The local government crisis, like our other self-inflicted problems, remains intractable because our leaders often prefer playing the ostrich instead of confronting our own demons. 

Let us start with the issue of the national question. When Oliver Stanley, for instance, in 1920, declared, “Our vision for Nigeria was a national self-government that secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality, its own chosen form of government, which had been evolved for it by the wisdom and accumulated experiences of generation of its forbearers,” he spoke from experience.

The federal arrangement as a social system that guarantees unity in diversity was what ended centuries of tribal wars in Europe. Events after that speech confirmed that the golden age of our nation was between 1946 and 1966 when we practiced federalism.

But we cannot also pretend not to know the enemies of the federal arrangement that needed appeasement, especially after playing the leading role in the collapse of the First Republic and plunging the nation into an avoidable civil war.

Those who have continued to wage war against federalism are Fulani hegemonic rulers of the north who want to preserve Nigeria as home to stateless Fulani herders across West Africa, and their Igbo rival with identical worldview, who insist everywhere in Nigeria, except their Igbo nation, is home.

For those who have faith in our country, the cheapest way forward is returning to where the rain started to beat us. Unfortunately, for close to 60 years we have done everything, including the fruitless search for unity through social engineering efforts such as NYSC, quota system of admission into tertiary institutions and civil service and, of course, Obasanjo’s confiscation of regional financial, media and educational institutions, except digging ourselves out of the hole.

Now let us return to the crisis in the local councils. “Federalist practice is that local governments are creatures and subordinates of state governments and exist at their pleasure.” (Richard Sclar) And the United Nations concept of LGAs is “a political subdivision of a nation or a state in a federal system.”

Obasanjo and his military adventurers, aping the old imperial powers, institutionalised the local government as the third tier of government in 1976. He was to later declare with remorse, “When in 1976, we brought in Local Government Reforms, it was meant to be the third tier of the Government, and not meant to be subjected to the whims and caprices of any other government.”

They ignored the fact that the states are not supposed to be appendages of the central government but coordinates, operating on the basis of a constitution which allocates power to both tiers of government.

Not much thought went into Obasanjo’s decision. Out of self- deceit, we even refused to learn from the experience of India, one of the multicultural societies where the idea of local government as third tier of government flourished since 1992 when they started operating two very distinct forms: Urban localities, covered in the 74th amendment to the Constitution, established Municipalities that derive their powers from the individual state governments; and the other where the powers of rural localities have been formalised under the panchayati raj system, under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution.

While the 1950 and the 1966 Local Administration system inherited by our military adventurers stemmed from the 1947 policy thrust of the last colonial Secretary of State, Lord Creech-Jones, which stated that “the key to resolving the problems of African administration lay in the development of an efficient and democratic local government that is close to the people,” Obasanjo’s third tier of government was built on nothing.

This was why most people believe Obasanjo’s 1966 Local Government reform was designed not for grassroots development but to share the resources of more resourceful states among less resourceful states to support what many have described as Obasanjo’s ‘fake nationalism,’ which finds expression in forcing Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities at different levels of cultural development to operate at the same level, which in itself is an aberration in federalism.

Obasanjo’s political opponents believe he was not an independent arbiter in 1976 as evidence abounds to show he was anxious to please the north that allowed him to be in power following the assassination of Murtala Mohammed.

For instance, during the 1957 constitutional review, there were 12 provinces in the north and 12 in the south (or 15 if you add Oyo, divided into two in 1934, and the two southern Cameroon provinces which later joined Cameroon after a referendum.

 Obasanjo was part of Gowon’s administration that created a 12-state structure ‘without ‘rhythm or rhyme,’ second-in-command to Murtala Mohammed that turned the country into a 19-state structure, just as he had influence on Babangida that took the states to thirty. Obasanjo is perhaps the only one who can explain why we today have 19 states for the north and 17 for the south.

Similarly, in 1979, there were 301 LGAs in the country; but in the never discussed 1999 constitution, which became operational under Obasanjo, there were 774 LGAs named, with 413 councils for the north and 355 for the south.

Obasanjo started the transfer of state residual functions to the central government by amending Decree 13 of 1970 and Decree 9 of 1971, and this was to lead to other decrees that finally increased the legislative list from 45 in 1960 to 68 in the 1999 constitution.

Those Obasanjo used to foist the American variant of federalism, with a strong centre just to promote his fake nationalism, Chief Rotimi Williams and Professor Nwabueze, regretted and apologised for shortchanging Nigerians before their death. And coming under the aegis of ‘the Patriots,’ they vigorously campaigned for the reduction of the unwieldy and unviable 36 states into six geopolitical zones.

President Tinubu, who understands our crisis of nation building, perhaps more than any of his predecessors, has started by making the six geopolitical zones economic development areas. But the ultimate goal will be to convert them to political administrative centres with the support of the National Assembly, if they are to meet the challenges of immigrant killer herdsmen, banditry, out-of-school children and ravaging poverty.

With increased revenue accruing to states and LGAs from the federation account following the fuel subsidy removal, President Tinubu is, no doubt, anxious to ensure his Renewed Hope Agenda reflects positively on the lives of the people in the rural areas. This perhaps explains why he went to secure the Supreme Court judgment to “compel the 36 states to grant full autonomy to local governments in their states, prohibits state governors from unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders for local governments, and restrains the governors from spending and tampering with funds released from the federation accounts for the benefits of the LGAs when no democratically elected local government system is put in place in the states.”

Nigerians have identified with the president’s judicial victory. But I am sure he understands it was a pyrrhic victory. That was why on Jan 2, 2025, while receiving members of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) at his Ikoyi residence, he admitted the Federal Government cannot take local government away from state governments and called for stronger collaboration between the federal and state governments to address pressing challenges, including local government autonomy, agricultural productivity, and currency stability

I am sure the president remembers he took the Obasanjo government to court where he secured judgment declaring that local governments could not have financial autonomy because they are not federating units of the federation.

But in the end, the president, no doubt, understands that the issue of local governments is political. He should work through the National Assembly to see how to cede the current unviable arbitrarily created LGAs to the states who will decide what to do with them. With 68 items on the exclusive list, the federal government has more than enough to chew.

Instead of replicating state Leviathans at the local level through financial autonomy, whatever is meant for the third tier of government, which in any case belongs to the states, should be channeled through the states that are better positioned to appreciate their immediate needs.

Events in the last one year have proved that the local government is an integral part of the state; and attempting to separate them from each other will be like trying to cut off the umbilical cord of a foetus from the mother.

Finally, much as we may demonise the governors, we have no reason to believe that dysfunctional Abuja that mismanaged the nation’s resources through massive stealing in the years of abundance (1999-2015), and brought the nation to its knees between 2015 and 2023 as a result of incompetence, is the messiah the LGAs need.

Just recently, and in a demonstration of institutional support and a signal to institutional progress, the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) paid a courtesy visit to my office at the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC). The visit provided another opportunity to deliberate on mutual concerns around the well-being of the federal service, and especially the civil service system and public administration profession in Nigeria.

The visit particularly afforded me another opportunity, for the umpteenth time, to restate my call for the resuscitation and revitalisation of the National Association for Public Administration and Management (NAPAM) as a key stakeholder that holds the community of practice together in Nigeria.

The visit also raises critical and fundamental questions that bother on what it means to categorise the public service as a profession and a vocation; the factors that short-circuit the growth and development process of the civil service in organisational development theory; the place of a vibrant professional body like NAPAM and the role it should play in rescuing the system; as well as the critical roles that significant stakeholders like the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Heads of Service of States, the Federal and State Civil Service Commissions, departments of public administration in our tertiary institutions, government training institutions, research institutes and think tanks across the country, etc. have to play in facilitating the vocational status of the public administration profession in Nigeria. In this piece, I attempt to bring all these fundamental issues together as an advocacy piece.

My objective is to provide a methodological framework that could guide the revitalisation process for the reestablishment of NAPAM as a significant avenue for constituting a vibrant community of practice that could instigate theoretical and practical questions and issues around the organisational development of the civil service system.

The civil service system is currently in its bureaucratic phase. And this phase is determined by the evolution of the subsisting industrial revolution era-bureaucratic culture of command and control hierarchical cum seniority-based and rules compliant ‘I am directed’ managerial orientation of the civil service in Nigeria; one that is renowned for stifling innovation, administrative progress and performance effectiveness. I have termed this dysfunction as bureau-pathology.

It is a phase that undermines the capacity of a government to deliver on the dividends of democratic governance. And that failure is experienced by Nigerians in terms of bureaucratic red tapes all across the MDAs at federal, state and local government levels.

A bureaucratic civil service system implies that a lot is wrong with the system and its capacity readiness to deliver on its core mandates in terms of service delivery and institutional relevance to democratic imperatives that increase the welfare and well-being of the citizens.

Institutional and governance reforms are therefore required to articulate a convergence of theory and practice, as well as the injection of smart, good and best practices that enable the system to stimulate continuous learning and incremental improvement of management system. This serves to foreclose administrative inbreeding and dysfunctional decay at the heart of Nigeria’s public service bureau-pathology. And as is usual in this kind of diagnostic analysis, a recourse to administrative history becomes imperative.

The golden age of public administration in Nigeria in the 1960s till the mid-1970s was marked, among other things, by the alignment between town and gown especially with regard to policy-research partnership and networking that facilitated the emergence and functional relevance of the community of practice and its contribution to the optimal capacity of the public service.

From a recognition of the urgent need for a collaboration with academics to solidify policy initiatives, in the Western Region (which is one good practice that I had studied a lot closely), Chief Simeon Adebo constituted the “A Club” which took critical advantage of the proximity of the Universities of Ibadan and, subsequently, the University of Ife and their academics, to strengthen the capacity of the civil service and its economic analysis and policy intelligence. The A Club later morphed into the Regional Economic Planning Advisory Committee, and was later reinforced by an Administrative Research Group, all dedicated to critical and analytic reflection on the state of the civil service.

This town-gown synergy contributed in no small measure to the significant achievements of the civil service in terms of infrastructural developments for which the western region is known even till today.

And in this regard, we immediately see the significant roles that a professional body like NAPAM can play in strengthening the core mandate of the central governance cum personnel agencies as the preeminent gatekeeper that facilitates the entry requirements and career management that solidify the vocational status of the civil service as a critical profession for complementing the relevance of democratic governance in a state like Nigeria.

The FCSC for example has the constitutional mandate to recruit, appoint, deploy, and discipline civil service in a bid to profile a model civil service that is needed to make the civil service a world class institution. Its objectives are: (a) To appoint qualified candidates to man the different Ministries/Extra-Ministerial Departments in the Federal Civil Service; (b) To ensure that such appointments maintain/represent the Federal character of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; (c) To make recommendations to the Federal Government on Personnel policies aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Civil Service; and (d) To ensure that Personnel decisions are taken objectively, promptly and competently in accordance with the policies and interest of the Federal Government.

To be continued tomorrow

Prof. Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission. He wrote from Abuja.

The senator representing Abia North, Orji Kalu, has urged President Bola Tinubu to sack some of his minsters and service chiefs.

Kalu, who is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Monday.

The former Governor of Abia State said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should take bold decisions for his government to succeed.

He said, “Some people working with President Tinubu should be relieved of their duties. Some of them should go — both from the security sector and among the ministers.

“President Tinubu must be courageous enough to sack some of these ministers. If he takes my advice, most of these ministers, I’ve appraised them and talked to him privately, most of them should go, and that is the truth.

“If he takes my advice, some of the security chiefs will also go. There is no sentiment about redeeming Nigeria if we really want to relieve Nigeria.”

However, Kalu said that Tinubu needs two more years for the economy to trickle down to ordinary Nigerians, saying ordinary Nigerians and manufacturers are bearing the brunt of the economic hardship.

He said, “The macro side is coming, but the other downsides are not coming very well. Nigerians in the lower area are still suffering. They have not started having the benefit of the changes President Tinubu is making.

“The changes are trickling down; it’s going to take another one to two years for the changes to come. And what is causing it is because insurgencies and the problems all over Nigeria are still making people not go to the farm. Some people working with Tinubu should be relieved of their duties.”

[DailyTrust]

There is looming fuel scarcity as the deadliest flood killed hundreds of persons and brought down the bridge in Mokwa, Niger State, connecting Northern Nigeria with the southwestern part of the country.

The bridge that collapsed last Wednesday has disrupted human and vehicular movements around the Mokwa Bridge, with petroleum product trucks not left out.

Although the death toll from the Mokwa, Niger, flood remained controversial, the Niger State Emergency Management Agency and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) reported 153, but community members had suggested a higher death toll.

Speaking on the effect of the bridge collapse, senior officials at MRS and Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited filling stations in Abuja hinted that the collapsed Mokwa Bridge may result in petroleum product scarcity during the 2025 Eid al-Adha (Sallah) celebration and holidays slated for June 6th and 9th.

An MRS official, who preferred anonymity, told DAILY POST that the development may disrupt distribution.

He, however, ensured that the petrol price would remain at N895 per litre during the Sallah break.

“Most of the petrol trucks are stranded due to the Mokwa Niger State bridge collapse.

“Honestly, I foresee fuel scarcity in Abuja and some parts of Northern Nigeria.

“I hope the government fixes the bridge on time, as our trucks had already made a u-turn, which is more expensive and time-consuming,” he told DAILY POST.

Another source at NNPCL agreed with the official at MRS, noting that the development may lead to fuel scarcity if adequate supply does not come from other routes such as Port Harcourt and Warri.

DAILY POST reports that Dangote Refinery, Nigeria’s only domestic producer of petroleum, is located in Lekki, Lagos State. Mokwa Bridge is the easiest route to Abuja and Northern Nigeria.

Reacting to the development, the National President of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlet Owners Association, Billy Gillis-Harry, and the National Secretary of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, James Tor, gave DAILY POST a very different perspective.

On his part, Gillis-Harry assured that its members would ensure an adequate supply of petrol from alternative sources and routes in Port Harcourt, Rivers, and Delta States to Abuja and across Nigeria.

According to him, there would be an adequate petrol supply throughout this year’s Eid al-Adha.

“One or two companies’ experiences in Abuja will not bring scarcity of petrol supply in Abuja and Nigeria.

“Our members will work with 11 PLC and Matrix to get supply from Port Harcout, Rivers and Delta states.

“The only thing is the transportation turnaround time.

“Our members will do their best to make sure fuel supply is available across the country during the Sallah.

“There should not be scarcity because we have alternatives,” he told DAILY POST.

However, Tor said the Mokwa Bridge collapse may lead to fuel supply shortages in Abuja and northern states.

He urged the federal government to quickly fix the collapsed bridge or resuscitate an alternative route to avert a possible looming fuel scarcity during the Eid al-Adha.

“The federal government needs to be proactive so that the other route is put into use for free vehicular and human movement across the regions.

“The Mokwa Bridge collapse will affect the free flow of supply.

“This will cause shortages. The unfortunate thing is that Salah is around the corner,” he told DAILY POST.

DAILY POST reports that the development comes as NNPCL, Dangote Refinery, and partners recently announced the latest reduction in the price of petrol to between N875 per litre and N910 per litre in Lagos and Abuja.

On Monday, the Nigerian government declared Friday, June 6, and Monday, June 9, as public holidays to mark this year’s Eid al-Adha.

[DailyPost]

The Federal Government must spend about N880bn annually for the maintenance of the federal road network nationwide, the Minister of State for Works, Mohammed Goroyo, declared on Monday.

This came as the Managing Director of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, Chukwuemeka Abbasi, disclosed that the template for deducting the road user charge from the prices of petrol and diesel was never implemented by the defunct Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Authority, now the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.

The two government officials spoke in Abuja at an investigative hearing of the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee. The committee is investigating the implementation and remittances of the five per cent user charge for road maintenance under the Federal Road Maintenance Agency.

Speaking at the event, Goroyo said, “FERMA requires an estimated N880bn annually for optimal road conditions. Budgetary allocations have consistently fallen short—N76.3bn in 2023, N103.3bn in 2024, while N168.9bn was budgeted for 2025.

“Though these figures show gradual increases, they remain far below the necessary threshold for sustainable road maintenance. This persistent funding gap has forced FERMA into a reactive mode of maintenance rather than a preventive approach.

“The consequences of this are glaring-deteriorating road conditions, increased repair costs, and prolonged disruptions for commuters and businesses alike.

A proactive strategy, backed by adequate funding, is essential to ensure smooth, safe, and efficient roadways nationwide.

“Thus, the diligent implementation and timely remittance of the five per cent user charge are paramount. This dedicated funding stream offers a viable solution to bridge the financial gap, providing consistent resources to address Nigeria’s infrastructure needs without over-reliance on annual budget appropriations.”

He added that inadequate funding has been the major bane of the nation’s road infrastructure, stressing that even though the user charge was supposed to address the gap, the agency and the Ministry have not been able to access it.

On his part, the FERMA boss said, “Under the visionary leadership of President Bola Tinubu, the Federal Ministry of Works remains steadfast in the Renewed Hope Agenda, an agenda dedicated to delivering world-class infrastructure that fosters economic growth, strengthens connectivity, and enhances the daily lives of our citizens.

“Our roads are the lifelines of commerce and social integration, and their maintenance is not merely a policy directive but a national imperative. The five per cent user charge, as enshrined in the FERMA Act, was designed to serve as a sustainable funding mechanism for road maintenance and rehabilitation. However, for years, FERMA has grappled with severe funding inadequacies, hampering its ability to maintain our vast road network effectively.”

Declaring the event open, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, recalled that the House had on 19th March considered a motion at plenary revealing the non-implementation of remittance of the five per cent user charge on petroleum products meant for road maintenance under the FERMA Amendment Act, 2007.

He said, “We owe Nigerians the obligation by sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the status of the five per cent user charge to determine the extent of the violation of the law and the amount of money unremitted and those responsible for the non-implementation.”

He stressed that the investigative hearing should also be able to make strong recommendations on how to forestall further abuse of the law and streamline the remittance processes for ease of access to the funds by the relevant government agencies.

The Chairman of the Committee, who doubles as the Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Francis Waive, said the user charge is not an attempt to increase the prices of petroleum products or to amend the law since it has been part of the law since 2007.

He added that the purpose of the investigation is to address the anomalies existing through disobedience to existing laws, adding that the House will ensure that every law passed by the parliament is complied with both by individuals and agencies of government.

[Punch]

 “Trouble will come, but you do not have to give it a chair to sit on.”- African proverb

Sadly the nation is being forced to watch a fierce and diversionary quarrel over the 2027 elections with just a little under two years to get there. Just see how the Tinubu administration is scraping the shallow bottom of a dented bottom to fish out palliatives and promises and attempting to sell them as achievements in two years. The main opposition is going crazy over what it claims is an engineered exodus. Other politicians are attempting to cobble together another vessel of egos and  personal ambitions. The nation watches a desperate frenzy over its troubled future. A people watch, with dejection and anger, as politicians expose the lie that Nigerian democracy is about the people.

 With two years to go, the general game plan, if indeed there is one, appears to be to defeat the opposition before the contest commences. APC has turned transactional politics into a grand strategy with a limited goal of mopping up all opportunists. It is the favourite destination for all comers, and those who migrate with a few PDP and LP skulls get choice places, at least for now. PDP screams victimization, hoping the nation will ignore its record in serial self-mutilation. There is nothing of substance in the firmaments, except political skeletons speaking volumes of politicians in a country where power is most addictive. This current picture will change and mutate as politicians play their games and Nigerian voters make up their minds. The journey to 2027 will be eventful and challenging for Nigerians.

 The APC appears bent on boosting its appearance only with booty from an anaemic opposition. It has been stampeded into a battle it has no business fighting, with two years of tough governance to go. It has sole responsibility for showing an impressive scorecard while fighting off an opposition sharpening its knives daily with a litany of governance failures. It is making elementary mistakes, including a seeming arrogance over its records; sustaining persistently poor engagement processes; faulty assumptions that feeding on the opposition alone will give it the strength to fight and win the election; creating the most personalized presidency which has every circle of power trembling, and ignoring the widespread perception that it is elevating transactional politics into the highest art form. Its biggest liability is a President who has very poor rating in most parts of the country.

 The ruling party could boost its chances if it does not field President Tinubu in 2027, choosing instead to field a younger, healthier and more ambitious politician with fairly clean personal records. This seems very unlikely, such is the larger-than-life presence of President Tinubu in the party. The President himself may not give the idea of grooming a successor and giving his party a new lease of life a favourable thought. If PBAT will be its candidate, the APC has to improve its understanding and exploitation of fault lines into which it will need to pour unheard-of fortunes to buy votes and voters. Ditching northern Muslims for northern Christians will be a risky strategy, but quite possibly the only option in the North. The party is also a poor student in reading the dynamics of opportunistic and transactional politics. Its bursting haul of politicians will be a major threat to its ambition if it fails to appreciate the complexities of managing ambitions and sharing largesse among politicians solely motivated by personal interests. Its assets could become its liabilities at precisely the point where neither transaction nor threat will work.

 The North will have a major influence in the outcome of the elections. It is the region that is most vulnerable to exploitation of fault lines and its poverty which trails it all the way to polling booths. The party must work hard to avoid a repeat of 2015 when the ruling party confronted an entire region massed against it. The South West will rally around him marginally if the main opposition fields a Northerner against him, but the ambivalence of this region should cause sleepless nights. The influence of Chief Spoiler Wike will weaken or grow, depending on the opposition’s response to the disarray in the South-South which will likely stabilize around its basic interests, not of an affluent appendage. LP will be decimated without Obi, and squeezed even further with him as its candidate. Obi’s ambition is now bigger than the LP, but he risks serious reduction as a politician if he takes decisions that alienate his followers. Of all the major politicians, none is more a captive of his core constituency than Obi. The South East is eager to recover from its multi-dimensional personality and assume a position in national leadership which reflects its passion for equity. It is likely to be available for a deal which gives it real power, and puts an end to a perennial sulking region on the margins.

 Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar seems to have the biggest dilemma. He is too weak to take on Tinubu’s second term ambitions, and too big to fit into schemes of other politicians angling for platforms that will actualize their personal ambitions. To leave the PDP (again) and seek a platform elsewhere will involve massive expenditure in energy and resources, assets that will be possessed in greater abundance in camps of those who will resist him as candidate. He could renounce the ambition to run (again) and engineer a reverse stampede into the PDP, as well as spearhead a Nigerian political re-engineering process. Politicians in the mold of the Waziri are very difficult to convince that there are edifying options to aspiring to be President in a country stuck with recycling its politicians.

The PDP is bleeding from massive onslaught of the governing party. Its biggest asset is Atiku, but he is also its biggest liability. His pre-eminent position in the party provides a reason for many real and contrived grievances. It is unlikely that PDP, with Atiku at the helm, will enter into an arrangement that gives it a role as second fiddle. Other parties could join PDP in a coalition of sorts, but some of them could ask for his ambition as a price. If the PDP could fix itself and take on the APC, it would not have bothered  with pandering to interests that are at worst dubious, and at best delusional. This party that once bestrode the nation is at risk of history recording it as the largest contributor to APC’s success in 2027.

 There are, of course, many other factors that will determine the outcome of the 2027 elections. The terrain is also liable to change dramatically when other key factors enter the fray, and calculations fail to provide the correct outcomes. A few of the factors that will sustain their value, however, will remain significant. First, the perceptions of the record of the APC administration, which still has almost two years to go will be a critical factor. Second, the nature and resilience of the opposition will be decisive. Third, geo-politics and identity politics will still be strong. Four, integrity of the elections is central. The disturbing encroachment of the executive arm of government’s influence into all in arms and institutions of governance must be curtailed if democracy is to survive in Nigeria. At all cost, the 2027 elections must be credible.

The pronouncement by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, that the conduct of the Senior Secondary School Examinations by the West African Examinations Council, WAEC and the National Examinations Council, NECO, will now be computer-based as from next year, may have to be reviewed, going by opinions by critical stakeholders regarding the readiness of the country for such an exercise.

While the leadership of WAEC and NECO claims their agencies are ready to take on the new challenge, the availability of the necessary facilities in the country could pose a significant hindrance to achieving it.

The Head of National Office, HNO, of WAEC, Dr Amos Dangut, and the Registrar of NECO, Prof. Dantani Wushishi, who spoke during a Zoom meeting organised by the Education Writers Association of Nigeria, EWAN, titled “CBT for SSCE: Is Nigeria ready?”, said their agencies had started conducting some aspects of their examinations using CBT, adding that they would only need to put in more efforts.

However, critical stakeholders, such as parents, students, university lecturers and education experts, faulted the claim, saying the level of infrastructure in the country was far below what was needed to realise the government’s objective.

Changing SSCE to CBT mode call

In April, while this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, was ongoing, the minister went round to inspect some of the centres where the exam was held.

It was in the course of the inspection that he said starting from November/December, this year, WAEC and NECO would conduct their external examinations using the CBT mode. The exam is not school-based, it is for external candidates.

He added that from May/June 2026, when the exams would be school-based, the examination bodies would conduct them fully in CBT mode.

The pronouncement has since been generating reactions.

History of CBT exam in Nigeria

It was the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board JAMB that started the conduct of CBT examination in the country in 2013. Though opposition trailed the decision then, it has come to stay. Currently, the Board makes use of 887 centres across the country for its exam, with universities, schools and private interests providing the facilities and been paid commission by the Board for the use of their facilities.

The National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, has 114 study centres and does not provide a specific number of CBT centres, according to their website nou.edu.ng and Wikipedia.

These study centres offer services, including CBT for examinations, although they may not all have dedicated CBT facilities. The 114 study centres are distributed across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.

CBT will save us from logistics issues -WAEC HNO

Still trying to get over the shock it received over the late administration of one of its important papers a few days ago, the HNO of WAEC, Dr Amos Dangut, said adopting CBT would save examination bodies some logistics problems.
The exam body came under fire last week when some candidates stayed up to 12 midnight before writing their English Language paper.

“It will save logistics issues. It will be a matter of touching the keyboard. We started the computer-based test over a year ago. The plus is greater than the minus. For us in WAEC, we are good to go. We have started and we are consolidating,” he said.

We can make use of other agencies’ facilities — NECO boss

In his opinion, Prof. Dantani Wushishi noted that CBT facilities currently used by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, and the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, could be used to support the conduct of their examinations.

“Are we ready? you asked. Ready means fully prepared, but in real life, you cannot be fully prepared but you continue to innovate and keep improving on what you are doing. We have introduced a lot of ICT innovations into what we are doing.

The directive is presidential. The minister’s pronouncements were anchored on some critical issues. We have 76 subject areas we handle and 120 papers in 26,000 centres / schools.

“Education is on the concurrent list in the constitution and states are to be part of it. How many schools have CBT centres? It will require a lot of funds. JAMB has over 800 CBT centres and National Open University of Nigeria has across the country. Those are useful too. We use CBT in the conduct of November/December examination but is it not school based exam?”

On the level of computer literacy in the country, he added: “When we met with the minister, he agreed that there should be awareness and we are talking with stakeholders for each to know the roles they would play.

‘’We are already mapping our physical and CBT centres. We only need some modifications. Those doing CBT exams took some years to arrive at where we are starting from. It is about technological adoption.

It will reduce exam malpractice – Education Ministry

The Director of Senior Secondary Education, Federal Ministry of Education, FME, Hajia Binta Abdulkadir, said changing the exam mode to CBT would reduce malpractice in the conduct of the examinations.

“Examinations are fundamental to education globally. They are means of assessment. We will look inward to make use of available facilities. If we don’t, we won’t start at all. CBT exams record low malpractice than paper exams. There is need to punish exam saboteurs. Dual education system is good. You don’t de-emphasise certificate.”

Our exam mode is not adaptable to CBT — Rabana

However, an education advocate, Rasheed Rabana, said the mode of examinations in Nigeria was not adaptable to the use of CBT.

“What we have been doing in the past is not really CBT in the real sense of it. WAEC and NECO mode of examination is not adaptable to CBT. Harvard University in the United States is one of the pioneers of computer use and CBT, but they still conduct paper exams.

‘’It is only multiple choice exam that is adaptable to CBT. We are destroying our exams. Let us just set the issue of infrastructure aside, that is the least of our problem, the mode of our exams is unadaptable to CBT.

It could lead to exclusion of some students — CONUA

On his part, the National President of the Congress of University Academics, CONUA, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, opined: “On the directive to migrate all examinations to Computer-Based Testing, CBT, by next year, I believe the intention is commendable.

‘’It is aiming to modernise assessment, improve efficiency, and reduce malpractice. However, the feasibility raises a number of serious concerns that must be carefully considered:

“Access and equity for candidates in remote areas: Many candidates from underserved or remote areas may not have regular access to computers and/or stable internet connectivity. More importantly, they may lack the digital literacy required to confidently navigate a CBT interface.

‘’Rolling out a nationwide policy without addressing these disparities could result in the exclusion or unfair disadvantage of a large segment of the student population.

“Nature and Pattern of Examination: While CBT works well for objective, multiple-choice-type assessments, many disciplines require more complex forms of evaluation, including essays, problem-solving, diagrams, or technical drawings.

‘’These forms are not easily adapted to standard CBT platforms. A blanket implementation risks oversimplifying assessment and undermining the depth and rigour required in many fields.

“Infrastructure and technical reliability: The current state of digital infrastructure in many schools and centres is not yet robust enough to support large-scale, glitch-free CBT deployment. Issues like power outages, insufficient computer terminals, network (internet) failures, and software glitches could severely disrupt the examination process and compromise its credibility.

“In essence, while transitioning to CBT could be a step in the right direction, it must be done gradually, inclusively, and with a clear-eyed view of the challenges ahead. The focus should be on capacity building, infrastructural development, and piloting CBT across suitable exam types before a full-scale implementation is adopted.”

It is not possible now – NAPTAN

Also reviewing the situation, the National President of the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, Alhaji Haruna Danjuma, opined that with the current level of infrastructure in the country, such a step would not work as effectively as envisaged.

“It is not possible. Will all the schools be fixed with computers? In my state, we have over 500 basic education schools, in my local government, we have over 200 primary schools, then we should install ICT facilities in all the schools.

‘’What about the electricity to power the facilities assuming we have them in place. How many computer instructors do we have to take care of the children? We are sitting on a time bomb.”

Let us not rush into it — ASUU

On his take, the chairman of Lagos Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Prof. Nassir Adesola, said the country should not just jump into adopting any policy without seriously interrogating same for its workability.
“Nothing is wrong with CBT actually but we need to interrogate the motivation for adopting its use. We need to be fully aware of the possible low points and the implication on the sanctity of our examinations.

‘’The modalities for its use, i.e. multiple choice, written, hybrid, and the opportunity for students to fully express themselves. This is more appreciated when grading is done manually, compared to some keywords driven programmed grading.
“A pilot use to identify challenges and smoothen rough edges would be better before plunging into it. We need to really expand our technology all round, from hardwares to softwares, electricity, logistic matters for remote locations, etc. The human factor too.

“Compared to UTME, the population of students that would be involved would be much larger. Nonetheless, the matter would continue to be a subject of discussion by stakeholders in education, including ASUU, so that government can be well advised on the matter.”

Let us use JAMB’s UTME as litmus test — NANS

The National Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Student, NANS, Comrade Adeyemi Samson Ajasa, called for using JAMB’s UTME as a litmus test before jumping into using CBT for other exams.

“Let us use JAMB’s UTME as a litmus test. How has it fared? Meanwhile, remember that UTME is a day exam and SSCE runs for a little over a month. Are the facilities in place? Do we have CBT centres across the 774 local governments in the country. Let us assume that we do, remember that most of the LGs are made up of more than one community. Who is going to be responsible for the cost of logistics of candidates who want to write the exam? Is it the already pressed and hapless parents?

“Even if WAEC and NECO are going to make use of the facilities that JAMB is using now and others, they cannot be enough. We have not mentioned the issue of network, power supply, security concerns and others. The government should call a meeting of stakeholders including students, parents, experts etc to discuss the proposal. We need to make haste slowly.”

It will negatively affect students’ writing skills — Don

A former lecturer at the University of Abuja who now teaches in a university in Rwanda, Dr Isaac Areo, said it would badly affect the writing skills of students.

“At the University of Abuja, I was the Examination Officer for about 10 years. From the experience I have gathered over the years, my main worry is that CBT will negatively affect the writing skills of our students.

‘’Just relate with some of our students, you will notice that they mostly speak better than they write. I doubt if all schools, whether private or public, can be provided with the facilities that can take all the students writing the exam in their own premises. That would mean some students would be taken to centres probably far away from their schools, then who is going to be responsible for the logistics?

“There is also the issue of computer fright. Not everybody can feel comfortable in front of the computer. Let us take it gradually. Objective questions can be CBT and then others still paper exam. The UTME conducted by JAMB is one thing and the SSCE is a different ball game.”

It should not be a policy executed by fiat — Educationists

Making know their feelings about the proposed policy, two educationists, Beatrice Aketuamhen and Ariyo Ismail, said UTME and SSCE were not in the same category.

“UTME is just a day exam and SSCE is about a month or even more than a month. What about security concerns, logistics, and even electricity to power the computers? We all know the cost of energy now in the country. It is a long time thing, not something that can be done by fiat,” said Aketuamhen.

Ismail said it was not only Lagos and Abuja that made up Nigeria, adding that many areas lacked basic amenities.

“Lagos and Abuja are not Nigeria as a whole. We like to copy and paste. We tend to pretend. Does every community have the expected facilities for such an exercise? The problem in the education sector is bigger than the issue of CBT,” Ismail said.

We’re going to kill practicals

Relatedly, a member of the House of Representatives, representing Ikwo/Ezza South federal Cconstituency, Ebonyi State, Chinedu Ogah, appealed to the federal government to discontinue the plan to conduct SSCE in CBT mode.

He said: “The issue about our education is that the system has simply collapsed. We are rushing things by talking about CBT when we have no network in the hinterlands.

“When it came up in the National Assembly, I told them that if we want to do the right thing, let us urge the federal government to deploy ICT to all primary and secondary schools.

“By then, it becomes a course to study in all our schools. They will get acquainted with ICT. Then gradually, they will upgrade. By then, there must have been network services in all the local governments, wards. And that is when you can talk of going into CBT mode.

“Talking about WAEC adopting use of CBT, I am a science student. How will you now combine titration when you are mixing carbon dioxide with CO2 to get a result?

‘’If you have an equilibrium when you are now doing a thesis and you bring what is called load, fulcrum and force, how do you measure it by bringing the equation?

“In Mathematics, when you have a quadratic equation, quadratic elimination by permutation method, how do you do that with ICT? I said in this way, we talk what cannot work. We are killing our education. We are killing our science.

“Science is purely practical. Our students need to know what practical is all about. And that is the only thing we have in this country. We believe everything is fake and they cannot lead us anywhere”, he said.

[Vanguard]

Vice-President Kashim Shettima says Nigeria is actively seeking $25 billion investment to supply gas to Europe via the Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline project.

Speaking on Monday at the presidential villa during a meeting with a Vitol Group delegation, an independent commodity trader, Shettima said the project is an expensive venture requiring about the aforementioned amount.

He said the country needs Vitol’s technical expertise to successfully finalise the project.

“We need you more for your technical expertise than for your money. Gas supply stability counts, that is why we are exploring the option of an undersea gas pipeline,” the vice-president said.

Shettima said “it will be a completely transparent management structure”, urging Vitol to “come on board with this project”.

He described Nigeria’s gas sector as a beacon of stability and transparency amid global uncertainty.

“I will urge you to key into our nation’s energy transition programme. I want you to utilise your dominance in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and Associated Petroleum Gas (APG) sub-sectors,” he said.

The vice-president said the world is changing and “ours is actually a gas and not an oil economy”.

“We have the eighth-largest gas reserve in the world. We really want to harness the potential in the gas sector fundamentally because of the stability and transparency in that arena,” he said.

“The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) has been largely insulated from government interference.

“What we are getting from the NLNG is so predictable. This is why we are seriously exploring the option of taking our gas to Europe.”

The vice-president said President Bola Tinubu’s bold economic reforms have positioned Nigeria as a leading destination for investment, particularly in the energy sector.

Shettima said Nigeria’s leadership transformation under Tinubu presents a unique and unparalleled opportunity for international investors.

“Most importantly is the leadership. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu grew up in that ecosystem — energy and finance,” he said.

“In the past 25 years, we have not had a leader who has the courage to take far-reaching decisions as he has taken — the removal of fuel subsidy, the unification of the multiple exchange rates, and the tax reforms.”

Shettima appealed to global investors, saying Tinubu is putting Nigeria on a new trajectory.

“This is where the action is, invest in Nigeria,” he said.

‘VITOL GROUP HAS LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO NIGERIA’

On his part, Jeffrey Dellapina, chief financial officer of Vitol Group, said the company has a long-term commitment to Nigeria.

“This has been an incredibly close and important country for Vitol for a very long time. We have participated in a lot of things from the downstream, financing, trading and government support when needed,” he said.

“We do want to maintain an understanding that Vitol is committed, and we are always available to deploy capital when needed.

“We want to stay in this country and evolve with you.”

Also speaking, Murtala Baloni, Vitol Group’s head of public affairs, said the company is benefiting from a strong and positive business relationship with Nigerian companies and the government.

“We support the business of the government in ways that we can in the deployment of capital,” he said.

Baloni said the company was one of the major funders of Project Gazelle, a crude oil-backed forward-sale finance facility by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, “where we put in $300 million during the COVID-19 period”.

[TheCable]

As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration approached its second anniversary, the atmosphere was charged with political activity. Officials from his administration made efforts to account for their performance, but these efforts were overshadowed by a loud call for the President’s second term. Supporters, high-ranking party officials, even the All Progressives Congress governors and federal government officials were preponderantly focused on capturing more states and diminishing opposition parties than in showcasing their achievements. 

If Tinubu opposed this distraction, he did not make it known. He prominently welcomed defectors into the APC and, during a recent caucus meeting he hosted at the seat of government, he vigorously addressed concerns that Nigeria was becoming a one-party state under his leadership. Instead of reassuring citizens about the state of democracy, his comments fell short of providing comfort.

He eventually celebrated the second anniversary of his administration which featured a speech that received more criticism than praise. In his address, the President highlighted the achievements of his administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda and reiterated his commitment to tackling economic instability, improving nationwide security, reducing corruption, reforming governance, and lifting Nigerians out of poverty.

Tinubu claimed that the economic and overall situation he inherited demanded a redirection of the country’s affairs. He cited the removal of fuel subsidies and the establishment of multiple foreign exchange windows as key initiatives. Halfway through his first term, Tinubu reflected on these controversial reforms and asserted that they were revitalizing the national economy and strengthening the social fabric of the country.

However, many Nigerians do not share his optimistic view. A significant portion of the population remains skeptical that these reforms will lead to the prosperity promised during the campaign period and which his officials have consistently repeated, especially as the country continues to fall deeper into debt. One notable critic, Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate from the rival Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 election, dismissed the reforms as ineffective and misguided. In a statement released on the anniversary, Atiku described Tinubu’s two years in office as marked by “misrule, economic hardship, and authoritarian tendencies,” asserting that the administration has worsened poverty, favored elites, and driven the nation into an unsustainable debt crisis.

Atiku pointed out that no government in Nigeria’s democratic history has imposed such severe hardship on the populace, and criticized some of the administration’s policies, stating they “disproportionately hurt the poor while rewarding the wealthy.”

While Atiku’s criticism may be regarded as part of his political posturing as an opposition figure, the claims largely reflect the sentiments of most Nigerians who doubt whether the reforms are yielding or will ever yield positive results.

It is worth noting that Tinubu’s twin policy of fuel subsidy removal and floating of the naira have sent the economy into an unprecedented tailspin with many Nigerians grappling with unimaginable hardship, high inflation and higher living costs. The people need more than those flowery words in the President’s anniversary speech to cushion the grinding effect of those policies.

To start a re-election rhetoric that early, rather than deal with the demons, amounts to adding insult to the economic injury. It means the president and his team are more interested in political survival than national progress. It is a sign of insecurity, a focus on entrenching power rather than winning public trust through results. When you add the growing concerns that Nigeria may be heading toward a one-party state under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the optics get even worse. 

That narrative is fueled by the President’s overt support for widespread political cross-carpeting as many elected officials from opposition parties—especially from the PDP and smaller parties—have defected to the APC, often under pressure or in pursuit of political survival. Or still, for rewards, as defectors into the APC are routinely rewarded with positions or other forms of patronage.

At the same time the President was preparing his anniversary speech, he sent a letter to the National Assembly requesting approval to borrow an astonishing $21.5 billion. This new borrowing raises serious doubts about the promises made during his anniversary address. How can citizens be encouraged to feel hopeful when the government is burdening the people with such immense debt?

If the past two years are any indicator of the future, many believe it looks grim. The rising debt linked to questionable projects does little to reassure the public that progress is being made. To make matter worse, many sections of the country have been left out in the projects he intends to apply the borrowed monies to. The South-East, for instance, has been persistent in voicing concerns of marginalization with regards to the federal governments infrastructural development, especially the rail masterplan and the Lagos-Calabar superhighway.

Instead of fixating on the chants for a second term—particularly when he has yet to deliver convincingly on his first—Tinubu should redirect his administration’s focus away from political flattery and toward fulfilling his many promises. Rather than acts that seek consolidation of power, weakening of opposition and eroding democratic pluralism, Tinubu should rather open the space wider for political competition, dissent, and institutional independence—features that are visibly under strain bin today’s Nigeria.

The detrimental impact of his policies is so severe that these distractions are insulting to struggling Nigerians. While it is definitely premature to ramp up political activities for the next election, the average citizen expects more efforts aimed at alleviating their current hardships. It is only in so doing that the reforms – whatever reforms – will resonate with the generality of Nigerians.