For almost two weeks, we have witnessed the resurgence of fuel queues across the country.  This of course exposes the never-ending mess in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry that has been with us for more than five decades. The main concern now is that the Dangote Refinery, which had been expected to guarantee fuel availability with all the multiplier effects, may not even change the narrative. Although currently producing diesel, jet fuel and polypropylene, the expectation that the world’s largest single-train petroleum refining facility would begin producing gasoline by next month is being hampered by what the company sees as a conspiracy by the International Oil Companies (IOC) operating in the country to “deliberately and willfully” frustrate its efforts.

Two weeks ago, Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited, Mr Devakumar Edwin, accused the IOCs of hiking the cost of crude above the market price, thereby forcing their refinery to import crude from countries as far as the United States, with its attendant high costs. “It seems that the IOCs’ objective is to ensure that our petroleum refinery fails. It is either they are deliberately asking for a ridiculous/humongous premium or they simply state that crude is not available,” Edwin alleged. “At some point, we paid $6 over and above the market price. This has forced us to reduce our output as well as import crude from countries as far as the US, increasing our cost of production.”

Putting the blame at the doorstep of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) which continues “to issue import licences at the expense of our economy and at the cost of the health of the Nigerians who are exposed to carcinogenic products” Edwin added that the IOCs “are keen on exporting the raw materials to their home countries, creating employment and wealth for their countries, adding to their GDP, and dumping the expensive refined products into Nigeria – thus making us to be dependent on imported products.” And in what can easily be described as an emotional argument, Edwin alleged that these licences “are being issued, in large quantities, to traders who are buying the extremely high sulphur diesel from Russia and dumping it in the Nigerian market.”

Before I come to the substance of my intervention, let me state that I am aware of how Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s business model divides opinions in our country. I have heard the argument that Dangote enjoys enormous government patronage and support for his projects. I have heard about allegations of monopolistic tendencies. And not all these charges can be dismissed as sour grapes. When a man amasses the humongous wealth available to Dangote in our kind of environment, there will always be legitimate questions to ask.  Not only by competitors but also by consumers of his products. But in a nation where the easiest route to stupendous wealth is not production but politics and where people with no visible means of livelihood are billionaires, there is also something to say for those who work very hard by investing in production, creating direct and indirect jobs for hundreds of thousands of our people.

In my tribute to Globacom Chairman, Dr Mike Adenuga (Jnr) when he marked his 70th birthday in April last year, I used the Biblical ‘parable of talents’ to illustrate a point about the distribution of certain opportunities in Nigeria. “The Bible makes it clear that the master understood the capacity of each servant, which explains the disparity in the number of talents he gave them. The Nigerian state might have given either five or two ‘talents’ to a few, but there are thousands of other Nigerian businessmen who have been handed a ‘talent’ each,” I wrote while arguing that the issue should not be about the quantum of ‘talents’ anybody was given but rather in the efforts they put into deploying those ‘talents’ for the advancement of society. I also referenced the poignant admonition by the late South African icon, Mr Nelson Mandela to his country’s music star, Yvonne Chaka Chaka: “It is what we make of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

Now to the main issue. Section 109 (4)(b) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 says that “the supply of crude oil shall be commercially negotiated between the lessee [of upstream petroleum operations] and the crude oil refining licensee, having regard to the prevailing international market price for similar grades of crude oil.” But Dangote Refinery, according to what he told me on Monday, is being asked to negotiate with the marketing arms of lessees which are not domiciled in Nigeria (and at a higher price) for their crude needs. I am not surprised that the IOCs are reluctant to meet whatever may be their domestic obligations to Dangote Refinery. I recall a similar situation, albeit in the power sector, recounted in my book, ‘Power, Politics and Death: A front-row account of Nigeria under President Yar’Adua’. In March 2008, then Shell International CEO, Mr. Jeroen van der Veer, visited Nigeria to outline his company’s apprehensions about the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). I was at the meeting where President Yar’Adua “expressed his displeasure with Shell for its reluctance to make gas available for electricity generation in the country,” I wrote on the challenge of the power sector which remains till date. But we should also be fair to the IOCs.

While the Dangote Refinery may be able to count on the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) for some of its crude requirement, they would need to source the remaining from IOCs and other independent producers operating in Nigeria. Given all the ‘forward and backward’ sales agreements that have been entered into by the NNPCL on behalf of the debt-ridden federal government in recent years, I don’t see where they can get the 650,000 barrels per day that Dangote Refinery needs, even if they want to. And for the IOCs, with my little knowledge of the industry, most of their Special Purchase Agreements (SPAs) are long-term deals. That, of course, is not to say that they may not be working for the refinery to fail.  “Unfortunately, they (IOCs) are either unwilling to sell to us or demand predatory prices. Since refining is a low margin business, the additional premium they put on the crude we buy could easily tilt the economics into loss making territory,” according to an official of the company with whom I spoke yesterday. But the bigger challenge for Dangote Refinery is in the diesel market, principally due to the fallout from the war in Ukraine.

Apparently in frustration, Dangote has been repeating a conventional wisdom he probably wished had come much earlier. In May last year, at the invitation of its Chief Upstream Operating Officer, Mr Bala Wunti, I was in Lagos to speak at the Annual Value Assurance Review (AVAR) of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS). Dangote, who was keynote speaker at the forum, shared some of the challenges he faced while trying to build his refinery. He was compelled to construct his own port at Lekki, had to erect over 200 kilometres of gas pipelines across different projects, built his own power plants, bought his own cranes and mined his own granite etc. But the most interesting aspect of Dangote’s presentation was the anecdote he has rehashed in recent media interviews.

During the 2019 Ramadan, according to Dangote, he was invited to Mecca by the current Saudi Arabia Minister of Investment, Dr Khalid A. Al-Falih, to break fast together. A former CEO of the Saudi Arabian oil company (Saudi Aramco) who later became the chairman of its board of directors before his elevation to cabinet position, Al-Falih was at that period the Minister of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources in Saudi Arabia. “Aliko, I heard that you’re planning to build a refinery, what capacity?” Al-Falih reportedly asked him. “I said 650,000. He kept quiet for a while and then said, ‘You know, just about 120 kilometres from Mecca, we are building one and I think I would like you to go and have a look. We, in Saudi Aramco, are facing a lot of challenges and, we are proceeding with it, but my advice to you is not to do it because normally, refineries are built by major oil corporations or sovereign countries’.” To this, Dangote said he replied: “Your Excellency, unfortunately, we have already started. So, I am not looking for advice.”

I am sure Dangote would wish he had met Al-Falih while still conceiving the idea of building a mega refinery in Nigeria. He would have weighed his options. Now that he is in the middle of the ocean, the choice before him is either to swim or sink. The pertinent question is, should Dangote Refinery be seeking special dispensation from the federal government? This is quite tricky if we must create a level-playing field but I am also aware that some countries have imposed domestic crude supply obligation to support local refining. In 2008, for instance, Argentina implemented export restrictions on crude oil to ensure sufficient supply for domestic consumption. Indonesia, once a significant exporter of crude oil, similarly imposed export restrictions in 2011 to prioritize domestic supply and support its refining industry.

But the real challenge is whether Nigeria even has the capacity to do that, assuming the authorities want to. With the extraordinary amount in ‘cost recovery’ to cover up for the ‘subsidy is gone’ presidential proclamation, the industrial scale oil theft by sundry criminal cartels that ensures we cannot even meet OPEC quota, and the lack of investment in the sector that has brought oil production down while many IOCs exit, the NNPCL is challenged on several fronts. But with a 20 percent stake in Dangote Refinery, authorities in the sector should sit down with the company to resolve whatever the challenges are.

Last week, Dangote was in the media for what became a famous quote: “Import dependence is equivalent to importing poverty and exporting jobs. No power, no growth, no prosperity. Similarly, no affordable financing, no growth, no prosperity. There is no industrialization without protection. Ignoring these facts is what gives rise to insecurity, banditry, kidnapping and abject poverty.” But when I spoke to him on Monday, he said the area highlighted in the media was the preface to his presentation last Tuesday at the 2024 Nigeria Manufacturers’ Summit in Abuja. He sent me the entire speech, which I consider quite revealing.

In the presentation, Dangote spoke to the challenge of manufacturing and industrialisation in Nigeria. “Post independence and indeed until the late 1980’s we had a thriving and consistently growing and increasingly diversifying manufacturing industry. Our industrialization policies were well thought out and diligently implemented,” Dangote said while reeling out the various industries in the country at the time and the value chains created. “Even in the Petroleum Industry, the policy of value addition to local raw materials was actively pursued during this period. In fact, the main thrust of Nigeria’s Third National Development Plan 1975-80 was the elimination of fuel scarcity. The first crude oil refinery was established in Port Harcourt in 1965, followed by Warri in 1978 and Kaduna in 1980. A second refinery was commissioned in Port Harcourt in 1989. Since then, no further capacity has been added. On the contrary all the three plants were allowed to steadily decline, forcing the country to resort to embarrassing import dependency.”

Apart from a focus on local value addition, “the earlier industrial policies also encouraged and supported local entrepreneurs to go into manufacturing leading to the emergence of our trail blazers in the sector such as the Odutolas, the Adebowales, the Adedoyins, the Aminu Dantatas, the Isyaka Rabius, the Chin Okekes, Razak Okoyas, the Onafowokans of Ladgroup and others,” Dangote argued. The landscape today, of course, is different as Dangote listed Steyr in Bauchi, Leyland in lbadan, Anamco in Enugu, Fiat in Kano, Volkswagen in Lagos, Peugeot in Kaduna, Osogbo, Delta, Jos & Katsina steel mills, Jebba paper mill, etc. as some of the joint venture businesses that have “since joined the graveyard of dead manufacturing concerns.”

Claiming to be aware “that the Bretton Woods Institutions have confused some of our economists about the word ‘protection’ to the extent that some of them think it is a blasphemy word that should not be uttered in good company”, Dangote then posed the question: “But how did China, Korea, India and several other Asian countries emerge as strong economies and a threat to the existing world economic order?”

To Dangote, the way forward is to encourage manufacturing through backward integration, citing his own example. “In 2023, Dangote Cement alone paid more taxes into the coffers of the government than the entire banking industry,” he said before making what appears like a response to his critics. “It is also often suggested that protecting your industries leads to monopoly! Again, this is false. You create the environment for monopoly when new investors are not willing or not allowed to invest in the industry. In asking for protection, I am NOT asking the government to prevent others from investing in the sector or industry. Quite the opposite, I am recommending that government policy should support and protect existing industries so that others will know that their investment will also be protected.”

I am sure that some of his competitors would counter that argument. But whatever anybody may feel about Dangote, the issues surrounding the refinery are beyond his person. These are issues that relate to the fundamentals of our economy with serious national security implications. The sheer magnitude of the facility and the expected trickle-down effect in terms of job creation cannot be downplayed. With an integrated power plant within the refinery which has a capacity of 435mw, exceeding the total power requirement of Ibadan Distribution Company (Disco), the Dangote Refinery remains the single most significant piece of infrastructure development Nigeria has witnessed in recent years. It must not be allowed to fail!

 • You can follow me on my X, (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com   

The Community Court of Justice, ECOWAS, On July 10, 2024, ruled that the Federal Republic of Nigeria violated the human rights of Obianuju Catherine Udeh and two others. The Court found Nigeria in breach of Articles 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, specifically pertaining to the right to life, security of person, freedom of expression, assembly and association, prohibition of torture, duty of the state to investigate, and the right to effective remedy.

The Applicants, Obianuju Catherine Udeh, Perpetual Kamsi and Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka alleged that these violations have occurred during the peaceful protests at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos State on October 20 and 21, 2020.

Justice Koroma Mohamed Sengu, the Judge Rapporteur, who delivered the judgment said that the Court dismissed the allegation that the right to life as guaranteed under Article 4 of the ACPHR is violated. However, he said that the Respondent must pay each Applicant Two Million Naira as compensation for violations of their security of person, prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association, duty to investigate human rights violations, and right to effective remedy.

Additionally, the Respondent must adhere to its obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, investigate and prosecute its agents responsible for these violations, and report to the Court within six months on the measures taken to implement this judgment.

The Applicants alleged that during the peaceful protests against the SARS Unit of the Nigerian Police Force at Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos State, on October 20 and 21, 2020, the Respondent committed several human rights violations. Triggered by the alleged killing of Daniel Chibuike, the protests aimed to address police harassment and brutality. The First Applicant’s claims include that the soldiers shot protesters, resulting in deaths and injuries, which she live-streamed, subsequently receiving threatening phone calls that forced her into hiding and eventual asylum. The Second Applicant, responsible for protesters' welfare, describes how soldiers began shooting after a power cut, leading to her hospitalisation due to police tear gas. The Third Applicant recounted narrowly escaping being shot, observing the refusal of ambulance entry by soldiers, and later witnessing inadequate hospital care for victims.

She argued that she and her colleagues took over the victims' care and she faced ongoing threats and surveillance, believed to be by Respondent's agents. The Applicants sought declaratory reliefs and compensation from the Court for these violations.

The Respondent denied all claims made by the Applicants, asserting that the protesters unlawfully assembled at Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020, under the guise of protesting against SARS. The Respondent also maintained that its agents followed strict rules of engagement and did not shoot or kill protesters. It argued that the First Applicant incited the crowd by playing music and using her Instagram page to stir disaffection against law enforcement, who were targeting escapee members of Boko Haram and bandits. The Respondent contended that the Second Applicant's provision of logistics and welfare support indicated her support for the violent protest. It claimed that soldiers were present to restore peace until the police arrived, denying any harm inflicted on protesters and the refusal of ambulance access. The Respondent also denied that the Third Applicant’s presence was peaceful, asserting it was meant to escalate violence. It argued that the treatment and care of the injured were managed by the Lagos State government and submits that the Applicants have not provided credible evidence to support their claims, or the reliefs sought.

In its judgment, the Court found there was no violation of the right to life as the Applicants filed their claims in vitam. However, the Court held that several articles of the ACHPR were breached by the Respondent, which occasioned fundamental breaches of human rights violation therein.

Furthermore, the Court declared that the Applicants were denied the right to an effective remedy.

The Court ordered that the Respondent make reparations to the Applicants for the violation of their fundamental human rights.

Also on the three-member panel were Honourable Justices Dupe Atoki, presiding, and Ricardo Claúdio Monteiro Gonçalves.

Wole Soyinka has been hoary since I came to the knowledge of his works and his activism many years ago. Hoariness, for me, is not a feature of age or greying hair. On the contrary, I attach a certain level of exceptional venerableness to the very figure of WS. He possesses a dateless significance for me that surpasses the depth of his literary works to encompass his many-sided contributions to the idea of the Nigerian postcolony. I dare say that Wole Soyinka’s status as a phenomenal literary person assumes an even greater depth because of his very presence and attachment to Nigeria. All great writers, from Wiliam Shakespeare to Ngugi wa Thiong’o, derive their greatness from the literary and non-literary articulation of their disaffection with their context of being. Wole Soyinka is not different. From The Swamp Dwellers in 1958 to Thus Spake Orunmila in 2011; from The Interpreters in 1965 to Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (2021); and from The Man Died in 1972 to Climate of Fear (2005), Soyinka’s plays, novels and essays details—in stark literary sublimity—the terrors, ambiguity and possibilities of the Nigerian postcolonial predicament. 

Nigeria provided the fecund grounds for the outflowing of the creative mind of a writer who loves his country and wants to do right by her in a mode of patriotism that the country finds combative. Writers are strange beings. They are alchemists. This is what Virginia Wolff says, “Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.” They possess the capacity, usually unavailable to the rest of us, to see into their own souls, the souls of the nation, and the reality of other people’s souls in travails. And then they generate a creative combustion that fires all our imagination about who we are, where we are, what our contexts are making of us, and what we in turn can transform our context into. When WS penned that most famous of his quotes, “justice is the first condition of humanity,” he was generating a philosophical space that complements his literary brilliance. Only few writers combine sublime literariness and philosophical brilliance. And that is to be expected because, as Quentin Tarantino, the American filmmaker once said, “A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth.” 

But then, while writers might nudge us towards the truth, philosophers insist on unraveling its depth. We remember the conversation between Pontius Pilate and Jesus before he was crucified. When Pilate asked if Jesus was a king, he responded, among other things, that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Pontius Pilate then threw that philosophical question at him: What is truth? But he was too impatient to wait for an answer. The answer is however still floating and amorphous either in the philosophers’ rarefied epistemological discourses or even worse within the dissident space of social media. Indeed, rather than wrapping up the discourses on what truth means, we have become burdened again with a further conceptual complexity: post-truth! With post-truth, signaled by Donald Trump’s alacrity in denying facts, we now arrive at the diminution of objective facts in favor of sentimentalism and emotion. And writers and activists like Wole Soyinka are now found therefore in the maelstrom of social media antagonism, especially around issues of truth, nation-building, patriotism and disinformation. 

WS has noted his aversion for social media and the deep ignorance that it wears like a garland. That chaotic Gen Z space is strange to most people of my age, and should be horrific for a nonagenarian who grew up on the value of ọmọlúwàbì and respectful human relations. But what is even more abject is the level of disinformation, vitriol and banality that contend for virality. In fact, one can say that the desperation for a viral message far surpasses the desire for cogency, objectivity and even patriotism. For a writer that values truth and justice, this should indeed be a tragedy of a huge proportion especially for a state that needs the energy of its youth population for development purposes. 

Wole Soyinka is the very definition of a patriot, the type that Nigeria needs; the type that has the courage to be a dissident—to love one’s nation sufficiently to disagree with her. And in novels, after plays after essays, WS reveals that he would keep being vigilant on the rampart of nation building. Let me attempt to recreate a mapping of Soyinka’s patriotic trajectory to make a larger point. In 1967, Wole Soyinka took a dare to head to Enugu to meet with Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, the then military governor of the Eastern region. It was a most dangerous mission, more dangerous than holding up the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Ibadan to replace the speech of Chief Ladoke Akintola who was already expecting his victory in the 1965 election. On this national scale, the stakes were much higher than what the western region could throw at him. He was so adamant in his belief that Nigeria should not go to war that he thought meeting with the military governor could still serve as a last-ditch act. He was not afraid of being branded a felon for the love of country. This, in any context, translates into the willingness to die for one’s country through a path that challenges that country to do better.     

Soyinka’s entire literary credentials have been dedicated to the task of salvaging the Nigerian state and its proclivity for failures and destructiveness. WS once characterized himself as an “Afro-realist”: “I’m an Afro-realist. I take what comes, and I do my best to affect what is unacceptable in society.” This is the whole essence of his literary realism—directly representing Nigeria and the experiences of her citizens and leadership. And from the 1960s when he took up political activism, it would seem that WS would prefer to actively intervene in his own literary representation of Nigeria’s postcolonial predicaments by forcing truth into the open. It was not just enough to speak truth to power through literary characters and characterizations. 

Now in the age of the internet and social media, Nigeria’s woes have become drowned by the vociferous cacophonies of those—government and citizens, detractors and patriots—who deploy information to misinform and disinform. No wonder Wole Soyinka has become a subject matter of social media hazing—he now has to fight his patriotic battles at many fronts against a government that he keeps challenging to do better and a horde of uncouth and unteachable youths who do not even understand what it means to be willing to die for one’s country. What would a nonagenarian activist be thinking at this late in his years? What reminiscences, nostalgia, painful memories and latent possibilities collide in his mind? Are there regrets lurking somewhere about what could have been done that were not because of the single-minded attachment to Nigeria’s future? 

Let me end this piece with a recollection and a recommendation. When the late Prof. Ojetunji Aboyade was to be buried, Wole Soyinka was there. And he lamented about Nigeria and her heroes: “Nigeria kills us slowly; one by one, but surely. If Oje had given less of himself to a thankless nation, he would he alive today.” The irony of that lamentation is that Nigeria is still killing her heroes, like Wole Soyinka slowly and surely, and yet—like Ojetunji Aboyade—Wole Soyinka has refused to give less of himself. Our own venerated WS has commenced his earthly home run, and he does not need an elaborate posthumous pretenses and false affectation. All he wants would be to begin to see some significant and genuine move towards freedom and good governance. And the starting point would be to reflect on the coincidence between truth, information and governance in Nigeria. Bad governance is founded on untruth and political expediencies that sacrifices the national interest to the whims of a selected few. Good governance commences from a genuine commitment to objective facts—first, the fact of where we are and how we have missed it; second, facts about our own complicity in our own underdevelopment; third, facts about what needed to be done, sacrifices to be made, structures to be built and pulled down, values to be erected. One immediately sees the correlation between democratic governance, the press as the fourth estate of the realm and the commitment to human right which Wole Soyinka is passionate about. Nigeria needs to rethink its freedom of information and of the press as the sine qua non to a robust public/national space of free discourses and discussion about the future of a country that will not be allowed to degenerate into a simulacra of social media chaos and disinformation. 

For relentlessly believing that a better Nigeria is possible, Wole Soyinka at 90 deserves the benefit of a commitment to the fulfilment of that expectation of a better Nigeria. And he deserves a turn in that direction while he is still fighting for it.    

We have not heard the last of the ongoing protests in Kenya against a new finance law enacted by the country’s legislature. The youths opposed the law because it will overtax the already impoverished Kenyans who are enduring high inflation and general economic distress. The president was very heady and even threatened to arrest the protesting youths. In the crackdown, the police shot dead more than 9 protesters. The youths became irate and destroyed property worth millions of dollars. The alarmed president has sued for peace, discarded the finance law, cut down presidential budgetary allocations, including those of the office of the first lady, and abolishing about 47 agencies to cut costs. But the youths are not appeased. They have asked the president to resign. The frightened and chastened president have been on twitter space to win hearts and minds. Protest continues and the Kenyan economy worsens with a negative rating because of its fiscal crisis and uncertainties.

But the crisis was unavoidable. The president did not need to be as mulish as he was. The dogmatism was unnecessary. Many put it to the pressure from the international financial institutions that have made Kenya a poster child of market-oriented reforms. It is true that Kenya suffers much fiscal instability and would need a lot of extra revenue to cope with dwindling revenue. But it needs not be reckless and insensitive in pushing through the bill. Kenya like Nigeria and the rest of the developing world are constantly barraged to implement market-oriented policies like removal of subsidies on essential products that further diminish the wellbeing of their already impoverished population. Like in the 1980s when trade deficit and fiscal instability pushed these countries to swallow the entire Structural Adjustment Programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank without adjusting them to the realities of their countries, today’s leaders in the distressed south are proceeding in error in focusing on tax and subsidy removal without considering the abysmal levels of human development and welfare in their countries.

Nigeria could have been in the same social turmoil as Kenya but for some different social dynamics. On social media, Nigerian youth have been praising and admiring Kenyans for their doggedness and effectiveness in forcing down the overconfident president and are wishing for another opportunity to prove their mettle. Arguably, Nigerians are suffering as much if not more than Kenyans. Nigerians could re-enact Kenya if socioeconomic realities remain this way and leaders fail to rise to responsible leadership. Nigerian leaders need to pay attention to the crisis in Kenya and learn how to head off such massive protests in Nigeria. To do so, they need to learn the lessons in the crisis. What are the lessons in the Kenyan crisis? I think about four such lessons.

Government is over, Governance has come:

The first lesson to learn from Kenya is that we have come to the end of government. We are now in the era of governance. That sounds like nonsensical. How can government be over when we are daily confronted with the intrusion of the behemoth? What is the difference between government and governance? But truly government is over. We are now in the era of governance. The difference may be subtle, but it is consequential. Government means hierarchy, force, and control. Governance means network, collaboration, and persuasion. The end of government is tied to the End of Power, as Moses Naim puts it in his book by the same title. According to the foreign policy expert, globalization and technological innovation have unsettled the traditional domination of power. From government house to boardroom to churches, power is no longer what it used to be. We are now in the state of powerlessness where political potentates can no longer how their ways. ‘Powerlessness’ in the sense of the end of the Weberian concept of state as the Leviathan who can do and undo, foists upon political authorities the imperative to engage humbly and constructively with citizens. To borrow, Amartya Sen’s phrase, states should be argumentative, not authoritarian, or even authoritative. Political authorities must come down from their high horses, engage citizens and compete for their hearts and minds.

The end of power goes with what Thomas Friedman in his book, The World is Flat, calls flatness. The flat world is a world where distance and disadvantages of economic divergences have been destroyed through information technology and social media such that everyone is empowered to plug and play. A necessary corollary to digital empowerment is that angry youths are superempowered to build mass movements to express their anger more effectively. The social media has enabled the mobilization of anger and made its expression damaging. States are now more vulnerable to social expression of discontent than before. End SAR and now Kenya Spring speak about the changed landscape of political power. You cannot disregard the voice of angry citizens because you are government. You must respond quick and smart otherwise you will lose credibility and risk global political and economic downgrades. Political regimes are now vulnerable to social sentiments and uncertainties. As Friedman notes in the earlier book, The Lexus and Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, nations are now hooked on a straitjacket. In the past, killing 100 protesters will not undermine the political power of an African dictator. He will shrug it off and the news will not make it to any CNN. Today, killing two protesters will be a recurring news on CNN and BBC and will receive thousands of comments on social media platforms. In days the behemoth will quiver. The interconnectedness of the world and international financial institutions’ responsivity to viral narratives make today’s governments vulnerable to social strife.

The balance of power has largely tilted away from governments and towards citizens and non-governmental groups. The reality is that governments have become weaker as citizens and groups have gained power relative to government because of the disruptions of technology and social media. We now live with the reality that governments across the world find it difficult to overcome terrorists, even the most rudimentary like Boko Haram, because of the growing asymmetricity of conflicts. This is more so for African governments further assailed by growing illegitimacy. It is highly pretentious for these governments to act as if they are all-powerful. It is patently foolish for them to implement harsh and disfavoured reform policies in their countries without striving for stronger coalition with civic leaders. The era of strong men and strong governments of the SAP reforms are no longer with us. We are in an era of governance, not government, where smart power through credible and smart communication is replacing hard power. Ruto would have done better if he engaged in twitter spaces with his citizens as he is doing now before taking the bill to parliament. The result would have been different if he had paused and engaged with twitter spaces with the youths of Kenya when the bill elicited massive protests. That singular gesture would have prevented the current carnage and portents of fiscal collapse.

Beware of Ideology Masked as Economics:

President Ruto pushed the finance bill because he was told Kenya had no alternative than to push through fiscal severity despite the resentment and suffering of the people. It is called in the industry of policy reform ‘shock therapy’. It sounds familiar. In the days of East Europe’s transition to western oriented market economy there was a lot of talks about shock therapy and what some have called the ‘dictatorship of no alternative’. It was Margreth Thatcher, another strong leader who arguably damaged the economic fortunes of his country through a mindless pro-market fundamentalism that resulted in destruction of the social protection system of the Post-war era, who minted the phrase “There is No Alternative (TINA)’. But there is always an alternative as Professor Aluko reminded General Babangida in the days of SAP debate.

African leaders need a crash course on managing economic development in the age of deceptive economic ideology. They need to wise up as Asian leaders who pragmatically steered their economies outside the straitjacket of the American Business Model, alias ‘Washington Consensus’. IMF and the World Bank did not advise Ruto to begin his quest for fiscal stability by first cutting down on costs of government so as to generate public trust before cutting through livelihood. They did not remind him that the Office of the First Lady is actually dispensable in the face of worsening fiscal crisis. By raising tax and eliminating critical subsidies are always the low-hanging fruits.

We cannot make light the fiscal crisis that countries across are going through. The crisis requires drastic and difficult actions. But beyond ideology, the first to fall should not social welfare. It should be the last and only after the government have eliminated the waste that is associated with elitism and patrimonial politics. We can solve the crisis through a more effective strategy that does not involve the destructive dynamics of market fundamentalism. East Asian economies succeeded not because they embraced the whole doctrine of free market. They succeeded because they avoided ideology and embraced pragmatism. China has a long history of false steps, even up to the period of Mao Zedong and the cultural revolution. The Great Leap Forward set China back, especially with the collectivization of agriculture, resulting in mass death and failed industrialization. Deng Xiaoping changed the game. He initiated a gradual, programmatic and sensible reform that started with returning the land to dispossessed peasants with guaranteed tenure to encourage irrigation, higher seedlings and extension services. Xiaoping tracked the benefit of increased productivity in agriculture into gradual industrialization. At a point he started to open China to western technology and capital, but in a controlled and strategic manner using special economic zones.

China abhorred the rigid ideologies of communism and the laisse faire theory of neoliberalism and embraced pragmatism. This approach is exemplified by the famous saying of Deng Xiaoping that it does not matter whether my cat is red or white if it catches rat.   China followed the example of Japan and South Korea where pragmatic leaders like General Park wisely implemented transformative reform of agriculture and deliberate but systematic protection and nurturing of infant industry to transition their countries to industrial economies. In these countries, pragmatic leaders enhanced efficiency not by surrendering to the free trade, but rather using export discipline to improve productivity. The secret of the success of the East Asian countries is the pragmatic insight that what will ensure industrialization is to protect and nurture infant industry through export discipline. Export promotion worked where import substitution failed in Africa.

China and the rest recognized the pitfall of crony capitalism. When they raise tariff to protect infant industries, they forced those industries to perform according to export benchmarks. Those who failed lost the fiscal and policy support. By so doing they chose winners and losses, not through political patronage, but through the discipline of international trade. This is the model of a development state; a government, as Stephen Cohen and J Bradford DeLong in their book, Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy, “that signalled the direction, cleared the way, set up the path, and – when needed- provided the means”.

Nigerian, nay African, leaders need to embrace pragmatism not fundamentalism in economic policymaking. The plumbline should be whether the policies would not undermine household income and further destroy the long-term productivity of the economy by eroding the human and social capital necessary for transformative economic development. The lesson from Kenya is that it pays more to listen to the people than to the bureaucrats in Washington institutions with no skins in the game of economic survival in Africa.

July 4, 2024, was anticipated to be a pivotal moment, potentially reshaping the United Kingdom’s political landscape and future direction as the general elections were held.

The hot race was among key parties and leaders including the Conservative Party led by the incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Labour Party led by Sir Keir Starmer, Liberal Democrats led by Ed Davey, Scottish National Party led by Humza Yousaf and the Green Party Co-led by Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay.

The main issues for debate were the economy and the cost-of-living crisis, inflation, and economic recovery post-COVID-19; healthcare and the NHS funding and reform; climate change and the impact of environmental policies and green energy initiative; the lingering Brexit debate and future relationship with the EU; and finally social issues around immigration, education, and housing.

There was also the issue of the incumbent Conservative Party leader, Rishi Sunak’s performance as PM, the Labour Party’s strategy to regain power after a decade in opposition as well as the influence of smaller parties or “Third Force” in Nigeria speak and potential for coalition governments.

A Comparative Overview

Electoral processes in the UK and Nigeria differ significantly in terms of structure, procedure, and political context.

The UK operates a Parliamentary system, and general elections are held every five years but can be called earlier. The voting age is 18 years and older and voter registration is automatic and mandatory. Campaign finance is highly regulated with spending limits and public transparency.

Voter turnout and participation is typically around 60-70 per cent with high levels of political awareness and media coverage. Key issues and campaigns are often around economic policies, including high cost of living, taxation, public spending, health and NHS reform, Brexit and climate change.

Election administration in the UK is managed by the Electoral Commission, an independent body that oversees elections and regulates political finance. Security is generally low with low levels of election-related violence, limited use of technology and voting is predominantly paper-based.

Voting takes place seamlessly from 7am to 10pm in polling stations situated in schools, community centres, churches etc. Paper ballots with a single ‘X’ mark next to the chosen candidate represent a vote. Post-election, government formation is seamless and quick, the party with the majority of seats in the House of Commons forms the government.

Nigeria on the other hand operates a Presidential system of governance held every four years. The voting age is 18 years and older and requires proactive registration by voters. While campaign finance is regulated, enforcement and transparency issues exist.

The major parties are the All Progressives Congress, People’s Democratic Party and the Labour Party. Voter turnout is lower at around 30-40 per cent. Political engagement is varied, with significant regional differences in voter engagement and participation.

The key issues are around security with the Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, and regional conflicts taking centre stage. Others are the economy, diversification, unemployment, and poverty alleviation; corruption and governance reforms and critical infrastructure including roads, electricity, and public services in education, health and water. Elections are often marked by ethno-religious sentiments and voter apathy.

The Independent National Electoral Commission oversees elections. Security is always very high because of high levels of election-related violence and security concerns. Technology plays a significant role with the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voter registration and results transmission, but challenges remain.

Voting hours are from 8am to 2pm but voters in line by 2pm can still vote and it can take a whole day to vote. Schools, public buildings, open spaces serve as polling stations and paper ballots are used with voters marking their choice with thumbprints. The President is elected separately from the legislature and transition to power can be contentious, marked with disputes and legal challenges around vote rigging, widespread election violence and disenfranchisement.

Both countries have unique electoral processes shaped by their distinct political histories, cultural contexts, and governance structures. The UK’s elections are characterized by stability and regulatory oversight, while Nigeria’s elections are marked by significant challenges related to security, voter turnout, and transparency.

Why Can’t This Happen In Nigeria?

For many Africans who voted for the first time in this general election, it was a culture shock. Within months of taking up residence in the UK legally, you will most likely get a notification from the electoral registration office for your local council to register. You will have the option to register online or fill out a form as well as the option to vote by post if you are unavailable on election day.

On July 4, the entire voting process took only a few minutes without any tech enabled device to verify voter identity save for a poll card or a government issued ID – no special ‘PVC’ or ‘BVAS’. There was no public holiday, schools, offices and markets were open, transport services moved freely without restrictions, there were no thugs, no violence, no gun totting military or police personnel scaring the citizenry.

On the contrary here in Nigeria and across many African countries, manipulation of election results, voter intimidation, and other forms of fraud undermine the integrity of elections, discourage certain groups from voting and can skew election outcomes and undermine democracy.

The spread of false information misleads voters and influence election results. In many regions, elections are marred by violence and intimidation, deterring voter participation and skewing results. Gerrymandering, unequal access to voting facilities, and other structural issues distort representation and affect the fairness of elections.

So, elections are currently the way they are in Nigeria because the political class want it that way. The easier it is for citizens to participate in the electoral and democratic process, the less they can perpetuate themselves in power.

Promoting Democratic Elections

Elections are the cornerstone of democracy, the primary mechanism through which citizens express their will and hold their leaders accountable. Sadly, elections in many African nations including Nigeria are conducted like war leaving many citizens disenfranchised and disillusioned.

Elections ensure that the government reflects the will of the people. Citizens vote for representatives who they believe will best serve their interests. By participating in free and fair elections, citizens confer legitimacy on their government – a crucial requirement for maintaining political stability and public trust in the system.

Government must ensure that all eligible citizens have the right to vote without discrimination in a safe and dignified manner. This includes provisions for voter registration and access to polling places and the process should be transparent to ensure public confidence with clear procedures for voting, counting, and reporting results. A healthy democracy requires competition among multiple political parties and candidates with genuine choices among contenders.

To promote democratic elections, electoral commissions must be fully independent bodies to oversee elections and ensure their integrity and impartiality. Secondly, educating citizens about their rights and the electoral process encourages informed participation. Thirdly, continuous evaluation and reform of electoral laws and practices can address emerging challenges and improve the system including the simplification of voter registration processes and ensuring the security of voters is crucial.

Finally, given our numbers and peculiarities, leveraging technology, such as electronic voting systems and biometric registration, can enhance the efficiency and security of elections, though it also introduces new risks that must be managed.

Congratulations and all the best to the Labour Party as they steer the UK to a brighter future and may Nigeria learn from this experience.

Hollywood loves a sequel, so it is fitting that the current US presidential contest is a repeat of the bitter 2020 slugfest.

The recent presidential debate between Joe Biden, the incumbent 81-year-old Democrat, and Donald Trump, his 78-year-old Republican challenger, has been widely portrayed as a contest between a geriatric octogenarian drifting gently into senility, and a hate-spewing lunatic recently convicted for using campaign funds to pay a porn star hush money.

How has it come to this in the world’s richest country, with its dynamic innovators and elite universities?

Though fewer than half of Americans view either candidate favourably, much of the US “liberal” corporate media focused on Biden’s apparently disastrous debate performance, with the New York Times and CNN’s talking-heads calling for his resignation. Several senior Democrats continue to voice discontent.

In stark contrast, conservative media and Republican politicians have doggedly defended Trump, showing the ruthless discipline that has enabled them to reverse decades of progressive legislation.

Astonishingly, centre-left critics were surprised by Biden’s lack of mental acuity during the debate. Yet just this year he has verbally mistaken former German chancellor Angela Merkel for the dead former chancellor Helmut Kohl; erroneously referred to French President Emmanuel Macron as the dead Gallic president Francois Mitterand; and mistakenly described Egypt’s leader as the “president of Mexico”. In 2023, Biden stated that Russia was losing the “war in Iraq” and noted that “over 100 Americans” had died of Covid-19 (the actual figure is 1.2-million).

In 2022, Biden called out onstage to Republican congresswoman Jackie Walorski before being reminded that the legislator had died a month earlier. Critics of his debate performance also appear to have ignored the recent description of Biden by special counsel Robert Hur — who cleared the president of charges of mishandling classified documents — as “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”.

Trump has similarly experienced his own “senior citizen moments”. He verbally confused Biden with former president Barack Obama seven times, while also mistakenly referring to his Republican rival, Nikki Haley, as former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The contestants pointedly did not shake hands before or after this presidential debate, underlining the lack of civility that now pervades US politics. Biden was widely portrayed as hoarse and halting, while Trump was depicted as fierce and forceful. The president sought to paint his opponent as a danger to democracy, architect of the Supreme Court decision to deny women the right to abortions, and a climate change denier. He wrongly claimed to have inherited 9% inflation from Trump instead of 1.4%.

Trump was characteristically full of bombast and bluster, lying brazenly throughout the debate. He falsely accused Biden of letting criminal illegal migrants into the country, erroneously claiming these migrants are stealing jobs from blacks and Hispanics.

He xenophobically described Biden as a China-funded “Manchurian candidate” and a “bad Palestinian” who had failed to fully back Israel’s military assault on Gaza. Trump further alleged that Biden had “encouraged” Russia to attack Ukraine, strangely accused Democrats of backing abortions after babies had been born, downplayed the attack on the Capitol by his supporters in 2021, and refused to say unequivocally whether he would accept the result of November’s election.

Given Biden’s frequent memory lapses before this debate the panicked reaction of his supporters to his lacklustre performance is somewhat disingenuous. I watched the full debate having factored in Biden’s weaknesses, and felt he actually remembered many facts and landed some good punches.

Trump certainly did not win this debate on substance, and if the ability to appear mentally fitter than your opponent while spewing bile and being economical with the truth is enough to triumph, this is a rather low bar for a country that likes to pride itself on being the “greatest nation on earth”.

• Adebajo is professor and senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship.

Yes, take a glimpse at this photograph. You would probably imagine, momentarily, a model among the bevy paraded by, say, the popular ritzy GQ magazine.

If so, well, you just fell for a disguise.

Now, take a closer look. Strip that bucket hat and you will behold, in its luxuriant bloom, that familiar hoary mane complemented by no less immaculate goatee to which folks around the world have long grown accustomed as evocative of no other than Kongi in any gathering, anywhere.

Today, it took more than “yabis” (teasing) to extract a few seconds from Professor Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka and get him to shed his accustomed stern mien and momentarily act a model, one hand fashionably in the pocket, on a North African soil. But without the usual preening or sashaying of the runway.

That fleeting GQ moment was, by the way, captured in Fes (Morocco) in June 2023 by this writer with a camera phone as an emergency “paparazzi”, after sidestepping a bit to get a perfect angle for the lens against blinding lights by the elementary law of photography. Amid sustained volleys of “yabis” by an old disciple, Sir K (Kunle Ajibade) alongside Mrs Rakiya Dhikru-Yagboyaju and Ahmed Garba-Gombe who formed Kongi’s entourage while guests of King Mohammed VI of Morocco as part of activities to mark Morocco’s 28th Book Fair last year.

The location was the vast lounge of Nejjarine Ensemble, ornate with its Oriental mosaic and sculptures, perhaps the most remarkable among the kaleidoscope of historical monuments and buildings long classified by UNESCO as world heritage sites in Fes. Outside this sprawling palace (built in 1711 by Sultan Moulay Ismail), history cast a rather long, sepulchral shadow on the forecourt under the mild pre-summer sun.

Indeed, hours earlier in faraway Rabat, no sooner had Prof materialised in a rare white linen shirt from the elevator into a waiting party of his entourage (from Nigeria) and Moroccan officials at the lobby of the exquisite Sofitel Hotel than Sir K lobbed the first “yabis” by joking if Prof was already considering career switch from literature to modelling.
Of course, an inexhaustible bag of humour himself, Prof absorbed as much as he dispensed withering ripostes that sometimes left us breathless with tearful laughter. Sometimes, his humour was self-deprecatory. Like his recall of once being made to repeat a passage — and again — through the scanner at an international airport abroad, until a further meticulous search by apprehensive security agents revealed that the trigger of the persistently treacherous alarm bell was not more than the phial of granulated native African pepper Prof habitually carries around to spice his meals at Oyinbo restaurants.

Even more extraordinary was Kongi’s undiminished agility and razor-sharp sense of recall at such an advanced age. Eager to show off their abundant tourism treasures, the Moroccan officials had taken us to many high and low locations. Not once did Kongi, barely a month short of his 89th birthday then, appear to have missed a single breath or betray the slightest hint of weariness over an otherwise loaded itinerary.

Indeed, something seemed to have moved a day earlier in Rabat (Morocco’s political capital) when news circulated that the literary eagle had landed in Casablanca (the commercial nerve centre), straight from the U.S. (We had flown from Lagos and arrived in Rabat hours before Kongi).

For the four days we spent in Morocco, there was always a scramble by local folks to see or come near the first black Nobel laureate in Literature who, according to the Swedish Academy, “with poetic overtones, fashioned the drama of existence.” The one who, with the sheer power of the written word, had achieved world celebrity. The one whose voice forever instils mortal fear in the hearts of tyrants and bigots everywhere.

Words also reached our mercurial Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a bosom friend of the King of Morocco, who was also in Rabat around the same time. The Nigerian ambassador to Morocco, Mansur Nuhu Bamali (now late), brought His Royal Majesty to see Kongi on arrival at Sofitel. Both had a lengthy private chat on the plum couch in the lounge.

As for the occasional bucket hat, those who know will reveal a darker story. In the 90s, it served Kongi abroad as a disguise against Abacha’s paid killers after being publicly charged with treasonable felony in Nigeria on account of his pivotal role in the pro-democracy struggle after the June 12 annulment at grave personal risk. Indeed, throughout Nigeria’s postcolonial history, only a few — if any — could be said to have been as invested in pursuing the common purpose as Kongi. (A fact now lost on some of our millennials and Gen Z utterly bereft of a sense of history and quickly recruited as online trolls for puerile graffiti).

But in the latter years, that bucket hat has evolved into a civil utility: either as a prop to sneak into a targeted tavern undetected or simply evade a never-ending stream of autograph hunters and hustlers for photo ops.
Two Mercedes limousines were provided for the journey to Fes. But before take-off, Kongi asked I “abandon Kunle and others” in the second car and keep him company in his.

For the about two-hour trip, it felt invigorating to sit next to and converse non-stop with arguably one of the world’s greatest minds in the last century, the monarch of the language himself, famously described as “the conscience of the African continent.”

Indeed, as Prof enters the nonagenarian club this week, there is no doubt that what obsesses him remains a fierce commitment to the values of tolerance, justice, good governance and compassion for the vulnerable in Nigeria and everywhere. Plus, an advocacy for youth empowerment in the political economy where gerontocrats seem reluctant to let go.

The said linen shirt he “premiered” in Morocco was, in fact, a gift from a young Nigerian fashion designer. He chose to “launch” it before a foreign audience to help promote Nigerian talent.

To the far younger ones like yours sincerely, Prof’s father-figure stature naturally makes him a guardian. But despite the vast age difference, Kongi also relates to you as a friend with uncommon solidarity and loyalty.

That spirit was on display when this writer turned 50 in March 2023. He was not in the country when “OPEC President” (Tunji Bello) hosted a dinner in my honour in Lagos, attended by the likes of Aremo Segun Osoba, Pa Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi and several media heavyweights.

On returning to Nigeria two weeks later, Kongi chose to host a lavish luncheon for his younger disciple at one exclusive “hideout” in Ikeja GRA. T.B. was excused because of Muslim Ramadan. But the “gang” (Sam Omatseye, Kayode Komolafe, Azu Ishiekwene and Andrew Odion) had a swell time feasting. Of course, wine flowed freely.

Azu won the additional lottery of a bottle of vintage wine as a “takeaway” from Kongi’s famous cellar for a tribute he wrote earlier on me which Prof found interesting.
Eventually, when the waiter brought the invoice, I tried to play smart.

In the hoary years, the mammal, according to African wisecrack, should suckle her brood instead by a reversed law of nature. I thought being hosted by a Nobel laureate alone was already a significant honour and, as a cultured Bini man, I should not allow that to leave a hole in the old man’s pocket.

But on sighting my ATM card and conspiratorial whisper to the waiter on the side, Kongi preempted me. With a vehemence, he insisted on picking up the bill himself and thrust forward his credit card. Overwhelmed, I knelt in gratitude, to which he frowned, jocularly waving me to stand up “And stop embarrassing me in the public.”

That’s the essential Prof.

On his 80th birthday in 2014, I wrote a tribute for Kongi. Ten years later, nothing has changed to persuade me to rethink or regret my words. I crave readers’ indulgence to bring the following extracts from that essay:
“What truly makes Soyinka great is not so much for the monumentality of a talent that spews pithy poetry, gripping prose and transcendental drama. His greatness lies more in the courage and character he brings to bear on creativity. At an age when no territory seems restricted any more, when many of yesterday’s heroes and heroines have been exposed to be counterfeits, and when more and more of the surviving statesmen would instead trade away their honour for temporary gains, Kongi remains an exemplar.

“His fiery pen and caustic tongue notwithstanding, Kongi remains tender at heart, one who may disagree with you in principle but never holds back in the fellowship of humanity or be detained by bitterness over the past. Only that could explain the complicated relationship he has had over the years with his relative, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Feisty OBJ had decided to veer from the political turf as sitting president in 2005 to engage Soyinka in an epistolary joust. In a signed statement, he took a swipe at Kongi for criticising his policies.

“But discerning observers who read the open letter could not but raise their hands in panic immediately, fearful of the approaching literary wrath on the proverbial errant native doctor who carries his ritual offering past a mosque. While it was readily conceded that OBJ was fussy by nature, many had expected that his fabled native intelligence would have served him well by dissuading him from venturing into a square rope against Kongi in a literary duel.

“Their worst fears were soon proved right. Soyinka’s response was an atomic bomb. OBJ’s presidential garment was torn beyond recognition by the time the smoke cleared. For once, the Ota chicken farmer became tongue-tied. Months later, the hatred that open ‘roforofo’ (dirty fight) had generated would not prevent Kongi from showing up at the funeral of OBJ’s spouse, Stella, who died suddenly following complications arising from a medical procedure in Spain.

“When OBJ finally met with Kongi face to face on the aisle outside the funeral parlour, the story is told of how the president exploded in a playful rage, ‘Wole, iwo! (Wole, you!)’, raising an arm in mock threat. Defiant Kongi fired back, “Segun, Ori e!” thumping his head in a supreme Yoruba gesture of contempt. More embarrassed than amused by such audacity, the guards around the President cleverly looked away.

“Again, when Chief Emeka Ojukwu qualified the victory he achieved in the sham elections arranged by the Abacha junta to select delegates for the 1994 Constitutional Conference as conferring on him a mandate ‘superior to June 12’, vintage Soyinka gave expression to popular thinking in the country then by simply dismissing the ex-Biafran secessionist as ‘an expired warlord’. That critical riposte would not prevent Kongi from attending Ojukwu’s burial (in 2012) to pay last respects to a personal friend.

“The same generosity of spirit is evident in his warm relationship with General Yakubu Gowon today. At the presentation of a memoir by the Oba of Benin early (in 2014), Soyinka continually poked good-natured jokes at Gowon while giving a keynote address to the audience's admiration. It was hard to believe that it was the same Gowon who had clamped him into the gulag during the Nigerian Civil War. His 28-month solitary confinement birthed the book, ‘The Man Died’.

“When it was his turn to speak, the former head of state threw the crowd into a fresh bout of laughter by cautioning Kongi to watch his tongue: ‘You should remember that it was because of the same sharp tongue of yours that I sent you to prison in the 60s.’

“Being the first black man to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Soyinka’s life sends an enduring message: the infinite possibilities of the black race.”

. . . Donates N10 million to Nursing College in Kogi

The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi, has explained that his unwavering commitment to building a better nation through investing in the critical areas of human and national development; health and education, is ultimately for the good of the nation and the future of society.

Obi made the remarks yesterday, when he paid a visit to Grimard College of Nursing Sciences, Anyigba, Kogi State, where he donated N10 million to the College for the training of nurses, who he said, are at the centre of primary healthcare delivery in the nation.

He stated that Nigeria is today undeveloped because the nation has not aggressively invested in the critical areas of development, which he said are; health, education and pulling people out of poverty. He maintained that the nation is, today, facing serious challenges of insecurity and other socio-economic challenges due to lack of investment in these critical areas.

"I have not only remained consistent in urging governments, at all levels, to invest more in health and education, but I have also continued to call on donor agencies to do the same. Our investment in the future of our children is for the good of society and the progress of our nation," Obi said.

Addressing the nursing students, Obi reminded them that they are in a noble profession which cares for humanity. 

"I am particularly concerned about the training of more nurses who play very vital roles in caring for the health of society. As experts continue to warn of a severe shortage of nurses, we must remain proactive by investing in their training, through that, we can have enough for our domestic health sector, and export more to the global community," he added

Obi thanked the Proprietor of the College, Bishop Anthony Ademu Adaji; the Management and the Staff of the College for their commitment to training compassionate and competent healthcare professionals.

"Our commitment remains to build a New Nigeria which offers Nigerians access to good healthcare and educational opportunities. It is Possible," Obi concluded.

Signed 

Yunusa Tanko 

POMR PRESS RELEASE

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on the National Assembly to collaborate with the tripartite committee on the new minimum wage to establish a system for regular and systematic wage reviews.

This initiative aims to align wages with the prevailing inflation rates and cost of living in Nigeria.

During a national retreat organized by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) in Abuja, NLC President, Joe Ajaero highlighted the necessity for legislative interventions to ensure that wage adjustments are timely and reflective of economic realities.

The event, themed “Labour Reforms and the Quest for a Living Wage in Nigeria: A Focus on Legislative Interventions,” served as a platform for Ajaero to voice the concerns of workers.

In his goodwill message, Ajaero pressed lawmakers to consider updating the country’s labour laws to safeguard workers effectively.

He emphasized that the current economic challenges faced by workers due to inflation and rising costs of living necessitate robust legislative frameworks.

Ajaero urged the lawmakers to “review and update our labour laws to reflect the realities of today’s economy and protect our people.

“This includes ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions, and protection against unfair labour practices. We call on the National Assembly to join us in calling on the executive to transmit to the Assembly the bill on the reviewed labour administration laws which had gone through the tripartite process some years back but seemed to have been impounded by the executive.

“NASS should work with the tripartite to establish mechanisms for regular and systematic review of wage levels to ensure they keep pace with inflation and the cost of living.

“Workers are not beggars neither are they slaves. We create wealth and we deserve a healthy portion of it. The present angst in the country can only be assuaged by reasonable income to Nigerian people and workers.

“Our lawmakers should lay more focus on strengthening social security systems to provide a safety net for workers during times of economic hardship, unemployment, or health emergencies.

“Seek ways to make laws for effective social dialogue which will foster an inclusive dialogue between the government, employers, and labour unions to ensure policies are balanced, fair, and effectively address the needs of all stakeholders.

“The legislature should make laws that encourage continuous investment in education and vocational training to equip our workforce with the skills needed to thrive in a dynamic and evolving job market.”

[NaijaNews]

Renowned Islamic scholar and leader of Tijjaniyyah adherents, Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi, has reached the milestone age of 100 years according to the Islamic calendar. Born on the 2nd of Almuharram 1346 A.H. (equivalent to 100 years yesterday , Sheikh Bauchi’s contributions to Islamic scholarship and education have been widely celebrated.

Born in Nafada, initially part of Bauchi State but now under Gombe State, Sheikh Bauchi currently resides in Kofar Gombe.

He began his Islamic education under the tutelage of his father, Alhaji Usman, becoming a Hafizul Qur-ān (memoriser of the Glorious Qur-ān) before the age of 20. He furthered his studies under numerous esteemed Islamic scholars both within and outside Nigeria, with Sheikh Ibrāhīm Inyass being his most influential teacher. His profound knowledge led to his recognition as a Professor of Qur-ānic memorisation and education, and he has been honoured as one of the world’s greatest Mufassirun (translators of the Glorious Qur-ān).

Sheikh Bauchi commenced his Tafsīr (Qur-ānic exegesis) in Bauchi State in 1948, dedicating 76 years to translating the Holy Qur-ān. His Tafsīr broadcasts began on Bauchi Radio Corporation in 1976, and later on Radio Nigeria Kaduna in 1980. Today, numerous radio stations across northern Nigeria air his teachings, especially during Ramadan.

With a large family comprising 100 children, 406 grandchildren, and 100 great-grandchildren, Sheikh Bauchi’s legacy of Qur-ān memorisation continues. Remarkably, 78 of his children, over 199 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren are also Hafizul Qur-ān, balancing both Islamic and Western education.

Sheikh Bauchi has performed Hajj 55 times and Umrah (lesser Hajj) 205 times. He has also provided 1,000 houses in Bauchi and Kaduna states, among other northern states, for his children and students to live in free. He has established numerous Islamic schools and farmlands.

Sheikh Bauchi is recognised for his wisdom in preaching, which has led countless individuals to embrace Islam, particularly during Ramadan. He advocates for worshiping only Allāh, seeking forgiveness, and expressing gratitude for divine blessings while sending salutations to Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam). As Deputy Chairman of the Fatwa Committee of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, his influence is profound.

While there was no formal celebration for his centenary, disciples and clerics offered special prayers in mosques, expressing gratitude for his life and achievements. They praised his unblemished record of service to Islam and humanity, highlighting his role as a selfless and steadfast leader.

Mallam Ahmad Tijjani Saeed noted, “Maulana Sheikh, as he clocks the century age in good health, leaves a rich legacy of a life lived in the service of Allah, his nation, and humanity.”

Others, including Mallam Ahmad Tijjani Kolo, Sanusi Ahmad, and Muhammad Sogiji, commended Sheikh Bauchi’s courage in speaking against tyranny, corruption, and social ills like immorality, cultism, and drug abuse.

[DailyTrust]