed Hope Agenda; let me call on the Area Council Chairmen.

“These are the six area council chairmen; Mr President, it is not about party, it is about agents of Renewed Hope Agenda in the Area Councils and they are doing well working with us. And I want them to take a bow before you.”

One of those who took serious exception to the minister’s action is a top civil servant with the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Ray Mufti, who said Wike should understand that the permanent secretaries were not appointed by the president because he loves them or because they belong to his ethnic or religious group.

He said they were appointed because they merited the position following their long years of service, coupled with their dedication and hard work.

He warned the minister to desist from reducing the self esteem of civil servants, particularly the very senior ones among them because it will not do him any good in the long run.

“With the way Wike is telling the permanent secretaries to bow before Tinubu, you will think that whatever promotion they got was from the president.

But, it was their hard work and years of service to the nation that got them there, and not Mr President as Wike was trying to paint the picture.

“So, if the minister wants to be in the President’s good books, he should know that running down the senior civil servants the way he did will not help him in any way,” he said.

Also commenting on the development on Arise TV’s Morning Show, Reuben Abati equally said the FCT minister didn’t do well at all.

He was also of the view that nobody has done any favour to the senior civil servants as they got what they deserved as a result of hard work and years of service.

He said: “Nobody has done those Permanent Secretaries any favour. These are career civil servants, who rose to the very top.

“I think the Minister didn’t do well by asking them to bow before the President; that was not good enough.”

He added that if the minister wanted to impress the president, he should have asked the permanent secretaries to bow down the Yoruba way since the president is a Yoruba man.

“The President is a Yoruba man, so, Wike should have asked the men to prostrate, and the women to kneel.

“So, next time he wants to do this kind of thing, the men should prostrate, while the women kneel down. That will be more appropriate,” he submitted.

Another concerned Nigeria and legal practitioner based in Lagos, Marcellus Onah, also said he wouldn’t have obeyed the minister if he was among the permanent secretaries.

“Well, if I were in their shoes, I would politely tell the minister that I will not bow before any man.

“We can only bow before God. Perhaps, if you are in court, the judge there is your lord, so you can bow before the judge,” he said.

For Chidiebere Eze, he wondered why such seasoned men and women who have risen to the highest office in the Nigerian civil service would line themselves up in servile subservience and took their turns to bow before the president, just because a minister, an appointee of the president commanded them to do so.

He stressed that after all the ceremony was not an item on the programme for the day’s event, but Wike deliberately forced it in, just to curry the President’s favour.

He condemned Wike’s contempt and disrespect for the Perm Secs.

“The disdain was so clear, as demonstrated by every word with which he summoned the men and women to that enterprise.

“The permanent secretaries disappointed me and a lot of Nigerians as they marshaled themselves out in a single file to bow before the President.

“What I saw was a group of men and women who were completely stripped of any iota of respect and who have lost the aura of their offices in exchange for their seats,” he said.

African Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) welterweight contender Don Madge is optimistic of emerging victorious over Nieman Gracie, a former Bellator fighter with a strong grappling background, in the upcoming Professional Fighters League (PFL) fight scheduled for June 28, 2024 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States (U.S).

He also expressed excitement over the imminent launch of PFL Africa, which he described as a game-changer for African Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters.

In a Zoom interview with select reporters in Lagos, Nigeria, he said he expects a serious fight with Nieman who he described as a very experienced opponent, adding however that his focus is on how to counter the strategy of Nieman.

“I expect a tough fight. Nieman is a very experienced opponent, and I anticipate he’ll try to take the fight to the ground. My preparation has been focused on countering that strategy,” he said.

As he braces for the contest, he also expressed delight about the upcoming launch of PFL Africa. “This is an amazing opportunity for African fighters. Breaking into the global MMA scene has always been difficult, especially coming from Africa. PFL coming in and giving fighters a platform to showcase their skills is incredible. African MMA is finally getting the recognition it deserves and I’m thankful to PFL for being a leader in developing the sport on the continent.”

[TheNation]

Organised Labour on Saturday tackled the state governors, accusing them of acting in bad faith towards the new minimum wage negotiations ongoing in the country.

Recall that the governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors Forum rejected the proposed N60,000 minimum wage for Nigerian workers.

In a statement issued on Friday by the Director of Media and Public Affairs for NGF, Halimah Ahmed, the governors said the proposed minimum wage was too high and not sustainable.

The governors said if the N60,000 minimum wage is adopted, many states would allocate their entire Federal Account Allocation Committee funds to salaries, leaving no resources for development projects.

However reacting on Saturday, the Organised Labour faulted the NGF’s position, saying every part of the new minimum wage agreement should be implemented and any of the state governors who can’t pay it should resign.

Speaking with Sunday PUNCH, Deputy National President of the Trade Union Congress, Tommy Etim, said, “There is no minimum wage. Every segment of it should be implemented. For the governors, we have said it very clearly. If you cannot pay minimum wage, please resign because you were voted for governance not for only infrastructure.”

“If you build the entire infrastructure and the people are not living to use it, who will use it? When they were campaigning did they tell us that? They didn’t tell us that. They make use of the poor to get to the top and when they get there, they start thinking outside the box. All the money they spent in electioneering campaigns, if they applied that to build infrastructure, to develop the revenue generation that would have solved some socio-economic challenges in their domain,” Etim said.

Describing the NGF statement as a recipe for industrial unrest, he said, “In this same country, the governors said that N30,000 was too much for governors to pay but it is in the same country that a governor emerged with over N80bn. What an irony! We cannot jump processes. We will also look at it together. Labour will be meeting. We are giving Mr President the benefit of the doubt to work the talk. The end will justify the means.”

Also reacting in a statement signed by its Head of Public Affairs, Benson Upah, the Nigerian Labour Congress said, “We do believe the Governors have acted in bad faith. It is unheard of for such a statement to be issued to the world in the middle of an on-going negotiation. It is certainly in bad taste.

“As for the veracity of their claim, nothing can be further from the truth as FAAC allocations have since moved from N700bn to N1.2tn, making the governments extremely rich at the expense of the people.

“All that the governors need to do to be able to pay a reasonable national minimum wage (not even the N60,000) is cut on the high cost of governance, minimise corruption as well as prioritise the welfare of workers.”

[Punch]

The Nigerian Senate elevated its leadership profile in the country last week when it opted to pass the second reading of a bill which seeks to ban open grazing and establish ranches for herders in the country. The bill was passed by a clear majority of the senators when their President, Godswill Akpabio, put it to vote. All well-meaning citizens ought to commend the senate on the development which no doubt represents the first major pan-Nigeria attempt to address the interminable conflict between farmers and herders in the country. A few legislators who spoke against the bill were able to fulfil the democratic precept that although the majority must have its way, the minority must also have its say.

It makes ample sense to imagine that this is solution-time for the problem as the present administration positions itself to fill governance gaps which its predecessor neglected to accomplish from 2015 to 2023.The anti-open grazing policy ought to be at the front burner of issues requiring the attention of Tinubu’s government because of the capacity of the subject to massively disrupt national integration. Government needs to be sensitive to the ease with which the centrifugal factors of heterogeneous societies can dismember Nigeria. Never again should our politicians play politics with boiling issues such as ethnicity and religion. No one should support or oppose a destructive issue such as open grazing just to satisfy the emotions of their constituents.

Legislators have a primary responsibility to be on the same page with their constituents, but they must also be ready to give way where the contending perspectives may not be in the overall interest of society. Thus, political leaders should not stand rigidly behind primordial issues just to please their local segment of citizens. Instead, leaders must be flexible enough to embrace a broader perspective when it is appropriate. During the political campaigns leading to the Second Republic, Alhaji Shehu Shagari originally a senatorial aspirant decided to, in line with the choice of his constituents, publicly support population as a basis for revenue allocation; but when destiny pushed him to become a presidential candidate, he became an astute advocate for derivation because the entire nation had become his constituency. 

It is patently wrong for leaders to use freedom of movement in our constitution to support open grazing without remembering that the freedom granted by the constitution does not extend to the discretion to commit crime. Every freedom is expected to be enjoyed responsibly without disrupting the freedom of other people. Accordingly, herders or any other group can move freely nationwide but cannot in the process destroy other people’s businesses. More importantly, every citizen must realize that the same constitution validates any law which curtails freedom in the interest of the general public. Indeed, Section 45 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 specifically provides that a law can validly curtail any person’s freedom “for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.”

What this suggests is that there comes a time where certain groups may lose their freedom for the general good. For those of us in the media and communication sector, the law of defamation effectively stops us from defaming any person on the ground that we have freedom of speech. Unfortunately, no one in Nigeria is more discriminated against than media professionals because even when they publish the truth about leaders, they are arrested by law enforcement agencies and detained without trial. Yet, Section 22 of our constitution mandates the media to make government accountable to the people. In line with the current anti-open grazing posture, the senate should emulate Malawi, Ghana and others to enact laws stopping agencies of government from undue harassment of media professionals in Nigeria.

A major reason we expect our legislators to be more dynamic in deploying the instrumentality of law to correct several abuses is because much is expected from whom much is given. With all the allowances that our legislators allegedly commandeer, they must be forthcoming in using law to develop our democracy. An APC Senator, Titus Zam, Benue (North-West) who moved the discussions on the anti-open grazing bill accepted this much when he said:”the Senate cannot afford to look on while the country burns into ashes as a result of violent clashes between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders.”Zam insists that to do otherwise would amount to abdication of statutory and leadership responsibilities by legislators who are prime stakeholders in the Nigeria project and elected representatives of the people. 

Certainly, the adverse effects of open grazing far outweigh its benefits. Cattle rearing does not only degrade the environment, it also depletes the soil and forests, just as it pollutes clean water. It provokes clashes with other groups, disrupts agriculture and displaces farmers thereby contributing largely to food insecurity. But the most serious effect as earlier stated is the daily killings of citizens which no one has been able to halt for an entire decade. The need to call attention to the situation is more understood when it is realized that for several centuries, cattle herders and other farmers had lived peacefully in the same communities. History even records circumstances where herders voluntarily compensated farmers whose crops were destroyed by their cattle making it obvious that regulation of the subject is overdue.

The way forward is to endeavour to comprehend how other countries have handled the subject which has overwhelmed Nigeria. Here, we must return to the sermon of best practices and global realities which our nation often conveniently ignores. We cannot continue to talk about old grazing routes the way our politicians who cherish election rigging hang-on to analogue electoral processes. The popular view is that cattle ranching can drastically reduce the negative effects of open grazing yet, no one seems ready to embrace it. In 2019, Nigeria launched a ten-year National Livestock Transformation Plan that can help to stop the indiscriminate movement of cattle and reduce the nation’s existential herder-farmer conflict. The plan like some other public policies died on arrival with many people arguing against government’s involvement in the subject which they categorized as essentially a private enterprise.

If the truth must be told, the lack of political will to sustain the plan is an error of judgment. Government cannot pretend that its interest was really dissuaded by the private enterprise criticism. Politicians who always support open grazing should not restrict their support to mere talks, they should help to organize herders to embrace the system and lobby governments and private donors to see to the realization of ranching.  But then, how can our government that subsidizes pilgrimages and occasionally aids private airlines as well as failed banks not do same for ranching? It can however not be a burden for the federal government alone. States with many herders should be more forthcoming on the subject. 

It is obvious that the real problem is not land but funds and structures that can sustain the business. Government needs to intervene even if it is in the form of loans. To prevent further conflicts between ranchers and wolves and create a conducive environment for peace, the United States government spent huge sums in 2023, to help ranchers in locations such as Colorado to “put up fences, remove carcasses from landscapes and hire range riders to watch herds more closely.”Every government ought to secure its nation from all types of challenges especially those of intractable nature. This is why we praise the positive take-off stance of the anti-open grazing bill in Nigeria and the progress so far recorded which shows it is a popular bill.

The senate should keep up the momentum and ensure that the debate does not become that of “they versus us” where one group opposes whatever the other appears to support. The few law-makers who spoke against the bill must not see themselves as losers because the real significance of their contribution lies in their desire to canvass the other dimension of the subject. But more importantly, it is time for our legislators to articulate a robust solution for a problem that has refused to go. If they fail to seize the golden opportunity to make history, they will end up in boring sessions everyday observing a minute silence for the dead; and thereby engaging in legislation by condolence.  

By the time you are reading this on Saturday morning, Nigeria would have played the match that would mark Finidi George’s real baptism into the world of Nigerian football.

The long-awaited confrontation between Bafana Bafana of South Africa and the Super Eagles of Nigeria after AFCON 2023 would have been settled on the Uyo Township Stadium ground last night. I hope that the Super Eagles won because no explanation would be acceptable for not winning. That is the lot of coaches – the moment they are hired, their records of success and of failure start to count. Finidi George’s cannot be an exception. No excuses for failure are acceptable.

This morning, the outcome of the match would be front-page, setting the foundation for the relationship between Finidi George and the Nigerian sports media. I am still baffled that in this 21st Century, drawing from history, developments in the world, and the place of the African on earth, there could still be many Nigerian sportswriters that think that indigenous coaches lack the capacity to manage the country’s senior national team despite the abysmal showings of the third-rated, unknown, overrated and overpaid foreign coaches that come and fail to deliver or add any substance to the country’s football.

So, Finidi carries a new banner with responsibility to justify the confidence many of us have reposed in qualified, knowledgeable and experienced Nigerian coaches drawn from amongst ex-internationals (as is the practice everywhere else in the world outside Africa) to take charge of Nigeria’s senior national football team.

This first match is a litmus test and provides an early indication of how rough or smooth Finidi’s romance with the Super Eagles will be for the next few years.

I sincerely hope that as you are reading this, the Super Eagles have managed to secure a win in Uyo and eased the difficult passage to the 2026 World Cup.

I do not envy Finidi at all. He is sitting on a time bomb even if I firmly believe that he deserves his new position and should be given the chance to garner the needed experience, by winning and losing matches whilst becoming a better coach, and kick-start an era when Nigerians will accept to sink or swim with their indigenous coaches.

For some unfathomable reason, for the first time, on the eve of yesterday’s crucially important football match that will determine Nigeria’s as well as Finidi’s fate, my crystal ball is blank. I saw nothing! I could not foretell how the pendulum of fate would swing.

So, I get into the mode of prayer. I pray that the Eagles win, somehow, anyhow.

I pray that Finidi finds a way, somehow, to defeat the South Africans with a ‘new’ team that should provide an indication of the new Super Eagles under him.

I listened to Finidi in several interviews. He talked glowingly about his time under Jose Paseiro, and gives the man plenty of credit. I hope he is only being diplomatic. My humble advice is that he leaves Paseiro completely alone. He should not make Paseiro’s era and ‘success’ at AFCON the barometer, or model, or foundation for his own team. The truth is that,  Paseiro, even during his best moments at AFCON 2023, was never convincing.

The Super Eagles were not brilliant. They were lucky. Their performance left 6 Nigerians dead, from anxiety and tension generated by the hypertension-laden style of the team.

Nigeria was fortunate, riding on the back of, with plenty of luck. She survived and got away with it till the final match.

Finidi should approach this assignment with a slate full of his own ideas born of his knowledge, vast experience and deep understanding of Nigerian football and Nigerian footballers. Their effective deployment will make defeating African teams more routine.

The return of Ndidi – a stronger Eagles!

The good news is that Nigeria’s midfield ‘giant’ is back in the ‘new’ team. I believe that his absence was badly felt and could have made a big difference to the Eagles’ final game at AFCON 2023, Wilfred Ndidi, is back.

In Finidi’s ‘new’ team, I believe that Ndidi will close up some of the weakness and porosity in Nigeria’s defence, by providing an additional layer of cover for towering Semiu, a very vulnerable player in the centre of Nigeria’s defense line. Semiu is only very effective in aerial battles. On the ball he often looks lost, not knowing what to do with it.

In the absence of team leader, William Troost Ekong, Ndidi must rise to the occasion to strengthen the Nigerian defence, link the defence and attack, and also launch fresh attacks.

Eagles attack…. without Osimhen

Nigeria parades a formidable frontline led by ‘born-again’ Ademola Lookman.

This strength on paper must translate into action on the field of play. In the absence of Osimhen, Finidi may have been presented with the opportunity to adopt a new strategy for scoring goals outside of the long balls hauled upfront to a lone Victor Osimhen scrummaging for a goal.

The front line of Nigeria is made up of players who do best when they have the freedom to express themselves on the ball, dribbling past opponents with speed and panache, and creating goal-scoring chances all the time.

Hauling all balls to Victor Osimhen up front did not work well during AFCON and must be changed to allow for front runners run at the South African defence all night, and create ceaseless wahala for them

So, I hope the Eagles won last night.

I also wish the team and Finidi George the best of luck going forward.

Bereavement in the Green Eagles

The past week was littered with sad news.

Two of our colleagues in the Green Eagles of the mid-1970s passed on, days apart.

‘Hard man’ and supreme left-back for Vasco Dagama, Rangers International and the Green Eagles, Harrison Mecha died.

A few days later, stylish player, tall, handsome and elegant mid-field player for Rangers International and the Green Eagles, Stanley Okoronkwo, embarked on the inevitable journey of no-return.

Both news were numbing, sad reminders again of the briefness of life, and our mortality.

Meanwhile, writing tributes has become more painful and difficult for me with the deaths of an increasing number of players of my generation and even younger.

I am drawn again to dust up my intention many years ago to sue the federal government and demand a welfare policy for retired athletes as well as some ‘reparation’ for retired athletes who pay with a life of poor health, poverty and early death for the ‘sacrifices’ they made in ignorance whilst representing Nigeria in their youth. We played without fully grasping the health and social implications and consequences, until at the evening of life, we are confronted with the devastating reality.

The statistics are frightening.

Almost two thirds of the football players that represented Nigeria and won the Gold medal at the Second All-Africa Games in 1973, are dead. Most of them before turning 60!

Almost half of the team that won the Africa Cup of Nations for Nigeria in 1980 are also dead, most before turning 60.

With the recent deaths of Mecha and Stanley, I am reminded that more than half of the players that won the Africa Cup Winners Cup with Rangers International FC in 1977 have passed on. And that those still alive are mostly suffering the pain of debilitating arthritis, and other ailments directly related to health conditions that derived from their playing football without proper guidance and information by experts in the field, to enable them be prepared for the consequences in the evening of their lives. Something must be done.

Death is turn-by-turn, and inevitable.

Yet, we mourn the exit of Harrison Mecha and Stanley Okoronkwo from the earthly theatre. I wish them peace on their journey back home to Our Creator.

•‘I didn’t know I will come out of detention in Kebbi alive’

•Says Tinubu not exhibiting the values of democracy

•‘Beko and I warned Saro-Wiwa not to return to PH’

Of momentous events that have shaped the Nigeria we know today, the June 12 presidential election, of 1993 stands out for good and not for worse or bad. The significance it embodies accounts for why the event still resonates 31 years later.

Reflecting on the import of the poll, which was won by the late Chief MKO Abiola, Prof Odion Akhaine, who was detained for fighting for the revalidation of the election, laments that the ethos of June 12 is not being displayed by the current crop of leaders in Nigeria. He also shares his June 12 story, which explains the price some patriots paid to birth democracy in the country.

Within the context of the significance June 12 has assumed in Nigeria’s history, do you think June 12 has been substantially immortalised?

I think the best way to imortalise June 12 is to actually practice what June 12 represents. It was a day Nigerians voted in a free and fair election. If you look at Nigerian elections from 1999 to date, we have never had free and fair elections. All elections have actually been disputed. If you recall, in 2007, the elections were brazenly rigged, making the Commonwealth observers say that Nigerians went below standards.

And they observed that there were unique ways of rigging that had never happened before. It means that in terms of what June 12 represents, we have observed it in breach. And every attempt to nudge us towards free and fair elections is often subverted by state actors, especially politicians in the country. That is a tragedy.

But it has another symbolic significance, which is the fact that it reminds us that military rule is not an alternative to democracy. And if we had survived military rule, it reminds us that we have to practice our democracy according to the rules. As Nigerians observe the ritual every year now that June 12 is now the Democracy Day, it throws up all the contradictions of the process since 1999. And we have to resolve these contradictions.

Last polls

In the last elections, Nigerians voted and expected that results would be transmitted from the polling units, which was what the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IREV, represented, but that was not to be. We need to work on those recipes by making votes count and not alienating voters. These are the things I think we need to do if we must value June 12 for what it represents.

We have observed June 12 in breach because elections are not free and fair. Even when you organise talk shows, it is significant. If you ask me, the way to mark it is to shame political actors for their non-performance. None of the current actors apart from the President was around when we engaged the military.

All the so-called beneficiaries of June 12 today were nowhere to be found when we fought the military. They were not there, but they are the elements who have perpetuated themselves in power, subverting the proper way of leadership recruitment and nudging our democracy into a kind of dictatorship of a clique. We should remember the veterans, who fought for this democracy and underscore those things they agitated for.

And if you ask me, we haven’t achieved many of those things. What we have is electroless, which means going to the polls at the end of every four years to elect news actors who have already subverted the will of Nigerians. When we were fighting the military, we were talking about restructuring the military and that hasn’t been done.

What the current state actors are doing because they are so ignorant of statecraft, they are even deepening the contradictions of the Nigerian state. For example, the so-called local government autonomy they are talking about, it is true the governors at the level of the state have subverted local governments in terms of financial autonomy. But the way to do it is not to revive local as state structure, because people don’t understand the difference between local government as a tier of government and tier of the state.

A tier of government is different from a tier of the state. What they are doing now is to reinforce local government as a tier of the states. Nigeria is a federation and it is a covenant among people. It meant that people came together to say they wanted to build a state to advance their mutual interests. Local government is an administrative unit within that context. So, it is the state government that ought to create local government. 774 local governments were created by the military. Now, they are trying to refer to them as a tier of the Nigerian state and not the government. That is what the autonomy bill seeks to achieve, therefore, deepening the contradictions of the Nigerian state and further units arising from the states.

The first thing to do is to ensure that the local government should remain within the jurisdiction of the state government. The idea of allocating resources to local government from the state account is an anomaly. The revenue at the centre must be shared between the federating states and the centre. It is left for the federating states, within their local parliament to allocate resources to the local governments, outside the resources that local governments can generate within the schedule of the 1999 Constitution. They have to be aware. But the current Attorney General of the Federation is looking for an activity hype, to be seen to be doing something.

Unfortunately, the state governments do not understand the issue. They look at it from the point of view that they want to block their access to local government joint accounts. That is not the issue. You don’t resolve a contradiction with another contradiction. For me, these are some of the issues the June 12 struggle represents. We must not forget that the Nigerian state must be restructured from the current skewed federation. The National Assembly has tried to do a few things, but they have also misplaced priorities. We all saw how they reverted to a colonial anthem they could hardly sing. It is a shame for the nation.

There were issues thrown up by the National Conference, which they have refused to review. For instance, one way of deepening our democracy, if we want good people in government, is by legalising independent candidacy. I think the Ninth Assembly passed that bill but it hasn’t been assented to. Tinubu should assent to the bill on June 12. Nigerians with integrity should stand for elections whether they have a party or not.

The Buhari administration went a step further by declaring June 12 Nigeria’s Democracy Day. Do you think that is substantial enough and puts an end to the immortalisation of June 12?

I think the argument we should be making is that June 12 must represent substance. If you declare a day as Democracy Day, that is significant enough except people will now say that Abiola should be recognised posthumously as President.

I am not against it if they want to resurrect it. What is more significant is that June 12 has been recognised as Democracy Day. In the country, it is historical unless the lawmakers develop a brainwave and decide to revert it. People who could revert to an old anthem can do anything.

June 12 has its own life now. In America there is something called the Spirit of 1776, which guides Americans on the path of patriotism. Do you think Nigerians can rightly say there is this spirit of June 12 in how democracy is practiced in the country?

All we have analysed so far shows there’s a vacuum and we are yet to value June 12. If you look at it from the point of view of other sections of the country, you will see Buhari’s action as being driven by national reconciliation. A section of the country was denied the presidency and we needed to right the wrong. In righting the wrong, I have not seen that nationalist vibe to it. For instance, the North, even though some were part of the struggle, did not see it as a national issue the way people in the South-West see it. For them, it is a reconciliatory gesture, but it has yet to assume that position like the Spirit of 1776 in America.

Most of the current practitioners hardly know anything about June 12. I have not seen any of them who were deeply involved in the struggle. However, we have the current Kaduna State governor, Uba Sani, who worked with Shehu Sani, who was the Vice President of Campaign for Democracy, Kaduna Zone, at the time. President Tinubu was there before he went into exile. All those making noise now were not there. That is why they don’t value democracy. It is also the reason they only line their pockets while the Nigerian workers can barely feed themselves.

You have a country that produces oil, but citizens cannot access petrol. Now, they are talking about compressed natural gas, CNG. If they do that, who says there won’t be scarcity of gas like petrol? The current state actors do not have a bearing. To make June 12 have a national spirit is to ensure that whoever comes to power must know the direction of the country.

President Tinubu and a few others in this administration were also involved in the June 12 struggles. But there is this feeling out there that these people who were supposed to be the beacons are not living up to the June 12 creed now that they are in government…

When we talk about June 12, we have a way of describing many people as being part of the struggle. Who are those in government who were part of the struggle? Maybe Bayo Onanuga, who was an Editor at The News. Dele Alake just happened to be in Concord at the time, and Concord belonged to Chief MKO Abiola. That doesn’t make them June 12 activists. All Nigerian journalists at the time were at the barricade. Some journalists like Nosa Igiebor were clear about June 12 and what it represents.

Unfortunately, the President who was there is not exhibiting the values of democracy as far as I am concerned. He needs a think-tank. His policies so far haven’t shown that he has a think-tank or a team that is thinking. It will be a disaster for all of us in that struggle to see a president, who was part of that struggle, derail and engender dictatorship in the country.

The civil society played a major role in the June 12 struggle. When you look at the role of today’s civil society given the perceived maladministration in the country, what comes to your mind?

The point to make is that in terms of the conceptualization of civil society, we often miss the point. When you talk about civil society, there is a difference between social movements and Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs. What we have today are NGOs with a remit that is often dictated by the funders. Social movement could be a coalition of groups like market women associations, professional associations and others, who come together to pursue basic causes about the transformation of society. That was what we had when we were fighting the military.

People didn’t know the Campaign for Democracy, CD, didn’t receive any funding from outside during that period. People funded the organisation through their personal pockets. Beko Ransome-Kuti gave us his house to use as an office. We all know what happened to Beko.

He was detained severally and he eventually died. You need a life and death matter to wake people up from slumber to come together to fight bad governance in the country. The NGOs that are also funded by donor agencies and democracy promoters have their agenda. When Nigeria began the democratization process in 1999, these funding agencies directed their funding to government through the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

The funds were not given to the civil society to the extent that the civil society was directed to apply for funding through the ministry. Hardly can you point to any NGO in Nigeria today that has an independent source of funding. We need to rebuild the civil society as fighting organs and not NGOs that are doing creative accounting to their funders.

You were detained severally for the sake of June 12 and had a close shave severally. Can you share your June 12 story?

June 12 reminds me of the crisis of governance in this country. And like veterans, when you look back, you just thank God that you are still alive to even talk about it. I wasn’t sure I was going to come out of detention alive, particularly when I heard that Ken Saro-Wiwa had been hanged by Abacha. I was in Birnin Kebbi Prison at the time.

Beko Ransome-Kuti and I met Ken Saro-Wiwa on the evening he was returning to Port Harcourt. And we were telling him not to go back and that he would be picked up. He was a stubborn man. He went back and they picked him up. That was the last time Saro-Wiwa saw freedom until the day he was hanged. I knew that Ken Saro-Wiwa wasn’t in Port Harcourt the day the killings he was accused of instigating took place. When I learnt he was killed, I lost hope because I was accused of seeking foreign assistance to form an army.

I felt that if that was my accusation, mine was finished. What I did was that I started learning Hausa so that in the event that I decided to jump the prison wall, I would be able to speak with the people. The pain is that I haven’t seen all the values we fought for and represent. In fact, the current elite treat people with integrity as lepers. They are frightened when they see us.

During those periods that you were detained, did you ever think of quitting the struggle?

The reason I am alive was because I was completely innocent. I was committed to the struggle. At the time, I wasn’t afraid of anything. When you get to that point, you don’t consider death as something you could be scared of. I was driven from Lagos with three armed men to Kebbi. I was first taken to Anka and Arugungu. For six months nobody knew where I was until the late Chief Anthony Enahoro filed a suit in Lagos, asking them to release or charge me to court.

It was within those six months that I managed to smuggle a letter out of the prison, which got to Femi Falana Chambers. That was how the world knew I was in Kebbi. The journey itself was a journey of death. If you believe in a cause, you don’t have a reason to regret it. It is more painful today when you don’t see that kind of commitment anymore.

We were young men at the time who were fresh from school. When you look back today, you don’t find that kind of spirit anymore. Our role now is to inspire hope in Nigeria, and hope is possible. History moves irrespective of our will. The direction this current President is headed, which is impoverishing Nigerians, will lead to a change, but I may not know the colour of that change.

Yesterday, General Sani Abacha clocked 28 years in the grave. Abacha’s sudden expiration at the thick of his maximal and maniacal rule reminds Nigerians, especially those who were old enough in 1998 when he died, of how human beings should never play god. Abacha ruled with an iron fist after he seized power.

He summarily executed dissidents and political opponents while those who held other views disappeared without a trace. A very interesting equation was when he ordered the deaths of Generals Oladipo Diya and Abdukareem Adisa for plotting to sack him. As Epo Akara, the Ibadan Awurebe musical lord, sang, death will kill the chanter and the enchanter. The three of them died their own deaths and alighted from life’s moving bus immediately after they got to their bus stops. Abacha was however credited with several economic feats, especially his standing up to the IMF and other Western power blocs. He also filched Nigeria of billions of dollars which he kept in Switzerland and other jurisdictions like Lichtenstein, the United Kingdom and the United States.

After Abacha’s death, many other Nigerian leaders have been playing god. Post-succession battles in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic between governors and their successors are battles of men who play god. Their exploits can best be depicted in anecdotes. Those battles have thrown up more moral than political questions. Should successor governors be loyal to their predecessor benefactors at the expense of the people? Today, a post-succession battle is raging in Kaduna state. It is between El-Rufai and his anointed successor, Uba Sani. Whether muffled or loud, post-succession battles can be found in many one-year governments that took over from incumbents in 2023. From Rivers to Akwa-Ibom, Cross-River to Zamfara, protégés are becoming the falcons that have refused to hear the lullabies of falconers.

In pre-and post-colonial Yoruba society, folklores, and fables, among others, helped to tame the greed, as well as any tendency within it to play god. Such stories helped to shape the moral man in Africa. His cosmology was governed by anecdotes, lore and mores, which prescribed moral codes. For centuries, folklores sustained the associational and moral forte of Africa. Anecdotes that restrained a potential emperor from treading the path of ruination were told to children, even in their infancy; the same about petty thieves who came to ghastly ends. For instance, the destructive end of greed was foretold in pre-colonial Yoruba society in the emblematic story of Tortoise and the scalding hot porridge. He had cupped the porridge while it was being cooked and covertly put it on his head which burnt his scalp.

An example is the anecdote told of a young wretched fisherman called the Ap’ejalodo. Set in an African Yoruba village, the fisherman was ravaged by failure on all fronts. He was unable to catch enough fish over the years to rescue him from the pangs of lack. One day, however, as he thrust his fishing hook into the river, it caught one of the largest fishes he had ever seen. Excited, Ap’ejalodo pulled his awesome catch up to the river bank and proceeded to yank it off the hook. As he attempted to carry it to the basket, the fish began to speak like a human being. Ap’ejalodo was at first afraid and ran away from the river bank. He however eventually pulled himself together, approached his queer hunk of a catch and listened to the sermon of the strange fish. Singing “Ap’ejalodo, mo de, ja lo lo, ja lo lo…” (Fisherman, here I come…) the fish pleaded to be rescued from the harrowing pain of the hook by the fisherman. It promised that if he spared its life, in lieu of this rescue, the Ap’ejalodo should ask for whatever he wanted in life. Excited, Ap’ejalodo lets it off the hook, having asked for wealth. Truly, by the time he got home, the ragged clothes on him and his wife had become a very big damask agbada and aran respectively. The couple’s wretched hut had also transformed into a big mansion. Both of them subsequently lived a life of unimaginable splendour.

After a few years, the couple was however barren. The wife entreated Ap’ejalodo to go fishing again and ask his fish friend to rescue them from the social shame of non-procreation. As he thrust his hook into the river, Ap’ejalodo caught the strange fish again and the earlier process was repeated. This time, he asked for a child and the strange fish granted it. Over the years, Ap’ejalodo magisterially summoned the fish through the same process and the fish kept bailing the couple out. Then one day, as Ap’ejalodo and his wife were waking up from their magnificent bed, a blinding and intruding ray of the sun meandered into their bedroom. Enraged, Mrs. Ap’ejalodo couldn’t understand the diffidence of the Sun. Couldn’t it respect the privacy and majesty of the richest couple in the land? She angrily entreated Ap’ejalodo to go meet his fish friend and ask that they be given the power to control the Sun and the insolent temerity of other impertinent celestial forces.

Off Ap’ejalodo went to the river bank, thrust his fishing hook into the river and again invoked the strange fish. And Ap’ejalodo made his plea. The fish was peeved by the fisherman’s greed and audacity: “You were nobody; I made you somebody and you now have everything at your beck and call. Yet, you want to compete with God in majesty and you will not allow even a common Sun to shine and perform the illuminative assignment God gave it on earth!” The fish angrily stormed back into the river and as Ap’ejalodo, downcast, walked back home, his old torn and wretched dress suddenly came back on him, his mansion transformed into the hut of the past and the couple’s latter wretchedness was more striking than the one of yore.

Make no mistake about it: Nasir El-Rufai is brilliant and bold. He matches his heart of a lion with the cold calculation of a deadly viper. Ever since he surreptitiously gained public attention as General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s economic adviser in 1998, up to being the DG of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in 1999, the god who sat by the furnace to cook the broth of Nasir’s destiny didn’t appear ready to leave the furnace. The short-statured Nasir rose to become one of the most powerful Turks in the current civil experience, leaving no one in doubt that he would play consequential roles in the then-emerging Fourth Republic. He later became Minister of the FCT. As FCT Minister, Nasir was unorthodox. He was profiled as cold-hearted as a cobra. Decisions that scared the rest of humanity were his forte. He mowed down thousands of houses and evicted landlords in the neighbourhood of 800,000 from their homes. He however restored sanity to an otherwise chaotic Abuja master plan. One of his demolitions that marked him out as fearless was the house of his party’s national chairman, Senator Ahmadu Ali, which he brought to its knees. Nasir was dead to adversity, cavalierly dismissed court suits, and the tomes of blackmails and threats to his life that were as rife as mushrooms in a farm plantation.

As governor from 2015 to 2023, clips of his infrastructural Midas-touches in Kaduna state surfaced as commendable examples for the republic. International organisations commended him for adhering to due process. But Nasir’s heart was sculpted with pebbles. As his power assumed limitless proportion mounted and majesty quadrupled his height in power calculus, he acquired the powers of gods. Like a god that he thought himself to be, Nasir determined who lived and who deserved to meet their creator. He made seismic social and political pronouncements capable of ruining national edifices, especially on religion. He demolished thousands of houses of friends and foes, the most notable being that of Senator Othman Hunkuyi who represented Kaduna North in the senate.

In what was seen as power audacity, Nasir disengaged over 21,000 school teachers after they failed a competency test that his government set. In one fell swoop, he showed the door to 4,000 local government employees, a figure perceived to be high in a slightly over 100,000 staff council. These were the tip of the iceberg in tough, brutal, brave and suicidal decisions Nasir made in public service. Many claimed he made those decisions due to ego and a sense of personal consequence. To show how much grip he had on the governance structure in Kaduna state, notwithstanding these deadly decisions he took, Nasir still succeeded in producing a successor in Senator Uba Sani who, it will appear, is his nemesis in power today.

Succession politics in Nigerian states has always been chaotic and a deadly battle. It seems to have taken its cue from coups de’tat planned by military despots. Nigeria’s earliest encounter with succession politics was the self-succession bids of military rulers. And it happened on October 1, 1974. On that day, Yakubu Gowon, who emerged as Nigeria’s military leader after the July 1966 coup which ousted the first military regime, said the handover date to civilians he earlier offered was unrealistic. He announced an indefinite postponement of the handover. This became one of the justifications for his overthrow on July 29 1975. Then came General Ibrahim Babangida. His self-succession bid has been likened to a woman who periodically changes her mind about going to the market. Babangida deliberately scuttled his transition to civil rule programmes, altering the calendar and sacrificing huge national resources in the process. He engaged in a roulette of banning, and unbanning politicians and finally annulled the June 12 election.

His military successor, General Abacha, also romanced self-succession by sponsoring groups underground like the Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) to covertly campaign for his presidency in 1998. In the current Fourth Republic, a civil government that toyed with self-succession was that of President Olusegun Obasanjo who, in early 2005, got his supporters to move to amend the Nigerian constitution for an extension of presidential and gubernatorial term limits to three, from its present two. Though opposed to it in the open, Obasanjo was said to have bribed legislators to vote for the alteration of the constitution. However, on May 16, 2006, the federal parliaments effectively nipped it in the bud.

In this republic, the graveyard of governor godsons fighting their godfather-successors to a standstill is filled with carcasses. They enter Government Houses hunchbacked by their predecessors but, no sooner than they enter governmental palaces than these anointed godsons shut the gates. And the bubble bursts, while the cookies begin to crumble. Some of the cookies were immediate while many took longer time to get shattered into smithereens. In Lagos, the Tinubu-Raji Fashola experiment, what many saw for almost four years as matrimony worthy of example, exploded towards the end of the first term. The godfather was the de facto governor, determining the political barometer of politics, its finances and what prebends to give to political hirelings in the distribution of the largesse of power. Not until the re-election campaign of Fashola in 2011 did the cracks begin to be noticeable, revealing the godfather/godson as proverbial seeds in a walnut pod. Do you remember the cryptic phrase, “may your loyalty never be tested…”? The godson was between the devil and the deep blue sea.

In many other states at this time, the matrimonies suffered ruptures almost immediately. James Ibori succeeded in making his first cousin, Emmanuel Uduaghan, his successor in Delta. The godfather continued to reap dividends of his ‘investments’ in the godson. I am told that Uduaghan surreptitiously did in his cousin, Ibori, even while serving his term in the UK slammer. In Enugu, Sullivan Chime was still governor-elect when he started to undo all that his mentor and godfather put in place. He spent eight years trying to pull down the Ebeano political structure that midwifed him. Orji Kalu suffered the same fate in Abia, where his erstwhile chief of staff, T. A. Orji, who was in EFCC custody while his election was taking place, eventually emerged as governor. Orji spent his years in government firing ballistic missiles at Kalu who spent billions of state funds to skew the process in his favour.

This was replicated in virtually all the states, even in the 2015 and 2019 elections where anointed godsons, having mutated to become godfathers themselves, attempted to foist their own godsons as successors. For example, Chime’s godson, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, eventually turned out his political pallbearer. In Anambra, Peter Obi, while shopping for a godson, sidestepped the generally accepted skewer-minded political class, and walked into the supposedly sane banking hall in search of an urbane, corporate world executive. He got Willie Obiano. Less than a year after, the strange, sombre-looking Obiano had transmuted from the gentleman who couldn’t hurt a fly into a stone-hearted political principality who strenuously presided over Obi’s political funeral and nunc-dimitis. The same is replicated in Kano where Umar Ganduje, erstwhile Rabiu Kwankwaso’s lickspittle, became a hydra-headed monster who eventually swallowed his ex-boss. The story of political betrayal, otherwise known as attempts by political godsons to be men of their own, has mutated dangerously ever since.

The two examples that are shattering the roof of political discussions today are those of Nyesom Wike/Fubara and El-Rufai/Sani. After openly announcing that his government met multiple billions of debt in the state, Sani held a town hall meeting where he announced that he inherited a lean treasury which made payment of salaries herculean. In April, a 13-man ad-hoc committee of the State House of Assembly, headed by the Deputy Speaker, Henry Danjuma, to probe El-Rufai’s administration began to investigate all finances, loans and contracts awarded under El-Rufai. Last Wednesday, that committee submitted its report and indicted El-Rufai and a few of his appointees of siphoning N423 billion in state funds. El-Rufai, however, described the outcome of the probe as false and scandalous. What may however be troubling is the allegation that Sani is merely the fly dancing on top of the river. And that the one beating the drum may live in Aso Rock. This will be disturbing because El-Rufai deserves his comeuppance from inside the Kaduna where he played god and not from external manipulators. In Rivers, Wike met his match in a deadly power user, Fubara, who seems to have exorcised the ghost of Wike’s flippancy and public irritancy.

Many people have falsely looked at the spats in post-succession governors’ battles of the Fourth Republic from a moral lens. Which it is not. The spats arise simply from the fact that governors, who ab initio were themselves bereft of power like Ap’ejalodo who lacked money, play god. The common people of Nigeria must continue to pray that the Wikes and El-Rufais will continually meet their Fubaras and Sanis waterloos. It is only in this that the governors will learn their bitter lessons. Except in Lagos where succession politics is sustained with huge miasma of metaphysics and corruption, there is scarcely any state of the federation where predecessor godfather governors are not regretting their choices today.

This Wednesday also marks the 31st anniversary of the June 12 struggle. The present inheritors of the struggle must step back and rethink June 12. How much of the life abundant which MKO Abiola envisioned are the people in Aso Rock bringing the way of Nigerian people? Would MKO have reserved a “bragging right” in the thick of a weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth economy that we have today? If Abiola looks back from the grave, would he be happy with those who claim he was their democratic progenitor? A government that is almost a coalition of NADECO activists and Abacha progenies is an odd assortment. Will Abiola be happy that the Lagos Landlord is waking Abacha from the dead by making Atiku Bagudu, Abacha’s bagman and the Chagouris, the goggled General’s financiers, the main engine room of his government? Perhaps, Colonel Frank Omenka will soon become the Chief of Army Staff?

In a country and a season in which candour is not always seen as a virtue, those who make it the currency of their daily lives are either idolised, endangered or idolised into endangerment. On the Nigerian streets, a person who addresses issues of public significance with candour can be described as having “broken the table”. As a figure of speech, this usage is a back-handed compliment for bucking a national habit of dressing up reality as a bodyguard of avoidance.

Tables, however, can be useless without a chair or a bench. When the table gets scattered, the bench that accompanies it can suddenly become of limited utility. To default to Nigerianism, lawyers and benches are like five and six. Judges and magistrates are referred to as members of “the Bench”. When lawyers have to discuss a matter confidentially in court with the judge in some countries, they “approach the bench.”

Even before that, upon becoming eligible to enrol into the vocation, their admission into the profession is overseen by a “Body of Benchers”, comprised as required by the Legal Practitioners Act of  “legal practitioners of the highest distinction in the legal profession in Nigeria.” The self-designated “vision” (sic) of the Body is “to be the beacon of legal professionalism, setting the standard for legal education, qualification, and conduct worldwide.”

To accomplish this, the least the Body of Benchers must do is embody the highest standards of the profession themselves. Many years ago, that could have been said of them.

These days, it seems, benchers are the ones at war with tables. In Nigeria’s Body of Benchers currently, tables are scattered in a manner that exposes how the standards of the legal profession have become hostage to a capricious entitlement mentality of its leadership. Amidst the daily dose of drama that defines Nigerian life, the spectacle unfolding in the Body of Benchers has been largely shielded from public attention. It is time to redress that neglect.

There is one other reason why this matter deserves attention. Over several weeks now, the current leadership of the Body of Benchers has sought to intimidate journalists, reporters and platform providers, threatening them with unspoken consequences if they much as dared to publish material on the current crisis in the Body. For those who had already published, instructions to take down the material were transmitted, accompanied similarly by threats of malign consequences if they failed to comply. This degree of investment in suppressing and attacking the legitimate pursuit of a lawful vocation is both intolerable and unlawful. It could even be criminal. It would not be charitable to believe that this has anything to do with the fact that the current chairman of the Body of Benchers is said to be someone who departed the Police in yet unascertained circumstances before becoming a lawyer.

The Body of Benchers is a statutory body. Any status enjoyed by its members is conferred by law. As a result, citizens must hold the feet of the Body and its members to fire.

Since the current crisis in the Body of Benchers has its origins ultimately in issues of membership, it is essential to dwell a little on the matter of its membership. The Body comprises two categories of members. Life Benchers enjoy membership for life. They can attain that status either by office or from dutiful longevity in membership after a minimum of five years. There are also ordinary members of the Body whose membership is not for life. Members include both lawyers and judges. For equity, leadership rotates on an annual schedule between the judges and the lawyers such that if a judge chairs the Body in one year, then a lawyer chairs it the following year.

Membership of the Body of Benchers used to truly hew closely to the requirement of the law limiting it to persons of “the highest distinction.” Today, aspects of the Body have degenerated somewhat into influence-peddling. For instance, they have extended automatic membership to senior federal legislators who are lawyers, such as the presiding officers of the two chambers of the National Assembly; and some significant committee chairs too. Indeed, a former governor and current minister with a reputation for “generosity” is one of the best-known Life Benchers. At the instigation of the Body, success in the bloody art of election rigging in Nigeria now counts as the attainment of “the highest distinction” in the legal profession.

We digress though. Among the committees established within the Body, an Appointments Committee vets nominees for membership, presumably to ensure that they comply with the threshold requirement of the law. That Committee is headed by a Chair whose tenure lasts for three years. In the last week of March 2024, Augustine Alegeh, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and one of the most consequential presidents of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in the last three decades, formally accepted the nomination to lead the Appointments Committee.

The week thereafter, the Body elected a new Chair, one of whose first acts was to issue an edict dissolving the existing committees and re-constituting them. The problem is that under its regulations, the power to constitute committees belongs not to the Chair but to the Body of Benchers as a whole. The Body, for the avoidance of doubt, is constituted for this purpose by a quorum of at least 50 of its members. Many of the members of the Body rightfully saw this claim of unilateral power by the current Chair as a descent into rule-free autocratisation. The decision of the new chair to ignore their protests strengthened this fear.

The matter is now in court in a suit instituted by Alegeh against the Chair and the Body of Benchers as defendants. The real issue before the court is one of high significance. According to a letter by one member of the Body, “the Chairman took umbrage at the Appointments Committee because his wife’s name was on the list that we did not approve.” The member feared that the chairman’s action in claiming non-existent powers to dissolve and re-constitute the Appointments Committee was “fuelling suspicion” that all he wanted to achieve was to ensure that he made his wife a Bencher during his tenure.

In this case, the claim is that the Chairman of the Body of Benchers has sought to ransack the governance of the Body generally and the composition in particular of its Appointments Committee to secure by any means necessary membership of the Body for his wife. This may make him a truly doting husband but the Body is not a connubial resort. The resistance from within the Body protests not merely the evident breach of rules by its Chair but even more viscerally also the suggestion that the “highest distinction” in the legal profession can be attained through pillow-talk or connubial propinquity between husband and wife.

The logical fear must be that if qualification for membership of the Body can be transmitted in this way, then, surely, eligibility for its membership would become an STD (sexually transmitted distinction). This question as to how far attainment within the legal profession in Nigeria can be reduced to an STD is ultimately what confronts the Federal High Court in the case now pending concerning the actions of the current chairman of the Body of Benchers. It is an important question and, for the sake of the profession, one that merits the keen attention of all persons affected by institutions of the law in Nigeria.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The federal high court sitting in Abuja has ordered the final forfeiture of NOK University and all of its assets said to be linked to one Anthony Hassan, a former director of finance and accounts at the federal ministry of health. 

In a 2022 ruling on an ex parte motion marked FHC/ABJ/CS/688/2022, and filed by Ekele Iheanacho, counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the federal high court had ordered that the institution be temporarily forfeited to the federal government.

The commission had alleged that Hassan diverted public funds with which he acquired the identified assets.

The EFCC also alleged that the former director diverted the funds running into billions of naira through the government integrated financial management information system (GIFMIS).

GIFMIS, an IT-based system for accounting and budget management, was designed by the federal government to actualise integrated and automated information systems and promote modernised fiscal processes.

In a statement on Saturday, the EFCC said it had filed an order of final forfeiture of the said properties.

The statement said Iheanacho established before the court the fact that Hassan built NOK University using proceeds of unlawful activities traced to him.

Physical assets of the university forfeited include the senate building, ICT building, faculty of medicine building, science deanery building, two academic buildings, a faculty hall and other buildings.

The judge also ordered the interim forfeiture of Gwasmyen water factory, Gwasmyen event centre and Gwasmyen international hotel, all said to be linked to Hassan.

“The Commission, had, through its investigative Officer, Adaora Asabe Oragudosi investigated some verified intelligence bordering on criminal conspiracy, stealing, abuse of office and money laundering against some staff of the Federal Ministry of Health where the properties ordered forfeited were traced to the defendant,” the statement reads.

Delivering judgment on the matter on Friday, the court held that the respondent failed woefully in tilting the scale of evidence in his favour.

[TheCable]