Opinion

Jonathan, Buhari, ASUU and high jump

Published

2 years ago

September 22, 2022

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By Tunde Olusunle

All through the past two decades and half of following the trajectory of former President Goodluck Jonathan, I’ve come to identify him as a gentleman par excellence. He rapidly overcame his erstwhile provincial naivete, to become the national leader and global statesman he is today, with his signature bowler hat, an integral component of men’s regalia in his seaward section of the country. His widely ventilated pre-2015 presidential election statement that his election was “not worth the blood of any Nigerian,” catapulted his rating into the global sky. This pronouncement, coming shortly after his successor, Muhammadu Buhari had threatened that “the dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood” if he didn’t win the polls, spontaneously endeared Jonathan to the international community. Indeed, leaders like Nasir El Rufai, once promised that “foreign observers may return to their home countries in body bags,” if their reportage of the polls, stood in the way of the victory of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Buhari’s party.

Jonathan’s recent reminisces on the manner of his administration’s resolution of an industrial strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), particularly caught my attention. Alluding to the subsisting seven-month impasse between the Buhari administration and ASUU, Jonathan recalled an experience when he was president. He sat through the night on one occasion on one side of the negotiation table with his own officials, while the ASUU team were on the opposite side, trying to resolve a similar debacle. There were agreements in some places, and dissent elsewhere; consensus here, ground-shifting there, until both sides agreed to what was a win-win situation. On that very occasion, Jonathan observed that the meeting which began the preceding evening, ended at 5.30am next day!

The former president may not have said it in plain language, but he was pointedly admonishing Buhari to dispense with outsourcing the responsibility for the settlement of the lingering ASUU debacle and take full charge, personally. As a longserving, proximal aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, I know for a fact that Jonathan in that instance adopted a conflict mitigation recipe, emplaced by the former president. If he were allowed, Obasanjo will work round the clock, restrained only by his minders. He travelled with his briefcase of documents, ever deploying his “green ink” on the road, ensuring there was no lacuna in the governance regimen. And this is where I have a problem with Jonathan.

Was it not the same Buhari who criticised Jonathan for initiating the “National Conference” in 2014, which aggregated Nigerians of various persuasions to discuss the national question? This same Buhari lampooned Jonathan for expending N7 Billion on remuneration for participants at the conference. Like we are experiencing today, university lecturers were on strike and Buhari opined that the N7 Billion in question should have been deployed to settling the fiscal demands of the dissenting teachers. Why should Jonathan be availing him nuggets from his own practical experiences?

The Buhari being counselled by Jonathan by the way, is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, (UNGA). It will be Buhari’s last appearance at the annual event and he was not going to miss this opportunity for valedictory photo-ops at the largest assembly for world leaders. He took with him his chief of staff, Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, a former Under-Secretary of the UN. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was in England at the same time participating in the final rites of passage of Queen Elizabeth II. The presidential villa could jolly well be on holiday for one week or more, depending on how long it takes for the president to get back. The absence of the first two citizens from the country at a time Nigerian students blockaded the international airport, re-echoed the nation’s experiences under military rulership, years gone by. Those days, martial adventurists might have been tempted to tinker with the system, in such a leadership void. The message to this effect may then be conveyed to our leaders in New York and London respectively.

That was how the July 1975 Yakubu Gowon saga was whispered to him in Kampala, Uganda, where he was attending a meeting of the Organisation of African Unity, (OAU), now African Union, (AU). The inability of Buhari’s administration to remedy a strike action called by university teachers, the recourse of students to the streets, crippling hunger, festering insecurity, economic dysfunction, will feature in the coup speech. The speech will most probably highlight Buhari’s frequent medical tours abroad and allude to the frequency of his foreign trips, especially when there are pressing matters of state.

Buhari may not know this. But Osinbajo a distinguished professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, (SAN), who taught for decades within the university environment, fully understands the dire implications of the lingering strike. Historically, Nigeria has been the epicentre of knowledge production for sub-saharan Africa. We attracted some of the very best brains from across the world to our educational system. They collaborated with our own globally acclaimed academics, to nurture generations of highly literate and skilled scholars and professionals, consistent with the concept of the university as universitas. We also exported excess quotas from our brimming reservoir of highly groomed and grilled manpower to brother African countries, all the way to the Caribbeans. The Technical Aid Corps, (TAC) initiative of the Ibrahim Babangida administration readily comes to mind.

As we speak, however, the traffic is more outbound than inbound. Nigerian professors across specialties, medics, information technology specialists and so on, are emigrating in droves. A very popular television advertisement in Buhari’s days as military head of state, forever admonished an imaginary character called “Andrew” not to exit Nigeria. It was a milieu of excruciating socioeconomic anguish for the country and people spared no chance to explore greener pastures on the other side. “Andrew,” however, was implored to stay back and contribute to national reengineering. Three decades after Buhari’s first coming, the japa (take flight) syndrome has replaced the “Andrew” concept. It is very real. Newspapers have serially availed us front page photographs of Nigerians queuing up at various embassies and high commissions, notably those of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, in recent weeks. In our various families and concentric circles of friends and associates, many people have jettisoned Buhari’s Nigeria.

Even amongst the students, there is now general lack of enthusiasm in education and scholarship, if all that young Nigerians are sure about after graduation, is just the one year National Youth Service Corps, (NYSC). The desire of many to pursue postgraduate studies to enhance their employability has waned tremendously. The impasse has also exposed the low perception the government has for education. A country which intends to continue the development of skilled manpower to drive its socioeconomy, will go beyond the inept handling of the ASUU strike thus far.

A government cognizant of the place of literacy and education in the achievement of national goals will not treat this all-important knowledge production industry, with the manner of levity and condescension the Buhari regime has. Jonathan is asking for too much from a president who has barely exerted himself either physically or mentally, in the business of governance and administration, since his inauguration on May 29, 2015. He wants to place the old man on “high jump,” to deploy an expression popular in military circles, which translates as imposing an unattainable task on one who is evidently incapable.

We hear the Chief of Staff, (COS) to Jonathan, invented the tradition of being the ultimate gatekeeper of all the president’s documents. He reportedly decided which correspondences should be passed on to the boss and which should not. The late Abba Kyari ostensibly inherited and proceeded with this practice. Unfortunately, the system which subsists even till today, is a dangerous departure from the Obasanjo tradition of depth and thoroughness. We had a hands-on president in love with paperwork, who received and processed all mails addressed to him. He made comments, observations and corrections on virtually every page of documents passed to him. He offered guidance and gave directives as the case may be.

It is either we are sustaining the novel culture of the overindulgence of a president who gets virtually everything done for him, or witnessing an obvious lack of capacity. This may determine the magnitude of the application and rigour he exerts in official superintendence. Except for the recent presidential primary held in “Eagle Square,” Abuja, I cannot remember the last time Buhari sat through an event which spilled past midnight. Retreats, workshops, and meetings with various ministries, departments and agencies, as well as engagements with the leadership and stakeholders of the ruling party at different intersections during Obasanjo’s era, were taken very seriously.

Scheduled and impromptu meetings of the AU, the Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS) or the Gulf of Guinea states, were ever plausible. Mediations between bickering nations or their leaders, threats of confrontations between countries, often stretched till dawn. The askance indifference, the lack of grit with which the business of leadership has been taken in this government, however, is remarkable. Sometimes one wonders if Buhari is just on a safari cruise at our collective expense.

Buhari is very surely oblivious of the various strands of the nation’s economy, that are tied to the smooth functioning of our universities, all collectively crippled by the yet unresolved impasse. In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate a point made by the legal luminary, Bayo Ojo, SAN, who once enlightened me that the socioeconomic transformation which a tertiary institution can bring to bear on a community or city, is immeasurable. On that occasion, the former attorney-general and minister of justice, had requested me to compare the level of development in Offa, Kwara State, before the establishment of the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara State, and what has become of the town in recent years.

On a trip to Ilorin the Kwara State capital in 2017, I decided to visit the permanent site of my alma mater, the University of Ilorin, (Unilorin). My generation of students schooled at what then was the “mini-campus,” the primordial physical location of the university which has been rapidly overrun by urbanization. That was where I obtained my first two degrees in English and Literature, taught and mentored by world class intellectuals. My good friend and brother, Segun Sobogun, took me on what was to become an extensive tour of an expansive, alluring, well-planned community. I decided to make the school my case study. The student population in the institution today has scaled the 50,000 mark. By the requirements of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) this number qualifies to have about 10 polling units.

Today’s campus of Unilorin has spawned an avalanche of service providers who live-off a functioning, operational institution. Sobogun my friend is one of many landlords who owns and leases his purpose-built hostel within the external precincts of the university. There are food vendors, operators of bars and lounges, outfits rendering a wide range of secretarial services and bookshops, among others. There are banks, shuttle services to move people around the infinite span of the campus which encompasses three local government areas in Kwara State. There are hair salons and boutiques, not forgetting tourist attractions like the man-made lake and a zoological garden, among others. All of these have been out of operation since February 14, 2022, the date of the commencement of the continuing strike. Investors and business owners, breadwinners of their families, continue to count their losses in nail-biting despair, in a stifling Buhari economy.

I wonder why Jonathan is trying to setup a “high jump” for Buhari at a time like this. I wonder how Jonathan expects Buhari, with no known antecedents in trade union negotiation, with established handicaps as a taciturn, limited-in-horizon, stuck-in-his-ways, inflexible character, will spontaneously mutate at 80 years plus. I wonder how it will be broken down for Buhari’s comprehension, the complex, worrying web of mortally dangerous and debilitating spinoffs, arising from the persisting dysfunction of our universities.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, author and scholar, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE).

Opinion

BENUE 2027:The Apa/Agatu Quest for Equity

Published

5 days ago

January 14, 2025

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By Tunde Olusunle

It may be well over two years to the next cycle of general elections in Nigeria. For the people of Apa/Agatu federal constituency in *Benue South, however, the measure of their participation and integration into the governance scheme will be defined in the run-up to the general polls that year. Nine local government areas make up the predominantly Idoma country of Benue State also labelled Zone C in the senatorial tripod of the geo-polity. The zone is also home to the Igede ethnic stock and the Etulo. Local government areas in “Benue Zone C” include: Apa, Agatu, Oju, Obi, Ado, Ogbadibo, Okpokwu, Otukpo and Ohimini. The other zones, Benue North East and Benue North West, are wholly dominated by the Tiv nationality, striding across 14 local government areas. They are christened Zone A and Zone B in the local political scheme of the state. Federal constituencies in Benue South are: Apa/Agatu, Oju/Obi; Ado/Ogbadibo/Opokwu and Otukpo/Ohimini.

The subjugation of groups and ethnicities considered demographically smaller, by the larger groups which has dominated Nigeria’s politics over time, has not been any different for the Idoma of Benue State. Until the circumstantial emergence of a Yahaya Bello from the Ebira ethnicity in Kogi State in 2015, the Igala had the relay baton of governorship of Kogi State, in rounds and succession. The Ebiras and the Okun-Yoruba zones in the state could only aspire to be serial deputies or Secretaries to the State Government. This political template was virtually cast in stone. The Ilorin people of Kwara State have similarly wholly warehoused the gubernatorial office, sparingly conceding the position to other sociocultural groups in the state. The only exception was the concession of the seat to a candidate from Kwara South, in the person of Abdulfatah Ahmed, by his predecessor, Bukola Saraki in 2011. Even at that, there were murmurs and dissent from those who believed Ahmed came from a community too close to the Ilorin emirate to be of genuine Igbomina stock, which prides itself as the pure Yoruba species in Kwara State.
Twenty-six years into the Fourth Republic, the maximum proximity of the Idoma to Government House, Makurdi, has been by the customary allocation of the Deputy Governor’s slot to its people. Ogirri Ajene from Oju/Obi, the charismatic blue-blood of blessed memory, was deputy to George Akume, incumbent Secretary to the Government of the Federation, (SGF), from 1999 to 2007. Akume it was reported, genuinely desired to be succeeded by Ajene who exhibited competence and loyalty and could build on their legacies. The Tiv nation we understand, shot down the proposal. Gabriel Suswam succeeded Akume and had the urbane multipreneur, Stephen Lawani from Ogbadibo as deputy. Samuel Ortom, a Minister in the Goodluck Jonathan presidency who took over from Suswam opted for Benson Abounu, an engineer from Otukpo as running mate, while Hyacinth Alia, the Catholic priest who succeeded Ortom, also chose as deputy, Samuel Ode, who was also a Minister in the Jonathan government, from Otukpo. Arising from this precedence, Apa/Agatu has not for once, been considered for a place in Government House, Makurdi.
In similar fashion, the position of Senator representing Benue South, has repeatedly precluded Apa/Agatu federal constituency. David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark a former army General from Otukpo, took the first shot at the office in 1999. He was to remain in the position for five consecutive times, a distinctive record by Nigerian standards. Mark would subsequently become President of the Senate and the third most senior political office holder in the nation’s governance scheme for a string of two terms between 2007 and 2015. He was replaced by Patrick Abba Moro, who hails from Okpokwu and was a former teacher, in 2019. Abba Moro who previously served as Minister of Interior in the Jonathan government from 2011 to 2015, won a second term at the 2023 general elections and remains substantive Senator for “Benue Zone C.” He is indeed incumbent Minority Leader of the Senate, and thus a principal officer in the leadership scheme of the “red chambers.”
While Moro is barely two years into his second term, there are suggestions that he is interested in a third term which should run from 2027 to 2031! This is the core issue which has dominated contemporary political discourse in Benue South, especially from the Apa/Agatu bloc. For Apa/Agatu, it is bad enough that they are repeatedly bypassed in the nomination of deputy governors in the scheme of state politics. It is worse that they are equally subjugated by their own kinsmen within the context of politics in *Idoma and Igede land.* This is particularly worrying when both local government areas constituting the Apa/Agatu federal constituency, Apa and Agatu, are not in anyway deficient in human resources to represent Benue South. Names like John Elaigwu Odogbo, the incumbent *Och’Idoma* and respected clergy; Isa Innocent Ekoja, renowned Professor and Librarian; Sonny Togo Echono, FNIA, OON, Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND), and John Mgbede, Emeritus State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Benue State, readily come to mind.
Major General R.I. Adoba, (rtd), a former Chief Training and Operations in the Nigerian Army; Professor Emmanuel Adanu, former Director of the Kaduna-based National Water Resources Institute, (NWRI) and the US-based specialist in internal medicine, Dr Raymond Audu, are eminent Apa/Agatu constituents. There are also Ada Egahi, long-serving technocrat who retired from the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, (NPHDA), and Super Eagles forward, Moses Simon, (why not, hasn’t the retired soccer star, George Opong Weah just completed his term as President of Liberia)? The Member Representing Apa/Agatu in the House of Representatives, Godday Samuel Odagboyi, an office previously held by Solomon Agidani, as well as Adamu Ochepo Entonu, is, like his predecessors, a prominent figure from the resourceful Apa/Agatu federal constituency.
The Olofu brothers, Tony Adejoh, a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, (AIG), and David, PhD, a renowned management and financial strategist, who is also an Emeritus Member of the Benue State Executive Council during the Ortom dispensation, are from the same federal constituency. So is Abu Umoru, a serial entrepreneur who represents Apa State Constituency in the Benue State House of Assembly. The continuing intra-zonal alienation of Apa-Agatu from the politics of Benue Zone C, remains a sore thumb which must be clinically diagnosed and intentionally treated in the run-up to 2027.
If previous top level political office holders from Idomaland in general and Apa/Agatu in particular, had diligently applied themselves to tangible, multisectoral development of the zone and constituency, the present clamour for inclusiveness would probably been less vociferous. *River Agatu* which flows from Kogi State, and runs through Agatu before emptying into *River Benue,* is a potential game changer in the socioeconomy of Apa/Agatu, Benue South and Benue State in general. Properly harnessed, it can revolutionise agriculture and aquaculture in the state, beyond subsistence levels which are the primary vocations of the indigenous people. Rice, yam, guinea corn, millet and similar grains, thrive in the fertile soils of the area. These can support “first level” processing of produce and guarantee value addition beneficial to the primary producers, before being shipped to other markets. River Agatu can indeed be dammed to provide hydro-electricity to power the entire gamut of Idomaland.
The infrastructure deficit in Benue South with specific reference to Apa/Agatu is equally very concerning. A notable pattern in Nigerian politics is its self-centeredness, the penchant for political players to prioritise their personal wellbeing and the development of their immediate space. This has accentuated the ever recurring desire of people to ascend the political pedestals of their predecessors if that is the principal window by which they can also privilege their own primary constituents. Motorable roads are non-existent, seamless travel between communities therefore encumbered. Expectedly this has been a major impediment to subsistent trade and social engagements between constituents and their kinsmen. Primary health facilities are almost non-existent, compelling people to flock to Otukpo, headquarters of Benue South, for the minutest of medical advice and treatment.
Apa/Agatu pitiably bleeds from the relentless and condemnable activities of vagrants and bandits who have reduced the constituency into a killing field. Reports suggest that in the past 15 years, no less than 2500 lives were lost to the vicious attacks of marauders and trespassers in the area under reference. This unnerving situation has compelled engagements between concerned Apa/Agatu leaders, and the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force, (NPF). The prayer is for the swift establishment of a mobile police outpost in the troubled sub-zone to contain bloodletting. The proposal, anchored by AIG Tony Olofu, NPOM, (rtd), and Echono, has received the blessings of the police high command. At the last update, a commander for the outfit had been named, while the deployment of personnel had begun in earnest.
It is very clear that in the march towards 2027, Apa/Agatu will refuse, very vehemently, to be sidelined and trampled upon in the political scheme of their senatorial zone. Abba Moro may desire a third term in the Senate, but the people of Apa/Agatu are quick to remind him that his curriculum vitae as a politician is sufficiently sumptuous for him to yield the seat in the “red chambers” and sit back like an elder statesman. They remind you that for a man who began his working life modestly as a lecturer in the Federal Polytechnic, Ugbokolo in 1991, Abba Moro has done extremely well for himself in Nigerian politics. For reminders, Abba Moro was elected Chairman of Okpokwu local government in the state as far back as 1998. Ever since, he has remained a permanent fixture in Nigeria’s national politics.
The people of Apa/Agatu will put up a determined fight for the Benue South senatorial seat in 2027, and no one should begrudge them. They are the proverbial ram which was pushed to the wall, which must of necessity push back with angered horns to liberate itself. They are already engaging with their kith across “Benue Zone C” to ensure that intra-zonal equity, fairness and justice, prevails in communal politics.

Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja

Opinion

The Prince Adebayo prescriptions for ease of doing Business: 15 Take-Aways

Published

5 days ago

January 14, 2025

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By Dr. Ag Zaki

On Thursday, 9 January 2025, Prince Adewole Adebayo presented a keynote address at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. The occasion was the annual conference of a group of professionals, business executives and experts codenamed J9C for January 9 Collective. The theme of the Conference was “Business and Policy Strategy: Examining the Role of Reform in enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria.” Prince Adebayo is a versatile cerebral man of many parts, a lawyer, a multimedia practitioner, a real estate investor, a large-scale miner, a philanthropist, a community developer, and the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The organisers of the J9C conference introduced him as an intercontinental lawyer because he currently practices law in over sixteen countries.

The full speech of Prince Adebayo at the occasion is available online and can be accessed by clicking at this url: https://youtu.be/SsHkcJbVNRg?si=ebvoOVqGh0zVOsnt or by scanning the QR code above. However, we are presenting the salient take-aways from this most incisive keynote address below for the convenience of interested persons and for the public good.

THE TAKE-AWAYS
Preamble
1. Not every change of policy or programme is a reform. A reform is a fundamental change in the activities, programmes, and policies structured to cause improvement. Genuine government reforms are people oriented and so citizens can interject, comment or contribute.
2. Reform may be internally motivated, externally forced or imposed, or technological driven.
3. The government of Nigeria must first reform itself to be able to implement development-oriented reforms to improve the country’s economic performance.

In general terms
4. Fiscal and monetary reforms are critical and are urgently required in Nigeria. While government can freely control its fiscal reforms, it must be bound by market forces for realistic and realisable monetary reforms.
5. Economic reforms must positively affect developmental policies, programmes and projects to engender economic growth, increase in efficiency, and lead to stability. Economic and political reforms must be implemented pari-passu for untainted policies and programmes.
6. Urgent structural reforms are required in areas of legal reforms, laws on banking controls and regulations, lending and borrowing as well as land matters.

In specific terms
7. Reforms which are aimed at targeting ease of doing business must be aligned with the Malam Aminu Kano maxim that “all civil servants should abstain from contracts or business”.
8. Nigeria must break the current odious and unwholesome conspiracies between policy makers, civil servants, and contractors, which can lead to irreversible endemic corruption, long foreseen by the revered Malam Aminu Kano, and which can permanently damage the economy.
9. Structural reforms must ensure that land laws open up maximum benefits and potentials of the land, encourage labour productivity and efficient and transparent entrepreneurship rules including registration, capital and lending matters.
10. Tax reforms should be broad-based, not about sharing of revenue but promoting productivity and competitiveness in all aspects of endeavours and infrastructure reforms should make transportation of people and goods safe and cost effective.
11. Monitoring economic crimes must be thorough and should go beyond arresting of “Yahoo boys” and those spraying Naira notes, but those devaluing the Naira and abusing economic rules and regulations.

Warnings
12. Adebayo left some stern terse warnings for the business sector and for the government of Nigeria.
13. Business executives and professionals should not ask or encourage government for specific reforms but for general broad-based reforms as firm-specific reforms can enhance operations of specific firms or business in the short term but will ultimately kill the industry.
14. Government should not meddle into business or be guided by partisan businessmen; government should meet business only at the junction of regulatory framework.
15. Government should be selfless and honest in carrying out reforms, incorporate measurable performance indices and ensure that reforms are implemented in a way not to inflict pains or punishment on the people.

# DrZaki25, 903 Tafawa Balewa Way, Abuja

Opinion

Governor Monday Okpebholo: A Blessing to Edo State

Published

6 days ago

January 13, 2025

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Monday Okpebholo

By Eigbefo Felix

His Excellency, Senator Monday Okpebholo, the Executive Governor of Edo State, has demonstrated that he is a blessing to the state through his policies, appointments, initiation of road construction across the three senatorial districts, and his deep love for the people of Edo State.

Governor Monday Okpebholo has begun fulfilling the five-point agenda he promised the good people of the state since his inauguration.

In the area of security, he has shown total commitment. He assured the people of Edo State that he would ensure their safety, and true to his word, the state remains peaceful, which has brought joy to its residents. He has provided the necessary support to security personnel.

The governor increased the subvention for Ambrose Alli University (AAU) from ₦40 million to ₦500 million. He also promised to address the issues facing AAU medical students. Additionally, he has started renovating primary and secondary schools across the state, underscoring his understanding of the importance of education.

The agricultural sector has taken a positive turn as Governor Okpebholo has allocated ₦70 billion to the sector. Recognizing agriculture’s importance to both the state and the nation, he is positioning Edo State to become the food basket of the nation with his investments in the sector.

During the electioneering period, Senator Okpebholo promised to create 5,000 jobs within his first 100 days in office. He has already begun the process, and soon, the people of Edo State will benefit from these employment opportunities. Unlike in the past, he will not rely on MOUs before making appointments. Furthermore, he has started appointing Edo State indigenes, rather than outsiders, to various positions.

Governor Okpebholo has commenced road projects across the state, from Edo South to Edo Central and Edo North. He believes that when roads are motorable, the prices of goods in the market will automatically reduce.

He has also begun investing in the health sector, understanding its critical importance to the people of Edo State.

Governor Monday Okpebholo’s initiatives and actions affirm his dedication to transforming Edo State for the better.