A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has said the ruling party is creating an atmosphere for its “electoral funeral”.

In a statement on Sunday, Lukman said APC leaders must be reminded that the party would be prone to electoral defeat if they do not adhere to calls for a leadership change.

The former vice chairman of the party said the refusal to listen to internal voices led to the formation of the new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) in 2013.

He said: “Painfully, in the process, a party that emerged with so much promise, APC, winning the support of Nigerians is almost destroyed and on a daily basis creating conditions for its own electoral funeral.

“As loyal members of the APC, we must remind our leaders that parties become more prone to electoral defeat when they resist or block internal pressures for leadership change.

“APC’s electoral victory in 2015, for instance, could be partly explained based on the refusal of PDP leadership to recognise and respect the yearnings of party members and leaders.

“It was the inability to respect internal yearnings for change that produced the splinter group of New PDP, which eventually joined the merger that produced APC in 2013.”

Lukman said President Bola Tinubu and former APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, who fought for democracy in the 90s, should ensure that Nigeria’s political parties are truly democratic.

He added: “Being leaders of APC, APC must emerge as a distinctly democratic party based on abiding respect for rule of law, which should be well reflected in a strong commitment to manage affairs of the party based on compliance with provisions of the APC.

“Anything short of this, will diminish the credentials of our leaders, including President Asiwaju Tinubu and Comrade Oshiomhole.”

Joseph Boakai has officially been sworn in as the new President of Liberia, marking a significant political shift in the country.

The 79-year-old leader, with four decades of political experience, secured his position after winning a closely contested run-off poll against former football star and Ballon d’Or winner George Weah, with a narrow victory margin.

The swearing-in ceremony, held in the nation’s parliament, was attended by notable figures, including Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo and US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Boakai, who previously served as vice president from 2006 to 2018 under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s first female president, assumes the presidency with the daunting task of addressing poverty, corruption, and a weak justice system.

Liberia, a country of five million people, has long struggled with these issues, exacerbated by years of civil war and an Ebola outbreak.

Additionally, the nation faces the challenge of impunity related to crimes committed during its civil wars.

During his election campaign, Boakai aligned with local power brokers, including former warlord Prince Johnson, who shifted his support from Weah in 2017 to Boakai in the recent election.

Johnson, a controversial figure under US sanctions, has been appointed to nominate Jeremiah Koung as the vice president.

The peaceful conduct of November’s election stands out in a region recently troubled by military coups.

Liberians now look to Boakai to fulfil his campaign promises of job creation, economic improvement, institutional strengthening, and fighting corruption.

His long tenure in politics raises expectations for significant progress in these critical areas.

Guinea-Bissau coach, Baciro Candé has stressed that he and his team are determined to beat the Super Eagles later today in their last group stage game of the 2023 AFCON.

Guinea-Bissau and the Super Eagles of Nigeria will clash at the Stade Félix Houphoüet-Boigny in Abidjan by 6 p.m. later this evening, January 22.

The Wild Dogs are going into the game sitting at the bottom of Group A after two losses in their last two games. Despite such a form, they intend to provide one of the biggest upsets of the tournament against the Super Eagles.

Recall that Guinea-Bissau beat Nigeria 1-0 in Abuja during the 2023 AFCON qualifiers and Nigeria defeated them 1-0 in the return leg.

Hence, though they have suffered defeats at the hands of Equatorial Guinea and Ivory Coast in the 2023 AFCON Group A, they fancy a chance of bowing out of the tournament with pride.

If they beat Nigeria, they’ll get up to three points, but since they’re now bottom of Group A, that won’t be enough to keep them in the tournament.

“Mentally we will be very strong and go out for a win. We know football has its peculiarities but we would do everything for a win against Nigeria,” the Guinea-Bissau coach said.

“I believe everything is possible, physically and emotionally we will be ready.”

One of the team’s stars, Carlos Mané added, “We know it’s now difficult to progress to the next stage but we will play for our families and our country. We will fight with all we have to give a good game against Nigeria.”

Contrary to rather quite irresponsible speculation and baseless propaganda making the rounds, there is absolutely no intent, not to talk of attempt, overt or covert, on the part of the President Bola Tinubu administration to move the capital of Nigeria to Lagos, I can authoritatively report.

What occurred of recent is the relocation of certain offices for greater functionality and enhanced practicality to a location that best suits them.

Some of these offices never even effectively moved to Abuja, in the first place.

By the way, this idea that everything must be headquartered in a country's capital is a rather unimaginative one which ends up concentrating development in one place to the detriment of other parts of the country.

In fact, it is not even replicated in most other countries.

The Presidency of South Africa is domiciled in Pretoria; the Supreme Court of South Africa seats in Bloemfontein, the Constitutional Court of South Africa seats in Johannesburg; and, the Parliament of South Africa seats in Cape Town.

In Switzerland, a country with a population that is rivaled by the average state in Nigeria, you still hear of Geneva as much as of Zürich, Basel, Bern or Lausanne.

Dubai is so well-known across the world, many people think it is a country of its own, whereas it is in reality just a part of the United Arab Emirates, a country whose capital is actually Abu Dhabi!

In the United States of America, whereas Washington DC is the capital, numberless and quite strategic departments and agencies are headquartered elsewhere.

The Center for Disease Control, CDC, is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia; the US Nuclear Weapons' Command (what arguably makes them the world's most powerful country) is headquartered in Massachusetts; the gold bullion of America, the national wealth of the world's richest country in solid gold, is not kept in Washington but in Fort Knox in the state of Kentucky!

It is very difficult to find a single state in America where something critical to the wellbeing of their country is not located, unlike in Nigeria where we have had this utterly retrogressive and quite inequitable practice of concentrating everything in a particular place to the detriment of other parts of the country.

Washington State is known for Boeing and Microsoft; Michigan is known for General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, etc; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for steel and Akron, Ohio for tyres; Silicon Valley is in California; Houston, Texas is known for the oil industry and so on and so forth unlike in Nigeria where an head office had initially even been earmarked for the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, in Abuja where there is no port (that building is the present location of the Ministry of Defense) or oil companies producing crude in the Niger Delta are headquartered in Lagos!

Let us not make mountains out of molehills or display an inclination to be petty, divisive, clannish or regionalistic over everything in this country.

The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, is and shall remain the undisputed capital city of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and no one is more committed to upholding that status quo than President Tinubu, himself.

Onokpasa, a lawyer, writes from Abuja.

The Acting Director-General, management and staff of Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, celebrate with Festus Keyamo, SAN, Honourable Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development on the occasion of his 54th birthday.

Michael Achimugu, Director, Public Affairs and Consumer Protection, in a PR as statement weekend, stated, that Keyamo as the man responsible for an industry as critical as Aviation, that he has shown exceptional leadership and commitment towards positioning Nigeria’s aviation among the best in the world, and we at NCAA align with that vision.
“Your stoicism, reminiscent of social rights and justice crusaders from time immemorial, has pointed us in the right direction and the industry is once again filled with hope, excitement, and direction.

“As you commence this flight on a new age, may the wisdom that comes with experience and love guide your path. We at NCAA believe in your leadership and we have no doubt that God will fill your household with all of the beauties of a new age,” he stated.

House number 43, Idi Maska Road in Funtua, Katsina State, was just like any other building in the busy neighbourhood adjourning the Funtua Central Motor Park, save for the unending stream of visitors that trooped in and out of it. Some of the callers were friends of its famous occupant while others were members of the Social Democratic Party, (SPD).

The building, a one-storey affair, green in colour, was the residence of the legendary Hausa  folk musician, poet and politician, Alhaji Mamman Shata who was at the time, chairman of the SDP in Funtua Local Government Area.

I had travelled from Katsina to Funtua in March 1991 to keep an interview appointment with the musician who had agreed to speak on his music and his aspiration at the time to contest for the position of Katsina State governor.

Last week, as I passed through the town to Malumfashi to witness a friend’s daughter’s marriage, I could not but remember the interesting encounter with the man.

                Shata

A visitor who expected to find Shata’s abode as a mansion in the exclusive part of the town would be disappointed. Despite his social standing as the foremost musician in Northern Nigeria at the time, he relished his life of ordinariness. Not for him the usual splendour of the rich and powerful.

His sitting room on the ground floor was sparsely furnished, without even the simple floor carpet or electric fan. Notwithstanding, his admirers and party faithful made themselves comfortable, squatting around him on the bare floor. I don’t know what he expected of me that March afternoon, but after exchanging greetings, I had made myself comfortable in one of the more comfortable chairs.

Shata was an enigma of sorts and it showed all through the hour and half-long interview. He was his usual self – eloquent, oratorical and pedantic.

Shata was always at home whenever the discussion was ‘kalangu’ music or politics. Over the years he had come to master both. He started playing music in his birthplace, Musawa, and it has since brought him fame and recognition across Nigeria and from foreign lands. His music put him on first name basis with the rich and powerful, notably royalties like the late Emir of Katsina, Alhaji Usman Nagogo, those of Kano, Zaria and Daura, Alhaji Ado Bayero, Alhaji Shehu Idris and Alhaji Muhammadu Bashar, respectively. In his day, no big occasion  in Northern Nigeria was complete without him. 

Music has always been his familiar terrain, until the First Republic when he opted to combine it with politics. If this decision took his admirers by surprise, his choice of playing the opposition was even more so as he shunned the Northern Peoples Congress of Alhaji Ahmadu Bello and opted instead for the left-wing   NEPU. Similarly in the Second Republic he decided to ride against the popular wave by shunning the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), and the Peoples’ Redemption Party (PRP), both of which were the dominant parties in the old Kaduna State and joined the Great Nigeria Peoples’ Party (GNPP) led by Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim.

Somewhat a radical, definitely a non-comformist, he holds mostly opposing views on most social and political issues, some of which earned him time in detention. He attributed his travails to the machinations of the other parties “who wanted me to join them but I refused because I cannot abandon the ‘talakawa’”. 

He prefers to be identified with the ‘talakawas’ whose suffering, he said, inspired his decision to go into politics, but he does not tie his philosophy to Alhaji Aminu Kano or any other politician dead or alive who had stood on the side of the ‘talakawa’. 

After what was a turbulent time in the GNPP of the Second Republic, one thought Shata would leave politics alone. Wrong! After the death of the Second Republic, he went back to his music full time but bounced back when political activities for the transition to the Third Republic was lifted. Of the two parties (SDP and NRC) formed by President Ibrahim Babangida, he joined the Social Democratic Party, SDP, and helped the party get a  strong foothold in Katsina State.

In-between pulls and puffs at his trademark Rothman’s cigarette, he told me that politics was his life, just as music was his life, “so there is no leaving one for the other because that would amount to a King abdicating his throne”. 

By local standards, Shata was a rich man who made money through his music. But everything he made, he shared with the poor. He lived with the poor, ate with them and shared in their aspirations. 

For a man who never attended school, he was insistent that he would contest and win the governorship election of Katsina State that year. When I reminded him that he would hardly meet up with the necessary educational qualifications stipulated by law for the governorship contest, he had retorted that the law would have to prove or disprove whether his string of (honorary) doctorate degrees are inferior or superior to the GCE O’level certificate required by law. 

He laughed through the thick cigarette smoke, and followed it up with coughing. 

Alhaji Shata has over 15 awards in recognition of his contribution to music and to the society, mostly honorary degrees by universities around the world. From the Ahmadu Bello University alone, he had three honorary degrees and one from the prestigious University of California. A week before our meeting, he was given a special recognition award by the Performing Musician s Association of Nigeria (PMAN).

Shata was an interesting subject to interview and he managed my poor Hausa the way I managed his smattering use of English language. I was also aware he was quick to anger, so I left one question for last: how does he manage his ceaseless smoking during the Muslim fasting? Dead silence. He obviously didn’t like the question as I knew he wouldn’t.

“Kai, ina ruwa nka?” he repeated the question twice.

I explained that I was just curious because I observed he never for once since the interview started, paused on smoking. Silence again. As he gathered his cigarettes and stood up, I knew the interview was over.

The following week, I splashed the interview on the front page of my newspaper, Katsina Newsweek. It helped put him strongly in the contest against notable candidates like Umar Musa Yar’adua, Abu Jalli Gambo and Idris ‘Piapia’ Nadabo. However, it was his relentless criticism of the party leadership at national and state levels that ultimately brought him head-to-head against Maj-Gen Shehu Yar’adua (rtd), an indigene of the state, and resulted in his eventual disqualification and removal as party chairman.

Later in the year at an event organised by the Gidauniyar Jihar Katsina, we made up, but he would never grant me another interview, a vow he maintained till he died in June, 1999.

Shata was indeed a great man who lived what he believed. My recent trip through Funtua rekindled the memory of that encounter 33 years ago. It was one encounter that made a huge impression on me at the time,  of one man’s conviction and his effort to uplift the poor and the lowly.

“The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, was damning when he spoke before the House of Representatives committee on solid minerals while defending his ministry’s 2024 budget. He said: “One pernicious discovery we have made is that a lot of these banditry, terrorism and insecurity… are actually sponsored by illegal miners. These are not your artisanal miners. They are not people who pick gold on the ground. These are heavy and powerful individuals in our country. And they are Nigerians. They are not foreigners. Yes, you can see foreigners as symptoms but they are not the disease. Nigerians are the powers behind those foreigners that you see on the streets…”

Last Tuesday, an explosion rocked Old Bodija in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. The panic and stampede that ensued were better imagined than witnessed; so also, the magnitude of destruction and loss suffered. Lives were lost; at the last count five as a direct consequence of the blast. Other deaths linked to the blast have since been recorded. Also at the last count, close to 100 persons were injured. A yet-to-be-specified number of houses and businesses were uprooted, flattened or violently shaken by the explosion. The destruction reportedly travelled as far as the Oyo State Governor’s Office kilometers away. At the end of the day, properties lost could be estimated in billions of Naira.

Who dunnit? Governor Seyi Makinde has said the explosion was the handiwork of illegal miners who stored explosives in a strictly residential area. Some independent assessors or observers disagree, saying the impact the explosion created was beyond the capacity of explosives but that it was an outright act of terrorism. Well, until the contrary is proved, I go with Gov. Makinde’s explanation.

This, then, brings up the question of illegal miners in Oyo State in general. In this column on Sunday, 18 April, 2021, I drew the attention of Gov. Makinde to the activities of illegal miners in the state, with the title “Is Makinde aware of this?” Published on page 22 of that day’s edition of the Sunday Tribune, it obviously caught the attention of the government as a result of which a Special Adviser to the governor called me afterwards to say their government was aware of the activities of the illegal miners and that something was being done.

I reproduce that piece here in part: “The write-up you are about to read was forwarded to me by a friend who now lives in the United States of America. We had been comrades at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife. Interestingly, the write-up is an investigative report by the Abuja-based Daily Trust newspaper and their object of interest – Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State. It reads: Strabag Precious Stone International market in Ibadan is a silent gold mine for many billionaires across West Africa; yet, (the Nigerian) government is being short-changed as they (the billionaires across West Africa) fail to pay royalties while the market (itself) remains an eyesore. If you are visiting Strabag precious stone international market, Ojoo, Ibadan, Oyo State for the first time, you will not believe that billions of Naira is being exported out of the community monthly.

From the narrow entrance to the market, which is dominated by foreigners from other West African countries, everywhere looks unkempt and dirty with dilapidated structures. Owners of some of the buildings have vacated them but still receive monthly rents of between N1,500 and N2,000 from the tenants.

Located within the yard of the defunct Strabag construction company, the company which constructed the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in the 70s, the market occupies about 250 houses and has only 10 percent of Nigerians earning their daily income in the market while 90 percent foreigners operate in the market. Every Thursday, precious stones worth N500m are moved out of Ibadan to countries like Thailand, China, the United States of America, Hong Kong and other developed countries of the world by some powerful billionaires from West African countries.

Our correspondent who went round the market disguised as a customer revealed that stones like tourmaline, Beryl, morganite and granite are exported through NAHCO airport, Ikeja while buyers launder money through the land borders so that the government cannot determine the amount spent on transactions. Daily Trust Saturday gathered that officials of the Ministry of Mines and Steel both at the federal and state levels, the Nigeria Immigration Service, and Customs at airports are also culprits as they are allegedly being bribed to keep mute.

Our correspondent gathered that most of the precious stone merchants who are foreigners live in the most sophisticated estates in Ibadan, Lagos, Abuja and other big cities in Nigeria. Some of the merchants have been in the business in Ibadan for over 40 years because of the stability of precious stones deposited in the Oke-Ogun area of the state while their agents hunt for precious stones in the 36 states of the country, said a source who spoke to our correspondent in confidence. The gimmicks employed by the foreign businessmen include wooing village leaders with construction of roads leading to their villages and building of schools for their children.

It appears Section 94, Chapter 3 of the Mining Act 2007 (as amended) which states that ‘No person shall purchase any mineral unless he holds a licence to purchase minerals issued under this Act’ does not apply to the foreigners as many of them dare Nigerians in the market. A Nigerian source in the market told Daily Trust Saturday: ‘Government is aware we are here. Government raided us in this market some time ago but the foreigners were released after the intervention of their big men. Many petitions have emanated from here but were swept under the carpet. With this business, the Nigerian government needs little money from the oil sector if they are serious. What we are experiencing here can only happen in Nigeria and no other country in the world. How will you take precious stones out of a country without paying royalty?’

Precious stones, which are determined by their colour and texture, are in large deposits in every state in Nigeria, especially in the Oke-ogun area of Oyo State where mining camps are numerous. Our correspondent further gathered that other states in Nigeria have alluvial precious stones while Oyo State is blessed with pecmitine (vein), which is exported from the state without the state getting anything in return.

Another source in the market told our correspondent that the foreigners control the market by determining how much they buy gemstones in Nigeria and how much it is sold in the country. Ibadan is the centre of gemstones in Nigeria, the centre of marketing and the centre of exploitation…

Government has no idea what is going on. There are industrial stones which they export and refine but the gem stones are the ones they cut and use in making jewelry. We have the best stones in the world. Talk about tourmaline, sapphire, emerald and other gemstones; we have the best. The international market prefers our stones to those of other countries.

The foreigners – Malians, Burkinabes, Guineans, Gambians, Senegalese – determine the market: How much they buy and how much they sell. If you talk, they tell you ‘This is Nigeria’! They are also members of ECOWAS and if you take them to any station, they always have their way. We want to know who is protecting the government’s interest here. How do they pay royalties and to who?

Petitions have emanated from here but the (authorities) didn’t act on them because people who are supposed to act are also benefiting from the illegality. We are not against international trading but due process must be followed. There was a time we brought up an issue here but before we knew it, some ambassadors called the Nigerian government officials saying that their men were doing their business here in Nigeria and we should not disturb them because we are all members of ECOWAS.

Meanwhile, you cannot try that in their country! There is no country in the world where such a thing can be done except in Nigeria! You live in a country, go to their mining camp, and exploit it without paying royalties to anyone? Never! It is either they buy it from the site and take it directly to the airport or they take it from here to the airport without notifying the government and our government does not care… Here, we sell (gems) per gram while, over there, they sell per character. When you sell one gram for $5, they sell a character for $500. Meanwhile, one gram contains five characters.

As at the time of going to press, the chief press secretary to the governor, Taiwo Adisa, neither picked calls nor responded to text messages for us to know the efforts of the government in addressing the abnormalities”.

That was almost three years ago! Was this article brought to Gov. Makinde’s attention? Did the Special Adviser bring it to his attention? What was it that was being done by the government as the Special Adviser told me, and how far did they go with it? Illegal mining is rampant all over Oyo state; it is not limited only to Ibadan. Illegal miners also reside all over the place in Oyo State and not only in the Bodija area of Ibadan. So, the disaster that struck Ibadan last Tuesday must be prevented from striking other parts of the state.

Malian illegal miners were some of the illegal miners mentioned in this piece that I wrote about three years ago. Malian illegal miners have also been fingered in the Ibadan explosion. Can we then say we did not know or that we were not forewarned?

It is not only in Oyo State that illegal mining strives; we are familiar with the fact that in many parts of the North, illegal mining is the in-thing. Crude oil theft and illegal refineries signpost the South-South. One of the major causes of insurgency and insecurity in the North is said to be the activities of illegal miners. That dangerous trend has spread to the South-west. In many South-west states today, we have the activities of illegal miners – Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, name it! And wherever we have illegal mining, insecurity and insurgency take roots.

The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, was damning when he spoke before the House of Representatives committee on solid minerals while defending his ministry’s 2024 budget. He said: “One pernicious discovery we have made is that a lot of these banditry, terrorism and insecurity… are actually sponsored by illegal miners. These are not your artisanal miners. They are not people who pick gold on the ground. These are heavy and powerful individuals in our country. And they are Nigerians. They are not foreigners. Yes, you can see foreigners as symptoms but they are not the disease. Nigerians are the powers behind those foreigners that you see on the streets…”

The vile dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, said: “Any insurrection that lasts more than 24 hours, a government official has a hand in it” Tell me, for how many years have we suffered insurrection, insurgency, banditry and terrorism in this country, with government after government appearing helpless?

We have heard that powerful political leaders and traditional rulers are behind illegal mining activities not only in the South-west but all over the country, with attendant dire consequences for the security and well-being of the regions concerned and their long-suffering people. Why should leaders be more interested in feeding their greed than leverage on the abundant resources in their locality to give their people BETTER LIFE? If the South-west is not to become another Zamfara, the time to act is now!

“It was nice reading words on federalism from the governor. But his sermon that day were to the deaf. In his audience were scorners of truth, sniggerers of wise counsel – people who flapped their ears as he finished speaking. They are very comfortable that day and today with Nigeria’s structure of unfairness because they have seats in the royal court. The Yoruba among them think their capture of Abuja must not be upended by any talk of justice and restructuring. They think their old call for a structural reappraisal of Nigeria should be dead. I wish they listened to Christian revivalist, Vance Havner’s three-word counsel: comfort precedes collapse. The dry winds of harmattan will soon land from the north to whip loin-clothed backsliders back to their senses. There is no escaping the snares of Nigeria as it is. Without the country restructuring as the Oyo State governor advised, there will continue to be bad news north and south. Bandits will rule the day; kidnappers the night. The Federal Government will continue to license felons to wreck the states and their ecosystems. The states will remain broke, broken and prostrate and useless to their people. Local and foreign vultures will continue to tug at the entrails of the comatose behemoth. Criminalities of various hues will keep their foot on the pedal, driving the country towards certain death.”

Mr Youssouf Sawane, a Malian money-maker, leads miners from Mali in Oyo State. He was asked by the Nigerian Tribune how much his group was paying into the coffers of the Oyo State government. He answered that he owed the Oyo State government nothing; his business was with the Federal Government. Displaying a remarkable knowledge of Nigeria’s centrist federalism, the Malian said “natural resources deposited in states are owned by the Federal Government…We are paying to the Federal Government.” The Malian made that statement in November, 2020 – three years, two months ago. But, last week, when explosives allegedly from Malian groups’ mining misbehaviour devastated the length and breadth of Ibadan, it was the Oyo State government and its people that had to carry the can of the resultant humanitarian crisis. That was a classic case of paying for what one did not buy. It is normal with Nigeria.

Until the social media exploded with cries of a deadly blast in Bodija, I thought it was an impudent rainstorm that played pranks with my rafters. Google Map says my house is some 30 minutes drive (14.8km) to the epicenter of last week’s explosion at Bodija Estate, Ibadan, yet the bang rattled my roof and shook my doors. People died in Bodija where it happened; the estate lost a whole street. Adjoining streets got scarred with mortal injuries – the kind you see only in today’s Gaza. An elderly friend, former minister and ambassador to Germany lives on the street next to the incident scene. I remembered that fact and rushed a call to him that night. An otherwise strong man was heard struggling for words to describe what happened. His building was safe but the bang scrambled his furniture and cracked his things.

A spark in a duplex set off that explosion which shook the entire city. You’ve probably read stories of a butterfly flapping its wings in Asia and causing a hurricane in the Caribbean, South America. It is in a 1990 American film entitled Havana. You’ve also read of a golden butterfly whose death dramatically altered the way the world works. It is in Ray Bradbury’s science fiction short story, ‘A Sound of Thunder.’ Those two works and some others are attempts at explaining the nature of chaos – how small fires lead to conflagrations. Chaos theorists call it the butterfly effect and they have several examples. One was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in June 1914 which historians say was the catalyst for the two world wars. Another was the 1945 swap of the serene city of Nagasaki for the arms factory city of Kokura. Kokura was the original target of America’s plutonium bombing but a cloud blocked the B-29 crew’s view of the target. Three times the pilot scanned Kokura, three times the pilot saw nothing. The cloud below stood between the bomb and its intended victim. Because the opened bays must deliver their load of death, the bombsight panned elsewhere to the backup target. Nearby Nagasaki got the horrific atomic bomb and lost some 100,000 lives.

Because of some small men and failure of intelligence, boisterous Ibadan lost its security last week. It is still in shock. Almost all survivors of the explosion spoke of that moment of flash and sudden death. A survivor said he thought “we were being bombed.” A former deputy governor who lost his home said “I thought I was dead.” The living victims’ accounts of how it happened keep sounding like it was another America bombing World War II Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima received the first atomic bomb, named ‘Little Boy’, on August 6, 1945. The second was ‘Fat Man’ which knocked out Nagasaki four days later on August 9. Explosives, whether low or high, know neither purity nor neutrality nor innocence. Cindered with Nagasaki in 1945 were, ironically, its anti-war Catholics who massed for God at a Mass. They all got incinerated with their Urakami Cathedral. Many unsoiled souls, including a U.K. returnee, died in the Ibadan explosion.

We’ve not heard that those who kept the explosives went with the disaster. All we know for now is that around 7.45pm on Tuesday, 16 January, 2024, Dejo Oyelese Close in Bodija, Ibadan had its own Nagasaki experience. Some foreign fellows warehoused suspected high-order explosives in a building there for illegal mining. No one took note that that was an accident waiting to happen. No one remembered Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. As should be expected, something went wrong with those explosives. In catastrophic proportions, they rained devastation and terror on the city. Is somebody asking how many more volcanoes of dynamites are stocked unseen in towns and cities where these miners operate?

We all ask what kind of people would keep military-grade explosives in residential apartments. We forget that some businesses share meaning with daredevilry. Mining is one. In the normal world, the shell of the snail is spared after eating its meat but miners eat the snail with its shell. Only devils do that, and in myths. Go to the precious stone mines in Oke Ogun (Oyo State), the gold mines of Ilesa (in Osun State), Maru and Maradun (in Zamfara). If you are looking for those who eat rams with their horns, they are the operators in those places of blood money. Even vultures do not eat sacrifices with the offering pans but miners do. It is at the mines that you encounter men who munch tortoise flesh and shell. No fellow-feelings, no empathy for man and the environment. They go for money and money only; it is the only matter that matters.

A Malian whose home country has not known peace for almost a decade now because of federalist issues is benefiting from our crooked ‘federal’ structure here. A decade ago, the Tuareg rebels of Mali demanded a federal system that would grant sovereign rights to individual states. But the then government said no. “Mali is a unitary state. The subject of a federal state is not on our schedule…reforms must be done within the framework of a unitary state.” The rejection of that demand birthed today’s Mali of chaos and terror. It is a mini Nigeria.

I call Sawane and his group federal agents. They are instruments of the Federal Government – the man claimed in that 2020 interview that his activity and those of his people were licensed by Abuja. He said so three years ago and there has been no rebuttal from the supposed licensor. Even after the sad event of last Tuesday, the government at the centre has still not said that the man lied.

Coincidentally, earlier on the day the barrel bombs of Abuja’s miners exploded in Ibadan, killing and destroying all on their way, Oyo State governor, Mr Seyi Makinde, was at the University of Ibadan begging friends of the Federal Government to get their knees off the neck of Nigeria and allow its rebirth as a true federation. Makinde declared at Chief Bisi Akande’s 85th birthday lecture at the University of Ibadan that there was “a strong link between the trio of fiscal federalism, restructuring and state policing, and running a government that places the people’s interest first.” He stressed that it had become imperative for the country to consider the path of constitutional reform to accommodate these ideas if the government would begin to benefit the people.

Perhaps if Nigeria had been a proper federation, a track of legal and illegal miners would have been properly kept and an Oyo State-owned police would have uncovered the ‘bombs’ before they went off. And, perhaps those alien wasps of death would not have nestled undetected in the canopy of elite Bodija Estate. The United States where we copied our federalism does not suffer such maladies. American states have considerable control over their lives and resources. That is why they prosper and their country continues to brag and swag as the strongest of the superpowers.

Miners in Nigeria have zero respect for their states of operations. Abuja is where their bread is buttered and that is the shrine where they worship. Our constitution vests ownership of lands in governors, yet it forbids states and their governors from controlling mining on those lands. The Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act forever lurks as Abuja’s waiting hammer against errant states. Its Part 1, Sections 1 and 2 are a study on how not to structure a federation: (1) “The entire property in and control of all mineral resources in, under or upon any land in Nigeria, its contiguous continental shelf and all rivers, streams and watercourses throughout Nigeria, any area covered by its territorial waters or constituency and the Exclusive Economic Zone is and shall be vested in the Government of the Federation for and on behalf of the people of Nigeria. (2) All lands in which minerals have been found in commercial quantities shall, from the commencement of this Act, be acquired by the Government of the Federation in accordance with the provisions of the Land Use Act.”

That law gives no role to states in the extraction – or even in the regulation of extraction, exploration and exploitation of all mineral resources in their territories. If a governor thinks he is clever and wants to dodge that bullet by investing in this sector, he will have to ‘dobale’ for the minister in Abuja for licences to operate in his own territory. And, if you are a state governor and you feel aggrieved by the unfairness of what you see and you want to go to court for redress, think twice. The law has been carefully structured to take care of such audacity. Cases on mines and minerals can only go to the Federal High Court. The court of ‘the enemy’ has exclusive jurisdiction on mine and mining matters.

Nigeria is the only federation on earth where everything is warehoused in the pocket of the central government. But it has not always been like this. If our ancestors read the Malian in Ibadan as he said he paid mining dues to only the Federal Government, they would shake their heads in surprise and sadness. Nigeria became a federation in 1954 through the Lyttelton constitution with all the regions retaining all rights and powers that have now been taken from the successor states. Even before 1954, the country was not as choky as it is today. Africa’s preeminent historian, Toyin Falola, dug into mining matters thirty-two years ago. I read his ‘An Ounce Is Enough: The Gold Industry and the Politics of Control in Colonial Western Nigeria’ (1992). I have read that piece like four times in the last two years. It teaches me that miners of all ages are the same in behaviour. It also teaches that Nigeria has not always been this structurally crooked with no respect for law and its enforcement. Falola takes us through the bumpy roads of colonial construction of legal frameworks for the mining industry. Illegal miners existed but they were not allowed to ply their trade as if the law did not exist to take care of their criminality. There were laws against the kind of illegality that birthed the Ibadan tragedy. There were licences for miners and dealers. Every inch of the road from the mines to the gold market was policed with the law. There was the Hawker’s Licence for those who wanted to trade in the products manufactured by goldsmiths. Significantly, unlike now that all licences are minted and sold by the big boss in Abuja, the colonial law vested the power to grant this licence in the Resident. The Resident was the equivalent of today’s state governor.

My old university teacher, Professor Adebayo Williams, described the Ibadan tragedy aptly as the apocalypse. It was an accident that should not have happened if Nigeria had been a country ruled by the law. But if you are a compulsive scorner of wise counsel, you will make seers of your advisers. If you are deaf to sacrifice, you will vindicate the diviner. The diviners here are Governor Makinde and all who believe in having a proper federation that would make invasions from Mali and elsewhere impossible.

It was nice reading words on federalism from the governor. But his sermon that day were to the deaf. In his audience were scorners of truth, sniggerers of wise counsel – people who flapped their ears as he finished speaking. They are very comfortable that day and today with Nigeria’s structure of unfairness because they have seats in the royal court. The Yoruba among them think their capture of Abuja must not be upended by any talk of justice and restructuring. They think their old call for a structural reappraisal of Nigeria should be dead. I wish they listened to Christian revivalist, Vance Havner’s three-word counsel: comfort precedes collapse. The dry winds of harmattan will soon land from the north to whip loin-clothed backsliders back to their senses. There is no escaping the snares of Nigeria as it is. Without the country restructuring as the Oyo State governor advised, there will continue to be bad news north and south. Bandits will rule the day; kidnappers the night. The Federal Government will continue to license felons to wreck the states and their ecosystems. The states will remain broke, broken and prostrate and useless to their people. Local and foreign vultures will continue to tug at the entrails of the comatose behemoth. Criminalities of various hues will keep their foot on the pedal, driving the country towards certain death.

May the souls of those who died in the Ibadan explosion rest in peace. May their families and those who lost property there be comforted; may the wounded be healed.