THE much-awaited cabinet reshuffle by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came last Wednesday but I will be surprised if the shape and character of the reshuffle did not disappoint many. Most of the new names qualify as unknown quantities. Add this to the fact that many of the existing cabinet members were also names that did not ring a bell. If I attend an interview where I am asked questions on Ministers and their portfolios or even the state that they represent, I confess I will fail woefully! I cannot even claim to know the Minister or Ministers representing my state and their portfolio! I must admit that this may partly be a function of my own limitations. Some folks are silent achievers, though. We are likely to find them in the Tinubu cabinet, such that as time wears out, some of them may etch their name in gold with their stellar performance. They may come in incognito but leave as national heroes and heroines or even as international celebrities. I wish and pray for such to happen!

Cabinet reshuffles present presidents and governors with a vista of opportunities to chart a new course and enact a new beginning; correct mistakes made; reinvigorate the cabinet; energize it; recalibrate it; weed off dead woods; place round pegs in round holes; bring in new hands; transfuse fresh blood into the system; play around with fresh ideas and new ways not only of thinking but also of doing things; set new templates, parameters and mandates; respond to criticisms and new challenges, thereby demonstrating that its feedback mechanism is alive and well; re-invent the government and recover lost ground, lost trust and lost confidence; and line up the citizenry solidly behind the government and its plans, programmes and policies. For Tinubu whose campaign mantra was “Renewed Hope”, the cabinet reshuffle was a golden opportunity for him to restore the sagging hope of the people in his leadership and point them in the way forward. Did he succeed in doing that?

What is certain, however, is that Tinubu is a man of immense courage, great daring and audacity. It is not every president or governor that summons the courage to reshuffle their cabinet – the same way many of them shy away from signing death warrants! In his eight years in office, Buhari removed only two of his Ministers. In a little less than one-and-half years in office, Tinubu has deemed it fit to reshuffle his cabinet, removing five Ministers at a go. We may still expect more to come. Give it to Tinubu, he is a man imbued with a large dose of courage. In his allocutus during the orchestrated sedition trial (1963), the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, quoted Hugh Walpole, author of “Fortitude”, as saying: ‘Tis not life that matters, but the courage you bring to it”.

To escape from the vile dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, into self-imposed exile and become an important member of the opposition National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), is courage. To escape the President Olusegun Obasanjo-contrived tsunami that uprooted all other Alliance for Democracy governors of the South-west in 2003 demanded uncommon courage. To go forward and not only survive the same President Obasanjo’s seizure of Lagos State local government funds but also leverage the challenge to make Lagos, perhaps, the only state out of the country’s 36 that can survive without allocations from the Federation Account takes courage.

Ever before the country’s Independence in 1960, efforts by politicians to form alliances have floundered at the altar of greed and suspicion and for Tinubu to succeed where even the founding fathers failed abjectly, in cobbling together the All Progressives Congress (APC) that wrested power from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in 2015 demands courage and uncommon foresight. Yes, it takes a man imbued with foresight to deny himself today with the hope of reaping tomorrow. What a gambit! Hence his “Emilokan” desperation when he was about to be denied what he thought was rightfully his! When the trophy he had laboured for and sacrificed so much for was slipping through his fingers, he opened mouth, as they say!

It takes a man of unequalled courage to stoically suffer all the indignities he was subjected to throughout the eight years of Buhari’s rule without losing sight of his goal. Many times they gave him a bloodied nose; he was undeterred. His head, too, was bloodied; yet, unbowed! Tinubu literally stooped to conquer.

To snatch the APC presidential flag from the Buhari/Daura cabal hallmarked Tinubu’s political sagacity. To win the February 2023 presidential election despite the daunting obstacles stacked against him – unwavering, unhasting, unrelenting – shows the stuff of which Tinubu is made. I am bold to say that he is made of sterner stuff than many of his political adversaries! Mere mortals would have fainted when Tinubu waxed stronger. Other men would have turned their back where he undauntedly forged ahead.

Did Tinubu make Proverbs 24: 10 his forte? That scripture says if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small! Other scriptures say men ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke 18:1). Galatians 6:9 admonishes us not to become weary doing good for in due course we will reap if we faint not. This is not to say anything of the courage Tinubu reportedly suddenly “summoned” on his first day in office while reading his inauguration address to blurt out that “fuel subsidy is gone”, which, unfortunately, the whole country suffers from today. This shows that not all courage is positive or advisable. The elders counsel that if you wield power; learn to temper it! M’oja; m’osa!

How will Tinubu’s cabinet reshuffle resonate with the people when virtually all the critical areas where people had hoped there would be some rethinking were left untouched? Does it mean that the president is satisfied with the performance of the helmsman manning those positions? The security architecture was left untouched despite the worsening state of insecurity in many parts of the country. Is there anything the president knows that the ordinary citizens are not aware of? Power supply is another area where the people are being roasted alive; yet, the Minister in charge survived the cabinet shake-up. Once it became certain that a shake-up was imminent, power became relatively stable in my Agege area of Lagos state. Is this a hoodwink, deceit or bribe? The cost of foodstuffs has become prohibitive and no one knows what the Ministers in charge of Agriculture are doing about it; yet, they escaped the axe! Finance and the Central Bank also sit pretty despite the “palongo” that the national currency, the Naira, dances daily in the foreign exchange market. The unrelenting depreciation of the Naira is responsible for the hike in the price of virtually everything – imported and local.

The Oga Patapata of them all, the General Overseer of them all is the Petroleum Ministry/NNPC where nothing has been done to rejig the unholy alliance causing the citizenry so much pain. Tinubu himself sits pretty as the Minister of Petroleum Resources; he did not sack or reshuffle himself. Many had expected he would at least hand off the Ministry as well as rejig the whole NNPC apparatus. Had he done that, he would have given Nigerians something to cheer for!

Any positives from the cabinet reshuffle? Of course, yes! It would have been scandalous had Betta Edu returned as was being whispered all over the place. So, with her not returning, many will heave a sigh of relief. It is also in order that the woman in women affairs was asked to comot, as they say. She amassed two scandals in quick succession that cannot be easily glossed over. I don’t know much about the others who were sacked; so also about many of those newly enlisted. Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu (nee Onoh) is the only household name among the lot – whether for good or bad reasons is a topic for another day!

The sack of the Education minister, Tahir Mamman, raises questions: Is it because of the JAMB/admission age controversy? It could not have been because the law is extant, as they say; the sacked Minister only insisted the law be enforced. Maybe he did not do his homework well with the implementation, in the same way no proper homework was done before “fuel subsidy is gone” was blurted out. In both instances, we saw the chaos that followed! I wasted no time in throwing out of the window the other suggestion that Mamman’s alleged rapport with the unions might have been responsible for his sack! How can that be? His tenure, short-lived as it was, witnessed industrial peace on our campuses. At the last JAMB stakeholders meeting, his soundbites were positive: He emphasized the need for cordial relations between management and labour unions in the institutions of higher learning; he also warned Governing Councils against leveraging their positions to fleece the institutions and taxpayers.

Well, I give it to the president that he knows what he is doing, even though his cabinet appears more like a cabinet of the anonymous. Tinubu’s saving grace is, if, in the end, his cabinet delivers the good and proves every critic wrong. Otherwise…

As I was concluding this piece, my eyes caught a presidential sledgehammer which landed on the head of Conscience Nurtured by Truth – The Guardian. In a release issued by the State House yesterday, authored by erstwhile Editor-in-Chief of TheNews, Bayo Onanuga, the newspaper was accused of a crime almost similar to what General Sani Abacha accused it of in 1994 which led to its closure. The “NADECO government” of Bola Tinubu merely rehashed the allegation. I will address it presently.

All over the world, the Lady Justice is sacred, representing the divine order, law, and custom. It is also an allegorical persona depicting the moral force of the judicial system. Originating from the Ancient Roman goddess called Justitia, her attributes are a blindfold, scales and a sword. When a leader is depicted to have raped this personification of justice, he has violated the deity of goodliness in society. Last week, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, narrated how he revoked the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) of some plots of land allocated to Julius Berger in the Katampe District of Abuja. It was shortly after he had dinner with the Managing Director of Julius Berger. By his own admission, he then deployed same for the construction of 40 Judges Quarters. Wike’s revocation of the land is most likely justified if indeed the German construction giant held it undeveloped for fifteen to twenty years.

The judiciary is reputed in the playbook of democracy to be the last hope of the common man. Of recent, stenchy oozes coming out of this last bastion of hope for a regressing Nigeria are really scary. In the triad of Wike-judges-Julius Berger above, the major fear is how judges who benefitted from allocation of those lands will, without favour, dispense justice in any matter that has to do with Wike, now or in the future? It is most likely the avoidance of such dalliance that Rule 2.8 of the Judicial Code of Conduct frowns at unholy matrimony between judges and would-be litigants. It says “A judge shall avoid developing excessively close relationship with frequent litigants – such as government ministers or their officials.” It goes ahead to say that any of such appearance of alliance is incestuous and “could reasonably create an appearance of partiality.” A last week editorial of the Nigerian Lawyer affirms this when it states that the relationship was questionable. It also says that, “beneath the surface of this supposedly ‘noble’ project, serious concerns about integrity, impartiality and manipulation may emerge.” If in the near future, Wike and Julius Berger engage in a legal tango, can FCT courts be impartial arbiter?

The above incestuous relationship between the executive and the judiciary reminds me of my March 6, 2022 piece with the title, Buhari’s serial rape of the Lady Justice. It referenced an award-winning cartoon published on September 7, 2008 by the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times authored by Jonathan Shapiro. Shapiro’s cartoon identity was Zapiro. That cartoon triggered a huge ball of fire in South Africa. Named ‘Rape of Lady Justice’, it bore then leader of the African National Congress (ANC), who was to later become the South African president, Jacob Zuma, loosening his trousers’ zippers for a sexual romp with the effigy of the Lady Justice. He had a shower tap placed on his head. An impish but salacious smile lit his face. Before him, flung on the bare floor, was a blindfolded lady with a lapel inscribed, “Justice System” hung on her chest. Four hefty and menacing-looking men knelt by the Lady Justice’s side, holding down the “wench”, whose skirt was half peeled off. They were political surrogates of Zuma in the ANC, which included Julius Malema, then leader of the ANC Youth League, among others. The scale of justice had fallen down beside the Lady Justice, with Mantashe smilingly beckoning on Zuma to clamber her for a rape binge, “Go for it, boss!”

That cartoon shot Zuma into a fit. Indeed, he immediately sued Zapiro for the sum of £700,000. Massive reactions followed it, ranging from the condemnatory to the laudatory. The ANC, SACP and ANC Youth League pilloried it as “hate speech,” “disgusting” and “bordering on defamation of character” and then petitioned the South African Human Rights Commission for redress.

Zapiro’s cartoon depicted the rape of the South African justice system, as well as other institutions, by Zuma. “He (Zuma) is raping the justice system and they (Zuma’s political allies) are complicit in that,” said the cartoonist in an interview. By this time, Zuma, a notorious polygamist who had six official wives as president, many more by unofficial account and 22 children from the liaisons, was a kingpin of lechery. Not long ago, the court discharged him of a rape romp with an HIV-positive AIDS activist, who was the daughter of his friend. Though Zuma pleaded that the sex was consensual, he however admitted that he had unprotected sex with the lady. He then stunned the world when he maintained that he had “showered afterwards to cut the risk of contracting the infection.” The shower tap Zapiro placed on his head represented this bombastic claim

If Zapiro were to sketch that cartoon in Nigeria today, he will replace Zuma with the Bola Tinubu administration. His groveling National Assembly and its coterie of fawners would be Malema and co. Together, they can be more fittingly described as in a serial rape of our country. Virtually all institutions and systems in Nigeria today are being mercilessly raped to a point that they lack energy to saunter on. Tinubu, through surrogates, is presiding over a literal rape of the Lady Justice. However, his government’s version of executive rape of the judiciary is of different colour. Only recently, while Rivers State was undergoing its local government election, the name of Wike and alleged interference in judicial decisions became a singsong. Courts of coordinate jurisdictions at both state and federal levels issued contradictory rulings which were felt to have political imprimaturs. These have made the judiciary a laughing stock. In Kano State, similar rape of the judiciary was at play with the state and federal judiciary issuing rulings at loggerheads with each other.

The dilemma of Nigerians today isn’t different from that of the traditional clothes launderer the Yoruba call the Alágbàfò . The river constitutes his major economic source. He depends on it for his existential survival. As the Alágbàfò  goes into enmity with the water/river at their own peril, so also will the enmity of the akara (bean cake) seller with the frying oil surely end in disaster. So, in a case where the Alágbàfò heaves the load of white clothes to the river for laundry but finds out that the river is polluted, the Alágbàfò  finds self at the three footpath juncture that troubles the stranger to a town. Like the Alágbàfò  above, Nigerians are marooned on an island. Their waters, the main source of their existential survival, are polluted. President Olusegun Obasanjo put their dilemma in perspective. In an interview on the News Central Television on Thursday, he painted the canvass of hopelessness very meticulously. This he did in a narrative of “a Nigerian president” – the people’s water, the river of their existence – who they voted into office but who rules like a voodoo priest. Voodooism isn’t about science but probability and permutations. While not specifically naming anyone, Obasanjo told the tale of “a Nigerian president who came to office without a plan” and who “then… woke up and just said, ‘three-point plan.’ What are the three points? What are they going to achieve? Who are the people who have worked on it? You came and you just opened your mouth and made a pronouncement on something that has not been.”

Everywhere you turn in Nigeria today, the river is tainted, polluted and coffee-brown. For the people, it is double jeopardy. Two sayings of the Yoruba encapsulate the Nigerian dilemma. They both border on a raped trust. One, which mirrors frustration, asks whether, in the rules of fidelity, the one upon whom a disabled reclines, if they are about to shift from the space they occupy, should not have the honour of notifying the disabled of their intention to shift? (Eni a f’èyìn tì, bí ó ba yè, wíwí ní í wí). Nigeria today runs a struggling economy powered by trust deficit towards leaders who are believed to have questionable financial and moral fidelity, who flex misplaced ability. Nigerians are powerless like the disabled. Their leaders, upon whom they reclined for social good, have broken their spines.

The second jeopardy also hangs on a misplacement of trust. The one the people thought would save them from captivity has eventually turned out to be their captor. Uttered in a moment of underwhelming results from overwhelming expectations, Yoruba say, eni a gb’ójú okùn lé, kò jo eni agba. It is similar to the tale of the Alágbàfò and a dirty river.

What Nigerians are doing today is, like the hopeless drycleaner, sitting by the dirty river bank and watching whether indeed, from within the constricting thorns (ìgbágó), the palm-frond (màrìwò) shoot out. Which is very unlikely. Our dirty river has equalized and democratized suffering and hopelessness. While Nigerians are daily engrossed in a festival of lamentations and regret everywhere, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that our dirty river is clean and snow-white. Bretton Woods gave our hunger pass-mark. Homeless roam-about children, hitherto exclusive preserve of the north, are today everywhere in the southern part of Nigeria, too. The Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Olakulehin Owolabi, raised this alarm last Thursday when the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children paid him a courtesy call in his palace. All over the streets of Nigeria, the hungry and ferocious looks on the faces of children and even elders are frightening. Under this government, Nigeria has become one huge IDP camp and everybody is a scrounger and scavenger.

If the executive is a true reflection of the dirty waters that have constituted existential turbulence for our Alágbàfò , the legislature is an affliction. Nigeria’s twin legislature is struggling to outdo itself in the fawning sprint and self-mockery. Take for instance the bill for the establishment of a Bola Ahmed Tinubu University of Nigerian Languages. It has gone through the second reading. Sponsored by Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu and eight others, the bill sponsors said their aim was to have a university for the promotion of the learning of Nigerian languages which will “encourage the advancement of learning and to hold out to all persons without distinction of race, creed, sex or political conviction, the opportunity of acquiring a higher education in Nigerian languages and cultures.” Brilliant conception.

But, why then do Kalu and his legislative cohorts think that the man worthy to have his name affixed to the university is the president? If they were not suffocated by the smell of legislative groveling, no university of Nigerian languages should be named after any other person than Ayọ̀ Bámgbóṣé. Bámgbóṣé was an academic linguist and the first professor of Linguistics in Nigeria. In 1984, Bámgbóṣé became the first African linguist to be conferred the honorary membership of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). He made tremendous contributions to education and linguistics. Bámgbóṣé’s 1963 journal article titled “A study of structures and classes in the grammar of modern Yoruba” is a locus classicus in linguistics. So, what qualifies Tinubu to be so named? In which of the Nigerian languages did he excel? Certainly not Yoruba, a language he speaks with bumbling understanding. His English is almost an aping of the Cockney. So where did Kalu and his fawners of power get their wild muse?

If the House of Representatives is a home for grovelers by the feet of the executive, the senate is worse. Godswill Akpabio, head of the senate, figuratively wears the Tinubu lapel on his arm and cap literally on his head with baffling shamelessness. He is reputed to adjourn senate sessions to enable him quickly shuttle to Aso Rock to ask for its mind. Thus, if Nigerians expect a legislature that will hold the executive to account, they are waiting for Samuel Becket’s legendary Godot in their legislators.

The combination of a dilemma of the Alágbàfò  and the serial rape of virtually all institutions in Nigeria today foretell a grim tomorrow for the Nigerian people. It was the palpable frustration of Nigerians that The Guardian lead story of October 25, entitled “Calls for military intervention: misery, harsh policies driving Nigerians to desperate choices,” reflected. It warned of chaos in the polity if the Tinubu government does not stop its bumbling misgovernance. “Nigerians were exhilarated with the return of democracy in 1999, but 25 years on, the buccaneering nature of politicians, their penchant for poor service delivery, morbid hatred for probity, accountability, and credible/transparent elections, among others, are forcing some flustered citizens to make extreme choices, including calling for military intervention in governance… Deep despondency permeates every facet of the polity consequent upon soaring cost of living. And while the political elite splurge on fine wines and exotic automobiles amid poor service delivery, calls for regime change could become more strident in the days ahead even though military insurrection holds no solution to the country’s woes.”

As usual, Onanuga, in his servile reading of every criticism, took time to pen a presidential doggerel as reply to the story. He called it inflammatory and an open advocacy for regime change. Are we sure this Onanuga is not the doppelganger of the Onanuga we used to know? Does he know that that The Guardian story is a cyclostyle of what Nigerians are saying on the streets? If it is, want does he expect the respected newspaper to write? What “deliberate agenda” could the newspaper harbor other than newspapering? What “fairness and objectivity” is he talking about if not a reportage of the narratives on the street and the hopelessness encircling the air? If you read through the so-called State House release of Onanuga, it bears semblance with Sani Abacha’s criminalizing of journalism, leading to the jailing for life of the Kunle Ajibades, his colleague in TheNews. It appears to me that Onanuga, like the Shappiro cartoon, is one of those fawners holding the wench of good governance by the thighs while his boss smilingly loosens the rope of his trousers. If you know what happened to that dog that was given a bad name, you will appreciate why all genuine democrats must rise in protection of the truth.

Dupe Baruwa-Dada: I lost a sister

In 2011, less than six months into the birth of a new government in Oyo State, a proposal was brought for the celebration of a festival in the state. The memo got to the topmost decision-making organ of the state, the Executive Council. A the Exco, a very suave and articulate man marshaled points on the need for the festival and everybody who spoke gave the memo thumbs-up. However, I constituted the one-man kanda, the stone in the bowl of his rice. So, I raised my hand and the governor, Abiola Ajimobi, gave me the go-ahead to speak. “Your Excellency, sir, beautiful as this proposal is, if we go ahead with it, the people of Oyo State will stone us. Our administration hasn’t constructed roads nor succeeded in bringing development to the people. A festival now will be a disaster,” I said. God bless his soul, without mincing words, the governor immediately canceled the memo.

As I stepped out of the Exco Chambers, someone called my number. It was my friend of, by then, 15 years, Dupe Baruwa. She said, “Boda Festus, tomorrow, my children and I will pack our baggage and move to your house for sustenance.” Alarmed, I asked why. “You just shot down the memo presented to the Oyo State government by my husband!”

In 1996 or 1997 – I can’t remember now – a ravishingly beautiful lady was posted to the Sunday Desk of the Nigerian Tribune newspaper and we became very good friends. We became each other’s confidants and advisors. Dupe confided in me on virtually every issue of her life and I did same to her, too. At some point, she even took me to Ijebu-Ode to go see her mother. When it came to my life-time consort, Dupe’s decision on who I would marry was the loudest and carried the day.

As fate would have it, in 2019, while in a tutorial class at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, one evening, I beheld a man downstairs. He looked like the man I was his nemesis in 2011. So I called his name. As he turned, I knew he was the man whose memo I voided in the Oyo State council, Dupe’s husband. We hugged and became even closer during our period at the Law School, sharing same Group 8 class together. His family became mine, too.

When I woke up last Sunday to check the social media, I saw a post that nearly ran me mad. The post wished the soul of Dupe Barruwa-Dada a sweet repose. I was alarmed and aghast. How could Dupe die? Why did Dupe die? It must be a daydream. I had called her a few months earlier to commiserate with her on the loss of her mother and was waiting to attend Mama’s burial in Ijebu-Ode. It was not until I attended her funeral in Ikeja last Thursday and Dupe’s casket was wheeled into the church that it dawned on me that the angel had flown away afterall.

If angelic behavior could confer immortality on one, Dupe will be alive today. She symbolized the sapphire in intelligence, good-naturedness and purity of heart. She was amiable, obliging and amiable to anyone she came in contact with. Dupe’s death at the age of 48 tells me further about the brevity of life and its comparison by the Holy Writ with vapour which whooshes with such vigour but disappears in a minute.

In Nigeria’s bustling political landscape, few figures captivate public attention as consistently as Asari Dokubo, the self-styled leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force. With his recent, almost ritualistic critiques of President Bola Tinubu on social media, Dokubo has once again thrust himself into the limelight. His unabashed denunciations, sometimes with disarming fervor and unrestrained language, are not merely the grievances of an aggrieved activist, they highlight a deeper, transactional nature of Nigeria’s current political culture. By regularly taking to social media to berate Mr. President and his administration, Dokubo brings to light some troubling facets of Nigeria’s political system, where alliances, loyalty, and vociferous criticism often intertwine in a complex web of expectations and disappointments.

In Nigeria, politics has often been described as an elite game of alliances forged and dissolved by promises, obligations, and compensations. This dynamic, typically referred to as transactional politics, has become the defining hallmark of power relations in the country. Transactional politics in this context refers to a system in which alliances and loyalties are heavily predicated on personal gains and rewards rather than ideological commitments or genuine service to the populace.

Nigerian political figures frequently enter alliances or build support based on the expectation of personal benefits, ranging from political appointments to lucrative contracts. Leaders and influencers use their platforms, including social media, to both vocalize support for and critique powerful figures in government. In a way, the relationship between such political figures and the government is reminiscent of a high-stakes transactional contract: support is expected to yield rewards, while lack thereof can lead to public displays of grievances. Dokubo’s recent outbursts are a classic example of this dynamic at play.

Asari Dokubo is no stranger to the complexities of Nigerian politics. A former militant leader turned political figure and self-described protector of Niger Delta rights, he has long been an active voice in Nigerian affairs. Throughout his career, Dokubo has championed the cause of the marginalized Niger Delta communities, claiming to fight for their rights and better treatment from the federal government. However, his activism is often tinged with personal political motivations, as seen in his shifting allegiances and public displays of dissatisfaction when things don’t go his way.

In the run-up to Tinubu’s administration, Dokubo was a vocal supporter of the president. He used his platform to bolster Tinubu’s campaign, calling him the leader Nigeria needed to address the country’s myriad challenges. Many Nigerians perceived this support as a demonstration of loyalty, a move that would eventually translate into some form of recognition or compensation from the new administration. But when such rewards did not materialize, Dokubo’s tone shifted dramatically.

In recent months, Dokubo’s social media posts have taken a decidedly critical turn. His previous endorsement of Tinubu has now given way to a barrage of complaints and accusations. The once-loyal ally is now one of the president’s most vocal critics, often lambasting him in videos that go viral within hours of posting. In his posts, Dokubo alleges neglect and betrayal by the very administration he once fervently supported. He highlights unfulfilled promises and insists that the president is failing the people who put him in office.

This public dissent is telling. It speaks to a system where political alliances and loyalty are rarely based on shared ideology or a commitment to public service but rather on a perceived expectation of rewards. Dokubo’s grievances, aired in the open forum of social media, suggest that his loyalty was conditional upon certain benefits he expected from the administration, benefits that, in his view, have not been realized.

Dokubo’s outbursts against the president serve as a stark reminder of the deeply transactional nature of Nigerian politics. They highlight a concerning trend where political alliances and endorsements are increasingly seen as commodities to be bought, traded, and ultimately criticized when transactional expectations go unmet. In a political landscape like Nigeria’s, the allegiance of powerful individuals and groups often shifts based on self-interest, with little regard for long-term stability or genuine public service.

This situation has grave implications for governance in Nigeria. When political relationships are driven by transactional expectations rather than genuine commitment to progress and development, it becomes challenging for the government to implement consistent policies. Leaders may feel compelled to appease influential figures to secure support or stave off criticism, even at the expense of national priorities.

Furthermore, transactional politics perpetuates a culture of patronage, where leaders are more focused on satisfying powerful individuals than addressing the real needs of the masses. This undermines the very foundation of democracy, shifting power from the electorate to a select group of individuals whose support or criticism is contingent on personal gain.

In the age of social media, figures like Dokubo have a powerful tool at their disposal to publicly express grievances and garner support for their causes. Social media platforms have become the modern-day pulpit for political discourse, enabling individuals to broadcast their opinions and rally supporters without the constraints of traditional media channels. For Dokubo, social media provides an ideal platform to voice his dissatisfaction and criticize Mr. President in real-time, capturing the attention of millions of Nigerians.

By regularly airing his grievances on social media, Dokubo is essentially leveraging public sentiment to pressure the administration into meeting his demands. His vocal criticisms serve as a warning to the administration and other political figures that failure to uphold transactional agreements could lead to damaging public backlash. In this sense, social media has not only amplified Dokubo’s voice but has also transformed him into a formidable force capable of shaping public perception and influencing political outcomes.

Dokubo’s actions underscore the urgent need for a shift from transactional politics to value-based politics in Nigeria. In a value-based political system, alliances and support are grounded in shared principles and goals rather than personal gains. Such a shift would require political figures to align their actions with the needs of the Nigerian populace rather than focusing on their individual interests. A value-based system would promote accountability and transparency, making it more difficult for powerful figures to manipulate the government for personal benefit.

To achieve this transformation, political leaders and influencers must prioritize the welfare of the citizens they claim to represent. Political appointments and alliances should be based on merit and genuine commitment to public service rather than transactional obligations. By fostering a culture of value-based politics, Nigeria can create a more stable and effective governance structure that serves the collective interest of the nation rather than the individual interests of powerful players.

Asari Dokubo’s penchant for dragging Mr. President on social media provides valuable insights into the transactional nature of Nigerian politics. His criticisms, while ostensibly personal, reflect a deeper issue within the political system: a culture where alliances and support are conditional upon personal gain, and grievances are publicly aired when these conditions go unmet. This dynamic has eroded the foundations of Nigerian democracy, prioritizing personal interests over national progress and compromising the government’s ability to address the pressing needs of the populace.

For Nigeria to move forward, there must be a conscious effort to shift away from transactional politics and embrace a system grounded in shared values and a commitment to public service. Political figures must be held accountable for their actions and alliances, ensuring that the government remains focused on serving the interests of the nation rather than a select few. As Dokubo’s actions continue to draw attention, they serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of transactional politics, and the urgent need for a value-based approach to governance in Nigeria.

In popular parlance, wherever you turn, you hear: “Naija no dey carry last”. That’s the Nigerian’s way of self-consolation, even self-motivation. In whatever circumstance he finds himself, a Nigerian is supposed to come out tops, whether the playing field is level or not. It is that self-assurance that other Africans mistake for arrogance. It is true that a Nigerian will not tolerate being treated as a second class being, but that’s all there is to his persona. The only problem is that Nigerians are ubiquitous. And that is not their fault. There’s plenty of them – 220 million-plus!

Whether abroad or at home, Nigerians keep an eagle eye on what their government is doing. They are not difficult to please, if one must be honest. Indeed, in most cases, what a Nigerian needs to excel is for the government to get out of his way! When I shared that view with one of Buhari’s ministers about four years ago, he thought it was blasphemous. He has since changed his mind like everyone else in Citizenville.

You Are The Government

Governments succeed or fail on the wings of the behaviour of public officials whose duty is to run the shop. In many cases, those who work for the government don’t know how sacred the trust vested in them is. They think it is just another job. Unfortunately, as far as the people at the receiving end of policies or programmes being implemented by specific officials are concerned, those functionaries are the government. Their actions or inactions determine how their principal or employer (in this case, the government) is perceived.

So, when the citizens are not well served by a particular department of government, for example, they’d say, “This Tinubu government is not competent.” For all they care, if the government was competent, its departments would also be – or, rather, its operatives would be. In these climes, we get used to poor services to such an extent that we almost get embarrassed when we are well served (or ‘over-served’) when we find ourselves in countries where service delivery is top notch.
No patriotic Nigerian would be thrilled to hear that his country is among the 11 worst-governed countries in Africa. However, by the time the doubter passes through one or two police checkpoints, he would probably simply shrug and hiss. There’s so much rot to clean up.

Governance Rating

According to the highly regarded Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), 2024 edition, Nigeria has quite a bit of catching up to do when rated among its peers.
“For 13 countries – Congo Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Somalia, Togo, Zambia – hosting over 1/5th (20.5 percent) of the continent’s population, there has been progress over the decade and the pace of this has even accelerated since 2019.

“Meanwhile, for 11 countries – Botswana, Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Guinea, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda – home to almost 1/3 (29.3 percent) of the population, there has been deterioration since 2014 and the pace of this is even worsening over the second part of the decade.”

Mercifully, Nigeria is not among the 10 most deteriorated countries which are listed as Comoros, Tunisia, Mali, Mauritius, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Namibia, DR Congo, Niger, and Eswatini. However, the report saw Nigeria slump three places from 30th on the continent to 33rd, making it one of the worst-ruled states since 2014.

National Hospital

One institution that has not failed to arouse my curiosity over the years is the National Hospital in Abuja. I have had varied experiences at the institution but none as harrowing as some of the more controversial cases that were reported by the media. Imposing from the outside like any institution claiming to number among the best in the country should be, it suffers the same affliction that many public institutions endure due to organisational spanners thrown into the works.

Anyone familiar with government establishments knows that there is always an in-built self-destruct valve whose activation depends on the disposition of the overall boss. In Nigerian medical institutions, professional and administrative competence sometimes take the back seat because of politics as politicians insist on infesting whatever they touch with their vermin.

The job of medical personnel is difficult enough without adding human barbed wires into the bargain. Without making any excuses for the bad eggs in the sector, one must be candid enough to admit that Nigerian medical personnel routinely wring water out of stone, considering how they still manage to remain sane enough to treat their patients, exuding that practiced neighbourly friendliness as if they didn’t have a worry in the world.

Admitted that some of them advertise their personal problems on their faces, but then, that’s only being human. We have different levels of tolerance. Every challenge that makes like nightmarish for the average citizen makes it doubly so for the medical personnel because in addition to her personal stress, she has to help other people carry their own crosses as well, especially when those crosses are more emotional than physical.

Ali Pate’s Call

It is in this connection that I think that Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, the coordinating minister for health and social services, should step in to clear the human problems negatively affecting service delivery by medical personnel at the National Hospital which has the negative distinction of the following:

Consultant doctors are engaged as locum for several years without any hope of being confirmed as permanent staff while politically connected new staff are routinely engaged.

Some consultants on Level 15 earn less than their subordinate senior registrars who are on Level 15 Step 8. All over the country, consultants are on Level 16.

Morale has been broken by the act of management bringing in FRESH consultants on transfer on level 16 from federal medical centres and teaching hospitals, whilst older consultants who could have supervised their training are kept on level 15, on locum basis. So, the tail wags the dog!

Over the years, tribalism has been entrenched in the administration of the hospital as different ethnicities struggle for dominion. In a medical facility, that ought to be anathema.

The most important challenge confronting the hospital today is not the uncompleted 200-bed extension but improving the welfare of the staff. Unbelievable as it may sound, some of the staff spend the night at the hospital, going home only on weekends. They mix easily with the crowd, so it is difficult to know if they’re on duty or not.

Instances of naked tribalism, nepotism and poor staff welfare may soon be latched on by international rating organisations such as the IIAG to lump us with the wretched among nations. I don’t agree that that’s where we belong. As they argue in Warri, Naija must not carry last.

The National Hospital features in a blog for workplace conversations (glassdoor.com) where a former patient wrote the following review about the facility:

“Some toxic staff, toxic management, bullying culture, poor resources, unsupportive environment, poor compensation and salaries, nepotism and favouritism, some staff are so lazy and well-connected that they get away with bad behaviour. Advice to Management: Could do with reviewing the work culture there.”

A time bomb is ticking. Hon. Minister Ali Pate has the required global exposure to help us civilise the National Hospital before it becomes another beautiful abattoir.

The death a few days ago of Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the outstanding Nigerian who supervised the famous June 12 1993 presidential election no doubt reminded many Nigerians of how best to organize an election. Although the winner of that election was never formally declared, everyone knew who it was and across the globe, the contest was unanimously accepted as the best Nigerian election in history. The accolade is yet to change.

Those who knew Nwosu’s strength of character especially those of us who worked with him on the elections must have been elated for the first time hearing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a tribute describing Humphrey Nwosu as “as a bold and courageous administrator as well as a patriot and national asset,” who played a major role in shaping Nigeria’s democratic journey. The description was simply apt.

Before Tinubu, all our respective first citizens pretended that the 1993 election deserved no recognition because it was supposedly not concluded and as such had no winner. The nearest the nation heard about the election was President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision in 2018 to bestow on Moshood Abiola, the winner of the election, the highest national award – the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic GCFR reserved for only the nation’s presidents. Those who packaged the award by Buhari must have had their own hidden agenda which portrayed an assumption that there was no need to also honour Humphrey Nwosu for his great performance. Whereas the addition of the legendary Gani Fawehinmi to those honoured along with Abiola was popular and laudable, it was disheartening to see that a few politicians who colluded with the military to jettison June 12 were also honoured.

It is hoped that President Tinubu would find time to offer Nwosu a befitting national honour as well as to name after him a national monument or edifice. Humphrey Nwosu was not just an ordinary chairman of an electoral body; he visibly did a marvellous and persuasive job by applying all his strength and capacity to embrace innovations for achieving his goal. As chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission from 1989-1993, he successfully conducted nationwide local government elections in 1990, governorship elections in 1991, national assembly elections in 1992 and the presidential election in 1993. The problem that was imposed on his last election in 1993 had nothing to do with electoral logistics or processes and procedures; rather, it was a set of military officers along with some politicians and a few traditional authorities that colluded for personal reasons to stop the declaration and swearing in of the winner.

The electoral body headed by Nwosu did more than the conduct of elections as it was also mandated to midwife the entire transition to civil rule political programme. To this end, Nwosu’s team is entitled to taking full credit for the rigorous guidelines it evolved for the emergence of 13 political associations out of which two, the Social Democratic Party SDP and the National Republican Convention NRC were formally given the green light to function as political parties. Unlike what we see today, the electoral commission of the time neither breached its own guidelines nor did it give room for politicians to derail its arrangements. If Nwosu introduced any electoral device it was made available everywhere and diligently implemented nationwide without allowing local prejudices to affect the process – a sharp contrast to devices like Card Reader or INEC IREV that were deliberately configured to be temperamental.

The prevailing circumstances during each election were always taken into consideration in determining electoral guidelines for use each time. For example, the credibility problems created at the beginning of the transition programme as a result of the nation’s long military rule, made Nwosu to introduce the Open ballot system which made it easy for people to accept the simple, credible and on-the-spot results. In due course, with complaints by political analysts that some people were scared of openly voting against their spouses, landlords or teachers etc, the Open-Secret ballot was introduced to ensure that although the casting of ballot was done in the open, each voter was given an opportunity to mark his/her ballot in an enclosed compartment provided by the commission. To ensure the emergence of truly national leaders, what was known as Option A4 was introduced to make winners emerge through several stages from local to national levels.

Different societal institutions such as the judiciary and security agencies assisted the electoral body in our days but none of them was allowed to take over the process. For instance, only the electoral body could postpone an election unlike now when for security reasons unknown to even INEC, election could be postponed. It should also be pointed out that no electoral offender could be apprehended by the police without the consent of the relevant electoral officer thereby keeping the electoral body in charge. In like manner, the judiciary had powers to review our decisions but had no power to stop the commission from performing its duties. Accordingly, when Justice Bassey Ikpeme attempted to stop the June 12 1993 elections a few hours to voting, the fake order was ignored because it was clearly in breach of Section 19(1) of the relevant Decree 13 of 1993.

During Nwosu’s time, the judiciary was allowed to nullify an election which failed the integrity test but no court at whatever level was empowered to determine winners of elections. Unlike what happens these days, the courts were not allowed to use ‘judiciary-mathematics’ to add up figures which ended up producing winners that scored more votes than voters. Instead, where an election was nullified, a repeat election was held to ensure that winners were determined by voters and not by judges. One can predict with ease that we are likely to return to the same situation someday if nothing is done to stop the judicial activity of conflicting orders between state and federal courts. Luckily, Nwosu’s team was not challenged by this practice of using the judiciary to win elections. 

Another advantage which Nwosu’s electoral commission enjoyed was that its members were made up of men and women of transparent integrity in line with international standards which require every umpire to be truly impartial and above board. Today, majority of our electoral commissioners are agents or card carrying members of the ruling parties making it obvious that the expectation of free and fair elections is a tall order. Again, those recruited during Nwosu’s days as ad hoc staff such as returning officers were well known in society for their self-respect, dignity, track record and personal discipline and were thus fit for the job. Today, our returning officers who are top academics announce fake results and argue that they only read what was given to them. No one can say if the same returning officers are not the architects of examination malpractices in our higher institutions.

Against this backdrop, the charge by President Tinubu to our electoral umpires to behave like Humphrey Nwosu as a champion of democracy by upholding “credible, transparent, and democratic elections that embody the people’s right to choose their leaders” is a challenge they can hardly meet if we do not return to the golden days when elections were organized as a game played by its rules. Most importantly, the reference to Humphrey Nwosu by President Tinubu as a bold and courageous administrator would remain eternally remarkable. Until his commission was suspended and later dissolved, Nwosu challenged every wrong step taken by the authorities to intimidate his team. He went to the Court of Appeal to challenge the plan to scuttle his work but had to give up only when the election was instructively annulled a few hours before judgment.

History would no doubt be kind to Nwosu who ran a patently independent electoral commission even though his commission was never formally empowered to act as independent. Indeed, his was an electoral body set by the military and run with decrees. It is hoped that although the president of the day, Ibrahim Babangida took vicarious liability for the unfortunate annulment of the June 12 1993 election, memoirs and books would emerge sooner or later to expose all those who played ignoble roles in the development. Adieu Humphrey, exceedingly brilliant first-class political scientist and innovator who left his name in gold in the history of elections in Nigeria. May his soul rest in peace.  

The United States of America team scored once in each half to send Nigeria crashing out of the FIFA women’s under-17 World Cup with a 2-0 defeat in the quarter-final encounter at the Santiago de los Caballeros Stadium, Dominican Republic.

The Flamingos were more fancied but their opponents were tactically outstanding, with Kennedy Fuller and Kimmi Ascanio punishing Bankole Olowookere’s team.

The Americans stifled their Nigerian opponents’ usually creative midfield. They denied the attackers service and found joy in attacking from the wings.

Their perseverance paid off when Fuller evaded Shakirat Moshood and powered into the penalty area before the latter brought her down for a spot-kick awarded following a video assistant referee review.

Fuller dusted herself up and converted for 1-0 to the USA on 43 minutes, taking the lead into the break.

Nigeria was presented the first big chance of the second half when a defensive mix-up allowed Taiwo Afolabi a good opening to equalize but her shot was saved by Evan Osteen, US goalkeeper.

The United States upped the ante and doubled their lead on 71 minutes. Ascanio slotted low into the bottom corner to seal their passage into the semi-finals while the Nigerian team crashed out of the tournament.

[TheCable]

Those in search of the human asset to help salvage our country have one major place to look these days: the departure lounge of the international airports. Some of the best minds of the nation are either on their way out of the country to assume leading positions or are returning to their international duty posts in major centres of the world. Hardly any day goes by without an outstanding Nigerian making  the headline in some newspaper somewhere in the world. Our exceptional citizens are making the news waves with stories of achievements that should make us proud.

Our citizens are being elevated to and celebrated in strategic positions around the world. Some are scoring unusual goals  in ground breaking research or scoring the best marks in universities all over the world. Our star footballers and athletes are household names around the world. A select few are occupying cardinal positions in apex global public and private organizations.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has held fort at the World Trade Organization (WTO), using the instrument f trade to help redefine the world. Professor Akinwumi Adesina has maintained an enviable lead at the AFDB since his appointment and has continued to lead that bank as a leading global engine of development for Africa. Mr. Adebayo Ogunlesi has, since acquiring the airport, resurrected Britain’s Gatwick Airport into a major global hub. The current Deputy Treasury Secretary of the United States, Mr. Adewale Adeyemo, fondly called  “Wally” at the highest levels of the US government is a major force  in Washington’s power circles. The examples and instances are multiple and ever expanding.

We can of course not ignore the nuisance of the ugly Nigerians:  cyber criminals, scam artists, rough and random street cultists and other ugly Nigerians who also make news headlines that taint our green passport. Every great nation has them in all shades but are better judged by their brighter shades than by their brackish dregs.

Earlier in the week, yet another significant Nigerian has joined the elongating line up of ambassadors of excellence flying Nigeria’s flag in the places that matter.  Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, former Deputy Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank and international economics scholar has just been appointed the founding President of the new African leadership university, the African School of Governance (ASG) based in Kigali, Rwanda. The ASG is a tertiary level institution deliberately established  by significant African leaders and statesmen to promote the cause of enhancing Africa’s leadership culture  at a time of grave challenge.

The ASG comes on stream as a continental training ground for a new generation of leaders especially from among the youth. The institution is target specific; it aims to train and provide leadership human resources for the entire continent.  It is the brainchild of a select group of outstanding African statesmen and worldclass technocrats who have themselves been shining examples in the transformation of their own countries in the modern world.  

The founders are led by Rwanda’s poster kid President, Paul Kagame, Ethiopia’s former Prime Minister, Hallemariam Dessalegn. Others include Mr. Mekhtar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation and Senegal’s former Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation as well as  Dr. Donald Kaberuka, former president of the African Development Bank,  Professor Hajer Gueldisch , former professor at the University of Carthage, Kishore Mahbubani,  Former Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy are also among the founders and board of the new school.

African School for Governance will offer a broad range of services and programmes directly related to the enhancement of public policy leadership in Africa. For training programs it will offer short term programmes leading to post graduate degrees in public policy. It will also offer short term on –the- job training for African policy and government operatives as well as render services to African governments and public institutions on a continent wide basis. All these activities will be managed and coordinated from the school’s base in Kigali, Rwanda. ASG comes as a fully loaded package of progammes, services and collaborations of a scope and spread that is unprecedented in Africa to date..

The mission and vision of ASG are honed at today’s Africa where a deficit of appropriate public policy leadership summarizes the current crisis of development on the continent. It has come to be acknowledged that the critical deficit in Africa’s development and progress is a certain embarrassing paucity of knowledgeable leadership. Most African leaders are politicians who have not undergone much formal education on modern public leadership. The result is that while Africa’s challenges have grown in scope and complexity, the manpower resources to address them at the level of leadership has remained undeveloped. Yet the world cannot wait for Africa to catch up or bridge the yawning knowledge gap that currently separates Africa from the rest of the world. This broad challenge is the definition of  Prof. Moghalu’s new assignment which makes it both grueling and unique in Africa.

Moghalu comes to his new position very well equipped. With a rich and brilliant academic background in international economics and copious practical experience working with the World Bank and other leading financial institutions around the world. Moghalu has in addition considerable experience working in multilateral institutions like the United Nations where he was mentored by such illustrious diplomats as the late Kofi  Annan, former UN Secretary General of the UN.

Thereafter, he   was appointed Deputy Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank where he worked under Lamido Sanusi Lamido, Emir   of  Kano during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan. The Central Bank under Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was essentially a reformist institution. It introduced a number of innovations in Nigeria’s banking sector including the Bank Verification Numbers(BVN) to identify all account holders as part of an anti -graft measure to reduce  abuses in the Nigerian banking system.

After his tenure as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Moghalu was appointed professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in 2015. s.

In the 2019 presidential contest, he ran unsuccessfully as the presidential candidate of the Young Peoples Party (YPP). His manifesto was typically idealistic and a bit academic.  After the political adventure, he returned once again to the world of academics. In 20021, he was appointed Visiting Fellow by Oxford University.

 In the 2023 contest, he made yet another unsuccessful attempt at the presidency with little success. This second time, he fared worse than he did in the first attempt at partisan politics. It was an experience where he came face to face with the murkiness of Nigerian politics. He encountered subterfuge, corruption and nastiness as we have come to know them as trademarks of Nigerian politics. He did not need any further disincentives to know that it was time to bow out of partisan politics.  He had no alternative than to return to his forte of academia, research and consulting especially in especially in the areas of international finance and economics. He was back to his Washington based consultancy from where he was appointed the President of ASG.

Moghalu took to his political journey a predictable idealistic obsession to make Nigeria work for the people. His vision was to work towards a functional state with institutions that work efficiently in the service of the people. His informing national aspiration was a medium income and medium power nation that would stand shoulder to shoulder with its peers in the shortest possible time. He wanted to harness and deploy the best energies of the nation to this end. In his mind, he was the candidate of the youth. But he was to discover differently to his utter chagrin.

He took to his brief political foray his energy and habitual dedication to mission. He travelled the nation, met and mixed with the political high and mighty. He touched base with the shakers and movers of political Nigeria , paid homage to the main shapers of national political opinion. Understandably, he was accepted and endorsed by all those he paid homage to. Quite significantly, he was endorsed by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka who used to wield considerable political heft at the level of opinion and ideas.

His mission was easy since  he carried no major political baggage. His politics was one of ideas and values. No one could pin him down to the fixed verities of Nigeria’s sectional and hegemonic politics. Though a man of Igbo descent, his politics was essentially a nationalistic one predicated mostly on the evolution of a modern institution- based Nigerian state that would work for its citizens and compete with its peers in the new modern world. He belongs to a post war less ethnocentric Nigeria which equipped him with a more nationalistic sense of the Nigerian nation.

Here then is a man with a rounded background in academics, public service, a bit of politics and international affairs. At a personal level, he is laser focused and avidly result oriented.  Therefor, Moghalu brings to his new position as President of ASG a rich background that should enrich his career and glorify the objectives of the new institution. One quality that marks out Prof. Moghalu for his new role is his fervent commitment to African modernity. For him, a modern and progressive Africa is an urgent possibility that can no longer wait.

Our eyes are on Kigali where one of the jewels of Nigeria’s intellectual property reservoir is now on loan to the rest of Africa.

Peter Obi and the Yakubu Gowon Conundrum

The social media and the streets found a bit of excitement in the past fortnight. The 90th birthday events of Nigeria’s war time leader, General Yakubu Gowon, provided an opening for the older generation of Nigerians to reflect on aspects of Nigerian history especially the civil war.  Gowon’s birthday provided an avenue for interactions among historical personages  alive ,  young and ageing. It was especially an opportunity for younger Nigerians to learn snippets of national history.

Understandably, the politics of the moment was not immune from that past. Mr. Peter Obi, easily the most visible image and audible voice of what may be described as the present Nigerian political opposition, felt a duty to join the long queue of Nigerian political heavies and significant others to salute General Gowon. As a politician, Obi could not but greet Gowon whose political symbolism remains strong. By the nature of his historical being, Gowon can only be greeted in the language of politics. Peter Obi knows that too well and his congratulatory tweet was in line.

Fire from the pit of hell was let loose. Mr. Obi’s swarm of social media acolytes, perhaps for the first time, disagreed with their icon and said so. In the view of most of them, General Gowon remains a villain who presided over a war time killing machine that claimed over 3 million Nigerians in the civil war of 1967-70. He does not therefore qualify to be greeted by Obi.

Most of those on social media today have come to see Mr. Peter Obi as a symbol of a new, more innocent Nigeria who needs to keep his distance from the rotten pillars of old Nigeria. Running through the bulk of the social media posts that greeted Obi’s Gowon tweet is a stubborn sense of hurt especially among the youth of South-eastern extraction.

This unexpected outrage forced Mr. Obi into the difficulty of  ‘explaining’ himself using mostly moral grounds to justify the Gowon tribute. As a Christian, he felt a compulsion to forgive “an enemy” even in the context of national politics. Moreover, as a politician, he cannot afford to harbor ill will for longer than necessary. 

Some followers have forgiven Obi. Others have shown understanding of his position. The more ethnocentric few have swallowed hard, insisting that Gowon remains a war ‘criminal’ who is undeserving of forgiveness by those who feel the hurt of the civil war most. The most interesting thing about this exchange is that we are over 60 years from the end of the civil war and the majority of those who are bitter on the social media were hardly born even a decade after the end of the war. Yet the bitterness endures.

Peter Obi’s mini cyber travail over the Yakubu Gowon birthday tweet has exposed certain problems in Nigeria’s current political thinking. In a political culture rooted in regionalism and ethnocentrism, politicians and their followers seem to have a problem defining themselves in plain national colours. Peter Obi who was hardly ten years old when the war ended. Yet he is having difficulty defining himself free from the labels of that hostility. Though his political identity is rooted in the new post-1970 federalist Nigeria, many of his followers would want him to identify himself primarily as an Igbo pro-Biafran politician. That would be futile.

On the contrary, Mr. Obi’s aspiration is for the leadership of a united Nigeria. He is not traversing the length and bread of Nigeria seeking to avenge the Nigerian civil war or the millions of Igbos killed in that war. His mission is not one of ethnic revenge. Rather, I see him as an apostle of new Nigeria, freed at last from the contagion of ethnicity and regionalism. Obi is, in my view, an apostle of a new modern, detribalized  Nigeria led by the youth, a nation state that works for all Nigerians in a truly democratic context.

As a serious apprentice statesman, Peter Obi needs to see more in Gowon than the blood letting in the war years. Gowon means the state structure. He means the National Youth Service Corps, the Unity Schools, driving your car on the right hand side of the road like the rest of West Africa and the establishment of ECOWAS. These items f nation building cannot be reduced to simplistic and emotional binary categories of hero and villain or saint and sinner.

Even with their individual failings as mortals, leading national figures like Emeka Ojukwu, Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo tried, through visits and photo opportunities, to reach across the divides of war to send the message of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Given the ethnic basis of our political culture, hardly anyone emerges on the national political scene without carrying the baggage of an originating  ethnicity (the state of origin syndrome!). There may be nothing wrong with that. Every politics is primarily local and ethnic in the end. What matters however is where the politician in question pitches the beacons of his/her consciousness. The politician who places the imperatives of the nation over and above those of his ethnicity is the truly national leader. The opposite is the definition of the ethnic politician in national political costume. We have them in abundance.

And in any event, the national political leader who does not feel the historic wounds of his own people is counterfeit. Still, the aspirant to national leadership who wears the historic injury of his people as a signpost on his political forehead should not be trusted with the fate of a multi ethnic nation like Nigeria.

The Peter Obi and Gowon conundrum raises larger questions of political leadership typology. Specifically, on Gowon, the question is a complex one: Can one man be both hero and villain simultaneously? To the advocates of a united Nigeria, General Gowon as the leader of the Nigerian war of unification, was an undisputable hero who won the war.

But for the predominantly Igbo population of defunct Biafra, Gowon was and remains an unmitigated villain. They hold him responsible for the collective evil of the war and the massive loss of lives. The passage of time and all the political whitewash of peace, reconciliation and national unity cannot wipe away the hurt of war and the loss of kith and kin.

Praise the Lord! President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed ministers and heads of departments and agencies to reduce the number of vehicles in their convoys to three and their security personnel to a maximum of five. This is to “reduce the cost of governance” (I prefer to call it “government’s running cost” because “governance” is broader and deeper). We don’t know how much this directive will save the treasury in these hard times since the government did not state any monetary value. Before now, Tinubu had announced a reduction in his entourage from 50 to 20 officials on foreign trips and 25 on local trips. We have never counted, so we are not really sure if this is being implemented.

But wait a minute. Many of us did not even know that ministers and agency heads had more than three cars and five security aides in their collection in these hard times. What a revelation. But what on God’s green earth is an agency head doing with three cars and five security aides? There are over 1,000 federal agencies. My math has been pathetic from my secondary school days, but I have just calculated over 4,000 police and over 1,000 DSS officers for agency heads. Wow! So, this is what the new directive means? When we demand the reduction of government’s running cost, is this it? What a wasteful country! We have refused to come to our senses since the oil boom era of the 1970s.

When President Olusegun Obasanjo came up with the monetisation policy in 2003, it was supposed to bring about a major cut in the cost of running government. It was supposed to reduce the financial burden of maintaining political office holders and senior civil servants. Until then, federal government provided residential houses and bought official vehicles for ministers, federal lawmakers and their likes. It was also responsible for maintaining the residences and the vehicles, settling the utility and medical bills, and paying for their aides, cooks, gardeners and drivers. With monetisation, the federal government started paying consolidated sums, prorated per month, as remuneration.

But what did we see? All over Abuja, appointees were still moving in motorcades filled with some of the most exotic and exquisite SUVs money can buy. Some MDAs found a way of accommodating the profligacy in their budgets through what they call “project cars”. Some are still renting houses for ministers and paying for their egos and libidos through all sorts of subheads created to subvert the monetisation policy. Federal legislators are still buying choice SUVs as “project cars” despite monetisation. Everybody in government wants to eat double portion. They are having their cake and eating it. When they become ex-this, ex-that, can they maintain this lifestyle from their sweat?

And this brings me to the topic for today: what I call the three Ps of politics. The first P is “politicking” — the path to political power. The second is “performance” — the purpose of politics. The third is “perks” — the juice of office. Anywhere politics is played in the world, these are three major facets. The details may differ from country to country and from society to society, but politics is essentially alike. Anywhere, you have to politick to win or hold on to political power. Anywhere, you are elected into office presumably for the greater good of the society. Anywhere, you are entitled to certain perks which come with the fact that you are in power. There should be no debate about that.

In politicking, politicians play to win. Some play it clean, some play dirty. In most cases, it is mixed. Politicians undermine each other with propaganda, selling half-truths and absolute lies to voters. They may play up ethnic, religious and other divisive sentiments. But then, when they get into power, the second “p” is expected of them: performance. Socrates, according to Plato in ‘Gorgias’, argued that the goal of politics is to make the citizens “as good as possible to live the best lives”. No matter the divisive electioneering rhetoric, nobody wants a governor, president or lawmaker to leave them worse off. Nobody appoints ministers, commissioners or agency heads hoping that they will fail.

The third “p” is perks. The perquisites of office. This obtains in varying degrees everywhere. By reason of holding certain political positions, you enjoy a number of benefits in addition to your salary. Citizens living in a country where these perks are well defined and minimal and where political office holders are honest and accountable should count themselves lucky. In many developing countries, the perks are fat and unlimited and there is nothing the people can do about that. The ruling class has constituted itself into parasites on the perquisites and never want to let go, even when the treasury is broke and the citizens are eating from the dustbin. They cannot be bothered.

Sadly, while politics has the facets of politicking, performance and perks everywhere, the typical, buccaneering Nigerian public office holder cherry-picks “politicking” and “perks”. It is mostly about personal benefits — eating the national cake. Performance is the unwanted “p” and gets the least attention. I would not mind governors flying in state-of-the-art jets and lawmakers riding Porshe as official vehicles if it is evident that public schools, hospitals and roads are first-class and the citizens are enjoying good governance, with security of lives and property to boot. But in a heavily-indebted country where citizens are in severe pains, I cannot understand what is motivating this profligacy.

Our reality is that many, if not most, Nigerian politicians and political appointees are only interested in the perks of office. Take away those perks and they will feel little. What is life as a government official without plenty security escorts and siren? How would the people know that you are now a tin god? How would you distinguish yourself from ordinary citizens when you don’t ride in a motorcade with police, DSS and NSCDC officers dotting all over you and carrying your files and polishing your shoes and all that? Unfortunately, Nigeria is not rich or prosperous enough to sustain this waste — not with our meagre income and miserable budgets that cannot cater for 200 million citizens.

If you live in the UK with a GDP of about $3 trillion, inflation rate of 1.7 percent, and per capita income of $48,000, you will never see a minister or MP riding in a motorcade and going around with five security aides. But in Nigeria with a GDP of $200 billion, inflation rate of 32.7 percent, and per capita income of $1,621, government officials will be blowing siren all over the place and chasing lesser mortals off the road, ignoring traffic lights and throttling at full speed like Lewis Hamilton. If government officials of any country deserve to live large, it should be where poverty has been conquered and the people enjoy basic social services. It should be a reward for performance.

If really the “greater good of the society” were the priority of politicking in Nigeria, we would not be where we are today. In my book, ‘Fellow Nigerians, It’s All Politics!’, I argued that to the archetypal Nigerian politician, power is an end in itself. Or, put more fittingly, power is a licence to become a deity, to amass and flaunt obscene wealth in the midst of wretched poverty, and to deploy raw state power to oppress or suppress others. To be fair, some politicians still remember to build the odd road, whitewash public schools and sink boreholes here and there. Some, surprisingly, build bridges, drainages and hospitals. But, come off it, we know this is not the most common story in Nigeria.

While I am somewhat pleased that Tinubu has once again announced measures to reduce government’s running cost, the directive on three cars and five security aides does not cut it for me. It is, at best, cosmetic. It serves a good purpose of signalling, but how much are we going to save? We expect something comprehensive. Compare the new directive to the one Tinubu issued on February 26, 2024 that the Oronsaye Report should be “fully” implemented. He announced “the merging, subsuming, scraping and relocation of several agencies of government” in a “very bold move”. Eight months later, we have only created new mega agencies, including four “NDDCs”.

Nevertheless, I implore Tinubu to enforce monetisation to the letter and implement the Oronsaye Report, even if not fully. His message of sacrifice must go farther, starting from him. If there is a Nigerian president who should not care much about personal comfort at the nation’s expense, it should be him. He has told us he was very comfortable before coming to office. In that case, he should set the right tone from the top. He should lead by example in the hope that the governors will follow suit. Profligacy has been so normalised in Nigeria that we think prudence is extraterrestrial. Politics is about the people. Politics is about performance. Tinubu should lead the way. It won’t hurt.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

HONOURING HUMPHREY

Prof Humphrey Nwosu, the man who conducted the June 12, 1993 presidential election, died on Thursday in the US, aged 83. Nwosu, who chaired the National Electoral Commission (NEC, now called INEC with the prefix of “Independent”), was stubbornly announcing the election results in batches before suddenly disappearing from public view as the military government arrested and detained him. Chief MKO Abiola was heading for victory but the election was annulled, plunging Nigeria into a prolonged crisis. Nwosu never showed up in public again until 2008 when he claimed Gen Babangida was not to blame for the annulment. He has died without telling the full story. Sad.  

DAM IT!

The governments of Lagos and Ogun states have asked residents living within the flood path of Oyan Dam to relocate — without offering any help. From time to time, there is a systematic release of excess water from the dam in Ogun state to avoid a collapse, which would be a major disaster — as we saw in Alau, Borno state, recently when dozens died and over 400,000 rendered homeless. The Oyan Dam water release always displaces thousands of people. What I would expect the states to do is to make a temporary plan to relocate those affected, most of whom are low-income earners. I wonder how many of them can afford the costs of relocation in this economy today. Distressing.

PLAYING WITH FIRE

When you hear that 180 people were killed in a fire disaster while scooping petrol from a fallen tanker in Jigawa state, the logical thought in your head is that this would serve as a natural warning to others. You are wrong. A few days later, a tanker fell in Akamkpa, Cross River state, and people did not hesitate to swoop and scoop (luckily, there was no fire). After the Jigawa incident, I had posted in a WhatsApp group that it would not be the last, that we never learn any lessons in Nigeria. When the Cross River incident happened, I posted the news link in the same WhatsApp group and said: “We discussed this last week.” A friend replied, cynically: “We also discussed it next week.” Troubling.

NO COMMENT

President Tinubu reshuffled his cabinet on Wednesday as if he didn’t. Okay, the comedian (or is it comedienne) in charge of women affairs has been “discharged”. She should start a career in skit making on Instagram. Well, the minister of education — who appeared to think all the problems in Nigeria revolve around the age students take university entrance exams — has also been discharged to the relief of millions who would have been stuck at home for two years because of someone’s brainwave. We can now hope his successor will get his priorities right. Otherwise, there is nothing earth-shaking in the reshuffle as widely anticipated. Except there is more to follow. Wonderful.

The Labour Party leader and Presidential Candidate in the party in 2023 polls, Peter Obi, has described the late National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof Humphrey Nwosu, as an exceptional Electoral Umpire who was ready to risk his life for democracy.

In a short tribute to the former Chairman of the National Electoral Commission, NEC, who passed on during the week, Obi said he was a principled academic who brought to bear in his job the principle he taught in the classroom as a political scientist.

In his message titled "In Prof Nwosu, A True Democrat Exits," Obi wrote in X handle, "I have just received the sad news of the death of the former Chairman of the National Electoral Commission, NEC, Prof Humphrey Nwosu.

"Prof Nwosu was a true Democrat, an outstanding academician whose love for democracy and its values was copiously demonstrated in the way and manner he carried out his responsibilities as an electoral umpire between 1989 to 1993.

"His courageous defense of democratic principles, even under a non-democratic government, put him out as a man who was ready even to sacrifice his life for the sake of democracy and good governance.

"For his pivotal role in holding and upholding the 1993 presidential elections, Prof Nwosu’s name will remain indelible in the history of Nigerian democracy. He stood for the truth In Nigeria for standing for the truth and the best tenets of democracy when it was delicate and even dangerous to do so.

"It’s, however, disheartening to note that what Prof Nwosu did when the nation’s electoral commission was not even legally independent and when billions of taxpayers' money were not deployed as it is today with an accompanying updated technology could not be repeated in contemporary times in a supposed full democratic system.

"As an academic, Prof Nwosu brought to bear all the principles he taught in the classroom as an erudite professor of Political Science, unlike these days when professors are procured to aid electoral malpractices, including announcing results of elections they did not verify.

"For the new Nigeria we desire, the country needs more of Professor Nwosu, who will risk their lives for democracy.

"I pray God to forgive his shortcomings while on earth, grant his soul eternal repose, and his family and all lovers of democracy who mourn him the gratitude to bear the huge loss. 

"May God Almighty grant Nigeria the likes of Professor Humphrey Nwosu in her future elections.

A new Nigeria is indeed POssible"

Signed 

Ibrahim Umar 

POMR SPOKESMAN 

Nigeria, often described as the “Giant of Africa,” is a nation defined by its rich cultural diversity, dynamic economy, and resilient people. Its identity, however, is marked not only by unity but also by complex historical tensions, especially among its prominent ethnic groups, the Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, and Igbo. Each group has played an instrumental role in shaping Nigeria’s trajectory, yet it is the Igbo people who, despite their industriousness and undeniable contributions to the country, continue to face systemic marginalization. As the nation charts its future, it is crucial to heed the wisdom embedded in the Igbo proverb, “Egbe bere Ugo bere”,which translates to “Let the kite perch, let the eagle perch,” a call for equality and mutual respect that Nigeria’s leadership and citizenry must embrace if true unity and progress are to be achieved.

The Igbo ethos of “Egbe bere Ugo bere” has deep cultural roots, symbolizing coexistence, respect, and the right of all to thrive without interference. In traditional Igbo society, this principle serves as a moral compass that fosters peace and discourages divisiveness. It recognizes the rights of all beings, represented by the kite and the eagle, to perch and flourish without hindrance. For the Igbo, this philosophy underscores the ideal society: one in which every person, community, and region has the freedom and support to prosper without oppression. It represents a vision of equality and mutual benefit that should be central to Nigeria’s collective ethos.

But in today’s Nigeria, this wisdom has yet to resonate in the treatment of the Igbo people. Rather than honoring this call for harmonious coexistence, the nation’s political and economic systems have repeatedly sidelined and suppressed the Igbo, fostering an environment of exclusion rather than inclusion. If Nigeria is to fulfill its promise as a truly united, progressive nation, its leaders must prioritize inclusive policies that reflect “Egbe bere Ugo bere”, ensuring that the Igbo people and all other groups are given an equal stake in the country’s future.

To understand the depth of Igbo marginalization, one must look at Nigeria’s post-independence history, particularly the Civil War (1967–1970) and the events that followed. The war, fought over the Igbo-led declaration of the independent state of Biafra, left deep scars and ushered in an era of distrust and systemic exclusion. The Igbo people, who bore the brunt of the war, were largely left to rebuild their lives and communities without substantial governmental support, and many policies were enacted that curtailed their socioeconomic mobility. The indigenization policy of the 1970s, which ostensibly aimed to empower Nigerians by transferring ownership of foreign businesses to locals, often limited the opportunities available to Igbos, while government investments in infrastructure development consistently bypassed the Southeast, stalling the region’s growth.

Today, this legacy of marginalization persists in various forms, affecting political representation, economic development, and access to social amenities. Despite being a major ethnic group with a unique cultural heritage and an impressive entrepreneurial spirit, the Igbo people are disproportionately underrepresented in the upper echelons of government. Presidential power, in particular, has eluded the Southeast for decades, reinforcing a feeling of alienation and disenfranchisement. Moreover, Southeast infrastructure remains severely underdeveloped compared to other regions, with dilapidated roads, inadequate healthcare facilities, and limited federal investments. This neglect not only hinders the region’s growth but also signals to the Igbo people that their needs and contributions are not valued by the national government.

This situation is further compounded by negative stereotypes and divisive narratives, which have persisted for decades, painting the Igbo as secessionist-minded or overly ambitious. Such portrayals serve to alienate them further, trivializing their legitimate grievances and pushing aside their calls for a fair and inclusive Nigeria. This continuous sidelining has fostered a sense of “otherness” among the Igbo, even though they are integral to Nigeria’s fabric and have consistently demonstrated a commitment to the nation’s development.

The Igbo people have been instrumental in Nigeria’s development across a variety of sectors, particularly in commerce, manufacturing, education, and healthcare. Their entrepreneurial spirit is renowned, with many Igbo-led businesses contributing significantly to the Nigerian economy. From major markets like Onitsha and Aba, which serve as commercial hubs not only for Nigeria but also for West Africa, to the notable presence of Igbo professionals in various industries, the Igbo people have continually demonstrated their commitment to building a prosperous Nigeria.

In addition to their economic contributions, the Igbo have also played a significant role in promoting educational and technological advancement. Historically, Igbo communities have prioritized education, resulting in a high level of academic achievement and a well-educated workforce. Many of Nigeria’s leading intellectuals, scientists, and innovators hail from the Southeast, yet this intellectual capital remains underutilized at the national level due to entrenched biases and exclusionary practices.

Culturally, the Igbo people have enriched Nigeria with their traditions, art, music, and cuisine. Festivals like the New Yam Festival, which celebrates the harvest and symbolizes gratitude and renewal, are a testament to the Igbo’s enduring heritage and values. Recognizing and celebrating these contributions is essential for fostering a sense of unity and mutual respect among Nigeria’s diverse ethnic groups.

Embracing the philosophy of “Egbe bere Ugo bere” in governance requires a paradigm shift in Nigeria’s political and social framework. It necessitates a commitment to fairness, equity, and the creation of equal opportunities for all ethnic groups. This vision of governance would prioritize policies that bridge regional divides, ensuring that every region receives adequate investment and development. By respecting this principle, Nigerian leaders could forge a society where diversity is seen not as a threat but as a source of strength, and where every citizen feels valued and empowered.

One critical area for such change is in political representation. Nigeria’s leaders should work towards a structure that allows all ethnic groups, including the Igbo, to have equal access to the highest offices. This would mean not only creating pathways for Southeast representation at the presidential level but also ensuring fair representation across all government agencies and institutions. Additionally, fair allocation of federal resources would provide a foundation for balanced development across Nigeria’s regions, addressing the infrastructure deficit in the Southeast and giving the Igbo people access to the social amenities they deserve.

The time has come for Nigeria to honor the wisdom of “Egbe bere Ugo bere” by fostering a society where every ethnic group is treated with respect and dignity. The concept of “Owners of Nigeria” should be expanded to include every citizen, irrespective of ethnicity, region, or religion. Rather than clinging to divisive rhetoric and exclusionary practices, Nigeria’s leadership must work to build a more inclusive nation, one that recognizes and celebrates the contributions of all its people.

For the Igbo, this would mean an end to the decades-long marginalization and a genuine opportunity to participate in shaping Nigeria’s future. It would mean a government that invests in the Southeast, a society that respects Igbo culture, and a nation that values the unique qualities that the Igbo bring to the Nigerian identity. Ultimately, a Nigeria that embraces “Egbe bere Ugo bere” would be one where all its citizens, whether they be from the North, South, East, or West, can coexist and thrive.

In fact, if Nigeria is to harness its full potential, it must commit to a future where every group is given the space to “perch” and thrive. Embracing the Igbo ethos of “Egbe bere Ugo bere” is not merely an act of cultural respect; it is a blueprint for unity, stability, and sustainable growth. In this shared vision, Nigeria can indeed become a nation that belongs to all.