Opinion
An “Iftar” experience with Atiku Abubakar
By Tunde Olusunle
I visited the Asokoro, Abuja home of Nigeria’s former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, the other day, to observe the iftar with him, as part of the month-long Ramadan fast. Atiku very ably hoisted the presidential flag of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), during the last general elections, as we remember. The flames and flickers of the fires stoked by that insanely corrupted poll, remain alive and active. The world “ain’t seen the end of the saga as yet,” to appropriate that popular American expression. The Wazirin Adamawa, (traditional prime minister of Adamawa) as he is also very well known, was just coming out of the house for the first time that day, apparently. Atiku is a very religious and studious character who loves paperwork. You fall in love with his handwriting when you glean his minutes on a document. Warri folks, famous for their earthy, standout variety of pidgin English will put it like you go like the writing die, my guy. Not to talk about his striking signature.
He walked straight to the foyer which had been laid out for him to refresh and receive guests before attending the Maghrib prayers, when I arrived. We, his associates and officials, exchanged banters with ourselves as we accompanied Atiku to the dining room thereafter. Babalele Abdullahi, Atiku’s finance director and Ibrahim Zango, his principal secretary were in tow. Andy Okolie, Atiku’s eternal speechwriter looked in the direction of Azu Ndukwe, veteran medic and personal physician to Atiku in the last three decades, and started a conversation about me. “People rarely appreciate that you are very tall, Tunde. And this is because you are huge. Standing close to you now, I can see that people can easily be making a mistake thinking you are just of an average height.” Atiku looked back at us briefly, a soft smile playing on his lips. He had once jokingly tackled me for “obstructing passage” with my tummy at mealtime. That was back in our days in Aso Villa. He operated a virtual “open house” policy which ensured seamless interconnectivity between those of us on the president’s staff and his own officials.
As Atiku took his place at the head of the table, I opted to sit in the direction of Ndukwe and Okolie so we could continue our exchanges. Sunny Mekwunye, who has been with Atiku forever, virtually, waved me to seat next to our principal’s immediate right so that younger guests could take over the southward extreme where I originally opted for. We were still doing all that shuffling when Lucky Igbinedion, former governor of Edo State, and Ben Obi, former adviser during the Olusegun Obasanjo/Atiku Abubakar regime, both breezed in. To lend from the peculiar lexicon of the uniformed services, we had to revert ajuwaya, (as you were, return to status quo). This meant I returned to my former position.
Our dinner, was interspersed with some talking and allusions to contemporary sociopolitics. You could see in Atiku, an unruffled mien, irrespective of the electoral heist he had just been victim of. He remains the calm, very well-informed, liberal-minded, measured gentleman, elder and statesman. His interjections, the dimensions, the illuminations he brought to issues, were borne of aggregated experiences over spans and space. The underwhelming outing of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), which has been globally acknowledged as the worst in Nigeria’s contemporary political history, was under the scalpel. Voter apathy, explicitly manifested by the participation of just about 25% of registered voters in the process, was referenced as a disturbing development.
Wholesale retrogression in the electoral process which has reversed practically to prehistoric prototypes despite assurances of advancements and innovations, and mammoth investments to that effect, featured on the discussion menu. Voter suppression, vote buying within the precincts of voting areas and the criminal manipulation of the much advertised BVAS device, were alluded to. Barefaced distortions of electoral figures beginning from the polling units, brazen seizures of ballot boxes by miscreants and the destruction of same in many instances, were under review. The question was also asked: Why do we still have to manually move election result sheets, to collation centres? Where is technological deployment in the whole process? That should ordinarily simplify the gamut of the balloting for both voters and officials, and help preserve the sanctity of the vote.
Unsavoury proceedings in various states among during the elections, were also reviewed. Accentuated ethnic dimensions to political rhetoric especially in Lagos, easily Nigeria’s most megalopolitan state, was noted with unhappiness. Suspicions of INEC’s complicity in the declaration of the gubernatorial poll in Adamawa State, as inconclusive, was discussed. Soldiers and the police had taken over Yola, the state capital, the night after the Saturday March 11, 2023 election. The media alerted Nigeria of a grand script to gift the governorship to Aisha Binani, the female APC opponent of Umaru Fintiri, the incumbent PDP governor. Fintiri was coasting home with a headwind of over 30,000 votes over his major opponent, when the election was abruptly halted. There were suggestions and allegations of a scheme to present as “trophy” for Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, who hails from Adamawa State. The story was that she desires to enthrone a female governor before her exit from the Nigerian political stage as first lady.
Kogi, which assumed national and global notoriety since a helicopter was procured on polls day back in 2019, to hover over Lokoja, the state capital and rain live bullets to unsettle voters down below, featured too. It was in this very same Kogi State, that Salome Abuh, an opposition party woman leader, was incinerated in her home by political psychopaths. Her crime was that she led womenfolk under her superintendence to vote against the ruling APC in the state, in 2019. Also recall that agents of state dug all arterial roads leading to the community of the PDP senatorial candidate, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan to prevent access by electoral officers for the polls for the presidential and national assembly polls.
In the same Kogi central senatorial zone where Akpoti-Uduaghan was all but disenfranchised, Adavi local government chairman, Joseph Omuya Salami was recorded real-time, chasing voters away from a polling unit, seizing and shredding election materials. Salami was protected in the act and watched by uniformed and armed policemen, by the way. There was also allusion to this bespectacled, grey-bearded old man, most probably a professor, who served as returning officer in some state. He was pure comic relief, barely able to read the election results, even as he started every sentence beginning with abuna, a Hausa expression for “this thing.” He was simply a waffling clown. “What kind of professor is that,” Atiku asked rhetorically? Is he among our best professors? Are professors the only Nigerians who can function as returning officers in such a vast and blessed country,” he questioned further.
Atiku’s main sitting room was getting fuller as we continued our discussions. Longstanding Atiku friend and loyalist, Jide Adeniji, onetime chief executive of the federal roads maintenance agency, (FERMA), was in the house, among other dignitaries. He missed the buffet. There was also a delegation from the Osun State PDP, led by its acting chairman of Osun Akintunde Akindele. Earlier in the day, they witnessed the judicial confirmation by the Court of Appeal of the gubernatorial ticket of Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke the Osun State governor. The seats in the living room were all but taken up by individuals and groups, even as Atiku’s exclusive meeting room was being simultaneously readied for other pre-scheduled meetings and engagements. There was order in the air, evidence that the chief host is a stickler to form and protocol.
Amidst all of these, I asked Atiku: “Your Excellency, how do you maintain such calm, such composure even in the face of the contentious polls which you apparently won, but which victory you have been deprived? ” “I believe,” he began, “that whatever happens to a man in his journey through life, has been prearranged by God. It is advisable therefore that one maintains a calm and focused disposition as much as possible.” Continuing Atiku said: “As one of those who fought for democracy, who was targeted in my Kaduna home by agents of the Sani Abacha government, I’m a wholesale believer in the rule of law. Don’t forget the various issues we tested in the judiciary, all the way to the Supreme Court, during my travails as vice president. I won all of them. We have filed our petition arising from observed irregularities in the last election as you very know.”
Atiku continued: “Despite scepticism about the independence and dependability of the judiciary, especially when hard decisions have to be taken, we pray they will stand on the side of verifiable honesty, truth, justice, democracy and the good people of this country. That will be the hallmark of a truly neutral, forthright, courageous judiciary, capable of holding its own, not necessarily appendaged or subordinate to any other arm of government. That is when we can begin to believe that we are conscientiously building enduring democratic institutions. That is our minimum expectation and the expectation of the ordinary people of this country.” We rose in unison as Atiku joined his guests, every group and individual desiring a photo opportunity with him. I courtesied and sought permission to “fall out” as is said in the military. Atiku obliged, reminding me he looked forward to my next visit.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE)
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
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
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.
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