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Tag: Pius Mordi

  • NASS’ ‘Naira abuse’ street party – By Pius Mordi

    NASS’ ‘Naira abuse’ street party – By Pius Mordi

    I supported Olanipekun Olukoyede’s war against spraying of the Naira at parties and how it was trampled upon. It is abhorrent, disdainful and insulting to our collective psyche. Rightly, his Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) moved against the practice.

    A number of people were invited for questioning over what he called the ‘Naira abuse’. Some were actually jailed while others opted for plea bargain. Apart from a few persons nabbed at burial ceremonies, a common denominator of the rest questioned is that they are all in the entertainment industry or ‘celebrities’ as they are called.

    From Cubana Chief Priest, AY, E-Money and a  Muhammad Kabir said to be a Kaduna-based content creator on Tik Tok, they all had a chat with the anti-graft agency. Their sin was ‘abuse of the Naira’ more popularly called ‘spraying’.

    The defining moment of EFCC’s crusade will come when Olukoyede decides on what to do with his invitation to High Chief Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, ex-militant and major federal government contractor on securing pipelines in the Niger Delta. On account of a video on social media where Tompolo as the ex-militant is more popularly known was seen ‘sprayed’ while performing religious rites in his domain, the EFCC ‘invited’ him. It is the most daring move in Olukoyede’s campaign against ‘naira abuse’.

    But the abuse of the currency has a different interpretation by Nigerians from what fancies the EFCC. Recently, BudgIT, the civil society organisation, revealed that the National Assembly inserted 11,122 projects worth N6.93 trillion in the 2025 federal budget. That is not strange. What has caught the attention of Nigerians is that a total allocation of N393.29 billion was set aside for the installation of 1,477 streetlights by members of both the green and red chambers.

    That, to Nigerians, is the real abuse of the Naira. It is one huge street party where every federal lawmaker will be ‘sprayed’ N266 million for every street light installed across the country. It is one huge and endless street party. My problem with the Naira abuse party is not in the obscene amount set aside for each street light which, according to knowledgeable people on the project, can be executed with maximum N5 million.

    NASS members are used to such abuse of the Naira. My problem is with EFCC’s definition of ‘naira abuse’. To Olukoyede, the problem with the Naira is its ‘spraying’ by partying folks. The budget padding even when it is done with so much impunity and ignominy is nothing to worry about. It is when ordinary folks spray a few naira notes at social events.

    But I think I understand his dilemma. How can budget padding be proved or prosecuted? Yes, a standard street lamp may cost less than N5 million per unit.

    In the 1920s America, there was a certain Al Capone. Al Capone ruled a crime empire that controlled everything – gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, bribery, narcotics trafficking, robbery, “protection” rackets, and murder. And it seemed that law enforcement could not touch him. The FBI and other anti-crime agencies knew all the crimes associated with Al Capone, but could not get round to secure enough proof to get a conviction.

    He lived large, had friends in the Police and taunted the security agencies with his seeming invisibility. Until the Police decided to think outside the box. Al Capone had a lot of money and spent lavishly. But his tax returns were at odds with his lifestyle.

    When he was initially charged with under payment of tax, he jeered the Police with his famous proclamation that “tax evasion is a national pastime”. This was true then and moreso today. But unlike other tax evasion cases, the law wanted Al Capone to spend time. After his initial plea bargain was rejected by the judge, he got 11 years. And that was the beginning of the end for him.

    The real challenge is in proving that the ones to be installed may not even be worth more than the N266 million signed into law by the President. In this season of climate change, the lawmakers may have invented street lights that could solve the climate change challenge.

    I wonder how Olukoyede and his men sleep soundly with the feeling of accomplishment when ordinary pawns are the only ones that get jailed. Does the N266 million per street light budgeted by senators and members of the House of Representatives not constitute abuse of the Naira. It’s true no physical spraying of the currency is done out there, but what they set aside for themselves is one huge obscene street party. The amount to be ‘sprayed’ whenever a street light is put up is dirty and salacious.

    The fact that President Bola Tinubu expeditiously signed the 2025 budget with that expenditure embedded as part of the law on what should be spent gives the EFCC grand cover. If the Commander-in-Chief is cool with it, why should I be bothered to go after big fishes in the name of fighting naira abuse may have been how Olukoyede rationalised the brazen heist by the National Assembly.

    But if he wants Nigerians to be taken seriously with his campaign against ‘Naira abuse’, let’s see him make good his statement that nobody is above the law as he claimed when he justified his ‘invitation’ to Tompolo for questioning. The high chief is not known to venture out of his kingdom.

    I’m not sure how long the EFCC chief can wait for his ‘summon’ to be honoured. Maybe he will visit Tompolo. That will be quite interesting. Meanwhile, federal lawmakers will have their distinguished spraying party for installing 1,477 street lights!

  • Dickson and Amaechi’s hunger game – By Pius Mordi

    Dickson and Amaechi’s hunger game – By Pius Mordi

    Seriously, I didn’t know Seriake Dickson had it in him. At the 60th birthday anniversary lecture for Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the former Bayelsa State governor and serving senator, used bare-knuckle punches at the promoters of the ‘coalition’ to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.

    “There are a number of you who are expert conspirators, who know how to assemble coalitions and then take over governments — as you did to my party in 2015, particularly targeting a so-called ‘clueless government,’” Dickson said. He was not done. “Now, 11 years down the line, we thought there would be no weaponization of poverty, and that all of Nigeria’s challenges would have been resolved. But here we are, still gathered to bemoan the fate of our country,” he added.

    The audience was a stellar cast of the political elites who were once in government, but now out of favour with the ruling team. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; Nasir el-Rufai, a one-time Minister of the Federal Capital Territory; Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the birthday boy; Muhammadu Sanusi II, a co-Emir of Kano among others. Apart from Sanusi, a former governor of the Central Bank, the rest had one thing in common: all shared a common political platform with Tinubu and together worked to install former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and sustained his eight-year tenure in Aso Rock.

    Until his direct and pungent hit at Amaechi’s birthday lecture in Abuja, Dickson never came across as a leader that could look his colleagues straight in their eyes and call them “professional conspirators” out at their old game. But, amazingly, he did just that. It brings back memories of the late Niger Delta leader who was the scourge of Nigerian politicians. Has a potential successor to Pa Edwin K. Clark emerged? That is too early to call, but it puts him in the frame.

    The clearest picture of Amaechi that comes to mind when thoughts of Niger Delta leadership is the subject is his handling of the process for the take off of the Nigerian Maritime University at Okerenkoko. To the former Rivers governor, the location on an island in Delta State is too far removed from his perception of a worthy place. Appearing before the Senate, Amaechi actually announced that he was killing the project even after over N13 billion had been spent on the site. He told the Senate committee on maritime that the university project was a “misplacement of priority” because there are other transport institutes in the country which could adequately fulfil the purpose of the proposed Okerenkoko university.

    It took the chiding of Amaechi by Ibe Kachikwu, then the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, and South South leaders for the Senate to ignore Amaechi and pass the bill on the university.

    While he was trying to shut down Okerenkoko, Amaechi regaled in telling Nigerians or sections of them how he had to defy leaders of Niger republic to construct a modern railway track from Daura, Buhari’s hometown, to Maradi, the former president’s ancestral home in the francophone country. That was after diverting the rail project to Daura for no apparent economic reasons. And he capped his chicanery by choosing Daura to build his Transport University while deeming Okerenkoko too remote an island for a maritime university.

    For a man who from his younger days lived off the resources of government, from eight years as Speaker, another eight as governor and yet more right years as Minister of Transportation, Amaechi was certainly very hungry after two years out in the cold. His assertion that Nigerians are ‘hungry’ was a brilliant choice of word. It resonates with the people as some may even point to it as proof that indeed people have become poorer under Tinubu. Is Amaechi among the hungry people? I believe so. But his hunger is a different genre. At 60 which he celebrated last week, Amaechi, who has spent about 40 of those years living off public resources after his secondary school cannot understand why he should be out of office for two obviously very long years.

    He can afford anything and everything he desires. But a crucial element that had been a constant in his life was missing. Power. Not necessarily to wield it for the good of the people. He wanted to be president and was prepared to pay any prize to demonstrate to the people he thought will aid him in getting it that he is loyal. He did all he could to show Buhari that he is loyal to him and that includes shutting down a maritime university in his region while promoting a transportation university in the President’s hometown. He preferred to build a railway line deep into the President’s ancestral place of origin in Niger republic while the no metre of rail was rehabilitated or build in his own South South or neighbouring South east.

    With the death of the iconic Niger Delta leader, Pa Clark, there is a vacuum for a credible successor. It may require having a college of successors and there is a cream of possible leaders.

    By his very long years of public service manning critical positions, Amaechi would naturally have been a logical contender. Unfortunately, his occasional sound bites are hollow, lacked conviction and had no philosophical road map in the context of Nigeria’s political realities. Nyesom Wike probably knows that, prompting him to derisively give Amaechi’s complaint of hunger a connotative interpretation. Hunger for power, the FCT minister said, is Amaechi’s problem.

    For Seriake Dickson, his hit at Amaechi’s 60th birthday was uncharacteristically bold and courageous. In dubbing the coalition partners expert conspirators, he was apparently accusing them of weaponising government’s weaponisation of poverty. Noting that it was a strategy they successfully used in 2015 to oust President Goodluck Jonathan, he wondered what has changed. In admonishing them to ‘shine their eyes’, there was a warning there. Despite the pervading poverty, Nigerians may have seen through the entire scheme and it might not be business as usual in the next election cycle.

    There is a certain air of freshness from Dickson. He is by all means one of them, but things cannot remain the same. In the search for a new credible voice for the Niger Delta, he might just be in the reckoning.

  • Is Nigeria not at war? – By Pius Mordi

    Is Nigeria not at war? – By Pius Mordi

    When Pope Leo XIV gave his inaugural sermon during the Mass to formally commence his pontificate, it was so gratifying he re-echoed the message his predecessor, Pope Francis, had always harped on throughout his headship of the Catholic Church.

    Addressing the “powerful people of the world,” he said the bloodletting in conflict zones in the world was unacceptable and called for “lasting peace”, admonishing that there should be “no more war”.

    Thankfully, President Bola Tinubu was among the distinguished audience and powerful people of the world the Pontiff addressed. But the problem is how Pope Leo Leo XIV’s message was received by Tinubu.

    Despite the bloodletting and massive killings going on in virtually all parts of Nigeria, the federal government sees the killings as an act of banditry.

    The perpetrators have been given several names that downgrade the unchecked attacks and massacres. Bandits, unknown gunmen, kidnappers, cattle rustlers and herders-farmers conflict are some of the nomenclatures given to the killings.

    But the casualty figures are more than what is being recorded in actual war zones. This illustrates the ferocity, impunity and massacres going on in Nigeria. When military outposts and barracks are attacked, overrun and soldiers brazenly killed, what is the fate of ordinary civilians? Of course, they are routinely massacred, their lands, homes and farms occupied. How is it different from what is happening in war zones?Yet, the federal government insists on not calling it what it truly is – war!

    What has been going on in Nigeria since the advent of the Boko Haram insurgency is outright war. The Oxford Dictionary says war is the state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country.

    According to the United Nations perception of what constitutes war, it is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organized groups.

    While the UN has a set of rules and conventions that govern wars and failure to observe those rules classified under humanitarian laws lead to charges of crime against humanity even while the conflict is still on, the armed groups fighting federal forces observe no rules. It is what led to charges of crime against humanity against Benjamin Netanyahu and some elements in the Israeli military in the ongoing war against Hamas. It is why the world is outraged by the bestial killing Russia’s Vladimir Putin is carrying out in Ukraine.

    However, contrary to the UN rules of engagement in wars, what is going on in Nigeria has no rules and nobody is held to account. All the elements of war, intense war against a well armed and organized enemy, are there in the Nigerian situation. In fact, more people, mainly defenceless civilians, are killed in Nigeria than in actual war zones. Even the military is almost overwhelmed by the multiple fronts they have to fight and defend simultaneously.

    Our young soldiers and commanders are being regularly killed as their barracks are attacked and sometimes overrun. Its all down to the fact that the military hierarchy deploy their men to the theatres of conflict without their being conditioned as men going to real war.

    The gallant but inadequately equipped soldiers are deployed to confront the insurgents without back ups and reinforcements. When overwhelmed, as has been happening lately with greater frequency, they are hopelessly lost. It is the cost of pretending that the situation in Nigeria is a routine internal conflict.
    It is not and the people have been saying that for years.

    After sustained attacks and loss of some towns and villages, Babagana Zulum, Borno State governor, had to make an SOS appeal to the federal government not to let Marte town fall to terrorist insurgents. The appeal was informed by the advance of the well-oiled insurgents that had been overrunning some communities. Marte town, Zulum explained, was resettled about four years ago, but unfortunately, by the second week of May, it was ransacked and the people displaced again.

    “About 20,000 people left Marte for Dikwa. This huge number is a threat, as allowing them to stay in the camp may make most of the younger ones become vulnerable to recruitment by the insurgents”, the governor warned.

    In December 2020, the Catholic Bishop of Gboko, Bishop William Avenya, testifying at a US congressional hearing, alerted the world to what he said is the “genocide” of Christians in his area. “The mass slaughter of Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, by every standard, meets the criteria for a calculated genocide from the definition of the Genocide Convention,” Bishop William Avenya told the hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan congressional commission, on “Conflict and Killings in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.”

    Five years after Bishop Avenya’s testimony, the situation has exacerbated with the killings spreading to the rest of the southern part of the country hitherto thought to be relatively safe. Civilians across Nigeria continue to face intense violence and near-daily attacks and kidnapping by armed groups. Suspected Boko Haram insurgents have continued to launch attacks in their stronghold regions of Yobe and Borno states and beyond.

    The government has even refused to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organisation, the least classification the group deserved well before now. Former President Muhammadu Buhari rather, preferred to send combat troops after the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and designate the group a terrorist organisation.

    By all definitions and parameters, Nigeria is engaged in an existential war with Boko Haram, ISWAP and other Islamist groups seeking to overthrow the Nigerian state. With religious chants while carrying out their monstrous killings, they wreak havoc on civilians, kidnapping, looting and destroying communities.
    President Tinubu has to discard all pretentions and trying to be politically correct by laying the groundwork for effectively the evil forces seeking to kill the country.

    Until the federal government desists from giving the armed groups fanciful names and acknowledge that Nigeria is dealing with an existential war, the battle for the survival of the country may not not be won.

  • Peter Obi-mania! – By Pius Mordi

    Peter Obi-mania! – By Pius Mordi

    What started as isolated rantings of an attention-seeking wannabe critic and was treated as clownish vituperations has dovetailed into a growing industry in Nigeria’s political space. With just a few months to the presidential election of 2023, nobody paid attention when he resigned from the then established Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to pick the ticket of a relatively unknown Labour Party. To the consternation of all, he came a close third in a poll none of the candidates had a commanding lead among the three main contenders. So impressive was his performance that many of his followers even touted that he won the election.

    That is the Cinderella-like story of Mr. Peter Obi, a man without a structure, godfather or money bag sponsors and dared to run to be president.
    From the comical tracking of what Peter Obi says or not, his reactions to national issues, Reno Omokri carved a niché for himself as the unofficial attack dog for President Bola Tinubu on Peter Obi affairs. It was akin to a portfolio and he diligently treated it as such. Giving his antecedence of vociferous attacks on Tinubu when he was a presidential critic, his attacks on Obi was seen as a way of restitution to walk into the good books of now President Tinubu. And it worked for him. Omokri was personally received by the president in the hallowed chambers of Aso Rock Villa and was reportedly named among ambassador-nominees.

    Just when it was thought Omokri was a lone ranger in his Obi portfolio, others joined the chorus of villifying the former Anambra State governor. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, said Obi lacks the moral authority to criticise President Bola Tinubu’s handling of the Nigerian economy. According to Sanwo-Olu, Obi has nothing but poverty to show for his eight-year tenure as Anambra governor. The plank of his criticism is Obi’s presentation at Johns Hopkins University. Speaking of Nigeria’s dwindling economy, Peter Obi said Nigeria’s worsening poverty has made her the poverty capital of the world from being at a comparative level with China and Vietnam in 1990.

    He argued that strong political leadership focusing on education, healthcare, and poverty alleviation is the critical difference between Nigeria and these nations.

    At the time Obi became governor of Anambra State on 17 March, 2006 and served a second four-year period, Sanwo-Olu was yet to figure in the jig puzzle of the choice of a governor. When Sanwo-Olu was eventually rail-roaded into the Lagos top seat in May 2019, Obi had ceased to be governor five years earlier.

    Chukwuma Charles Soludo, one-time governor of the Central Bank and now governor of Anambra State, would not miss the opportunity to join in bashing Obi, a personal past time. He found it when Tinubu commissioned some projects in the state recently. In his words, the only time a sitting president commissioned a project in the state was when a private brewery was commissioned by then President Goodluck Jonathan, a cheeky and mischievous reference to Obi who was governor then. The only other time, in Soludo’s thinking, is when Tinubu came to commission some projects he executed. He forgot to credit Reno Omokri with the brewery reference.

    Not to be left out is Edo State governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo. He labelled Obi disrespectful for calling out the controversy surrounding his election as governor.

    As Nigerians mourn the passing of elder statesman and Niger Delta leader, Chief, Edwin Clark, Senator President Godswill Akpabio chose what was supposed to be a time for solemn tribute by the Senate to pour tirades on the same Peter Obi. While calling for a moment of silence for the late First Republic information minister, Akpabio taunted Obi with reference to the intractable crisis in Labour Party. “If you cannot even resolve the crisis in that Labour Party, is it the crisis of Boko Haram that you will come and resolve in Nigeria?”, Akpabio jibed. In his thinking, rather than comment on national issues or the debilitating state of the economy, Obi should concentrate on resolving the crisis in his Labour Party.

    With such mindset, it is clear that addressing the poor quality of living of the people is not on the front burners of the leadership. Probably, Akpabio who got so impressed with the austere life of late Pope Francis whose burial he led the federal government delegation to attend that he virtually asked Nigerians to be inspired by the Catholic Pontiff’s life than complain about poverty.
    Of course, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s spokesman, always took delight in regularly dishing out his own version of Peter Obi-mania.

    A common denominator of the diatribes against Obi is the absence of any contradiction of the points he raised and the positions he took. Obi did not attack anyone, rather, he objected to the policies adopted by the government. In the medley of criticisms, no one presented alternative facts or counterfoils to the issues. They all took turns to label him as unpatriotic and demarketing Nigeria, whatever that means.

    In a global village where developments everywhere are available at the touch of a bottom real time, it is idiotic to assume that only when some people question the level of poverty in the country is the world aware that more Nigerians than elsewhere in the world are living in multi-dimensional poverty.

    In the weird world of those feeding from the common patrimony of the people, holding public office is patriotism while calling for the pervading poverty to be addressed is intemperate, ungodly, unpatriotic, demarketing and attempt at destabilising the country.

    Peter Obi is not in government. He is not in power. Yet, he is the potshot of anyone in power or seeks the patronage of those in power. The pre-occupation of those holding the various levers of power seems to be to discredit Peter Obi by all means. Unfortunately, it portends the fact that governance has all but ended and everything is now about ensuring that the status quo remains in 2027, again, by all means.

    If the intention is to make Obi an instrument of distraction from the reality of the nightmare Nigerians are going through, I am not sure the strategy is working or will ever work. Peter Obi has become a voice for the people who are too challenged with the horrors of daily living to even speak. They find in him a leader that says things that resonate with them. He has become the most talked about leader not just by the government, but also the people, albeit from polar perspectives.

    In 2023, Obi needed less than a year to reshape the political landscape. He has had two years since while another two years beckons. If only the federal government apparatchiks can read the people’s lip.

  • The morbid, brazen heist at NNPC – By Pius Mordi

    The morbid, brazen heist at NNPC – By Pius Mordi

    Let’s cut President Bola Tinubu some slack. Yes, he is also the Minister of Petroleum. But he cannot be everywhere or know everything. That is why he has a Chief of Staff and designated somebody a Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.

    As Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila is virtually the alternate president. He determines what the president will handle or read, who he sees and what subject to address.

    For Heineken Lokpobiri, Petroleum Resources is his primary assignment. He only has to report to his principal, the President. Yet, the heist recently unraveled at the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), was so brazenly executed.

    Even before Mele Kyari was appointed by former President Muhammadu Buhari, they knew how the oil industry was in rot and how the recurring issue of turn around maintenance of the long dilapidated refineries had become a drain pipe where NNPC and its collaborators brazenly bled the nation without any fear of repercussions.

    In June 2023, President Bola Tinubu dissolved the boards of many parastatals, including those of NNPC, but Mele Kyari remained as Group Managing Director. Four months later in October, 14 chief executives of agencies of the federal government were sacked. Again, remained Kyari.

    It took the orchestrated campaign against Aliko Dangote and his mega refinery which had come on stream for NNPC to dominate the media space. Its top management sold pathetic tales of how Dangote products were substandard, a story that did not resonate with the people. Again, it took the failure of the campaign against Dangote Refinery and supply of petrol to the market almost seamlessly by the company for what was touted as the real rehabilitation of the long abandoned refineries to begin.

    Then from a loss of N803 billion in 2018, brought further down to N1.7 billion in 2019, NNPC posted an unprecedented and first ever operational surplus, what it called ‘profit’ of N287 billion in 2020. The following year, the ‘profit’ went up to N674.19 billion.

    It was a turnaround that may have impressed Tinubu to approve the TAM of the moribund refineries against the backdrop of the compelling argument by NNPC technocrats that it was unhealthy and dangerous for Dangote Refinery to be the sole producer of refined products in the country.

    In the latest round of round tripping and merry go round in the name of TAM, $3 billion was approved for the streaming of the refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. Kyari and his team knew it would be a tough sell to make Nigerians buy into the tale of successful resuscitation of the refineries and were prepared to fight back.

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo led criticism of the incredulous claim by Kyari that “trucks have began loading petroleum products which include Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol, Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) or diesel and Household Kerosene (HHK) or Kerosene, while other products slates were to be dispatched as well”, he was invited to tour the refineries. Kyari arranged extensive media tours to convince Nigerians that the hoax was real.

    All that changed on April 3, 2025 with the sack of Mele Kyari for the Pandora Box to be opened. The purported rehabilitation of the refineries was a well scripted hoax. No TAM was carried out in any of the refineries as had been the case in previous exercises. It was a daring trick from their old book on frauds.

    Since the refineries were systematically destroyed, NNPC has been a huge crime scene, a stupendous criminal organisation where the management teams took turns to rip the country off.

    It did not matter that Nigerians were having a nightmare dealing with the perennial fuel scarcity for over 20 years that had cost many lives. What mattered was what they made out of the people’s discomfort.

    According to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over N80 billion was stashed in the account of the managing directors of one of the refineries. That was just funds that had been tracked. The property and other investments from the heist are yet to be tracked.

    As horrendous as it is, it is not just about Kyari and his bunch of journeymen. It had been going on over the decades. And not only at NNPC. When Kyari was left on the job at the time 14 CEOs were sacked, it did not add up. There was no logic to that decision.

    Beyond the NNPC itself, a network of high octane manoeuvre characterises decisions in the oil industry.

    Dismissing apparently misleading reports that he had been detained, Kyari dared the security agencies to bring it on. He knew what he was saying. The rot he inherited had been going on well before his time as GMD. What happened under his watch had been going on decades before his time. Nothing happened to the perpetrators at the time and there is no reason his case will be different.

    It will be very exciting to probe and prosecute persons that will be indicted in mindless looting in the name of TAM. It is desirable. But the chain of people that will be implicated will weigh too much on the system for a thorough and transparent investigation to be conducted. Nigerians should be spared the trauma of periodic scandals in the oil behemoth.

    If only late President Umaru Yar’Adua had not cancelled the privatisation of the refineries carried out by his predecessor, Chief Obasanjo. President Tinubu should take the bold decision and privatise the assets this time.

    If the saying that government has no business in business is true, it finds full expression in NNPC. Any arrangement that will wean the refineries from the control of NNPC will bring a new era of stability and competition to the refining industry, the argument, perhaps, used to impress Tinubu into releasing the $3 billion has now gone down the drain.

  • Blimey, opposition governors rooting for Tinubu’s reelection! – By Pius Mordi

    Blimey, opposition governors rooting for Tinubu’s reelection! – By Pius Mordi

    There’s a shift in Nigerian politics of seismic proportion going on. As governance gives way to the politics of another electoral cycle in 2027 with many seeking reelection to their offices, especially those of the president and many governors, a new game is playing out. Governors of states run by opposition parties are taking turns to pledge their commitment to working for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reelection.

    Nothing strange about it. After all, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi as governor of Rivers State and Bukola Saraki, his Kwara State counterpart led a team of five PDP governors to openly declare their opposition to then President Goodluck Jonathan’s bid for reelection in 2015. Four years later, Nyesom Wike led another group of five governors, again all PDP, to defy their party to vote in the candidate of a rival party.

    The difference, and a crucial one at that, is that on both occasions, the renegade governors had already secured their second and final terms. This time, the opposition governors are all angling for reelection, just like Tinubu. Some of them are even quietly exploring the possibility of decamping to Tinubu’s APC. Akwa Ibom’s Pastor Umo Eno was unequivocal about his decision. “As for me, I’m supporting Baba Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term. When the time comes, I’ll tell you why”, he said.

    Osun’s Ademola Adeleke went a step further with his campaign posters openly suggesting an alignment between him and Tinubu. His campaign posters feature both him and Tinubu as a combo to the people.

    Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State clearly equated the success of his administration with that of the president in urging his people to support the president. Plateau’s Caleb Muftwang, Douye Diri of Bayelsa as well as Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano have been taking turns to extol President Tinubu. Even the suspended Rivers governor Siminayi Fubara, in his Easter message, made praising the president the main part of his address to his people.

    It is a development that has upended political calculations on what to expect in 2027. While the governors openly acknowledge the tough economic climate occasioned by the policies of the federal government and do not endorse such policies, yet in their calculations, the path to guaranteeing victory does not like in using the state of the economy in their messaging.

    Critics of Nigeria’s political system ascribe the development to an acknowledgement of the failure of the electoral system and how it has been corrupted and manipulated. In the run up to the 2023 elections, the level of discount with then President Muhammadu Buhari was such that the opposition parties took it for granted that the APC government will be beaten. So confident were they that they failed to form a common front.

    Unfortunately, their confidence was misplaced. Despite receiving less than 30 percent of popular votes, Tinubu somehow emerged victorious. With him now firmly in charge, there is very narrow chance of an upset in the election. The conduct and outcome of the recent governorship election in Edo State is seen as dress rehearsal of how it may pan out in 2027.

    To that extent, the opposition governors may simply be playing a game of survival. It is not like a recourse to the judiciary may give the desired reprieve. The proceedings in the courts over the crisis in Rivers State may have made them recognise that a combination of a damaged Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the courts that has been making very controversial and strange judgements may have created the perception that Tinubu’s infamous recipé on how to win by grabbing it and running with it was not a joke.

    Dele Farotimi, in a recent interview, is of the view that unless there is a fundamental electoral reform, the outcome of the 2027 elections has already been written. If there is no comprehensive reform, he said he will not participate in the election. The reality of conduct of elections in the country has raised concerns on the future of opposition parties in the country’s evolving political culture. And Farotimi’s stance resonates with leaders in the opposition parties even as they continue exploring the path to collaboration and merger to confront the behemoth APC has become.

    Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar accused APC of intolerance and working to monopolise of power. He said the actions of the ruling party were steadily eroding pluralism, an essential element of true democracy. He said through his “unchecked actions”, Tinubu is “blurring the line between state power and personal ambition, magnifying his control over both the nation and its institutions.”

    Dele Momodu, veteran journalist and PDP chieftain, echoed Atiku’s position, accusing the ruling party of deliberately instigating crises within Nigeria’s major opposition parties in an effort to weaken them. “Nigeria is obviously moving in a direction of a one-party state. The ruling party, APC, is so scared of opposition that right now crises are being orchestrated from party to party, especially the leading opposition parties like PDP, Labour Party, and NNPP. It’s obvious what is going on”, he said.

    Similarly, Mark Adebayo, national spokesperson of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), accused Tinubu of engineering the disorganisation and persistent divisions within opposition political parties.
    Although, opposition parties have control over 15 states, a healthy number, leaving the rest 21 to APC, internal squabbles in virtually all of them have left the governors from their fold seeking reelection vulnerable. They are on their own to fashion their own pathways to remaining in office.

    The evolution of Tinubu and APC into a collosal machine is not the product of sterling performance or popularity in the years they have been running the country. In the run up to the gubernatorial election in Edo State, it was almost taken for granted that Godwin Obaseki would successfully engineer the victory of his party and install his favoured successor. They may not have reckoned with the ground work of the party in Aso Rock. They factored everything overwhelmingly. From the electoral umpire, the persons running the errands and the judiciary, it was a thorough job. It was a dress rehearsal for 2027 that delivered.

  • Weaning states from the national grid – By Pius Mordi

    Weaning states from the national grid – By Pius Mordi

    Last week, an ecstatic Sheriff Oborevwori signed into law, a bill he touted as a “game changer”. It was the Delta State Electricity Power Sector Law Bill 2024. Since the Electricity Distribution Companies were created in what was supposed to be a commercialisation and privatisation exercise, it had been a tale of betrayal of whatever may have inspired the programme under former President Goodluck Jonathan. The DISCOs turned out to be colossal failures for which the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) has the dishonour of being the most abysmal performer.

    For a sector that determines the success or lack of it of an economy, the stagnated growth of Nigeria is not tough to discern. President Bola Tinubu seemed to have realised this in his days as governor of Lagos State. He recruited Enron, a private firm, that installed the first plant for generation and distribution of electricity. That venture would have pioneered the ultimate liberalisation of the energy sector and unbundle the disgraceful national grid that has kept Nigeria down and stunted since Independence. While the country was administratively structured as a federation, it was not adopted in the generation and distribution of electricity. While education, health and other critical sectors created a level playing field with every region at liberty to evolve its own strategy, in the first republic, such competitive atmosphere was denied the energy sector.

    While the first television station in Africa came from Nigeria courtesy of the Western Region and many other firsts from the lively competition among the regions, electricity was tied to the dumb elephant that is the exclusive list. As the the federal government steadily presided over the evolution of Nigeria into a dark nation, so has the entire nation been bogged down by officialdom, corruption, absence of a coherent energy policy and indolence. While no state could venture into investing into the energy sector due to constitutional impediments, the country was burdened with successive teams of misfits that had no idea what was needed to drive the growth of the economy and power industrialisation.
    According to Godknows Igali, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Energy in 2015, over N2.74 trillion‎ has been spent on the power sector since 1999. This is not today’s trillion which amounts to just about two billion naira. It was much more. The Nigeria Integrated Power Project (NIPP), one of the several initiatives taken to boost power generation and distribution, received $8.3 billion from excess crude account alone to fund 10 power plants only. Despite the investigations carried out by the National Assembly, it is difficult to ascertain the true state of the plants. If there is any reliable indicator of the success of the initiatives, the real output of power for distribution on the national grid should tell it all.

    The average daily power generation in Nigeria typically hovers around 4,000MW daily, although this figure can fluctuate depending on various factors, including season, weather conditions, and infrastructure issues. While the total installed capacity in Nigeria exceeds this amount, the actual power dispatched to the grid is often lower, leading to power shortages. Even though, Nigeria’s total installed generation capacity is said to be significantly higher, potentially exceeding 12,500MW, the power dispatched to the grid is often significantly lower and hovers around 4,000 megawatts.

    With a land mass of 923,768 km², it is just implausible that a policy could be formulated to have a common grid for a country of such size. It was designed to fail and will continue to fail. The amendment effected on the 1999 constitution that transferred energy to the concurrent list represents the platform for addressing Nigeria’s energy challenge. Unfortunately, the federal government and the interest groups promoting a corresponding federal agenda to boost electricity distribution is still receiving attention. The move has denied the energising needed from the federal government to make investments by the private sector and states more attractive.

    To Oborevwori, he has a template to fall back on. A few years ago, Ifeanyi Okowa as Delta State governor, got on stream a programme that weaned all government institutions in the state from the epileptic national grid. The Asaba Independent Power Project, a gas-powered plant that generates 8.5 megawatts of electricity, is the product of a collaboration with a private company. It supplies power to the Government House and the ultra modern secretariat. It is a blueprint to leverage on.
    As Oborevwori pointed out while signing the electricity bill into law, the new law actively encourages PPP arrangements for financing and managing infrastructure projects, including power generation.

    The state offers tax breaks, subsidies, and guarantees to attract private investment in power generation and renewable energy projects.
    Delta State is developing clear and transparent regulatory frameworks to build investor confidence in the power sector. So should other states. That is the way to go, not waiting for Abuja.

    Postscript
    Umahi, the nightmare is back in Asaba

    At the peak of the rainy season in 2024, when the main artery to the Niger bridge had completely collapsed, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori sought to alleviate the nightmare road users were having, officials of David Umahi’s Ministry of Works intervened to stop the Commissioner for Works, Charles Aniagwu, from proceeding with the assignment his boss gave him.

    According to the Works Ministry officials, contract had already been awarded in Abuja for the rehabilitation of the road that links Anambra State through the old Niger bridge.
    In truth, the contractor moved to site and the deep gullies and muddy water caused heavy gridlock at the Ezenei area and laid boulder stones, hardcore, and a stone base on the failed portions of the road. The actual reconstruction that ought to have commenced at the end of the rains never got off the ground. The contractor is said moved out of the site.

    A new rainy season has caught up with the failed sections and the nightmare has returned. This is calling on Minister David Umahi to save road users that traverse the critical highway to the east.

  • Uromi killings and sectarian scourge in Nigeria – By Pius Mordi

    Uromi killings and sectarian scourge in Nigeria – By Pius Mordi

    As despicable as the killing of some people described as hunters was, followers of developments in the area would not be entirely surprised. It was gory to apprehend some young men and unilaterally decide to not just kill them but get their bodies burnt. That the fairly large crowd of community people that witnessed the gruesome incident went through it without the inclination to intervene and stop the killing is strange. The people of Utomi are made of better stuff. They are egalitarian and accommodating.

    Uromi has given Nigeria many prominent national and global citizens, including Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okojie, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Chief Tony Aneni, Chief Tom Ikimi and Chief Mike Ogiadomhe among many others. The people are very enlightened with their sons having contributed tremendously to the making of a united Nigeria. So could people from such an educated and friendly community be associated with such a dastardly act?

    The story is told of how some prisoners of war in Nazi Germany’s World War II camps and Jews in concentration camps engaged in isolated cases of cannibalism. These were people that had been subjected to prolonged extreme deprivation, hunger and disease. They had not lost their decency and humanity. It was an instinctive reaction to an extreme situation.

    For many years, the people of Uromi and other towns and communities in Esanland, indeed many areas in Edo and Delta states have been crying for help from security agencies to save them from unchecked violent attacks from the armed groups that had taken over their forests and farmlands. Help never came from the federal government-controlled security agencies while the kidnap, killings, rape of their women and destruction of their farms continued by men generally known to be militant and well-armed cattle herders, especially assault rifles.

    The attacks are not isolated to Uromi or Edo State. Virtually every part of Southern part of Nigeria and the Middle Belt have been under siege from renegade armed herders. But the disturbing part is the response and reaction to the sectarian killings that have become a recurring feature of national life in the south. What we have seen is selective outrage of the northern elites over such incidents.

    For many years since former President Muhammadu Buhari superintended the rigging of the security system whereby there is never any response from the Police or the military to pleas for help by communities under siege, despite their bottling up the serial violent attacks, there were expectations that things may change with a new administration.

    What has been remarkable is the collective rage of the northern elites to the dastardly killings in Uromi. It is out of sync with their reaction to the numerous killings in the north. In his book “Here comes the Commander in Chief: Four Years of Journalistic Activism”, Gabriel Akinadewo, a veteran journalist, chronicled the reaction of northern leaders to the killing of youth corps members in Suleja, Niger State in the April 2011 presidential election after candidate Buhari made his infamous inflammatory threat that baboons and dogs will be soaked in blood if he lost.

    He duly lost to Goodluck Jonathan and as promised, blood flowed, but not that of baboons and dogs. It was the blood of eight young men on compulsory national service under the NYSC scheme. In Suleja and Bauchi State, over 15 corps members, six of them in Bauchi alone were brutally murdered.

    As governor of the state, Isa Yuguda’s reaction was to attribute the mob killings to the act of God. Akinadewo quoted Yuguda as saying: “They (corps members) were destined to experience what they experienced. Nobody can run away from destiny…It is part of their destiny.”

    When Deborah Samuel was gruesomely murdered in her school by Islamic fanatics of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, on alleged “religious blasphemy”, Bashir Ahmad, a former aide to Buhari on Digital and New Media, tweeted: “I can’t pretend or keep silent. I support the death penalty for BLASPHEMY. That’s my belief”. Even Atiku Abubakar had to delete his post where Deborah’s murder was condemned, claiming that he did not authorise the post. That came after religious leaders threatened that they will not vote for him as presidential candidate of the PDP in the coming election. Can Yuguda, Bashir or anybody dismiss the Uromi killing as an act of God? The killing was gruesome and avoidable.

    We cannot dismiss the fact that as abhorrent as it is, it could not have happened if the SOS messages of Uromi people in the face of the serial rape of their wives and daughters, kidnap for ransom, killing of their farmers and destruction of their farms had been addressed. Bashir Ahmad promptly demanded not just the prosecution of the perpetrators of the crime but compensation for the families of the victims.

    He, like others, ignored the path through which we got to this point. Nigeria’s rigged law enforcement system has led to the perception that some Nigerians are more Nigerian than others. Having found that they are entirely on their own, communities are resorting to self help.

    The inevitable resort to self help was a direct reaction of the failure of the security apparatuses exclusively controlled by the federal government to respond to their plea for help. Virtually every town and community has had to set up their own vigilance groups. However, with no formal training on security operations and poorly armed, there were no reprieve for their besieged communities that no longer knew peace. That explains why it took a mob action right in the centre of Uromi for the “hunters” to be intercepted.

    Unfortunately, many politicians, especially those in the south oppose the creation of state Police for myopic reasons. They only allege that serving governors will abuse and use it persecute political opponents. That is not just narrow selfishness but idiotic. With a strong judiciary and court system, nobody can misuse the powers of the judiciary and get away with it. Besides, what is of major concern is precisely what the federal government has been doing – infringing on people’s rights.

    The federal Police is incapable of securing the entire country with its command and control structure. With the present police structure demonstrating deepening ineffectiveness against the backdrop of growing violent crime, the resort to self help by besieged communities will make matters worse. Uromi is just the first of the new trend that may escalate into an uncontrollable sectarian violence if policing is not localised with the approval of state Police.

    As other states, Delta had banned open cattle grazing – the springboard for the accompanying criminal acts. But with the Police failing to implement the law, it is mere window dressing while the crimes exacerbate. The decision by Senator Monday Okpebholo, Edo State governor, to promptly pay a condolence visit to his Kano State counterpart is commendable. It will be tragic if the visit is seen as an act of weakness. Otherwise, Uromi may just be the beginning.

    Postscript

    June 12 and Senate revisionists

    Watching Senator Solomon Olamilekan representing Ogun West in the Senate espouse his view that Professor Humphrey Nwosu whose handling of the aborted bid by former military President Ibrahim Babangida to hand over to an elected government is undeserving national honour, you would think he has found the solution to Nigeria’s problem.

    He was passionate in calling the now late election umpire a coward and practically blamed him for the death of his brother. Although he did not tell how his brother died, Olamilekan said Nwosu ought to have sacrificed his life for June 12 by announcing the results of the election.

    To him, only Chief Moshood Abiola and “those that laid the life on the line for June 12” should be honoured. Invariably, those that sacrificed for June 12 and now heroes are those that ran away from Nigeria to other countries in exile. And they are the ones now running our fourth republic democracy as heroes of June 12.

    Olamilekan said his view was across party and ethnic lines. But Nwosu was never a politician before and after June 12 neither is he a kinsman of the Ogun West senator. Defying an orchestrated and dubious court order to abort the election and eventually announcing its outcome was not good enough because, to Olamilekan, Nwosu did not die in the process.

    Only those that went on exile and returned to harvest the spoils of war are the heroes. And, of course, Babangida himself confessed he had to step aside for fear of being killed by Sani Abacha.

    The returnees after the battle had been won were on cue to celebrate IBB at his book presentation as, just like themselves, their genuine June 12 hero. It is a comedy of the absurd that earn obscene salaries and allowances as law makers while Nigerians scavenge.

  • Rivers: The day after – By Pius Mordi

    Rivers: The day after – By Pius Mordi

    In 1983, the ABC, an American broadcast company, envisioned exploring the effects of nuclear war on the United States. The product was a television movie called The Day After. The film postulates a fictional war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact over Germany that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the then Soviet Union. Its gory and graphic nature was such that the bellicose and combative Ronald Reagan, then president of the United States, was inclined to tone down the nuclear arms race he drove against the Soviet Union, in favour of engaging them to curb nuclear arms proliferation.

    While ABC’s The Day After triggered a sobering approach to international ideological politics, the day after in Nigeria came with how the National Assembly handled the declaration of emergency rule in Rivers State ordered by President Bola Tinubu.

    The framers of the 1999 constitution knew such declaration is not a cavalier exercise. It needed to meet the basic threshold to be determined by the representatives of the people.

    On the Godswill Akpabio-led National Assembly fell the responsibility of ensuring the responsibility for meeting the conditions for declaration were met. After all, Nigeria had walked that path before.

    Olusegun Obasanjo, despite his academic denial, wanted a third term as president against the provision of the constitution. It required two thirds of the senators for the bid to succeed. Ken Nnamani, Senate President at the time, knew there was no short cut to that constitutional requirement and made every member to “answer his father’s name” as he put it then.

    At the end of the day, every senator answered his father’s name and the bill to amend the constitution to extend Obasanjo’s tenure was roundly defeated
    Just like during the failed third term bid, there was a lot of divergent views over the emergency declaration.

    But unlike Nnamani who not only required every federal lawmaker to pointedly declare his stance and effectively calm the polity, Akpabio showed his disdain for his oath of office. To him, his loyalty is not to the people and the constitution, but to President Bola Tinubu who facilitated his emergence as a senator and ultimately as Senate President. If Akpabio thought he had played a smart game to outwit his colleagues who may have voted against endorsing Tinubu’s declaration on Rivers State, he has taken Nigeria almost to the abyss of Government-people relations. But the implications are far wider and hurtful.

    Before now, the confidence the people had in government at different levels was at lowest ebb. Akpabio’s message was that government could do whatever pleases it irrespective of what the people desired and what the constitution says.

    And there lies the danger in the entire saga. Thomas Jefferson, the third American president, who was credited with drafting the declaration of independence warned about the dire consequences of the people losing faith in the government. “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, but when the government fears the people there is liberty”, Jefferson had warned. Nigerians are now more afraid of the government and not the other way round.

    This was aptly demonstrated in the choice of words of Aso Rock minders in dismissing criticisms of the emergency declaration. That is the tragedy of the message of the day after.

    In opting to adopt voice vote in conducting the session when the constitution required two-thirds of all the senators to vote in favour of the declaration, Akpabio demonstrated that he is prepared to rig the system to please the executive branch.

    I am not sure that the former Akwa Ibom state governor appreciates the fact that the branch of government he heads is a co-equal and should check the utilisation of presidential powers to prevent its abuse.

    The role of Akpabio and his his Senate played over the Rivers crisis has sealed the perception of the current government as having fully captured the state. The main issue here is not the decision Akpabio railroaded the senate into taking. It is the way and manner it was done. If the senators had been given the opportunity to ventilate their views and the constitutional threshold was eventually met in approving Tinubu’s declaration, there would not have any raised eyebrows. Unabashedly and with barefaced impunity, the processed was rigged to shut out opposing voices.

    Before now, the judiciary had lost all pretence of independence under the present leadership of that arm of government. The series of judiciary pronouncements from the judiciary in political suits involving Nyesom Wike, the major protagonist in the Rivers crisis, had already been perceived as evidence of a collaborative strategy between Aso Rock and the man that arranged the decisive Rivers votes for Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election to employ all tactics to protect a new godfather.

    The expectation that a measure of stability and respect for the rule of law will be pushed by the National Assembly is not only forlorn but has deepened the lack of trust in government by the people. Beyond the musings in the social media, discussions on all serious platforms point to absolute lack of faith in the machinery of the three arms of government. That is the reality of the day after for Nigeria.

  • The price we pay for insecurity – By Pius Mordi

    The price we pay for insecurity – By Pius Mordi

    A trending video featuring Senator Adams Oshiomhole lamenting the havoc wreaked on the economy by illegal solid mineral miners and the response by the federal government to the sabotage elicited resignation from Nigerians in apparent acknowledgement that nothing will change is another demonstration of lack faith in the government to remedy the situation. But the bigger picture of the scenario was lost on many.

    According to Oshiomhole, while the federal government unleashes its full arsenal on combating oil bunkering, a euphemism for oil theft, illegal miners get a pat on the back as their operatives are merely labelled unknown gunmen as the barons utilise even the machinery of government to carry out their nefarious activities. The former labour leader said the double standards deployed by Abuja has exposed the country to the ineffectiveness and shoddiness orchestrated by double standards.

    Elsewhere, the director general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dayo Mobereola, lamented that despite the huge investments to curb attack by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, the imposition of war risk insurance premium on cargoes bound for the Nigerian ports has continued. In 2021, $195 million was spent to acquire boats, vehicles, aircraft and maritime domain awareness platforms to spearhead the country’s fight against piracy in the Gulf.

    But according to TRT World, a Turkey- based agency that focuses on issues in West Asia, South Asia, Europe, and Africa, $500 million is spent annually to keep piracy at bay in the Gulf of Guinea. It estimates that financial sums lost through ransoms are a small share of the total costs suffered by African nations in the Gulf of Guinea which it labelled the “world’s maritime piracy hotspot.” In the past five years, NIMASA spearheaded a concerted attack on piracy in the Gulf in collaboration with the Nigerian Navy. The effort won global acknowledgement by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). But despite their efforts, ship owners have retained their war risk insurance premium on Nigeria.

    In 2023, the International Bargaining Forum (IBF) delisted Nigeria from the countries designated as risky maritime nations following significant progress in anti-piracy war on Nigerian waters and the Gulf of Guinea and the declaration of the country as piracy-free by the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). So why has the international shipping community sustained its war risk insurance premium on Nigeria-bound cargoes? This is where Mobereola missed the big picture. Between 2020 and 2023, an estimated $620 million was paid on the surcharge on premium on Nigeria-bound vessels. Contrary to the stand by the maritime authorities in Nigeria, that the premiums which significantly elevate freight costs for imports and exports, are being artificially sustained by insurers, who are well aware of the improved security situation, there are other factors interconnected with piracy and security rating.

    Back to Sen. Oshiomhole’s allegation of double standards in the way the federal government battles illegal mining in the northern part of the country. Unlike oil theft in the Niger Delta where the actual loses are fairly accurately determined due to the international connection, illegal mining of precious minerals in the north is devoid of monitoring by the federal government and independent agencies.

    The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior made a rare inroad into the little known and little monitored sector where yet to be determined resources are stolen and exported by an exclusive class of the wealthy. “The ongoing illegal mining across the country is being carried out by retired generals, and we know them. They use helicopters to cart away gold, making billions of dollars, while the country suffers”, Oshiomhole calling on President Bola Tinubu to address the alleged illegal mining activities by the retired military generals.

    The illegal mining is believed to be the oxygen for the intense deadly attacks on communities in the north. The attacks have taken the form of sectarian killings, including kidnap. Whole communities have had to abandon their homes and farms to become internally displaced persons elsewhere, exactly what the perpetrators of the crime wanted. The killings are some times given a religious colouration as with the case of the recent killing of Rev. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu in Kaduna. But the impact on Nigeria was lost on the authorities in the country. For the American embassy, it was nothing to be glossed over. “The U.S. Mission is distressed by the brutal and senseless killing of Rev. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu in Kaduna State, Nigeria. We strongly condemn this horrific act of violence. We extend our deepest condolences to the family, congregation, and community of Father,” the embassy stated in a post on X, formerly Twitter, and called on the federal government to bring the perpetrators to book. Of course, nothing will happen, nobody will be apprehended until another fresh high profile murder occurs.

    The prevalence of such unresolved killings are part of the factors taken into consideration by the international business community in the security rating of countries beyond piracy or lack of it. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime revealed that a total of $800 million was paid to pirates in 2017 alone as ransom in exchange for seamen abducted from seized vessels. These are costs the ship owners ultimately recover from Nigeria, one way or the other.

    Unfortunately, the response from the authorities seem like mere distractions routinely described as something not peculiar to Nigeria. The pain inflicted on the country and the cost on the people is yet to be evaluated by the government. While the woes from piracy, oil theft and maritime may be huge, that of illegal mining may even be more than what obtains in shipping.
    Oshiomhole’s allegations did not come out of the blue. As chairman of the Senate committee on Interior, veteran labour leader and national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he certainly has access to privileged information. Unfortunately, what he said at the presentation of the Ministry of Solid Minerals is being treated as a political gimmick by the people he alleged are the main perpetrators.

    If the government had dispassionately undertaken an examination on the price Nigerians pay as part of living, a state of emergency would have been declared on insecurity before now. As the current security system continues to prove inadequate in building a safe society, we continue to double down on the system, preferring to sink more money into the dead horse. Security or lack of it have profound effect on the economy, especially on the cost and standard of living.

    Every new day, it becomes clear that the federal government which has the monopoly of managing all the security agencies is grossly incapable of doing so. After former president Muhammadu Buhari failed repeatedly to disperse his murderous kins throughout the country under Ruga and several other dubious initiatives, they found a way of doing so to make the forests and farms unsafe. The already manifesting food insecurity is one challenge Nigeria can deal with except the security architecture is rejigged.