And as a founding director of Transparency International and  a former vice president of the World Bank (Africa region), Oby unarguably remains a pacesetter and the best example of what educated African woman can become as against ‘feminization of poverty’ (UN) by those African societies that refuse to educate their womenfolk. Above all, Oby is passionate about the Nigerian project and often speaks with passion on issues that are connected to our crisis of nation-building.

But like many of us, her vision is sometimes blurred by her political prejudices. Ezekwesili sees only the things she wants to see. ““If you are a Nigerian, you should be vexed at this government. All we have seen from this government since it came into office is fiscal profligacy”. Although many of the economic policies designed to set our nation on the path of modernization and sustainable growth are yet to start yielding dividends, not many of those familiar with Nigeria’s years of the locusts when ill-equipped leaders declare unabashedly that ‘money was not Nigeria problem but how to spend it’ and when in recent years, weak leaders turned themselves to ATM without password, will agree with Ezekwesili.

But we understand where Ezekwesili, an unapologetic supporter of candidate Peter Obi, and a silent admirer of the ‘obidients’, is coming from. For her, Peter Obi, a sell-confessed importer of wine among other items that killed our budding industries thereby forcing our youths out in search for greener pasture elsewhere in the world,  is the best hope for turning the Nigeria economy around.  She has a mind-set that both Atiku and Tinubu, the eventual winner of the election, are no match for Obi.

And her crooked syllogism was that youths who make up 60 per cent of the voting population along with women which make up about 51 per cent of the voting population are more inclined towards the presidency of Peter Obi. And based on two premises that may be invalid, Oby on  December 10, 2022  told Channels TV’s Hard Copy “So after I have done my rating, there is absolutely no way I would leave a Peter Obi and vote for any of the other two candidates”.

Now trapped in Obi’s illusory presidency, she still describes the 2023 election as  “not an election, but snatch it grab it and run away with it” while discrediting both the INEC and the Supreme Court, praised by many for the share profundity of its judgment. She dismisses both the executive and legislature as ‘bandits’ and ‘rascals’. All she wants by accusing those in power of starting class war is the collapse of the government.

But if one may ask, what are the causes of Oby’s current emotional anguish?

First, beyond removal of fuel subsidy, she wants total deregulation, where market forces will reign supreme. No one expects anything different from former director of the Harvard-Nigeria Economic project. The problem however is that no one has told us where in the world market forces only has brought prosperity to the people beyond making the poor  live to support the system while the rich get richer.

At least we already have a template in Nigeria. Okpara’s ‘Pragmatic Socialism’, where public enterprises played a leading role repositioned the old Eastern Region as the fastest growing economy in the world in the sixties. In the West, Awolowo’s home grown capitalism where public enterprises joined forces with the private sector to create a more egalitarian society, was the reason the old Western Region became ‘the most educated part of Africa’. Of course Ahmadu Bello built the biggest business conglomerate in Africa in the sixties without consulting Oby’s World Bank.

Ezekwesili also considers government’s acquisition of aircraft –Airbus A330 to replace the 19-year old Boeing, economic recklessness. While uninformed victims of the president’s economic policies could be incensed, the same reaction from opinion leaders who understand need for safety and the fact that old aircrafts have been put on sale to offset the cost of the new one could only have been designed to whip up public sentiments against the government.

As for Oby’s grief over N20b to build the vice president’s house, she was being economical with the truth. FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, disclosed the contract for the building was first awarded in 2010, at a cost of N7 billion. It became one of the abandoned projects until leadership of the FCT in January 2024 sought for and obtained approval for a review of the contract to the sum of N22 billion, leading to its completion 14 years after commencement. The president praised Wike for his ‘dynamic and focused leadership’ saying it was the 9th in the series of (mostly abandoned projects) Wike had completed.  Oby would have preferred the property already taken over by reptiles to continue to rot away like the abandoned National Assembly whose contract was awarded in March 11, 2006 to Reynolds Construction Company, (RCC), to the tune of N8.5 billion naira.

Unlike the National Mosque and the Ecumenical Centre started the same time but completed by those who think God can be deceived, it was abandoned and today TETFUND is projecting a cost of N200b. Meanwhile, Ezekwesili has not called those who abandoned the projects only to raise N7billion from serving governors and government contractors to build their own personal presidential library bandits.

 As for Oby’s other heartache, the National Assembly’s decision to buy toys or what she described as ‘funny looking cars’, even while the governed should be naturally  such  insensitive decision, Oby understands that the  National Assembly runs its own budget independent of the executive arm of government.  She knows it was this reason, neither Obasanjo, her political father, who has at various times described the assembly members as ‘pen thieves’, Jonathan who according to Okonjo-Iweala had to part with about N15b bribe to have his budget passed nor Buhari who for eight years complained about the padding of his budget by the legislature, could not rein in the National Assembly members.

Oby also knows that this was part of the reasons Nigerian stakeholders have since 1999 called for the review of the 1999 constitution. But as against joining this crusade, what we have on record is Ezekwesili’s pursuits of her Igbo ethnic group agenda-citizenship of Nigerians wherever they stay without obligations of settlers to host communities, ignoring the sociological reality of Nigeria, which unlike America, is a federation of ethnic nationalities.

I am not sure many Nigerians have an axe to grind with Oby’s characterization of many Nigerian politicians as bandits. She is best placed to confirm this fact.  I think they just believe charity must start from the home. She was part of PDP when Obasanjo  and Atiku in the guise of privatization sold Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b for  a paltry $1.5b to party stalwarts, when in the name of monetization policy they shared physical structures dating back to the pre-colonial period, kept in their temporary care for our children among themselves with David Mark, as Senate President and Dimeji Bankole as House Speaker,  buying their official residences at give-away prices among other government  buildings including the  NITEL building in Ikoyi.

She was there when in 1999 when lawmakers who claimed to have sold house to fight election set up an instrument which according to a National Assembly probe report, they deployed to steal billions. She cannot also deny the claim by Audu Ogbe, one time PDP chairman, corroborated by National Assembly report, that siblings of PDP stalwarts forged papers under the nose of Okonjo-Iweala, as Minister for Finance, to defraud the nation to the tune of NI.6 trillion under the dubious subsidy regime, “without importing a pint of fuel”.

Finally, Oby is a former vice president of the World Bank whose policies she wants to force down our throats. But we do know the World Bank is the greatest bandit the world has ever known. It is the instrument Europe effectively deployed to defraud and impoverish Africa nations from where over $58b is siphoned from annually. What other name besides ’bandit’ do we have for a continent  that has nothing but depends on our  priceless resources including silver, gold, crude oil among others, and declare without shame that a unit of their coloured papers, must exchange for between 1,500  and 5,000 units of the currency of African nations that own their resources?

Between the Federal Ministry of Education and some states, we are hearing pronouncements on educational policies that give us citizens some concern especially parents and those who are seized with the question of the education of our children and grandchildren and about the educational trajectory of the country. The Federal Ministry of Education shocked the whole country, by issuing a decree, as if we were in a military regime, that children under 18 should not be allowed to take JAMB university entrance examination and those below certain age should not be allowed to take the Senior School examination. Also Lagos State suddenly announced it was converting the College of Medicine in its university into a University of Medicine. These two developments gave me worry and if some of us don’t speak out, these two authorities will think they are doing the right thing.

The federal minister of education who made one of these announcements is totally wrong. First of all, education is still on the concurrent constitutional list on which both the federal and the state governments have jurisdiction. I am waiting for any state government to challenge this federal announcement because it is wrong. No government should be able to tell parents whether their fast learning children should be arbitrarily restrained from entering a university because a minister says so, or should a minister be able to restrain a child from taking senior school leaving examination which is a prerequisite for sitting for JAMB examination. If this policy holds, parents would be forced to asking their children to take Ordinary and Advanced level examinations of external examination bodies in order to give their children opportunity to enter universities. In this way, the minister would have found a market for external examination bodies to the detriment of the local ones.

In places like Canada and the United States, children enter universities with different state qualifications not a unified homogenized qualification like in Nigeria. There are smart children who get first degrees in Harvard and Oxford universities in their teenage years because they are gifted children and it doesn’t seem as if our own regimes make allowance for such gifted children because everyone is brought down to the lowest pedestal of the average and dullest people in the country.

I pray that this action of the federal minister of education would be challenged in the courts for clarification and also in order to protect the interest of smart and precocious children who have no voice in what amounts to abridgment of their educational progress.

The idea of University of Medicine began in Ondo State where a so-called university of medicine domiciled in a rented section of the Adeyemi College of Education in Ondo State for years before apparently having its own campus. When this unique institution was established, I asked then in this paper what this university of medicine was all about. Can medical students be trained without knowledge of basic sciences like Physics, Biology and Chemistry? Certainly these medical students would  be expected to go through basic sciences in which case the university of medicine would have to have departments of basic sciences and also Biochemistry, Physiology and Anatomy, knowledge of which are critical to the study of medicine. In modern medical schools, students are expected to have knowledge of the sociology of the country within which their knowledge will be practiced. Education nowadays tries to widen the knowledge of students outside the narrow confines of the specialized fields of study. This is why a university of medicine should be part of a developed comprehensive university, not an isolated university of medicine. Even if there are universities of medicine in the developed countries, must we blindly copy them without their level of development and the resources available in such countries? Since the Ondo example, the federal government has in the last few years established such universities of medicine in Oturpo, in Benue State and another one in Ila-Orangun , Osun State presumably to honour Brigadier-Gen. David Mark and Chief  Bisi Akande  who are political bigwigs in the country without counting the cost of such establishment even when other old dilapidating federal institutions are collapsing.

One also wonders where medical teachers are going to be found for these universities of medicine. There is no surplus of such teachers in Nigeria or anywhere as far as I know. In the case of Ondo State, it is not even able to fund its universities of technology in Okitipupa, Owo and its premier university in Akungba. The technical equipment and structure for such a highly specialized university of medicine can only be purchased in forex-denominated currency. Is it with the billions of naira that will fetch a mere million dollars that they would use to fund this so-called university of medicine?

A poorly trained doctor armed with the scalpel to perform surgery will be a licensed murderer. By the way, what happened to Muhammadu Buhari’s University of Transportation in Daura? Recently the Customs Director-General announced his department was about to announce a university of Customs and the Department of Immigration is ready to roll! Not to talk about different arms of the military! The university idea has become a joke in Nigeria.

When Lagos State announced that it was setting up a university of medicine this October, I said to myself here we go again. The reasons adduced for it were shortage of doctors in state hospitals because of resignation of their doctors for foreign appointments. The state did not say people went elsewhere because of poor remuneration but we the people know this is what happened. We all know the reason why doctors are fleeing the country is poor wages and emoluments. The announcement by the Lagos State governor went further to state that the new university of medicine would graduate 1500 doctors per year.

I asked myself whether the institution would just be told to go and graduate 1500 doctors as if it were a factory. What will be the size of 1500 graduating medical university? Where are the teachers that would graduate 1500 doctors? This is simply impossible and if it is possible, these brand new doctors would be poorly trained physicians. None of the old medical schools in the country can graduate a third of such figures annually. This is not a solution to the problem of resignation.

For the sake of argument, would the new doctors be tied down by shackles to the hospitals? I have not heard of universities being set up like this before. Was there any study done about the feasibility of this enterprise? Even with the acclaimed resource endowment of Lagos State, it will not be able to fund adequately its new university of medicine along with recently established universities of technology, of education and the old LASU which is not adequately funded.

State governments should not just jump into the running stream of establishing universities on the whim of the chief executive. States concerned with the health of their people should provide potable clean water and embark on programs of preventive medicine rather than poorly conceived establishments of universities of medicine. Universities that are universities are serious enterprises. The federal and state governments should have deep thoughts about  establishing new universities when it can hardly fund the current ones. It is indeed time for the federal and state governments to roll back some of the mushroom universities that they have established in recent times.

Al Nassr of Saudi Pro League superstar, Cristiano Ronaldo fired a not-so-subtle message to archrival Lionel Messi after scoring his 900th career goal, saying Portugal’s Euro 2016 triumph is ‘equivalent’ to winning a World Cup.

The 39-year-old iconic football star, who has had a near career-long rivalry with Messi, reached the remarkable milestone on Thursday’s night as Portugal opened their Nations League campaign with a 2-1 victory over Croatia.

It was a mixed night for Ronaldo’s former Manchester United team-mate Diogo Dalot in Lisbon, with the defender breaking the deadlock early on before directing the ball into his own net at the other end of the pitch.

Fortunately for Dalot, Ronaldo’s 34th-minute strike proved decisive and Roberto Martinez’s men held firm to secure maximum points from the heavyweight clash at Benfica’s Estadio da Luz.

Metro.co.uk reports that after volleying Nuno Mendes’ inviting cross beyond Croatian goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic, Ronaldo dropped to his knees and broke down in tears, clearly overcome with emotion at his astonishing achievement.

Ronaldo and team will look to maintain their 100 per cent record in the competition when they play host to Scotland in their second Group A contest on Sunday evening.

Speaking to the media after becoming the first player in history to score 900 goals, Ronaldo insisted that ‘enjoying football’ was now his sole motivation – rather than winning the World Cup.

“Portugal winning Euros is equivalent to winning a World Cup,” the veteran attacker said.

‘I’ve already won two trophies for Portugal that I really wanted. I’m not motivated by that.

‘I’m motivated by enjoying football and the records come naturally.’ Ronaldo added: ‘Scoring 900 goals seems like any other milestone, but only I know how hard it is to work every day to score your 900th goal.

‘It’s a unique milestone in my career. ‘I don’t break records… they haunt me!,” Ronaldo said.

[Leadership]

The federal government has flagged off the sale of 30,000 metric tonnes of milled rice to public servants with duly registered National Identification Number (NIN) to curb racketeering. The move is parts of efforts to crash the prices of food in Nigerian markets.

President Bola Tinubu, who was represented at the flag off by Abubakar Kyari, the minister of agriculture and food security, said the intervention will be sold strictly “one man to one bag or one woman to one bag”.

He said the rice — which is to be sold at a flat rate of N40,000 naira only for 50kg — is the federal government intervention for the sales of subsidised milled rice to ameliorate the prevailing food crises in Nigeria.

“This food intervention can be said to be timely considering the times and challenges we are in as citizens of this great nation,” he said.

“As one of the numerous efforts of the present administration to cushion the effect of high cost of food commodities, kindly join me to applaud the immense efforts of the present administration such as the release of 42,000MT of Assorted Food Commodities (AFC) to vulnerable and the 30,000MT of milled rice which is being flagged-off for sales to Nigerians today 5th September, 2024.”

The minister blamed COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, climate change amidst other localized factors/challenges for the high cost of food prices.

“This has led to increase concern and risk of food insecurity and general decline in the standard of living globally. I therefore urge us to understand that the present challenges are not peculiar to our great country,” he said.

He added that the federal government being aware of the potential challenges associated with the sales of an important staple such as rice, at this critical period has deployed a multi-disciplinary machinery of Government, as well put in place certain processes and conditions to ensure the transparency, wider reach and success of this exercise.

“This includes one man one 50kg of rice, others are the verification of intending beneficiaries using relevant identification mediums such as the National Identification Number (NIN) and phone numbers to forestall multiple access to this food commodity by fraudulent individuals at the detriment of other citizens,” he said.

He implored citizens to cooperate with the relevant citizens to achieve the initiative.

“Let us work together to ensure that the dream of the present administration to upheld the fundamental right to food for all Nigerians is achieved. It is expected that with the injection 30,000MT (1000 trucks of 30MT each of this important staple into Nigeria food balance sheet, it will not only crash the price of rice but also other closer food substitutes and alternatives.”

He called on Nigerians to remain steadfast and be patient with Mr. President as his numerous efforts to enhance Food security will soon begin to pay off.

The director, food and strategic reserve of the ministry, Haruna Sule Abutu outlined the procedure to buy the subsidised rice.

“To qualify for the one person one bag, you must have National Identification Number, of course you have phone numbers and those in public service are all registered under the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) platform,” he said.

“Once you have any of these three, at the point of sale, with the NIN logged into the system, a code number and a Treasury receipt will be generated, and with that the buyer can get to the collection center and pick up his bag. The receipt will indicate, time and point of collection to eliminate stampede.”

[BusinessDay]

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed an appeal filed by governorship aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua,  to disqualify the party’s candidate for the upcoming September 21 governorship election, Asue Ighodalo.

In the appeal marked CA/ABJ/CV/863/2024, Esene and Ojezua had urged the Court of Appeal to overturn the April 17 judgment by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which dismissed their suit as “statute barred.”

Justice Omotosho had previously ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove their claim that Ighodalo had forged his voter’s card. He also noted that “non-possession of a voter’s card did not constitute a disqualifying factor under the Constitution and the Electoral Act” to bar a candidate from contesting an election.

In the lead judgment delivered on Friday, Justice Hamma Barka upheld Justice Omotosho’s decision and affirmed that the suit filed by Ojezua and others was “filed out of time and statute barred.”

Justice Barka concurred with the Federal High Court’s finding that the appellants “failed to establish their claim” that Ighodalo forged his voter’s card.

He further observed that the suit lacked merit, based on the flawed assumption that “non-possession of a voter’s card constitutes a ground to disqualify a candidate from contesting an election.”

Justice Barka highlighted that the appellants did not contest the trial court’s findings that Ighodalo had applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the transfer of his registration from Lagos State to Edo State, and that INEC had issued a voter’s card to Ighodalo.

Consequently, Justice Barka struck out the appeal for being without merit and awarded costs of N3 million against the appellants and in favor of Ighodalo, PDP, and INEC.

Justices Usman Musale and Okon Abang, who were also on the panel, concurred with the lead judgment.

Details later…

[Tribune]

Bolton Wanderers striker Victor Adeboyejo missed the team’s EFL Trophy victory against Barrow on Tuesday after suffering an unusual injury caused by a “hefty sneeze.”

Adeboyejo was forced to pull out of the squad due to discomfort in his back and ribcage, which, according to his manager, Ian Evatt, was triggered by the sneeze.

“Victor has been suffering with a nasty back injury and a sneeze set it off, believe it or not,” he told The Bolton News on Thursday.

The 26-year-old Nigerian has since undergone a scan to assess the extent of the injury.

Evatt noted that the injury originally occurred after a challenge in a game against Charlton but was worsened by the sneeze.

“He was okay at the time, but then he had a pretty hefty sneeze. Victor is a powerful boy, and even his sneezes are powerful,” the manager joked. “I’ll have to start having a long look at myself when players start getting injured sneezing.”

Despite Adeboyejo’s absence, Bolton secured a 3-2 win against Barrow and currently sit 18th in League One with four points from their first four games of the season.

Adeboyejo transferred to the League One club on January 27, 2023.

[Punch]

The first ballots for the US election were slated to go out to voters Friday, two months ahead of what looks set to be a photo finish between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

The closely fought battleground state of North Carolina was expected to distribute around 130,000 absentee voting slips, with a presidential debate — the next likely campaign inflection point — set for next week.

North Carolina is among a handful of swing states that Harris and Trump have been crisscrossing as they embark on the most intense phase of a White House race expected to be decided by razor-thin margins.

Harris’s entry into the contest six weeks ago turbocharged enthusiasm among Democrats, who had been despondent about President Joe Biden’s chances of stopping Republican Trump from re-entering the White House.

Her team announced Friday that it raised $361 million in August, the largest monthly haul of the cycle and nearly triple the Trump team’s figure.

“In just a short time, Vice President Harris’s candidacy has galvanized a history-making, broad, and diverse coalition — with the type of enthusiasm, energy, and grit that wins close elections,” said campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.

“As we enter the final stretch of this election, we’re making sure every hard-earned dollar goes to winning over the voters who will decide this election.”

– ‘Honeymoon’ –

Harris’s ascent to the top of the ticket has tilted the races for the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in the direction of Democrats, though all three fights remain close.

While Trump has seen the leads he built over Biden evaporate, his campaign still sees several possible paths to victory and believes it has more support on key election issues like the economy, immigration and crime.

Trump’s aides argue that Harris’s “honeymoon” with voters has overstated support that is beginning to erode as her policy views come into focus.

Harris is up 1.8 percent in head-to-head nationwide polling, according to aggregator RealClearPolitics.

The polls that really count — in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina — show an even tighter race, with Harris up 0.2 percent overall, a statistical dead heat.

The plan in North Carolina was to begin mailing out voting slips first thing, but a judge ordered a halt until at least midday to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr time to appeal a ruling refusing to take his name off the ballot following his late withdrawal from the race.

– ‘Save our country’ –

The independent candidate sued the North Carolina election board after its Democratic members denied his request to be removed, deeming the task of reprinting and distributing voting slips impractical at such a late stage.

Kennedy’s exit was a reminder of how rapidly events could change the calculus in the campaign.

His support has fallen away precipitously — from 13.8 percent in July to five percent when he dropped out, according to RealClearPolitics — but even a few hundred of his supporters could swing an election in a close state.

Other wrinkles on the path to November 5 include Trump’s 34-felony hush money conviction in New York, which is likely to charge back into the headlines with his much-delayed sentencing scheduled for September 18.

The first — and perhaps only — debate between Harris and Trump is the next big landmark, set for Tuesday on ABC News.

Trump — who has consistently opposed mail-in voting — posted a short video on TikTok urging Americans to send him back to the White House, “whether it’s mail-in ballots, early voting, or voting on Election Day.”

He was due to address an influential police union in North Carolina on Friday, and then hold a rally on Saturday in Wisconsin.

“We’ve got to save our country, we’re the only ones that are going to save it. That other group of people, they’re going to destroy our country. We can’t let that happen,” he said.

THE on-going Triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, FOCAC, holding in Beijing from September 4-6, 2024, raises a fundamental question: do both sides understand the language they speak?

The theme: “Joining Hands to Advance Modernisation and Build High-Level China-Africa Community with a Shared Future”, presupposes that both are walking hand-in-hand towards the same direction. But do two walk together unless there is an agreement? The ‘strategic partnership’ agreements being signed by China and individual African countries do not give the impression that they are on the same page.

To formalise these agreements, Chinese President Xi Jinping has met with African leaders like Presidents Felix Tshsekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria and the leaders of Mali, Togo, Djibouti and Comoros.

In my reading of the summit, China’s interests are basically four. First, is to hugely increase its exports and services to Africa which includes building infrastructure. The second is to vastly increase its imports from Africa, basically minerals like lithium, copper and cobalt. The third is to better safeguard its funds by moving billions of dollars which can be trapped in the United States to Africa as loans.

The loans promised this Thursday is $50.70 billion. The fourth is to influence countries and build partnership across the globe. This is evident in its being able to gather over 50 African leaders in its capital. This is as China faces the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty, challenges with countries in the South China Sea and handling the unpredictability that is the USA, a giant that has a history of trampling on countries. On the long run, China hopes to crown its influence with a land and sea network linking it with Africa.

On the other hand, I cannot decipher what Africa’s strategic interests are beyond endorsing statements and agreements, and, expecting more from the perceived generosity of China. For me, Africa would have achieved quite a lot, if all we do is study China.

Let us use the agreement Nigeria signed this week with China as a case study. Permit me to begin with a preliminary observation. While President Tinubu is in China, Vice President Kashim Shettima back home, led the Nigeria National Economic Council which included Ministers and State Governors, to meet American billionaire, Bill Gates. Now, Gates, a salesman of capital and suspect vaccines, is not quite trusted in Nigeria.

Gates said, six years ago, he told the same Nigerian elite corps about the urgent need to invest in the country’s greatest resource: its people.

Gates’ pain is the obvious neglect and abandonment of the Nigerian people to the extent that, at least, 18.3 million of its children are today out of school.

Nigeria, in the agreement with China, stated it has “the largest population in Africa”. True, but as Gates pointed out, we have neglected this huge human resource. This is to the extent that some educated Nigerian youths prefer to cross the Sahara Desert, endure suffering and possible enslavement in North African countries, and cross the vast Mediterranean Sea into unfriendly reception in Europe, rather than remain in the country.

Nigeria claimed that its economic reforms and that of China are “…on a similar course”. I beg to disagree. While China’s economic reforms had, by 2017, lifted 300 million people out of poverty, Nigeria sank deeper, making it the poverty capital of the world. By 2024, China has wiped out extreme poverty, making it the United Nations model for poverty eradication. This is at a time Nigeria is talking about poverty alleviation.

Rather than compare ourselves with China on such matters, Africa should learn. For instance, the key strategies China employed to eradicate extreme poverty are education, production, ecological compensation, social assistance and relocation. In Nigeria’s case, rather than expand educational opportunities, we are contracting it and even making our youths obtain education loans to meet increasing costs. Our production is in so terrible a state that rather than refine petroleum products, we prefer importation and increasing their prices leading to unprecedented hyper-inflation.

So, while China’s reforms have led to it by 2023 refining 14.8 million barrels per day, Nigeria’s reforms have led to zero fuel refining in the last three decades.

As for ecology, we have abandoned our people to the devastation that is oil and environmental pollution and, advancing desert. Yes, we engage in social assistance but this programme is widely acknowledged as a criminal enterprise with billions of Naira in the pockets and bank accounts of identifiable persons, including past ministers.

Relocation was an important strategy: rather than struggle to rebuild old villages, the Chinese simply built new ones and relocated the people. I recall in 2017 visiting two of such model relocations in the remote villages of Yangguang and Xinxing.

Rather than Nigeria and China reforms being on a similar course, they are actually headed in opposite directions. While China manages its foreign exchange by refusing to let it float uncontrollably, Nigeria uncritically tossed its currency into shark-infested seas expecting it to float. It is like tossing a baby into a river and expecting the child to swim.

Nigeria’s electricity reforms are wrapped in rich layers of propaganda with the only reality being ever higher tariffs, for criminally poor services. Under claimed reforms, the electricity sector, except its transmission arm, was auctioned to private owners in September 2013. Rather than improvements, all that are audible are lamentations. Then suddenly, after a Federal Executive Council meeting, the Buhari administration announced on February 20, 2020, that the country was generating 13,000MW and transmitting 7,000MW when the installed distribution capacity was about 4,000kw! That did not lead to improved services as it was obviously a fabulous story told through the lips of then Power Minister, Mamman Saleh.

On Monday, September 3, 2024, Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu announced his own figures about the country hitting a three-year high of 5,313mw; same as it was eight years ago! But I did not hear him tell us our actual distribution.

No, Nigeria and China are not operating on the same wave length. While China’s reforms are pro-people and development-oriented, Nigeria’s version are anti-people; more of deformities than reforms.

A piece of good news is that Presidents Xi and Tinubu agreed on currency swap to boost trade between their countries. The expectation is that unlike President Buhari who made a similar agreement for a $2.4 billion swap in 2018, but did not have the balls to implement it, President Tinubu would be courageous enough to see this through.

The hope is that at this FOCAC 2024, Africa and China would neither speak Latin nor Greek, but a language both sides understand and, that we would be humble enough to learn from China.

AS the good people of Edo State elect a new governor on September 21, the question that should concentrate all minds is how not only to make the best choice, but also ensure that the will of the people prevails.

As easy as this task is in other climes that profess democracy, it is challenging in Nigeria because of the abounding political demagogues to whom free, fair and credible election is an anathema because they belong to the school of thought which believes that “political power is not going to be served in a restaurant”.

When a people believe that political power is not served a la carte, they, “at all cost, fight for it, grab it and run with it” as it was the case in 2023. But as Dike Chukwumerije, the spoken word and performance poetry artist and author, noted: “Nobody who steals political power will use it for good.”

Senator Adams Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo State and president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, is one of such demagogues. More than anyone else, he is leading the Edo must be brought back to the APC column charge.

To be sure, nothing is wrong in Edo people deciding that for whatever reason, they have had enough of the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led Peoples Democratic Party government and want to pitch their tent with another political party. Never mind that Obaseki was a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, until four years ago and, indeed, served his first term as an APC governor. But any such decision is the beauty of democracy as long as it is a product of a free, fair and credible election.

Sadly, that is not likely to be the case because Oshiomhole, obtuse as ever, is polluting the political space with his unbecoming rhetoric. At 72, the former national chairman of the APC is no spring chicken any more. As former governor and now senator representing Edo North senatorial district, his voice should be that of reason and moderation just like the voice of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.

Chief Oyegun, also a former Edo State governor and APC national chairman, has played the role of a statesman up to the hilt. As much as he would want his party to win, he is also decent enough to appreciate that it is the call of Edo people to make, not his alone. That is what it takes to be a democrat. Not so for Oshiomhole. A man adept at rousing the political rabble, it is either his way or the high way. He is at it again just as he did in 2020 when he led the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, to the political Golgotha.

In my “Obaseki blowout in Edo poll” column of September 23, 2020, I posited that Oshiomhole was the reason why Ize-Iyamu, a man reputed as a grassroots politician, took the drubbing he did in the 2020 Edo governorship election.

“Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo and sacked APC national chairman, is quite a character,” I wrote. “Crabby, grouchy and pugnacious, the former Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, president loves picking fights, most times gratuitously. As the Smart Alec he thinks he is, he behaves as if he knows everything. And because he is Mr. Know-All, he is opinionated, intolerant and blinkered. Like every Smart Alec, he is irritating. Little wonder, to borrow a cliché, he is the best hated man in the APC today.”

I stated four years ago that Oshiomhole’s APC-Obaseki-Iyamu odyssey echoed the allegory of the tortoise who embarked on an ill-advised trip and vowed not to return until he was disgraced. And, indeed, he was humiliated because blinded by infantile hubris and quest for vendetta, he could not correctly interpret the handwriting on the wall even when he saw and read it.

Sadly, the former governor has embarked on the same ill-fated trip once again throwing caution to the winds. Lacking in basic political decency and decorum, Oshiomhole, uncouth as ever, takes pride in assaulting the sensibilities of Edo people.

Emboldened by his new status as a senator and the fact that his political soul mate, Bola Tinubu, successfully  snatched Nigeria’s presidency in 2023 and ran with it, Oshiomhole thinks now is the opportune time to finish the job he started in 2020 even when Obaseki is no longer on the ballot. In doing that, the former Labour leader has decided to make Asue Ighodalo, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, a collateral damage in his war of attrition with his successor.

Again, supporting the APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebhelo, wouldn’t have been an issue if he played by the rules of the game. But he hasn’t because he is incapable of playing decent politics devoid of puerile drama, invectives, name-calling and foul language. Edo people deserve better. 

I am not from Edo but I strongly believe that Nigeria’s redemption lies with the federating units and not the ever-bumbling federal government. I also believe that any state in Nigeria that has an Asue Ighodalo as a governorship candidate should consider itself lucky. I believe that for our country to stand any chance in the comity of nations, the politicians should have a second address. A career politician in the Nigerian context is a fraud, who lives off the state. That person cannot be the selfless, transformational leader that a country at the socio-economic and political crossroads such as Nigeria needs right now.

Ighodalo, a product of the prestigious King’s College, Lagos, obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of Ibadan in 1981, an LL.B from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1984.

Having worked as an Associate in the law firm of Chris Ogunbanjo & Co upon graduation from the Nigerian Law School in 1985, Ighodalo as the founding partner, alongside Femi Olubanwo, set up the Banwo and Ighodalo law firm in 1991, thus starting a soaring corporate and commercial law practice in Nigeria that specialized in advising major corporations on corporate finance, capital markets, energy and natural resources, mergers and acquisitions, banking and securitisation and project finance.

He was chairman of the boards of Nigerian Breweries Plc. and Sterling Financial Holding Company, as well as the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG, aside sitting on the boards of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA, Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc., and the FATE Foundation, an NGO committed to the development of entrepreneurs in Nigeria, among others. And it goes without saying that he made a fortune from his endeavours.

Yet, this leading corporate lawyer and boardroom leader resigned from all these corporate positions and the huge financial rewards in 2023 just to serve his people.

In his resignation letter to the board of Nigerian Breweries in December last year, Ighodalo wrote: “It is with heartfelt regret that I announce my resignation as Chairman of the Board of Nigerian Breweries Plc. effective December 31, 2023. After extensive deliberations, I have decided to offer myself for public service to our dear country. The decision comes with the mixed emotions of a painful sacrifice made to enable my full devotion to the new cause.”

So, it is okay if Oshiomhole prefers a Monday Okpebhelo, a career politician to an Asue Ighodalo, but he cannot impose his preference on the highly discerning and politically savvy Edo people. The difference between the Ighodalo and Okpebhelo candidacies is tantamount to light and darkness. There is no basis for comparison. And those who still insist that education does not matter in leadership after the Muhammadu Buhari disaster in Aso Rock are simply lying. Edo people should be wary of such characters.

And those who are insisting that Ighodalo should be held liable for Obaseki’s alleged failures are delusional because truth be told, Obaseki has not failed. Not only that, it is hypocritical for those who argued only yesterday that Buhari and APC’s failures had nothing to do with a Tinubu presidency to turn around today to deny Edo people the promise of an Asue Ighadalo governorship on the baseless ground that PDP has failed.

The Edo governorship election is not about political parties. It is about individuals and their capacity to deliver on their promises. Monday Okpebhelo, typical of professional politicians propped by wannabe godfathers has promised nothing and will deliver nothing. Conversely, the promise of an Asue Ighodalo governorship is fascinating. The difference is clear and the choice is that of Edo people to make in spite of Oshiomhole’s Surugede dance.