Development is an ever-present idea that continues to evolve as human society reaches new possibilities and comes to a new sense of awareness of its strengths, opportunities and environmental advantages. The theory of development has preoccupied economists, policy makers and a wide range of other professionals for centuries. Improvement or lack thereof, in the living conditions of the various demographics and income groups, was the first layer of interest in the study of development. As society began to advance, scholars turned attention to other equally important frontiers of fulfillment beyond the material well-being of the populace. This era opened new vistas of attention in the quest to understand the evolution of our progress as social justice, respect for the fundamental rights of citizens, democracy, and transparent governance systems began to count as important development metrics. Evidently, the understanding of development will continue to expand as researchers break new grounds into the dynamic nature of individual and social aspirations.

The principle of dynamism drives the study of development across epochs, supporting the understanding that nothing is static. Adam Smith, James Steuart, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill, whose thoughts and ideas pioneered the subject of development studies, focused extensively on the principles of wealth distribution and the best path to eliminating poverty and lack among the majority within the community. As the subject continued to expand, scholars began to look beyond just material comfort to draw attention to how the principles of equality, freedom and justice resonate with the ideals of development across broad frontiers. These expanded parameters influenced the policy decisions of leaders who sought to improve the material well-being of the citizens while also addressing the challenges of inequality through deliberate initiatives that are aimed at reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Through a careful analysis of the above insights and scholarly philosophies on the path to attaining improved living conditions for the general population, one finds that not much attention was paid to the future, the generations that will be here when we are gone.

In addition to the scant regard paid to the needs of future generations, another major failing of the regular economic development philosophy of the 18^th, 19^th, and early 20th centuries was the blatant disregard for the condition of the environment and its continuing capacity to sustain man’s financial activities beyond the immediate. Although T. R. Malthus did call attention to the dangers of explosive population growth vis-à-vis limited food supply in a 1798 essay, future scholars were only able to highlight the loopholes in the theory, especially as technology and discovery of new lands further increased food supply even as population grew. This seeming paradox raised unsettling questions about the postulations of the British scholar and, of course, the validity of his theory.

Although the 1972 book The Limits to Growth by Meadows et al. discussed the uncertain fate that awaits humanity when, ultimately, exponential economic and population growth are eventually confronted by the reality of finite resource supply, the work was greeted with cynicism as many scholars accused the authors of promoting pessimism. Subsequently,  Beyond the Limits, published in 1992 in an attempt to address the criticisms raised in the 1972 edition, was met with even fiercer criticisms as cynics argued that the projections were misleading and incorrect. These criticisms clearly showed that interests in the planet’s future and the limits of natural resources were very peripheral to mainstream economic development theorists’ consideration.

Things would however take a new turn in the development circuit as fresh perspectives around the subject of sustainability began to move into mainstream debates. The publication of a Gro Harlem Brundtland report in 1987 titled Our Common Future opened a new vista for scholarly discussions and debates around the subject. This report gave the first standard definition of sustainable development as one that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The Brundtland report and the interest it generated formed the background for the interactions at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Participants reached a consensus that sustainable development must be made a priority of the International Community, recommending that national strategies be realigned to reflect the new global consciousness on the dynamics of sustainable development, including the new framework’s economic, social, and environmental demands. A 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa (Rio+10), reviewed the progress recorded in the efforts at achieving sustainable development and developed new strategies for pushing the agenda mainly through a multi-stakeholder partnership framework. A subsequent summit (Rio+20) in 2012 held in Rio de Janeiro highlighted the importance of the Green Economy and the urgency of developing an institutional framework to drive the agenda on a global scale.

The development of the core elements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, which came to the fore in 2015, started at the Rio+20 Summit. The SDGs are built around a set of clearly defined global goals related to protecting the environment and addressing the international community’s political and economic challenges. Featuring 17 critical areas of focus designed to build on the progress made through the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) framework, which ran from 2000 through 2015, the SDGs architecture sought to drive a global agenda to eradicate poverty and end the menace of hunger, amongst other carefully articulated objectives consented to by world leaders in September 2015.

The priority of attacking poverty and hunger is proof that the primary concerns of improving the living conditions and welfare of the general population remains ever present, like in every other economic development model. The superiority of the sustainable development framework is, however, found in the attention it gives to measures aimed at protecting the environment, including the push for cleaner, renewable energy, climate action, and responsible production and consumption.

The sustainable development framework generally offers a global perspective on social, economic, and environmental policies, considering the present and future needs. The recognition of the importance of biodiversity, the appreciation and imperative to protect indigenous cultures, the cultivation of economic and social equity, and the importance of robust governance mechanisms dedicated to solving problems and making good use of the resources of the earth collectively add to the appeal as a more robust and all-encompassing paradigm for long term economic and social development in all parts of the world.

Its wide acceptance notwithstanding, the sustainable economic development paradigm has also been strongly criticised by scholars who describe it as vague and lacking in specificity. It has also come under attack for lacking critical milestones that can be quantitatively measured, which further lends credence to the views of those who criticise it for vagueness.

Abia, one of the five states in the South-east region of Nigeria, has a population of about 4.8 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about US$7.1 billion. Abia has two important urban locations — Umuahia, the State capital, and Aba, the commercial nerve centre. Aba is also one of the most crucial trade destinations in West Africa. Farming and trading are the predominant occupations of our people. Abians are also known for producing high-quality fashion products and several other household and industrial goods that are sold in markets across Nigeria and West Africa.

We bought into the sustainable development framework long before assuming office in May 2023. Our campaign manifesto was built around the sustainable economic development model because we noted that it holds great potential to drive the development of the various communities in the State and ultimately make the future more prosperous through the prudent use of resources. Additionally, it clearly focuses on building systems that support our people’s economic and political aspirations.

Permit me, however, to share my views on the subject matter of climate change as it relates to clean energy and net zero emissions for purposes of intellectual honesty and presentation accuracy. While we agree that the reduction of carbon footprint is unavoidable, we contend that the deadlines set by countries in Europe and America may be a little too aggressive and unrealistic for Africa. We also note that the cost of reaching net zero emission in countries like Nigeria who rely on oil and gas to run their economy may be extremely high. We see gas as a cleaner hydrocarbon quite unlike coal and believe it should pass as a transition fuel in the march towards net zero emission. This argument is eloquently canvassed in my article titled “Can Renewables Change the Future of Gas?” (Thisday Newspapers, September 13, 2021). Again, in my column in the wake of COP 26, titled “Of Glass Houses, Stones and Glasgow,” published in THISDAY Newspapers of November 22, 2021, I had maintained that all the regions and nations of the world are not on the same development pedestal with respect to climate responsibilities. In Africa for example, our development realities still revolve around hygiene issues as scores of millions of people around the continent wake up each morning preoccupied with concerns about where the next meal will come from. Challenges of unemployment, poverty, and access to basic amenities including clean water, quality road networks, and stable electricity still dominate social and political discourses across the continent.

In another 2021 article, I shared a depressing report from the World Bank which ranked Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, as being the largest energy-deficient country in the world with more than 40% of the total population lacking access to grid electricity. The implication is that active production is hampered as machines and other resources lie idle across factories and production centres. This perhaps explains Africa’s record of low emissions at just 3.8% of the global total.

My argument at the time, as it would be today, is that while we shall do well to keep our eyes on the future and work closely with our global partners for an emission-free world eventually, it would not be realistically prudent to immediately follow the same trajectory as those who have since conquered the existential development challenges we are still grappling with today. Our task as leaders is to constantly appraise the state of affairs in our society and make decisions that will be in the long-term best interest of our people, taking cognisance of available resources, and competing needs of the populace. Again, we have to state that an honest appraisal of our development reality imposes a certain burden on us as leaders of the developing world to adopt initiatives that will improve the socio-economic development of the general population, prioritising programmes that address the challenges of mass poverty, hunger, unemployment and limited access to education and health services.

Dr. Otti, OFR, is the Executive Governor of Abia State. He was on the editorial board of THISDAY Newspapers between 2016 and 2022 and maintains the column, ‘Outside The Box’

The just concluded Edo State Governorship poll could well be described as a three-horse race. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Dr. Asue Ighodalo; the All Progressives Congress (APC) which featured Senator Monday Okpebholo; the Labour Party (LP) with Olumide Akpata. There were also 14 other parties and their candidates.

In concrete terms, Akpata and other parties’ candidates right from onset lacked the wherewithal to upturn the chances of the big two (APC and PDP) to make any difference. The two big parties were already household names and their rivalry did not just begin yesterday but since the advent of the Fourth Republic over 25 years ago.

Although APC’s emergence into a national political force actually began in 2015 when it won the presidential election, it has remained an opposition element with different nomenclature like Alliance for Democracy (AD), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and lastly, the All Progressives Congress (APC) after a coalition was born.

On the other hand, the PDP has been a dominant force right from the emergence of the present democratic dispensation.

Labour Party, though not too new as a political force, but the only time it made wave was during the 2023 general election when it fielded the former Anambra State governor, Mr. Peter Obi as its presidential candidate as well as the ability of the party to win one governorship seat and a number of national assembly seats.

Therefore in the just concluded Edo gubernatorial poll, it was clear that it’s either the PDP or APC that will carry the day.

Incidentally, the APC displaced the PDP this time around after the outgoing governor had ran on the platform of the two parties. First on the platform of APC and second with the PDP.

Obaseki was able to defeat the APC in 2020 not because he was well grounded politically, but because the Edo electorate saw him as someone being oppressed by a political godfather and benefactor. The infighting in APC both at the national and state levels contributed to his being re-elected for second term.

However, he was carried away by his successes and neglected the human element in governance, hence his political opponents began to see him as someone who lack empathy but derives joy in fighting those that helped him politically.

One had thought that after parting ways with his predecessor, Comrade Adams Oshiomohle, who helped him in his first shot as governor, he would have mellowed down and settle down for proper governance of the state.

But immediately he got his second term through the help of the PDP, Obaseki began to display similar characters to those he met in the party. For instance, if Oshiomohle was “overbearing”, there was no reason why Obaseki should part ways with Chief Dan Orbi, former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, former Speaker of the state assembly, Hon Kabiru Adjoto, Charles Idahosa, Anselm Ojezua, Gideon Ikhine, Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama and many others who were there for him then when APC showed him the way out of the party ahead of the 2020 governorship poll.

Even with his deputy, Philip Shaibu, who was impeached by the state assembly through the push of Obaseki was unnecessary. Rather than finding a way to tolerate Shaibu, he went for the jugular by ensuring he was removed from office.

Similar behaviour played out when Obaseki championed the non swearing in of 14 elected state lawmakers in 2019 and their fate still hanging in the ballance with another set already in the saddle.

All these culminated in the gang up against Obaseki. It is not as if his candidate, Ighodalo lacks the knowledge and swag of governance having played significant role in the administration of Oshiomohle and in the present government, but what played out is just a gang up to teach Obaseki some political lessons that you can’t have it all the time.

Unfortunately, his preferred candidate, Ighodalo and running mate, Osarodion Ogie, are the sacrificial lambs that suffered Obaseki’s self centred behaviour, politics of alienation and annihilation. Two fine unassuming gentlemen are now the ones to carry the cross of Obaseki’s uncompromising attitude.

Comparatively, Okpebholo in terms of governance quality is a minus compared to cerebral people like Akpata and Ighodalo but he is the one the entrenched political class both in the state and at the national level chose to foist on the people of Edo State known for their sophistication. This was due to Obaseki’s hard stance on issues and holier than thou attitude to others especially people that opened their doors for him when it was raining heavily outside.

Therefore, even with all the infrastructure put in place, the agricultural revolution, the ability to build an independent power station, the inroad in education and the propensity to build high Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), the political hawks said No! You can’t continue to have your way.

Though the victory of APC may not have anything to do with Obaseki’s relationship with the Oba of Benin and the issue of proposed return of artifacts and where to house them, the party to a large extent used it as a campaign strategy to create enemity between the Oba and Governor Obaseki, especially among indigenes of Benin dominant in Edo South senatorial district who look up to the paramount ruler as god on earth. That sentiment played significant role in demarketing Ighodalo because of Obaseki’s support for him.

To them, a victory for Ighodalo and Ogie is victory for Obaseki. So the best thing to do is to stop their aspirations even with the best of intentions. The best thing is to throw away the baby with the bath water.

Another critical issue that played out is the unguided utterances during the electioneering campaign. “Edo will burn if PDP did not win the election”, “Edo no be Lagos”, a slogan that worked during the 2020 governorship forgetting that this is 2024.

It would be recalled that in the build up to APC presidential primary election, then presidential aspurant, Bola Tinubu had promised the party delegates that if he wins, he will return Edo back to APC fold. He may not have given such assurance for the sake of campaign. Today, opportunity knocks and he has to fulfil his promise using what he has to get what he wanted.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the accusation by the Edo PDP Chairman, Tony Aziegbemi during the symbolic Peace Accord signing organised by the Kukah Foundation in conjunction with former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar in Benin. At the meeting, Aziegbemi openly accused the police of bias concerning the arrest and detention of some PDP members few weeks to election. In his response, the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun told Aziegbemi frontally that if arresting and investigating persons allegedly involved in the killing of a Police Inspector is bias, he (Aziegbemi) will live with that dream forever.

Such combative attitude is not the best approach knowing fully well that implications will no doubt have a rebound and other ripple effects. And today, the PDP is struggling for legitimacy in a state it once holds sway.

Nonetheless, nothing is meant to last forever. Like Moises Naim in his book, “The End of Power”, said: “From boardrooms to battlefields and churches to states, why being in power isn’t what it use to be.”

In other words, power like every other sphere of life is in constant shift.

The fight against corruption in Nigeria is often described as a relentless battle, particularly when seen from the prism of the dictum that says, “If you fight corruption, it will fight back.” This powerful statement has become a reference point in Nigeria’s ongoing struggle against corruption, and it seems especially relevant today as allegations of fraud and abuse of office emerge against Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs. Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye.

In fact, in recent weeks, the political landscape has been shaken by allegations of corruption against Ohaneye-Kennedy, Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs. These charges have raised eyebrows and sparked debates across social media platforms, public forums, and even within the halls of government. As the dust settles on these allegations, one pressing question emerges: Is this case merely a reflection of corruption’s tenacity, or is it a calculated attack on a minister striving for change in a deeply entrenched system?

To contextualize the allegations, it is expedient to opine that Ohaneye-Kennedy was appointed with a mandate to address critical issues facing women in Nigeria, including gender-based violence, economic empowerment, and social welfare. However, as initiatives began to roll out, whispers of corruption surfaced, claiming that funds allocated for women’s programs were mismanaged or diverted. While some hail these allegations as justified concerns about governance, others argue that they are strategically timed efforts to undermine her authority and discredit her agenda.

Without resorting to taking sides or exonerating anyone in this piece, it is germane to opine that since assuming office that Mrs. Kennedy-Ohanenye has publicly declared her commitment to fighting corruption within her ministry. However, in a dramatic turn of events, she now faces allegations that threaten to undermine the very cause she claims to champion. A petition brought before the House of Representatives accuses the minister of fraud, abuse of office, and economic sabotage, charges that have not only shaken the Ministry of Women Affairs but also raised broader questions about the nature of corruption in Nigeria.

The petition, filed by St. Gilos Solicitors on behalf of Mela Chiyoma Pat Limited and its Managing Director, Mrs. Patricia Stan-Dioka, centers around the “Women for Food Security” program, an initiative aimed at empowering rural women in line with President Bola Tinubu’s food security agenda. The program was set to deliver a much-needed boost to Nigeria’s rural economy, and Mrs. Stan-Dioka and her company were appointed as official agents to oversee its implementation.

However, according to the petition, things quickly went awry when Mrs. Kennedy-Ohanenye allegedly directed that donor funds be paid into her personal account or that of her son, a request that was promptly refused by Mrs. Stan-Dioka. This refusal, it seems, sparked a series of events that culminated in public embarrassment and a disrupted event in August 2024, where the minister reportedly accused Mrs. Stan-Dioka of being an imposter, an act that not only caught national attention but also caused diplomatic embarrassment as the Deputy Prime Minister of Uganda, a guest of honor at the event, was caught in the crossfire. The petition claims that these actions not only jeopardized the program but also sabotaged potential investments that could have brought Nigeria over $200 billion in incentives.

The allegations against Mrs. Kennedy-Ohanenye fit into a broader narrative in Nigerian politics, where high-ranking officials who have taken strong stances against corruption often find themselves accused of the same malfeasance. Over the years, similar cases have emerged, showing how Nigeria’s anti-corruption war is often fraught with complexity, intrigue, and high-stakes power struggles.

One of the most infamous examples is the case of former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun. Adeosun was seen as a reformer, pushing for transparency and fiscal discipline during her time in office under President Buhari. However, in 2018, she found herself at the center of a scandal involving allegations of forgery. It was revealed that her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate, a mandatory requirement for public office in Nigeria, was forged. Despite her contributions to Nigeria’s economic reforms, Adeosun was forced to resign amid mounting public pressure, a stark reminder of how even those hailed as champions of reform can be caught in corruption scandals.**Is the Corruption Allegation Against Ohaneye-Kennedy, Minister of Women Affairs, a Case of Corruption Fighting Back?

The notion of “corruption fighting back” is not new. It suggests that actors within corrupt systems often mobilize to protect their interests when faced with reform or exposure. Ohaneye-Kennedy’s efforts to implement transparent governance and champion equity for women pose a direct threat to entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo.

If the allegations against her are driven by individuals determined to maintain their influence and continue the practices of mismanagement and graft, they reflect a broader trend seen across various sectors in Nigeria. It raises a critical point: Are these allegations part of a larger narrative where those benefitting from corruption are pushing back against change?

Public sentiment towards Ohaneye-Kennedy varies significantly. Many citizens support her efforts, recognizing the importance of accountability and integrity in governance. Others, however, might view the allegations as a legitimate inquiry into her leadership, calling for thorough investigations regardless of the motive behind them.

The implications of this situation are profound. If the allegations are proven unfounded and rooted in a campaign to discredit a reform-minded minister, it could represent a significant setback for anti-corruption efforts in Nigeria. Conversely, if there is merit to these allegations, they would underscore the need for stricter oversight within government ministries, especially those charged with implementing social programs.

As the allegations against Ohaneye-Kennedy unfold, it will be vital to monitor not only the judicial processes but also the narratives that emerge around them. Disentangling genuine concerns about corruption from politically motivated attacks is essential for safeguarding the integrity of governance in Nigeria. The question remains: Is this case an instance of corruption fighting back, or an opportunity for genuine accountability? Only time will tell, but one thing is clear, the stakes are high, both for women’s rights initiatives and the broader fight against corruption in Nigeria.

In fact, the question that now looms large is whether Mrs. Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye is the latest victim of corruption’s counterattack. Is this a case where entrenched interests are fighting back against her attempts to reform the Ministry of Women Affairs? Or is she indeed guilty of the allegations brought against her?

With several dramatic developments such as political violence, mudslinging, commercialized processes, threats and other incidents which reflect what is known as ‘federal might’ in Nigeria during elections, yesterday’s governorship contest in Edo State can easily qualify to be the story of the moment but it is certainly not the best story for posterity. This is because there is no difference between the said Edo governorship and any other Nigerian election.

Unknown to many people, there are numerous bizarre events in our country other than electoral malpractices that are always swept under the carpet but which really deserve to be heavily publicized. One of such matters concerns the wilful destruction of the career of fellow citizens by some people in authority. The story of an innocent jurist, Walter Onnoghen, Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN (2017-2019) aptly fits in here.

Last week, the media was replete with reports that the Court of Appeal Ibadan Division had approved a proposal by the federal government to settle out of court with Justice Walter Onnoghen, a former CJN who was challenging his premature removal from office in 2019. The Code of Conduct Tribunal had convicted the former CJN for failure to correctly declare his assets as a public official. Although Onnoghen appealed the judgment at the time, it is only being heard now! One of the first things posterity stands to learn from the case is that some 5years ago, the Nigerian judiciary did nothing about the decision of the executive branch to illegally disgrace the head of their own arm of government out of office.

It was not the first time that politicians had attempted to so act, but in other similar cases, the judiciary decisively and promptly struck down the plan. In 2009 for instance, the then Kwara State Governor and the State House of Assembly had acted together to remove the Chief Judge of the State, Justice Raliat Elelu-Habeeb. The judiciary however rejected the attempt for the fundamental legal reason that the Chief Judge of a state “cannot be removed or disciplined without the input or participation of the National Judicial Council NJC.” Interestingly, Justice Walter Onnoghen was one of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court that heard the case. The Apex court had taken the same position when similar attempts were made to remove or appoint the Chief Judges of Rivers, Plateau and Ekiti states.

Each time the executive and the legislature attempted to remove a chief Judge (CJ) without involving the Judiciary,the NJC did not only reject the action, it went on to penalize any judge who accepted to be sworn in to act as CJ because every judge was expected to be reasonable enough to reject being part of an unconstitutional transaction. For example, in 2018, the NJC at its 85th meeting expectedly rejected the purported removal of Justice Theresa Uzokwe as the CJ of Abia State. It also penalized Justice Obisike Oji “for allowing himself to be sworn in as acting chief Judge thereby colluding in, and aiding an unconstitutional process.” With the handling of the cases in Kwara and Abia, which were followed in dealing with similar cases in other states, the NJC had set a standard no one expected it to depart or shy away from no matter whose axe was gored. 

But in 2019, when the then CJN, Walter Onnoghenwas wrongly removed from office, the executive branch headed at the time by President Muhammadu Buhari also proceeded to appoint and swear in another justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Tanko Muhammad to serve as Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria.The NJC neither rejected Buhari’s action nor did it penalize Tanko Muhammad for accepting a constitutional breach which favoured himself.  Indeed, the Judiciary relying on the technicality that usually a court trial is never stopped allowed the trial of the nation’s Chief Justice at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. The NJC also ignored the petition by the erudite Olisa Agbakoba SAN to extend to Tanko Muhammad what it applied to Obisike Oji a year earlier. Instead, the NJC after a few months took two steps, first, it recommended an extension of Tanko’s illegal acting appointment and second, recommended a few months later, that the appointment be confirmed.

Now that the federal government is seeking an out of court settlement over the removal of Justice Onnoghen, one is tempted to ponder over what the sacked CJN did not do before that he has now done to deserve the olive branch that is currently being offered to him. Could it be that the earlier charges against Onnoghen were fake? Of course, it can’t be otherwise because the government has no business seeking to settle out of court with a judge it removed from office after a conviction by its favourite court – the Code of Conduct Tribunal. The only other way to look at the subject is to accept the thinking in many circles at the time that Onnoghen was coerced to face trumped-up charges to stop him from playing any role in the election petitions that would follow the nearby 2019 presidential elections.

Posterity would consume much time to marvel at the role played by certain actors in the saga. To start with, why was the nation’s top most judge subjected to media trial? Onnoghen was accused of submitting an inaccurately completed assets declaration form to the Code of Conduct Bureau. It was also said that the former CJN naively admitted that it was an error on his part which made the government feel justified to arraign him to face prosecution at the Code of Conduct tribunal (CTC). Virtually everyone perceived Onnoghen as a crook especially as government indicated that it had uncovered many of his hidden assets which reportedly included 55 houses and several bank accounts. It was in fact stated that the former CJN in breach of extant laws, maintained foreign accounts.

Forgetting its foremost ethical value of balance and objectivity which demands that all the sides to a story must be published, the media indiscriminately opened all its organs for several uninformed commentaries. Some legal professionals actively joined in the unfortunate media trial which they knew to be an undue interference in the process of justice delivery. In fact, one senior judge who claimed to have been in practice forabout half a century said his own assets were a little fraction of what the former CJN allegedly had in his accounts. Yet, no one, be it journalists, lawyers or average citizens bothered to get the views of the suspect who had become indicted before trial. The nearest the nation got to hear from the accused was what people said Onnoghen claimed to have said.

In addition, the nation did not get to know how the relevant law expected Onnoghen’s alleged offence to be handled. Meanwhile Section 3(d) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act which is a public document specifically provided that where a person who failed to document all his assets makes a written admission of his non-compliance, no reference to the Tribunal was necessary. In other words, the immediate intention of the law was to first ensure compliance rather than rush to punish non-compliance without an opportunity for the wrong doer to effect corrections to his error. If so, why was Onnoghen summarily sent to the tribunal for prosecution instead of being offered a second opportunity to collect fresh forms to include his alleged previously undisclosed assets.

There are more important questions. First, why were some publicity-seeking senior lawyers calling for Onnoghen’s resignation as if that was the exact punishment legally prescribed for anyone with incomplete assets’ declaration? Second, why did analysts keep quiet when it became clear during the kangaroo trial that government was unable to identify up to 5 of the 55 houses earlier said to belong to the former CJN? Third, why did the protagonists of ‘Onnoghen must be punished’ go dumb when it was revealed that what the former CJN only operated government approved domiciliary accounts for public officials and not foreign accounts? Fourth, why was Buhari’s government not condemned for what my favourite Professor Milo Moro would describe as devious opprobrium? Fifth, will the present government that has shown good disposition to Onnoghen’s case, appropriately immortalise him through the naming of one major national edifice after him? Anything less would be ungodly.

Anthony Joshua has revealed why he was knocked out in the fifth round by Daniel Dubois during their heavyweight clash on Saturday, which saw Dubois retain his IBF heavyweight title.

The fight, held at Wembley Stadium in front of a massive crowd of 96,000, showcased a dominant performance by Dubois.

The 27-year-old floored Joshua four times before delivering the decisive blow in the fifth round—a powerful right to the chin that ended the contest.

During his post-match press conference, Joshua reflected on the loss, attributing his defeat to a series of mistakes made throughout the bout.

He said: “The first round? Overhand right, chin in the air, no defence kaboom.

“And it was a bit of a downhill slope from there. Tried to change the tides but it just weren’t my night tonight.”

Revealing what went wrong with him in the fifth round despite starting it strongly Joshua said:

“I caught him with a good shot I think and then I tried to go for it, and then I got caught with an overhead right, when I was throwing the uppercut.

“Thing is, I wasn’t setting shots up. In a shootout like that you really got to be a bit more sniper-esque.

“But when you’ve been hit a few times, it’s survival, I’m in survival mode.

“I just want to get him out of there and we had a shoot out and he hit me.”

Vanguard News

Compassion is an intrinsic value of leadership. Where there is compassion in leadership, there is healing, solidarity, and community. Leadership exists not in a vacuum but in the furtherance of ideals, welfare, and the protection of lives and property. A show of compassion is an affirmation of that critical essence of leadership – to serve the people.

An unforgiving flood coursed through parts of Maiduguri, Borno state, a few days ago, displacing citizens, wolfing property and lives, and leaving a ghastly trail of devastation. According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the flood began after the Alau Dam overflowed owing to torrential rains, resulting in the state’s worst flooding in 30 years.

As the consoler-in-chief, a few short hours after he returned from his official trip abroad, President Tinubu spared no room for niceties, he travelled to Borno State to sympathise with the people, inspire hope and resilience through the rough patch, as well as provide firm assurances of support.

In Maiduguri, the President announced a relief fund to assist citizens hit by floods and other disasters. He visited the Shehu of Borno, an internally displaced persons’ camp at Government Secondary School, Maiduguri, and had an immersive assessment of the situation with a drive-through of the areas impacted by the contretemps of nature.

“After my visit to the Shehu of Borno and the IDP camp, I have been reflecting on how to tackle this kind of disaster and the effects of climate change. There must be a disaster relief fund. I will invite the private sector to team up with us and help rebuild the affected areas. If we take a small percentage from FAAC and put it as a disaster relief fund, which will include all of you, we will be activating and strengthening our sense of belonging,” the President said.

The President also sympathised with other states affected by flooding, stating: “For all the people of Yobe State, I sympathise with you. We will create an outstanding programme for Nigeria to recover from this calamity. We will build our nation together.’’

Of great essence is President Tinubu’s clarity and precision on a strategy to address the tragedy, to help the people build back better, and prepare for future unforeseen natural accidents.

Pending the activation of the relief fund, so far, 100 trucks of relief materials, comprising 50 trucks of maize, 30 trucks of sorghum, and 20 trucks of millet, as well as cash donations have been provided to citizens imperilled by the mishap by the federal government.

In an accustomed display of charity, Seyi Tinubu and Yinka Tinubu on Friday also led a team to Maiduguri, where they donated N500 million towards the relief effort. Seyi emphasised the transcendence of the unity of wills and purpose at a time of great concern, such as now in Borno.

He said: “We are here today, not just as representatives of our family but as members of a collective effort of young Nigerians to bring hope and relief to those who need it most. This is a moment for solidarity, compassion, and immediate action. Maiduguri and Borno State have rich histories. The people are resilient. Despite the issues of the past few years, they have braved all odds, which is why such a painful national tragedy that befell the state deserves our collective effort, support, and prayers. Even more, it deserves our active collaboration and contributions.

‘’When my dad, President Bola Tinubu, visited Maiduguri earlier this week, he spoke about the urgent need for the private sector and individuals alike to step up in support of the communities affected. Inspired by his call, my wife Layal, and I through the Noella Foundation, my brother Yinka, our friends, and numerous private sector partners have joined hands to respond swiftly to the needs of those displaced by this tragedy.

“However, we hope this small contribution brings comfort and relief to those in need. Together, we can rebuild and heal, for in unity, there is strength. The Nigerian youth stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Borno. We are in this together, and our thoughts and prayers are with you all. Just like President Bola Tinubu said on Monday, Borno will rise again.”

Other items donated to the state include 10,000 pieces of mosquito nets, blankets, mattresses, kettles, wrappers, buckets, mats, sanitary pads and wash kits, as well as critical supplies to cover prescriptions for almost 50,000 children and adults, antimalarials, anti-hypertensive, anti-parasitic, anti-diabetic, analgesics and antibiotics.

These fine examples of compassion uplift the human spirit, renew hope, and emphasise our shared humanity. They show that with composite efforts towards compassion, we can have a moment of paradise. Leadership is healing.

Fredrick Nwabufo is the senior special assistant to the president on public engagement

One by one, three Nigerian former military rulers, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, arrived at Babangida’s Hilltop Mansion in Minna, Niger State, last Sunday. So did former National Security Adviser (NSA), General Aliyu Gusau. The Minna meeting had every trapping of African witches assembling at the coven. Like owls, a pervasive symbol of African witchcraft, did they fly to and perch on their Minna assembly nest at nocturne? Yoruba attribute the kind of powers this trio had/have to witches. They eat the head from the arm and masticate the heart from the liver. In any case, age and interminable presence in the theatre of Nigerian governance should qualify the trio as witches. Yoruba, for instance, approximates age to witchcraft. T’óbìnrin bá pé ńlé, àjé níí dà they say.

When the Minna ‘witches’ were done, like witches who leave their covens lips-sealed, the meeting was without communiqué. In the 1970s, Yoruba Adawa music exponent, Dele Abiodun, gave insight into the post-meeting relapse into dumbness by witches. In a very arresting and velvety voice, Abiodun sang that even if midnight raindrops pelted a witch on their way from the coven, at home, they kept sealed lips. His lyrics: “òjò t’ó pà’jé l’óru, b’ó bá dé’lé, kò ní lè so…” So, several interpretations began to emerge from the meeting of the Minna ‘witches.’ To spittle can carriers of present Nigerian government, the ‘witches,’ to clone lawyers’ lingo, had no moral locus standi to discuss Nigeria. In the words of the phlegm eaters, everyone else could complain about the visibly rudderless economic policies of this government but certainly not the trio. To some others, the Minna meeting forebodes evil for the polity. In their estimation, in the meeting of these Owners of Nigeria, the raspy, grisly and hissing sounds of vultures must have roused them from their sleeps.

The pacifists who feel that the ‘witches’ lack the moral right to discuss the Nigerian crisis remind me of bed-wetting and bed-wetters. Known as enuresis, in Africa, bed-wetting brings with it a lot of scorn. It signifies dirt and shame. In folklores, proverbs and wise-sayings, bed-wetting was ridiculed. It is even worse if the bed-wetter was of the male gender. While female bed-wetting was equally disdained, male bed-wetting was the limit. He was demasculinized by the fact of his bed-wetting. Traditional laundry operators, known in ancient Yoruba society as Alágbàfò, suffered urinary incontinence of the bed-wetter. They had to put up with the acrid ammonia smell of urine that caked and drew maps round their clothes. After dry-cleaning them, especially if they were white-coloured, the Alágbàfò added “aró”- to the clothes for effect.  Apart from smelling nice on clothes and dissolving the ammonia smell, it prevented the clothes from losing form. So, when Alagbafo come to pack clothes from customers for laundry, they looked out for ones that smelled of urine. Due to the inconveniences these smelly clothes put the drycleaner through, Yoruba had unpleasant words for bed-wetting customers who had the temerity to haggle over prices of laundering or the aro. To them, it was double shame. So they couch an apt saying that demonstrates their disdain: Everyone else could haggle over an Alágbàfò’s laundry charges but certainly not a bed-wetter, they say (Ó ye eni gbogbo k’ó yo’wó aró, sùgbón kìì se atòólé).

Two days after meeting at the Minna coven of IBB, Abdulsalami Abubakar met the leadership of the Campaign for Democracy (CD). The former Head of State said hardship in Nigeria had hit the firmament. On same day, former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, an ultra-rich member of the ex-military top-brass coven, at an event in Abuja, wondered why it was taking the military an eternity to stop the Nigerian insecurity.

Speaking frankly, what could have scurried Army Generals and ex-Nigerian Commanders-in-Chief of the Armed Forces out of their holes like rats escaping a harmattan field set on fire? Did Abdulsalami, in a way, leak the communiqué? Could it be that, like witches who see beyond their noses, the Owners of Nigeria saw beyond the now into the turmoil to come? Are they afraid of a revolution that can consume them and the ragtag ring leaders of the present mess? Nigeria had become a feisty state of a hen perched on a rope; both rope and hen are thrown into listless restiveness. Government’s economic plan, crafted to please global neo-liberal economic police, lacks human face and the people are hurting. Nigerians die in droves from hunger, distressing hardship and diseases. Yet, rather than own up that solution was beyond its ken, Aso Rock gallivants about with magisterial self-assuredness.

However, those who hold that the ‘witches’ possess no moral right to lament the excruciating time Nigeria found itself, from facts of history, will seem to be justified. The rain didn’t start pelting Nigeria today. According to a January 30, 1970 edition of The New York Times, even after a ruinous, brutal and destructive civil war, Nigeria’s economic structure and promise remained almost unscathed. The country’s spending on prosecuting the needless civil war, put at $1billion, made it one of the few countries in the world which fought an intra-national war for three years without any known record of indebtedness. Times reported that Nigeria adopted the “cash and carry” method for her arms and ammunition procurement. More astoundingly, she didn’t have to draw down on her foreign currency reserves which, pre-war, stood at $400 million. Oil, discovered just before the war and comfortably padded by a fairly widely spread export portfolio of cocoa, groundnuts, tin, rubber, timber and a “$30 million or so”, which was in the hands of the marketing boards and private firms, kept the economy bubbling, even while the armaments of war ricocheted in the air. With an oil production capacity which, as Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu declared at secession in May, 1967, was soaring at 570,000 barrels a day, Nigeria literally didn’t touch her oil during the war, so much that by 1968, production had plummeted to 50 barrels a day. This rose to a record 550,000 barrels a day immediately after the war, with royalties and taxes netting an annual $100 million and which, in 1975, rose to $1 billion from oil companies.

Armed with a humongous oil wealth, a vast population and the mantra of one out of every black person in the world being a Nigerian, these soon “entered Nigeria’s head”, as the street lingo went, and the thought that the country could be an African superpower became a near-national ideological obsession. Between 1967 and 1977, Federal Government revenue was said to have soared by 2,200 per cent. Nigeria’s economy was so strong that, on January 1, 1973, the country abandoned its pound sterling currency, a colonial relic, and created a new currency – the naira. Nigeria was then managed by an exuberant crop of unaccountable military leaders who had scant leadership and economic training. The height of it was Yakubu Gowon’s infamous statement abroad in 1973 that Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it. The huge oil wealth was soon squandered on the altar of naivety, arrogance and knavery.

It became so bad that in 1975, the Gowon government placed accumulated orders for 20 million tonnes of cement, paid for by Nigeria’s buoyant petro-dollars. The cost of the mind-boggling cement orders was put at about $2 billion, an amount which was a quarter of Nigeria’s oil revenue in 1975. This order was, at the time, more than the cement capacities of a combination of Western Europe and the USSR. Apapa was thoroughly overwhelmed and shipping lines all over the world scurried to Nigeria for a bite of the raw, mindless orgy of profligacy. Most of the shipments entered demurrage, in what was infamously dubbed the Cement Armada. When Murtala Muhammed took over from Gowon in a sudden coup and set up a panel to investigate the 12 governors under him, only two of them and two other ministers were found blameless. It was easy for the exuberant military leaders, many of them in their 20s and 30s, some of whom were bachelors like General Jack, the Head of State himself, to extend the spatial control mentality of military psychology into governance.

Thus, in 1972, Nigeria signed a pact with Niger Republic to supply her 30,000 kilowatts of electricity from the Kanji Dam hydropower state, even when local electricity needs were not met. Again in 1974, Nigeria donated millions of naira worth of relief materials to the same Niger Republic when it was ravaged by drought. Earlier, in early 1975, Gowon was in the impoverished island of Grenada with 90,000 inhabitants. Off the cuff, he paid the salaries of all Grenada’s civil servants, sent a contingent of Nigerian police to train Grenadian police, as well as giving a soft loan of $5,000,000 to Eric Gairy, its PM. After the widespread Soweto massacre riots of 1976, Nigeria brought into the country hundreds of “Soweto kids” and several other South African black youths and offered them scholarships to study in Nigerian universities. This continued till the end of Apartheid. In 1972, Gowon sent Nigeria’s troupe to Niger to forestall an imminent coup against his friend, Hamani Diori, with huge financial implications to Nigeria. Throughout his headship of Nigeria, Nigeria paid millions of dollars financing a third of ECOWAS’ budget, even though it was headquartered in another friend, Gnasingbe Eyadema’s Togo. During the Nigerian civil war, Eyadema intercepted a Biafran plane loaded with seven million Nigerian pounds but rather than return it to us, chose to negotiate with it. At negotiations, he demanded two million pounds. Gowon paid him two million British pounds. As at this time, Nigeria’s foreign reserves stood at #32million. Indeed, this squandering of Nigeria’s wealth was one of the reasons provided for removing him as Head of State.

To understand the psychology of the recipients of Nigeria’s deranged spending, we must go back to the year 1972 or so, to the reply of the late President of Niger Republic, Ahmadu Diori, when asked why Niger supported Nigeria as against the secessionist Biafra during the Nigerian civil war. According to Diori, as quoted by Temitope Ola in “Nigeria’s assistance to African states: What are the benefits?”in the International Journal of Development and Sustainability, Niger depended on Nigeria for economic survival. In his direct words, made in French, Diori had said, “quand le Nigeria etermue, le Niger fact plus qu’attraper la grippe, il se trouvedeja a l’hopital” “when Nigeria sneezes, Niger not only catches cold, it is already on admission in the hospital”.

Under Obasanjo, Nigeria established a South Africa Relief Fund (SARF) in 1978, where Nigerians poured about $20 million of their hard-earned money into. In June 1976, Obasanjo presented a cheque of $250,000 to the liberation forces of Rhodesia through the Mozambican Foreign Minister, Joaquim Chissano. He then handed over to President Samora Machel of the newly independent state of Mozambique the sum of $1.6 million as development assistance.

The Big Father Christmas also constructed an expressway from Lagos to the outskirts of Cotonou with several millions of dollars, while spearheading the integration project of a regional gas pipeline for sub-regional economic development. Nigeria equally established the Technical Aid Programme and created a Trust Fund at the African Development Bank (AfDB) for Africans, with a soft loan of $100 million to be lent to least developing African countries.

In 1989, upon the paralysis of the Beninoise government by a bludgeoning workers’ strike occasioned by its inability to pay salaries, Nigeria, under Babangida, offset the salaries, while also donating 12,000 tonnes of petroleum products to the government. The year before, Babangida’s Nigeria funded the Ibrahim Babangida School of International Studies in Liberia and donated seven Nigerian academics to the institution, while Nigeria constructed the Trans-African Highway and bought over Liberia’s debt valued at $30 million. There must have been a-thousand-and-one other frittering off of the Nigerian wealth which took place under cover, which are not open to the rest of the world, all in the name of foreign policy. For instance, as at 2009, Nigeria had sent about 3000 troops to Darfur for the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force. Obasanjo, as civilian president, also sent 5,000 Nigerian soldiers on peacekeeping operations.

In mid-1970s under Mohammed, Nigeria sunk what today will amount to trillions of Naira in Angola. In fact, in his book, Diplomatic Soldiering (1987) Joe Garba wrote: “There was a general feeling among the member-States that the Nigerian treasury was an inexhaustible source of funds.” Ghana and Togo owed the country over $30m from concessionary sales of crude oil. Masquerading under diplomatic recognition to MPLA, in 1975, Nigeria granted outright $20m to Angola, bought military hardware, from rifles to MiGs and more for Angola. Nigeria opened its doors to MPLA delegations and spent on them lavishly. Nigeria’s national airplanes shuttled Luanda and Lagos, fully paid for by us, with its delegates decked in latest designer’s suit of Pierre Cardin. Angola demanded a new F28 aircraft from Nigeria, two used F28 and a new presidential-type F28 aircraft. They were to be delivered with their spare parts. Nigeria, which was importing chilled meat from Argentina, was also asked by President Neto, in whose memory the new airport was named, to send meat to it! The Obasanjo military government also ordered Nigeria Airways to fly Lagos – Luanda daily, at huge loss to the Nigerian government. However, when Nigeria struck a deal with Angola to import, then Angola’s greatest fish resource, it balked and sold exclusive fishing rights to Russia. With all Nigeria did for Angola, when Murtala Muhammed was assassinated in 1976, Angola sent neither delegation, nor any condolences to Nigeria for three weeks.

Recently, TotalEnergies chose to invest a whooping sum of $6billion in energy projects in Angola, over Nigeria. It cited tardy policies. According to its CEO, though Nigeria’s Niger Delta is the most productive field in West Africa, an erratic policy investment climate made the decision inevitable and its investment in Nigeria untenable. Angola also recently constructed a new airport named Antonio Agostinho Neto International Airport (AIAAN) worth $3billion. Fully funded by the Angolan government as a public investment, the project is certain to make Angola the hub of economic activity in African airport transportation. Today, that country is the eighth-largest economy on the African continent and one of Africa’s most resource-rich countries. It is also ranked 16^th among world largest oil producers in 2023 and fourth-largest rough diamond producer by value in 2022.

Muhammadu Buhari, in continuation of this profligate indiscretion and misplaced priority, and a time when Nigeria’s economy had begun to contract, also purchased N1.14 billion ($2.7 million) worth of 10 luxury vehicles for neighbouring Niger Republic.

So when, at a meeting with the forum of former presiding officers of the National Assembly last week, President Bola Tinubu said, “Yes, there is hardship, but how did we get here? What did we do when we had very high crude production?” he was obviously referring to the ‘witches’ parading themselves as Messiahs.

Today, Nigeria, which frittered trillions of Naira like a possessed spendthrift, is faced with a gasping economy. Its clueless government sends bags of rice to its people as if they are in IDP camps. That same government is struggling to pay $43 as monthly salary to workers. In the same statement where Tinubu spoke brilliantly about the rain that began pelting Nigeria a long time ago and how past Nigerian leadership was on a national bazaar, in an oxymoron-like twist, he said, “People say ‘we’re hungry’; yes, I understand… there is no free beer parlour anymore.”  It was as if the spirit of arrogance just clambered the president, leading him to deploy a figure of speech in which what is amiss with his spirit – liquour – could be directly interpreted from the words he used.

Tinubu should, as a matter of urgency, acknowledge that his economic policies of the last 16 months have hit the wrong chord and people are dying. He needs to backtrack. His government’s predilection for living large, at the expense of the comatose economy and his inhuman distancing of self from suffering Nigerian people’s plight put him in the same heartless frame with the ‘witches’ of Nigeria.

When Major-General Muhammadu Buhari overthrew the elected civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari on the last day of 1983, he inherited an economy in a mess and a political system in a turmoil. This crisis of a dysfunctional political economy was Buhari’s principal reason for sacking the Shagari administration.

For Buhari, Nigeria’s crisis of balance of payments was the result of two things: indiscipline and economic crimes. His answer to the former was a War against Indiscipline (WAI), a catch-all acronym for everything from instilling a queue culture in the population to capital punishment for drug suspects. Turning to the latter, General Buhari invented a very capacious category of economic sabotage. Those arrested for these did not necessarily have to suffer a predictable judicial ritual.

In 1984, the Buhari regime ordered the detention of five citizens of Taiwan arrested by the officers of the Customs Service who caught them in possession of blank attested and proforma invoices for goods supposedly imported into Nigeria. One of the arrested persons was known as Wang Chin-Yao. They were supposedly involved in economic sabotage of the country which was meant to be a crime. Rather than charge them with a crime known to law, however, the regime arranged to have them locked up in administrative detention under the State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree No. 2 of 1984. Under this decree, a detention certificate issued by the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters was enough to lock a person away interminably. Among its features, the decree precluded courts from inquiring into anything concerning the detention of persons held under its authority.

Fearing interminable detention, Wang Chin-Yao and his compatriots sued the Chief of Staff in the hope that the court could pronounce on the lawfulness of their detention but the High Court chose to emulate the Biblical Pontius Pilate and decided that the decree under which they were held precluded it from questioning the detentions. On All Fools Day (1 April) in 1985 the Court of Appeal decided their appeal against the decision of the High Court. In a judgment delivered by Phillip Adenekan Ademola, the Court of Appeal affirmed the ruling of the High Court. Adenekan Ademola, whose father was the first indigenous Chief Justice of Nigeria, stated his reasons with flamboyant economy holding “that on the question of civil liberties, the law courts of Nigeria must as of now blow muted trumpets.”

These words were to prove exceedingly corrosive in their effect on judicial imagination under the military. A mere three years after this judgment by Adenekan Ademola, his bossom friend and Sarkin Wurno, Shehu Malami, became the subject of considerable interest by the security services of the military government when he threw his hat into the ring to become the 18th Sultan of Sokoto at the death of Sultan Siddiq Abubakar III. It was impossible to find a court without its own muted trumpet. The muted trumpets of the courts enabled the abuses that ultimately made military rule untenable and brought about its demise one decade later.

The hope – with the end of military rule – was that the return of the country to government with electoral legitimacy would unleash the civic imagination of Nigerians. In the run up to Nigeria’s presidential election of 2023, part of the claim made in favour of the man whom the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) eventually anointed as president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was that he had fought the excesses of military rule as a chieftain of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a pro-democracy collective, many of whose leading members were exiled during the last half decade of military rule in Nigeria. It is natural to expect that the government of a man with those credential would be a paradise for the kinds of rights for which he reputedly took the military to task.

The reality has been anything but…. The government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has instead become the graveyard of freedoms of expression and association and of the right to protest in Nigeria and it is only just a little over 15 months in power. The numbers are there to prove it.

In the first year of the Tinubu administration, the Press Attack Tracker recorded 37 incidents of attacks against journalists and the press. The first five months of 2024 alone witnessed 27 such attacks. For comparison, advocacy organization, Global Rights, which monitored similar patterns under the Buhari regime recorded 189 journalists arrested, detained or harassed over the eight years of the Buhari administration. At the current pace, the Tinubu regime of NADECO graduates will by the end of its second year easily eclipse the record of the entire Buhari administration in press freedom violations over its eight years of existence.

At the end of August 2024, Bola Tinubu’s Nigeria comfortably topped the league table of attacks on journalists in Africa with over 76 recorded incidents of attacks against journalists, beating Somalia (with 18 attacks) into second place, with Congo DRC a distant third with five incidents.

These numbers only provide a peek into a more troubling pattern. Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported “at least 56 journalists who were assaulted or harassed by security forces or unidentified citizens while covering the #EndBadGovernance demonstrations in Nigeria.” The “unidentified citizens” who were involved in some of these attacks mostly conducted themselves in ways which suggests that they were agents or emissaries of the ruling party or government.

The #EndBadGovernance protest and its aftermath have been a squalid advertisement of the illiberal credentials of the Tinubu Government. After failing in intimidating citizens out of the protest, the administration resorted to third-degree methods to squash it. It arrested thousands of citizens whose only crime was peaceful expression of dissent, instructed the freezing of the accounts of persons and groups whom it claimed to be organisers of the protests, and procured suspicious court orders to unsafely kettle and intimidate the protesters. Security forces killed at least 13 protesters although the real casualty count is thought to be well north of this number.

Not content with these, the government arranged in Abuja to charge many of the protesters with treason or conspiracy to commit treason. Campaigners at Human Rights Watch have rightly pointed out that this signals the extent of the regime’s “intolerance for dissent.” The significance of these charges go well beyond this, however. The charges of treason for the #EndBadGovernance protesters are designed to intimate any wannabe protesters. They are also a dog whistle for the judges before whom these protesters are charged to treat them as beyond the pale and beneath the law.

The judges are listening. At the trial before the Federal High Court in Abuja, the court has eventually granted the protesters bail on rather stringent conditions. Citizen groups are now working hard to socialize the costs of meeting these conditions. Lawyers for the government meanwhile go around intimidating the courts with specious reasons as to why protest has become treason under the government of a serial protester.

Nearly 40 years ago, when the son of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria told judges to blow muted trumpets on questions of civil liberties, there was an assumption that the judges were capable of doing different. Now and again many of them indeed served the soldiers with a judicial bloody nose. Today, that capacity no longer exists. Nigerian courts no longer want to be associated with any trumpets, not even muted ones, lest they inadvertently let out some judicial sound.

Instead, many courts, under the thumb of their Chiefs or administrative judges have become enablers of the authoritarian instincts of the government of NADECO veterans. When the security services invade the offices of advocacy organization, SERAP; or interdict the passport of Omoyele Sowore at the airport, they don’t even contemplate the existence of judges capable of playing Pontius Pilate. For them, the courts no longer exist. That is some progress!

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Vice-President Kashim Shettima has departed Abuja for the United States to attend the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

In a statement on Sunday, Stanley Nkwocha, senior special assistant to the president on media and communications, said Shettima’s trip to UNGA was at the behest of President Bola Tinubu.

The 79th UNGA with the theme, “Leaving no one behind: Acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development, and human dignity for present and future generations,” will be held between September 24 and 28.

“It would be recalled that President Tinubu had directed the Vice President to lead the Nigerian delegation to the high-level global forum while he focuses on addressing pressing domestic issues, including the recent devastating flood disaster,” the statement reads.

Nkwocha said during the session, Shettima will deliver Nigeria’s national statement, participate in key meetings on the sidelines of the event, and engage in bilateral discussions.

The president had said that only authorised government officials will attend this year’s UNGA.

Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff to the president, conveyed Tinubu’s directive during a one-day retreat organised by the State House management for heads of government agencies under its supervision.

Gbajabiamila said the decision to reduce the country’s delegation to the UNGA is part of the “administration’s commitment to ensure prudent management of resources and reduce the cost of governance”.

[TheCable]

The expansive headquarters of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Jabi, Abuja, deserves to have a wing for circuses. The building is so imposing that the mere sight should frighten the crime-minded, but behind the façade lies a clay-footed anti-graft agency that enjoys playing to the gallery and displaying the absurd. Over the years, it has witnessed many spectacular acts of triviality but on the watch of Olukayode Olanipekun, unnecessary ego now drives its policies and operations.

Nowhere has this absurdity played out more than in its lousy handling of the case involving Yahaya Bello, the former governor of Kogi State. The timid handling of Bello, a wanted man who visited its headquarters in Jabi, Abuja, last Wednesday, was not only scandalous, it shows that the Commission now takes the sensibilities of Nigerians for granted.

The EFCC had, last April, declared Bello wanted after he failed to appear for arraignment on N80.2 billion money laundering charges. Instead of responding to the charges, the former governor who had boasted that he was ready to face any inquisition into his tenure in office, preferred to take the agency on a long ride. ‘The White Lion’ holed up for months, literally under the bed of his successor in office, Governor Ahmed Ododo somewhere in Lugard House, seat of the state government in Lokoja, from where he occasionally sneaks out of town and into his Abuja mansion.

The most spirited attempt to arrest him later that month in Abuja was thwarted by Governor Ododo who deployed his official vehicles and security details to Bello’s Abuja home to rescue him and drive him out of the city. Bello returned to his hide-out in Lokoja even though many say he has severally been sighted in the nation’s capital as well as his native Okene. Though the EFCC declared him wanted, placed him on the watch list, got all security agencies to mount a manhunt for him and placed him on INTERPOL red alert, the cat and mouse game has lasted all of six months.

So, when last Wednesday, September 18, 2024, Bello walked into the EFCC headquarters in Abuja, the public heaved a sigh of relief; at last the man whom many swear would lead the EFCC to the whereabouts of far more than the N80 billion that allegedly developed wings on his watch as governor, would be in custody. But rather than arrest and clamp him in detention for interrogation and onward arraignment, the EFCC Chairman simply waved him away.

Olanipekun

Why did the EFCC refuse to arrest a man who was publicly advertised as a felon running from the law; a man it has told every other agency to arrest on sight?

The agency said it rejected the method by which Bello reported to the commission. Upon realising that Bello came with the Kogi state governor, the EFCC Chairman directed that no official should attend to him. Olanipekun’s grouse is that Bello by-passed documentation formalities and instead of coming with his lawyer, ‘breached the EFCC protocol’ by coming for an invitation in a convoy of vehicles and with a sitting governor. And so it allowed Bello who spent three hours loitering within the EFCC premises to return to his luxurious car and drive off!

Are these enough reasons to ask a wanted felon to drive off? Agreed that the EFCC also did not invite the governor, was his mere presence within its premises enough to thwart a legitimate arrest of Bello?

Olanipekin’s action was absurd, to say the least, and he needs to explain that to Nigerians. Ironically, not long after Bello drove away, his agency shamelessly issued a statement to dispel media reports that the former governor was in its custody. It also reiterated that the man it had declared wanted for over half a year, and who was sighted in its premises earlier in the day “remains wanted with a subsisting warrant for his arrest”. Nothing can be more shamefully self-indicting.

The truth is that Olukayode Olanipekun who was in his office when Bello drove into the premises in an executive convoy, felt humiliated that the felon he had tried unsuccessfully to arrest in Abuja and Lokoja, surrendered to the EFCC on his own, and with cameras flashing. To make matters worse, Bello had primed the media to report his trip to the EFCC himself. It was too much of a humiliation for the EFCC chairman, and as his ego took over him, he bluntly refused to order Bello’s arrest or to see him. He holed up in his office upstairs while Bello chatted with his Chief of Staff and other sundry staff for all of three hours.

Rather than arrest him within the EFCC premises, Olanipekun was said to have told his aides that he preferred to humiliate Bello with a public arrest anytime, anywhere.

What arrogance!

Minutes after Bello’s departure, he mobilized over 30 operatives for his second attempt at arresting Bello, this time at the Kogi State Lodge in Asokoro later that night. After several gunshots and what could have ended in a bloodbath at the Governor’s Lodge, he failed again as common sense prevailed and the EFCC operatives were asked to withdraw.

Today, as Yahaya Bello still walks free, the cost of feeding Olanipekun’s fat ego can only be imagined. For the many who believe the Tinubu administration only pays lip service to the fight against corruption, last week’s incident is a good example.

The question is: does the EFCC Chairman still expect other security agencies to cooperate with his agency by arresting Bello wherever he is sighted?

Indeed, the EFCC Chairman has a lot to explain to Nigerians. Were all the spectacle necessary? Why was he prepared to put his operatives in harm’s way in a situation that was clearly avoidable? More importantly, when did his personal ego become part of the EFCC operational policy?

Sheddy Ozoene is the Editor-In-Chief of People&Politics.