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Tag: IKEDDY ISIGUZO

  • Experienced Raila Odinga pushes for peaceful, prosperous Africa – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Experienced Raila Odinga pushes for peaceful, prosperous Africa – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    FOR decades, hundreds of conferences have been held on the importance of breaking the barriers that national borders colonialists imposed provide against the development of Africa. They have all ended up as gas, mere words.

    One man – Raila Amolo Odinga, former Prime Minister of Kenya, steeped in opposition politics – wants to pull down the obstacles to African integration, and with a rapidity that only a few imagine.

    He comes from a family that is traditioned in pushing erected frontiers that ring “impossible”. His father Oginga Odinga was Kenya’s first Vice President. He parted ways with Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first President, on fundamental national policies. Kenyatta wanted an alliance with the West, Odinga preferred the East. When the matter could not be resolved, the Vice President resigned. The Odingas are steel-willed too.

    Detentions, denial of access to political platforms did not stop them from ending Kenya’s 40-year one-party state in alliance with Kenneth Matiba.

    Raila Odinga is vying for Chairman of the African Union Commission with a clear agenda of what he intends to do. His two opponents: Mahamamoud Ali Youssouf (Djibouti), and Richard Randriamandrato (Madagascar).

    The other candidates’ experience is limited by their non-direct involvement in the management of the affairs of AU. Odinga stands out in that sphere.

    He was AU High Representative for Infrastructure Development in Africa for five years, during which he had hands-on experiences with the continent’s gaps in infrastructure and had high-level involvements with Heads of Governments of different African countries and made high contacts across top international agencies.

    For another five years, he was Prime Minister of Kenya, running a government of 42 Ministers, and a bureaucracy that stretched almost like as long as the Nile, touching different parts of Kenya with their intricacies. Kenyans would joke that he is not a stranger to big numbers, coming from a family of 17 children that the older Odinga fathered through four wives.

    AU has zoned the chairmanship to East Africa in line with its rotation provision that sees the position going through AU’s five zones. Odinga’s campaign for the Chairperson of the African Union, which he shared at the AU debate for the candidates, last December, is anchored on shared prosperity for Africa through intra-African trade, commerce, travels, peace, security, by having inclusivity, and sustainability in an Africa that will grow through pulling its different parts together.

    It is a huge dream, possibly his parting gift to the continent, that he articulates at each stop in his campaign.

    Odinga has surprised people with his passion for his ideas. He shares his zeal not from the comfort of his homes in Kisumu or Nairobi. He has been on the road campaigning. He has criss-crossed the continent with his message.

    The new dimensions he has provided for campaigns for this position will enhance the quality of candidates for similar positions.

    Odinga has the full backing of the Kenyan government. President William Ruto has spoken openly in support of the same message – African governments should shake down the shackles that visas and trade restrictions impose on Africa’s prosperity.

    Odinga wants to speed through these bumps to create an Africa that many consider impossible. He is on a mission to prove that it is possible to have an Africa with different perspectives and prescriptions to deal with its troubles by itself. He believes that the continent’s opportunities can be harnessed and used to make Africa a better space that would generate a better present, and future for its youth, hundreds of who die yearly while migrating to Europe through the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean.

    He is strong on education, gender equality, technology, democracy, good governance, and climate change.

    The clarity of his proposals bears the imprints of his years of participation in the formulation and execution of international policies, projects and programmes.

    African leaders, as they gather in Addis Ababa to take a vital decision that is central to the success of the Africa 2063 Agenda, should look Odinga’s way, for he knows the scores.

    Finally…
    WHY did Chief Bisi Akande, former Governor of Osun State, raise issues on the death of Chief Bola Ige, former Governor of old Oyo State, Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, in the government of Olusegun Obasanjo, who was assassinated 24 years ago? Akande said some secrets on the matter were narrated to him by Lam Adesina, his Oyo State counterpart at that time. Lam Adesina is dead, Oluwole Rotimi, former military Governor of Western Region, who Akande, 86, claimed told him that Bola Ige would be in danger if he resigned from Obasanjo’s government, will be 90 in two weeks.

    Akande said, “I know Lam Adesina went to court over the matter, and I also know his successor, (Rashidi) Ladoja, withdrew the case. Ask Ladoja; he would know more about Bola Ige’s death.

    “I was the Chief Security Officer of Osun State at the time, not Oyo State. Lam Adesina was the Chief Security Officer of Oyo State, and he went to court, and the governor who took over from him, Ladoja, withdrew the case from court. I believe he has more information on Bola Ige’s death.

    “Because there are many things you don’t want to tell the public. Now Bola Ige is dead, and Lam Adesina too is dead, so who will be my witness? Ladoja withdrew the case from court. Ask Ladoja; he would know more about Bola Ige’s death.

    “One evening, he just called me and said, ‘I’m going to resign from this government.’ I said, ‘Please, sir, I will come back to you.’ I called his friend, Oluwole Rotimi. He asked me to advise him (Ige) not to resign because if he does, he’s likely going to die.

    “I called Uncle (Ige) back and begged him not to resign. He said he had talked to Wole Soyinka and Bola Tinubu, and both of them had asked him to resign. I asked him not to resign. I then said, ‘You can go to Obasanjo, tell him what you are angry about, and tell him that if he doesn’t want you again, this is your letter.’

    “He actually did so. Obasanjo asked what he wanted him to do, and they both agreed. When he was leaving, Obasanjo said, ‘Don’t give that letter to the press; give it to me,’ and he dropped the letter. Ige told me himself. It was later after that he was moved to the Ministry of Justice.

    “He was killed in anticipation of what he might become in the future. It was a state murder. The government killed him. The government can kill anybody. Obasanjo wasn’t keen on investigating who killed Bola Ige but was interested in the stability of himself in power,” Akande.

    Ladoja rebutted: “Chief Bola Ige was assassinated on December 23, 2001. I became governor on May 29, 2003, 18 months after he was killed. I didn’t withdraw the case. My government didn’t withdraw any case. The case was even prosecuted by the Supreme Court. Chief Akande lied against me, and he is old. This is not his first time. People say he lies.

    Even Baba Adebanjo said he lied in his book”.

    Can we assume that the police are not interested in these allegations that Chief Akande made since 1 February 2025. The allegations were not about tenure extension.

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • Trump’s America, still America, their America – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Trump’s America, still America, their America – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    AMERICA, as most of us call the United States of America, USA, is a big country with confusions that match its size. The latest is the presidency of Donald Trump, whose face knots delightfully when he issues another threat – it could be to the unborn.

    Racism, genderisation of issues, in a country clawing itself back to global (ir)relevance by isolation, threats of war, lawlessness within a democracy almost summarise how Trump wants to ruin America.

    His idea of “making America great again” is to exaggerate America’s global “victimhood” thanks to Presidents before him, in particular his predecessor Joe Biden, for whom he cannot find a word of praise. If Trump has the powers, he would expunge Biden from a list of American Presidents.

    How Trump intends to make or mar America is only known to him. In a country with huge democratic credentials, Trump is busy ingraining his lawlessness into his version of democracy. Executive Orders provide perfect covers for Trump. He is already abusing them because some of the matters he glibly orders on are constitutional, and altering them would involve States, Congress, and the Supreme.

    His Orders take immediate effect in the manner of a military officer hauling orders at a parade. Immigrants must leave. Some are at the borders trying to enter Americans. Would some children qualify as legal Americans while their parents and guardians may be sent out of America?

    The judiciary is weighing in to order Trump’s steps.

    When JP Clark wrote, America, Their America, his 1964 criticism of things American and the racism that hides under the cloak of its over-rated democratic practices, he made it clear that America was essentially about itself, thorned by racism in itself, and against others.

    America, Their America, drew as much applauses as criticisms against Clark, whose studies at Princeton University ended abruptly, some believe, as a result of the vapid vortex of racism he countered. America, Their America is the product his Princeton days.

    The deceit that American democracy spreads, blinds the world to the monstrous human rights records of the USA. America is built on the blood of the indigenous populations of what became North America, plus slaves taken mainly from West Africa. The remnants of those populations still suffer racism that has been blunted by the “successes” of attacks, massacres, genocides that keep them from the attention of the world. They have been pushed into forests and reserves.

    Loads of literature abound on these human abuses that could have belonged to darker ages but still replicated in the way the United States treats others. Words fail to capture these atrocities. Latest accounts tend to minimise the mal-treatment of the indigenes of North America. They are even explained with excuses that diseases that arrived with Europeans, the new settlers, were responsible for the deaths.

    Donald L. Fixico in, “When Native Americans Were Slaughtered in the Name of ‘Civilization’”, a 2018 publication, detailed a series of programmes of annihilation of indigenous peoples to create space for the new settlers.

    “From the time Europeans arrived on American shores, the frontier – the edge territory between white man’s civilization and the untamed natural world – became a shared space of vast, clashing differences that led the U.S. government to authorise over 1,500 wars, attacks and raids on Indians, the most of any country in the world against its indigenous people. By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained, a sharp decline from the estimated 5 million to 15 million living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492.

    Doctrine of discovery described as an international law that authorised explorers to claim uninhabited land in the name of their sovereign when the land was not populated by Christians, had the imprimatur of the Vatican which only repudiated the Doctrine in 2023.

    In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Dum Diversas, which authorised King Afonso V of Portugal to “subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of

    Christ”, and “reduce their persons to perpetual servitude”, to take their belongings, including land, “to convert them to you, and your use, and your successors the Kings of Portugal”, Brain Slattery noted in Paper Empires, his 2005 book.

    In 1455, Pope Nicholas V issued Romanus Pontifex, which extended Portugal’s authority to conquer the lands of infidels and pagans for “the salvation of all” in order to “pardon … their souls”. The document also granted Portugal a specific right to conquest in West Africa and to trade with Saracens and infidels in designated areas. The Doctrine has been implicated in slave trade and colonisation.

    While the Doctrine seemed to have ameliorated disputes in Europe, its introduction by US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) was disputed. Marshall’s formulation of the Doctrine gave the discovering nation title to that territory against all other European nations, and this title could be perfected by effective possession.

    Trump’s threats to the rest of the world are not new to America which has run out of ideas about being the world leader, a title and role that has been vastly diluted by the contradictions of American democracy that places USA’s interests above global peace, and the steady gains of other powerful nations as the USA receded from involvement in global stability.
    Americans chose Trump for reasons best known to them. They acted much like Nigerians in the choices we made since 2015. Trump wants to turn round an America tied to his strings, on his own terms. He has no time for the domino effect that is loading.

    Didn’t the world watch as President George Bush invaded Panama City on 20 December 1989, in that operation that spanned over one month, to arrest Panamanian President General Manuel Noreiga, a CIA informant, when Bush was the CIA boss?

    Noreiga was captured and jailed in America for charges that included threatening and killing American forces in Panama, narcotics racketeering, swinging relations with traditional enemies of Libya, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and members of the Warsaw Pact.

    The Panama Canal that Trump says he will take over was also mentioned as Noriega’s sin.

    Will the world watch again for America to occupy Panama City and determine the use of the Canal?

    Trump feels nobody will stop him; nobody can stop. Morning Star Online, an English newspaper blazoned Trump’s return as President thus, THE RETURN OF THE VILLAGE IDIOT.

    Finally…

    SENATOR Sampson Ekong, Chairman, Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, has a solid recommendation that the Ministry’s capital budget of N9 billion be increased to ₦539 billion. The Naira has suffered!

    INDICATIONS are that the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, who would go down in history as the first IG not seen wearing dark glasses, has ordered that policemen (and women) should nor wear dark spectacles while in uniform. He may need to appoint an Assistant Inspector-General of Police to deal with the petitions that would flood his table over this matter.

    SECURITY challenges across the country are multiplying daily. We would not panic. We, however, expect the security agencies to do more than telling us daily that new groups are being formed. It is simple economics – the insecurity economy is profitable; the businesses have to open more branches or new companies to reap the profits.

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • Auditor-General’s annual report: Nigeria’s biggest joke on fraud – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Auditor-General’s annual report: Nigeria’s biggest joke on fraud – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    IT would be a fraud to call the annual report that the Auditor-General of the Federation submits to the National Assembly a fraud – it is by far something worse. The truth is that the report is rooted in long established practice of doing nothing about fraud because as a Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the Senate once said, “these are mere allegations and need to be proved”.

    “The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, OauGF, in Nigeria audits the accounts of the federal government, including ministries, departments, and agencies. The OAuGF’s role is to ensure that public funds are used appropriately and for their intended purposes,” Nigeria’s Constitution states through Sections 82, 85, 86.

    It lists its responsibilities as it:

    Audits the accounts of all Federal Government offices and courts

    Audits the accounts of all accounting officers and revenue receivers

    Audits the accounts of statutory corporations, commissions, and authorities

    Audits the accounts of Area Councils in the Federal Capital Territory

    Audits the Federation Account, including loans, investments, and public debts

    Audits the accounts of the Accountant-General of the Federation

    Audits the accounts of Non-Self-Accounting Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, MDAs

    Audits the accounts of Federal Pay Offices, FPOs

    Submits a report to the National Assembly on the audit findings

    “The OAuGF’s role is to ensure that public funds are used appropriately and for their intended purposes. The Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation is a separate and independent entity whose existence, powers, duties and responsibilities are in the Constitution,” says the law.

    Nobody has an interest in disrupting the waste of government funds on anything that catches the fancy of those who are entrusted with public funds. They, in most cases, seem to be in a competition over who would fritter away more public resources with immunity and impunity.

    At no point is a reasonable effort made to investigate, prosecute the suspects, and recover missing public funds. Everything, especially the law, is on the side of the suspects.

    By law, the audit report should be submitted to the National Assembly, two years after the period being audited. An example would be that the audit report for 2019, should be at the National Assembly latest by December 2021. Why should such long time be permitted?

    Most times, in two years those the audit queried have ceased to be in office or assumed some immunity from prosecution. They usually make enough to keep the arms of the law, no matter how long they are, from reaching them.

    The time between submitting the audit, passing it to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly are long enough for everyone to forget. There are too many interests in a country as dynamic as ours.

    A golden rule with managing public finances is not to set dangerous precedents. Not calling those who committed these infractions to account has set the needed environment to embolden their successors to do more – dip their fingers deeper into public funds.

    Things get worse. If the law says that the audits should be submitted in two years, are they still legal when submitted outside the two-year time frame?

    As things got better for the alleged fraudsters, the Office the Auditor-General of the Federation (and in the States) seems to work for fraudsters.

    The submission date for the audit reports has moved to almost four years. The report that the National Assembly is “over-sighting” is for 2021! If we maintain the pace, the audit report for 2025 may be ready by 2037. Is that not progress?

    Uncovered financial infractions worth over N3.403 trillion in government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, are in the audit report for the financial year ending 31 December 2021 in 28 audits.

    · About N2.902 trillion was from the failure of eight government agencies to recover outstanding government revenue. Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc did not recover N2.896 trillion of the amount

    · N7.386 billion were the irregularities in the award of contracts by 32 MDAs. Rural Electrification Agency, Abuja, posted the highest infraction of N2.118 billi0n

    · Irregular payment of N115.675 billion by 64 MDAs. Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc., Abuja, had the highest infraction with N96.2 billion

    · 31 MDAs awarded contracts of N167.592 billion that were not executed. Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading accounted for N100 billion

    · 21 MDAs did not deduct N2.636 billion as tax from payments to several beneficiaries

    · 11 MDAs failed to remit N11.561 billion of tax deducted from taxpayers to relevant authorities. Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Plc recorded the highest sum of N10.393 billion

    · 40 MDAs paid out N8.312 billion without support documents. Presidential Amnesty Programme led with N1.529 billion

    · 8 MDAs misapplied the sum of N663,854,877.01; University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, was champion with N253,532,050.49

    · 24 MDAs awarded contract worth N20.334 billion without following due process. The Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Plc awarded the bulk of those contracts valued at N14.136 billion.

    · Federal Inland Revenue Service did not recover about N69.928 billion as tax liabilities from 26 of its outstation offices

    · Items valued at N968.908 billion were taken from the store without ledger charge by 29 MDAs and the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Lagos, alone, accounted for N125 billion of the items

    · 15 MDAs made extra-budgetary expenditures of N15.786 billion. National Agricultural Land Development Authority received N8.86 billion of the amount

    · 6 MDAs which carried out virement of about N2.63 billion without approval. Rural Electrification Agency spent N1 .9 billion of the money.

    · 19 MDAs did not account for N122.5 billion. Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc was responsible for N111.601 billion of it.

    · 29 MDAs did not remit about N6.602 billion generated internally. National Pension Commission, withheld the highest amount of N4,429,550,386.58

    · 35 MDAs circumvented the procurement process leading to the loss of N1,948,132,710.98

    · 9 MDAs paid external solicitors, engaged without the Attorney-General’s fiat, about N243,932,964.27. The Bureau of Public Procurement had the highest infraction of N112,261,659.

    · 5 MDAs paid some unspecified third parties about N439,688,368.76 without the Attorney-General’s approval

    · 5 MDAs awarded contracts valued at N2.407 billion above their approval threshold. Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, incurred the highest amount of N1,065,614,232.70

    · Staff and unauthorised persons from five MDAs illegally held on to government vehicles valued at N747,749,365.06. The Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Plc, Abuja, had the highest amount of N413,343,623.00.

    · 11 MDAs denied the Auditor-General access to documents with expenditure amounting to N21,480,891,930.77

    · 30 MDAs had unretired cash advances amounting to N1,300,643,209.41 and payment without vouchers amounting to N1,135,025,464.67. The Federal Ministry of Works (Housing Sector) excelled with the highest amount of N1,076,662,242.61.

    These are only a “few of the infractions” as every MDA, and Ministry was involved. The only difference was the amounts involved. The annual ritual of presenting the belated audited accounts makes no sense.

    No powers are available to the Auditor-General of the Federation or anyone for that matter to ensure suspects account for the infractions. Whatever the Office of the Auditor-General of was meant to achieve is coming to nought before our eyes and to the delight of those whose greed the report only highlights.

    If these billions were stolen, mismanaged at a time the value of the Naira was “high” against the Dollar, what should we expect when the audits for the following years are public?

    The only purpose the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation currently serves is to publicise corruption and join the rest of us in complaining about it.

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • Must they embarrass Tinubu with Malian coach for Super Eagles? – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Must they embarrass Tinubu with Malian coach for Super Eagles? – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    BURKINABE military leader Captain Ibrahim Traore was the star attraction at Tuesday’s inauguration of Ghana’s President John Mahama. Dressed in a military attire, Traore had a holstered pistol at his waist. He was widely cheered in his show that analysts rightly concluded was an affront on democracy and a defiance of ECOWAS’ stance that military administrations should give way to elected governments.

    At the event where wild applauses greeted Traore was President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, also President of ECOWAS, that in July 2023 issued orders to the military government in Niger Republic to leave within seven days. ECOWAS was reportedly mobilising a military intervention to restore civil rule in Niger Republic. ECOWAS imposed sanctions limiting trade and communication with Niger Republic, but these have been lifted.

    Burkina Faso and Mali, Niger Republic’s immediate neighbours, ensured that the sanctions did not work.

    “Visible weapon by a (Head of State) at such an important event, although seen as an assertion of power could also be a symbol of intimidation and raises concerns about… how we enforce our security laws internally,” a Ghanaian analyst Barnabas Nii Laryea wrote on Facebook. “This was insanely dangerous thing to do. It’s not about trust. For national security reasons, this was very reckless and shouldn’t be allowed again,” Seth Dough, a Ghanaian lawyer, posted on X.

    Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic are all under military rule after a string of successful coups, Mali (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger Republic (2024). On 6 July 2024 they formed the Alliance of Sahel States, a confederation. It is against neo-colonialism in Africa and the world. It also disagrees with French and ECOWAS policies, deeming them contrary to the interests of the Alliance.

    ECOWAS was concerned that if the three French-speaking countries succeeded they may entice the military in other ECOWAS States to join their agenda. Some former French colonies in West Africa are buying into the agenda of the three countries that would leave ECOWAS in a matter of weeks.

    A more global concern was the presence of Russian mercenaries in Mali. The French forces that were fighting terrorists in the Sahel were driven away by Mali. The Russians replaced the French and are believed to be harvesting the mineral resources and influence that were once France’s. Assimi Goïta, interim President of Mali, is the actual leader of the Alliance as his coup appears to have set off the others.

    Traore knew what he was doing when he turned up in Accra in miliary gears, and armed. His manner of attendance spoke of war, power, military rule as the counterpoint to civilian governments. He was representing the Alliance of Sahel States as the only Head of Government that was present. The Prime Minister represented Mali.

    For the Burkinabe leader, Accra was a grand farewell to ECOWAS. There were “two regional leaders in Accra”, Tinubu and Traore. If ECOWAS wants peace, the Alliance was ready – and also prepared for war. Tinubu took all these in. Nigeria’s commitment to ECOWAS is high. Beside hosting the headquarters, Nigeria last month cleared 19-year outstanding obligations of N85 billion and $54 million which included part of 2024 dues.

    Former French colonies in ECOWAS are sympathetic to the Alliance’s grievances. Cote d’Ivoire, once a bastion of French interests, is with Burkina Faso. Ivorian President Alassane Dramane Ouattara is originally from Burkina Faso and his interests in France have waned. Guinea is a perennial enemy of France. The French stripped Guinea of every moveable asset before its independence in 1958.

    Senegal, and Chad, Nigeria’s north eastern neighbour, where they share the Lake Chad, have similar views with the Alliance. Chad is not renewing its defence pact with France, and like Senegal has spoken in strong terms against French troops on African soil.

    Chad needs Niger’s cooperation to fight Boko Haram. The Alliance is willing to help. Chad while breaking up with France lamented that France did not assist its troops when 40 of them died in a Boko Haram attack.

    The departure of the three-member Alliance from ECOWAS on 29 January 2025 is only 17 days away. President Tinubu would bear the infamy of the one under who ECOWAS that would be 50 on 28 May – a day to Tinubu’s second year in office – disintegrated. What a record!

    Tinubu’s heightening relationships with France transverse trade, defence, and a pointed attention on mining of solid minerals which Mali, Chad and Niger Republic once provided for France.

    In fairness to Tinubu, he inherited ECOWAS’ 15-member bloc that started degrading with the departure of Mauritania in December 2000. It gave no reason. Some say that the increasing signing of protocols that involved members in the internal affairs of others inconvenienced Mauritania. One such policy could be the proposed regional currency.

    The intensity of Tinubu’s chumminess with France has made him an impartial arbiter in ECOWAS. But for the Atlantic Ocean on our southern border, Nigeria is entirely surrounded by French-speaking countries, who also dominate the numbers in ECOWAS – Republic of Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. The question is how much longer would the other five remain in ECOWAS.

    Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau though Portuguese-speaking, are too close to Senegal that they too have French-speaking tendencies.

    The English-speaking countries are not much different. The Gambia depends on Senegal’s port in Dakar for imports, some of which go all the way to Burkina Faso, Mali, and parts of Niger Republic. Ghana is interested in the security of its northern border which it cannot protect without great relations with Burkina Faso. Was that what informed Traore’s Accra performance?

    An ignored power bloc in ECOWAS is the 52-year-old Mano River Union that preceded ECOWAS. It joined Guinea, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, and Sierra Leone to explore the economic benefits of the 320-kilometre Mano River that originates from the Guinea Highlands in Liberia. Finances and the long wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone slowed down the Union but it is still flowing.

    On the same Tuesday that Traore was embarrassing Tinubu in Accra, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, was making one of the most thoughtless decisions in Nigeria’s football history, by appointing former Malian coach, Éric Sékou Chelle, as Head Coach of the Super Eagles. His coaching abilities are too vacuous to merit an examination.

    A Malian to manage a major national asset at the peak of the international row with Mali over ECOWAS?

    We assume that security agencies, and the Foreign Ministry are involved in screening foreigners appointed at this level. Is it possible that nobody noticed that Chelle is from Mali which with Burkina Faso and Niger Republic have been exceptionally hostile to Nigeria since 2023?

    Whoever engaged Chelle is embarrassing the President, if not Nigeria.

    Finally…

    PRESIDENT Tinubu is on his third trip to UAE in 17 months. Is that not too many trips to one country?

    THE National Assembly needs to over-sight the $52.88 million Nigeria has just received from the US as “recovered assets”. The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi has explained that $50m of the money would be deployed through the World Bank for rural electrification. He said the remaining $2m would be used by the International Institute of Justice to expand the justice system and combat corruption. Who decided that? And the remaining $.88m is obviously too small to deserve accounting?

    WHY are we praising the Federal Government for establishing five more aviation schools when it cannot finance one school?

     

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • Tinubu’s ‘POS economy’ can’t fight inflation – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Tinubu’s ‘POS economy’ can’t fight inflation – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    TWICE in less than two weeks, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has repeated his threat to crush inflation from 36.4 per cent to 15 per cent in 2025. His first attack on inflation was at his budget presentation at the National Assembly on 18 December 2024 and then in his New Year message on 1 January 2025.

    In both instances, he said his economic policies would push inflation down with 21 per cent. Those who thought they did not hear him well heard him repeat it in the New Year message.

    The summary of the presidential message, the Governors, and all those who have deemed it their role to send out similar messages, is abundant hope. The President never misses a chance to ask Nigerians to be patient with his policies. He accuses us of impatience without any proof.

    In his 18 months, Tinubu has made the banking system a Point Of Sale, POS, economy where banks no longer allow customers to withdraw cash under the guise of a cashless economy. The ATMs are without cash or configured to discharge an amount like N5,000. How do small businesses cope or people who have  to make small purchases?

    Cash is always available with the POS merchants whose extra charges import inflation into a transaction on which other  charges had been paid. Where else do POS merchants get cash except from the banks?

    Is availability of cash in banks against the economic policy of the government? How does the government expect low income earners and rural communities to bear these extra costs that it may not recognise as inflation?

    A proposed policy to limit cash one can access from POS merchants is not a solution. It is another wave of hardship on the way.

    These, according to experts, are the real drivers of inflation:

    .Government is wasting a lot of money in maintaining “a big bureaucracy” against official reports that have suggested cuts to wastes.

    .The increase in fuel prices following the removal of subsidy, cost of imported diesel which depends on value of Naira, constant raise in price of electricity, all translate to higher prices of food, energy, and transportation. Rising fuel prices cause increased fares for commuters, and goods. Currently, fuel has no fixed price, and it goes mostly up.

    .The continued drop in the value of the Naira is the lead driver of inflation and the impact runs through the  whole span of a highly import-dependent economy. Higher costs for machinery, fertilizers, and other inputs for farmers, result in higher food prices. Industries are also mired in increased costs for raw materials, machinery, most of which are imported. High production costs and prices that most consumers cannot afford are the results.

    .Insecurity lessens access to farms which means that even if food was produced, evacuating it faces increased challenges. Security has also affected transportation costs as people are using longer routes to avoid certain areas or travel by air.

    .Higher global oil prices, the falling Naira, and cost of imported fuel, all contribute to inflation. The arrival of Dangote Refinery was quickly followed by controversies that have not permitted its operations to be felt. Revamped government refineries in Port Harcourt and Warri, if they last, would take time to reduce the inflation that has hugged the economy.

    These situations have hit consumers and businesses really hard. Consumers barely have enough to buy basic needs while manufacturers that borrow from banks at outrageous interest rates find it more difficult to remain in business.

    High inflation rate makes savings useless. Earnings depreciate by the day as witnessed in the new national minimum wage that will leave workers almost worse than the situation they were in before the increase.

    Are these what Tinubu said he would tackle in a year? How would he do it in a government most of whose top officials may be available but unseen where issues that are their responsibilities are involved? Not many of them recognise service to the people as the purpose of their offices.

    They gloat over Tinubu’s presidency as if it is the conquest of those who demand governance and not just a regime change from Muhammadu Buhari to Tinubu.

    We should not be deceived. The year will be tougher than any we have been through. Governments have made provisions in their budgets to live above the circumstances that we are all complaining about. They do not feel what we feel.

    They have no feelings towards the people they are meant to serve. Retorts and rhetorics have become standard responses to mere questions about how our governments work for our benefit. It is none of their business to improve our lives.

    How would they understand how we feel when their own issues are covered in budgets? If they run out of money, they send in papers for a supplementary budget to fetch more money. In all cases, the supplementary budgets are passed with the urgency of an emergency.

    Tinubu is not about to attend to the drivers of inflation. He has ruled out chances that he would ever run a smaller government. The same can be said of his other indulgences.

    “Under the banner of the Renewed Hope Agenda, President Tinubu is dutifully turning our nation’s fortunes around. He deserves the support and patience of Nigerians to consolidate the deep economic foundation he has laid and deliver a vibrant, prosperous new Nigeria for the good of all. We urge Nigerians to remain confident in the brighter days ahead,” Felix Morka, National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has advised those who want to know the direction of Tinubu’s presidency.

    Trite regurgitations like Morka’s lay to rest any expectation that Tinubu even listens to what the people feel. There is no chance that he would reduce inflation to 15 per cent as it would run contrary to his policy of not  caring about ordinary Nigerians.

    Finally…

    JUST as the Federal Government did not burden us with how it bundled Nnamdi Kanu into an aircraft in Nairobi to continue his trial in Abuja, it should not bother us with efforts to put Simon Ekpa on trial for the nuisance he has continued to be.

    THE 2025 budget would do with a lot of scrutiny. We should have a good look at the budget to cut wastes.

    DID you come across the advisory the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued to Nigerians against travelling to Australia? Though it was a counter to one Australia issued to its people, it provided a good laugh. I look forward to the Ministry of Internal Affairs issuing advisories on how safe parts of Nigeria have become.

    NIGERIAN Television Authority devoted hours of live broadcast on Friday to Ezewoke Nyesom Wike, Minister of Federal Capital Territory, as his disciples turned out in their numbers to sing Wike’s praises, pledge loyalty to Wike, apologise to him for the comments Dr. Peter Odili made about him, and commend the great job he is doing in Abuja. One called him the Governor of Abuja, and they all called him leader. Wike was very happy, particularly, when the praises were about what he had done for the Ijaws, as articulated by the leader of an Ijaw group that apologised for the “ingratitude” of Governor Sim Fubara. This Port Harcourt event called New Year Luncheon is another Wike innovation.

    DEATHS were plentiful during the celebrations – poisoning, accidents, assassinations, murders, and then the incident of a Catholic priest firing shots that killed two people. Bandits still threaten whole villages and execute their threats without consequences. The body counts are too regular that they hardly make headlines these days. Nigeria is getting more dangerous. Someone should help.

    THERE are provisions of over N600m in the 2025 budget for provision of infrastructure for nine palaces of traditional rulers in Nigeria, the Nigerian Tribune reported. The allocated were spread thus – North East 1, North West 1, North Central 2, South West 3, South South 1, FCT 1, and South East 0. Our ancestors forbid that there are no palaces in the South East.

    HAPPY New Year. Let us make this year count as one in which we intentionally set out to seek our own good only in the race for the common good.

     

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • Deadly rice stampedes: Suppose President Tinubu bans rice? – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Deadly rice stampedes: Suppose President Tinubu bans rice? – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    ONCE President Bola Ahmed Tinubu addresses Nigerians it is clear that his silence is actually golden, as it gives chances to guess what the President feels about ordinary Nigerians, the hungry, the poor, the weak, those excluded from Tinubu’s concerns because they are not rich.

    The President rushing in with a media chat, after 18 months in office, and days after the “poverty stampede” in Ibadan, where mainly children died, was thought to be an opportunity to explain to Nigerians, elicit their support as they go through a crushing economic crisis that the President gloats about as if the entire purpose of his policies is to inflict pains.

    The deaths in Ibadan that were over 35, were followed by similar incidents in a church in Abuja, and an individual’s event in Okija. The deaths resulted from free distribution of rice to the needy.

    Poverty once personal, private, is now public, and deadly. Just blame rice.

    Are opponents using free rice to distract the President from focusing on his economic policies? The President should ban rice for more clarity. No rice, no stampede, no deaths. One of my teachers said the solution to headache was decapitation – no head, no headache, or any ache for that matter.

    We remember Tinubu promised Nigerians “agbado (corn) and cassava”. Not rice.

    More people have fallen into poverty without the President’s permission. Should they? Could this account for the President not knowing about them? What really does the President know about Nigerians?

    Does he know that more people would have died if they knew of these events? Food is beyond the reach of ordinary Nigerians. Tinubu does not feel the impact of his harsh economic practices of lavish spending on presidential consumptions, unproductive as they are.

    Some call the spendings reckless. Would you blame them? In the midst of a drifting economy, soaring inflation, no jobs, hunger, anger, capped with insecurity, the President bought jets, including one for the Vice President, and maintains a bloated cabinet.

    He used the presidential chat as a platform to defend his Ministers. They are performing. He sounded as if he needed more people like the bunch that maintains a distance from the daily challenges people face.

    For the President to see “switching off things” as the solution to poor electricity supply – and the frequency with which the national grid collapses – was one indication that governance has become a joke. When the Minister of Power, months ago, held the same position on electricity, the public tore him to shreds. The Minister apologise.

    Tinubu blamed the organisers for the stampede, “I see this as a very great error on the part of the organisers.” He said he had been giving out foodstuffs, including envelopes, smoothly at his Bourdillon residence in the past 25 years. “If you do not have enough to give, don’t publicise it,” he advised organisers. The organisers too are poor, and have no Bourdillon pedigrees. These things count.

    Do not expect Tinubu to blame the new wave of incremental poverty his hope agenda has renewed. He did not. He will not. If Tinubu halts the slide to absolute poverty for more Nigerians, there would be no deadly rice stampedes, and no organisers to blame.

    Other Nigerians have organised these events for years without incidents. Large crowds would turn up and go home home safely. Was it not rice they shared? What is the difference now?

    People are out searching for something to eat, anything. Even if “pure water” is being shared, there will be stampede. Our people are living by the minute. They have lost hope.

    Nigerians have no assurance that someone cares about their efforts to survive. Millions of our compatriots are ready to do anything to survive. While at it, insecurity is not allowing them to breathe. Sadly, more of our people are falling into crimes with the times.

    Employment opportunities are shrinking. The few jobs available are for relations of those in power, the rich, the very rich, the same ones who accuse us of greed. Do they have a different meaning for greed?

    Last October, the Senate President, His Excellency Obong Godswill Akpabio on the floor of the Senate advised poor Nigerians, “Times are difficult, wherever you see free food, please endeavour to avail yourself”. Could the people have followed Akpabio’s perspective of the solution to poverty and the hard times?

    Mocking the poor is Akpabio’s favourite idea of enlivening Senate sessions. “The prayer is that, let the poor breathe, and Senator Mustapha has seconded that the poor should breathe. Those who are in support of the additional prayer that the poor should be allowed to breathe, say ‘ayes’ and those who are against say ‘nay,’” Akpabio had said in July 2023 during a debate on the 15 per cent hike of electricity tariff. “The ayes have it! The poor must be allowed to breathe,” Akpabio concluded.

    At a Niger Delta Development Commission event in July 2024, Akpabio mocked those who called for demonstration over the economic hardship. “Those who want to protest can protest, but let us be there eating,” the former Akwa Ibom State Governor had said.

    In Tinubu’s 18 months, poverty has pole-vaulted to dizzy heights that left Nigerians dazed. The only thing worse is the President’s spectacular performances when addressing his failure to rein in inflation as he drives the economy with the enthusiasm of kids playing with new toys.

    People are hungry. Some people around the President call poor, hungry Nigerians “greedy”. Someone looking for what to eat is greedy? Have we fallen so low to justify the President’s unwillingness to accept that the problem is well beyond him?

    Is he using his uncaring attitude as a buffer? He is the bigger problem by refusing to engage the people. Rather, he talks down on them when he decides to talk, well aware that he has nothing to say.

    Take the tax bills, for instance, they have their merits. Tinubu thinks it is beneath him to discuss issues the radical bills raise. He sneers, the bills will be passed.

    He takes responsibility for nothing. Tinubu sounds like Rik Rok and Shaggy in their famous 2000 hit song, “It Wasn’t Me”. The President provides answers without addressing our concerns. The answers are always dismissive.

    The major lesson of 2024 is that Nigerians have to continue looking after themselves. It may even annoy those who are just discovering that they cannot decide when we should stop breathing.

    Happy New Year, that is peaceful – prosperity will follow peace.

    Finally…

    INFLATION to crash from 34.6% to 15% in 12 months, is what the President has promised in 2025. Safe trip, Mr. President.

    FEDEERAL Capital Territory Minister Ezewoke Nyesom Wike said of those who accuse him of land grabbing, “Peo­ple say land grabbing, do you grab what you are in charge of? I am in charge of land in Abuja how will I go and grab what I am in charge of? Those, who are grabbing land are whom I am dealing with”. Wike, at the Port Harcourt event where he spoke, did not forget to call Governor Sim Fubara, “this boy”.

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • If it’s confusing you: Don’t panic, it’s still Merry Christmas – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    If it’s confusing you: Don’t panic, it’s still Merry Christmas – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    HIS Excellency, Monday Okpebholo, Governor of Edo State, reading a budget on a Wednesday was a bad idea. Why not on a Monday? When your name is a day of the week, you should choose rightly. That was not the only thing that was wrong. Constitutional amendments should be fast-tracked to exempt some Governors from presenting the budget to their State Assemblies in person. They can transmit the budget.

    Those who have been heckling Okpebholo to speak since the campaigns heard an earful listening to him rambling through the Edo State Budget 2025. More used to addressing crowds, the Governor was nervous from the beginning. Was he expected to speak to a small gathering?

    No need taking a back glance for the assuring, towering presence of Senator Adams Oshiomhole who spoke mostly during the campaigns. He had to carry on, availing us an opportunity to listen to him without a human prompter, the role that Oshiomhole amply filled as he confused Edo State on why he has to be Governor. Nobody still knows why.

    Seeing billions of Naira in cash, or listening to others pronouncing it is not the same thing. Okpebholo was already in panic mode when he attempted the task. He began, his hands unsteady and voice quivering in the rarefied surroundings of the Assembly: “The Edo State Appropriation Bill of six billion… 605 billion… 76 million… Let me take it again. 506 billion… 605 billion… sorry… 776 billion… sorry, it’s confusing me”. He was truthful, a rare among politicians.

    “Order,” the Speaker of Edo State, Honourable Blessing Agbebaku thundered, daring to deny us a good laugh, the only thing that is still free in Nigeria. He was confusing us. We are unwilling to be confused.

    His Excellency has trended since then. T-shirts, caps, mugs, have been produced in celebration of his confessed confusion. A good signal is that Edo State funds are safe, a Governor who is unable to read out billions of Naira would not balloon the budget to trillions? Who would present it?

    Governor Okpebholo is not the only one confused. Many Nigeria are in panic whether there would be “Merry Christmas” this year, or “Merely Christmas”. It is confusing us, unlike Okpebholo whose confusion would not have much effect on his joint ownership of Edo State with those who have not ceased beating their chests about how they enthroned him.

    Families are in real pain. The confusion is not understandable. For months, just counting this year, families that have not had real meals, have renewed their hope on Christmas being an elixir. What informs this type of hope except, “it’s confusing me”?

    Since the days of COVID-19, remarkably marked by government officials allocating palliatives meant for the public to themselves, hope on relief for the hard times have been mainly in vain. It is also confusing that many government officials caught with palliatives are walking around free. There may just be no laws to prosecute such behaviour or too many people were involved that we could run out of if we jailed them.

    More confusing is the idle social media debates on why the value that people place on life is so little that parent saw their children die in the Christmas funfair that went bad in Ibadan. Many of us know poverty as a word. We have not felt the innermost recesses of poverty. The N5,000 that Queen Naomi was distributing is a lot of money to many Nigerians. How many Nigerians have it? That is where we are. Even if she was sharing only “pure water”, there would have still been a scramble, and deaths.

    Nigerians are hungry – just putting it mildly. Governments are too busy governing themselves that they are after their welfare and security, not the peoples’.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is in Lagos issuing trite orders about investigating the incident. It would have taken less than 30 minutes for him to fly into Ibadan, visit the Governor, address those who lost their children. Some call it empathy while it is actually governance and more useful than those endless meetings that appear more concerned with detaching him from the people.

    Would it subtract anything from Tinubu’s presidency if he visits Ibadan? Those involved are children, the future.

    It is confusing people that government has minimal concerns for life. Imagine the National Security Adviser, proudly promoted as the first appointee to that position since 1999, without a military background, pulls out his statistics to assure us that he had achieved 80 per cent success against kidnapping. Statistics are almost meaningless in a country that the Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill has been under “97 per cent completion” during the Abacha days. He expects applauses for this magic. Maybe, national security has been reduced to success in lowering kidnapping incidents.

    No matter how confusing things are, do not panic, it is still Christmas. Merry Christmas to you.

    Finally…

    FOR a lawyer, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, should show some respect for the law by challenging the court orders that people wave at him. His exceeding determination to demolish property or revoke land allocations without looking at the papers of those who claim they have legitimate titles or court orders stopping Wike from acting, leave some people with no alternative than self-help, illegal too as it is. The army general, who allegedly sent his troops to attack Wike’s demolition squad was wrong but where could he get justice? The President will call Wike to order the day he demolishes the Villa.

    CHAIRMAN of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Hashimu Argungu, in emphasising the thoroughness that led to the promotion 0f 11 C0mmissioners of Police to Assistant Inspectors-General of Police and 16 Deputy Commissioners of Police to Commissioners of Police, said they took oral and written tests. Media reports indicate that the process was concluded on the same day though the number of participants was no disclosed. Quite a thorough process. Henceforth, Mr. Argungu has ordered, written and oral examinations would be a pre-requisite for promotions at all levels within the Nigerian Police Force.

    ON the first anniversary of the five-year $70,041,733.80 and N2,981,739,134.30 contract the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security signed with a private company to supply 2,000 tractors, implements and 100 combined harvesters annually, Honourable Saba Adam moved a motion last Tuesday, for an investigation of the non-delivery of the tractors and implements which he considered a setback to the Renewed Hope Agenda. Not a single tractor has been delivered, according to Adam.

    THE Court of Appeal in Kaduna has ruled that it is illegal for Customs to seize foreign rice outside border areas. They cannot therefore seize rice on the Benin-Shagamu Expressway or invade markets or anywhere else to seize rice, Justice Ntong Ntong declared on Wednesday.

    DR. David Umahi, Honourable Minister of Works, said on Friday that the Lagos-Calabar Highway would be reduced from 10 to six lanes. He said nothing about a possible reduction in the cost of the 700km project which will cost N4 billion per kilometre. It will be completed in eight years.

    THE Power of Nothing, the latest book by Ikem Okuhu, is a lot more than the nothingness of power. He has given society another chance to examine power, its nothingness, and possibly its somethingness.

    YOU have your own challenges, but there are people you can give something this season, and always. May the Almighty bless you as you put smiles on faces that are losing hope.

     

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.

  • NNPC: When you think Nigeria can’t confuse you – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    NNPC: When you think Nigeria can’t confuse you – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    PUT nothing beyond Nigerians. Some of us lug the bragging rights to understanding Nigeria, that Nigeria cannot confuse them. I willingly concede knowledge of Nigeria to them.

    Nigerians are not strangers to confusion. We bring confusion to conversations. We praise our abilities to confound issues, confront simplicity with befuddlements and then seek the understanding of those who question a policy direction.

    Any attempt to deny the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, the unalienable rights to confusion should be boldly resisted on NNPCL’s behalf.

    Many Nigerians concur to nothing just not to be left out in the journey to nowhere. We learnt long ago that patriotism means supporting the government in power. You do not need to task the government about its actions.

    So, let us agree with NNPCL that the old refinery in Port Harcourt is working. Those who claim otherwise do not know a thing about how these things work. They could be among those who have sworn not to see anything good in the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    They are unIike us whose loyalty is completely blind; so blind that we give no chance to enhancing our sights. It is not our fault that some have decided not to love their country.

    An instance of the benefits of blind loyalty, in alignment with the President’s delight over Port Harcourt refinery, is the nimiety of fuel in our filling stations. It takes loyalty of this hue to notice that fuel is available. Instead of rejoicing that there is no fuel scarcity, people who used to buy fuel at “any price” are asking at what price the fuel from Port Harcourt refinery is sold. They pretend they could identify the source of the fuel they use.

    Only the President is permitted to recount the dangers Nigeria harbours when addressing prospective foreign investors. Ours is to find areas of the country to praise. We cannot contradict the President when he de-markets Nigeria. He is the President.

    We should understand that in electing a government, the people simply lease the country to the elected, who are at liberty to do whatever they want with Nigeria. The President can turn an official visit to a private visit. It is his call, not calling.

    Unlike most leases, the terms of our relationship with government are unclear. The privileges of governments are under-stated. Too generous as we think the lease granted the government is, we have had serial cases of government appropriating aspects of the lease that it was given.

    NNPCL understands these things more than others. There should be no surprises there. The Minister of Petroleum Resources is the President. NNPCL might as well have immunity without us knowing. It could be a beneficiary of the powers of the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

    History has taught us that successive governments harvest precedents to feather their own interests. We rate governments by their abilities to treat us worse than the preceding ones. We are often wondering why we are always wrong, and the government always right in its ways.

    NNPCL, a government company, attends to us with all the arrogance it can muster in a relationship where a supposed servant looks askance at the master, the public.

    Tired of our too many questions, NNPCL is forging ahead. If we expect the numbers of tankers rolling in and out of the Port Harcourt refinery premises, old and not so old, to be the only signs of activity at the facility, NNPCL has exported products to Dubai through Wonder Star MR1.

    Could the NNPCL counter-poise be the answer to “when will the price of NNPCL’s products be reduced” since they are not imported? NNPCL is too busy attending to foreign clients that you should firm up your interests by paying in foreign currency.

    Have we forgotten that Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, in July 2024 said Nigeria would be a net exporter of petroleum products by December 2024? Has the President, Minister of Petroleum Resources, not fulfiled another promise?

    Let the naysayers know that the President is winning. Let those who want fuel ask not the price.

    Fuel is available. Availability is more important than price until availability becomes a confusion.

    Finally…

    ENYIMBA Economic City FZE will unwrap the project to businesses, especially, SMEs, at the South East Business and Investment Summit, SEBIS, that runs from 11-13 December 2024. It will be another big beginning in the re-making of the South East.

    DELE Farotimi’s arrest, is proof, if one is needed, that we are in the era of “legitimate lawlessness”. The police, a law enforcement agency, will skip the law on a 320-journey to make an arrest in Lagos from Ado-Ekiti, without a warrant authorising the arrest, hence some initially called it an abduction. If Farotimi broke the law, a lawless response, as we have seen so far, equates to self help which is a breach of the law. “He will have his day in court” is an inadequate response for the abuses of the law.

    UNDER what law is the Federal Government sacking its employees who are graduates of some universities in Republic of Benin? Was there a government order or law banning those universities by 2017? It is a wonder that the government, though nothing is beyond government, could make a decision in 2024, and it takes effect from seven years ago. Is it not an admission of its incapacities that government cannot detect fake credentials? If the suspects are guilty as charged, should they not be facing the law and refunding salaries that they have earned illegally? Just think about this: some of those making these decisions could be parading fake credentials even at the very top. For the records, a journalist’s investigative report led the government to make this retroactive order – one more thing to blame on these journalists.

    EACH time I read of another banditry kingpin being eliminated, I get the impression that there are too many of these kingpins that we really need another title for important officials in the hierarchy of Nigeria’s bandits. They have made their mark. Those who eliminate them, too, deserve recognition of their feats.

    THE fight against corruption is doomed once its expansive scopes provide for legal abhorence of transparency. How can the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, be in celebration over a latest forfeiture case that involved an estate of 753 units of duplexes and other apartments and the public is not entitled to know the owner of the property?

    We are left to speculate as we are still doing seven years after Justice Muslim Hassan granted final forfeiture orders for the following: “The sum of $43,449,947 found by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at Flat 7B of No. 16 Osborne Road, Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, which sum is reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activities to the Federal Government of Nigeria”. A made a similar order for £27,800 and N23,218,000, found in the same apartment. Did we know who had the money or what government finally did with it?

     

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • Tintinnabulation of PH refineries and well-being of Nigerians – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    Tintinnabulation of PH refineries and well-being of Nigerians – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    FOR most of Tuesday I started doubting if there were two refineries in Port Harcourt after those I spoke with insisted that there was one refinery in Port Harcourt, the one that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, announced its triumphant return to production.

    They kept calling it “the old refinery” without interrogating the meaning of that phrase.

    But Port Harcourt has a second refinery of 150,000 barrels per day that was commissioned in 1989. It hardly gets mentions these days. Has it been forgotten?

    We were still on the morning of what NNPCL and its trumpeters are celebrating as if NNPCL had leapt into life and grown capacities to supply the entire ECOWAS sub-region with petroleum products. What were the celebrations about?

    NNPCL had woken up 70 per cent of a 1965 refinery that has capacities to refine 60,000 barrels of crude oil daily. After countless announcements about the refinery’s re-opening day, it is running with 42,000 barrels daily from which NNPCL is squeezing out 1.4 million litres of petrol, and other products, daily. We are not told where NNPCL gets its crude oil and at what price.

    Stakeholders, as they call themselves, have joined in the cacophony of claims. Some insiders prompted SaharaReporters that the “good news from Port Harcourt” was a façade. The refining, according to the online medium, was mere blending of products that NNPCL brought in at different stages of refining.

    Timothy Mgbere, Secretary of the Alesa community stakeholders, alleged on national television that the refinery only loaded six trucks of petroleum products on Tuesday though NNPCL had said it would do 200 trucks daily.

    “The economic activities emanating from the operations of these depots mean a lot to us as a community, but as it were, now, I don’t think it’s a cause for celebration yet because what we are having in the media space is different from what we have on the ground.

    “I can tell you on authority as a community person, that what happened on Tuesday was just a mere show at the Port Harcourt depot. Port Harcourt refinery, we call it Area Five, that is the old refinery, is merely in skeletal operation. Some units of the refinery were brought up and are running, but not the entire unit of the old refinery is functional, as we speak.

    “I will give them the credit that at least they have started something, but not to say, according to the Head of Corporate Communication, Femi Soneye, like it is in the media that they are already producing 1.4m barrels per day. That’s not the case. That’s not true. As an agency that is holding the oil industry in trust for Nigerians, they shouldn’t put out information that is not true.”

    “What they did was to release that (old) stock, and then loaded six trucks and then televised it to Nigerians that it is the production from the old refinery. And so I like Nigerians to know the truth, but they don’t need to believe me, because Nigerians, no matter how you paint the true pictures to them, they get sentimental. But let it be on record that it was only six trucks that they used to calibrate the new loading gantry. The product was not a new refined product from the old refinery.”

    He continued, “As of yesterday (Wednesday), they also loaded. But let me shock you if we are celebrating that the Port Harcourt old refinery is already functioning. How come they loaded only four trucks of product the whole day? I mean, starting from 7am when work resumed at the depot, it was only four trucks that were loaded till about 8pm of Wednesday.

    “And they said it’s automated. How can you have a truck under a bay for more than six hours under an automated system? Back in the years when we had a manual loading system, It didn’t take 45 minutes, but under an automated system, it took more than four hours. And then you tell us, it is 70 per cent operational? Who are they deceiving?”

    “This betrays his scant knowledge of the operations of the refinery. The old and new Port Harcourt Refineries have since been integrated with one single terminal for product load-out.

    “They share common utilities like power and storage tanks. This means that storage tanks and loading gantry which he claimed belongs to the new Port Harcourt Refinery can also receive products from the Old Port Harcourt Refinery,” Soneye explained.

    Lanre Ogundipe, a former President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, on Friday issued a press release accusing NNPCL of misleading the public.

    “The celebrations that attended the announced resuscitation of the moribund Port Harcourt Refinery are immature going by the available fact which has not been contradicted by officials of NNPCL, led by Mr. Mele Kyari.

    “Without fear of any contradiction, what has been achieved so far, is that only some units of the old refinery have been activated while work at the facility was at a skeletal level. Though some progress has been made, which stands the NNPCL in good stead to announce that they have flagged off something, that is not to say, that they are already producing 1 million, 400,000 barrels per day. That is not the case and that is not true. Such a claim, credited to the Head of Corporate Communications of NNPCL, is a fraudulent one which has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

    “As it stands, let it be clear that no single product has been moved from the Port Harcourt refinery area into the product reception area of the depot.”

    With the way we run Nigeria, NNPCL has been very courteous. Some other organisations would have asked us “to go to court”. There are two refineries in Port Harcourt “old” and “new” with a combined daily refining capacity of 210,000 barrels. NNPCL is saying nothing about the “new refinery” that was commissioned in 1989. Why is that so?

    If NNPCL wants to measure the completion level of the old refinery it borrows parts from the new refinery and reminds us that the two “have been integrated”. With the integration, what is the daily refining capacity of the 210, 000-barrel facility?

    Reading ‘How to Lie with Statistics’, a book that journalist, Darrell Huff wrote in 1954, one would notice that NNPCL cherry-picked statistics. There is little effort to illuminate the issues.

    NNPCL was intentional in distracting the public with an orchestrated celebration that it expected to foreclose any questions on key issues that should include pricing. It almost succeeded.

    The Minister of Petroleum, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, found time on his busy schedule in the chilly settings of Paris to congratulate NNPCL. “With the successful revival of the Port Harcourt Refinery, President Tinubu urged NNPC Limited, to expedite the scheduled reactivation of both the second Port Harcourt Refinery, Warri and Kaduna refineries,” an official State House message, issued from Paris, read.

    Let it be on record that the President, who is the Minister of Petroleum, counts two refineries in Port Harcourt. NNPCL says we have one refinery in Port Harcourt. If you admit that we count differently, you would agree that the President and NNPCL could be saying 70 per cent of the same thing.

    In fairness to NNPCL, the ambitions on refineries in Warri, Kaduna, and Port Harcourt II, are entirely the President’s.

    NNPCL can, however, answer these marginal questions. How would 1.4 million litres of petrol impact on Nigeria’s daily consumption that swung from 60 million litres daily in May 2023 to 4.5 million litres a day by August 2024? The data are from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority. The 92 per cent drop is attributed to the cancellation(?) of subsidy.

    What would be the pump price now that Port Harcourt is working and producing about a third of our daily consumption? How long would it take to attain 100 per cent production? Are these productions immune from slipping across the border?

    The taste of the pudding, they say, is in the eating. North Africans put it better when they say the taste of the couscous is in the digestion.

    NNPCL has succeeded largely in tickling the public’s appetite for petrol. The pump price will be the best proof of NNPCL’s 70 per cent of Port Harcourt.

    Finally…

    Tintinnabulation is an 18th-century word that has nothing to do with the President’s name. If you are in doubt, please find out.

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues

  • National Sports Commission, Shehu Dikko compounds a deliberate confusion – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    National Sports Commission, Shehu Dikko compounds a deliberate confusion – By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    By Ikeddy Isiguzo

    HOURS after this column was published last Sunday, I got a call from Mallam Shehu Dikko who after pleasantries said that I went “off mark” by writing about the illegality of the National Sports Commission which he was announced the Chairman  three weeks earlier. The kernel of his position was that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the National Sports Commission Act 2023 in his last days in office, so there is a law. And that a law cannot foster an organisation’s illegal actions.

    For the 15 minutes he spent justifying the office he occupies, he also acknowledged that “the 1971 National Sports Commission Act” had not been repealed. The President could still have appointed him with that law. He could make a good salesman for the National Sports Commission, when established, if he respects the law.

    When I got a chance to speak, I asked him if the 2023 Act had a provision for a two-man board. He explained that more members would be appointed when aspects of the Act had been worked on to reflect the type of Commission that he envisions. He promised it would not take long.

    “Nothing is wrong with what has been done,” he said about the board membership. “The same thing happened with the Students Loans Board. The Chairman was first appointed and then other board members,” he reminded me.

    “The present Act proposed a board of about 17 people. It is too much. We will have a smaller number, at most 11. The plan is for us to run the NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission) model where each of the six geo-political zones will have Executive Directors to run sports in the zones. There would be spaces for stakeholders,” he said. He wants a board that would re-position the sports economy as a major contributor to the national economy.

    Simply put, Dikko was appointed to re-work the law with which he was appointed. He explained that was why a full board was not announced.

    Dikko mentioned that with his position, he was the Minister of Sports and the Director-General Chief Bukola Olawale Olopade,  who was appointed three weeks after the Chairman, was the Permanent Secretary. I ignored the comment.

    In the Act, those positions are distinct. Why the haste to annexe them when the law said something different? Which Act is the National Sports Commission operating with that affirms its legality?

    Watch as the confuse spews and gains official endorsement.

    Olufemi Soneye, Chief Corporate Communications Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, in a press release on a delegation that Dikko led to NNPC management on Thursday 21 November 2024, addressed Dikko thrice as the “Minister of Sports”. There has been no “correction” made.

    “Addressing the delegation which was led by the Chairman of the National Sports Commission and Minister of Sports, Alhaji Shehu Dikko, the GCEO, said NNPC Ltd. was ready to be part of the initiative to revamp the nation’s football,” the release stated.

    No mistakes there. Dikko was at NNPC to discuss revamping of football, note, not sports.

    “NNPC will be a prime partner in the journey to bring back value to our football, to reshape it, re-engineer it and bring happiness to our people”, (Mele) Kyari stated.

    “Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the National Sports Commission and Minister of Sports, Alhaji Shehu Dikko, said football was fundamental to the economies of the best footballing countries in the world, adding that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for immediate action to revamp the game.

    “He said the multiplier effects of football were enormous and could facilitate the revamp of related industries across the value chain.

    “The Minister noted that IMG, which promotes the English Premier League, was invited as a technical partner to leverage their experience in the sport,” according to the NNPC release.

    Dikko, also the Minister of Sports, without a Ministry, was at NNPC to seek help for football as “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for immediate action to revamp the game”.

    Only Dikko knows what the President told him about his mandate and the supplementary title to get his work done. When he goes to NNPC, with all its muscles, to market football, where and when will he pitch for sports?

    More than anyone, Dikko knows that football with its consuming structures will not come to much good even if a sponsor pours billions of Dollars into it. How has NFF managed the millions it gets from FIFA and CAF?

    The chaotic contraption called National Sports Commission Act 2023 has such incoherences that nobody should have worked with it. A quiet review and amendments would have cured the confusion that Dikko has embraced to keep his office and take the heat off the President who appointed him.

    A high possibility is that the 2023 Act was used without anyone reading it or those who did felt that Sports was too unimportant for any diligence in its regulation or administration.

    Dikko’s defences were admissions that the Act was faulty. The appointments he claimed to be based on the Act must have been made from elsewhere.

    National Sports Commission Act 2023 envisaged a Ministry of Sports as it mentions “Minister responsible for Sports” and has board seats for the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Sports, and the Director responsible for Sports in the Ministry.

    No further excuses are permitted for the abberations in the so-called National Sports Commission. Appointments should not be made in breaches of a law on which they are supposedly rooted, and those appointed are the ones to amend the law to legitimise their appointments.

    Very disheartening is that those who know these things, including lawyers and patriots, defend them for their own reasons. Their attempt at defending the illegality includes flooding my mail boxes with the same law they decide the parts to implement.

    They must have a new meaning for illegality.

    Finally…

    UBER, the hailing taxi platform, can do better than exploiting clients and blaming it on technology. Thursday, 21 November 2024, Uber named a “reasonable” fare of N13,700 from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja to Gwarinpa, in Abuja Municipal Council Area. Minutes to the destination, Uber sent a message that one could not be reached, blaming it on “your network”. The blamed network led the cab to the destination correctly. Uber next messaged that its earlier fare was outdated. The updated fare was N23,900! How does one deal with this shock? Is Uber luring riders with lower fares and decides what to charge after the journey? The Federal Competition & Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, should look into the matter. Is it possible other taxi hailing services treat their clients the same way?

    WILL Seyi Tinubu be the Governor of Lagos State in 2027? The question properly posed would be, “Does Seyi Tinubu want to be Governor of Lagos State? The first question creates doubts about the young man’s ability to pull it off, while the second question wonders if it is something that would appeal to the First Son. If Seyi “wants” the office, the biggest opposition could be from other members of the rich family who would fancy the position. With the President’s spectacular performance that is obvious for all to see, it should not be a surprise that the Tinubus want to live in the future having abolished the present.

    HAVE we not become so over-federated that it affects our thinking? In the past week, the social media was ablaze with mockery of two Senior Special Assistants for Agriculture that the Chairman of Igbo Etiti Local Government Area, Enugu State, appointed. One was for Yam and Pepper and the other for Garden Egg. The economy of the area is agrarian. What is wrong with the Chairman making those appointments if they would enhance the growth of the area’s economy? Most people think it is just ‘job for the boys’. It could and should be more.

    ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues