A former lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani, said the Oronsaye Report is outdated and needs to be updated before implementation.

Sani stated this in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday.

Recall that the Oronsaye Report was commissioned in 2012 with the goal of rationalising and restructuring federal government parastatals, commissions, departments and agencies.

But, Sani said the report has become obsolete due to the proliferation of new agencies and commissions since its inception.

He said that legislators’ performance was often measured by the number of bills they sponsored or the creation of federal agencies and commissions resulting from their initiatives, thereby leading to a high number of federal agencies and commissions in the country.

Sani noted that the approach did not align with the country’s economic realities.

He said, “Most of these commissions were created by the National Assembly. When you are elected into office as a senator or as a member of the House of Representatives, one of the factors that they use to gauge your performance or stewardship in office is the number of bills you are able to sponsor, or the number of federal agencies that came out of your bills.

“And as such, you see every year, legislators come out with all sorts of ideas about commissions and agencies and boards and bureaus. But we don’t take cognizance of the fact that we are a poor country. A nation of 224 million people with such little resources.

“Some of the agencies that we created in this country are so irrelevant and useless. And it’s time that we implemented this report.

“But Oronsaye Report could have been updated. The President could have invited Oronsaye and his committee and said, ‘Update your report based on the new commissions and agencies that have been created after your report.’ Because as it’s now, the report is outdated.

“If you live in Abuja today, there’s hardly any street you will move without seeing an agency you never knew before. It’s either one commission on this or an agency on that.

“Now, look at the number of the agencies that came after Oronsaye Report. So if you look at what’s being done now, it’s simply ‘Let’s implement this without thinking that it has gone out of date.’

“So, the best thing now is to invite Oronsaye and ask him to update his report and then the government can implement it,” he said.

The Oronsaye Report was formulated in 2011 by the then-President Goodluck Jonathan under the Presidential Committee on the Rationalization and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions, and Agencies.

The report aimed to streamline governance, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency.

[Vanguard]

I like to proceed by taking a largely critical look at Nigeria’s development crisis  and attempt to proffer some solutions to our more obvious challenges. I anchor this on what I refer to as the five monsters that Nigerians must tame if we must move out of extant development crisis

Nigeria officially became a sovereign state on 1st October, 1960. We started off with a lot of enthusiasm and promises; as of a country ready to live out its manifest destiny of greatness. We had a robust federal system that promoted healthy competition among the federating units, and thereby pushed the country on the path of development. Recall that in some of the critical theatres of development, our own Western Region was actually ahead of some of the countries of Europe of the era. Our people were full of confidence on what the future held in store for them; and there was no question about the desire of Nigeria to lead, not just West Africa, but indeed, the entire continent. We actually fantasised with the idea of promoting the interest of the Black person anywhere and everywhere in the world. At some point in the mid-1970s , we were widely regarded as belonging in the exalted group of the Newly Industrialising Nations (NICs) of the world, sharing the same platform with countries like Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, etc.

Somewhere along the line, the bubble burst; as the country got overwhelmed by a slew of challenges, among which were, an emergent culture of electoral heist, intense and unhealthy inter-ethnic rivalry, sectarian violence, military coups and counter coups, a civil war, evident governance, capacity, and integrity challenges, and acute public trust deficit.

When you juxtapose the earlier years of independence with what eventually came to define us, you cannot but declare, with all sense of responsibility, that we have not done well as a nation. The reality becomes starker yet, when you compare our socio-economic status with that of some of the countries with comparable status, with which we started out on the development trajectory in the early 1960s. While some of these contradictions will become apparent in the course of this discourse, I hasten to draw some inferences from South Korea, aptly described by the CNN anchor-man, Fareed Zakaria (2018), as ‘the most successful nation in the world’ in economic performance terms.

Economics:

We claim to have the largest economy in Africa, but with less than half a trillion dollars GDP; and as someone pointed out recently, what is the worth of a dwarf claiming to be taller than another dwarf; and I add, in the community of giants? We are a country of more than 200 million people, but with a GDP under 400 billion US dollars, while South Korea with a population of about 52 million has a GDP of 1.7 trillion US dollars, as at 2023. These translate to GDP per capita of $33,170 for South Korea, against Nigeria’s $1,750. Yet, ‘by 1960, GDP per capita (current US Dollars) in South Korea was $158.24, while in Nigeria it stood at $92.96’ (World Bank, 2019). As a matter of fact, GDP was higher in Nigeria in 1962, at $4.91 billion, as against South Korea’s $2.42 billion, in 1961. What is more, today, all the Asian tiger economies, with a population less than 90 million – about half of Nigeria’s – have a combined GDP above three trillion US dollars. Above all, we are a heavily indebted nation, which according to the World Bank, spent in 2022, 96.3% of its total revenue on debt servicing.

To elaborate a bit on the Nigeria-South Korea narrative; if you live in South Korea instead of Nigeria, you are likely to, among others,

                live 21.6 years longer. In Nigeria, the average life expectancy is 61 years

                be 77.2% less likely to be unemployed.

                be 64.1% less likely to live below the poverty line.

                be 98.8% less likely to die during childbirth.

                be 94.9% less likely to die during infancy.  (www.mylifeelsewhere.com, using data from World Fact book, National Tax Office, South Korea; and Federal Inland Revenue).

For emphasis, using human development indices, Nigeria is no better vis a vis South Korea. Life expectancy here is 61 years, compared with South Korea’s 83! Furthermore, we are a nation with the highest number of out-of-school children in the world; the poverty capital of the world, with about 63% of our population regarded as multidimensionally poor; and more than 40% unemployment rate among the youth, who constitute more than 60% of the population. Yet, more Nigerians are entering the poverty pool in Nigeria, with the figure being some 10 million in 2023, according to the World Bank. The second highest number of women, globally, die in pregnancy in our land. To all intents and purposes, Nigeria remains what OXFAM referred to as a profoundly unequal nation, where the combined wealth of its five richest men ($29.9b in 2021?) would end extreme poverty at the national level.

National fragility:

As at 2017, Nigeria was ranked 13th (out of 178 countries) in the Fragile State Index, by U.S think-tank, Fund for Peace. The Fragile State Index is based on 12 social, economic and political factors, which include mounting demographic pressures, massive displacement of refugees, erecting severe humanitarian emergencies, widespread vengeance-seeking group grievance, uneven economic development along group lines, severe economic decline, deterioration of public services, suspension or arbitrary application of law, and widespread human right abuses. This seems to define Nigeria of today (Mimiko, 2018). The only countries higher than Nigeria in fragility are some chronically challenged conflict-infested ones like South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Insecurity:

As recorded in the Vanguard newspaper of May 20, 2023, 63,111 persons were killed in Nigeria in the eight years of Buhari’s government! It was also indicated that some 2,423 people had been killed, and 1,872 kidnapped in the eight months since May 29, 2023! (Daily Post, January 29, 2024, quoting Civil Society Joint Action Group). The Punch editorial of January 1, 2024, provided relevant contextual comparison, to the effect that in the 30 year-long insurrection in Northern Ireland (1968-1998), 3,500 deaths were recorded. Even so, as alarming as the Nigerian figures are, these may be gross underestimates because of under reporting of low-profile cases.

Most of our solid minerals’ exploitation is carried out through unregulated artisanal mining. At a February 1, 2024, ECOWAS Conference on illegal mining in the sub-region, its Speaker, Mohammed Tunis, disclosed that Nigeria loses 91% of its revenue from the mining sector to illegal miners (Punch, 2 Feb. 2024). May I just add, for the sake of emphasis that illegal mining due to amongst others, lax oversight by the Federal Government is one of the drivers of mindless killings in our land, solid minerals being on the exclusive legislative list in our ‘Federal’ constitution. This much has been attested to by the nation’s Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake (BusinessDay, Dec. 12, 2023) recently.

III.              The ‘potentially rich’ narrative

What has been established so clearly in the foregoing paragraphs is that in social and economic terms, Nigeria is a miserably poor, insecure, unequal, and fragile nation. Even looking at the ‘potentially rich’ narrative, which should ordinarily encourage us to strive to be actually rich, our leaders, perhaps because of this narrative, exhibit a mental construct that predisposes them to wealth entitlement, and make them less empathetic. This, arguably, was what informed a federal legislator to imagine that an Innoson SUV is not good enough for his duties. This may be the mind-set that has informed the management of what was meant to be humanitarian intervention in such inhuman way, as we have seen in the Humanitarian Ministry saga!  To be sure, there are a legion of similar/worst heist in our economic development history.

In any case, I posit that almost every nation is potentially wealthy. Biblically God has provided everything we need to prosper, with responsible leadership and knowledge prioritization. As Pastor E.A. Adeboye (Daddy G.O.) recently pointed out, the leaves that transformed the water of Marah from bitter to sweet, as narrated in Exodus 15: 22-25, had always been there; but it took leadership and knowledge of what to do, to effect the transformation that took place.

Djibouti is notably poor in mineral resources and agricultural land unlike most African countries, but it’s strategic position at the connection of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden has given it an immense advantage in international maritime trade, which is being translated to wealth. With a GDP (PPP) per capita of 5,893 USD in 2022, it is wealthier than many resource-rich African countries like Nigeria (5,680 USD), and Democratic Republic of Congo (1,337 USD).

These indices apart, our everyday experience tells the same story. For example, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in this part of the country, there were no commercial motorcycles. There were taxis everywhere. The present spectacle of a motorcycle (okada) transporting a whole family of five, in some cases, including new borne babies, was unimaginable. The living condition (accommodation and feeding) of our undergraduates in government owned tertiary institutions is beyond imagination, as attested to by the 2012 report on the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities, facilitated by the Federal Government.

IV.              Interrogating extant reforms

Perhaps the most talked about element in the unfolding reform agenda of the new President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government is the removal of fuel subsidy; and of course, the floating of the Naira.

Subsidy regime:

Let me emphasize here, that there is nothing basically wrong with applying subsidy for desired economic outcome. It is only our experience as a nation with fuel subsidy that has tended to give it a bad name. My take on this greatly contentious subject, therefore, is that subsidy removal may be desirable, but follow-up palliative action on the part of the Government, would seem to have been a bit slow in coming, and could definitely admit of greater coordination.

The back-and-forth movement on the exact nature of the palliative measures; seeming confusion about the issues of minimum wage; students’ loan, etc., are all indicative of this tentative responses to current challenges on the part of government. And a thorough pre-subsidy removal consequences-study should have been undertaken to put the entire programme on a surer footing. Talking about the structures of implementation, the prompt manner in which Government responded to the embarrassing report on incipient mismanagement of critical funds in the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs is quite commendable. It was a fist critical step, and actual practical expression of the readiness of the government to confront the challenge of endemic corruption in the public sector headlong.

That said, grant me the indulgence, to further interrogate the subsidy framework in a more holistic manner. What has been bad about fuel subsidy is not necessarily the concept per se, but our inability to deploy the requisite administrative capacity and integrity quotient to run it well. To be sure, every of the developed nations and the emergent ones, including the Asian tigers have had to deploy the subsidy tool as part of the overall industrial policy or redistributive mechanism. Even now, in this emergent era of has been dubbed, ‘neo-protectionism,’ ‘de-globalisation,’ or receding globalization, the subsidy regimen, in different forms, are on the block. Talk about America’s (USICA and Chips for America Act, where $52 billion has been earmarked as incentive and subsidy package, for evidence. As it is in the US, so it is across Europe. The truth, therefore, is that there is no way Nigeria is going to avoid having to subsidise some sectors of the economy – food production, energy development, etc. – but in all cases, in a manner that is most efficient; and as a catalyst to expanded production and overall national development.

Poverty reduction:

It is also my considered opinion that in our effort to combat poverty, emphasis should shift from narrowly targeted measures to generally universal ones. On this, I posit, with all sense of responsibility, that what befell fuel subsidy management is exactly what is befalling targeted palliative measures, emblematized by the apparent rot in the Humanitarian Ministry. Many development scholars would rather we put our palliative resources in universal sectors, rather than narrowed targets, especially in a developing terrain like ours, essentially because of the triple realities of administrative cost, competence, and corruption. As noted by the UN Research Institute for Social Development,

In many successful late industrializers, it became self-evident that where poverty was widespread, targeting would be unnecessary and administratively costly. Thus, the universalism in many countries was in fact dictated by underdevelopment—targeting was simply too demanding in terms of available skills and administrative capacity (unrisd.org).

In addition, the agency argued that,

One well-known fact is that the policies that have the greatest impact on poverty are not necessarily the most narrowly pro-poor, targeted ones. Indeed, in many cases, the focus on pro-poor policies has diverted attention from policies that have the most broad-based and sustainable effects against poverty. The success of the late industrializes of Northern Europe in conquering poverty was not by explicitly addressing it but by addressing a whole range of issues that positively impacted on poverty or impeded the poor from bettering their situation—economic development in a broad sense, investment in human capital and equity were crucial to rapid eradication of poverty (unrisd.org).

It is, therefore, much better to invest our savings from subsidy removal on more universal policies like increased income, food security, affordable education, affordable quality healthcare, and universal support for MSMEs etc rather than the type of things going on in the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry, which made funds easily susceptible to mismanagement.

V.               Where do we go from here?

It bears emphasis that the people of this land are going through very stressful times, accentuated by recent economic reforms packaged as subsidy removal and foreign exchange rates unification. But the truth is that a lot had been wrong for far too long. Reference policy frameworks like the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), currency devaluation, premature de-industrialization, deepening poverty, unemployment. These are all by-products of neo-liberalism, and a compliant national leadership that has straddled our public space for so long. It is also trite that our problems date back further than this modern era of neo-liberal triumphalism. A proper dimensioning of all of this would therefore touch on issues of our mental state as a people, the structure of the state structure bequeathed us by the colonialists, as well as the agency of leadership.

Mental state:

400 years of slavery, more than a century of colonialism and enduring neo-colonialism have definitely taken their toll, not only on our physical development, but also our mentality and our mind set. As Nathan Nunn, Harvard University Professor of Economics, put it, the evidence accumulated ‘suggests that this historic event (i.e., colonialism) played an important part in the shaping of the continent, in terms of not only economic outcomes, but cultural and social outcomes as well’. Thus, to move forward, we must liberate our minds from ‘mental slavery.’ We must go through what I referred to in my Chairman’s remarks at the Elizade University Convocation lecture in 2022 as a ‘risorgimento of mental dignity and confidence.’ We must reject tokenism in development. We must reject metrics of development delusion. We must seek the cure for irresponsible illegal acquisition by our leaders, and their unbridled elite greed. If we agree that we are not sub-human, we must strive to equal other humans, other races in endeavours and accomplishments. We must sing a new song for a new generation.

Structure of African nations:

African nations were carved out for the economic exploitation convenience of our colonial overlords. This was a major accomplishment of the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) at its debut in 1963, in its wisdom, endorsed the sanctity of the colonial boundaries. Anything short of that would have been a harbinger of sustained conflicts among the newly independent entities.

Even so, it is true that the arbitrariness of these physical boundaries is doubtlessly one of the drivers of multiplicity of conflicts in Africa since independence, in the form of perennial unrest, military coups, genocidal conflicts, civil wars, spilling across national boundaries. As Robert Nesta Marley (Bob Marley), the iconic Jamaican reggae singer, guitarist, and songwriter sang, we have come to epitomise a state of:

War in the east!

War in the west!!

War up north!!!

War down south!!!!

War, war …!!!!!

Yes, war in the Horn of Africa; war in the Great Lakes region; war in the Sahel. It’s war, war, everywhere!

The ‘Silencing the Guns in Africa’ by 2030 is a flagship initiative of the African Union (AU), as encapsulated in Agenda 2063. It aspires to ending all wars and conflicts, preventing genocide, and stopping gender-based violence. Unfortunately, the guns have since been increasingly louder, giving scant hope of respite! For a moment, think of the resources Africa has expended in conflicts; add to it illicit financial flows facilitated by neo-colonial economic arrangements, vampirism, and arrant lack of imagination by our leaders, then you behold the exit passage of our development.

Let’s look at Nigeria’s structure, for specifics. The Yoruba are comfortably spread across national boundaries in the West African sub-region. Ditto for the Fulani, and Hausa, etc. So, in the case of Nigeria, as in most other African nations, we have cobbled together a nation of various ethnic nationalities with different histories, different life values and perspectives. After a brief period, post-independence, Nigeria has been running essentially as a unitary government, with profound implications for diversity (mis)management and economic development. We are by nomenclature a Federal Republic, but to all intents and purposes, a unitary republic. Well, we are, for instance, the only federal republic of this status, with a centralized Police Force; with implications that are now too obvious in the dysfunctionality of our policing charge.

It has been argued by pundits that the Asian Tigers, which have developed in the past five decades or so, each is essentially ethnically homogeneous. South Korea is 90% ethnic Koreans, Taiwan and Hong Kong are 90% ethnic Chinese, and Singapore is 70% Chinese. So, if we cannot create new nation-states out of our country, RESTRUCTURING, with ethnically homogenous sub-nationals with reasonable degree of autonomy, within a broader federal structure, is not just imperative; it is an act which time has come!

Visionary leadership:

One thing that is so obvious from all of these is that these times call for new vision. They call for creative thinking out of the neo-liberal paradigm box, and out of the box of international organizations structured to continue to hold us down. The good news is that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The Asian Tigers that have broken out of this box and enacted impressive development in recent times hold out lessons for us. A look at Japan and China also tells the same tale.

We have to look inwards and leverage on our strength. We must be disciplined and creative. Through leveraging on initial demographic advantage, cheap labour and aggressive export with creative Import Substitution, subsidy administration, general protection of local industries, sequenced financial liberalization, reverse engineering (even at times, breaching intellectual property regulations), Japan, China, the Asian Tigers and the emerging Asian Cubs have been able to post phenomenal developmental strides.

It bears repetition again, that creative, locally driven economic development paradigms with massive investment in relevant education and skill sets, is the way to go. Think of it for a moment. After so many years of producing world class engineers, we can’t deploy indigenous know-how to build the second Niger bridge, or any of our major motorways for that matter. After so many petroleum engineers, we can neither build refineries nor maintain existing ones built for us by foreigners. In spite of all year-round sunshine, so many engineers and abundant natural resources, we import solar panels from countries with just three months of sunshine.

After so many doctors, and midwives, we have the trophy of the second highest number of pregnant women dying in pregnancy. Our top professionals are voting against our dysfunctionality by ‘JAPAing,’ and we seem to be helpless.

US President J.F Kennedy, in 1960, gave vent to a vision of landing human beings on the moon. In 1969, a year short of his target, the mission was accomplished. But beyond landing humans on the moon, the Apollo programme sparked innovation in aeronautics, nutrition, material science, electronics, software and other areas. We can make do with our own moon-shot vision now!

Still on leadership; one thing that has become obvious over the years is the convoluted leadership recruitment pattern that our country seems wedded to. The outcome has been the crises of governance, which has defined the Nigerian state in the past few decades. We, therefore, need to encourage a conversation on this, with a view to engendering a leadership recruitment process imbued with the support base requisite for legitimacy, without which government cannot be effective. It is trite to aver that this cannot be achieved unless we clean up our electoral process in such a holistic manner as to inspire confidence at home and respect abroad.

Market forces:

I conclude this section with a look into our fetish of ‘market forces,’ ‘government has no business in business,’ ‘subsidy distorts market,’ ‘ease of doing business,’ sacrosanctity of foreign direct investment (FDI), and other neo-liberal jargons, packaged and delivered as drivers of development. These must be properly interrogated and creatively applied to our current situation. We must think like the children of Issachar, ‘that have understanding of the time.’ The high priests of neo-liberalism and globalization are gradually moving in the direction of Industrial Policy and protectionism. As noted earlier, the USICA, Chips for America Act, Buy America policy, etc., are some of the initiatives speaking to this new thinking among former patron saints of neoliberalism. And so, the question, what are we waiting for?

In conclusion, I argue that for us to get out of our present miserable level of underdevelopment, we must tame the monsters of the crisis in a holistic and composite manner.

I emphasize that this must percolate from top down, in a manner that is encapsulated by the popular maxim, that a nation rises and falls on leadership?

–                 Tame our Palate for imported goods and elite greed. So, the popular saying goes, we should consume what we produce, and produce what we consume. This will not come about through admonitions. In today’s interconnected liberal economy, with the rules skewed against us, through international institutions like the World Trade Organisation (WTO), we need deliberate financial, industrial and trade policies to accomplish the goal of creating the necessary nexus between local production and consumption.

–                 Tame our Procreative Proclivity. The growth of our population continues to outstrip our economic growth. We have grown from 45 million in 1960 to about 230 million in 2023 (more than 500% growth). For context, UK, which was 53 million in 1960 (bigger population than Nigeria), has only grown to 67 million today, a meagre 126% increase. Depending on our development paradigm choices, this large and youthful (more than 60%) population of ours can benefit from what demographers refer to as demographic dividend or demographic bomb! With the present level of youth dependency and restiveness, manifesting in the widespread agitations of #EndSars, and recent sporadic protests against rising cost of living, time seems to be ticking. The choices we make today will prevent the coming explosion. In a development milieu of creative Industrial Policy, financial targeting and aggressive investment in education and skills-set, and vastly increased governance integrity quotient, we may yet escape the bomb detonating.

–                 Tame our Penchant for Corruption. Need I say anything further on the monster of corruption, how it fundamentally constrains development possibilities on all fronts, and the need to deal with it in a decisive and sustained manner? Conceived as ‘abuse of entrusted power for private gains,’ by Transparency International (2023), ‘corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis’ (Ibid). There is the commonality of opinion among the citizens of Nigerian, civil society, and development partners – practically everyone that the country has zero chance of development as long as the State continues to be the platform for primitive accumulation and rent seeking in the hands of its privileged elites. The need to deploy more of technology than admonitions in attacking corruption from the roots cannot be overemphasized. This, indeed, should rank high among the priorities of all governments, going forward.

–                 Tame our Political Structure. We have mentioned our defective structural birth, our defective 1999 Constitution (as amended), which are some of the drivers of economic mismanagement, underdevelopment, and insecurity. Now, a national consensus has more or less been developed on the need for multi-layered policing architecture to tackle insecurity. All that government has to do is emplace actionable RESTRUCTURING PLAN, short to long time; say, from Executive Orders and legislation on security, up to a new constitution. To my mind, this is the main challenge before the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration; and I shouldn’t have any doubt that going by his political antecedent and trajectory, Mr. President should have the clarity of vision, courage of conviction and determination to move our most tortured country to this desirable and rational end-state. My admonition is, let’s get started while there is still time!

*Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, CON,  Governor, Ondo State, 2009 – 2017 delivered this

Paul Pogba has vowed to challenge his four-year ban from football by the anti-doping Tribunal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), stressing that he was innocent and that he had never taken any substance knowingly that comes under the purview of doping.

A “shocked and heartbroken” Paul Pogba said his career had been left in ruins after being handed a four-year ban for failing a drug test.

Pogba, one of the biggest names in world football and formerly the most expensive player, vowed to appeal the career-ending sanction, saying he had never cheated by taking a banned substance.

The 30-year-old said in a statement: “I have today been informed of the Tribunale Nazionale Antidoping’s decision and believe that the verdict is incorrect. I am sad, shocked and heartbroken that everything I have built in my professional playing career has been taken away from me.

“When I am free of legal restrictions the full story will become clear, but I have never knowingly or deliberately taken any supplements that violate anti-doping regulations. As a professional athlete I would never do anything to enhance my performance by using banned substances and have never disrespected or cheated fellow athletes and supporters of any of the teams I have played for, or against.

“As a consequence of the decision announced today I will appeal this before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”

[Leadership]

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Wahab Olasupo Egbewole, has asked professionals not to leave Nigeria in the hands of politicians.

He stated this in Abeokuta, Ogun state, while delivering a lecture titled: “Town Planners, Sustainable Development and Nation Building” at the 10th Waheed Kadiri Lecture Series. 

The annual lecture is organised by the Ogun State chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners in honour of the former President of NITP, Waheed Kadiri.

Delivering his lecture, Egbewole, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), insisted that professionals and not only politicians must build Nigeria.

He expressed danger in leaving politicians solely in charge developing Nigeria, saying “to a large extent, our decision-makers are planning illiterate”.

He said, “It is now more imperative to allow professionals build our nation than succumb to the manipulations of the few and octopus called government as represented by few misguided public officials.”

The Vice Chancellor charged town planners “to promote lively and self-sustaining communities, town planning propositions must be ingenious to foster mix of residential, commercial and recreational land uses and enforce zoning restrictions that allow for mixed-use projects, building a feeling of community and reducing commuting lengths, as far as practicable.

“Every plan should be people-centered. As a process, planning must follow the dictates of Peoples Leading in Addressing their Needs (PLAN) that allows the targeted beneficiaries to take leading roles in conception and settings.

“Town planners must prioritise and plan for efficient and well-maintained infrastructure, including transportation, utilities and public services that meet future requirements and provide fair access to essential services.”

In his remark, Kadiri called for strict implementation of government policies and plans on urban regeneration to prevent natural disasters.

[DailyTrust]

Bayer Leverkusen winger, Nathan Tella admitted he was disappointed not to make Nigeria’s squad to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON, in Cote d’Ivoire.

Tella was born in England to Nigerian parents.

The 24-year-old was eligible to represent both countries.

The former Southampton player however opted to play for the Super Eagles.

Tella was called up for Nigeria’s 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Lesotho and Zimbabwe in November 2023.

The pacy winger made his international debut in the 1-1 draw with Zimbabwe.

He was however omitted from the AFCON 2023 squad.

[DailyPost]

With foreign exchange earnings  from future fuel sales mortgaged by Buhari’s government; with government spending close to 95% of our earnings to service our $40b debt, with the alleged mismanagement of close to 50% of N23trillion that CBN printed for government through ‘ways and means’, with Emefiele the immediate past CBN governor doing father Christmas with the nation’s limited forex earnings and with Chukwuma Soludo’s ill-advised mega banks declaring profit made from forex round tripping in trillions while the nation’s economy remains prostrate, there is every temptation to assume our problem is economics.

The truth of the matter however, is that our crisis of nation-building has nothing to do with economics but everything to do with politics. Like corruption, poverty, terrorism/ banditry and economic crisis arising from fuel subsidy scam and foreign currency speculators, are all but symptoms of our failure to first seek the kingdom of politics, as advised by the great Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

By embarking on economic crusade, President Tinubu like his predecessors is engaged in a wild goose chase. It is however hoped the response to his government’s efforts beginning with the removal of fuel subsidy scam responsible for $800m monthly haemorrhage by ethnic irredentists who in an effort to foreclose distributive justice unleashed immigrant Fulani terrorists on their fellow  compatriots and economic saboteurs  responsible for flooding Nigeria with foreign manufactured substandard goods, and killer drugs in order to drive local manufacturers out of market, will convince him he is putting the cart before the horse. Politics and professional politicians are the greatest threat to the nation.

Unfortunately, the Fulani and the Igbo, both political rivals that regard every part of Nigeria as “a no man’s land’ have held the nation to ransom since the 1957 London Independence Constitutional conference when they first betrayed the country because the former wanted a Nigerian state that would be home to stateless Fulani from all over West Africa,  while the latter, a  landlocked  group with hostile environment wanted their members to operate freely from any part of Nigeria without challenge of citizenship.

After the 1957 betrayal, fortune-seeking Igbo political elite and their power-seeking Fulani also betrayed the nation in 1962 when they illegally interfered in the affairs of the West against the letter and the spirit of the independence constitution.

Their dispute over the 1962/63 census outcome led to the 1964 constitutional crisis which snowballed to January 1966 mindless assassination of northern military and political leaders and the July 1966 Hausa Fulani vengeance killings of Igbo military officers. In 1967, the two rivals plunged the country into a three years civil war only to regroup between 1979 and 1983 to form the NPN/NPP coalition which again collapsed over sharing of spoils of office. They jointly imposed Obasanjo on Nigeria in 1999 and for 16 years behaved like an army of occupation by stealing the country blind.

Both the Fulani suitors and their Igbo ever alluring willing brides are opportunists ever ready to put their personal interest before that of Nigeria. At the Lancaster House Conference, while the North wanted a loose federation and the East, a unitary system, their compromise over non-creation of states for minorities paved the way for coalition of NPC and NCNC. Ahmadu Bello was reported by the Sunday Express of December 20, 1959 at page 2 as saying “I shall divide Nigeria into two and hand them over to my lieutenants just as Dan Fodio divided the conquered north among his two sons.” After the election, Balewa got the Holy Quran as Sardauna’s lieutenant in the north and Zik, a horse as the one that held sway for the Sardauna in the south.

Buhari with the help of Yoruba took over in 2015. For him and those hiding under his government to implement an ethnic agenda, it was a winner takes all.  While armed Fulani immigrants from other parts of West Africa were unleashed on the reserved forests notably in the middle belt and southwest regions by Buhari’s loyal gatekeepers headed by Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General and Minister of justice, the Igbo indirectly supported IPOB as balance of terror in their five states of the east while maintaining their control of urban centres across the nation.

 The mainstream Yoruba political tendency, led by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with the support of some 11 northern governors, for the first time in the nation’s history, won the presidential election in May 2023. If, however, there is anything that has drawn closer the two rivals for the soul of the country since the 2023 presidential election won round and square by Tinubu and confirmed by sound pronouncement of the highest court in the land, it is their opposition to Tinubu’s presidency.

 While Igbo political leaders have continued to insist Obi who came a distant third was the winner just to delegitimize Tinubu’s presidency, in less than seven months NLC tele-guided by Obi’s Labour Party (apology to Olumide Apata) and infiltrated by the “obidients” who have openly called for military take-over, have under Joe Ajaero who was exposed by events in his native Imo State to be openly partisan, has embarked on four major strikes. On their path, ethnic irredentists who but for the revolt of 11 northern governors opposed Tinubu’s candidacy are blaming the impoverishment of their compatriots they have always treated as mere tools for winning elections on Tinubu’s eight months administration.

President Tinubu must be reminded that our problem is politics and that the way forward after almost 80 years in the wilderness is to retrace our way back to where the rain started to beat us.

First, the reasons that led to the development of federalism as an innovative approach to governance at specific moments in history has been well articulated. From the experiences of other multi-ethnic nations, we now know that the federal arrangement as a coherent set of mechanisms, procedures and institutions are best at managing key public policy issues in contemporary democracies.

 We also now know that those shouting “banish tribes” while riding to power on the backs of tribesmen are playing the ostrich since tribes remain the building block for modern society. Europe, after two devastating tribal wars ‘formally recognized groups’ identities as legitimate and autonomous participants in the political process.’ In Spain, we have the Basque, Galician, Castilian and Catalan. British 25 tribes coalesce into Northern Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland. Elsewhere in the world, Japan, China, and India celebrate their various tribes.

This was why the British vision for Nigeria, according to Oliver Stanley in 1920, was a “national self-government that secures to each separate people, the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality, its own chosen form of government, which had been evolved for it by the wisdom and accumulated experiences of generation of its forbearers.”

In line with this British vision, regionalism was put in place by Richards 1947 constitution while the 1954 Lyttleton ensured each tribe or group of tribes had powers over law and order, education, economic development etc. while Macpherson 1957 constitution consolidated everything.

If Nigerians who now know that nationalism is not often driven by altruism have to choose between the colonial masters, our military adventurers and their new breed politicians, Nigeria will choose in reverse order.  But President Tinubu has an historic opportunity to change the narrative.

President Bola Tinubu has warned the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to maintain peace in the best interest of the country.

He spoke at the commissioning of the Lagos Red Line rail, on Thursday, February 29.

Tinubu came hard on the Union in the course of his remark, saying the Labour Union should understand that despite its acclaimed right and freedom, it cannot fight an administration that is just nine-month-old.

The Nation reports that NLC and other related unions protested on Tuesday over the high cost of living, inflation, insecurity, and hardship in the country.

But the union suspended the two-day nationwide protest after the first day, saying its suspension was based on the fact that the street action achieved overwhelming success.

The protesters headed to the National Assembly where the NLC President Joe Ajaero, presented a letter of demands to President Bola Tinubu through the leadership of the National Assembly.

Reacting on Thursday, Tinubu said: “Allow me to throw a jab here. The Labour Union should understand that you’re not the only one with freedom & rights.

“If you want to participate in the electoral process, meet us in 2027.

“If not, maintain peace. You’re not the only voice of Nigeria.”

The President further declared that: “There is a very bright light at the end of the tunnel. Nigeria will be out of the economic problem; we just need to persevere and work hard”.

Tinubu said the commissioning of the Red Line was the culmination of the vision he nursed 25 years ago when he was governor of the state, calling for more collaboration between the Ministry of Transport and other states to develop railway infrastructures across the country.

[TheNation]

A nominee for membership of the Central Bank of Nigeria Board of Directors, Urum Kalu Eke has declined the offer stating that he was currently engaged in the World Bank.

This came to the fore during the Thursday plenary when the Senate began the process for the confirmation of the nominees.

President Bola Tinubu had on February 13 forwarded the names of Urum and four others for confirmation as members of the board for the CBN.

But during the confirmation, former Governor of Abia State, Senator Orji  Kalu,( APC, Abia North ) told the Senate that the person who is his constituent had called him on the phone to reject the offer, noting that it would conflict with his present job as a consultant with the World Bank. 

Meanwhile, the Senate has confirmed the appointment of four other members of the Board of Directors of the CBN forwarded to it by the President.

Those confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as Directors are Robert Agbede; Ado Yakubu Wanka; Professor Murtala Sabo Sagagi and Mrs. Muslimat Olanike Aliyu.

The confirmation was sequel to the consideration of a report of the screening of the nominee presented by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance & Other Financial Institutions by the Chairman, Senator Adetokunbo Abiru, (APC, Lagos East).

Abiru said, “That the Senate do receive and consider the report of on the confirmation of the nomination of the following Five (5) persons as members of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Nigeria in accordance with section 6(1), (2) (d) and 10 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007.”

According to him, the Committee did not clear Urum Kalu Eke from Abia because he failed to appear before the Committee for screening.

[Punch]

President Bola Tinubu has inaugurated the Red Line Rail Project in Lagos. The project, an intra-state rail service aimed at improving transportation within the city, spans 37 kilometres.

The Red Line Rail Project in Lagos, Nigeria, represents a significant infrastructure development aimed at improving transportation within the city.

Here are five key aspects worth noting and some insights into the new rail line.

The route

The Red Line is envisioned as a vital metro link within the Lagos-Ibadan rail corridor. Spanning 37 kilometres, it will share the right-of-way with the Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway.

The route will initially run from Agbado in Ogun State to Oyingbo in Lagos, with notable stations including Agbado, Iju, Agege, Ikeja, Oshodi, Mushin, Yaba, and Oyingbo.

The project cost

The Red Line project is a substantial investment in Lagos’ urban transportation infrastructure. Initial estimates pegged the cost at $135 million under the Greater Lagos Urban Transportation Project, managed by the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA).

However, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu revealed that both the Blue and Red Lines combined would exceed ₦100 billion. Delays in the Blue Line project, initially expected to be completed by 2011, highlight the funding challenges faced by the project.

The operations 

LAMATA, operating under the Ministry of Transportation, spearheads the Red Line Rail Project.

Once operational, it is expected to facilitate 37 trips daily, accommodating approximately 500,000 passengers.

The primary objectives include reducing travel time, mitigating health issues related to stress, and enhancing economic productivity.

The project aims to alleviate traffic congestion, minimise road accidents, and improve commuter safety within Lagos.

Choice of transmission 

The Red Line will utilise a diesel-powered system known as Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU), unlike the electric-powered Blue Line. DMU employs on-board diesel engines to propel multiple-unit trains. This choice of transmission aligns with the project’s objectives and operational requirements.

The Red Line Rail Project represents a significant milestone in Lagos’ transportation infrastructure development. Its inauguration promises to enhance connectivity, ease commuter burdens, and contribute to the city’s overall economic growth and development.

Infrastructure of the Red Line Rail

To ensure the smooth operation of the rail line and safety for commuters, significant infrastructure has been developed.

This includes the construction of 10 vehicular overpasses and pedestrian bridges, separating train traffic from vehicular and pedestrian flows.

[Vanguard]

The resolutions following the Extraordinary Summit of the Heads of Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), at the recently concluded summit of Heads of State and Government in Abuja, were truly extraordinary.

Seven months after threatening to deploy force in Niger, one of the four delinquent states – the others being Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso – and three months after wide-ranging economic sanctions were imposed on all four, the regional body backed down spectacularly last week.

If the Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, had rendered a welcome tune for the embattled regional leaders as they met in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, it would have been his famous “Confusion Break Bone (CBB).” Misery never had a better company than the current state of affairs in the 50-year-old regional body, which apart from SADC, was perhaps Africa’s most exemplary model of regional co-operation.

While ECOWAS said it offered amnesty to its delinquent members on “humanitarian grounds”, the response from the military leaders in Bamako, Conakry, Ouagadougou and Niamey, has been mockingly indifferent. Yet the truth about how this 15-member regional block with annual trade valued at $150 billion came to this sorry pass is deeper and more nuanced than it appears.

Wrong turn

The Lomé Declaration of July 2000 recognised the continent was drifting and needed urgent course correction. An earlier era of democratic consolidation was being eroded by the return of military coups and the AU needed to create mechanisms to roll back the trend. 

But that’s precisely where the problem was misdiagnosed. While continental leaders were rightly concerned that unconstitutional changes of government were once again becoming a clear and present danger, the emphasis has been big on response but often, too little too late, on prevention. 

Nowhere has the situation played out more regrettably than in the delinquent Sahelian states of Mali, Guinea Burkina Faso and Niger. Whereas ECOWAS played a lead role in managing the crisis in Liberia and Sierra Leone; and forced Yahaya Jammeh to back down when he tried to play games in The Gambia after his final term, the problems in Francophone west Africa are more complicated. They speak French, which translated, means the continent should have prioritised prevention, instead of response. 

The French question

The delinquent military leaders have accused ECOWAS of keeping silent while their countries have been ripped off by France for decades. This largely true, but partly self-serving sentiment has found a place in the hearts and minds of citizens in these countries.

France has accumulated a notoriously poor record on the continent that it can hardly be proud of. In Niger, for example, Tom Burgis writes in his book, The Looting Machine, that French state-owned atomic energy group Areva’s profit from uranium is twice Niger’s GDP. The footprint is the same everywhere in the region.

Fourteen Francophone countries, including the four troubled ones, store 50 percent of their reserves in the French Treasury, an arrangement which has been widely criticised. Even French President Emmanuel Macron, born after colonial rule, acknowledged this injustice with a heavy heart, but then turned around to say later it was a part of the “civilising” obligations of France. If civilisation means robbing a country at gunpoint and having the victims pay interest for the crime, I wonder what primitiveness would look like.

While France may be the most obvious, and perhaps the most perniciously complicit, it is not the only source of Francophone west Africa’s misery. As I wrote in an earlier article on this subject entitled, “Again, A Bizarre Joke in Niger Speaks French,” China, and lately, Russia, also have their hands in it for their own strategic interests. Yet, not a single one of these foreign powers have gotten away with murder without the complicity of the political elite in these countries – politicians and military alike.

It is convenient for the delinquent military leaders in the Sahelian states to look for scapegoats elsewhere, exploiting widespread insecurity, rampant poverty, identity politics and foreign meddling to gain legitimacy. 

The point is, military leaders have no greater claim to patriotism than do the rest of us. We have seen in dozens of military coups on the continent that those who came claiming to be messiahs left their countries worse off.

Blaming Tinubu?

Where does the flip-flop and mollycoddling leave ECOWAS, a regional body obviously anxious to prove under the leadership of Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that it is as good as its word that coups would have no place on his watch?

It’s hard to blame Tinubu for pressing ECOWAS to act tough as military coups piled on themselves. As the leader of a country that had witnessed nearly half a dozen successful coups, he had to do what he did as a matter of self-preservation and enlightened interest. 

The problem, however, was that there were so many artisans involved in making this broth, it turned out to be a chef’s nightmare. Strategy should never have been sacrificed for expediency.

The Delinquent Four have seen that the regional powerhouses have been considerably weakened and distracted internally by insurgency, political strife, economic crisis, and poor governance. Add that to a global system pre-occupied with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, then it becomes clearer why the Delinquent Four have adopted defiance as strategy.

The Chairman of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Toure, expressed the hope that eating the humble pie is worth the price of losing four members. I’m not sure the Delinquent Four will withdraw their threat of leaving, U-turn or not. They’ve got ECOWAS exactly where they wanted and won’t be in a hurry to climb down. Sanctions hurt and studies have shown that they could have statistically significant immediate and long-term effects on the targets. 

But that, of course, is assuming that the countries imposing sanctions have the capacity and will to enforce them. Even though the four countries targeted by ECOWAS are landlocked and therefore could ordinarily have felt the impact more, boundaries in the subregion are so porous and informal trade so deeply entrenched – about 30 percent of regional trade actually – a successful implementation of economic sanctions was always going to be quite problematic. 

Then, there is the potential threat that if these countries harden beyond redemption, it would not only further weaken the multinational framework for containing insurgency in the region, these states may themselves become epicentres of regional destablisation. 

As things are, ECOWAS will have to swallow its pride and set up credible negotiating teams with the Delinquent Four that take into account their grievances. The artisans have done enough harm. It’s unlikely that these military leaders would honour any transition guidelines but that must remain the minimum basis for any future agreements. 

Tacky Macky Sall

There is, of course, the case of Senegal where President Macky Sall is also waiting to go rogue. Before ECOWAS is caught on the backfoot again, this would be a good time to start meaningful negotiations to ensure that Sall doesn’t endanger himself, his country and the subregion by extending his tenure too far beyond his already exhausted expiry date. 

In light of the fragile situation in the continent, the AU must now pay far greater attention to prevention, focusing on triggers and early warning signs such as flawed elections, poor governance, and systemic corruption, instead of making a virtue of chasing the horses after they have bolted the stable. 

That’s why the launch this week of the Regional Citizen’s Dialogue Programme (RCDP) in Abuja by a consortium of NIPSS, Kuru; the Dantiye Centre, Kano; the Sierra Leone-based regional cenre (RCGSPI); and KAICIID, to mobilise civil society and complement institutional effort at prioritising prevention deserves serious attention. 

Who would have thought that three landlocked countries with a combined eight percent contribution to the $761billion GDP of ECOWAS, according to the World Bank, could hold the community to ransom, forcing it to swallow more than a trayful of humble pie?

Azu Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP.