President Bola Tinubu has been appointed the African Union, AU, Champion for Human Resources for Health and Community Health Delivery Partnership against the backdrop of his ambitious, innovative, and people-focused efforts in the sector.

This was disclosed in a statement by Chief Ajuri Ngelale, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity on Friday.

The Commission of the African Union, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention — Africa CDC, in a letter to Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tinubu was appointed on the recommendation of the Committee of Heads of State and Government of Africa CDC, under the leadership of His Excellency, President Azali Assoumani, President of the Union of Comoros and Chairperson of the African Union.

In his new role, the Commission subsequently invited President Tinubu to address the Ministerial Executive Leadership Programme, MELP, under the theme, ‘Impactful leadership in health: a whole government approach’, billed for Saturday, February 17, 2024, at the Africa CDC Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the margins of the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of AU Heads of State and Government.

Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe (15 August 1966 – 9 February 2024)

“I remember a friend of mine in the oil industry, who during a meeting of an economic think tank. He called the then president aside and said, ‘Mr President please stop this subsidy, we are tired of making money…We’re bringing in this fuel at an elevated cost and half of it is exported out of Nigeria by the same people collecting money for it” 

There is an apparent consensus of opinion that Nigeria has not had a good outing under the stewardship of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The main extenuation for this lapse is that he inherited a basket case from his predecessor, Major General Muhammadu Buhari.That may well be the case but this extenuation flies in the face of his own verbalised utmost quest and carnal desire (lifelong ambition) to become the president of Nigeria. I do not exactly recall whether it was 

Usman Dan Fodio who counselled society to be wary of whoever desires the aroma of power the most. Buhari’s obsession with power and what he did with it for eight years proves the point. May Nigeria be spared the repeat of the Buhari cross all over again.

Beware of what you crave, you may just get it. Having now been gratified with the object of his ‘lifelong ambition’, Nigeria lies prostrate before President Tinubu but he has so far failed to master the moment. In fairness to him and unlike his predecessor, he has largely refrained from making a song and dance of the Buhari (dysfunction) extenuation. Save when he characterised the transition from Buhari to his government as ‘moving from darkness to a glorious dawn’. While the characterisation of the former President’s tenure as an era of “darkness” is apt, it would amount to standing reality on its head to cite the incumbent president’s tenure as anything near a glorious dawn.

The potential crowning glory of the Buhari dysfunction and one I regret not supporting was his desire to foist former President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan as the president of Nigeria. And he was thick enough to try it. If he had succeeded, he would have sufficiently radicalised Nigerian politics, and clarified the choice before the country as never before. Already cut too deep, the cleavages would have irretrievably cut deeper. The affront was bound to foster a make or break crisis whose ramifications would force a fundamental constitutional review of the status quo or worse. 

Imagine the spectre of Vice-president Atiku Abubakar as the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP candidate and Ahmed Lawan as that of the APC, and the certainty that the election will be rigged in favour of either presidential candidate. To the contrary, with the election of Tinubu as a sop to the Yoruba, Nigeria has won a battle but lose the war. As we have come to learn, the restructuring din has quietened down to a whimper. A very smart politician, contemporaneously I 

cannot recall him ever owning restructuring as priority- that is if he ever touched the idea at all on his campaign rostrum.

 As programmed, he has deflated the bubbles of the only viable status quo answer to the question of what ails Nigeria. I was surprised at the conniving power politics posture of the Yoruba intelligentsia towards the realpolitik of contemporary Nigeria. The better option of Peter Obi was put down as representative of Igbo triumphalism! It went all the way back to the politics of playing the Yoruba against the Igbo. 

I marvelled at the spectre of respected scholars who taught us on how tribalism is the bane of Nigerian politics becoming the standard bearers of the very ill they professed against. It was the perfect opportunity to breach the to- your- tents-o-Israel barrier that had kept Nigeria down for so long. Love your neighbour as you love yourself, thus sayeth the Lord. And it was reckoned as one of the most important commandments. 

“The two great commandments, as found in Matthew 22:36-40, are to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” and “love thy neighbour as thyself.” The Lord did not qualify the commandment as applicable only to those you like. It is a challenge to our individual and collective morality and test of commitment to principles, to stand by a principle when it is not convenient to do so. The more cynical of them rationalised their position with the logic that if Nigeria is fated to ruin and damnation, it makes sense to have your son at the commanding heights! 

As you might have rightly guessed, the reference to Rawlings in the caption is a metaphor for a near revolutionary take over of government. To a considerable extent, the inability of Tinubu to stare down the challenges and problems of Nigeria boils down to not wanting to commit class suicide. If he really wants to commit to doing his job well, he has two options.

One is to go for a constitutional review towards the end of securing the restoration of federalism. The other is to lead by the power of example. The latter point is not as trite as it sounds. In the affairs of men, it is inevitable for society to experience crisis and tribulation. So by itself, the bad spell Nigeria is going through is neither new nor unprecedented. What matters most is the demonstration of enlightened self-interest, the capacity of the ruling elite to mobilise the citizenry by the power of personal example and discipline. 

Within the context of Nigeria, It may sound utopian, but think of a shirtless Rawlings driving a bulldozer. If you have your leaders miraculously borrow a leaf from this playbook, the masses will forget they have not eaten a piece of meat for weeks.

I do not need to go into the sordid details but the statement of intent indicated in the budget presented by the president a few months back is a contraindication of leadership by example and a mockery of the Nigerian masses. It is a budget of how not to mobilise the people behind your leadership. It is not a budget of how to exhort your people to think of what they can do for their country and not what their country can do for them. 

As Nigeria’s cup of iniquity overflows with no discernable silver lining in the dark horizon, my mind has been waxing subjective and unorthodox dimensions. In my last outing, I wrote of making atonement for the sin of our forefathers participation and connivance in the slave trade as a spiritual panacea for what increasingly appears to be a digging deeper into the hole of mass immiseration and underdevelopment. I got this inspiration from the most accomplished American president, Abraham Lincoln. He believed that the American civil war over the institution of slavery was punishment and atonement for the role of America in the transatlantic slave trade. 

As I contemplate the ratcheting up of public service corruption in Nigeria today to the level of unimaginable perversion and sickness, my mind wandered to how Shehu Yar’Adua came to terms with the dilemma. I doubt if decent society has any lessons to learn from the peculiarity and oddity but it is story worthy of being told. It is a story of how effective he was in securing his political goals and objectives. It was as cynical as it was effective. If the former number two man in the military government of Obasanjo, was sending a political subordinate on an errand, he would inquire about the cost implication of the task. Having been apprised of the financial implication, say ten million Naira, he would give the money as requested. He would then top up the money with another ten million, so the fellow would have less incentive to fignal with the original ten million. And it worked! 

In theory and practice, I do not know how to substantiate this primitive formula but ranged against what presently obtains, it appears to me a good bargain (if we can get ten billion naira value for a contract awarded for twenty billion). 

It is six months now since Isa Yuguda has made his earth shaking revelation. The response of the President was to cast a vote of confidence in the man at the centre of the worst scandal in Nigeria and reappoint him as the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Neither has he deemed it worthwhile to invite the remorseful friend of Yuguda to come and tell all he knows as a participant-observer who has become tired of making billions at the expense of the Nigerian public 

President Bola Tinubu has approved the immediate upgrade of key health infrastructure and equipment across all six geo-political zones.

In a statement on Friday by his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, the President said the upgrade aligns with his administration’s vision of overhauling the health and social welfare sector for enhanced service delivery to all Nigerians.

The President said the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, in collaboration with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), will comprehensively upgrade cancer-treatment infrastructure and other critical developments in six tertiary hospitals across several geo-political zones.

He added the ministry and the NSIA will carry out a full renovation and expansion of prior investments to improve broad-based access to high-quality healthcare in all six geo-political zones of the federation.

The President said six teaching hospitals across geo-political zones have been marked for the establishment of oncology and nuclear medicine centres.

The hospitals are University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, University of Nigeria (Nsukka) Teaching Hospital, Federal Teaching Hospital, Katsina, University of Jos Teaching Hospital and Lagos University Teaching Hospital.

The statement reads: “Upgrading health infrastructure and equipment is a top priority of President Tinubu’s Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative. To advance this landmark effort, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) will carry out the comprehensive upgradation of cancer-treatment infrastructure and other critical developments in six tertiary hospitals across several geo-political zones, in addition to the full renovation and expansion of prior investments to improve broad-based access to high-quality healthcare in all six geo-political zones of the federation.”

The following teaching hospitals across geo-political zones have been marked for the establishment of oncology and nuclear medicine centres per facility as part of President Tinubu’s bid to ensure that world-class cancer diagnosis and care is accessible across the country.”

The statement added that ten critical healthcare services were also approved for expansion projects across radiology, clinical pathology, medical and radiation oncology, and cardiac catheterization will be carried out in ten hospitals across all geo-political zones.

The ten hospitals are listed below:

– North-West: Reference Hospital, Kaduna — (Radiology, clinical pathology, medical and radiation oncology)

– South-East: Medical Diagnostic Centre Complex, Enugu — (Radiology, clinical pathology, medical & radiation oncology)

– North-West: Usman Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto — (Diagnostic and intervention radiology, clinical pathology, and cardiac catheterization)

– South-West: University College Hospital, Ibadan — (Diagnostic and intervention radiology, clinical pathology, and cardiac catheterization)

– South-South: University of Uyo Teaching Hospital — (Radiology and clinical pathology)

– North-East: Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi — (Radiology and clinical pathology)

– South-South: Federal Medical Centre, Asaba — (Radiology and clinical pathology)

– North-Central: Harmony Advanced Diagnostic Centre Complex, Ilorin — (Radiology and clinical pathology)

– North-Central: Jos University Teaching Hospital — (Radiology and clinical pathology)

– North-East: Federal Medical Centre, Nguru — (Radiology and clinical pathology)

It added: “These critical projects are set to be delivered within 12-18 months and will improve screening and diagnostics for communicable and non-communicable diseases; reduce mortality rates and improve outcomes for non-communicable diseases; create considerable employment opportunities for clinical, administrative, and managerial personnel across Nigeria’s six geo-political zones, all while building the capacity of clinical personnel in advanced procedures, diagnostics and treatment modalities, in accordance with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.”

[NaijaNews]

Following the placement of N20 million bounty on two suspected kidnappers terrorising Abuja and it environs by the minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, the operatives of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have arrested one of them, Dahiru Adamu, whose real name is Saidu Abdulkadir.

He was arrested when police operatives raided two kidnappers’ camps bordering Nasarawa State and Abuja via Kuje Area Council on February 15, 2024, at about 12am and dislodged the camps.

FCT police spokesperson, SP Josephine Adeh, said Abdulkadir was the gang leader and one of the wanted suspects of the kidnapping syndicate paraded by the FCT Police Command on February 14, 2024.

The police further said the bandits on sighting the police operatives, opened fire and engaged the Police in an intense gun duel and were eventually overpowered by the Police, as one Habu Yakubu and Isufu Abubakar, earlier abducted from Kwaita Village via Pegi district of Kuje Area Council, were rescued unhurt and the suspect arrested.

She further said peliminary investigation revealed that the suspect masterminded the kidnap and killing of one Mr Sunday Yahaya Zakwai, the district head of Ketti Village.

While effort was still ongoing to apprehend the other wanted suspect on the run, the FCT commissioner of Police, CP Ben Igweh, has reassured criminals in FCT that there was no hiding place for them.

He equally urged residents to report suspicious activities through the following emergency lines: 08032003913, 08061581938, 07057337653, and 08028940883; PCB: 09022222352.

[Leadership]

Laolu Akande, former spokesman of Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, says Nigeria needs bold leaders to confront the country’s multifaceted challenges, especially security and economic problems.

He made this known on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande aired on Channels Television on Friday.

According to him, leaders must be honest and courageous to overcome the challenges in the country.

“The problems as of today, the widespread hardship in the land and the menacing insecurities require courageous leadership at the very top. Our leaders must be bold enough to fire appointed public officials who don’t deliver on their KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

“We have seen in this country how lack of consequences and impunity have created new problems and made old ones worse.

“For example, we have seen how we have been fighting insecurity for decades now and when it seems we’ve solved it at one point, it comes in another form. The problems re-emerge everywhere. There have been claims of collusion of corruption in certain agencies our leaders should not be shy to thoroughly investigate, discover what is really happening and punish those responsible for the corruption and collusion if that is established.

“How is it possible that more than half of the oil lifted in Nigeria for instance is being stolen and no one has been caught or punished in several years?

“As a nation, we are struggling to meet up with our OPEC quota. OPEC cut Nigeria’s quota to 1.38 million barrels per day from 1.78 million bpd because for years, we have failed to meet our quota.

“A President or a governor or elected senator or assembly member is no use, in the long run, if he or she fails to use the big stick against those holding our commonwealth down. Our leaders must be bold enough, honest and forthright to draw a line in the sand on the issue of corruption. It requires boldness. Corruption is corrosive. A former President said if we don’t kill it, it will kill us.

“In 2015, many Nigerians thought that former President whose campaign spearheaded the ‘Change’ narrative would actually bring the change. I served under that administration but that has not happened wight years after. Our leaders who made the promises are still grappling at the straws. Corruption is worse, economy is biting, insecurity is relentless. We seem to lack the bold leadership to look at the problems eyeball to eyeball and say, ‘No more’.

“But Nigerians have given the same set of leaders – the APC, who made that illustrious promise of ‘Change’ in 2015, another chance now under a new President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who would have spent nine months in office at the end of this month.

“The burden that President Tinubu is carrying is heavier than that of President Buhari and it is important that is said because now President Tinubu is not just carrying the burden of promise but he is carrying the burden of truncated hope. And good a thing he has rightly named his agenda Renewed Hope. Nigerians have placed so much expectations on the promises and now they are wondering how come they believed a lie. So, it is up to President Tinubu to show that those promises made in 2015 were no lies. And that is why we are appealing to him today and all those in authority that the government be it executive, judiciary or legislature, it’s important to apply courage and boldness.”

[DailyTrust]

A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF) to re-open the investigation and prosecution of those who murdered the founder of Newswatch Magazine, Dele Giwa, in 1986.

Dele Giwa was murdered on October 19, 1986 in his Lagos office through a letter bomb.

Delivering judgment on Friday in a suit against the AGF, Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo held the Chief Law Officer of the Federation is under obligation to prosecute and penalize killers of media practitioners in the country.

Apart from Dele Giwa, the court ordered that the killings of other journalists in the discharge of their lawful duties must be investigated and perpetrators brought to book in line with the provisions of the law.

The Incorporated Trustees of Media Rights Agenda, MRA, had dragged the AGF before the court for the enforcement of fundamental rights of media practitioners to safety as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution and African Charters on Human Rights.

Justice Ekwo in the judgment ordered the Federal Government to ensure adequate protection and safety of lives of journalists as enshrined in sections 33, 39 of the Constitution and Articles 4 and 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.

Details later...

[DailyPost]

If I were to choose between the governed and its government, I will choose the latter. This is because it has been established that the former are fortune hunters who in a world of ‘survival of the fittest’, seize every available opportunity to inflict hardship on their fellow compatriots while the latter is saddled with the onerous task of keeping man who is often insane under control.  Nothing brings this home more vividly than the ongoing war of attrition being waged not just by the political and economic elite, but by ordinary Nigerians against Nigerians.

We have all become vultures feeding on the blood of the most vulnerable. From fuel subsidy scammers, foreign exchange speculators to the Kano food distributors who short-changed farmers but locked up food items in warehouses while people starve, the egg and bread hawker on the streets of Lagos who attributed high cost of their wares to dollar exchange rate, the first instinct is always how to exploit the vulnerable.

 I discovered from a nearby grocery store last Sunday that the price of a loaf of bread had gone up to N1, 300. It used to be N1, 000. Since there was no value added, I decided to drive to another store where I thought I could get ‘coconut bread’ for N1,200. There also, I discovered the price had gone up to N1,600. After wondering when we started importing flour and coconut, I was forced to buy the bread. The story was not different from my neighbour who supplies us fresh eggs from his farm at N2,400 per crate. The price has gone up to N3,500, per crate. He attributed the difference to high cost of drugs needed to treat his birds.

High cost of living has led to demonstration against government in a number of Nigerian cities. Last Thursday, it was the turn of Kano State. The city’s residents took to the streets calling on President Tinubu to come to their rescue as they could not “eat three square meals even the one square meal is now becoming difficult, as a bag of rice which used to go for N25,000 now attracts N70,000. And “Sugar which was sold for N8,000 now goes for N75,000”.

 But as if to confirm we are all vultures, three days later, on Sunday February 11, the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission confiscated 10 warehouses with hoarded assorted foodstuffs in Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area of the state. According to Muhyl Magaji, the commission’s chairman, “The owners have been issued notice to report to the commission preparatory to facing charges before the court of law for their illegal activities”.

Perhaps we need a journey through memory to remind ourselves how greed by a few fortune-hunters led to the removal of fuel subsidy by government and the floating of the national currency resulting in current massive depreciation and escalating cost of living.

 Fuel subsidy scam started at the onset of the fourth republic when PDP stalwarts and their sibling defrauded the nation to the tune of N1.7trillion by “forging papers without importing a pint of fuel,” in the words of Audu Ogbe the then PDP national chairman.  A probe by the National Assembly indicted a number of fuel marketers. (Otedola masterminded a DSS sting operation to nail Lawan Farouk for receiving bribe in order redmove his name from the list.)

Then a forensic probe of Sanusi’s (CBN Governor) allegation that $49.8b was not transferred to the federation account by NNPC confirmed $10.8billion was never reconciled. Andrew Yakubu, NNPC group MD later said $8.76B of the amount was used for subsidy. (An Abuja High Court presided over by judge Ahmed Mohammed who ordered EFCC and CBN to transfer $9.8 million and 74,000 pounds recovered from Andrew Yakubu to an account under the control of the Chief Registrar of the court in March 2022, discharged and acquitted him of all charges).

Sanusi however insisted such expenditure without appropriation was unconstitutional especially since subsidy on kerosene had been cancelled by Yar’Adua since June 15, 2009 when it was discovered that ‘if anyone was benefitting, it must be marketers and government officials. Sadly, about N500 billion was purportedly spent on kerosene subsidy in four years when the product was hardly available at filling stations or sold for N150 as against consolidated N50 controlled price. President Jonathan knew about the scam but shielded his friends in PDP, NNPC and the petroleum ministry.

Buhari similarly failed the nation. Isa Yuguda, former governor of Bauchi State and chairman of the committee on subsidy in 2009 told Channels television “I am sad to let Nigerians know what I saw. We came across situations where subsidy was claimed on pipeline that never existed…. Those that claim to pump the product and those that are in the subsidy scam, they just fill papers, invoices and they claim subsidy on it”.

Yuguda was sure Buhari as president who doubled as oil minister for eight years, was aware of the scam. Buhari lacked the political will to act. He chose instead to leave the poisoned apple for his successor by refusing to budget for fuel subsidy beyond June 2023.

But no sooner President Tinubu declared during his inauguration that ‘fuel subsidy was gone’, than the vultures in the guise of marketers swung into action. Within an hour of the statement fuel disappeared from filling stations across Nigeria or sold for about N700 per litre where available.

President Tinubu also admitted inheriting ‘a rotten’ financial system. The Jim Obazee-led special investigation of Emefiele’s tenure as CBN governor was to later unearth a damning report of monumental mismanagement, fraud and arbitrariness, looting, diversion of funds, forgery and collusion against Emefiele and about 15 others.  Specifically, the was an investment of billions of dollars in over 500 banks IN USA, UK and China without approval of CBN board. There was £543,482,213 in fixed deposit in one of the banks in UK.

From alleged manipulation of the forex markets by banks, First Bank, UBA, Zenith, Access and GTB reported a combined N1.38trillion in forex revaluation in the first half of 2023.

As at July 2023, there was also N26.627 trillion in ‘ways and means’, whose “management was dogged by a lot of arbitrariness with funds taken out of the national treasury without necessary authorization”.

Government’s efforts at stabilizing the exchange rate through the unification of the official and parallel market exchange rates “hailed by economists and other stakeholders” have continued to be sabotaged by “some commercial banks who hold long-term foreign exchange positions to enable them profit from the volatile movements of exchange rate”.

In a move to reduce the pressure on the naira, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has raised a 7,000-man special task force across its 14 zonal commands to clamp down on dollar racketeers.

For President Tinubu, the subsidy removal and the floating of the national currency were fait accompli. Unlike President Jonathan and Buhari, there was no escape route. There was just no money to run the government. With 97% of our resources going into servicing debts, borrowing was not an option.

To reduce the burden of Nigerians, President Tinubu must recover our monies from all indicted oil marketers. The banks and some others owe AMCON close to N6trillion. These taxpayers’ monies must be retrieved from the banks and other debtors who are today serving senators or live like princes.

And as an elected sovereign, the president must be reminded he is free to take ‘protective measures including invasion of personal privacy and assault on group culture’ to safeguard the interest of the state.  

Less than 24 hours to the primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to elect its flag bearer for the September 21 governorship election in Edo state, a frontline aspirant of the party, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, has withdrawn from the race.

He announced his withdrawal on Friday, February 16, in a statement made available to journalists.

The withdrawal notice was addressed to the national chairman of the party, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, and the Acting State Chairman of the party, Emperor Jarrett Tenebe.

Full text of the withdrawal letter reads: “Few months ago, after extensively interacting with family, friends, political associates, and supporters, I joined the 2024 Edo state gubernatorial race as a result of my passion and commitment to the cause of rescuing Edo state from the current condition of decrepitude.

“I entered the contest as a progressive democrat, with an open mind to keenly contest and accept the result of a process that is fair, credible and transparent. I appreciate the commended the effort made by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC to correct the erroneous impression maliciously created by certain persons that some aspirants, including myself had been disqualified from the gubernatorial contest. The NWC constituted the authentic screening committee and all twelve aspirants who purchased and completed the nomination forms were successfully screened and subsequently issued clearance certificates. This step was praise worthy and helped in restoring our integrity in the eyes of the public.

“Having being cleared to contest, I regrettably wish to announce my withdrawal from the race. Although painful, this decision has become imperative after an exhaustive consultation with my family, friends, political associates and supporters. I make this sacrifice in the interest of the peace and unity that the party desperately requires at both state and national levels.

“I humbly appeal to the good people of Edo state to accept my decision which I very personal and I promise to be there for them at all times.

“Thankfully, I acknowledge the fatherly role of President Bola Tinubu, GCFR, as well as the party’s national leadership for the fairness and commitment to the democratic process. Likewise, I remain grateful to the state working committee for their principled stand to allow a level playing field for all aspirants. I am extremely appreciative to my family, friends, supporters, well-wishers, and the extraordinary hardworking men and women of our campaign organization who were prepared to stop at nothing to see me fly the party’s flag. I salute your great works, your steadfastness and courage.

“Finally, as a loyal party man, I wish to pledge that I and my teeming supporters shall support any candidate that emerges in the primary election holding tomorrow.”