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Tag: Pius Mordi

  • “I’m loyal, sir” – By Pius Mordi

    “I’m loyal, sir” – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    These are unusual times for Nigerians. Having been reduced to the nadir of multi-dimensional poverty, the government now holds the key to healthy living. It no longer matters if there is paid employment or a thriving business. Its either you are an elected official in the legislative arm or angle for an appointment by the executive arm. Having a business, even a flourishing at the time, is no longer good enough. Businesses are dead anyway. It is a matter of getting a plumber job which only qualification to security it is to be in the good books of the head of the executive branch or pledge loyalty and allegiance to number one man, his road map or whatever he stands for.

    As an appointee, the true oath of office is undiluted loyalty to the head of the government. The official oath of office where allegiance is pledged to the state is just academic. Job security is guaranteed by the extent to which the appointee demonstrates loyalty and protects the interests of the boss. Inventiveness is tolerated only to the extent that it is deployed to advance the cause the boss is known to be pursuing.

    It does not matter if you are in the legislative branch, the judiciary or any of the security agencies, your activities and actions must align with the interests of the boss.

    Walter Onoghen as Chief Justice of the Federation when Muhammadu Buhari as president underestimated the limitless application of the president’s executive powers. Being the co-equal to another arm of government, he thought the rule of law and the constitution would prevail. We know how it ended. But Godswill Akpabio knew the practical rules that apply. The path to his emergence as President of the Senate and head of the National Assembly was paved by Aso Rock, not by the democratic consensus of his colleagues at the red chamber. Akpabio did not need to be prodded to acknowledge where the power in his emergence flowed from. When he had to appear in a public event with President Bola Tinubu, he could not miss the opportunity to let him see that his loyalty to the president was unalloyed. He had Tinubu’s customised design on his cap made for him and he duly wore it.

    Ali Ndume failed to read the script. As Senate Chief Whip, he had the effrontery to accuse the President of having been caged within the walls of Aso Rock Villa. The retribution was swift and decisive. The senator sobered up afterwards and apologised before he was rehabilitated.

    The recent #EndBadGovernance protest in August provided the platform for all the appointees to prove their inventiveness in loyalty. For the federal Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, it was easy for him to use the courts to procure whatever injunction he desired. All the heads of security agencies took turns to show how ready they were to deploy their agencies to bully the protesters. Even the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, warned the protest planners that the military will not watch the country “drift towards anarchy under the guise of protest”.

    Kayode Egbetokun waited until calm had returned to the polity before unfurling his own show of loyalty. The people arrested during the protests have been arraigned for not violent conduct and destruction of property as happened in some areas, but treason and mutiny! He even sought to roped the Nigeria Labour Congress into the scheme with an audacious summon of their president before he was forced to change tack after organised labour mobilised to fight back.

    It is a play book developed by political hangers-on and those usually deployed to fight for politicians. When the election has been won, the boys with nothing else forthcoming take turns to hang around the now power wielding politicians to verbally pledge their loyalty in return for whatever crumbs will be thrown at them. Expressions such as “We are loyal”, “The boys are loyal”, “No shaking, we are here” are routinely used while they wait for what cash or patronage will be thrown at them.

    Aso Rock may not have scripted Egbetokun’s resort to charging arraigned protesters with treason and mutiny. He had to impress and demonstrate his loyalty to the establishment. It guarantees the safety of his job, moreso now that his service period has been extended by additional three years beyond when he ought to have retired. He is expected to serve a stern warning to all who may be harbouring thoughts of organising fresh protests over the perversive hunger in the country. Make no mistake about, more of such show of loyalty will be coming not just from the Police.

    It is no longer “Loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it” as Mark Twain admonished. To get a job and keep it, it’s about “I’m loyal, sir”.

    Postscript

    NNPCL’s voodoo economics

    Give to Mele Kyari. The group managing director of Nigeria’s state oil behemoth must be a super wizard. Two weeks ago, he gleefully announced to the country that NNPCL under his watch recorded a net profit of N3.297 trillion from its “audited financial statement” at the close of December 2023.

    In the course of making the financial claim, petrol scarcity had already set in with Kyari assuring that the nightmare would soon be over. September has just set in and Kyari and his people have changed the story. Now, NNPCL is owing marketers up to $6 billion. According to Reuters, the debt is such that continuous supply of refined products can no longer be guaranteed.

    Although NNPCL is yet to yet give details on how it debt accumulated, it is a situation it can no longer defend or justify. How does an oil company transit from N3.297 trillion profit at the end of December 2023 to declare a debt of $6 billion almost overnight.

    So what changed? How did Kyari and his crew contrive to accomplish this? For an “audited” financial report, no economics class can explain this phenomenon. It is truly an unusual phenomenon. If its not voodoo economics, it could be voodoo accounting. Mele Kyari qualifies to grant a paid lecture at Harvard on how he managed such transition.

  • Deepening thick skin on kidnap epidemic – By Pius Mordi

    Deepening thick skin on kidnap epidemic – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    If there was an organisation keeping track of the ballooning count on kidnap in Nigeria, perhaps it would have dawned on the federal government that it has gone beyond the epidemic level. From targeting individuals, abducting families, groups, students and even whole villages have become a past time. Nobody, not government or security agencies, is alarmed any longer.

    When the first reported mass kidnap of Chibok girls made global news, the shocked world apparently thought it was a one off or a happenstance. For the political class, the Chibok saga was an instrument for political chess game. The then opposition, saw it as a tool to undermine the Goodluck Jonathan administration with the hapless then President complaining that even the security agencies were sabotaging his administration efforts to arrest the crisis in Borno and rescue the Chibok girls.

    From the Borno theatre, virtually the entire northern part of the country is now plagued by not routine kidnap but mass abduction and forced march of entire villages to locations that remain mysteriously unknown to security agents. Kidnappers no longer bother to disguise their activities. In the case involving the abduction of the Emir of Gobir in Sokoto State, Isah Bawa, they were so audacious and emboldened that after killing the monarch three weeks after abducting him and having their demand for ransom that was reportedly in hundreds of millions of naira not paid promptly, they asked for N60 million before the emir’s body could be released to the family.

    If the fear was that the Police is out-manned and out-maneuvered by kidnappers, the outcome of the recent abduction of 20 medical students of the Universities of Jos and Maiduguri rekindles hope that given the right motivation and tools, the Police can get the job done. Kayode Egbetokun, the Inspector General of Police, boasted that his men secured the release of the students without the payment of any ransome. What changed over the case of the medical students? Was it a question of the huge embarrassment that medical students were involved unlike the Chibok girls from a rural secondary school? Were special tools provided the security agencies for the operation to search and rescue the students? Whatever is the motivation and how the rescue was executed, it demonstrates that Nigerians may not be as vulnerable as has been made out by the numerous successful cases of mass abduction.

    Over the past 10 years, farmers and economy watchers had warned that with the deepening insecurity, especially the regular deadly attacks and displacement of farmers, it would not be long before insecurity would precipitate a general food scarcity and inflation that will be difficult to contain. The predicted date is here with us.

    What is suspect is the option chosen by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to curb the inevitable food inflation. His choice of opening the borders to grain imports may seen plausible on the short term. But if not backed up with a strategic plan to enable displaced farmers return to their farms with their safety assured, what is projected to be a temporary measure may continue to live with us.

    The obvious indication that the federal government is not considering a long term strategy is in its failure to acknowledge the debilitating effect of the displacement of farming communities on food security or lack of it. If Egbetokun could reveal what he did differently in the case of the 20 medical students, it could be the template for resolving many unresolved kidnaps. Families that had to endure the nightmare of not getting reprieve from the security agencies and having to eventually pay ransome for the release of their loved ones tell harrowing stories of helplessness when they sought the intervention of the Police.

    It is an open secret that apart from the monthly salaries of officers men of the Police, state commands depend entirely on state governments for the acquisition of basic working tools.

    The state commands are not known to have modern technology-powered tools to combat crime. The major argument against adopting state Police is the well worn perception that governors may misuse the state officers against opposition figures. Despite the atrocious nature of politics in the country, Nigeria’s security challenge is not the hide and seek game among politicians. The country is facing an existential challenge more than those posed by other factors.

    The frequency and enormity of the kidnap challenge is such that government tragically sees it as normal occurrences. Government officials are no longer shocked by even mass abductions. Whatever dubious use governors may deploy state Police operators, the judiciary still has a way of restoring sanity and stability in the polity. Not unchecked kidnap. Not even Police orderlies can save politicians who surround themselves with dozens of them. As the saying goes, crime is local and curbing it effectively will depend on the deployment of local personnel and strategies.

  • NNPC Limited’s new nomenclature for subsidy – By Pius Mordi

    NNPC Limited’s new nomenclature for subsidy – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    When Muhammadu Buhari became president in 2015 he told Nigerians that subsidy for which Goodluck Jonathan was vilified when he sought a marginal increase in petrol pump price had been removed and effected a significant price increase, it did not take long before it emerged that subsidy was still being paid. No, its not subsidy. Its under-recovery, we were told.

    In his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, President Tinubu gleefully announced that subsidy is now a thing of the past. The announcement was followed an astronomical increase in pump price of petrol and the downward spiral in the economy rolled in ever since. As in Buhari’s time, it did not take long before it emerged that subsidy was still being paid. After a prolonged period of loud silence, NNPCL finally opened up but gave us another name for subsidy.

    “It is not subsidy, it is importation shortfall”, Chief Financial Officer of NNPC Limited, Alhaji Umar Ajiya, almost swore in insisting that nobody or organisation was paid any subsidy in 2024. So from ‘under recovery’, we now have ‘importation shortfall’ as the newest nomenclature from the oil behemoth. Illogically, it came as the opaque state oil company which recently added ‘Limited’ to its name announced a net profit of N3.297 trillion at the end of the 2023 financial year in December. Great news? Not quite.

    Jiya simultaneously announced that Tinubu has approved a request by NNPC Limited to utilise the 2023 final dividends due to the federation to pay for petrol subsidy. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will be remitted into the federation account as a result of meeting the ‘importation shortfall’. Given the report that a forecast by NNPC Limited showed that the cumulative petrol subsidy bill from August 2023 will hit N6.884 trillion by December 2024, the zero remittance to the federation account will continue well beyond December. Even the earlier approved payment of 2024 interim dividends to the federation has been cancelled by Tinubu “to help boost NNPC’s cash flow.”

    In the absence of transparency in the management of the oil and gas industry, the apparently cosmetic change in NNPC’s status will not change anything. In trying to justify the cancellation of payment of the so-called dividend to the federation account, Jiya refrained from disclosing the most fundamental figure for determining the subsidy.

    “No marketer has received any money from us by way of subsidy. What has been happening is that we have been importing PMS, which has been landing at a *certain cost price* (emphasis mine) and government tells us to sell it at half price”, Jiya stated. “Certain cost price”, quantity shipped in, insurance and the final landing cost are the factors NNPCL will never reveal.

    At the point of adding ‘L’ to NNPC, it ceased to be a government parastatal but a limited liability company registered with Corporate Affairs Commission that is supposed to operate fully without government subvention, and expected to generate profit, and plough it into the federation account. If NNPC had ceased to be a parastatal but a company that accounts to its owners, the unilateral approval given by President Tinubu to pay N3.297 trillion as subsidy without consulting the other co-owners, the 36 states, and without proper certification of how the figure was arrived at is controversial and a presidential overreach.

    “The oil and gas situation in Nigeria has been shambolic. There is a complex interplay of interests in the sector. This government has been paying subsidy.  The  refineries that are not working have made the situation convoluted. The landing cost of petrol today is over N1,000 per litre while the pump price is less than N1,000 because of subsidy. This is a loss position already to NNPCL”, Mr. Emmanuel Odiaka, a downstream operator, says.

    “The government is not helping matters with the comatose refineries that have become a cesspit of corruption, spending billions on turn-around  maintenance every year without achieving any result. The refineries have to be operational, Dangote Refinery has to fully come on stream, and there should be considerations for modular refineries  with the right market dynamics before we can heave a sigh of relief. Otherwise,  NNPCL will continue  to be in dire straight, and the fuel supply crisis will continue to bite harder”, Odiaka added, insisting that the nightmare is just beginning.

    What has been unravelled is that the much vaunted claim that Tinubu has removed petrol subsidy is a charade, the product of utter planlessness from the point the proclamation was made on inauguration day. It has become a rudderless and horrendously expensive adventure that has plunged the national economy into a cliffhanger.

    As Chiedozie Ugbechie, an engineer, pointed out, “if such decisions were taken under President Jonathan, they would have put pressure for his impeachment. Recall how the governors loyal to Tinubu and the then ACN took Jonathan’s government to court for daring saving some money under the excess crude account. Tinubu does not have power to take such a decision he just did. It’s quite an overreach and an impeachable offence. But the National Assembly has lost its independence and does not realise that it is co-equal arm of government with the quality of its leadership it has”.

    In the absence of true transparency in the management of the oil industry, it is doubtful there will be any silver lining even when the announced decision to sell crude oil to Dangote Refineries as well as the modular refineries in Naira begins in October. If NNPCL continues importing refined products and declare whatever it likes to federal government with express acquiescence of Aso Rock, it can only get worse. With perennial failed promises to rehabilitate its four refineries, NNPCL has effectively become a trading company specialising only in the importation of petrol on its own terms as a sole importer. And its regaling in it.

  • A rot underrated – By Pius Mordi

    A rot underrated – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    Ensconced within the luxury confines of the Villa, awash with trillions of naira the kind never seen before, Aso Rock and the National Assembly have taken large doses of drugs to make them immune from the nightmare ordinary people are going through to keep going. Routine acknowledgement of the tough challenges facing the national economy turned out to mere platitudes.

    To both arms of government, it was the duty of the people to stoically put up with the haunting hunger elicited by the decisions the government had taken. They were inevitable, the president said, if the country will turn the corner. The sacrifice will be made only by the people, but governance must go on as usual.

    Luxury is a natural quest. It is usually the reward for entrepreneurship and investments into money yielding ventures. Successful business owners display their success by splurging their lifestyle with luxury living. Nobody begrudges them because they worked for it. Luxury is associated with successful business people. It elicits a level of jealousy from government who responds by imposing additional taxes on them.

    However, those associated with luxury now are not those with in any productive venture. They do not own or manage any factory or productive enterprise. They made no investments that may create wealth but one that creates dubious wealth for them. They are politicians that got elected into public office or got appointed to work for the elected people. With the snap of a finger or the red pen of a President or Governor, they suddenly start living in luxury, obscene luxury.

    Plato condemned the confusion of values that reside in a taste for material privilege. To love luxury, he said, is to love power, possession, and appearances. All things that the wise spurn. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s view, luxury corrupts morals. According to him, there are  physiological effects, with men becoming soft and effeminate, hiding their bodies – deformed through excessive languishing – beneath vile ornaments. Luxury favours pride: everyone wants to stand out by possessing frivolous objects. When that level of luxury is inordinately exhibited by public office holders who make no contribution to wealth creation, it riles the people. In civilised climes, overnight luxury by public officers is frowned upon, often investigated and punished.

    Not in Nigeria. Here, getting into public office grants access to public treasury which affords such persons to acquire inordinate luxury and flaunt it. For an economy on a cliffhanger, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did what he thought was the cure all: remove petrol subsidy and float the naira. As the ill-timed measures spiralled into a catastrophic inflation, he embarked on the disastrous acquisition of luxury projects for himself and his acolytes. Members of the National Assembly duly obliged with every item of luxury he sought. They had their own wish list that could not raise eye brows in a compromised Villa.

    The first set of projects saw the approval of N21 billion to rebuild the Vice President’s official residence. Then he spent N1.9 billion for the purchase of SUVs for his wife’s office and her retinue of staff, despite the constitutionmaking no provision for such office. On the other hand, the National Assembly got N71 billion for each member to acquire their own SUV. The scandalous level of acquisition of luxury by both arms are well documented on the public domain. Does the expenditure match Tinubu’s stance that Nigerians should brace up and bear the nightmare further? Only Tinubu and his inner circle do not know this: They have lost touch with the society. And having surrounded himself with his usual crowd from his days as Lagos Governor, all he has access to is the alternative scenario they chose to paint for him.

    This much he demonstrated in his address in the course of the #Endbadgovernance strife. Rather than address the issues raised by the protesters, Tinubu spent more than half of address talking about what he has done in the past 14 months. It was like a lap of honour for him and he seemed at a loss that people are complaining when he should be applauded for, by his perception, having achieved much. I think Tinubu just confirmed Senator Ali Ndume’s stance that he has been caged inside Aso Rock and has no idea what Nigerians are going through.

    His aides led by Bayo Onanuga still see the protests as politically motivated. He even accused Peter Obi of Labour Party of instigating the protests. Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, even had made fun of the protesters as people wasti their time while he and his fellow makers are chopping.

    What the administration is exhibiting is the inevitable outcome where the quest for luxury by holders of public office outweighs the task of working for the people. The display of conspicuous consumption is now seen on its most crude form by the people and they have had enough.

    Temporary reprieve may come with the six-month suspension of duties on imported food items to force prices down. In an administration with still three years to go, the measure is too pedestrian and ineffectual. Tinubu is still detached from reality. He adopts any measure to win him broader support, no matter how weird. That is why he chose to create a Ministry of Livestock just to curry favour at a time commonsense dictates that he should at least cut down the cost of governance. His promise to cultivate 10 million hectares of land for farming is a mirage in the prevailing atmosphere of gross insecurity. He has to connect with the people, not mere platitudes as are the vibes from him.

  • The fear of Malta – By Pius Mordi

    The fear of Malta – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    In the heat of the allegation by Aliko Dangote that international oil companies and NNPCL were denying his refinery access to Nigerian crude oil to buy, some commentators wondered why Dangote did not do his homework and secure guaranteed regular supply of crude oil from NNPCL and the IOCs before investing almost $20 billion into building what is reputed as the biggest refinery in the world.

    Its an unusual assumption to make for a peoject the Nigerian government had repeatedly touted as the final solution to the spectre of importation of refined products that orchestrated the bleeding of the economy through a nebulous oil subsidy regime.

    Apart from banking on it, the federal government had also invested public funds into the project. Initially put at 20 percent of the stakeholding, Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had claimed on May 22, 2023 when then President Muhammadu Buhari initially commissioned the refinery before its completion that the Dangote Group had paid back 70 percent of the loans it took to construct an oil refinery. But earlier this July, Dangote himself announced that NNPCL’s shareholding has been whittled down over failure to pay the balance of the value of its stake in June. “Now, they only own a 7.2% stake in the refinery,” he declared.

    On July 29, 2024, Dangote Refinery’s nightmare was summarily resolved. President Tinubu unilaterally ordered NNPCL to sell crude oil and in naira to the refinery. In addition to committing to supply four of the 15 cargoes of crude oil required yearly at a cost of $13.5 billion, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved that the 450,000 barrels allocated for domestic consumption be offered in Naira to Nigerian refineries, using the Dangote refinery as a pivot.

    The reprieve for Dangote came after a curious but intriguing layers of false claims were put up by oil industry chiefs from NNPCL to undermine and justify their refusal sell crude oil to the refinery. After the claim that Dangote’s products were inferior to imported ones fell like a pack of cards with the revelation that the refinery’s laboratory had certified that its own products have superior quality to the ones NNPCL imports, a false narrative was invented. According to the story promoted by the state oil company, due to operational and technical problems, the refinery was reselling crude oil from the United States and Nigeria.

    Stating that it is not authorised for it to resell crude acquired in Nigeria, Anthony Chiejine, Dangote Industries Limited spokesman, urged the public to disregard what he termed as false narratives intended to discredit the refinery. Not one to shy away from this sort war being waged against his conglomerate,

    Aliko Dangote himself fought back. He pointedly accused those running Nigeria’s oil industry of mischief for personal interests. He alleged some personnel of NNPCL, oil traders and terminals have opened a blending plant in Malta, affirming that the areas of the blending plants are known. Pointedly, he said “some of the terminals, some of the NNPC people and some traders have opened a blending plant somewhere off Malta,” he said. We all know these areas. We know what they are doing.”

    More than the support Nigerians gave to Dangote in the face of the illogical attempts by NNPCL bigwigs to cripple the refinery, his allegation ruffled feathers. Although no names were mentioned, top state operatives queued to exonerate themselves. Mele Kyari, group managing director of NNPCL, went a step further to dare Dangote to name the culprits. The billionaire didn’t have to go that far for the impact was instantaneous.

    Even Oando plc which Dangote never mentioned got involved. In a tweet amplified by Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu’s spokesman amplified, he said Oando, “Nigeria’s leading indigenous oil firm” debunked rumours that its directors are the owners of an oil blending plant in Malta.

    Oil business is denominated in dollars with the chain so complex that Nigeria could have earned incomes across various frontiers. The National Shipping Policy enunciated by Ibrahim Babangida’s administration had stipulated that Nigerian-owned ships should be involved in the affreigtment of crude oil export.

    The policy stipulated that they should be allowed to lift at least 50 percent of crude oil export. Indigenous shipping companies had noted that more than $600 million is spent annually for the transportation of crude oil across the oceans. Enabling them to be part of it could potentially plough $300 million of that back into the economy. And given that oil is lifted under Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) terms, more income could have earned by Nigeria if local insurance companies were involved in the provision of marine insurance cover.

    NNPC rebuffed every move to involve Nigerian companies in the lucrative, but oily business. Tinubu’s intervention is timely and appropriate. The only issue is why it took this long for him to call to NNPCL top guns to order. But having started, he should go the whole hug.

    Officials in the behemoth’s reputation for their infamous inclination to shield their operations from critical prying eyes of the public, including lawmakers is legendary.

    They definitely misfired in their latest venture to cripple an organisation Nigerians had pinned their hope for getting refined products at a cheaper rate.

    The cartel is powerful, very powerful. They are richer than Nigeria and the government and can go all the way to maintain the status quo. President Tinubu should sustain the tempo of his intervention and complete the job. He should get rid of the present crop of managers of the subsidiaries of NNPCL as well as the behemoth itself and open up the company to public scrutiny. Will he, can he?

  • The renewed assault on federalism – By Pius Mordi

    The renewed assault on federalism – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi 

    The general euphoria of endorsements of the Supreme Court’s judgment that granted ‘autonomy’ to local government areas is a disturbing illustration of the fact that Nigerians, especially this federal government have no idea what the country is up against. Only Chief James Ibori and Mr. Donald Duke evaluated the vast implications of the judgment in the suit initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Attorney-General. Both were contemporaneous former governors of Delta and Cross River states at the onset of the Fourth Republic under a constitution nobody had privy knowledge of nor were the people given the privilege to make any input to its structure and content.

    Crucially, that constitution became operative under the watch of a former military general, a product of the command and control mentality of the Army. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the president that ushered the 1999 constitution, became one of the most powerful presidents in the world with almost limitless powers. The executive powers conferred on him were such that he determined who became the leader of the Legislative arm, the Senate President, as well as the Speaker of the House of the Representatives.  Obasanjo had the distinction of enthroning and dethroning four Senate Presidents during his eight-year presidency. His capacity to toss the lawmakers around was such his acolytes called him the chief law maker of the federation

    For state governors who constitutionally were designated chief executives of another tier of government that together relinquished parts of their powers to the centre to form a federation were like toys to him. That is how the 1999 constitution deems state governors as demonstrated in the claim that “We the people…” decided to form a country.

    Obasanjo saw state governors as toys for him to play with as he wished. They would not dared look in the eye or talk back at him. Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State and late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa faced the wrath of an all-powerful President Obasanjo.

    Obasanjo  circumvented constitutional provisions to get a governor he wanted out impeached. Fayose is still living to tell his story

    Only a few dared him. Ibori and, remarkably, Tinubu as governor of Lagos State. Even if they got away with it, they suffered some bruises. Ibori wanted Obasanjo to implement the derivation principle that the constitution set aside at least 13 percent for mineral producing states. Obasanjo baulked for many months until the then Delta State Governor used the judiciary to force Obasanjo’s arm. And Ibori entered his black book. For Tinubu, daring to create additional local government areas he christened Local Council Development Areas and trying to wean his Lagos out of the epileptic and anti-development ‘national grid’ as the Governor of a state under an opposition party was something Obasanjo could not brook. The Enron project was successfully killed by Obasanjo’s federal authorities. Even though the Supreme Court Tinubu ran to for reprieve did not deem the creation of LCDAs illegal, the learned justices stopped short of declaring Obasanjo’s unilateral seizure of Lagos Government’s statutory allocations from the Federation Accounts illegal. And the illegal seizure continued until Obasanjo bowed out in 2007.

    That is why it is confounding that Tinubu who had hitherto espoused the principle of true federalism seems to be launching a renewed attack on the even the low level federalism in the country. The window to this effort is the general perception that state governors tamper with allocations to local government areas. Under Tinubu’s watch, a strident campaign is in full gear for states to be stripped of the power to organise local government elections. The argument is that state electoral commissions cannot be relied on to hold credible elections. The proof is in the outcomes of council elections in virtually all the states. Perhaps.

    But that is not akin to Mungo Park discovering River Nigeria for Europeans. Whether in states controlled by APC or PDP, the outcomes have been predictable. Right from Tinubu’s time in Lagos, PDP or any party never won even a councillor’s seat in any of the Council elections under AC or ACN. It is the same story in all the states.

    What we have since the advent of the Fourth Republic is an overbearing, clay-footed and lumbering federal government saddled with over 60 exclusives items on the Legislative List has been the major problem with developing the country. Another Rock’s powers are so enormous that the occupiers of that seat of humongous powers cannot wield them. And when challenged with the wrong deeds, they resort to mischief and arm twisting the opposition.

    Proceeding with the proposal with the proposal for Aso Rock to take over the organisation of council elections from states through the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a recipe for disaster and regression. INEC is not the gold standard for organising credible elections. The video of Tinubu promising to hand over Edo State to APC when they paid him a visit to Aso Rock shortly after he became president is ominous. If he really wants, he can do it. The question is the day after.

    In his reaction to the Spreme Court judgment on autonomy for local government areas, Chief James Ibori noted that the ruling  “appears to contradict the explicit provisions of Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution”. According to him, “Section 6 provides additional clarity to the effect that each State shall maintain a special account to be called ‘State Joint Local Government Account’ into which shall be paid all allocations to the Local Government Councils of the State from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State.” While condemning the fiddling of the joint account by governors, the ruling shifts the balance of power to Abuja in a federal arrangement and makes states very subservient to the federal government. “By allowing federal intervention in local government finances, it arguably centralizes more power at the federal level, contrary to the principles of federalism” he warned. This decision could erode state autonomy and nulify the delicate balancing act where States are supposed to have significant control over their internal affairs, including the administration of local governments, in a federal system.

    Ibori concluded that the ruling has launched an assault on true federalism. I do not agree. You cannot attack what does not exist. It is plainly an attempt to further remove the little powers stayes enjoy to centralise the country. What Nigeria has had since 1999 was a structure that relied on the benevolence of a presidential emperor. Obasanjo showed the dangers in such arrangement. We may not have the benevolence the federation had under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

    Under the present federal arrangement, states actually need autonomy and constitutional freedom from Aso Rock.

    Postscript

    Sexing up inflation figures

    For a long time, manufacturers and other watchers of the economy had doubted the authenticity of the monthly inflation figures dished out by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS). After grudgingly accepting the figures against the backdrop of the monumental increase in the cost of living and collapse of purchasing power of the naira, it seems the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture (NACCIMA) has had enough.

    Reacting to the figures for June released last week by the NBS, President of the  NACCIMA, Kelvin Oye, reportedly rejected the figure.

    The NBS had released its Consumer Price Index, CPI, for June 2024 reporting that headline inflation rate increased by 0.24 percentage points to 34.19 per cent in June from 33.95 percent in May. Without giving details, Oye simply declared that the June   “inflation is over 90 percent.”

    The controversy surrounding the official inflation rates issued by the NBS has been long running. From the time the economy began its downward spiral under former President Muhammadu Buhari, financial analysts had wondered how NBS figures remained within the threshold of a minimally acceptable range at a time the naira had lost its competitiveness.

    Even after President Tinubu’s inaugural speech pronouncement removing oil subsidy killed every shield available for survival for the working class, NBS’ inflation rate seemed incongruous with market trends.

    Mr. Semiu Adeyemi Adeniran, Director General of NBS, has his work cut out on talking NACCIMA into buying his report on inflation. Not just NACCIMA, but financial analysts and manufacturers. Are the rates NBS figures sexed up?

  • Reinventing the Customs – By Pius Mordi

    Reinventing the Customs – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    Last week, Mr. Adewale Adeniyi, Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), marked his first year in office. That he is the first career officer from the Service to be appointed Comptroller General in eight years was not lost on the rank and file. For the two terms of Muhammadu Buhari as President, Hameed Ali, a retired Army colonel, was his preferred choice to head the revenue generating agency. In appointing Ali who trained as an infantry officer, Buhari said his choice would modernise and professionalise the service.

    It was a strange move given Ali had no training on trade facilitation or had an any association with the economy while in Service. But it was not unknown. Before him, S. O. G. Ango, a serving Brigadier General at the time,  was appointed Sole Administrator of the Customs by late Sani Abacha after he took over the government in November 1993. Ango remained until 1999 even though he was initially projected to stay for only one year.

    Perhaps no other organisation illustrates the emasculation and politicisation from government as the Nigeria Customs and its a development that become self inflicted hurt on the national economy . At the time of its establishment in 1891, the Customs was saddled with the responsibilities of revenue collection at the seaports and checking smuggling at the borders. Although a revenue collection agency, it is still a paramilitary organisation with its having to undergo professional training not just on the dynamics of revenue collection but on weapon handling and coastal navigation.

    With the evolution of the Customs into a cash cows, its been subjected to bridled politicisation and emasculation by successive military regimes.

    In 1988, the Federal Military Government under Ibrahim Babagida established the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA). In no time, the new agency secured approval to deploy its operatives to the ports ostensibly to ensure that toxic materials are not shipped into the country. This was followed four years in 1993 when Decree 15 was promulgated. The Decree set up the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) as a professional agency to fight the proliferation of fake and substandard drugs. Like FEPA that came before it, NAFDAC routinely got approval to also have its men operate at the ports.

    As if that was not enough, on came the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in December 1999 via Decree 48 with the assignment of exterminating illicit drug trafficking and consumption. Again, its officials are also authorised to be at the ports and, like the organisations before it, be part of the process of clearing goods.

    Apart from the military created agencies, there are the statutory ones already in the ports, including the Police, Port Health Service and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

    Remarkably, the Customs has always had units with trained personnel that undertook the supervision and processing of goods associated with drugs, prohibited goods and illicit drugs.

    At the end, Nigerian ports became notorious as the most inefficient and expensive seaports in the west and central African subregion. It was a situation that cost the country dearly. Despite efforts and recommendations to prune the number agencies involved in the clearing process to make the ports more competitive and efficient with its peers in the west Africa, the agencies which had also been joined by the Department of State Services (DSS) successfully resisted all efforts to reform the process. Such convoluted had the clearing process in Nigerian ports become that many importers resorted to diverting their consignments to neighbouring West African ports, especially the next door port of Cotonou in Benin Republic whose government evolved processes and policies that made their ports attractive to foreign ships and shippers.

    Precious time was lost in reversing the situation to the coming of Hameed Ali, Comptroller General who appointed serving military officers as members of his inner circle, ignoring career senior officers. When President Bola Tinubu announced the appointment of Adewale Adeniyi as the Customs boss in June 2023, there was relief among maritime operators that finally, reforms will be effected to ease the burden on the shipping community.

    Addressing a press conference to mark his first year in office, Adeniyi seem not to have disappointed.

    He reported a remarkable 74 percent growth in revenue collection over the past year, recording a total revenue collection of N4.49 trillion between June 2023 and May 2024, compared to the N2.58 trillion collected during the corresponding period of the previous year.

    According to him, the achievement was underpinned by a sustained increase of 70.13 percent in average monthly revenue collection compared to the previous year. The Customs recorded an average monthly revenue collection of N343 billion, compared to the N202 billion monthly average.

    “Notably, there was a substantial 122.35 percent rise in revenue collection during the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year”,   he said.

    The gains, Mr. Adeniyi noted, were attributable to the N15 billion recovery by the Revenue Review Performance Recovery exercise; N2.79 billion recovered from the 90-day window for the regularisation of the documents of uncustomed vehicles as well as N1.5 billion recovered from the decongestion of 1,705 overtime containers and 981 vehicles from the port.

    A good part of the rise in revenue is accounted for by the fall out of the floating of the naira by the federal government. However, shippers have acknowledged the improvement in the turn around time for clearing of goods. It is down to Adeniyi’s adoption of the oft recommended introduction of measures to minimise the role of human element in the clearing  process. Computerisation of the cargo delivery process has had the twin effects of reducing the duration of the process and a corresponding reduction in cost.

    But there is a limit Adeniyi’s reforms can go. Without the other agencies keying into it and if they continue the tortuous manual procedure, the improving efficiency in the Customs will sooner a later be rolled back. In this Fourth Republic, Nigeria has been run by presidents with military background for 16 of its 25 years. The presidents – Olusegun Obasanjo and Buhari – remained loyal to the system bequeathed by the previous military regimes. It will require a monumental political will from President Tinubu to take the bold decision to deepen the reforms and expel the agencies with dubious roles from the seaports.

     

    Postscript

    Tinubu’s new jets

    It was one-time Minister of Aviation, Nsikak Essien, that labelled commercial planes flying on local route as flying coffins in ’90s following a spate of deadly crashes.

    Now, we are told that the six jets on the presidential fleet are no longer fit to fly the president. It has elicited condemnation from many.

    Bayo Onanuga, one of President Tinubu’s media handlers, berated Peter Obi for calling for the cancellation of the approval already given by the National Assembly for the two new planes to be acquired for Aso Rock. Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, stopped shot of using the expression of his late kinsman in giving express approval for the arrangement. That will bring the presidential fleet to eight jets apart from the existing helicopters.

    They were said to have been acquired in 2007 under then President Obasanjo, making them about 17 years old or thereabout.

    So what happens to the “old” jets? It’s probably comforting to the masses to take solace in the fact that despite their travails, the President travels in optimum comfort, safety and luxury while he labours to fix the country.

  • Where is Yahaya Bello? – By Pius Mordi

    Where is Yahaya Bello? – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    The political class has a perfect knowledge of the mentality of Nigerians they have been ruling. They engage in reckless handling of state resources safe in the constitutionally guaranteed immunity for them while in office. Even though they become private citizens when out of office and open to prosecution, they bank on the short memory of the people, a situation reinforced by another election cycle that usually spring another set of rulers into office to continue another cycle of looting and scandals.

    One public affairs commentator that did not fall for the collective amnesia over Yahaya Bello, the enfant terrible of Nigeria politics and poster boy of why the Not Too Young To Run Act is a huge joke is Fred Chukwuelobe. A journalist, he had a front row encounter and observation of the misuse of power as a media assistant to Dr. Chris Ngige who entered the annals of politics as the first governor to be kidnapped and almost forced out of office by a non-state actor who got him into office as governor of Anambra State. With the dubious machination of Aso Rock, the godfather used a compliant federa Police to arrest Ngige despite having constitutional immunity. In a recent post on his verified Facebook page, Chukwuelobe called out the security agencies and the judiciary for letting Bello, a private citizen, avoid a competent summon to account for allegations of financial impropriety against him.

    He queried: “What has happened to his case with the EFCC? You mean nothing happened to Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo of Kogi who used his executive privilege to protect Bello from arrest?

    “Didn’t I tell you people that anything that happens in this country, no matter how scandalous, lasts for a maximum of two weeks. I call it ‘our two-week outrage.’ Within this period, motivational speakers will appear on television. Arm chair critics will take over social media platforms.

    “Curses will be rained on everybody by anybody. After that, nothing happens until something else happens. Nothing is outrageous anymore in this country”.

    Ododo is the guy Bello anointed to succeed him as Kogo State governor and in part appreciation, Ododo told his people that if he makes a pronouncement and Bello says something to the contrary, his should be ignored and without conferring with him. Bello’s stance should stand. The same Ododo it was that forced his convoy into the compound Bello had been marooned and smuggled in out to ‘safety’.

    That action was an impeachable offence and in sane climes, Ododo ought to have been impeached afterwards. Apart from from the half-hearted condemnation of the federal Attorney General, the whole apparatus of government – Aso Rock, the Senate as well as the House of Representatives – kept mum. It was all part of the game. For the Inspector General of Police, his only reaction was to order the withdrawal of Bello’s team of security agents attached to him. And Nigerians were told the Police was looking for him!

    How this misfit of a young man come into the political space and end up being a governor is one of the manifest symptoms of the failure of the presidential system, a flawed electoral system and a compromised judiciary that has jettisoned its independence to become an appendage of the Executive Branch. Bello was just a peripheral factor in the process of picking the governorship candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. But fate played a crucial game when the politician that actually won the election passed on before the result of the Kogi State gubernatorial vote was released. The expectation was that the running mate would pick up the mandate. Not so, the court ruled.

    There are charges of misappropriation of public funds to the tune of N84 billion against the former Kogi governor by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). As Chukwuelobe noted in his post, a choral group of jesters has been at full voice claiming that Bello is not being unfairly treated by security agents and the EFCC.

    For a citizenry reeling in multidimensional poverty barely managing to avoid outright starvation, that this Bello who unilaterally and wilfully raided Kogi’s treasury cleaned it out and converted some to pay advance school fees of $720,000 for his young children in their expensive private school is still walking free to the full knowledge of the security agencies and, by extension, Aso Rock is provocative. The legal labyrinth is already in full gear with mundane arguments on if Bello should present himself for arraignment still in a back and forth motion at the lower courts. The Appeal Court and Supreme Court still await.

    It is a familiar game. Sooner or later, something more engaging or a catastrophic event will happen to divert the attention of the critical public and Bello will ultimately continue his third with his boy he got into office. Chukwuelobe called it “our two-week outrage.”

    But how can an administration steeped in the building of luxury and acquisition of luxury tools muster the political will to take on a loyal party who delivered his state to the party? However, with the pervasive hunger in the land, it is an issue sticking out like a sore thumb. Nigerians, not just Kogi people, are watching. The gathering dry fire wood like a tinderbox is further being kept alive by the highly flammable liquid that the Yahaya Bello saga has become. It will take only one strike of a match stick for the looming inferno to be ignited.

    Postscript

    Oborevwori’s road map

    There is a similarity between how Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori emerged governor of Delta State and the travails of Dr. Chris Ngige who rode the tiger and charted a fresh developmental course for Anambra State. Rather than bow to the wishes of a powerful godfather who wanted the state’s treasury handed over to him, Ngige chose to align with the people. Although he was eventually forced out of office, the new deal he gave his people within the short time he spent in office had permanently rewritten the script on governance in the state. His successors had a template to fall back on without the overbearing opposition of any godfather.

    Oborevwori’s path to Government House, Asaba was riddled with thorns. In sum, he had to contend with 38 litigations from the point of nomination as his party’s flag bearer to the final judgment of the Supreme Court affirming his victory. It is a process that gave him a fast track insight into the dynamics of politics and toughened him on the challenges of governance – loyalty should go to the people and doing the right thing for them.

    Wednesday, June 18 is his birthday. In his short time as governor of Delta State, Oborevwori has caught up in one year what some peers may not learn even after two terms of eight years in office. He is on the right track and Deltans are the better for it.

    Happy birthday, Your Excellency.

  • Democratising ‘Emilokan’ – By Pius Mordi

    Democratising ‘Emilokan’ – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    They called themselves ‘The Reformers’. By their reckoning, they represent a radical thinking in the search for a political and federal arrangement that will suit Nigeria. On Monday, June 10, the 35 federal lawmakers across party lines and regions unveiled their vision for a new political structure for Nigeria.

    Ikenga Ugochinyere, the group’s lead speaker, painted the picture of an unprecedented coalition of lawmakers across parties and regions to unfurl an initiative that will “lead to a reduction in the cost of governance”, “unite the country and ensure a seamless transition and unprecedented development for the country”. These are high sounding expectations. But their road map to achieving the goals mainly revolve around reforming access to power by the political class. From Aso Rock to the 36 Government Houses in the states and reform of the electoral process as well as the status of local government areas, the Reformers reeled out a rash of bills they say will be tabled for review of the constitution.

    However, their enthusiasm was not matched by their knowledge of the fundamental challenges facing the country and the primary expectations of the people. Their major recipe is a recommendation that occupiers of executive offices should be restricted to just term that will be elongated to six years. By their thinking, governance suffers when a president and governors have to go through the throes of reelection. The problem is that it us built on the esoteric assumption that every president and governor ones voted into office is competent, capable and will play by the rules.

    As wide ranging as the bills they propose are, the package has a fundamental flaw. It is not bold and majors in ephemeral issues that do not address the issues that have been stultifying Nigeria’s development. Recommending the zoning of the presidency among the six zones is a product of the wrong assumption that equitable access to power is the major challenge to development in the nation. Apparently, the group aligned itself with the position of former vice president, late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, who came up with the idea of six regions and rotation of the presidency between the north and south. When Ekwueme sold the idea, it seemed plausible at the time. But after 25 years of the Fourth Republic during which the principles of equity, fairness and rule of law were willfully trampled upon and a reign of multi-dimensional poverty and mutual suspicion took root, the path to nationhood no longer lies with merely democratising the “Emilokan” mantra. Each region will be embroiled in jostling for whose turn it will be to have its man in Aso Rock.

    The concentration of enormous powers in Abuja under the 1999 constitution has proved to be the major impediment to progress and development. With up 66 items on the Legislative List reserved for Aso Rock, advancement both in the political and economic spheres has been stunted given the absence of innovation and healthy competition. Abuja has too many powers than it can handle, a fact that has been demonstrated by the near anarchic state of insecurity. Economic planning is done centrally from Aso Rock in a country with over 853 kilometres of coastline and land mass just short of one million square kilometres. Nowhere is the dysfunctional arrangement manifest than in security, energy and education. At a time excellence and the deployment of specially gifted children are being encouraged to do the extraordinary for society’s development, a Minister of Education is seeking to enforce a minimum age of 18 years before students can be admitted into tertiary institutions because they are “still children and vulnerable.” In another breath, a federal lawmaker wants young girls married off before attaining 18 years to be allowed to vote contrary the 18 years stipulated in the constitution because “as mothers, they have become matured.” Aso Rock and the powers domiciled therein have become the albatross to inventiveness. And at a recent debate in the Senate over how to check the rising spate of attacks on farmers by cattle herders, a female Senator in bid to defend the herders against accusations of having no respect for lives argued that the herders value their cattle even more than their own lives!

    Ugochinyere and his group of Reformers have their self imposed task cut out. Even though the bills being proposed will ultimately be subjected to public hearing where the various stakeholders will make their input, their package of reforms is not far-reaching and exciting enough. Abuja has to be unbundled and stripped of the enormous powers vested on it that have turned out to heavy chains on the wheels of development. The pathway is for powers in education, security, energy, seaports among others to be devolved to states.

    Postscript

    Of June 12 and repression of the press

    Against the backdrop of the recent alarm raised by the Nigerian Guild of Editors on the stifling of press freedom by security agencies using some flawed sections of the Cybersecurity Act, the Tinubu administration is celebrating Democracy Day today. Over the past few years, many countries have either enacted or updated current “cybercrime” laws.

    However, the authoritarian character of the Nigeria leadership is one that favours arbitrary interpretation of Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act by the government. Almost every article critical of the government or its top functionaries online is interpreted as cyberstalking irrespective of the accuracy of the stories. The coercive apparatus of the state is used to censor online media with security forces engagibg in illegal arrest, abduction or intimidation of online media practitioners. The relative autonomy enjoyed by online journalists in terms of what they publish on the internet, in contrast to traditional journalists, is seriously threatened by the authoritarian appearance and exercise of political power in what should be a liberal or free Nigerian state. The repression of online press freedom is worrisome when the important role of the internet in Nigeria as a major tool of political mobilisation is considered. The internet was crucial in influencing the outcome of the 2015 presidential election in favour of an opposition political party for the first time in the country’s democratic history.

    Section 24 of the Cybercrime Act 2015, which was signed into law by former president Jonathan on 15 May 2015, addresses offensive and annoying statements on the internet. It talks about cyberstalking and prescribes punishment, including fines and fine imprisonment for convicted persons.

    Some stories published through traditional media outlets (print and electronic) that were never sanctioned by the government have been attacked by the same government upon being rebroadcast or republished through online platforms.

    Most of these arrests never led to criminal charges in court and the few prosecuted were dropped by the government due to the weaknesses of their claims. While cyberstalking is aimed at controlling false news online, the law has been used to repress reporters and online media outlets

    When the Cyber Security Act was enacted, it was believed to be a legal framework for combating cybercrimes but the police and other arms of security have turned it to a legal instrument for persecuting journalists.

    Warning of the consequences of the increasing clampdown on the press, the Nigerian Guild of Editors has condemned the increasing sequence of abduction and arrest of journalists in the country by security agents, under the guise of enforcing the Cyber Security Act.

    In a statement issued by the Guild’s President, Mr Eze Anaba, and its General Secretary, Iyobosa Uwugiaren, at the end of its Standing Committee meeting in Port Harcourt, the Guild warned  warned such actions are illegal. With the nightmarish state of the economy that plunged the people into multidimensional poverty while the ruling class revels in and flaunts its conspicuous consumption, the online media in better placed to report the incongruity between government’s claims on the impact of its economic policies and the actual living conditions of the people. The NUJ and NGE must be more vigilant in protecting Nigerians henceforth.

  • Charting the future from the past – By Pius Mordi

    Charting the future from the past – By Pius Mordi

    By Pius Mordi

    Nobody has really explained to Nigerians why ‘Arise oh compatriots’ was jettisoned as the national anthem in favour of ‘Nigeria we hail thee’. Not President Tinubu himself or the National Assembly which railroaded the passage of the Bill effecting the change in what by the standard of the federal lawmakers can be classified as the speed of light.

    To be honest, I have never really been enamoured by the words of the now dropped anthem. I always felt it did project the virtues of nation building on justice, freedom and equity. But it was the last of the issues that matter to the people at this material time. With unmitigated hunger, real hunger that is quietly impacting on the health of children and the less privileged, the return of the old script serves no purpose in addressing the challenges facing Nigerians.

    Perhaps it is a harbinger of a probable revisit of the structure of the First Republic which is the product of a negotiated structure. It is a real federal arrangement that spurred the development of the various regions in a competitive but healthy manner.

    Since the coming of Muhammadu Buhari, there has been a growing agitation for a return to the structure of the past. There is seeming unanimity that the coming of the military in 1966 was the most devastating and retrogressive measure to the growth of the country, only second to the civil war. The dissolution of the federal system as the country’s founding fathers had negotiated it set the stage for the continous balkanisation of Nigeria in the name of state creation into unviable sub-national entities. Theoretically, the states adopted the former regions’ status as the federating units. But in reality, they are units of a lumbering, ineffectual and overbearing unitary state. The worst of the incongruous arrangement was the introduction of local government councils as the third tier of government. Their creation was initially touted as designed to bring governance closer to the people. Perhaps. But the military politicised the creation. It became an instrument for executing a regional agenda of domination, unfair distribution of resources and a platform for federal overreach. The unnegotiated 1999 constitution that ushered the Fourth Republic put a legal seal to the daring act of dismantling the basis for a federal system. After creating additional states under which the old Kano State was split into two, the military gave the new Kano 44 local government areas while the new Jigawa State had 27. Meanwhile, Lagos which had 20 at the time of old Kano and despite losing its status as the federal capital remained the melting pot of demographic expansion was left with the 20 councils. This is just an illustration of the injustice, inequity and inequality that characterised the exercise under military rule. In a show of impunity and to make it almost impossible to redress the wrong, all the local government areas were named in the constitution. In effect, it would require the tortuous process of amending the constitution for new councils to be created.

    The sudden and unorthodox manner the national anthem was jettisoned has got some stakeholders thinking that maybe Tinubu is seeking to chart a new course for the country by returning to the past. If that is the case, there are lots of fundamental issues to revisit and adopt from the First Republic. The 66 powers reserved for Abuja on the Legislative List have given the federal government too much functions and powers than it can handle. From security, economy to agriculture and transportation, the federal government has become an embarrassing story of a rudderless and directionless adventurer.

    The adoption of ‘Nigeria we hail thee’ can only be meaningful if the components of the system that made it alluring enough for many Nigerians to welcome its return are also adopted. The running of government reminds one of the childhood rhyme Humpty Dumpty. With over 500 Ministries, Departments and Agencies despite the Oronsanya report that strenuously sought a radical rationalisation of the Agencies, Humpty dumpty has already had a great fall. Only a return the First Republic arrangement is the King’s horses and men that can make Humpty Dumpty walk again.

    Postscript

    Minimum wage: This is just the beginning

    Predictably, the industrial action by organised labour over the bid for an enhanced minimum wage did not last. There is no way it could have what with the prevailing hardship in the country. Apart from individual private entrepreneurs, most public officers also rely on small business ventures to get by. It is the daily little returns that enable families to avoid hunger. That was what the collapse of the naira and abysmal purchasing power of the local currency has driven the people into.

    Whatever the tripartite negotiations eventually settle, it is only the beginning of a protracted process in the search for an income that will take workers home at the end of every month. It should be clear to Tinubu and his economic team that their perception that governance is a game of tax collection is anachronistic. No matter what they eventually settle for, the average worker is no longer in a position to pay any additional tax. Already too much than they can bear are already being paid through the scrapping of fuel subsidy and the nearly 300 percent increase in electricity tariff.

    The path to refloating the economy does not lie in inventing more taxes on the over burdened worker.