Sunday 4th February was as usual, a miserable, depressed and wretched day for His Excellency, Chief James Onanefe Ibori. But this year’s 4th of February was a particularly gloomy one; it marked the 20th year of that murder most foul, the assassination of Chief Aminasoari Kala (A.K) Dikibo.

For the past twenty years Ibori has tried all in his power to remind Nigerians of Dikibo, who was the Deputy National Chairman, South-South geopolitical zone, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when he was assassinated in broad daylight on a Nigerian motor road. Year in, year out, Ibori has had full page newspaper advertisements published in memory of Dikibo.

That he has been the only Nigerian, among the numerous movers and shakers of the Nigerian political class who remembers Dikibo does not appear to bother him. That his efforts have not moved the Nigeria Police Force or the Department of State Security (DSS) to appear to be still interested in solving that murder, does not in any way bother Ibori. He appears to be doing what he has taken to be his personal duty; as though living the saying – “if you can’t change the world for the better, don’t let the world change you”.

Dikibo was lion-hearted. He was a politician with strong convictions.

He was not a double-crossing weasel that would change positions like the weather vane. He often stood his ground like a high tower – there for all to see. Yes, he was the veritable Dede Ukwu – the Big Brother, as he was called in his Okirika locality of Rivers state where he was the Chief of a well-respected Canoe War House.

And Ibori continues to mourn him because Dikibo fully identified with Ibori’s project of trying to unite the South-South politicians so that the could speak with one voice in matters concerning that geopolitical zone. Also, Dikibo was working in the service of that cause when assassins cut him down.

An audacious and forward-looking Ibori had convened a summit of South-South politicians in Asaba, the Delta state capital for the first weekend in the February of 2004 – exactly 20 years ago. Burning in Ibori’s mind was a flint hard idea, novel and bold; that the South-South should begin to work towards having a son or daughter as the occupant of the choicest piece of real estate in Nigeria; the Aso Rock presidential residence. 

As the PDP had zoned the presidency to the North after Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2003 – 2007 second term, it meant that the push was actually to ensnare the vice-presidential position for the South-South in 2007. Then the Vice-President would ease into the main presidential office afterwards. And that was exactly what happened – as President Goodluck Jonathan became Vice President to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, a friend Ibori remembers and publishes a memorial advertisement for on his death day, annually. Also, the summit was to discuss how to work to have the amount of oil revenue accruing to the oil producing states increased. But the story jumps!

Dikibo, in line with the PDP zoning formula, was already campaigning to be the party National Chairman, which meant that the next President, come 2007, would come from the North. For some reasons, some highly placed politicians in Abuja opposed that Asaba summit. And it is on record that some of their South -South lackeys by then, supported Abuja. Not only that, a particular Governor had asked all invitees from his state to keep away from Ibori and his Asaba summit. Yes, a state Governor had requested Dikibo to stay away from that meeting. But the South-South champion, Dikibo, disdaining that stay away call, was well on his way to the summit when some people ensured he was unable to disobey that Governor’s orders. He had flown into Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, hopped into a car to make it to Asaba by road. His trip ended around Isiagwu village, close to Ogwashi-Uku, Aniocha South LGA, Delta state.

He was killed execution style from close range. A gun was poked under the right hand side of his jaw. As the trigger was pulled and the shot rang out, the bullet escaped from the roof of the Jeep, splattering Dikibo’s brain everywhere.  The assassins killed more than Dikibo that day; they killed the last real push of the peoples of the Niger Delta region to peacefully speak with one voice in seeking for increased monies that accrue to the area as a percentage of the oil royalty.

A day or two after Dikibo was assassinated, Obasanjo announced in Lagos that Dikibo was felled by armed robbers. That may have been the case…but the man was shot execution style; the bullet entered from beneath the right hand side of his jaw, escaped from his head and hit the roof of his car. It is curious how armed robbers could have so shot a man who refused to stop for them on the highway. They should have shot straight and hit his face.

In a letter  to Obasanjo, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, now a Senator, recalled: “I am further worried because the late A.K. Dikibo complained to Governor DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State and myself at the Port Harcourt Airport three days before his brutal assassination that some powerful persons in the Presidency and a governor from one of the South- South states of the country were planning to kill him. Though he looked ruffled and agitated, we never knew his death was imminent”. Kalu wrote to inform him that some people were also after his own life. No wonder Audu Ogbeh, when he was PDP National Chairman wrote to Obasanjo that a nest of killers existed in the polity.

Unfortunately, Nigeria appears determined to deny Dikibo and his family justice. No matter; Ibori continues to mourn that courageous man, a true lion, the Dede Ukwu, the Aminisabo of Okirika, Rivers state.

The biting hunger and unnaturally rising price spiral in Nigeria instigated primarily by the removal of petrol subsidies and the floating of the naira are threatening to spark off seismic social vibrations across the country. 

The spontaneous, hunger-induced eruption of seething communal anger in Minna over hunger in the land a few days ago, which inspired a massive protest by market women in Lokoja and smaller but nonetheless consequential protests by distraught citizens in Suleja, Kano, Osogbo—and counting— is a warning sign. 

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s swift order for the release of “102,000 metric tons of various grain types from the National Food Reserve and the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria” to bring down the cost of food in the aftermath of these strings of protests suggests that he is aware of the danger that lies in the offing for him. 

Had the current president been Muhammadu Buhari and not Bola Ahmed Tinubu, chances are that the worst that would happen amid the adversity people are going through now would be suppressed, barely audible murmurs. It’s because Buhari is a political cult leader with a firm grip on his followers who worship him and surrender responsibility for their lives over to him. Tinubu has no such appeal.

A psychologist by the name of Steve Taylor came up with a concept he called “abdication syndrome,” which he said disposes people to invest total, child-like trust in a political figure, a cult leader, an opinion molder, etc. in ways that mimic how children idealize and idolize their parents as unblemished paragons of perfection. 

According to Taylor, “abdication syndrome stems from the unconscious desire of some people to return to a state of early childhood, when their parents were infallible, omnipotent figures who controlled their lives and protected them from the world. They’re trying to rekindle that childhood state of unconditional devotion and irresponsibility.”

Buhari is lucky to benefit from abdication syndrome in Muslim northern Nigeria, broadly conceived, which explains why he got away with murder for eight years. When he increased petrol prices by a steep margin in 2016, for instance, there were protests in Kano, Bauchi, and other places in SUPPORT of the increase and AGAINST people who planned to protest the increase. Nigeria had never seen anything like that before.

Even protests against the unabating descent of northern Nigeria into a theater of bloodshed and abduction on Buhari’s watch provoked counter protests from people who have abdicated the use of their brains in the service of Buhari.

Tinubu not only does not have the benefit of abdication syndrome anywhere in Nigeria, but he also has the misfortune of having to contend with a peculiar character of Muslim northern Nigeria: we feel the pain of, and react violently to, bad policies only when the policies are hatched and executed by people who have no filiation with our natal region.

It’s no surprise that the hunger protests against the Tinubu administration started from and spread in the North.

A powerful indication of Tinubu’s lack of firm emotional support base emerged when Osun, his state of birth where he lost the last presidential election to PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, became the first southern state to join the hunger protests. Should the resistance to his punishingly heartless neoliberal economic policies ignite a nationwide convulsion, the Southwest is unlikely to constitute itself as his bulwark.

In fact, I hazard a guess that should Tinubu’s unfeeling policies activate the sort of destabilizing national upheaval that we saw in 2012 during Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the Southwest won’t be aloof. It is likely to join in.

And, of course, Tinubu is deeply unpopular in the Southeast, the South-south, and Christian northern Nigeria. In other words, Tinubu is essentially floundering into the most treacherous of social quicksands.

His only fortification against danger is not just good governance but compassionate governance. The release of thousands of metric tons of grains is a good first step, but it’s not nearly enough to stem the tide of mass rebellion that is brewing in the country. At best, it will only delay the inevitable.

The truth is that Nigeria can’t survive a total withdrawal of petroleum subsidies without an adequate, systematic, well-planned public transportation system. To do away with petrol subsidies, the government must first create conditions where car ownership and patronage of commercial transportation are a luxury.

Let’s take Canada as an example. Although Canada is an oil-producing country, it doesn’t subsidize the petrol consumption of its citizens. And it’s precisely because it has great public transportation that meets the transportational needs of its people.

 I met a Canadian here in Atlanta last year who, like most Canadians, doesn’t know how to drive because government-subsidized public transportation is the primary means of moving from point to point. Car ownership is a luxury, and people who choose to shun public transportation deserve the high price they pay for petrol to fuel their cars.

It’s the same situation in most of Europe. The availability of government subsidized public transportation insulates citizens from the effects of high petrol prices and obviates the need for petrol subsidies.

It is not so in the United States. Here, as I pointed out in many past columns, petrol is subsidized because most Americans have their own cars and resent public transportation except in such big cities as New York.

Without first building an efficient, government-subsidized public transportation infrastructure within cities and towns and between cities, towns and states, removing petrol subsidies will always result in the kind of mass affliction that Nigerians are going through now. 

That is why countries like Kazakhstan, Ecuador, Bolivia, Indonesia, and Brazil, which the World Bank and the IMF had forced to remove petrol subsidies, have backtracked and re-instituted subsidies. That is inevitable in Nigeria if the government wants to survive. 

Is Olayemi Cardoso Nigeria’s Worst CBN Governor?

I know awfully little about current CBN governor Olayemi Cardoso. I’d just assumed that to deserve being appointed the governor of the CBN, he must at least be minimally competent and conversant with economic policies.

But he is shaping up to be the most inept and least intellectually prepared for his job. It isn’t just that he is supervising the free fall of the naira through inconsistent policies, he also doesn’t seem to be able to explain to anyone what exactly he is doing, indicating he doesn’t know what he is doing.

On Friday, I watched Cardoso’s meeting with the senate where he couldn’t answer questions from senators without reading from a prepared script. "I object to this!” a senator yelled in response to Cardoso’s lifeless regurgitation of a prepared speech he obviously didn’t understand. “Let him go back and answer the question!"

Anyone who can’t respond to a question without reading a prepared text obviously has no understanding of what he is talking about. Albert Einstein famously said, “if you can't explain it simply then you don't understand it well enough." Cardoso’s case is even worse. He can’t explain it at all. It explains why the economy is in a mess and the naira is in a worse shape than it has ever been.

Cardoso’s most important qualification for the job appears to be that he was Economic Planning and Budget commissioner in Lagos when Tinubu was governor, but the job seems to be above his intellectual and experiential paygrade.

I know of no CBN governor in my lifetime (until Cardoso) who couldn’t articulate economic policies effortlessly. Even Godwin Emefiele had no difficulty defending his policies. You may question his competence or disagree with his policies, but he could at least clearly formulate thoughts about what he was doing. Cardoso gives me the jitters. Nigeria is in way worse trouble than it realizes with an airhead like that as CBN governor.

At last, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery has begun production with the receipt of about six million barrels of crude oil. What a pivotal moment for Nigeria!  It’s the triumph of the resilience of one man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, whose audacity to dream big, coupled with his unparalleled determination and unrelenting doggedness in bringing those dreams to fruition, has seen him climb every mountain and cross every ocean on his path to achieve the seemingly impossible.  

It is only a man with a steely determination that will not break under the strain of massive cost overruns, an unforgiving, hostile business climate, policy inconsistencies, serial currency devaluations and currently the worst performing currency in Africa, forex scarcity, multiple taxation, high cost of capital, etc. that could pull this off.  Nigeria will defeat you, if you are not made of steel.  

That Dangote was able to complete his petroleum refinery is a testament to his superman capacity to ride the waves no matter how high they may be. Many of us continue to marvel at this prodigious project, no matter what a few naysayers have to say.

You see, this country would not have been in this precarious state if we had more of such projects driven by supermen like Aliko Dangote. Again, Nigeria would have been the pride of Africa, living up to its potential and promise as the beacon of hope and the powerhouse of the black race if such men were in political leadership.

Our incompetent and inept leaders have failed Africa. All they know how to do is loot the commonwealth and display it in our faces. They have become the biggest obstacle to the continent’s progress, the ones underdeveloping Africa from within its borders. So, for the richest man in Africa and a few others to pick up the gauntlet, doing what Nigeria as a country has failed to do for Africa, then the black race deserves to be applauded. And the world is taking notice.  

At the last count, the Dangote refinery located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, covering a land area of approximately 2,635 hectares, had gulped over $19.5billion. You would agree with me that, that is a prodigious figure. Not often do we hear of such figures ploughed into projects even in the Western world, let alone in Africa. At best, it is the type of project that multi-national consortia come together to undertake. But in this instance, an individual from one of the most challenged countries in the world, conceived and executed it, in spite of the very hostile business environment that is squeezing investors out of business. This, to me, is a feat worth celebrating. 

It is the world’s largest single-train petroleum refinery, with a capacity to process 650,000 barrels per day with a 900 KTPA Polypropylene Plant. It is a thing of pride that a project of this magnitude is located in Nigeria. But even more enthralling is that it was conceived and built by an individual in a country where bad government policies by inept leaders remain the bane of doing business. Policies that are more often than not driven by malice. At full production capacity, the refinery can meet 100% of the Nigerian requirements of all refined products and also have surplus for export. How many of us truly understand what that means? Moving from being a net import-dependent country for all our petroleum needs to exporting locally refined products? Can you imagine the foreign exchange this will save for Nigeria?

This surely is a game changer for our bleeding national economy long crippled by forex shortages and organised oil theft with all the imprimatur of officialdom.

The country’s four refineries have been grounded for several years and may remain so, not because they cannot be fixed in a realistic sense but because those in charge of making them work are the ones sabotaging all efforts to fix them. The state-owned refineries have become a cesspool of corruption and organised crime. Where hundreds of millions of dollars regularly voted for Turnaround Maintenance, TAM, have only served to enrich a few fat cats in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and their collaborators in government. That is the sad situation Nigeria finds itself in. 

And for those who may not know, crude oil export is the source of well over 80% of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings. Now, if we can’t protect our production volume from organised syndicates who have perfected the art of stealing the crude from the pipelines before it gets to the terminals for export, how would we earn enough forex for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make available to importers of other goods and services? The bigger questions are: how do these syndicates get the stolen products to the international market ahead of Nigeria? Who exactly are the members of these syndicates? Why has no one been named publicly? Who is covering up for them in government? Surely, someone or some people who are high up in the government know/s something.

Two years ago, the country spent 40% of the foreign exchange it earned from the little it was able to generate from export earnings on the importation of petroleum products as well as petrochemicals which put a lot of pressure on the exchange rate, according to the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele who did everything he could to help the Dangote refinery come to fruition. Yes, you heard me clearly, he had said 40% of all forex earnings went into the importation of petroleum products. This has created a vicious circle of perennial shortages of forex for other import-dependent sectors.

In the land of my fathers, there is a saying: “A nation that cannot feed itself is not free.”

So, one can begin to understand the relief the Dangote refinery is set to bring to Nigeria. Officially going into production of refined petroleum products is an incredibly important milestone that should be celebrated.  It is the last chapter of a checkered journey that began with the acquisition of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries in 2007. I think a brief history will suffice here if for nothing but to refresh peoples’ memories.

In May 2007, the then outgoing Olusegun Obasanjo administration took the bold decision to sell the government’s majority stake in the  Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries to Bluestar Consortium promoted by Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola and Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, Transcorp for a whopping $750 million with the Port Harcourt refinery selling for $561 million. It was Nigeria’s largest refinery, a 210,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) facility, while the Kaduna refinery had an installed capacity of 110,000bpd.

That transaction triggered an avalanche of wild criticisms from many ignorant Nigerians and labour unions who sprang into action, doing their utmost, to frustrate the sale. And they did. But today where are we on the matter? Is the country better off than it was then before the sale and subsequent revocation? Where are those who opposed the sale then purely on emotional grounds than the economics of the transaction? They have all been put to shame. And the country is the loser for it. I don’t need to remind anyone of the fights at filling stations, the endless hours wasted in queues, sometimes overnight at petrol stations just to get fuel for our cars.

The two main oil unions in the sector – the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) were up in arms, claiming that the two refineries were wrongly sold by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, alleging that “the sale of the two firms was completely lacking in transparency”. They also stated that no due diligence was carried out and that the Port Harcourt refinery was worth close to US$5 billion, about nine times the amount it was actually sold for. For those who still remember, the sale of the refineries to Bluestar was one of the reasons for the general strike that paralysed the Nigerian economy for four days in June, 2007 during the government of the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

The then NNPC and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) joined the clamour for the transaction to be revoked, claiming that they were  capable of running the refineries  in contrast to Bluestar, which had no actual experience of operating refineries. Really? The surprising thing was that so many Nigerians were sold on the NNPC narrative. Following Bluestar’s eventual pull out of  the transaction, the then Group Executive Director of the Refineries & Petrochemicals Department at NNPC, Abubakar Lawal Yar’Adua, was reported by THISDAY to have stated that if given the necessary support, the NNPC had the capability to run the refineries efficiently. He forgot to mention that it was years of inefficiency and corruption by NNPC’s management that forced the Obasanjo government to sell the government’s majority equity stake in the refineries in the first place.

Not done, he argued that the solution to the nation’s petroleum shortages would not be found in the sale of the refineries, but in conducting proper turnaround maintenance on them as well as building new ones. The then DPR director, Tony Chukwueke, on his part, said that the nation had not exploited all the models that could ensure that the refineries worked optimally and that Nigeria could invite foreign technical partners to run the refineries, or conduct repairs whenever the need arose. Where is he now? He did not tell us the model that was better than outright sale of the refineries. He just went into a long rigmarole to deceive the nation.

Well, where are we today? Nearly 14 years after Bluestar Consortium pulled out of the transaction and the refineries reverted to NNPC’s (now NNPCL) control, they have become as good as dead wood. They have not produced anything of value to this country, not a pint of petrol, despite the huge sums pumped into their maintenance and associated costs. Who are the gainers and losers in this unholy alliance of individuals against Nigeria? The same entrenched interests at NNPC or NNPCL as it is now known. And of course, the labour unions who prefer their workers earn wages for doing nothing.

Just last December, the Senate signalled its intention to open an investigation into what senators perceived as a sabotage of the federal government’s effort to revive the nation’s refineries, in spite of N11.35 trillion, excluding costs in other currencies, which include $592,976,050.00 dollars, 4,877,068.47 euros, and 3,455,656.93 pounds sterling spent on the renovation of the refineries from 2010 till date, yet they remain unproductive.

Don’t forget that  just recently, the federal government awarded another contract worth a mind-blowing $1.5billion  for the  rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt   refinery  to an Italian Company, Tocnimont SPA, spanning three phases of over 18, 24 and 44 months. Let me ask the frequently asked question on the streets: who did this to our country? Only in Nigeria will you find bizarre rationale for doing stupid things like this. I can bet an arm and a leg that more than half of that $1.5billion will end up in private pockets. Our penchant for inflated cost of contracts will make allegations of corruption in other climes look like petty pick-pockets.

I challenge anyone to do the maths. In 2007, the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries were sold for $750 million. In March 2021, nearly 14 years after the sale fell through due to the organised public outcry, the federal government after wasting billions of dollars on several maintenance programmes, awarded a contract for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt refinery alone for $1.5 billion.

Fellow Nigerians, may I ask again: who are the losers in all of these? And who are the gainers? Nigeria is a country that gives and keeps on giving. Everyone is milking her but no one wants to feed her. Knowing how these people have consistently scammed this country, I am not enthusiastic that the $1.5 billion for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt   refinery will bring about the expected results. It is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, part of which will be repaid to Afrexim which partly financed the rehabilitation.

Now, with the rehabilitation purportedly nearing completion, NNPCL announced it had begun the search for third-party managers to run the refinery. Instead of spending $1.5 billion on rehabilitating the refinery and now looking for third-party managers to run the place, why didn’t the government just sell the scrap and the buyer or buyers can turn it around with their money, thereby saving that $1.5 billion taxpayers’ money expended on the rehabilitation and  deploying it in other urgent infrastructure needs? No, because those who profit from Nigeria’s failure to function optimally only ask: “What is in it for us.”

It is not a surprise therefore that Dangote decided to build his refinery from scratch. However, the Eureka moment for Nigeria following the commencement of production by the company is tempered by NNPCL’s inability to meet its crude feedstock required to enable uninterrupted production. Interestingly, the visionary Dangote saw it coming and prepared for any eventuality.  The factsheet about the refinery is very impressive. It was designed for 100% Nigerian crude, with a flexibility to be able to also process a large variety of crudes, including many of the African crude grades, some of the Middle Eastern crude grades and U.S. Light Tight Oil.

So I was not surprised when news filtered in that Dangote had purchased two million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland from the United States-based oil trader, Trafigura Group, for delivery at the end of February. You see, the irony and contradictions of our situation are not for the lily-livered. And again, I asked, who did this to us? 

Here is a nation blessed with enormous crude oil resources, once a major producer of crude oil, but imports all its refined petroleum needs because it pays some corrupt officials for the country to export jobs overseas rather than add value by exporting refined petroleum products. And here is a country where an individual just built the largest single-train refinery in the world of 650,000 barrels per day capacity, now having to import feedstock from the United States of America or elsewhere because of NNPCL’s inability to supply it with enough crude for refining.   

As I have been made to understand, only a minute fraction (if any) of Nigeria’s current crude oil output is unencumbered by one loan facility or the other. The repayment of the recent $3.3 billion loan taken by NNPCL from Afrexim on behalf of the federal government to stabilise the failing naira is guaranteed with 90,000bpd for five years.Then there’s the forward sale agreement entered into by NNPCL with the Lekki Refinery Funding Limited (Project Bison) in September 2021 to supply 300,000bpd of crude oil for the settlement of the balance US$1.036 billion funding received for the financing of the US$2.76 billion investment in the Dangote refinery.

All these, mind you, preclude the fantastically corrupt domestic crude allocation regime operated by NNPCL under its Direct Sale-Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement with international oil traders, not to mention the modified carry agreements that the state-run oil firm has with the IOCs, which have all eclipsed Nigeria’s oil exports and shrunk the country’s oil forex flows.

Indeed, a recent review by Dr Jekwe Ozoemene, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, of NNPCL’s 2022 audited accounts showed that the Group has total contract liabilities on forward sale agreements – Projects Falcon, Santolina, Panther and Bison, and NLNG SPDC, NLNG TEPNG and DSDP customers – of N2.615 trillion. Forward sales – implying crude oil commitments for which NNPCL has received value but is yet to deliver crude oil. Is it any wonder that NNPCL, a minority shareholder in the Dangote refinery, cannot supply the crude feedstock needed by the plant?

Meanwhile, can anyone point to what the last administration did with the massive borrowing it embarked on? This administration has now begun its borrowing to save the naira.

Just recently, the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), raided the Lagos Head office of the Dangote Group of Companies in search of documents relating to their purchase of dollars in the last 10 years. Please can anyone tell me what this was about? What did they need such documents for?  Why didn’t EFCC just ask the CBN for the documents since they were so critical to its investigation? I find it curious and laughable that any serious crime-fighting body would ask the person they are investigating to come with the evidence of their guilt. Where in the world do you ask someone you are investigating to give you evidence to nail him? Does it make any sense?

Before that raid, there had been whispers that this government was not well disposed to Dangote for whatever reason. Then it found a nebulous pretext to launch its harassment of his companies.

Strangely, after storming the companies’ headquarters and disrupting workflow for hours, the operatives left without taking any document.

But this same government did not see the need to launch an investigation into all those who got forex at concessionary rates to perform Muslim hajj or Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

As I have already stated, it was all about intimidation and harassment, to settle old scores. Nothing more, nothing less.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s EFCC must be condemned for the gangster-like manner it raided the Dangote head office. For sure, Dangote or his companies are not above the law, so if there is any need to launch an inquiry into any suspicious activity, please, do so. But   it must be done in accordance with due process and civilised standards.

The manner by which EFCC’s operatives stormed the Dangote head office sends the wrong signals and lends credence to the word on the streets that the president has an axe to grind with Dangote. As far as 1 am concerned, it did grave damage to the elusive quest for foreign investors. Those investors this government is looking for all over the world would pause and think twice before venturing here. If the country’s biggest investor, the largest employer of labour in the private sector, owning one of the largest listed companies on the Nigerian Exchange group and one of the highest taxpayers in the country and major contributor to its GDP, can be so harassed by people in government positions who have never earned anything by enterprise, then it makes sense for other investors to keep away.

In other climes, where leaders have sense, they would do everything to protect and support Dangote’s massive investments in the economy, rather than hound him. Maybe, I should state here without mincing words: It has got to the point where the Dangote Group of Companies can be classified as a national security asset with business presence in cement, fertilizer, sugar, salt, petroleum refinery, rice production, construction, port operations, automotive, real estate, mining, transportation,  logistics, agriculture, etc. Indeed, what TATA is to India is what Dangote has become to Nigeria. It is Nigeria’s own answer to India’s TATA. It projects Nigeria and Africa to the world positively regardless of our  bad leaders.

The late Lebanese-American poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran captured the Nigerian tragedy so succinctly in his poem, The Garden of The Prophet:

“Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave
and eats a bread it does not harvest.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments each fragment deeming itself a nation.”

Indeed, this country deserves to be pitied.

THERE are civilian or constitutional coups in Guinea Bissau and Senegal, yet the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, is pretending otherwise. It appears interested only in military coups, not those carried out by its bosses in the Heads of State Summit.

Yet, the ingredients of a coup are present in both countries where the constitution is subverted, the President assumes dictatorial powers, parliament is illegally banned as is the case in Guinea Bissau or emasculated as in Senegal, and the judiciary is under siege to do the bidding of the President.

Guinea Bissau, when it was one country with Cape Verde, produced Amilcar Cabral, one of the greatest Pan Africanists in history. Tragically for Africa, on January 20, 1973, Cabral at 48, was assassinated in Conakry, Guinea in a conspiracy linked with the PIDE, the secret service of then colonial master, Portugal.

However, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, PAIGC, which he led, survived, and led the country to independence. But the country has been plagued by violence and coups leading to Cape Verde breaking away on January 20, 1981.

On December 20, 2019, retired General Umaro Sissoco Embalo, a former Prime Minister, defeated the PAIGC candidate , Domingos Simoes in a disputed presidential election.

In May, 2022, President Embalo carried out a constitutional coup by dissolving parliament citing “persistent and unresolvable differences” with the parliament. Rather than ECOWAS sanctioning him, it elected Embalo, two months later, as the Chair of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS!

On June 4, 2023, the opposition coalition, the PAI Terra Ranka, led by the PAIGC, swept the parliamentary elections. But President Embalo refused to allow it function.

On December 4, 2023 Embalo again dissolved the parliament, claiming the Speaker, Domingos Simoes, wants to overthrow him. He also put the Supreme Court and its president under armed siege, forcing the latter to “resign”.

Despite these civilian coups by a man who was the sitting Chairman of ECOWAS, the regional body has kept mute in cold complicity. But ECOWAS will yell, if there is a military coup.

Senegal is the only West African country fortunate to have escaped a military coup. A 2012 attempt by President Abdoulaye Wade to run for an unconstitutional Third Term, was resisted, and Macky Sall was elected. In turn, Sall decided to run for an unconstitutional Third Term which in June 2023 led to street protests with 16 killed. Sall backed down, but got opposition leader Ousmane Sanko out of the race by getting him convicted.

However, as the February 25, 2024 presidential election approached, Sall decided on February 3, to extend his stay in power by indefinitely postponing the election on the basis that there is a dispute over the candidates list,

But the issue of the presidential candidates of political parties is the business of the party, electoral body and the courts, not the President of the country.

Unfortunately, ECOWAS, which has a reputation of chasing shadows, would not tell Sall the truth or defend constitutional rule. Rather, it same day, sanctioned Sall’s illegality by accepting the postponement . In its Saturday, February 3, 2024 statement, ECOWAS accepted the postponement and tamely appealed to the Sall Gang to “expedite the various processes in order to set a new date for the elections”.

Then it praised Sall: “The ECOWAS Commission salutes President Macky Sall for upholding his earlier decision not to run for another term and encourages him to continue to defend and protect Senegal’s long-standing democratic tradition.” Incredible! First, it was not in Sall’s place to decide not to run for a Third Term; it is a constitutional limit.

Also, Sall actually shed the blood of Senegalese who protested against his initial attempt to run in violation of the constitution. So, a serious ECOWAS, rather than praise him, ought to demand that he answers for the murder of pro-democracy Senegalese on the streets.

This ECOWAS statement which “…encourages him (Sall) to continue to defend and protect Senegal’s long-standing democratic tradition”, unfortunately presents Africans as idiots . This is because Sall, rather than defending and protecting the democratic tradition, is actually, endangering it. In fact, Sall is the greatest danger to democracy in Senegal.

Then after renewed street protests, the Senegalese Parliament met on Monday, February 5, 2024 on the indefinite postponement. During sitting, security forces removed by force, parliamentarians opposed to the postponement. Then rather than restore the electoral calendar, what is left of that parliament, endorsed Sall’s decision to illegally extend his tenure, by postponing the presidential election by ten months. This, of course, might be an initial date as it can always be postponed.

Rather than be concerned about the non-democratic postponement and its implications for democratic governance, ECOWAS, the next day, issued another of its pathetic statements.

Where even the United States which is not known to be a Sall antagonist, declared that the Senegalese National Assembly vote “…cannot be considered legitimate given the conditions under which it took place”, ECOWAS chose to be silent on the undemocratic process. Rather, it took refuge in bland sermons, reminding “…the population and the political class of their responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the country”.

To show the ECOWAS mindset and its lack of principles, it ended its second statement with a pledge to “…take all necessary steps to support the government and people of Senegal in their efforts to sustain the country’s democratic tradition”. How can ECOWAS pledge to support the subversive Sall government in Senegal that has no regard for democratic cultures, the will of the people and their human rights?

So, if tomorrow, such a government is overthrown, ECOWAS will be shouting about democracy and the sanctity of the constitution when it is actually in connivance with the Sall regime to subvert the constitution and democracy in that country.

In 2016, following Gambian presidential election, there was a dispute between incumbent President Yahya Jammeh and opposition leader, Adama Barrow. ECOWAS on January 19, 2017 sent a regional military force, the ECOWAS Mission in Gambia, ECOMIG, to force Jammeh out. It was tagged ‘Operation Restore Democracy’. When the over 4,000 ECOWAS troops, mainly from Senegal reached Banjul, Jammeh stepped down and left the country. The ECOWAS then installed Barrow who had been sworn in as President, not in the country, but in the Gambian embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

The Gambian situation is way better than what is going on today in Senegal. At least in the case of the former, presidential election held, while in that of the latter, presidential election is being prevented from holding. Yet, ECOWAS is engaged in double speak and ambivalence.