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Tag: Chidi Amuta

Chidi Amuta

  • My jet is bigger than yours – By Chidi Amuta

    My jet is bigger than yours – By Chidi Amuta

    In 1989, the call of duty and pull of family  necessitated that I travel from my London partial base to New York. I was  checked in on  a British Airways flight from London to New York. We were set to leave Heathrow shortly after the usual pre-departure rituals.

    I was seated on an aisle seat on row 2 in the First Class cabin courtesy of my employers then. I noticed that on both sides of the aisle in my front, the two seats on each row were unoccupied. It was a bit curious. I reckoned it was either a VIP reservation or there would be air Marshals on board. But marshals do not occupy prominent front row seats on aircraft they are protecting.  Those were the days when it had become mandatory for major Western airlines on international routes to have armed Marshals on board in the event of terrorist hijack attempts.

    As the pre- departure announcement was about to commence, the four ‘missing’ First Class passengers boarded. I looked up. There was a stately lady accompanied by three  smart- suited gentlemen. They allowed the lady to take her seat before they sat down in a manner that flanked the lady in a window seat on the left side of the aisle. Before the lady took her seat, she courtsied and flashed a brief plastic smile at those of us seated immediately behind her with a hardly audible “Good afternoon”.

    On came the Captain’s voice: “Honorable Prime Minister and valued guests, welcome to this British Airways intercontinental service taking us straight to New York’s Kennedy Airport….Flight time is… En route weather…Mild turbulence on the Atlantic crossing….”

    The  female last minute passenger was none other than  the then British Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. That was her penultimate year in office. She was flying a commercial airline as a passenger to New York, obviously en route Washington.

    On arrival in New York, Mrs. Thatcher courteously disembarked, accompanied by her three self -effacing security escorts. They just disappeared through the crowd followed by the rest of us passengers. No limousines at the foot of the aircraft. No long assault rifles, horsewhips, combat gear  and orchestrated commotion. etc.

    As Chairman of the Editorial Board of the renascent Daily Times under Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, I went to Harare to interview President Robert Mugabe in 1992. He was scheduled for a state visit to Nigeria on President Ibrahim Babangida’s invitation. I flew to Harare via Nairobi on what used to be Balkan (Bulgarian) Airlines. After my interview, Mugabe kindly asked me how I was returning to Lagos. I told him. Then he politely offered me a seat in his jet: ‘ we have a large plane and can offer you a seat.’

    The next day, I showed up at the airport. After the president’s ceremonial departure rituals, his aides took me on board the aircraft and got me seated. It was an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 727 with clear commercial livery. The crew were Air Zimbabwe pilots, cabin crew and co-pilots. The president was proudly flying a commercial aircraft and was proud of it. As soon as we reached cruising altitude, the president walked round the cabin for courtesy chats. He stopped by me to express delight that I accepted his offer of a ride. He told me Nigeria trained most of their combat pilots prior to independence.

    I provide these anecdotal experiences against the backdrop of a simulated debate that is brewing in the country. A few voices have been raised in the National Assembly in support of buying two new aircraft for the presidential fleet to replace the current aircraft. If the kite flies, the President and the Vice President respectively would jet around the world in brand new luxury jets.  To all intents and purposes, the aim of the brewing noises in the NASS is to give legislative legitimacy to a decision that may already have been made. I am not sure whether there is any provision in the 2024 budget for these aircraft or the idea is just a whiff of presidential wish that needs some legislative stamp. It is too early to tell but clearly, the matter of new presidential jets is on the table of public debate.

    Those who are pushing this agenda have cited recent hiccups in the performance of the jets in use. When the president recently travelled to the Netherlands on an official visit, his follow -on trip to Saudi Arabia for the World Economic Forum had to be undertaken in a hired aircraft as the presidential jet reportedly developed problems in Amsterdam. Shortly after that, Mr. Shettima who was headed for the United States to represent Nigeria at a major foreign policy event reportedly had to make  an air return early in the flight as his own aircraft also reportedly developed a fault mid air. The conclusion is that these aircraft are either too old or poorly maintained to be trusted to ferry the two first citizens around safely.  Whatever the political nuisance value of our first two citizens, we want them alive and safe.

    The matter of safety of high level aircraft in use by heads of government has been elevated by two recent air accidents that claimed the lives of incumbent high level government officials. The first was the helicopter crash in the mountains of northern Iran that claimed the life of the Iranian president, Mr. Raisi. The second is the incident that claimed the life of Malawi’s Vice President, Saulos Chilima. In the absence of detailed accident investigation reports on both incidents so far, the easy conclusion has been that faulty aircraft may be the prime causes of these unfortunate events. The lazy and convenient conclusion is of course that the only way to get presidents and their deputies to arrive their destinations in one piece is to equip them with brand new aircraft. The Nigerian  purveyors of this lazy option have spared no time for possibilities of weather, sabotage, bad maintenance or indeed human error.

    Consequently, those advocating the purchase of new aircraft for Tinubu and Shettima have tacitly accused opponents of the huge expenditure  on new aircraft of wishing our president and his deputy dead if they continue flying in the old aircraft.

    Irrespective of such morbid thinking, opponents of the purchase of new presidential jets are predicating their contention on purely socio economic reasons. The self evident argument is that the purchase of new presidential jets cannot qualify as a priority given the sorry state of the national economy and the avalanche of problems and hardships that Nigerians are currently living with.  The facts are self -evident.

    The nation is in a poor shape. Hunger and poverty are too prevalent. Everyone is unsafe as swarms of bandits and casual killers are all over the place taking lives and inflicting harm sometimes for the fun of it. Healthcare is beyond reach as the prices of essential drugs and medications have shot through the roof. The state itself has its back on the wall as most economic indicators –inflation, exchange rate, interest rates, unemployment, foreign investment etc- are all flashing red. The matter of new presidential jets in those circumstances becomes a matter of deficient prioritization. Why would we prioritize the procurement of luxury jets when the vast majority of our people are in desperate deprivation while the government is preaching sacrifice and imposing a battery of inexcusable taxes of everyone for the most essential service and public goods?

    The political opposition has weighed down heavily on even the mere suggestion that any government of Nigeria in these circumstances would even dream of additional luxury jets for Tinubu and Shettima in these times. Justifiably, the opposition has pointed at recent instances of unnecessary luxurious indulgence by the administration in the 2024 budget. They point at the purchase of countless expensive luxury SUVs for legislators and high government officials, the contentious presidential yacht, the expensive new habitations for the Vice President, the expensive refurbishment of official residences and offices of the already over indulged executives etc. The obvious conclusion is of course that a government that can prioritize unnecessary items of luxury at huge costs while the people wallow in poverty and extreme deprivation can only be insensitive and callously indifferent.

    Yet the transportation of Presidents, Vice Presidents and other key officials of state have become part of the architecture of the modern nation state. The Presidential jet in particular has become an emblem of national prestige and status.  In some ways, the size, functionality and opulence of a country’s presidential jet has become an unstated indicator of the diplomatic gravity of the nation in question. However, the presidential jet as an indicator of national strength and grandeur is more meaningful when the nation in question is an industrial power and therefore produces the aircraft used by the leader to project and exhibit national power and greatness. America’s Air Force One, Vladimir Putin’s clone of the American model or Mr. Tsi Jiping’s aircraft or that of Narendra Modi have all become emblems of the greatness and technological advancement of these countries.

    As a matter of fact,  Air Force One is not a badge name permanently affixed to any one aircraft. It is merely a call sign. Any aircraft in which the US President is travelling at any given time is called Air Force One!  The customized Boeing 747 normally associated with the Air Force One label is merely an emblematic showpiece. It is not only one. There are more than one with the same specifications, outfitting, self-protection counter measures and communication gear such that the president of the United States can literally run his country and the world from the aircraft anywhere in the world.

    On the basis of its stature as the biggest black nation in the world, the Nigerian president should not travel in dilapidated aircraft that park up at every stop. Minimally, our presidential aircraft should be air worthy and reasonably impressive without being ostentatious. The current aircraft in use is a modest Boeing 737 Executive jet that actually understates Nigeria’s stature. Any two penny American company Chief Executive owns or flies in something better and more impressive. We should do better.  But the time is wrong to even contemplate a fleet of new aircraft. It is not just enough to purchase one aircraft each for the President and Vice President respectively. Ideally the shopping list ought to be for at least two – a main and a back up – for each of them. But we cannot afford these now.

    There are options that could be cost saving. The first is to fly the present Boeing 737 Business jet in use by the President back to the Boeing  factory in Seattle, Washington  for a thorough comprehensive factory overhaul. That would be less expensive than ordering a brand new custom made aircraft. The overhauled and updated aircraft should serve our president another couple of years while the pressing issues in the nation’s economy are hopefully fixed. The amount of savings made on such an overhaul alternative should be made public.

    A more realistic, politically savvy option would be to hire one of Air Peace’s Boeing 777 long range aircraft each time the president has to make a long distance journey. For the purpose of such a hire, the hired aircraft will carry the call sign of “Nigerian Air Force One” till it finishes the mission. For the purpose of such an arrangement, the Nigerian Air Force should have a presence in the cockpit of the aircraft in question. This arrangement would be realistic, cost effective and patriotic. The political capital would complement the economic gains and give the president a win-win dividend at home where his popularity rating is at best abysmal.

    If reason fails, the Kamikaze option would be the one that is already being rehearsed. Get National Assembly approval for new jets, submit a supplementary budget to accommodate the cost of these new jets, order the aircraft but continue to hire or travel by commercial aircraft till the new jets are delivered. There will be both turbulent headwinds and violent tailwinds with this option. But for a government that can withdraw fuel subsidy, devalue the Naira, revert to the old national anthem overnight and sign the N18 trillion  Lagos- Calabar Alaskan highway contract and damn the consequences, mere controversy over aircraft purchase may  just be a passing noise. Heavens will not fall, so their thinking at the Villa goes. But what if Nigeria falls apart?

  • Beyond festival democracy – By Chidi Amuta

    Beyond festival democracy – By Chidi Amuta

    Nigerian politicians have perfected the art of reducing almost everything to  situational comedy. They just put us through a fortnight of celebrations on the altar of  democracy.  That is about the only  word that unites them in their diversity of costumes and intentions. It was a somewhat entertaining two weeks of pageants, dramatics and empty rhetoric about the great Nigeria achievements in the realm of democracy. Free food was in abundance at the Villa and choice restaurants where the attendees did not have to pick up the bill. Thjere were the usual parades by the contingents of the police and military who found time off chasing after bandits and criminals to display and entertain their pay master.  It all went well except that some secueity oversight allowed Mr. Tinubu to slip and fall off the stairs to his parade inspection vehicle. Thank God it went well and ended up with the Presdient entertaining his guests with his peculiar “dobale” twist to a bad fall!

    Characteristically, the executive and legislature staged a combined comic strip and entertained us to a huge day time gala of speeches about the feat of twenty five unbroken years of democracy. It was also on the 29th of May, a day that marked the attainment by the Tinubu administration of the age One. At some point, no one knew exactly what the politicians gathered at the National Assembly were celebrating.  Was it their own growing irrelevance? Was it Mr. Tinubu’s empty one year in office? Or was it  the sorry plight of the people whom they say voted them into office? Up to this point, no one can say exactly what the conclave of shame at the National Assembly on 29th May was all about.

    Twenty five years of unbroken democratic government was indisputable and clearly called for some noisy observance. At least we could count a succession of dispensations from Obasanjo to Tinubu over this period. Goings and comings every four years, each regime adding to the legacy of infamy and the chronicle of shame and serial looting.  At least the ones whose tenure expired went away even if sometimes reluctantly. Others replaced them in a relay race that we are not likely to forget in a hurry. Similarly, no one could deny that the nation has borne the burden of the Tinubu administration for the last twelve months. And no one can fairly deny Mr. Tinubu of not amking a difference in his avowed pledge to continue from where Mr. Buhari left off.

    Buhari left the Naira at 480 to the dollar; Tinubu has improved the figure to N1,500. Buhari left the price of petrol at less than N300 per liter; Tinubu has raised it to N700.  Nigerians are now more axed for nearly everything than at any other time in our history. In fairness, the celebration of these “gains” of’democracy  belonged more to politicians and the political class than to the beleaguered people of Nigeria. Therefore, in a Freudian affirmation of their sense of ownership of the bash, the president and the National Assembly decided that it was worth only their in house celebration as an exclusive club of beneficiaries.

    So, the president did not bother to address the nation on 29th of May. After all, it was twenty five years of the triumph of political ascendancy and another one year of yet another relay lapse. He wisely opted to address a joint session of the National Assembly in what turned out to be an odd mix of comedy and farce. It was crowned by the inauguration of the ‘old’ national anthem as the anthem of the  ‘new’ nation in the making under Mr. Tinubu.

    Never mind that a clear 85% of those assembled were probably toddlers when the old anthem was jettisoned 48 years ago. Forget also the fact that over 90% of them did not know the exact wordings of what they were foisting on the nation by an untidy legislative fiat. They moved their lips and the police band came to their rescue with a halting rendition of the old anthem which they probably rehearsed on that morning.

    Two weeks later, it was June 12, the National Democracy Day as decreed by Mr. Buhari in reprisal against his nemesis, Mr. Babangida of Minna. June 12 is a day set aside for the remembrance of the June 12 1993 presidential election which ended in a fiasco of an aborted transition to civil rule. Of course June 12 was an episode in democracy in Nigeria, albeit a very remarkable one. On that day, an autocratic military junta organized what has become the most credible democratic election in Nigerian history.   Credible election; free, fair and accurately reflective of the popular will but put together by a dictatorial regime as part of an audacious series of political experiments. The contradiction can never be lost on us. In life and in history, sometimes unintended good comes from dark places.  Was it not Shakespeare who insisted that sometimes, the instruments of darkness tell us the truth!

    What unites the various celebrations of democracy that we have just witnessed is a certain self -deception and superficiality among the political class.   Both the politicians gathered in the conclave of lies in Abuja and the public at large know something in common. Everyone knows that Nigeria is not yet a democracy properly defined. The politicians know that democracy is more of a convenient nomenclature for what has been happening here in the past twenty five years.  It is merely a superficial mantra that they use to excuse their serial betrayal of the people in order to gain unfettered access to the commonwealth and fleece the rest of us in an organized crime syndicate.

    Curiously, the popular masses of Nigerians also know a fraud when they see one. They know that Nigeria is only ‘democratic ‘ during isolated episodes and moments on the political calendar. During election seasons, Nigeria suddenly explodes in a colourful durbar of democratic frenzy. The nation becomes a democratic country as people temporarily forget the autocratic impositions and high handedness of the preceding four years.  It is time for travelling theatres of political jesters. The circus hits the circuit.  It is time to don colorful party costumes and sing creative political songs. It is time to dig up the language of “stomach infrastructure”, to hide Naira notes or a few miserable dollar bills inside loaves of Agege bread for distribution to those who have not had a meal in the last few days.

    Democracy season is time for known miscreants to prance around the country promising what they themselves do not even understand. Some ‘political animals’ even attend crash evening school lessons to try and understand the meaning of  words like “policy”, “programme”, “democracy dividend” and “constituency” etc.

    Soon afterwards, the elections are held. People win and others lose. Some contestants win and lose at the same set of polling centres depending on whose version of the result you get first. No one in Nigeria wins an election or loses an election. In Nigeria’s democratic tradition, every one who contests an election  presumes him or herself a winner.  In advance, they measure the drapes of their new official abode. Some rehearse the dance steps for inauguration day. Others rehearse the pompous  speech mannerisms of their envisaged high office.  ‘A governor does not speak like an ordinary mortal!’  The men encourage their ambitious wives to rehearse the dance steps of “Madam Excellency”. Self delusion is one distinguishing feature of Nigerian democracy.

    Among conflicting claimants of victory in Nigerian elections, there is a common greeting: “Let’s meet in court”! If you were declared loser, they tell you: “Go to court!” or “Go and hug a power transformer!” The theatre soon shifts to the courts where an avalanche of jobless lawyers and thievish judges are lying in wait to make a killing. There are enough contested political offices whose elections must end in court. So, judges of Tribunals, Courts of Appeal and even the Supreme Court enter a season of harvest. Any Nigerian judge worth his salt who is assigned to adjudicate on election disputes must be a fool if he or she fails to change his decrepit old car ready for retirement at the end of an election cycle.

    Not to talk of some strange sacrosanct animal created by the government to count the ballots and declare a result. It is a strange animal now called INEC. In political matters, it has the power of life and death. Its adverse declarations have sent many a politician to early death through cardiac arrest. People lobby and bribe to be made Resident Electoral Commissioners in states. All it takes to become a billionaire is to declare the richer candidate duly elected.

    So much for the comic theatre of the absurd that Nigerians call elections and politicians dub democracy.  In other places, elections are contested by parties. Parties stand for ideas and ideals. Those ideas make sense only because they address a current adversity or concern among the people. In Nigeria, parties have only acronymas. Whatever those acronyms stand for do not concern the people. The good politicians are the ones who switch parties like dirty underpants. A democracy that has thrived for a quarter of a century without identifiable political parties is a fraud.

    In Nigeria’s democratic  tradition, prties are not held accountable fr misrule. In fact, a party that misrules and mismanages the nation is rewarded at the next election. Mr. Buhari ran Nigeria aground under the banner of the APC. But the 2023 elections returned the APC to power at the federal level and majority of the states in addition to a clear parliamentary majority. A democracy whose electoral outcomes reconsolidate a previous bad government can only be a negative definition of democracy.

    In a proper democracy, the institutions of democracy are clearly defined. They are credible political parties, an independent judiciary, a free press and an apparatus of state that is dedicated to the state and not to passing regimes. On the contrary, what we have in Nigeria is a situation where once elected into office, an incumbent privatizes the apparatus of state as well as the insitutitions of democracy. The new sovereigns become embodiments of the state and above the law. In the ensuing state of “my administration”, an incumbent rises to the status of an overlord. The president rises to the status of a king, jettisoning the republic constitution on the basis of which he was elected. Governors become emperors  and the people who queued in the sun to cast those votes become canon fodder. A democracy that rewards the freedom of the citizens with greater insecurity needs to be re-examined. If the dividend of a particular democracy is hunger and unemployment queues that get longer by the day, we need to take a second look at ourselves.

    Even when their tenures expire, Nigeria’s democratically elected incumbents are now in the trade of empowering their surrogates in the now fashionable role of political god fathers. This ends  up enthroning  a virtual oligarchy until the surrogates revolt in nasty  and scandalous palace coups.

    The challenges of transforming Nigeria into a democracy are daunting.  A democracy that degrades the lives of the people with each passing tenure is suspect. A democracy that spends more money on servicing its own  form than the content of the peoples lives is overdue for a drastic review. The questions are many.

    How do we convert our democracy into an instrument of development? Why is our democracy producing more poor, miserable and desperate citizens with each passing tenure? How do we convert and transform our political class from consuming locusts into  productive agents of development?

  • Where are the APC’s progressives? – By Chidi Amuta

    Where are the APC’s progressives? – By Chidi Amuta

    The quantum of reservations and growing public disapproval of the Tinubu government has little or nothing to do with ideology. I am pretty sure that if anyone ever accuses Mr. Tinubu of being anything resembling ideological, he could draw a pistol. Yet  his unrelenting dismal job approval rating and increasing popularity deficit is the result of  a fundamental ideological mix up.

    The president would like to be popular, admired by the masses and praised by the elite. But his policies keep grating on ideas that make a leader popular. People do not want to pay more for fuel, electricity, essential drugs or a myriad of taxes. Yet these are the basic essentials of the Tinubu presidency for which he and his team want us to clap and sing their praises. It works the other way round. The more you subject us to suffering and poverty, the less popular you are likely to get. Yet, the crisis is not only Tinubu’s. It is that of his party or rather the way we have come to run our politics of nativity.

    As a growing tradition, Nigerian politics attaches little or no importance to ideologies. The hints of ideology that appear in our party acronyms and names say nothing tour politicians or the public . It says nothing about who qualifies to join or control each party. It says nothing about the programmes and policies of the party even when it does come to power. The acronyms are mere labels that distinguish one party from the other. And the parties themselves are merely vehicles on which politicians ride to fight for power at elections. The vast majority of party members know nothing about the ideological implications of the labels of the parties they join or run on. 

    With luck, there may be a handful of party elite who dream up party names and use the ideological implications to craft a manifesto or party agenda for purposes of registration by INEC. Once registered, our parties proceed like renegades to wrestle and battle for power at state and federal levels. Politicians make promises and articulate programmes that have little bearing to the names or ideological hints of their parties. Win the election first and be reminded of the name of the party and what its ideology, if any, means after inauguration day.

    When it is time to take stock of party and government achievements at the end of a tenure, the Nigerian public, even the elite, hardly judge our parties and governments by the implications of their ideologies. It is the personal stamp of the individual incumbent that is judged. It is the Obasanjo government, the Buhari administration, the Tinubu presidency that are at issue etc. Our subsequent elections become merely referendums on the individual whose imprint the departing administration carried. 

    If it is a PDP government that is in question, no one cares how “democratic” it was or how much it cared about the “people” implicated in the party name. If it is an APC government, no one asks whether its achievements were “progressive” or not.  

    And yet, political parties remain the bedrock and cornerstones of every democracy. By their nature, they are carriers of ideological values by the very names they bear. These labels are carriers and embodiments of core beliefs and values. To that extent, a party ought to “answer” its true name by maintaining a certain fidelity to its names and distinguishing ideological implications. 

    If you insist on being a “national” party as with the defunct National Party of Nigeria, we expect you to leave a legacy coloured by nationalism (“One Nation , One Destiny”). If you were  the UPN of old, we expect you to be a beacon of “Unity” at least among your membership and the larger society if possible.  In these days of the APC, the PDP and the Labour Party, we expect “progressives”, “democrats” and “workers” interests to dominate our political discourse. 

    But sadly, the clashes among the three dominant parties for popular support is being waged about the credentials of Mr. Tinubu, Mr. Atiku and Mr. Obi. Our quarrels are not about how “progressive” the policies of Tinubu are or how democratic an Atiku presidency would have been or how much the interests of workers and youth would have been protected if Mr. Obi became president. Instead, we are embroiled in ugly street disputations about Mr. Tinubu’s controversial  certificates, Atiku’s many vacation homes in Dubai or Obi’s perennial black costume and Onitsha market wealth.

    In the specific instance of the ruling APC, something curious and more far reaching seems to have happened. Mr. Tinubu has chased away all the progressive elements of the party either by confining  them to the periphery or chasing them into political “exile” as it were. Many are now asking: where is Rotimi Amaechi in the present scheme of things in the party? Where is Yemi Osinbajo in all this? Where is Adams  Oshiomole in his unfolding drame? Why is my friend Nasir El Rufai being tormented for all the progressive policies he pursued in Kaduna? Where are all the progressive elements in the APC who fought to chase off Mr. Jonathan and enthrone Buhari?

    In contrast with Tinubu, under Mr. Buhari, the APC managed to be an inclusive amalgam of an ultra conservative president and his tribal cohorts surrounded by a mixed bag of “progressive” thinking leading lights with some confused rabble of state  functionaries and party apparatchiks. Mr. Buhari could at least work with state progressive governors and party leaders like Rotimi Amaechi, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, party Chairman Adams Oshiomole and Governor Nasir El-Rufai. 

    These gentlemen were progressive in a loosely defined sense of advocating social democratic and modernist policies and programmes. They at least showing an abiding concern for the welfare of the ordinary citizen through broad based programmes. Osinbajo used his office as Vice President to administer  credible popular  empowerment programmes like Cash Transfers, Trader Money, Small Business Support Loan Scheme and instant relief for those in extreme vulnerability. Mr. Amaechi used his office as governor of Rivers State to build modern schools in which education up to secondary level was free. Children were supplied free school sandals and uniforms and primary health centres were multiplied and equipped with life saving devicdes and competent personnel. Oshiomole pursued similar policies as governor of Edo State and constantly reminded APC members of their commitment to the elements of progressivism as party Chairman. His trade union background came in handy here.

    Rightly defined, Progressivism as a political movement and idea is a left of centre movement. Its core is a certain commitment to social democratic principles. It is decidedly pro-common people and in the process advocates policies and programmes that enhance the welfare of the common folk. Access to the basic essentials of life is the corner stone of all progressive movements. Access to basic healthcare.  Access to affordable popular education. Access to employment. Access to food security and security of life and property. 

    These, as against the advocacy of the interests of the rich and big corporations, tax relief for the rich, the protection of big energy companies and massive taxation of basic goods and services, would distinguish a progressive government from either a conservative or neo liberal pro-capitalist party.

    If indeed Buhari struggled with finding a middle path between these possibilities,  President Bola Tinub has had no problem with such a mixture. From the outset, he indicated a definitive option for conservatism and neo liberal capitalist policies. He chose Mr. Ganduje of the million dollar fame as party chairman. He opted for the famous Mr. Godswill Akpabio as Senate President and some other anonymous gentleman as House Speaker. He has also chosen a mixed bag of Ministers with the imperial Nyesom Wike, David Umahi and his Lagos gang of World Bank and IMF friendly Cardoso and Yemi Edu to man the economy. Tinubu maneuvered the National Assembly to ensure that the likes of Nasir El Rufai never neared his cabinet. It is also rumored that a former ally and progressive, Adams Oshiomole, now needs special clearance to get an audience with the President in the Villa.

    Almost like a deliberate policy, Mr. Tinubu has kept the real progressives of the original party at bay. No one knows his exact relationship with  Rotimi Amaechi  who was a founding pillar of the APC and principal enabler of the Buhari presidency. Amaechi is by no means a small tangential fish in APC waters. He came second in the presidential primary congress that produced the Tinubu ticket. In spite of sharing a common South West roots with Osinbajo, Tinubu has kept the former brilliant progressive Vice President at a distance. Not even the token emissary errands for which former vice presidents are famous!

    In order to situate these developments and perhaps project on the future of the APC, we need to understand the major currents that produced the APC.

    The APC was birthed out of Mr. Buhari’s resilient appetite for presidential power. Its victory in the 2015 presidential election was a product of both his regional cultic followership and a nationwide rejection of Mr. Jonathan’s bumbling presidency. Seven years afterwards, Buhari’s appetite for apex power has been fulfilled and arguably squandered. His pet nativist hegemonic project has come full cycle and overreached itself. And as he begins to gather his belongings to return to the pastoral anonymity of Daura, his APC vehicle now has an existential challenge: how does it survive in and of itself as a political party? How will it persist as a strategic national institution of democratic stability? 

    Looking back, the coalition of parties that gave birth to the APC was an inconvenient marriage of political convenience. There was nothing in common between a pseudo social democratic ACN, an ultra conservative CPC, a nationalist right wing ANPP, an ethno nationalist APGA and a renegade opportunistic centrist NPDP. The cardinal objective was to cobble together a workable coalition to wrest power from the PDP after 16 monotonous years. The idea of a multiparty coalition eventually gave way to the even better idea of a single opposition party.

    Mr. Buhari facilitated and galvanized the marriage. He provided the amalgamation with a presidential mascot albeit one with a national name recognition. He also came dressed in an untested mythic garb of leadership prowess, governance prudence, barrack discipline and a reasonable level of personal integrity. Above all, he had managed over the years to build up a huge cultic following among the northern mob of rough uneducated and unemployed youth and regional power fanatics. Part of the motor park fable around Mr. Buhari was the infantile notion that once elected president, he would jail all the corrupt former government officials, recover the ill- gotten wealth and redistribute same among the poor masses. 

    Thus was born a party tailored more towards wresting power from an effete incumbent than for the effective governance of a country in desperate need for responsible leadership.  Given the tenacity of African power incumbents, the APC was more honed for the task of contesting the outcome of the 2015 presidential election possibly up to the Supreme Court. But when the results tumbled in mostly in its favour and Mr. Jonathan conceded defeat to Mr. Buhari, it was an overrated and unprepared APC that had to set up a government and ascend the pinnacle of national power. Victory came as a rude surprise with power as an unanticipated burden. Time has passed. Buhari has fulfilled his long standing ambition of wearing the toga of President. It is now time for the party to take stock of its stewardship and contemplate its future. 

    With the benefit of hindsight, the emergence of the APC reinforced Nigeria’s historic tendency towards a credible two party architecture. To that extent, it was a positive political outcome, one which promised a great dividend for Nigeria’s democracy. The new party came to power on the wave of expectations greater than its capacity and preparedness. 

    However,  the APC’s electoral success and stature as the de facto dominant party in the land has raised far too many fundamental questions about the present state and future prospects of Nigerian democracy. The central curiosity remains that of how a party with a dismal record of governance in the last eight years can score such overwhelming electoral success. If democratic elections are indeed periodic tests of the popularity and acceptability of a party, the verdict of the Nigerian electorate in this last election deserves closer look. Questions indeed abound.

    Do electorates punish non- performing parties by denying them victory at the next election? Or, in the alternative, can a party, in spite of a dismal performance in government, still coast to victory at the next election irrespective of a massive popularity deficit? Is the electorate of registered voters a true representation of the popular wish at elections? Does the electorate have a mind, a memory, like a person, that either punishes or rewards past experience in the hands of a political party and its elected officials? Finally, is the public of voters in a democracy an insensitive mob that returns a party to power even if its government has hurt the people badly and betrayed the public trust and devalued the good of the nation?

    Mr. Tinubu may nt choose a definite ideologicallabel to find his way around the maze of Nigeria’sproblems. But his outcmes sill be badged by ideology. Even in the absence of definable ideological differences in our politics, the challenges that define today’s Nigerian reality call for ideological clarity. 

    We are drifting towards clear policy options that are ultimately ideological. Should we insist on obeying the IMF and World Bank by sinking more and more into unpayable debts? Or should we reduce waste, curb ostentation and instead invest our scarce resources in social welfare and empowerment of the majority. Should we save the nation or save the few rich oligarchs that our prodigal past has created?

    Sooner or later, President Tinubu will have to choose between a reversion to the original progressive template of the party that put him in power and a tragic betrayal of that foundation. Either option is fraught with consequences. Without a clear choice, the President will be stranded at a critical junction in our national history.

  • The King’s Anthem – By Chidi Amuta

    The King’s Anthem – By Chidi Amuta

    A carefully choreographed political diversion has just carried the day. In the absence of any tangible results for his first year in office, Mr. Tinubu’s fertile political imagination came up with a potent diversion. A quick ruse of reverting to the old national anthem was the hit score. It would reverberate with the popular audience. People hear the tune of the national anthem and are reminded of their Nigerian nationality. It is music with a compulsive audience.

    The presidential political hit squad quickly activated its National Assembly robotic button. In a matter of days, a bill to revert the nation to the old national anthem was rushed through both chambers of the National Assembly. First reading. Second reading. Third reading. Passage by voice vote: the ‘Ayes’ have it! It has to be in time for the planned presidential address to the joint session of the National Assembly to mark both 25 years of unbroken democracy and the first year of the Tinubu presidency. The plot adhered pointedly to the script.

    In the typical emerging authoritarian fashion of this presidency, there was no public debate. No debate even in the chambers of the National Assembly. No calls for informed opinion from the public. Even when the Attorney General of the Federation cautioned on the need for public debate and wider public consultation, he was ignored. The lone voice of a female legislator who tried to question the priority status of an anthem change at  a time of severe national hardship and insecurity was shouted down by the Speaker.

    The National Assembly of a huge nation like Nigeria quickly degenerated into a noisy marionette conclave of nodding jesters. Whatever they all drank, smoked or ate before the joint session had a uniform hallucinatory effect: everybody nodded Yes! The president’s new -old anthem was adopted in what would pass as a bill on a touchy national issue to be made in a legislative microwave oven.

    By the time the president emerged to address the assembly, he was heralded with an untidy and inchoate rendition of the re-introduced old anthem. the gathered NASS sang to the tune of the old anthem: “Nigeria, we hail thee”! I watched the lips of the entire gathering. Over three quarters of the legislators hardly mouthed the words of the old anthem. Most of them hardly knew the words.The police band helped them scale through what must have been a harrowing few minutes. The address itself was one of the most pedestrian speeches I have heard on an important national occasion by a president.

    The just replaced ‘newer’ anthem has been in place for 48 years. So, most of those in the Assembly must have been toddlers or early teenagers when the old anthem was rested. But Tinubu had previously expressed his personal preference for the old anthem on several occasions. So, we are dealing  with a president’s personal wish and preference become law. For most of the members of the National Assembly, what King Tinubu had just gotten them to adopt and resurrect is actually the anthem of their fathers and fore fathers.

    I doubt that much thought was given to this anthem gambit. People with any presence of mind would have realized that the 48  years life span of the new anthem captures the age bracket of Nigerian youth. With our median youth age population at 35. As it were, the NASS, in one hurried and thoughtless swing of mood occasioned by the whims and desires of an ambitious president has just usurped and toppled the spirit of an age. But the youth aged 40 and under have known only the new anthem all their lives. They constitute a tidy excess of 75% of our population.

    Technically therefore, what the National Assembly has just overthrown is the spirit of an age, the defining anthem of those whom we are waiting for to lead the ation along their dreams.  Love or hate it, that anthem was the definition of their nation and their age. They are the ones who went to Lekki Toll Gate to seek a redefinition of the relationship of power and the people. The constitute the majority of the Obidients of the 2023 presidential election who wanted to take back their country from the  vice grip of power merchants and political contractors.

    The minority political elite who are holding everyone else to ransom in the National Assembly have just rammed their preference of a national anthem down the throats of the rest of us. The muffled  debate or some presentations on the reversion to the old anthem by some legislators featured some of the most self -serving displays of outright ignorance that I have ever heard. I was thoroughly ashamed that this untidy conclave of half literate servile minions of power could pass for representatives of the Nigerian people. The arguments were shallow, uninformed, lacking historical consciousness and a basic understanding of our demographics and what it means for our future.  The few presentations were based mostly on preconceptions and a priori logic.  It was a pitiful straining to make legislative discourse converge on a pre-ordained presidential wish.

    It was unbelievable that anyone on the National Assembly floor could argue that the slow, tepid and sleepy tempo of “Nigeria we hail thee” was better than the lively mid -quick tempo of a nation in a hurry captured by “Arise O compatriots!” The latter is a clear clarion call to national service and patriotic solidarity while the former is merely a colonial hymn of wishes dressed in insolent phraseology. Someone in that gathering actually  insisted that the retrospective stance of the reversion signified that the present government is forward looking and aspirational. Yet another crowed that the way forward is backwards to the glory days of the past. Nigeria is perhaps the only country that develops backwards while pretending to be striving for a modern future.

    The honourables and distinguished persons in the conclave were too busy to arm themselves with dictionaries in spite of taking delivery that morning of a brand new library and resource centre.  If they looked at any history books ordictionaries, they could have found out the identity of the scripter of the old anthem, an assumed mistress of the British colonial overlord. They could also have done a quick simple lexical research to unearth the verbal insults in the old anthem.

    The verse refers to us as a nation of “tribes and tongues”, an amalgam of mutually incompatible and perennially warring spear and shield -wielding tribesmen! Ours is a “native land” chained to the original innocence of native antiquity! The only way we can be united is to stand in “brotherhood”! at a time in human history when social language has acquired increased gender sensitivity to respect the rights of women!  An analysis of the litany of linguistic insults in the old anthem could go on endlessly. I recall that it was a revolt against  these atrocious insults that partly led to the adoption of a new anthem which was proudly written by a Nigerian.

    There is nothing wrong with a particular set of leaders taking a backward look at national history to see if there are glorious legacies that can help redeem a threatened present. “Bring back America”! “Make America Great Again”! are all expressions of a nostalgia for a past that may have been glorious in some ways.

    Let us be fair to our past leaders and founding fathers. There is indeed a lot that can be dredged from our past as a nation to ‘renew hope’.  If the craving for the old anthem is a holistic honest nostalgia for our past glory, then I am all for it. But we must also bring back other aspects of our good old days. The old anthem was perhaps a celebration of the euphoria of a nation that set out to be great for all its people. The old order meant the happy days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s cocoa kingdom which generated the wealth to develop the old Western Region in education, infrastructure, agriculture and social welfare.

    Yes indeed, let us march backwards to the Eastern Region of the Palm oil estates, the Okpara and Azikiwe industrial estates of Port Harcourt, Aba, Umuahia  or bring back the Kibut-style farm settlements of the great Eastern Nigeria.

    Better still, let us return to the massive groundnut pyramids of the old North, the cotton fields, the peace and tranquility of the expansive farms where herdsmen roamed the fields and did  not carry guns and unleash death in their trail.

    As a nation, those of us old enough to remember yesterday have a right to be nostalgic. Those who have just taken us back to the old anthem need to realize that that anthem, imperfect as its phraseology may be, was the expression of the spirit of an age and the state of a nation. It was a time when policemen did not carry assault rifles but only truncheons and batons. It was a time in which armed robbery was not part of the vocabulary let alone  terrible words like kidnapping, abductions, banditry and ritual killings.

    Therefore, devoid of the nobility of the past and a coherent governmental effort to sift from the good old days for the benefit of new facing new challenges, it is futile to reduce nostalgia and retrospection to a mere anthem. We have clear and present dangers and priorities in today’s Nigeria. Sadly, hardly any of them is being addressed by a president that has now prioritized a reversion to the old national anthem into an urgent imperative.

    Needless rehashing the obvious urgent pressures on most Nigerians. People are hungry, very hungry. Most people are getting impoverished by the day as a direct result of Tinubu’s thoughtless policies on fuel subsidy and the exchange rate. The burden of insecurity remains largely untouched. As the NASS was entertaining itself with the old anthem, people were being killed and farms sacked in Borno and Yobe states.

    For the president to ignore these immediate threats to national life and citizens well being and confer urgency on reversion of national anthem  is the height of governmental insensitivity. It is worse. It is an arrogant indifference to the crisis of existence in today’s Nigeria. It is also part of an emerging personality cult.

    Mounting immense pressure on the National Assembly to do the biddings of the president on nearly every matter including this anthem matter points us in a dangerous direction. To bend national will at the behest of the president for no justifiable reason is dangerous to consensus building in a democracy. To embark on a project to advance the preferences of any one man at the expense of national consensus is even a worse indication of the emergence of a dangerous personality cult and subterranean authoritarianism.

    The signs are everywhere in evidence. We are witnessing the incubation of a creeping authoritarianism given other actions of this president. Two days ahead of the anthem change, the Minister of the FCT inaugurated a major road in Abuja and named it after President Tinubu. A couple of months prior, the governor of Niger state had unilaterally renamed the Minna airport after president Tinubu, ignoring the fact that the same airport has previously been named after an illustrious son of the state. And right after the adoption of the new anthem in the NASS a few days ago, the new library and resource center of the National Assembly was quickly named after Tinubu. From the records of the last one year, these self adulating gestures  amount to rewards to Tinubu for unleashing unprecendented hardship on Nigerians.  To most Nigerians today, the last one year can be seen as Nigeria’s Anno Horribilis -year of horror- as the late Queen Elizabeth was to characterize 2020 in England, the year of Covid-19 global pandemic.

    Ironically, we may be celebrating 25 years of democracy by inadvertently laying the foundations for the antithesis of democracy, a vile demeaning and sickening authoritarianism.

  • A Year in Purgatory – Chidi Amuta

    A Year in Purgatory – Chidi Amuta

    There is a sense in which both Nigerians and Mr. Tinubu share a place in purgatory in the last one year. Both leader and people are dwelling a house of incendiary troubles in waiting for admission into either hell or heaven. To that extent, we all have been in purgatory for the last one year and still counting. The questions are mutually reinforcing: Will Nigerians emerge from here into greater anguish or splendid glory? In turn, will Mr. Tinubu emerge from this place into a place of glory and honour given his troublesome past and current travails at the helm?

    Twenty five years of unbroken democracy in Nigeria has taught me something about presidential democracy. The four -year cycles between administrations resolves into three time segments. The first year is for learning the ropes, making mistakes and stumbling  to establish an identity. The next two years are for effective governance and head -on confrontation with the promises that inspired a particular presidency. The final year is for succession politics , playing to be re elected if possible.

    Effectively then, given this four year template, Tinubu has only the next  two years of effective governance to tackle the myriad problems tormenting the nation. He has two years to ensure improved security and chase away all bandits, kidnappers, abductors and sundry criminal gangs from the face of the nation. He has two years to reduce the poverty population to a manageable level, There are only two years to fix dilapidated infrastructure, reduce the national debt burden, return the Naira exchange rate to Buhari levels at least. He has two years to reduce official corruption to an acceptable minimum and put away an accumulated crowd of previously indicted corrupt officials. That is not all. Tinubu and his team have just two years to find food for the hungry, jobs for the army of unemployed youth and reprieve for threatened businesses. Most important of all, Tinubu has to use the next three years at most to restore the hope of Nigerians and friends of Nigeria in the Nigerian promise of a free, diverse but prosperous and united nation.

    This may sound like a tall order indeed. After all, the litany of problems that today define the Nigerian reality  were  not created by Mr. Tinubu. He may have inherited most of them. He succeeded a president who is easily the most unfortunate thing that has happened to the Nigerian nation since inception. Mr. Buhari literally ran the Nigerian state aground and destroyed the very basis of our national cohesion. An economic illiterate and bureaucratic nonentity, Mr. Buhari brought to bear on the affairs of the Nigerian state his trademark incompetence, epic ineptitude and cruel aloofness. His aloof indifference enshrined the idea that perhaps Nigeria did not need a president as the affairs of state and society went on to the exclusion of any perceptible executive responsibility. Worse of all, he reopened old wounds, reignited the hatred that led the nation to war and sought to invade the nation with armed jihadist monsters of his own creation. The dot in a circle president !

    But Buhari and Tinubu share a common political ancestry and party platform, the APC. It remains one of the most baffling aspects of Nigeria’s democracy that a party that ruined the nation should be returned to power. Given the complicity of the APC in creating the crises that define today’s Nigeria and Mr. Tinubu’s reluctance to call his predecessor by his real  names, he in turn is a co -architect of the present national disaster.

    Therefore, as President Tinubu prepares to graduate from the apprentice year in office, he cannot outsource the responsibility for the state of the nation. Democracy elects leaders to solve problems, not to read out an inventory of blames on previous dispensations. And we all are entitled to the stubborn hope that those we elect to rule over us will leave us in a better place than they found us. Buhari failed that most elementary demand of democracy,

    Arguably so far, in all fairness to the man, Tinubu may have given the job his best shot. Simultaneously, he has deployed the judiciary to wriggle out of a controversial electoral victory, assembled an inchoate collection of ministers and key officials and tried to give his presidency a character and a name. No one can as yet call the exact name. No one can accuse Tinubu of not trying so hard to lead and to be appreciated by Nigerians.

    He literally charged on to the presidential dais with a hell fire storm of controversial policies. He used his inauguration podium to withdraw a controversial gasoline subsidy. Shortly afterwards, he embarked on devaluation of the troubled Naira. Both policies set off a vortex of policy repercussions that have kept him busy ever since. Arguably both policies may end up defining what remains of his tenure and tenancy in Aso Villa because he failed to do one thing: he did not thnk them through before  reaching for  the mic.

    In what is emerging as a basically reactive presidency, Tinubu has tried to address the yearnings of Nigerians mostly as they arise and not necessarily in any ordered and systematic prioritization format. He has tried to emplace an economic policy to ameliorate the impacts of his  initial disruptive policies. The Central Bank of Nigeria has literally engaged currency speculators in open street fights to dampen the deterioration of the exchange rate of the Naira to major currencies with minute success. The exchange rate continues to do a yo yo dance which has escalated inflation and made uncertainty a permanent feature of the economy in the last one year.

    An untidy students loan scheme is about to go into a trial run.  But no one is sure that this populist scheme, desirable as it is, can in any way redress the decades long decay in the nation’s tertiary education sector. Similarly, an initial reaction to the spread of hardship in the land gave birth to efforts at palliatives. No one knows what has so far happened to earlier efforts to release grains or supply food or cash to the most vulnerable. The general hardship graduated into an epidemic of hunger across the nation. Food riots have occurred in major urban centres while efforts to increase access to food among the poor and vulnerable have been at best chaotic in places.

    The president has fared poorly in healing the wounds of divisiveness in the nation that he inherited from his friend and predecessor, Mr, Buhari. His key appointments unfortunately drip of a sickening level of  xenophobic sectionalism. Most strategic appointments have gone to Tinubu’s Yoruba ethnic home base: Army, Customs, CBN, Finance, Police, Power , Transportation, Internal Affairs, Marine economy etc. etc.

    In a bizarre backlash, even among the Yoruba South West elite, there is discord. The most outspoken elite of the region accuse Tinubu of favouring mostly the Lagos, Osun and Ogun axis to the exclusion of other components. The core northern elite that helped him onto power have in recent times begun making threatening political noises. The South East and South South feel outflanked and excluded. If Tinubu fails as president,  it would be deemed that the Yorubas ran the nation into another ditch.

    If the current state of the Nigerian economy and society are anything to go by, then we are in a worse place than in the darker Buhari days. Gas station queues are back all over the country as routine supply and logistics planning seem to have overwhelmed the corrupt and inept NNPC. Healthcare costs have shot through the roof as the prices of essential drugs have reached for the skies. Prices of basic need goods are beyond the roof . To worsen a bad situation, we have become a virtual Federal Republic of Taxes as all manner of taxes, levies and tariffs are unleashed on the hapless and already impoverished populace. These range from asronomical electricity tariffs to proposed levies on phone calls, cyber security, increased custom duties and airport  transit and car parking fees.

    Tinubu has tried his hands at reaching out to the world through a plethora of foreign junkets. In particular, he has tried to deploy his Muslim identity to reach out to the economic powers of the Middle East for economic lifelines. He has visited Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Promises of resuming normal diplomatic and citizen visitation relations with the UAE have been sugar coated but yet unfulfilled. Qatar has refused to play ball yet on investments. The Saudis remain skeptical but are reluctant to tell Tinubu to his face that they cannot trust Nigeria to abide by any lasting agreements as the nation is half Christian.

    Europe and the United States remain reticent, knowing that Nigeria only needs to go home and fix its troubles through responsible governance, transparency and greater accountability. For whatever reasons  that are only known to Tinubu, the CIA an the Department of State, I cannot see an imminent joint press conference at the White House lawns between Mr. Tinubu and any US president any time soon.

    The attitude of the West to Nigeria’s need for economic bailout remains unchanged. If you need assistance, go through the World Ban, the IMF or enter into bilateral agreements with Western nations that trust you enough,

    Back in Africa, Nigeria remains something of a fading empire. Our influence and stature has been tested in the West African sub region with regrettable outcomes. As leader of ECOWAS, Tinubu failed woefully in containing the coup in Niger Republic. Our failure in that regard led to the eviction of France and the United States as security guarantors in the Sahel, thus opening up the nation to greater jihadist terror while shrinking Western hemispheric influence in the region to the advantage of an ambitious Putin’s Russia.

    In terms of style and character, Tinubu has displayed the typical African modern political trait of mixing up constitutional republican democracy with elements  of decadent monarchical absolutism. His motorcades are too long and rowdy. His immediate family is too conspicuous in the affairs of state including official delegations to important foreign countries. Worse still, the National Assembly has seemed all too eager to pass nearly every legislation emanating from the presidency while the judiciary is yet to recover from its perceived compromises in its verdicts on election cases that arose from the 2023 contests.

    In matters of governance, there is  a disturbing lack of method in the  ways of Tinubu’s maddening crowd. Sometimes the government speaks with too many voices. Communication between president and people is very often mismanaged as the all too frequent presidential absences and disappearances are conveyed through either eloquent  silences or conflicting speculations.

    The road to the future is defined by the mood of the time: it is an nteresting time to be alive in Nigeria if you are that lucky to survive till the morning after.

  • An emperor and his nemesis – By Chidi Amuta

    An emperor and his nemesis – By Chidi Amuta

    The drama of political bad manners in Rivers State is about to enter  the ‘last corner’.  Incumbent governor Mr. Siminalayi Fubara has dealt a survival kick after being pushed to the wall for most of his one year tenure.

    In quick succession, he has turned the table on his chief adversary, FCT minister, Nyesom Wike. Mob support for the embattled governor has invaded the streets of Port Harcourt. The governors has won a decisive and most significant court fight to invalidate the legitimacy of the pro Wike legislators.

    The 25 former legislators are now illegal occupants of their very quarters. A better funded appeal may yet problematize the subsisting court outcome. For now, Mr. Wike is yet to find an appropriate political vocabulary to describe his fading political glory.

    In the interim, all the political outcomes seem to favour the governor.  Similarly, most of the significant political voices in the state have come out openly to challenge Mr. Wike’s long standing domination of the Rivers political turf. From most indications, Mr. Wike’s imperial reign seems to be entering its last days.

    Unfortunately, as the unfolding drama goes on, there is very little real governance going on. If this turf war goes on and worsens, Rivers state may be another case of a state with immense resources but an arrested development. The ordinary people of the state may end up as the ultimate losers in this drama of an emperor with his ultimate nemesis.

    The unwritten handbook of god fatherism in Nigerian  politics is about to be shredded. Mr. Wike had done an untidy job of handing the baton of state governorship to his former state Accountant General.

    The illicit logic was perhaps that the critical challenge of all former governors in Nigeria is the extent to which they control the bag of tricks played while they were in office. Who better to guard your money secrets when you leave office than the chief book keeper of the state?

    That thinking seems to be up in smoke now that governor Fubara, the ex- Account General turned governor has rediscovered that he is first and foremost a state governor and not an errand boy of a departing emperor. His recognition seems to be that  he needs to be in both office and in power in order to command credibility no matter how they got to office.

    The trouble is perhaps that Mr. Wike schemed to put Fubara in office and not in power from the beginning. The governor  seems to have realized that the opposite is what he needs. He needs to be in both power and in politics.  The key hubris committed by Mr. Wike is that he did  not allow Fubara to be  minimally in office.

    He therefore reportedly surrounded the new governor with commissioners whom he himself chose. He reportedly dictated the portfolios, reporting line and created a separate line of reporting which ultimately ended with him in far away Abuja. Most importantly, all the state legislators were sponsored and loyal to Mr. Wike.

    As it were, Wike was to run Rivers State from his duty post in Abuja. He also put in place a coterie of local government chairpersons in all 23 local governments. Effectively, the entire political structure of Rivers state was in Mr. Wike’s back pocket. He himself openly boasted that he had paid the nomination fees of all political office holders in the state.

    In order to keep his home base in tact politically, Wike maintained an eagle eyed watch over the state as an extension of his political manor. He had while in office either alienated or marginalized all major political voices in the state. An army of political jobbers and handpicked war lords maintained surveillance for Mr. Wike from inside the governor’s office,  the state assembly and the local governments. An imperial rule was put in place over an entire state and has lasted for nearly 9 years.

    But in pursuit of his imperial oversight  over the state, Mr. Wike forgot a few rules of power incumbency. A man in a powerful political office such as that of a state governorship would want to be seen to wield the power of his office.

    Secondly, there can be only one captain on board a ship of state.  The commissioners were either serving Wike or Fubara. Similarly, the state legislators could not afford to be at variance with the governor who pays their salaries, allowances and sundry costs.

    Most importantly, the rule that governs the relationship of a political god father and his surrogate is ruled by distance. The political god father must keep his distance . A god father who insists on having overriding influence over his surrogate and also sharing political visibility  and the limelight with the surrogate is preparing for suicide.

    Wike wanted both control, influence and visibility. At the slightes opportunity, he was present in Rivers state, attending church events and converting them into political sermons, visiting key constituencies and holding sundry political meeting.  Confronted with such a god father, the incumbent who wants to survive in office has only one choice: commit political regicide in order to regain his freedom.

    The initial role of President Tinubu in the crisis was a bit more problematic. He had a primary responsibility to ensure peace and security in Rivers state failing which he would be confronted with an impossible national security challenge.

    He needed to protect Wike who had become his political axe man in Rivers in order to use him to guarantee APC support in the strategic state. Ostensibly , Wike had risked his political neck in order to guarantee both electoral victory and political support for Tinubu and the APC in Rivers.

    The President needed to play multiple impossible roles: impartial political arbiter as head of state, interested political leader of an embattled APC in Rivers, the protector of the political interest of his minister  of the strategic FCT. That was the source of the early agreement that restored minimal co-operation between Wike and Fubara. But that respite evaporated soon enough because it was untenable and not founded in any sensible appreciation of the realities of Rivers politics.

    But the grounds of that agreement were precarious and tenuous. It did not have understanding or control of the crucial factors that determine what happens in Rivers politics. The flow of money to oil the machinery of support could not be controlled from Abuja. There is no open campaign and so ‘political money’ cannot be used to buy support in the state.

    There is a limit to Wike’s war chest. He is not contesting an election in the state and cannot run riot with FCT resources as he probably could as Rivers state governor. Only Mr. Fubara has control over the money and power required to keep political support in Rivers State.

    Most importantly, the abiding polarity in Rivers politics is the divide and balance of power between the demographics of the upland areas counter balanced by the resource base of the riverine areas. It is a balancing act between the Ijaw of the ancient oil river areas and the rest of the state.

    In recent times, Ijaw nationalism has acquired an unmistakable militancy  which it has weaponized in pursuit of resource control at  national and international  levels. Niger Delta nationalism in pursuit of resource equity in Nigeria has become part of the international vocabulary about minority rights in the world.

    The ability of the Ijaw to make life impossible for the rest of Nigeria is no longer in doubt. That capacity is even more enlarged in the context of states like Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta especially.

    Therefore, Mr. Wike’s open threats to Fubara’s governorship reminded the governor that he is primarily an Ijaw son. He has now weaponized that latent political asset to arrive at the present pass. This obviously creates serious problems with President Tinubu’s initial apparent support for Wike.

    As the table seems to have turned in favour of Fubara, Tinubu has retreated under the fire of the changed canvas of the confrontation. He cannot afford to endanger the national golden goose of the Niger Delta. He cannot also afford to back a minister who seems to be losing his support base very feast. It is safer to play and sound neutral and statesmanlike. That is the safe harbor where Tinubu is right now.

    In line with the logic of the twist of power towards more of governor Fubara,  the political pendulum in the state is fast shifting towards support for the previously embattled governor. Key political figures like Odili, Secondus, Opara, Omehia and others have swung towards the governor. There is no end to the number of political enemies that Wike made during his imperial rulership of the state as governor.

    These have now become natural allies of the governor. Inside his own party, the PDP, Mr. Wike may not find the support to fight a local battle in the state. A state that had previously been celebrated as a PDP state is now so badly shaken that it is neither a PDP state nor an APC state. Wike has himself become something of a political bat, neither a bird nor a mammal. He is neither APC nor PDP.

    At the national level, he is tolerated by the APC hierarchy as the president’s hatchet man  and ‘friend’ but a risky political capital. If Tinubu admits him into APC, it will be a risk he took alone and may have to pay for later. The PDP at the national level cannot re-embrace Wike because he is a divisive figure who has grossly damaged the party and literally neutralized its national and state chances.

    The real nightmare for emperor Wike is the impending probe of his governorship by his successor.  Mr. Fubara has uncovered his trump card. He believes that Wike wanted him politically dead. He is likely to fight like a mortally wounded lion.

    He has all the paperwork on Wike’s glorious days as emperor of Rivers state. It may in fact be the first time in Nigerian history where a chief accountant of a state becomes the chief advocate of a probe of the tenure of his imperial predecessor. Nigerians cannot wait for the probe to begin. Even the sheer entertainment value of the proceedings, preferably on live television, may uplift our collective subdued mood in these troubled times. It promises to be a curious combination of comedy and tragedy, scenes and slides difficult to forget.

    So we have an increasingly isolated figure who may not have much political use in the near future. Yet he does have a residual nuisance value. He can cause Fubara a few sleepless nights through purchased mobs and miscreants inside Rivers. He could try to recover political relevance at home using the blackmail of money and intimidation but to little avail.

    He could just serve out his tenure with Tinubu depending on his nuisance and embarrassment value. If he is indicted by a fair probe, he is likely to leave the stage a badly bruised and miserable lonely man. If he survices the probe, he will be more of a political pariah, an embarrassment to all who embrace him.

    Incidentally, there would be no tragedy either a s an art form of a fact of real life if emperors do not rise and then fall resoundingly.

  • Red Notice: Putin is Nearby – By Chidi Amuta

    Red Notice: Putin is Nearby – By Chidi Amuta

    Putin is nearby. Precisely, Russia’s ambitious global influencer of  illiberal  order has docked next door. In Niger Republic to be exact. At the end of April, the military junta in Niger kicked out the American military advisers and tiny troop contingent from their country. Earlier, they had forced the U.S drone and surveillance base in Agadez to shut down. As part of a half hearted  diplomatic move to repair military relations with Niger, an American delegation went to hold talks with the regime in Niamey.

    Almost on the same day, officials of the junta were reportedly showing a Russian military advance party  around what used to be the American military base. The intent was obvious. The Russians were in the process of being handed the keys of what used to be a US base or at least preparing the grounds for an active security relationship with Moscow. Though the janitors are yet to hand over the keys of the former US base to the Russians, the signals are clear.

    Earlier on, the military junta in Niger had chased away the French ambassador to the country, thus ending centuries of French influence in the country. Of course, the military dictators were towing the same line as their colleagues in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. A rushed end to French presence and influence in these former French colonies has since become the central foreign policy doctrine of the new autocrats in what used to be Francophone West Africa.

    Official Moscow is still predictably silent on its intentions. But what is clear is Moscow’s preparations to replace the West, specifically the United State and France as the strategic influence in Niger Republic and its environs. And with the exit of both French and American military presence in Niger, the door has been thrown wide open for their replacement by Russia. Of course Russia’s interest in Africa especially West and Central Africa has never been disguised in recent times.

    Prior to the demise of the bullish Yevgeny Prigozyn and the decline of his Wagner mercenary force, Russian commercial and security presence in these parts of Africa had been quite pronounced but diplomatically muted. Now what began as an expeditionary mercenary commercial interest is about to graduate into a full blown strategic military and security presence and interest from Moscow.

    The presence of US troops and the drone base coupled with the presence of a French protection force in West Africa remained  for a long time part of the international arrangement to keep jihadist terrorists from drifting towards the south of West Africa. Countries like Nigeria were prime beneficiaries of the US presence in Niger. It was more importantly part of an international strategic engagement to barricade the region from a rampaging Jihadist onslaught from the Sahel.

    This logic of containment and protection remained the major plank of Western influence remained valid until the rapid  reduction of French presence and influence in the region by new military regimes. It all began with Mali which had earlier evicted French diplomats from Bamako. This was followed by the withdrawal of French protection troops from Mali and subsequently the other major West African former French territories now under military dictatorship: Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and possibly Chad.

    There a historical context to Russia’s residual appeal in parts  of Africa. Instructively, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the world was gripped by anxiety. On March 2nd, the UN General Assembly voted on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Of the 54 African member states, 28 voted against Russia while 17 abstained and 8 refused to show up. Towards Russia or more precisely the old Soviet Union, some nostalgia among an ageing generation of elite.

    Many of these older African elite  recall the days of the Cold War and the old USSR’s identification with Africa’s causes especially anti colonialism and anti Apartheid. Ideological nostalgia towards the Red Empire is strongest in places like Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa where political parties that pioneered the independence and anti racist struggles were backed by the old Soviet Union.

    At the present time, Russian influence in Africa remains sporadic and uncoordinated but cannot be ignored as a significant part of the strategic future of the continent. In 2019, the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi was attended by 43 African countries. It was a forum for Mr. Putin to critique the West’s policies towards Africa.

    Nonetheless, Russia’s  trade with Africa is only 2% of Africa’s goods trade with the rest of the world. A Russian bank VEB now under Western sanctions is a shareholder in the African Development Bank. Even then, Russia’s economic and military interest and roles in some African fragile states remains considerable. Russia is the largest arms supplier to African countries, a net extractor of mineral and other resources and a prop for fragile even if unpopular regimes. But with all its noisy presence in world affairs, Russia remains an unlikely agent of economic benefit for African countries.

    The Russian economy is abouot the size of that of Italy. So, Russia is not in a position to act as an attractive agent of development in Africa. Russia is still a relatively poor country. Its companies playing in the African economic theatre are most extractive industry interlopers and state sponsored thieving entities. Russian infrastructure companies are still not interested in contracts in African countries. African tourist and business travel interests in Russia is next to zero. So, by and large any renewed Russian interest in parts of Africa will remain a matter of limited mutual convenience. Security assistance in return for opportunities for Russian rogue companies to come in and make some quick cash while the Russian state increases its foothold  and authoritarian leverage against the Western liberal order.

    For Nigeria, the implications of the exit of two major Western powers from our immediate northern frontier are many and far reaching. Nigeria’s exposure in this regard are threefold. First, the security safe corridor  against jihadist terrorist expansion from the Sahel is instantly closed. Without American drones, intelligence and French troops on the ground, Nigeria is exposed. Our national security is further compromised. The jihadists are now free to roam free from centres in Niger into the troubled northern parts of Nigeria.

    Secondly, the military presence of Russia in Niger and other parts of what used to be French West Africa immediately signals a decline of Western influence in the region and its replacement with an antithetical Russian influence. Russian security presence and strategic influence in an area now under military dictatorship effectively means the shrinking of the frontiers of freedom and democratic rule and its replacement with an authoritarian influence. Russian is not known to be a patron of democracy and freedom anywhere in the world. It cannot possibly export what it does not have at home.

    Hidden under the above two meanings is a clear and present threat to Western influence in West Africa. The timing of this development in world history is fortuitous. We are in an era where the Cold War has been replaced by an increasing hemispheric war of nerves and rhetoric between Western democracies as we have come to know them and a rising authoritarian counter force. The counter force  is being guaranteed by the growing influence and fortunes of China.  Russia, North korea, Iran and other client states of the same ilk are taking shelter under China’s bloated bank accounts to keep the West uncomfortable.

    Nigeria’s political response to the developments in Niger have shown little of an enlightened national self interest. At the time the coupists toppled Niger’s democratic government, Nigeria was in a position to  prevent the coup and its nasty consequences. Former president Buhari had a close personal relationship with the democratic leadership in Niger.

    Even after Buhari’s tenure, his successor Mr.Tinubu woefully failed to use his position as the new Chairman of ECOWAS to neutralize the coup in Niger. Nigeria was in an eminent position to use its economic and military preponderance in the region to stifle the Niger coupists. We failed.

    A few tepid diplomatic threats and fickle sanctions failed to deter the dictatorship in Niamey. The junta got stronger, compared notes with those in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. They got stronger together and became a threat to ECOWAS from which they threatened a pullout. ECOWAs’s solidarity was broken. The bloc buckled. Its military weakness was on open display as they could neither effect an ultimatum to use force if necessary. Individual member nations reached out to the Niger and other dictators and made individual deals.

    Nigeria’s resolve was broken. We shamefully restored electricity supply to Niger, lifted our limited and effete sanctions. And now the Niger junta has dug in and  has admitted a potential destabilizing force  into our immediate northern frontier. By creating room for the exit of the West from Niger and the tacit admission of Russian influence into the region, Nigeria has shot itself in the foot.

    There is something more frightening in our political response to this development. The possibility that the United States and France could decide to pitch tent in Nigeria by negotiating military basing footholds here is far fetched. But even then, it is being opposed vehemently by some politicians instead of being welcomed enthusiastically.

    In Nigerian political circles, the debate has been as to whether Nigeria should allow France and the United States to establish military bases in its territory. As is typical in our lazy politics of sectarianism, regionalism and divisiveness, the most eloquent voices of opposition to possible Western military bases in Nigeria have come from northern political voices. This is not only sad but also not backed by any iota of strategic insight and knowledge of basic national interests.

    Ironically, the  North is the region immediately exposed to the  consequences of the withdrawal of Western forces from Niger. It has become the epicenter of national insecurity and instability of the kind associated with increasing jihadist activities. It is the home base of banditry. It is a free market for the spread of small and medium arms from the theatres of trouble in the Sahel, Northern Africa and the Middle East. It is the area where schools are being sacked and farming disrupted. It is the source of herdsmen turned into killers, armed robbers and kidnappers.

    More pointedly, there is nothing that says that should Nigeria consider it strategically wise, Western military bases in the country must be located in any particular zone of the country.

    Such bases can be located anywhere in the country. And they often have collateral economic benefits to the host communities as in places like Djibouti, South Korea and Germany where US military bases are part of the local economic life.

    In the world of modern technology, possible Western military bases can be located anywhere in the country. Advanced intelligence gathering and surveillance systems now allow major world powers to gather intelligence, order operations and manage military outcomes from virtually anywhere. The drones that decimated Al Queda in Afghanistan and Pakistan emanated from drone command bases in the deserts of far away Nevada. Donald Trump ordered the drone assassination of Iran’s General Soliman at Baghdad airport from the comfort of the Oval Office in far away Washington.

    The long term strategic and overall national interest of Nigeria are better served if we rise above petty regional narrow views of the developments unfolding in our Northern frontier. First, we need to protect the nation from the spread of jihadist insurgency and terrorism. We need to remain enlisted in the international effort to defeat Jihadist terrorism  decisively. We need to protect freedom and democratic rule as a heritage after more than four decades of military dictatorship in our history. Consequentially, we need to act in concert with the rest of the free world to discourage Russia’s active promotion and tacit marketing of authoritarianism and anti democratic ideas around the world.

    Incidentally, among the salesmen of authoritarianism in the world, Russia is handicapped. Unlike China, Russia is neither an agent of economic development nor a model of cultural inclusiveness and universalism. Few free and happy people want to make Moscow their preferred holiday or business travel destination.

  • To Nigerian universities, a message from America’s campuses – By Chidi Amuta

    To Nigerian universities, a message from America’s campuses – By Chidi Amuta

    On many fronts, America is showcasing the many burdens and benefits of democracy. Most Washington politicians are united in their support for Israel. But out  on the streets, many Americans are opposed to  Israel’s raging genocidal onslaught on Gaza and other Palestinian enclaves.  While Congress had little trouble approving a further $20 billion in military aid to Israel, there is anger on the streets and mostly on university campuses. Opposition to the naked aggression against Palestinians has united the American streets and campuses against political Washington. A gale of anti-semitic  protests has recently endangered lives and interests associated with Israel. This has now been followed by a whirlwind of campus protests all over America and even beyond.

    In American courts, Donald Trump has kept the judiciary busy with legal arguments which now sound more like staged one-man campaign talk shows. The court appearances for Trump’s multitude of criminal and civil transgressions have become opportunities for a rehash of his boring campaign messaging. In a sense, Trump and his advisers are testing the legal limits of liberal democracy. It is all about trying to justify the right of an authoritarian demagogue to impose his private ambition on America’s long established democratic institutions and traditions. Simply put, a political deviant  and serial transgressor wants to return as president. Twice impeached, severally accused of infractions ranging from campaign fund malfeasance to dubious business records and dodgy book keeping, Mr. Trump insists on his entitlement to the throne.  Whichever way the legal outcomes go, a lot of issues in American democracy  are likely to come under severe test with each verdict in Trump’s litany of court cases.

    By far the more concerning  issue in the United States now is the series of pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrations now sweeping through the campuses of American universities. These are not just ordinary universities.  They are mostly Ivy League universities. From Colombia to Yale, from Harvard to New York University,  UCLA, University of Southern California to University of Pennsylvania, and Emory University, large groups of students of diverse nationalities have trooped out daily to protest against Israel’s violation of the rights of the Palestinian people in its prolonged war on Gaza and other Palestinian enclaves.

    So far, the protests have disrupted normal academic and other activities on the various campuses. The police has made numerous arrests of the protesters in a bid to restore normalcy. Some of the universities have opted for closure and discontinuation of academic activities to avoid the protests degenerating into violent encounters and disruptions.

    The pro-Palestinian protests have multiple implications for America’s democratic culture. The right to freedom of association and expression remains inviolable. But the responsibility of the political  leadership to pursue foreign and domestic policies in line with the national interest are sacrosanct. The students have a right to protest actions and policies of government that run counter to their convictions. Normal civility demands that such protests should not be violent or infringe on the rights of those who do not share these convictions to go about their business.

    In the affected campuses, however,  the groundswell of these protests have been so huge that no normal academic and social activities can proceed on these campuses. While police and law enforcement have a responsibility to maintain law and order and protect the rights of students who may not share the beliefs and convictions of the protesters or want to join the protests, the scope and spread of the protests indicate a clear political line on the part of the student population. While no one expects the protesters to have carry the day, it is also true that no responsible political establishment can ride rough shod on the feelings of such a large body of protesters.

    Throughout American history, the university campuses have served as theatres for the expression of political views and beliefs that often run counter to the political temper of Washington. On the Vietnam war, on Civil rights, on Black Lives Matter, on police brutality and systemic racism and variety of other sensitive public issues, the University campuses in the United states have consistently indicated an independent line of thinking that often runs counter to the main current of official Washington. Through these protests and demonstrations, the university campuses have been able, over time , to pressure politicians in Washington to at least listen to contrary views. At critical moments, such protests have succeeded in getting the government to reconsider aspects of foreign and domestic policy.

    Already, some key politicians from Washington have visited a number of protesting campuses to appeal for calm and press home their perspective. The students have however stood their grounds Just as the  pro-Israeli politicians have pressed their arguments. It is not likely that any argument will be strong enough to justify the long standing oppression of the Palestinians especially the blockage of their right to a free and independent homeland.

    The present scene on America’s university campuses is reminiscent of happier days on Nigeria’s university campuses. There was a time from the immediate post independence days to the days of military rule when Nigerian university campuses served as the catalyst of social and political ideas for national unity and progress. For instance, It was Nigerian students at the University of Ibadan who staged massive protests  to compel the newly independent Nigerian government  against signing a defence pact with the departing British colonial government.

    In the days of military dictatorship,  Nigerian university students served as the remaining voice of democratic instincts. Students campaigned for the rights of common people, against authoritarian impositions and the habitual arbitrariness of military rule. Students protested against frequent petroleum price increases, against unlawful detentions of opposition figures. When in 1978 General Obasanjo’s education minister, Colonel Ahmadu Ali, tried to increase university tuition frees, in Nigerian universities, students rose in unison during the “Ali Must Go” demonstrations and pressed for his removal from office.

    From the 1960s to early 1990s, the Nigerian university campus remained a litmus ground for testing public policies. Political and military leaders sought a certain degree of acceptability among university students and their lecturers. Understandably the Nigerian university campus also became the hotbed of radical ideas. During the ideological polarization of the Cold War era, our universities became a friendly terrain for radical  progressive anti bourgeois ideas. This led to an understandable radicalization of student union politics and even the politics of organized unionism among academics. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) became an arrowhead of radical student unionism. These were the origins of ASUU’s aggressive trade unionism which has largely survived to recent times.

    There was consequently a certain unanimity of perspectives on national issues among students in campuses all over the country. From Ife to Nsukka, from University of Ibadan to Ahmadu Bello University, from Port Harcourt to Calabar and Ilorin, Nigerian students and academics were united in their perspectives on military rule, corruption, the plight of the poor and  the commonality of poverty among underprivileged Nigerians.

    As undergraduates then, we shared a common ideal of a better nation. We trooped out to protest unkind policies. We faced police truncheons and tear gas and even military jackboots and live bullets. We did not habour these silly divisions along ethnicity, religion and region. We did not despise the poor but fought for the smashing of the chains of poverty. We thought our youth and idealism was enough to transform the country into a happy place for all. For us then, the Nigerian revolution was an achievable and imminent possibility.  Our idealism contrasted with whatever ideas were fueling the policies of politicians and military leaders in Lagos and later Abuja. We held strong views on contemporary issues and most times embraced alternative truths to those of governments of the day.

    We took a stand on most domestic and foreign policy issues that were burning central at different times. We took a stand on Southern Africa; on independence for Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. We vehemently stood shoulder to shoulder with the Murtala and Obasanjo governments on Apartheid. We stood with the world on the Palestinian struggle and the heroic stance of the then Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yasser Arafat.

    Key politicians understood the crucial place of the campus as a vital platform  for the galvanization and aggregation of ideas for national development. Key politicians therefore often chose to deliver the annual Convocation lectures of the various key universities as a way of generating novel ideas for the development of the nation. Such strategic lectures also served as means of bridging the distance between town and gown and as praxis in the struggle for a better society.

    It would be recalled that at the height of the debate of how best to accommodate the military in future power arrangements, Nigeria’s first President Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe used the opportunity of the convocation lecture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka,  to advocate the theory of Diarchy as a power sharing arrangement between civilian politicians and military leaders. Similarly, Chief Obafemi Awolowo used one of the convocation lectures at Ife to question the efficacy of fruitless probes of past governments as an anti corruption tool. Those were the glorious days of the Nigerian university campus. Then they were universities. There were scholars, patriotic students and as Achebe lamented, there was once a nation.

    In today’s Nigeria, the campus is virtually dead either as a centre of national consciousness or an incubator of new ideas. The universities have died as cultural laboratories or as the breeding ground of a responsible national elite. The Nigerian university campus has died as a centre of serious positive thinking or purposive national action for progress. In place of fiery nationalism and idealism, we now have a student unionism that apes and imitates the decadent  culture of our nasty politics.

    Contest for NANS leadership has become a sad replica of the politics of ‘stomach infrastructure’ and  money bazaars. When elected into office, the leadership of our students unions want to drive huge SUVs like Abuja politicians. They  appoint innumerable personal aides with nomenclatures borrowed from our wasteful national political culture and idiom. The broad mass of our students are now united by cultism, cyber crimes, bloody rituals and killer squads in a hunt for human body parts for ritual.

    Our student population has degenerated into conclaves of cults, cyber crimes and a descent into the dark precincts of  occultism , witchcraft and ritual. Places established to pursue enlightenment and modernism have now become covens of modern day witches and ritual murderers. At other times, the only language that flies around our campuses is that of quick mega cash fuelled by the hunger for designer clothing, outrageous automobiles and luxury mansions. Every undergraduate aspires to become an internet ‘influencer’, stage musician, naked model or narcotics courier irrespective of the courses they are registered to study.

    Among the academics themselves, we now have serial racketeering for contracts, a thriving trade of blackmail of ‘sex for marks’. Professors are now standing trial for openly blackmailing their female students into sexual rumps sometimes in open offices. The deployment of juju and cultism for promotions and appointments have replaced the previous dedication to merit, national good and the pursuit of academic excellence.

    As America’s university campuses continue to witness a wave of protests of universal moral condemnation of America’s support for Israel’s systematic genocide in Palestine, we need to look again at what has killed the Nigerian university.

    Three ugly forces have invaded our university campuses: dark money, bad politics and godless religion. To rescue our universities and redirect them back to being factors of national unity, progress and progressive development, we require a political leadership with the will to chase away and neutralize this trinity of negativity.

  • Dangote, Air Peace and the patriotism of capital – By Chidi Amuta

    Dangote, Air Peace and the patriotism of capital – By Chidi Amuta

    Money is perhaps a homeless vagrant. It has no nationality or permanent homestead in real terms. It goes and stays only where its masters are wise, prudent and far sighted. But in a world dominated by nations and their interests, real money is first a national asset and tool of governance and sovereign assertion. When money thus becomes a source of power, the nation whose flag the conquering company flies shows up to claim its own. Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Coca Cola are synonymous with America. It is not because every American can walk off with a can of Coke from the supermarket without paying for it but because somewhere along the way, brand and nation have become fused and interchangeable. Every successful Business may aspire to an international identity but when the chips are down, every successful business needs to be anchored first on a specific sense of sovereign belonging. Ultimately, then, the companies to which sovereign wealth is usually ascribed have a final responsibility to that nation or sovereignty in times of trouble or goodness.

    Make no mistake about it. Businesses are in business to succeed as businesses. To succeed as a business is to make tons of profit and invest in even more business and wealth creation. Sensible companies do not always overtly toe the government’s line. They instead buy into the hearts and minds of the citizens through the products they  offer and how friendly their prices are.

    Two Nigerian brands have recently stepped forward to identify with the citizens of our country in this moment of grave challenge and desperate self -inflicted hardship. Dangote and Air Peace are now on record as having risen to use their products, brand presence and pricing strategies to identify with and ameliorate some of the harrowing difficulties that Nigerians are currently going through.

    The worst moments of our present economic travail may not be over just yet. The epidemic of hunger still looms over the land. Innocent people are still being trampled to needless death at palliative food centers. Some are getting squeezed to death while scrambling for tiny free cash. Inflation figures just got even worse at over 33.4%. Those who fled the country in awe of rampaging hardship have not yet started returning or regretting their decisions to flee. Most Nigerians, rich and poor alike, are still needing to be convinced that the curse of recent hopelessness can be reversed any time soon.

    Yet out of the darkness and gloom that now pervades our national mood, a tinge of sweetness has begun to seep into the air. The exchange rate of the Naira to major currencies has begun heading south. The dollar, which at the worst moments in recent times exchanged for as low as N2,300 to a US dollar, has climbed up in value. As at the time of this writing, a little over N1,000 can fetch you the same miserable US dollar. That may not sound like paradise yet since it is still worse than the worst of the Daura emperor. Most Nigerians are praying that Tinubu should minimally take us back to the Buhari days in terms of the exchange rate and relative food security. We are still far from there.

    What has Dangote got to do with it all? The removal of fuel subsidy had unleashed an astronomical hike in energy and fuel prices. While motorists and transporters wept and wailed at the gas stations, the price of nearly everything else went through the roof. Since public power supply remains as epileptic or absent as in the 1970s or worse, we have been living in a virtual generator republic that is dependent on diesel and petrol generators. The price of diesel in particular jumped through the roof. Industrial production suffered just as transportation and haulage costs became unbearable. Every high cost was passed down to the suffocating hapless citizens.

    Fortuitously, the gigantic Dangote refinery complex was coming on stream in a time of great difficulty.  Somehow, the hope was alive that the Dangote refinery would come on stream with a bit of good news on the pricing of gasoline and diesel. But no one knew for sure what Mr. Dangote’s cost accountants had in stock especially with the devilish exchange rate that reigned in the first nine months of the Tinubu tenure.

    Energy and fuel prices were off the roof. A liter of diesel went for as high as N1,650 in some places. Gasoline was not any better. Those who wanted to keep their homes powered from generators needed troves of cash to procure diesel whose prices kept going up as the dollar exchange rate escalated. Factories fared worse.

    Refreshingly, Mr. Aliko Dangote whose mega billion dollar refinery in Lagos has just started producing petroleum products has a bit of good news for all Nigerians. He has reduced the price of diesel from the mountain pe58% to a more considerate N1,000 per liter, nearly a 58% reduction in price in less than a week. The prospect is good that when his gasoline products begin to flow through the pumps. Mr. Dangote may have even better news at the gas stations. Along with his fellow cement oligarchs had promised to deliver cement to Nigerians at a more friendly price. The full benefit of that promise is still a long way away.

    It needs to be said in fairness to Dangote as a brand that more than any other single company in Nigeria, it has invested in the things that touch the lives of the people most immediately. Sugar, salt, fertilizer, tomato puree, fruit juices, cement and now petroleum products. No other single Nigerian brand can boast of a wider and more expansive range of socially relevant products than Dangote.

    In direct response to the prevailing hunger and hardship in the land, Mr. Dangote has himself stepped forward to provide millions of bags of rice and other food items to Nigerians across the length and breadth of the country as humanitarian palliatives. In terms of the human face of capitalism, Dangote would seem to have perfected an enlightened self interest above his peers.

    Just when life was about to gradually grind to a halt, a bit of good news has come from unusual quarters. In a nation that has grown dependent on a feeding bottle tied to the beast of external suppliers of everything from tooth picks to civilized coffee, the belief persisted that all good news can only come from abroad. Nigerians could only hope to enjoy more friendly prices for the things that make them happy if our foreign partners changed their mind. Not any more.

    It requires pointing out that the Nigerian spirit is too expansive to be bottled up within our borders just because air tickets are unaffordable. The urban- based Nigerian wants to go abroad for business, on holidays or just to flex!

    At the worst of the recent moments, a return Economy Class ticket to nearby London sold for as much as N3.8m-N4million. Major international airlines insisted that the Central Bank had seized and was sitting on their dollar ticket sales proceeds. They needed to keep the high fares to hedge against the uncertainties that were everywhere in the Nigerian air. Nigerian travellers were being punished for the bad fortunes of their national currency and the untidy book keeping habits of the Central Bank.

    Almost from nowhere, Nigeria’s largest international airline, Air Peace, announced a low fare flight into London’s Gatwick Airport. The airport itself is also owned by a Nigerian businessman. The fares were unbelievably low, as low as N1.2 million in some cases against the exploitative fares of all the major foreign airlines plying that route. Unbelievably, Air Peace pulled off the London Gatwick  deal with quite a bit of fanfare and patriotic noise making that set the foreign competitors scampering back to the drawing board. Air Peace floated the Gatwick fare reduction as a patriotic act, more like social responsibility to fellow Nigerians than the plain business sense which is what it really is. It was a drive for volume in a market of low volume driven by high fares.

    To drive home the patriotic edge of its revival of international flights, Air Peace rebranded its crew and adorned its senior cabin crew with uniforms that featured the traditional Igbo “Isi Agu” motif. For those who are hard at hearing, the Isi Agu motif on Nigerian traditional outfits is of Igbo ancestry just as the Aso Oke, Adire and Babanriga are South Western Yoruba and Northern Hausa-Fulani respectively. A Nigerian airline intent on striking a recognizable indigenous resonance and identity could adapt any combination of these traditional dress motifs to drive home its original and national identity. The isi Agu features a series of lion heads, obviously severed at a moment of unusual valor. To go on a hunt and successfully kill and decapitate a lion is an undisputed symbol or infact a metaphor for unusual valour and heroism among the Igbo. Therefore the choice of that motif by Air Peace in its new cabin outfit is in fact a modern statement on the unusual heights to which Nigerian enterprise can rise if inspired by a patriotic commitment to national greatness. The Isi Agu is therefore Nigerian national heroism captured in an outfit.

    In their recent pricing strategies, neither Dangote nor Air Peace has acted out of pure charity or patriotic feeling. Both are reacting to the pressure of latent demand in a market where the purchasing power has been depressed by economic difficulty brought about by government policy and political exigencies. Yet each of them is intent on being seen as acting out of altruistic patriotic motives. That may be true in the short term.

    For every liter of diesel sold, Dangote is saving the Nigerian consumer 60% of the current market price. A savings of 60% is a lot for households and businesses. Similarly, for every Economy Class ticket sold by Air Peace on the London route, the average Nigerian traveller gets to save between N1.3million-N1.6 million. That is an awful lot of relief which travellers can apply to other competing needs in these hard times. No one can deny that these are direct savings and benefits that accrue directly to Nigerian citizens. To that extent, both Dangote and Air Peace can be said to be applying their capital to serve a patriotic end.

    It is common capitalist gimmick for companies to apply a percentage of their profit to pursue communally beneficial ends in their territory of operation. Oil companies build schools, hospitals, libraries and other socially beneficial  infrastructure in their catchment localities. In normal corporate parlance, that only qualifies as Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) or targeted social beneficence.

    But Dangote and Air Peace are doing something a bit more far reaching. They are shedding handsome percentages of their revenue and therefore profit to fellow Nigerians at a time when such savings are desperately needed and deeply appreciated. That is an instance of capitalism serving a patriotic end over and above its statutory tax obligations to the government. This should be commended.

    It does not ,however, make these companies any less rapacious as capitalist ventures than any others. They may in fact be investing in better times and bigger profits when the bad days are over. They are investing in the goodwill of the market and therefore deepening their brand penetration and mass sympathy. These are strategies which are far sighted marketing ploys that dig deep into the hearts and minds of generations of consumers.

    Ultimately, every capitalist is like a cat; selfish with nine lives and prone to inherent cunning. But, as former Chinese leader Deng Zao Ping said when embracing the free market for his long standing communist nation: “A cat is a cat. It does not matter whether it is a black cat or a white cat. For as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.”

  • A tax on darkness – By Chidi Amuta

    A tax on darkness – By Chidi Amuta

    On the technical matters of electricity supply and consumption rates, I am just a layman. I fare even worse when it comes to engaging professional technocrats and technicians on the arithmetic of pricing public goods and services. On goods that ought to be available to all of us at least cost to make life better and more livable, I do not break my head over the minutiae of megawatts and kilowatts. I just do not know how they calculate power supply, consumption, pricing and the like. But I know a few things that matter about electricity and public goods and social services in general. I know how long it takes for the ambulance to arrive in an emergency. I know how long it takes to beg and pour libations for the police response squad to show up when people are in distress.

    When I arrive a country, within the first day I make up my mind whether the power system works or not. If hotel power goes off and on every other hour, I nod with familiarity . If I enter a room and flip the switch, I know when there is electricity supply. When driving through a neighborhood, I know when everywhere is in pitch darkness. I prepare psychologically for the evils that hide in the dark. When I get home at the end of the day’s grind, it is no longer a surprise if the house is on generator or in pitch darkness. Whether under politicians in mufti or the ones in army fatigue, Nigerians have come to know our public electricity system as a metaphor for all the ailed promises of our lives since after 1960. Children learn to cope with disappointment each time they are playing or watching television and darkness descends everywhere; they shout in a mixture of suppressed disappointment and predictable certainty.

    In dealing with our governments over the last few decades, I have also come to master the antics of political tricksters and the fraud that often goes in the name of government services in these parts. The grandiose promises. The ceremonial tapes cut to inaugurate phantom projects and programmes that were designed to fail from day one. The mathematics of fraudulent reforms and the bare faced robbery of those who insist that nothing in a republic was meant to be free of charge in the first place. The massive gifts of betrayal in return for votes cast in defiance of rain and sun!

    It has become more frequent in recent times. To greet Nigerians for the sacrifice of Lent and the rugged self -denial of the Ramadan weeks of passion, the Tinubu government casually announced a stratospheric  increase in electricity tariffs. There was no dress rehearsal. No previous warning. No enlightenment to psychologically prepare the populace for yet another unplanned tax. The electricity tariff increase was announced in typical military ambush fashion. The new tax on electricity would seem to have come from the same package as the earlier petroleum subsidy removal and currency devaluation. Just a casual bloodless announcement by a government that speaks as though it operates from outer space. No feelings. No compassion. No regard for the sensitivities of those whom their policies have left stranded and wounded. So much hurt on the same people in only one year or less.

    Since the tariff increase, the electricity regulatory authority (NERC) and other government bull horns have dominated the air waves with senseless propaganda. A cacophony of confusing statistics, disarticulated figures and mangled arguments have been advanced to justify what is clearly a tax on our disgraceful electricity  supply system or the prolonged darkness that it has foisted on our people for endless years.

    By their revelation, only a miserable 13 million Nigerians out of our estimated 230 million have access to electricity.  Of this number, less than 2 million consumers enjoy up to 20 hours of power supply in a day. In the entire nation, only a consistent less than 4,500 Megawatts of electricity is available from hydro, gas and thermal stations whenever they work. Compared to other nations of equivalent rank,  Nigerian’s total electricity supply figures have remained almost static with a national grip that collapses nearly once every week. South Africa produces 58,095 Megawatts. Egypt produces 16,900 Megawatts, Ghana reached 23,963 Megawatts in 2023. In comparison,  Nigeria lives in virtual darkness as far as electricity suppy is concerned. Yet it is this perpetual darkness that is now being taxed to high heavens.

    The logic of the new tariff increases is even more atrocious. Under the new regime, Nigerian electricity consumers have now been grouped into Bands. Those on Band A are consumers who have been accused of enjoying up to 20 hours or more of electricity per day. This class of privileged consumers is estimated to be only a miserable 1.5 million consumers. They have had their tariffs increased by 300%. By this curious logic, consumers on other bands would with time have their tariffs increased by a graduated scale in due course. But for now, only 1.5 million consumers will bear the burden of the tariff increases and therefore pay for the maintenance of power installations, fund the cost of new investment and keep the national power sector alive.It is this stratospheric increase that will make the electricity sector attractive for new investors, pay for supply to consumers in other consumer bands, extend electricity supply to the rural areas,  maintain the various gas and hydro electric facilities etc.

    Part of the so called strategic calculation of the government thinkers is that those under Band A are too comfy and rich to disturb the peaceof government through protests, loud complaints and acts of civil disobedience. For now the more troublesome masses in Bands C, D, E  etc are temporarily insulated from any tariff increases. Their rich compatriots will pay for them. By the crude propaganda of the NERC and the government megaphones, once the new tariff comes into effect, there will be constant electricity, no more load shedding, no further national grid collapses etc.

    In terms of implementation, the entire thing was smuggled in quickly under cover of Easter and Sallah celebrations. Its immediate victims were carefully My friends who live in Band A areas enjoying nearly 20 hours  of power daily tellme they used to spend an average of N10,000 daily on electricity. Since after the draconian increase, they tell me they now spend between N35,000 and N40,000 daily on electricity. Much of what they get as power supply is half current. They are still visited with unannounced periodic power outages and load shedding at the discretion of the local distribution companies who are accountable to no one in particular.

    This Band A palaver does not end with the individual elite consumers. If the parameter is the number of hours of electricity enjoyed by a consumer, then bigger trouble is in the pipeline. Major hospitals (public and private) whose life support equipment are hooked onto electricity are in this band. Major hotels, factories, malls, airports and other public places may find themselves in this band. They now need to increase their service charges in order to pay for the new tariff. Even the National Assembly is under Band A and  its spoilt occupants cannot spend a minute in session except in air conditioned comfort!

    Official response  to the untold hardship of the new tariffs has displayed the trade mark insensitivity of the Tinubu government. The Minister of Power has in fact accused Nigerians of being irrespeonsible in their power consumption habits. People leave their light bulbs on foer indefinite hours. Others leave their refrigerators and air conditioners on indefinitely.The minister has reportedly apologized for the insult but has never disowned the insulting utterances. Like the currency flotation and gasoline tax, the government has not been honest enough to own up that these policies and so called reforms are largely plagiarized prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank. Regime trumpets are too busy  singing the praise of the reforming zeal of Mr. Tinubu to own up to the crass thoughtlessness of these so called reforms. Even worse is the lawlessness of the reforms like the electricity tariff increases.

    My brother and friend, Femi Falana, has screamed in disbelief that this electricity tariff gambit is mostly illegal. In the applicable NERC law, there is provision for an early warning, a mass public enlightenment campaign, public hearings across the nation, as well as National Assembly debates and ratification of the proposed tariff regime that would precede a consensual increase in electricity tariffs if any. None of these requirements was met or adhered to. Just a casual insensitive announcement.

    What makes the electricity tariff increase problematic is the long standing reputation of our electricity system. Among the populace especially the urban and rural poor, our public electricity system has become synonymous with perennial darkness. Where there is power supply for a few hours, there are hardly any meters to measure what is being consumed. This has led to the fraud called ‘estimated bills’ under which officials of distribution companies inflict whatever draconian bills they decide on hapless consumers and negotiate payments into their pockets or the coffers of the vastly incompetent distribution companies with their armies of corrupt officials and dubious owners.

    While affected consumers struggle to pay the new tariffs through every part of their body to keep their homes lit and their businesses in session, the tariff increase has raised too many questions about the nation’s electricity sector. How will the 300% tarrif hike on a small segment of consumers (1.5 million) create the pool of resources needed to develop the power sector into a viable national  sector? How does this tariff increase inflicted on a minority elite alleviate the hardship of a whole nation?  What happens to electricity consumers in the other bands no yet covered by the progressive tariff increases?

    There are more serious issues of accountability and basic responsibility of government that have remained lingering over these years. Estimates of expenditure on the power sector between 1999 and 2010 indicates an expenditure of  over N4.7 trillion. Countless projects have been initiated and abandoned by all manner of foreign and local investors. Politicians have made many impressive speeches about their intention to end the reign of darkness if only to deepen the crisis. Some states have even tried to initiate power projects on their own only to auction off the infrastructure because they did no homework on the implications. In spite of this huge expenditure, vast areas of the country have no experience of what is called electricity. Our rural, suburban and inner cities are without electricity sometimes for upwards of 6-8 months in a year. In spite of the speeches and succession of regimes, Nigeria is still stuck with less than 5,000 Megawatts of electricity on a year-on-year basis. Our legacy after the huge expenditures is endless darkness.

    All manner of solutions have been implemented. Separate generation, transmission and distribution companies have been created and rolled out. Power distribution licenses have been issued to companies in different locations of the country. In most cases, these licenses were issued to companies owned and run by political crooks and virtual illiterates and sometimes outrightly bankrupt individuals who have resorted to massive bank loans to sustain their rickety operations.  The end result is the current state of scandalous inefficiency in the delivery of a service that ought to be the lifeblood of the nation.

    It is part of the fraudulent devaluation of language in the politics of the present day to refer to a heartless increase of tariffs on electricity as ‘reform’ of the power sector. Imposition of a huge tax on the nation’s long dark night is perhaps the best name for the present politics of insensitivity and lack of compassion.