Bandits have abducted two journalists and their family members in Kaduna State.

The armed men stormed Danhonu community in Millennium city of Chikun local government area of Kaduna and raided houses of the reporters of The Nation newspaper, Alhaji AbdulGafar Alabelewe, and that of Blueprint Newspaper, AbdulRaheem Aodu, their wives and children .

Alhaji Alabelewe is also the current chairman of the correspondents chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna State Council.

A family member of one of the victims Taofeeq Olayemi, who confirmed the incident, said the bandits stormed the community at about 10:30pm on Saturday and started shooting sporadically before carrying out their action.

He said they kidnapped Alhaji Alabelewe, his wife and two of his children, while Alhaji Aodu and his wife were kidnapped, leaving behind their sick daughter.

“Initially, they picked Alhaji Abdulgafar, his wife and three of his children and a girl staying with them before asking the girl to return back with one of the children, leaving with Abdulgafar, his wife and two children.”

“They shattered their doors, windows and removed their burglary after scaling the fence.”

Olayemi, a family member of Mr. Aodu, who lives close to the victims’ houses said,” They came around 10:30pm on Saturday and started shooting sporadically. They first burst Aodu’s door open and picked him and his wife and left their sick daughter behind.

“Then, they entered Abdulgafar’s house through the fence and jumped into his house. They went straight into his bedroom and picked him, his wife and two of their kids. They left immediately, after which the vigilantes arrived and started shooting into the air.”

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in Kaduna, ASP Mansir Hassan could not be reached for reaction as his phone was not connecting as at the time of filing this report.

[DailyTrust]

A masquerade (Egungun) must hearken to the warnings of his guide if he is to make it back to base safely. He could take liberties in the alleyways and rural roads, but when the procession is heading towards the expressway where vehicles zip along at breakneck speed, the masquerade must be attentive to the instructions of his guide, lest an auto accident reduce him to just another orthopaedic casualty, a humiliating climbdown from the olympian heights of ancestor-hood.

Thus, when Fuji musician Abass Obesere, in his unique sassy style, sang, “Egungun be careful, na express you dey go”, the song quickly caught on, serving as a warning, not just to masquerades who are revered as representatives of the ancestors, but also to the general society. When the choreographed pandemonium of the procession appears to have developed a racy kind of velocity even without self exertion, perhaps the cavalcade is heading downhill!

Mirage

Living in Nigeria and having to experience the same foibles that catapult us backwards to the starting blocks while our co-runners are breasting the tape, is an extreme sport of sorts. One republic comes, one republic goes, what was once considered a prospect becomes a mirage with successive generations of leaders outdeviling their predecessors.

Flagellated by the harmattan of lean times, we are suffocated by the choking déja vu’s of knowing that we have passed through this valley of the shadow of want before — and shall do so till Kingdom come. Unlike the great American civil rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, it appears we can never be sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Egungun be careful! The social media is awash with contending covens of hate casting spells on gullible youth to join forces for the Ultimate Uprising, the one that will end all uprisings. The last time I checked, there were still many people languishing in the gulag on account of the last EndSARS protest. But for continued efforts by conscientious activists like Shehu Sani, Femi Falana and several civil society groups, those in jail would have been completely forgotten by now.

Last July, in the heat of claims and counter-claims by many interested parties, Amnesty International challenged the Lagos State government to disclose the identities of 103 #ENDSARS victims allegedly billed for mass burial after three years in the morgue. The protest which had started as a rage against police brutality eventually became politicised and weaponised by those fighting for the political soul of the nation.

While that unfinished business was inherited by the Tinubu administration and efforts are ongoing to secure the release of those still in jail, those who thrive in conditions of guaranteed confusion have been cloning posters and protest materials pinched from Kenya, urging Nigerian youths to emulate their Kenyan counterparts.

Strange

I find that campaign strange because, while any group can influence another irrespective of size, Nigerian youths have always demonstrated the capacity to do their own thing their own way at their own chosen time. They did not need any external stimulus to reject the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact that was negotiated between the Nigerian government and the United Kingdom in 1958, signed in 1960 and abrogated in 1962 due to public protests led by Nigerian students.

Egungun be careful. The wanton looting, arson, maiming and savagery that attended the Kenyan protests were not part of the agenda of the organisers. The day after, when Nairobi’s central business district was no longer recognisable, it became clear that some other dark forces had also come to the party.

The irony is that no society can make progress without a culture of protests, disputations and vigorous intellectual intercourse. Last month, we celebrated the remarkable events of June 12, 1993, because it was the day a new Nigeria was born and then strangled at birth. Such savagery! We had not only protested; we had made the country ungovernable! Every season has its own costume. We should not confuse harmattan with winter.

In terms of how we can make our country better, I am completely open to any kind of developmental ideas that we can use to help our people conquer current challenges and live a better life. In Nigeria, as in many other places, political parties are mere alphabets. Watch what they do; not what they say. Any idiot can write a manifesto. What matters is how the power of representative democracy is deployed. Our people have the capacity to recognise good governance when they see it.

Egungun be careful! The headlong rush of Nigeria’s First Republic towards perdition was not unpredictable. It was just that the main actors were too steeped in their happy-go-lucky ways and couldn’t spare the time to notice what the streets were saying.

Titanic

Doyin Okupe may not exactly fit your description of a principled politician. The more uncharitable of his critics say he’s a political harlot committed only to the ideology of the oesophagus. However— fair is fair, in contrast with some of his peers, Okupe is a qualified medical doctor and could have a day job if he so chooses. I have learnt not to look at the messenger in the Nigerian public space. It is the message that counts.

The other day, Okupe was at his most lucid when he compared the Nigerian situation with the last revelry on the Titanic before the ‘unsinkable’ ship sank. The Titanic was a big ship with many floors. The top deck was the very definition of luxury. The lower decks were packed with lower class people that weren’t even counted when planning for lifeboats.

When the Titanic started sinking, water started filling up from under the ship, the lower decks where the lower class passengers were. While those in the lower floors were struggling and dying, those in the first class cabins on the higher floors had no idea that their end was near. They were making merry in the grand ballroom with champagne and fine dining, still living the lie that their ship was unsinkable. They looked around them at all the luxurious fittings and despite all the signs that they were in trouble, they just didn’t get it. The band continued to play until the very end.

Okupe’s punchline was that Nigeria was in trouble; those at the bottom know it, while those at the top think it’s business as usual.

In these circumstances, you would expect that the government would deliberately cultivate a broad base of friends and collaborators to help bridge the perception gap between what the government claims to be doing and what the people think it is doing. Unfortunately, what we have here is that the man appointed by the president to administer the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, does not have the temperament to be a team player. If he continues like this, he will surely win more enemies for President Tinubu.

Pola-Pola

Telling Senator Ireti Kingibe who disagreed with his cement and mortar mentality to “go and hug a transformer” is the kind of lingo that area boys in Mushin or Onitsha main market would use. It is an infra dig for a minister of the federal republic. And to think that Senate President Akpabio then went ahead at the occasion of the flag-off of the construction of a bus terminal (see how low we have sunk) to orally throw the concerned senator under the bus!  Gladly, I hear that the same Akpabio is now cobbling together some kind of truce mechanism.

Egungun be careful! When the bata drum becomes too stridently loud, polá-polá, it may be about to burst. Hear Ola Rotimi: ”When the tortoise is going on a senseless journey and you say to the tortoise, ‘brother tortoise, brother tortoise, when will you be wise and come back home; eehn! The tortoise will say: Not until I’ve been disgraced.”

I grew up being made to understand that everything about the United States of America was a model to the rest of the world. “In America” was a constant recourse in public discourse — whether we were talking about democracy, constitutionalism, federalism or public accountability. Anything American was the best for the world. It was one country where every detail of the life of a top public official, or an intending one, was examined by the media and the public. It was one country where if the president or governor was accused of impropriety with evidence, the next line of action was resignation. Even a stained presidential or governorship candidate would withdraw from the race.

I recall, as if it happened yesterday, the case of Senator Gary Hart in the run-up to the 1988 presidential election. He was rated as the frontrunner in the Democratic Party. Suddenly, rumours started popping up that he was having an extramarital affair with Donna Rice, a young activist. Although he flatly denied having liaisons with her and there was no concrete evidence beyond circumstantial facts, Hart had to withdraw from the race amid the unrelenting media scrutiny. The impression I got, even as a teenager with negligible understating of politics and political intrigues, was that America was a country where ethics actually mattered in the choice of public officers.

Let’s say the American democracy of today is not what it used to be and the adventure of President Donald Trump is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, threats it has had to navigate in centuries. As Americans prepare for the 2024 presidential poll, the whole world is watching how they will handle the “Trump Test”, which I would vaguely describe as when a rabble rouser, or — to be charitable — a non-conformist urinates on an established democratic order. Every system — be it political, economic, social or technological — must undergo its own crisis or face a litmus test at some point in time. It is a fact of human evolution. We cannot avoid or prevent it. We only have to navigate it.

The US situation is complicated by the fact that Trump’s opponent, President Joe Biden, is apparently not in a good state of health. He is 81. If he wins, he will be 82 when he starts a second term in January 2025 and will be 86 when his tenure ends. He is already the oldest to be sworn in — he was 78 in 2021, beating the record set by Trump who was 70 when he was inaugurated in 2017. To be clear, Biden’s problem is not his age. It is the uncertain state of his health, both physical and mental. His performance at the CNN debate, where he said many things that even his most loyal supporters admitted they could not comprehend, set off an alarm bell in his corner. This can’t be downplayed.

With Biden’s refusal to withdraw from the race — something we used to say only of a typical African leader who would prefer to be referred to as “late president” rather than “former president” — he appears to be putting personal interest first. Ageing is a normal human process and it is nothing to be ashamed of, strictly speaking. He can argue that while he has indeed had his moments, he has not broken any law — either legal or moral — and he can still hold his own. That is probably why he is insisting on remaining in the race despite his poor debate outing and unflattering stand in the opinion polls. It is now left to 160 million American voters and 538 electors to determine his fate.

Trump is currently favoured to defeat Biden in the November 5 election. And that really worries me. I will explain why — it has nothing to do with my political bias. Personally, I have become so disillusioned with politics, home and abroad, that I am no longer passionate about any party or candidate. In Nigeria, the mindless killing of nine youth corps members by a political mob in Bauchi in the 2011 general election killed something in me. I just can’t get over it. This has been worsened by the perennial deceit upon deceit in the Nigerian political games. I can’t deal. Abroad, the rise of far-right wingers and conspiracy theorists disheartened me. I have become a dispassionate onlooker.

I worry about the return of Trump mainly because many developing democracies look up to the US for inspiration and now they have bad examples to learn from. I was having a little discussion with someone who tried to justify some nonsense in Nigeria by saying “it happens even in America”. Before now, “in America” meant something good, something enviable. Role-modelling is nothing strange in the human society, whether at personal or national level. We compare systems and services and try to challenge ourselves to be as good as others. In my previous article, I compared the UK bureaucracy with that of Nigeria and challenged the government to reform our system.

Trump represents everything the typical African politician stands for: lack of values, disdain for accountability, emotional manipulation of voters, cheap propaganda and grandstanding. Ahead of his election as president in November 2016, Trump rode on anti-Islamic sentiments (he promised a travel ban on Muslims from some countries), racist messaging (“take back America” apparently because a black president, Barack Obama, was in office for eight years) and misogyny (he spoke condescending to a female interviewer and questioned if she was on her period). This was not the “in America” that I used to read about. In times past, he would have lost the election. No, he won.

During a pre-election debate with Mrs Hilary Clinton, he openly asked Russia to hack her e-mail. Ages ago, that was enough to cast him out of the presidential race or ignite voters’ revolt. No, he won. He was accused of sleeping with a porn star. He did not deny it. He was accused of saying he loved to grab women by their privates. He did not deny it. It appeared the more dirt was raked up about him, the stronger he became in the presidential race. His eccentric support base continued to grow and he kept saying the basest of things, tinged with fake news. Many saw him as an embarrassment to the US, but it mattered little as he got the strategic votes that he needed from his likeminded fans.

Being president did not mellow him or refine his character. He continued to say outrageous things, some blatantly racist. He described COVID-19 as “Kung Flu” — in obvious reference to its suspected Chinese origin. On national TV, he proposed ingesting Dettol as a treatment for COVID — right in front of disease experts. He was recorded allegedly asking for votes to be manipulated in the State of Georgia to help him overturn Biden’s haul in the 2020 presidential election. When he lost to Biden, he blatantly refused to concede, instead assailing the integrity of the ballot by insisting — without proof — that the election was rigged. That is exactly what a typical African politician would do.

Things only got worse. By convention, American states give all their electoral college votes to the candidate that wins in a state. Trump tried to break the tradition as his strategists sought to get some states won by Biden to split their votes. The height of it was on January 6, 2021 when the presidential results were to be ratified by US Congress at the final stage of the processes ahead of Biden’s inauguration. Trump’s supporters attacked the US Congress. Vice-President Mike Pence had to be smuggled out of the chamber. On social media, Trump described the political thugs as “patriots”, further hurting the emotions of families who lost loved ones in the unprecedented attack.

Out of office, Trump has had to face numerous criminal charges, including for fraud and paying hush money. He has been found guilty in both cases and there is still one more pending on the January 6 attack on the Congress. However, there is no law in America than bars a convicted felon from running for president. The laws were made probably under the assumption that convicted felons would not entertain the faintest thought of contesting. In the America of yore, a candidate would drop out of the race on moral grounds — even if there is no legal justification for it. That was what “in America” used to mean to me. But Trump, like a typical African politician, is testing the limits of the law.

If Trump is returned to the White House, it is not just that the credentials of American democracy will be endangered. It is not just that the stock of rabble rousers will rise. It is the cheap excuses and dangerous motivation it will offer the anti-democracy elements in Africa and other regions of the developing world that I worry about. We saw how President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil tried to copy from the Trump playbook during his tenure. We saw how his supporters attacked federal government buildings in the Brazilian capital after he was defeated in the 2022 election — a clear imitation of what the Trump thugs did in the US. Such “in America” modelling is a threat to the rest of the world.

In truth, American democracy has been suffering body blows for a while — long before the Trump adventure. The judiciary is highly partisan, exemplified by the Supreme Court judges who hardly reach verdicts on the basis of justice but rather on political and religious biases. The 2000 presidential face-off between George W Bush and Al Gore was settled by the Supreme Court justices based on their partisan leanings, not the facts of the case. The court has just granted some immunity to Trump — awarding him a get-out-of-jail (pun unintended) bonus. Meanwhile, Congress impeachment proceedings are hardly guided by a moral compass but fundamentally by partisanship.

Truth be told, democracy is facing a crisis globally. But it has been mostly about representation and accountability. Citizens are disenchanted with their representatives and think the current system is not serving the people well. A Trump comes along and rides the waves. Still, the Trump crisis is in a league of its own. It is about character. He has no shame. The Leader of the Free World — as Americans love to call their president — could be a convicted felon who is fully sold to Machiavellianism. In a country like Nigeria where democracy advocates are struggling to promote ethics as a core requirement for leadership, expect the shameless politicians to imitate Trump.

AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…

CONVERSATIVES CRUSHED

The Labour Party, led by Sir Kier Starmer, has comprehensively defeated the Conversative Party in the UK general election. The manner of the victory was so chastening it could be termed a humiliation. I think the Tories paid the price for the scandal-ridden reign of Boris Johnson. The message from British voters was more like “enough is enough” or “anyone but the Tories”. It reminds me of the Change campaign of 2015 in Nigeria which was “anyone but Jonathan”. However, Starmer has been mostly ambivalent on critical policies regarding tax, immigration and healthcare. I won’t be surprised if Britons are on his neck by this time next year. He should enjoy the euphoria while it lasts. Politics.

THE LGBTQ+ QUESTION

In Nigeria, most of those who make initial comments on a national issue and stir long-lasting controversies often have two things in common: ignorance and mischief. The hysteria over the Samoa Agreement is my latest evidence. Nowhere in the agreement is any country mandated to apply LGBTQ+ rights. Yet, the internet has been in a frenzy. Many commenters have not read one word of the agreement. I know that 2027 politics has fully commenced but I think our politicians and their supporters should spare a thought for the peace of this country. In any case, we banned same-sex relationships in 2013 and there is yet no evidence than our lives are now better. Remarkable.

BOKO BACK?

When you say it is peace and safety, then a sudden destruction descends. Suspected Boko Haram terrorists suicide-bombed funeral and wedding ceremonies in Gwoza, Borno state, last weekend, killing dozens and injuring hundreds. Suicide-bombing had ceased for a while and we focused our energies on fighting insurgency — which is more conventional and territorial. But terrorism is tricky as the element of surprise is always there. Soft targets are always vulnerable. Are the insurgents so well cornered now that they are forced to change tactics? Are we entering a new phase in this war? Whatever it is, the security chiefs must return to the drawing board. The war is not over. Evidently.

NO COMMENT

Mr Amos Daniel, a 36-year-old driver, recently confessed to journalists that he stole his employer’s car on his first day at work and then testified in his church that he just bought a car. “I was employed as a driver. The first day I was employed, I stole my madam’s car to go and give testimony in church that I have bought a car and it is what God has done for me,” he told the media after being arrested by the police. Imagine the full volume of “Hallelujah!” in the church after his testimony. In many churches today, the evidence that you are serving a “living God” is cars, houses and bank account balances. But to steal a car and then testify in church thereafter is another level entirely. Wonderful.

All it has taken to expose the porous underbelly of American democracy is one bad debate night by an 81 year old incumbent president. President Joe Biden fared poorly in his first CNN debate for this election season. A combination of  cold, jet lag and old age troubles made him a bit nervous and uncollected. He was lost in the middle of sentences and seemed to forget his lines on familiar subjects even those where he has excelled as president. 

More destabilising perhaps was the fact that he  was sharing a debate podium with a known serial liar, habitual bully  and unashamed demagogue. That combination in an electoral opponent is enough to unhinge any honest contestant. But even at that, Trump’s negatives are what should have prepared Biden to come fighting. But he did not. He frequently landed weak blows and a miserable thud each time he tried to put up a fight. The strategy of treating Trump with kid gloves as, at best, a spoilt child did not work and never works in politics.

Biden was restrained, meek and a bit uncollected. Trump was his usual blustery, hectoring and serially lying self. He won the debate not by repenting from Trumpism but by repeatedly punching a weakened Biden. In the end, supporters and opponents of the sitting president agreed that he was hardly at his best that Thursday night.

Concern about Biden’s bad showing at that debate has refused to go away.  Concern among supporters has grown into anxiety and even division among Democrats. The Democratic Party is riled and divided. Some would like Biden to quit the stage and yield place to a younger candidate with a better chance of defeating Donald Trump in the November elections. A solid core of Democrats led by majority of governors still believe Biden is their best bet in the circumstance.

Others including of course Biden’s immediate family and his core supporters insist that notwithstanding the bad debate night, Biden is their best bet. He is a tested hand. He has experience, track record and can be trusted by allies and respected, if not exactly feared, by adversaries. After all , he had out- debated and defeated Trump in 2020. He is best suited to do it again than would a totally new hand so late in the day.

The Republicans, especially Trump and his diehard devotees, are triumphant. They see Mr. Biden as a man weakened by age, unstated infirmity and incremental incapacity especially in unscripted situations. They are silent on the fact of Trump being nearly of the same age bracket as Biden.

On the whole, it is bad enough that America is now faced with a presidential choice weighed down by geriatric concerns. It is a binary choice between two ageing men whose competitiveness has been reduced to a comparison between two geriatric health records. It is even worse that both parties have become so limited in their leadership options that they seem stuck with a choice between a convicted blustering old crook and a tired good old man.

Biden’s debate performance means so much because of the peculiarities of American democracy and society.  America is a nation built on an ideal, on a creed of equality of the people and the rejection of monarchical absolutism. A creedalnation that covers such a wide area of territory can best be forged through effective communication. At first, it was radio that forged that communication link. But radio was constrained by voice and sound. The advent of television completed the link by adding images to voice, giving birth to the television nation. People as far flung as from Boston to Alaska , from Washington DC to North Dakota could now hear and see common images of their political leaders and other key influencers.

America’s is an image and television driven democracy. The political contest in America thrives on big marketing, advertisement and image engineering. Over time, television and the media have come to overwhelm American politics with their influence to the extent that the political persona has become something of a pseudo celebrity. The culture of stardom and celebrity created by Hollywood and the music industry have come to rub off on politics, luring the politician into the limelight of celebrity culture.

The ability to appear on most major channels and networks, to out- talk your opponent and reduce the urgent needs of the nation to a marketing selling point have become the deciding factors in whom the electorate votes for. The political star that must sell should wear the correct tie colour, be made up by make-up artists, rehash the catch phrases of the moment and appear to be on the side of Joe the plumber and Jane the housewife. In all of it, the ability to convince, to play the salesman at short notice has become a major indicator of preparedness to lead America.

A candidate who has all the ideas on how to sustain America’s greatness but fares poorly on the television screen  may end up being just “the best president America may never get”. On the contrary, the smooth talker, the guy who has an uncanny ability to combine some substance with celebrity appeal stands a better chance of moving into the White House to lord it over America and, by implication, the entire world for a good four years in the first instance.

Therefore, Biden’s recent bad debate night meant a  tragedy for America’s television image driven politics. This is why the options have narrowed to whether Biden should stay in the race or take a dignified exit. Either option is no easy route. If he were to quit, the Democratic party will be jolted into finding a substitute barely five months to the election. The possibility that the substitute will find his  or her feet so readily and quickly and be in a strong position to defeat Donald Trump is slim. That option effectively means that the Democrats would be ready to lose the election just to make the point that they opted for a younger, more vibrant candidate.

In the alternative, keep Biden in the race and try to fix his lapses and the degradations of old age on his electability.  This requires a closer management of the optics of his campaign events,  better preparations and more indepth homework on Trump’s weaknesses especially his compulsive lying and liberty with facts. The chances of a Biden win can are better if he stays in the race. But of course, those opposed to his staying on are more concerned about the energy and style of governance that he will lead if he secures a second term. In that regard, his experience and mature knowledge of people should equip him with good men and women to pull off a credible administration.

Those who wish Biden well are either genuine supporters or people who live with a mortal fear of the catastrophe of a second Trump presidency. People are genuinely concerned about the future of democracy in the hands of a lover of dictators and a self declared autocrat. Worse still, Trump’s looming threat to the international order is likely to tilt the balance in favour of the forces of authoritarianism. A man who openly admires Vladimir Putin, Xi Jiping, Kim Jung Un etc cannot be placed in the White House without overturning the world order.

Elsewhere in other political cultures, a mere one night of television debate would not mean so much. Take Nigeria for instance. We run a US-type presidential system with a cloned constitution along the same lines. But we hardly subject our presidential candidates to any verbal or intellectual rigour. Our presidential candidates do not have to debate with each other. They do not have to have any mastery of the most urgent national issues. They do not have to reel out statistics of the national economy of other vital statistics. They only need to be the choice of some party, loosely defined.

In 1999 when the military was handing over to a civil democracy, the two front runners for the presidency were Olusegun Obasanjo for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Olu Falaye for the Alliance for Democracy (AD). At the height of the campaigns, the idea was floated that there should be a television debate between the two. Somehow, neither party was enthusiastic about the debate. Time was allowed to elapse and the debate never took place.

In Buhari’s two terms as civilian president, there was no debate between him and any of his opponents. Both Atiku Abubakar and Goodluck Jonathan may have been willing to debate with Mr. Buhari but the latter was not  there for any debate. He lacked the capacity to string sentences together. He lacked any demonstrable knowledge or conviction on whatever were the raging national issues of his time. No one knows what he knew or did not know about anything and everything.

A reclusive and aloof man of few words and scanty ideas, Mr. Buhari was not the type to talk his way to power. He knew only how to cobble together an alliance of strange bed fellows to forge a winning alliance. Power was his means and end as well. In power, he feasted on the combined ability of his devotees and staffers to do most of the talking in no coordinated manner. What was important was that he was in power and at the helm.

As late as the 2023 presidential election campaign season, the matter of debates among the candidates was toyed with but dropped like hot potato. While Mr. Peter Obi and Abubakar Atiku were inclined to engage in open debates and media sessions, not so with Bola Tinubu. In fact, the campaign season witnessed Mr. Tinubu at his most controversial and incomprehensible. At campaign events, he was quoted as uttering gibberish, a point that fuelled speculations about his exact health condition. People who heard him uttering “Bulaba; Baba blu… Bulaba…” could not make out what language he was speaking. The obvious conclusion in street corners and bars was that the man was suffering from some mental health conditions that had affected both his comprehension and elocution.

When he showed up to present his agenda at the Chatham House in London, he could hardly answer any question. Instead, he lined up party faithful and supporting cronies on his entourage as the ones who would answer questions on his behalf  since he preferred ‘team work’.

Eventually, there was no debate between Mr. Tinubu and any of the other major candidates. There was not even a face-to- face interview between Tinubu and anyone or medium of note. But when the election results were announced, Tinubu, the man who said practically nothing to any one, was declared the winner over and above the other two who spent mental energy dissecting the nation’s problems and urgent challenges.

Therefore, the favourite Nigerian presidential candidate cannot be a television  hero or media celebrity. Yet Nigerians have shown more than passing interest in the America’s presidential elections than other nationals. It may be a subliminal celebration of what we long for but do not yet have.

The First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu says women must be seen at the forefront of the Food Security Campaign in the country.
She stated this at the State House Residence while unveiling her vegetable garden which she planted to encourage first time women farmers to join the ongoing Every Home A Garden Competition.

The First Lady who has planted Seven vegetables including spinach, water leaf, bitter leaf, Ewedu, lemon grass, scent leaf and Okro says a little effort on the part of every individual will go a long way in ameliorating food insufficiency.
“This little garden will be able to provide healthy vegetables enough for my house hold and I would definitely be able to let some of my staff have as well. The solution to any problem lies in everyone contributing their own quota to getting that solution. As a leader I must show example and plant my own garden”.

She encouraged first time women farmers all over the country to join the competition by planting a garden in their homes such as the produce will be sufficient to feed them and their neighbours.
“This will also enhance communal living and help drive the food security campaign of the Federal Government. The vegetables are medicinal and the garden is to lead by example for other women to embrace smart gardening”.
She showed off the garden to the Wife of Imo State governor, Chioma Uzodinma and Wife of the Minister of State for Defence Mrs Aisha Matawale.

The Every Home A Garden Competition is open to first time women farmers all over Nigeria. Entries are to be submitted to the Office of the Wives of the State Government of the competitors in the format of a 30 seconds short video with the details of the competitor by the close of work on September 25,2024. The winner would get N25 million naira.

SIGNED
Busola Kukoyi
SSA Media to the First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

See Photo Below:

The over 920,000 shareholders of Access Holdings Plc are excited that the banking group’s rights issue will soon open today, providing another opportunity to expand their stakes in Nigeria’s biggest financial company by assets. Barring any unforeseen development, Access Holdings rights issue to raise N351.09 billion will open on today, July 8 and close on Thursday, August 8. It is one of the largest capital raising programmes in the nation’s capital market in recent years, instigated largely by the Central Bank’s upward review of the minimum share capital for banks. International banks, of which Access is one of the few, are expected to grow their capital base to a minimum of N500 billion, according to a CBN policy announced last March by Governor Yemi Cardoso. With the additional N351 billion, Access will easily surpass the target, becoming one of Nigeria’s biggest financial services company by shareholders’ funds. It already occupies the top spot by assets and number of customers.  

Recently, Access Holdings held a formal signing ceremony with key participants in the offer as part of the arrangements to raise the funds. The money would be deployed to enhance its working capital requirements, and this includes organic growth funding for its banking and non-banking subsidiaries. Simply put, Access Holdings will use part of the N351 billion to acquire other banks and non-bank businesses across the world. Opting for solely a rights issue instead of combining it with a public offer as done by other banks is a deliberate attempt to protect the retail shareholders from dilution. ‘’In 2002 when we took over Access Bank, we had promised the existing shareholders that they would always be carried along as we grow. This rights issue is one example of our commitment to that pledge,” says Access Holdings Chairman Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede.

 It is a vow that resonates with the shareholders. Says Chief Sunny Nwosu, a well-known investor in the banking industry and an important player in the capital market, ‘’Access Holdings’ stocks are easily some of the best investment options in the country. I am sure that this offer will be oversubscribed, especially with the array of well-heeled foreign investors in its books’’. Another shareholder, Mrs Bisi Bakare puts it more succinctly, ‘’the quality of management of Access Holdings; its resilience; time-tested traditions of integrity and transparency endear the bank to the investing public. Consistently, we have seen our investments grow and we are happy.”

 The signing ceremony with respect to the Offer was held at Access Tower, the corporate office of Access Holdings in Lagos. Access Holdings’ shareholders had at its 2nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Friday, April 19, unanimously backed its plan to execute a Capital Raising Programme of about US$1.5 billion as well as the subset initiative to raise capital through a Rights Issue of ordinary shares to its shareholders. Under the Rights Issue, the bank will offer 17.7 billion ordinary shares of N0.50 each at N19.75 per share on the basis of one new ordinary share for every two existing ordinary shares held as of Friday, June 7, 2024. “The Rights Issue is a significant step in delivering our 2023-2027 strategic plan. The additional capital will enable us to maximise emerging opportunities and deliver long-term value to our shareholders’’, enthused Bolaji Agbede, acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings at the signing event.

The offer is opening at a moment of great buoyancy for the bank, coming after winning a series of awards in the last few months. Just last week, Access Holdings was named the leading Tier-1Bank in the 2024 Proshare Bank Strength Index (PBSI) report. The PBSI evaluates banks based on a comprehensive set of financial metrics derived from audited financial statements for the Financial Year 202. This award therefore, underscores Access Holdings’ significant strides in the banking sector. Proshare’s latest report places Access Holdings at the forefront, alongside other prominent institutions like Zenith Bank, FBNH, Ecobank, UBA and GTCO.

As the Nigerian banking sector evolves, Access Holdings stands out for its proactive approach to addressing macro and microeconomic risks. The report draws parallels to the challenges faced by United States banks where some banks like Silicon Valley, First Republic and Signature Banks, failed in 2023 due to poor asset and liability management (ALM). With the CBN’s recapitalisation programme, the report highlights the importance of investment in financial technology, customer service scalability and digital asset engineering between 2024 and 2026. The analysts emphasise that, “With higher capital levels, banks must use the larger amounts of cash available to improve shareholder returns and customer service experiences. Many banks will get cut at the knees by lacking a deliberate strategy to transition from cash flow to value creation.”

The report further highlighted Nigeria’s economic trajectory, noting, “Nigeria’s GDP in 2005 was N38.78trillion and rose to N77.94trillion, roughly two times in 2023, suggesting an average annual growth rate of 3.55 per cent in the last two decades. However, between 2000 and 2005, bank equity sizes grew over ten times or by 1,150 per cent from N2billion to N25billion. In other words, for a decade and a half, banks have used ten times more equity in their businesses than before 2005, yet the country’s GDP growth has been modest.”

The report, however, clarifies that simply raising Nigerian banks’ equity base is not a guarantee for economic growth and development. “Transforming bank equity into drivers of economic growth requires more than money; it requires a coordinated public and private sector plan, with what Proshare analysts have repeatedly called a whole-of-government approach to policies, programmes, and processes.” Reviewing bank performances in 2023, Proshare analysts observed that banks were pursuing increasingly aggressive approaches to acquiring digital market share while supporting lower operating costs (lower cost-to-income ratios (CIRs).

In May, Aig-Imoukhuede was honoured with the prestigious African Banker Lifetime Achievement Award at a gala in Nairobi during the Annual General Meeting of the African Development Bank. About the same time, the banking conglomerate also won the top spot in the Brand Finance’s Top 500 Banking Brands for the third consecutive year.

The Certified True Copy (CTC) of the ruling by Hon. Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Abuja Federal High Court in Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/165/2024 has revealed that the Hon. Judge gave an order for the inclusion of 378 delegates as part of the 3 Ad-Hoc Ward Delegates to participate in the February 22 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election.

The Judge made no pronouncement on the validity or otherwise of the candidature of the PDP, Dr. Asue Ighodalo and his running mate, Osarodion Ogie Esq, as against media reports which misled the public on the validity of the primary election.

The CTC document puts to rest the confusion that had emanated from the judgment delivered by Hon. Justice Inyang Ekwo, clearing all misinterpretations of the ruling.

In his ruling as seen from the CTC document, the judge declared that “the Plaintiffs and the other 378 delegates, whose names and election results appear on Exhibits BID 8A to 8L were elected and to allow the Plaintiffs and the 375 other lawfully elected delegates participate in the primary election of February 22, 2024.”

According to him, “A Declaration is hereby made that by virtue of the provisions of Article 50 (3) of the Constitution of the 2nd Defendant (as amended in 2017), the Plaintiffs together with the other lawfully elected delegates, whose names and election results appear on Exhibits BID 8A to 8L herein, are the lawfully elected Ward Congress Delegates in their respective wards and by virtue of which the Defendants cannot exclude them from participating as 3 Ad-Hoc Ward Delegates at the Governorship primary election of Edo State slated for the 22nd of February, 2024 or any other date.”

He continued: “An Order is hereby made directing the Defendants who are bound by the provisions of Section 82 of the Electoral Act, 2022 and Article 50 (3) of the 2nd Defendant's Constitution (as amended in 2017) to abide by the outcome of the 3 Ad-Hoc Delegates Ward Congress of February 4, 2024, at which the Plaintiffs and the other 378 delegates, whose names and election results appear on Exhibits BID 8A to 8L were elected and to allow the Plaintiffs and the 375 other lawfully elected delegates participate in the primary election of February 22, 2024.

The Judge added: “An Order of Mandatory Injunction is hereby made restraining the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Defendants from unlawfully excluding the Plaintiffs and the other lawfully elected delegates whose names and election results appear on Exhibits BID 8A to 8L herein, from participating as 3 Ad-Hoc Ward Delegates in the Governorship election primaries of the 2nd Defendant slated for the 22nd of February, 2024 or any other date.”

On 22nd June, 2024, at a sporting event organized for civil servants as part of activities to mark the 2024 Civil Service Week, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF), Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan, made a fundamental claim about the status of the Nigerian Civil Service. At that event, the HCSF commended the hardworking and intelligent civil and public servants, and noted that Nigeria has the best civil service in the world. That was a most fundamental statement coming from such a significant personality in the civil service hierarchy. That statement has sufficient weight and implications as to defy the gravity of silence. And it was only just to be expected that this would not just be brought to my notice, but that I would be asked by many, including a few revered global scholars that I cannot ignore, to make a statement about it. The HCSF and I occupy positions that are key in the chain of structural and institutional integrity of the civil service system in Nigeria. We are both aware of the internal working and potentials of the civil service system. But more than this, we both are sensitive to the public service value of esprit de corps, that unwritten rule about our collective responsibility and loyalty to the institutional well-being of this great institution that is responsible for transforming the lives of Nigerians as the engine room and brain box of government.

But there is no doubt that such a statement would generate some forms of reactions from Nigerians. There would be some that would simply wave it aside as a mere statement that does not deserve a response. But, as Simon Kolawole has exemplified, there are those who take the statement with deep umbrage given that it does not represent their felt perception of the efficiency level and the image that the civil service has earned for itself within the context of Nigeria’s democratic governance. But I will go beyond these two kinds of reaction to the statement of the HCSF to articulate a more nuanced understanding of how the statement should be interrogated but without the benefits of a rebuttal or a critique, the reason that this essay is deliberately made somewhat academic. Like the HCSF, I am an insider who have a sense of the struggles and laudable visions of the HCSF and could spin her sense of the heights the civil service system needs to attain.  

So, I think I understand where the HCSF is coming from when she made the statement. My first instinct on reading the submission of the HCSF is to imagine that a similar statement had been made in a conference of public administration experts, scholars and professionals. One methodological approach of a response to this statement—suggested by my research and comparative inclinations—would be to situate the HCSF’s confidence within the historical trajectory of the civil service in Nigeria. There are two significant administrative moments in the evolution of the civil service history in Nigeria that foretell its immense possibilities. The first is the immense administrative achievements of the old western region civil service, one regional administrative success story that I had studied and publish on. Within the context of the Awolowo-Adebo governance collaborative paradigm therefore, the civil service in Nigeria in the ‘60s became renown as one of the best in the Commonwealth community of practice. The second was the critical and outstanding performance of the General Yakubu Gowon’s super-permanent secretaries before, during and after the Nigerian civil war. But then, despite having the credentials to lay claims to being one of the best civil service systems at those moments, such a statement was never made. The nuance in the story is to know why. To say a civil service system is the best in the world demands that certain administrative minimum and maximum be already in place. Indeed, such a statement would have already found the country backstopped by civil service system on top of many human development indices and ISO certification to boot.

Even though the grammatical form of what the HCSF said does not support my next claim, one could think that the statement was actually meant to be taken in aspirational terms. In other words, given the dedication, intelligence, patriotism and credentials of the crop of civil and public servants Nigeria is blessed with (who are unarguably a minority), as well as the quantum of reform efforts that had been sowed, the civil service has the real potential to become one of the best administrative systems in the world. It would be unfair to the HCSF to imagine that those who are grinding within the civil service system do not have a sense of how crippling the dysfunction of the system is. And yet, they keep toiling to keep afloat a system that was once one of the best and that keep standing staunchly as the engine room for making Nigeria’s democratic governance work. And I can make a parallel claim that Nigerian civil servants are among the best I have met anywhere in the world, as I had observed for decades how they keep toiling in an impossible administrative system, and finding it hard to understand why they are being derided by everyone in spite of their best effort. But who has the responsibility to fix that system but the civil service profession itself?

Taking the HCSF’s statement as an aspirational one implies grounding it within a context of to-do policy initiatives that take institutional reforms seriously (what I am sure the HCSF is aware of but is not at liberty to disclose at the occasion). In other words, what would such a civil service system like Nigeria’s do to live out the dream of being the best in the world? This question is highlighted by the governance performance of the Asian Tigers, a performance that is founded on their developmental value orientation and capable state model. A significant form of aspirational policy design is already captured in the 2007 National Strategy on Public Service Reform (NSPSR) that has the vision of facilitating the emergence of “A world-class public service delivering government policies and programmes with professionalism, excellence and passion.” One must concede that the series of reform efforts of consecutive Nigerian governments from 1999 to date have been geared towards the fulfilment of this institutional aspiration.

The crucial issue is to decisively deal with the bureaucratic culture that is already consolidating the failure of the civil service system to become efficient. Bureaucracies across the world, by their very nature, are complex and multi-layered organizations designed to backstop the processes of democratic governance through the values of impartiality, uniformity, neutrality, fairness through the enforcement of governance codes in the interest of the public good. However, these bureaucracies that are supposed to complement democracy have become hindered by three structural matters. The first is that they have become so dedicated to their internal processes and mechanism that they have become closed systems—self-protecting and anti-intellectual. They are therefore incapable of taking full advantage of the seminal culture of cross-fertilization of ideas that enables the flow of ideas from the local and global (glo(cal) knowledge and information networks, and hence too rigid to be significantly innovative. The heavy reliance on administrative precedence and models that worked very well in the past implies that the civil service system becomes backward-looking and resistance to reform and change. And this automatically puts the civil service in a significant conflict with the private sector since it now begins to prioritize rules, regulations and procedures over and above efficiency, effectiveness, performance and productivity.

The second structural matter that hinders the Nigerian civil service system is the fact that it operates within the constraints created by Nigeria’s political culture that politicizes everything. The fundamental problem therefore becomes that rather than aiding the successes of institutional reforms for high-performance of the system, the reformer has to keep overcompensating for distortionary politics. The third structural issue has to do with the ways past reforms of the system have been carried out. The passion the reforms generated have not been founded on adequate knowledge, and so this keeps occasioning a huge gap between the conception of the reform initiatives and the reality of dysfunction. For instance, there has always been a heavy reliance on external expertise in ways that is devoid of internal validation and buy-in.     

The goal of the institutional reform of the Nigerian civil service system is to create a strong, capable, value-based, efficient, flexible, technology-enabled, performance-focused, transparent, intelligent, professional(ized), entrepreneurial and accountable system. Indeed, any contender for the space of the best civil service systems in the world must demonstrate verifiable evidences that play out in terms of policy intelligence, administrative efficiency, service delivery standards, and the productivity paradigm it facilitates. There are several reform initiatives that have the possibilities of concretizing the fundamental significance of the Nigerian civil service as the backbone of an emerging developmental state in Nigeria.

One of the most critical issues to address in terms of reforming the civil service system in Nigeria stems from articulating its autonomy in ways that enhances its status as a vocation. And this can be done when the entry requirement into the profession is adequately monitored, capacitated and incentivized in ways that allow the civil service in Nigeria draws the best graduates the Nigerian tertiary education system can offer. Unfortunately due to adversarial unionism that renders the system over-bloated as the non-performers can hardly be exited, we still operate a personnel policy that supports the recruitment of 1000 mediocre to do work that can be better performed by 150 expert professionals that are adequately remunerated. The idea of public-spiritedness and professionalism, for example, would need to be stretched into a mechanism for professional progression and career pipelining that measures outstanding performances among staff, spiritual values (like integrity), knowledge, expertise and competences in assignments. This must then be complemented by regular cataloguing of benchmarked skills and competences matched with talent management protocols at every career professional level to pipeline officers for higher responsibilities.

Such professional gatekeeping must eventually devolve into a concern with workplace culture and public service values that must be cultivated to enable the rebranding of the civil service system. The administrative leadership, in this sense, will need to provide the means by which a critical mass of new public managers emerge—through the gatekeeping of the entry level requirements—as the clear exemplars of what the civil service stands for.  We also must not fail to add the urgency of a vibrant action research and analytic policy analysis—through the core competences approach—that must be deployed across all the MDAs as the modality for extrapolating detailed information and statistics that backstop policy design, evaluation and problem-solving mechanisms on a case study basis.  

Lastly, the civil service must instigate a fundamental level institutional openness to knowledge and innovation as well as peer review that enables continuous learning culture within which the system can validate its efficiency through corporate governance codes domesticated from global best practices and principles. Such an openness will facilitate a strong mechanism of intra- and inter-institutional professional relationship and partnerships in the form of the public-private partnership (PPP), global and local partnerships, policy and research nexus, inter-agency and inter-governmental collaborations, and so on.

The point therefore is that when the HCSF made the statement that the Nigerian civil service system is the best in the world, it was a critical statement that loads the dice in favour of the intelligent, smart, committed and patriotic Nigerian civil servants who are in the minority, but who have the capacity to make the system the best Nigeria needs to become capable in terms of democratic governance.  

Programme: CITY TALKS WITH REUBEN ABATI

Time: 12:00pm

Guest: Bayo Onanuga
(Special Adviser, Information and Strategy)

Topic: "Controversial signing of the Samoa Agreement and LGBTQ issues."

Date: 6th July, 2024
                         
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Meeting ID: 928 7714 1732
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