SUNDAY 23TH JULY 2023

NUPRC Approves 19 Managers for Host Communities’ Funds Begins deployment of technology for optimal performance Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has made public a list of 19 fund managers to oversee the

administration of the monies accruing to the Host Communities Development Trust (HCDT) in line with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

Out of a total of 37 applications

by fund managers that had been received so far by the commission, the NUPRC disclosed that 19 had been approved while a number of others were still under review.

Some of the companies already

given a nod by the upstream commission include: Chapel Hill Denham Securities, Afrinvest Asset Management, FBN Quest, FCMB Asset, Leadway, Sigma, Meristem, Vetiva, Arm Holdings, Coronation,

among others.

A number of those still undergoing review, included: Access Bank, UBA Group, United Capital, Cowry Asset, Stanbic and 10 others.

Speaking at a stakeholders'

engagement on the deployment of ‘Host Comply’ technological solutions, Assistant Director, Host Communities Department, NUPRC, Continued on page 5

Four Govs, Wike Attend Appeal Court President’s Son’s Memorial Service…

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Army Chief Launches Special Operation to End Plateau Killings… Page 8

Any Rerun Poll Should Be Between Atiku and I, Tinubu Tells Court Says Obi, LP constitutionally barred from recontesting Sack Tinubu now, Obi tells court in final address Alex Enumah in Abuja President Bola Tinubu has appealed to justices of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC) in Abuja

to exclude the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, and his party in the event of any rerun presidential election, claiming that only him and the candidate

of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, are constitutionally qualified to recontest.

Tinubu argued that if the justices void the February 25,

2023 presidential election, Obi and his party will not be qualified to recontest.

But Obi urged the five-member panel of the PREPEC not to subvert

the will of the people as expressed in the February 25 presidential election, stressing that they should sack Tinubu without further delay.

Tinubu faulted both Obi and

LP for asking the court to cancel the election and compel the Independent National Electoral Continued on page 5

Atiku: APC Plotting to Manipulate Judiciary, Undermine Democracy See story on page 5 Puts int’l community on alert, asks Nigerians to be vigilant Presidency: Tinubu, APC will not undermine judiciary over election cases Your allegation is hollow, wild and mischievous, APC replies ex-VP

COMMITTEE OF FRIENDS… L-R: Pastor, Redeemed Christian Church of God, City of David Parish, Victoria Island, Lagos, Pastor Idowu Iluyomade; Bride's father, Mr. Tonye Cole; Chief Executive Officer, Mac-Folly Hospitality Limited, Mr. Chike Ogeah; Chief Executive Officer, GCA Energy Limited, Mr. Greg Uanseru; and Chairman, THISDAY/ARISE Media Group, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, during the traditional wedding of Cole’s daughter, Vanessa to Chuka Agili in Abonnema, Rivers State…yesterday KUNLE OGUNFUYI

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NEWS ANY RERUN POLL SHOULD BE BETWEEN ATIKU AND I, TINUBU TELLS COURT Commission (INEC) to conduct a fresh poll in which he (Tinubu), Shettima and the All Progressives Congress (APC) would not participate.

He argued that should the relief be granted, Obi and LP would not derive any benefit, having been constitutionally barred from contesting the rerun election.

President Tinubu’s submissions were contained in his final written address in response to the petition of Obi and the LP challenging his declaration as president.

The Chairman of INEC, Prof.

Mahmood Yakubu, had on March 1, declared Tinubu the winner of the February 25 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku and Obi reportedly scored 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes, respectively.

While citing alleged issues of substantial non-compliance with the electoral laws, corrupt practices, non-qualification amongst others, Obi and LP on one hand, as well as Atiku and PDP on the other hand, had in their petitions, asked the court to nullify the election.

Both Obi and Atiku are laying claim to victory on the grounds that each of them scored a majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.

Alternately, they urged the court to order for a re-run election to decide the authentic winner of the poll.

However, Tinubu in his final written address to the petition by Obi and LP, which was filed by his lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), submitted that the evidence tendered by the petitioners failed to prove claims of non-compliance and corruption capable of voiding his election.

He, however, added that: “In the very unlikely event that the election of February 25, 2023 is voided, the only candidates constitutionally prescribed to contest any subsequent election shall be the 2nd respondent and the candidate of the PDP who came second, by scoring the next majority of votes in the highest number of states (19 states), to the 1st petitioner’s 16 states, and also coming second by plurality of votes, having scored 6,984,520, far and above 1st petitioner’s 6,101,533 votes.

"In effect, the petitioners have no locus standi to ask for relief 2, both constitutionally and legally; constitutionally, because he is barred from contesting; legally, because he has no benefit to derive from the said relief, assuming it is granted", he said.

Contending that the court cannot decree an order for a fresh election, outside the provisions of the constitution, Olanipekun who cited a plethora of authorities, said: "The law is settled that ‘a party prosecuting an action would (only) have locus standi where the reliefs claimed would confer some benefits on such a party.’"

According to him, the only candidates constitutionally prescribed to contest any subsequent election shall be the 2nd respondent and the candidate of the PDP who came second, by scoring the next majority of votes in the highest number of states (19 states), to the 1st petitioner’s 16 states, and also coming second by plurality of votes, having scored 6,984,520, far and above 1st petitioner’s 6,101,533 votes.

Citing Section 134(3) of the Constitution, Olanipekun submitted that, “the 1st petitioner is constitutionally barred from

participating in any election, in the very unlikely event that the election of February 25, 2023 is voided”.

Section 134(3) provides thus: “In default of a candidate duly elected in accordance with subsection (2) of this section, there shall be a second election in accordance with subsection (4) of this section at which the only candidate shall be – (a) The candidate who scored the highest number of votes at any election held in accordance with the said subsection (2) of this section; and (b) One among the remaining candidates who has a majority of votes in the highest number of states, so however that where there are more than one candidate with majority of votes in the highest number of states, the candidate among them with the highest total of votes cast at the election shall be the second candidate for the election.”

Similarly, Olanipekun also faulted the petitioners’ prayers for the cancellation of the election and an order mandating INEC to conduct a fresh election, on the grounds that the petitioners did not suggest who the participants or candidates at the said election would be.

"Most humbly, the court cannot decree an order for a fresh election, outside the provisions of the Constitution," he said.

The learned silk drew the attention of the court to the testimony of INEC’s sole witness, who observed that Obi’s name was nowhere in the party’s register (Exhibit RA18) before he became the presidential candidate.

He added: "In any event, the 1st petitioner has failed to comply with the law of the land, by first making himself a member of the 2nd petitioner, before proceeding to purportedly contest election and even file a petition.

"We, again, refer to the uncontradicted evidence of the respondents’ sole witness, who observed that the name of the 1st petitioner is nowhere located in Exhibit RA18.

"Arising from the foregoing, is the fact that the petition is improperly constituted, and, as such, at the end of evidence/trial, it is clear that it does not vest jurisdiction in this honourable court to entertain it, and more particularly, to grant the reliefs sought.

"The essence of all these is that in the absence of the PDP and its candidate, the NNPP and its candidate, the grounds of the petition, the paragraphs making allegations against the parties and any evidence extracted during trial become incompetent and inadmissible in the absence of those parties."

Sack Tinubu Now, Obi Tells Court in Final Address Meanwhile, Obi has urged the five-member panel of the election petition court not to subvert the will of the people as expressed in the February 25 presidential election.

Obi, in his final written address in support of his petition, challenging the declaration of Senator Bola Tinubu as winner of the presidential poll, urged the panel to sack the president.

He reminded the panel that its powers of adjudication as provided in the Nigerian Constitution was freely donated to them by the people, hence the need to uphold the confidence reposed in them by

the people.

Reacting, Obi and LP, in their final written address filed on their behalf by their lead counsel, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), submitted that, Tinubu and Shettima's defence was "devoid of any scintilla of merit".

They urged the tribunal to hold that the petitioners’ case is meritorious and grant them their reliefs, which include the nullification of Tinubu's election and declare them winner or in the alternative, order the conduct of a fresh election.

They also argued that refusal of the panel to sack Tinubu over

alleged breach of the Constitution is tantamount to dereliction of duty, adding that the judges should emulate the Supreme Court of Kenya, which in the interest of the people and democracy, nullified the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta on account of established corrupt practices.

"In conclusion, may we respectfully commend to your lordships the words on the marble of the Supreme Court in the case of Raila Odinga and Anor V Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and Others (2017) KESC 31 (KLR) para,

399; when in nullifying the election that returned H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner of the Kenyan presidential election in 2017, ex-cathedra said; '13991 what of the argument that this court should not subvert the will of the people? This court is one of those to whom that sovereign power has been delegated under article 1(3) c) of the same constitution. All its powers, including that of invalidating a presidential election is not selfgiven nor forcefully taken, but is donated by the people of Kenya. To dishonestly exercise that delegated power and to close our eyes to

constitutional violations would be a dereliction of duty and we refuse to accept the invitation to do so, however popular the invitation may seem.

"Therefore, however burdensome, let the majesty of the constitution reverberate across the lengths and breadths of our hills and mountains; let it serenade our households from the trees; let it sprout from our institutions learning; let it toll from our sanctums of prayer; and to those who bear the responsibility of leadership, let it be a constant irritant,'" Obi and LP told the panel.

ATIKU: APC PLOTTING TO MANIPULATE JUDICIARY, UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY Deji Elumoye, Chuks Okocha and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 election, Atiku Abubakar, has raised the alarm over alleged plots by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to compromise Nigeria's judiciary processes and undermine the country’s democracy.

But in a swift response, the Presidency declared that the APC and President Bola Tinubu will in no way undermine the judiciary in resolving the presidential election petitions before it.

On its part, the APC described Atiku’s allegation as hollow, wild, mischievous, and an attempt by the former vice president to float an alibi to deflect the shame of a highly probable defeat at the election petitions court.

Atiku, in a statement signed by his Media Adviser, Mr. Paul Ibe, yesterday, stated that since the conclusion of the presidential election last February, there have been unfortunate developments that are saddening to many Nigerians.

The former vice president, who contested the February 25 presidential election in which President Bola Tinubu was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is currently challenging the victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja.

According to him, it was needless to say that the election that brought the current government into office was the worst in the annals of democratic politics in Nigeria, even though it was promised to be the best ever.

"Consequently, the outcome of that election and the arbitrariness of the electoral umpire to declare a winner against the requirement of the law has been the reason Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria (1999-2007) and presidential candidate of the PDP and other parties in the election have chosen the patriotic path to challenge the outcome of that election," Atiku said. ''It is a truism that the judiciary is the only reasonable option in the quest for justice. As a matter of fact, our judiciary and the interpretations that they have given to our laws have been a major building block in our democratic journey so far.

"Our laws are very clear about the prerequisite of separation of powers as a guarantee of an independent judiciary," he added.

The PDP presidential candidate noted the idea behind that concept of an independent judiciary is to insulate that branch of government from unholy fraternity between its hallowed members and the rest of the society - especially the political

actors.

He further said: "But as proceedings on the controversial February 25 election continue at the court, there have been threats from the ruling party that aim to intimidate the judiciary from serving the duty of justice.

"It is regrettable that the APC and indeed, agents of President Bola Tinubu have ceaselessly chosen to stand in the way of justice by making catastrophic threats to anarchy, if justice is not served according to their whims.

"These and reports in the media about some heinous plots to harass justices sitting on the petition are ominous to peace and the security of our nation.

"Our democracy gives the people of Nigeria the powers to choose their leaders, and our laws demand that our judiciary must be allowed to act independently without harassment and intimidation by the government or powerful interests.

"To compromise the workings of our democracy and seeking to compromise the workings of our judiciary is an open call for anarchy.”

Atiku vowed that his party would do all that is within the law to resist any attempt to undermine the country’s fragile democracy.

"Indeed, we are using this channel to call on the international community to be alerted.

"Nigeria’s democracy should not be undermined by using the judiciary to serve the interest of the ruling party. Sadly, this has become the stock in trade of the All Progressives Congress to intimidate the judiciary," he said.

Atiku also recalled that in 2019, the APC-led federal government similarly removed the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, from office when it was obvious that he would not bend to their will.

"The Department of State Services (DSS) similarly stormed the homes of judges in 2016 and 2017, all in a bid to beat the judiciary into submission.

“The plot of the APC is simple: Intimidate the judiciary, threaten judges with arrest so that they will bow to their will. This is a playbook from 2019 when they removed the CJN and then replaced him with Tanko Muhammad, who himself was later accused of corruption by his colleagues at the Supreme Court and resigned shamefully.

“However, the APC government never went after Tanko Muhammad as they did in Onnoghen's case because it was never about corruption but election. The APC has, over the years, built a reputation of judiciary intimidation.

"They accused about 10 judges of corruption, stormed their homes, and got them suspended and yet could not convict any of them.

“Justice Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court could not recover from the embarrassment that he ended up dying in office.

“Now, they have initiated a new plot. This time around, they want to intimidate the judges into delivering favourable judgments for them at the election tribunal.

“We draw the attention of the international community and, indeed, Nigerians to this fresh plot to steal the mandate of over 200 million people,” he stated.

Atiku added: "We are also urging Nigerians to abide by the golden rule of eternal vigilance being the price of liberty.”

He appealed to all security agencies in the country to remain professional in the discharge of their duties and resist being used as an instrument of oppression and intimidation against the judiciary.

Presidency: Tinubu, APC, will Not Undermine Judiciary over Election Cases In its response to Atiku’s allegation, the Presidency declared that the ruling APC and President Tinubu will in no way undermine the judiciary in resolving the presidential election petitions before it.

The Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy, Mr. Dele Alake, in a statement issued last night and entitled: ‘Atiku Abubakar's bid to blackmail the judiciary will fail’, said President Tinubu and the APC absolutely have no reason to undermine the judiciary in the hope of any favourable judgment.

According to him, Tinubu's lawyers and that of APC have presented very solid defence of the result of the election "and we are sure the judiciary will impartially deliver its ruling on the basis of points of law and evidence before it, not based on presumptuous speculations and unfounded accusations.

"Atiku Abubakar should be honourable enough as a statesman to allow the judiciary perform its sacred duty without harassment and this resort to self-help. Attempting to discredit an important institution of state for selfish political ends is disingenuous, shameful and unbecoming of a former Vice President of Nigeria. This desperation must stop."

The Presidency said: “It is obvious that having been thoroughly defeated by the APC and now President Tinubu, the former vice president has not fully recovered from the shock of defeat, hence the current attempt to mischievously rake up another round of inanities that offend basic logic and rational thinking.

The Presidency argued that: "If

the former vice president believes in democracy and the sanctity of the Judiciary, as claimed, he would not engage in making spurious and wild allegations aimed at disparaging and discrediting an important arm of government that should serve as the bulwark for our democracy.

The Presidency further argued that “when it comes to matters of fighting for democracy and democratic ideals, rule of law and independence of Judiciary in Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu stands shoulder above Atiku Abubakar.

It noted that when Tinubu was leading the charge against the emasculation of the judiciary and promoting the sanctity of rule of law as Governor of Lagos State, Atiku was nowhere to be found.

"It is on record and to his eternal credit that President Tinubu, through the instrumentality of the law and judiciary, successfully challenged many of the draconian and obnoxious decisions of the PDP-led federal government that trampled on the rights of the States as federating units.

Lagos State under the leadership of the then Governor Tinubu won over 13 cases up to the Supreme Court against the hydra-headed PDP administration at the centre,” the statement added.

Your Allegation is Wild, Hollow and Mischievous, APC Replies Atiku Meanwhile, the APC has described Atiku’s allegations as arrant nonsense, and an attempt by the former vice president to float an alibi to deflect the shame of a highly probable defeat at the election petitions court.

The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, in a statement, said that Atiku and his minions offered no evidence to support their wild, hollow, and mischievous allegations.

He added: "Quite frankly, there is nothing in Atiku Abubakar’s statement that is worth a reaction from the APC. It is just arrant nonsense, totally lacking in substance and cogency.

Morka described the allegations “as a childish attempt to float an alibi to deflect the shame of a highly probable defeat in court, having miserably failed to make out a credible case to justify his bogus claim that he won the last presidential election,” he added.

Morka stressed that President Bola Tinubu and the APC won the election convincingly, adding that the ruling party has faith and confidence in the courts to dispense electoral justice in accordance with the Constitution and all applicable laws.

NUPRC APPROVES 19 MANAGERS FOR HOST COMMUNITIES’ FUNDS Olatokunbo Karimu, stated that the move was to ensure the sustainability of the scheme even after the exit of the oil companies.

The Industry Digital Automated Portal (IDAP) for monitoring and reporting of the Host Community Development Trust (HCDT), he added, was to ensure transparent administration of the host communities’ fund.

Section 240 (2) of the PIA stipulates that each settlor (oil companies), where applicable through the operator, shall make an

annual contribution to the applicable host communities development trust fund.

The amount is the three per cent of their actual annual operating expenditure of the preceding financial year in the upstream petroleum operations affecting the host communities for which the HCDT was established.

“The source of funding is the three per cent Operating Expenses (OPEX) donations, gifts and grants, profits and interest from the 20 per cent of the 3 per cent. We need to

focus on sustainable projects, projects that are strong on Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) backbone, such that further down the line, we can bring in global agencies to start supporting our communities.

“We have a total of 113 submissions. We've issued approval to incorporate for 84 and we have a total of 61, fully incorporated by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC),” he stated.

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), he said, has a

total of 23 fully incorporated HCDTs, even as Agip followed with 13 and Newcross Petroleum had seven.

In addition, Total and ExxonMobil had three and two approved HCDTs respectively while Seplat had three also, specifically in Akugbe, Ekugbe and Ohaji South.

“More fund managers are going to be approved and on-boarded.

A lot of these things are not fully automated yet, which brings us back to why we are here. How do we collate everything and put it in one basket where we can see

and make it easy for everybody to access. That’s the reason for this meeting,” he said.

Karimu added: “The fund managers are very important because this is a long-term sustainability programme for the host communities after the cessation of oil and gas operations.”

He stated that chapter three of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 was fully dedicated to host communities’ development, adding that the regulation of the NUPRC on this came out in June 2022,

and was being operationalised gradually.

Another representative of the commission and Acting Director, Environment, Ejiro Ufondu, who described the event as an important stakeholders meeting, said the commission has now created digital solutions for managing the hostcommunities development trust.

She stated that it was critical to hold the meeting after enquiries from oil companies as to how the portal deployed in managing the process would work.

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MARITAL BLISS… L-R: Vice President Kashim Shettima; former President Muhammadu Buhari; Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Garbai El-Kanemi; and father of the groom and Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, at the wedding Fatiha of Zulum’s son at the Central Mosque in Maiduguri…yesterday

Army Chief Launches Special Operation to End Plateau Killings Seriki Adinoyi in Jos The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Major-General Taoreed Lagbaja, has launched a special operation code-named ‘Operation Hakorin Damisa IV’ to tackle insecurity in Plateau State Lagbaja launched the special operation yesterday in Mangu Local Government Area of the state.

Hakorin Damisa means “Tiger’s teeth”.

More than 300 persons have been killed in Mangu LGA and the neighboring communities in the last two months following a

series of attacks by gunmen.

The COAS explained that the special operation was aimed at tackling the ongoing security challenges within Mangu and environs.

He charged troops of the special force to respond to all distress calls and work with other security agencies to end all forms of insecurity in the area.

“Gentlemen, as your 23rd COAS, I address you today and charge all of you deployed for this special operation to end the conflicts in Mangu and environs “You must work with other security agencies and because

you are a people’s army, you must respond to all distress calls.

“You must also give feedback to the people at all times in order to win the confidence of the public,” Lagbaja explained.

The COAS also charged the troops to be professional and guided by the rules of engagement during the operation.

He warned that any soldier

John Shiklam in Kaduna Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has described the proposed cash transfer policy of the federal government as a scam.

Sani stated this at the weekend while speaking on ARISE NEWS Channel’s News Night programme.

The governor said: “My position has always been that, at this critical time, cash transfer should not be something that we should bring up, completely. I think that cash transfer for me, in my opinion, is a scam. Completely, it is a scam.

I can be very certain about that, because who are you transferring the money to?

“Let me give an example; go and check the current statistics.

Like I said, as the Chairman, Committee on Banking for four years in Nigeria, I oversee the Central Bank, I oversight all the commercial sectors of our economy for the last four years and I look at the statistics, I will be very firm on this issue and you can go and check it,” he explained.

The governor, however, noted that the government should first ensure that the financially excluded individuals especially in the North-west are taken care of and brought into the financial system before implementing the cash transfer programme.

“About 70 to 75 per cent of the rural population in the North-west are financially excluded completely.

You will have to go and check; these people we are talking about are important people in society. They

do not even have a bank account so who are you transferring the money to?

“Let’s try and work very hard to make sure that they are financially included; that is the most important thing and I will like to call on our development partners - the World Bank - to put more money towards bringing more people into the financial services and the vulnerable in particular.

“Let us put more money in to ensure that we open accounts for them, get them involved; if we don’t do that, no matter what we do, however you do it, money will go to the wrong people, that’s the fact.”

President Bola Tinubu had earlier unveiled his administration’s plan for a monthly N8,000 transfer to 12 million of the poorest households in the country for six months, in a bid to cushion the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy.

But days after the announcement, the federal government said it would review the move following the public outcry it generated among Nigerians.

Recall that following the removal of the petrol subsidy and the recent hike in petrol prices to up to N617 per litre, the National Executive Council (NEC) agreed on palliative measures for Nigerians.

NEC also considered integrity tests on state social registers as cash transfers would be done via state social registers subject to state peculiarities.

The federal government also initiated a six-month cash award policy for public servants.

in the country.

He called on residents of Mangu LGA to cooperate with the military and other security agencies by providing timely information for prompt response.

The COAS was earlier briefed on the security situation in the area by the Commander of Operation Safe Haven and General Officer Commanding 3 Division, Nigeria

Army, Major General Abdusalam Abubakar.

He also met with religious and community leaders, youth and women groups, and officials of the local authority in Mangu.

Lagbaja appealed to the stakeholders to preach peace at all times, stressing that peace and security was key to national development.

In Cambodia, Jonathan Urges World Leaders to Seek Peace Through Practical Democracy Ejiofor Alike

Cash Transfer Scheme is a Scam, Kaduna Gov Alleges

found wanting would not be spared.

“You must be fair and just to all; you should be soldiers for all, always check the books and operate by the books,” he added.

Lagbaja, who promised to address challenges of troops in war fronts, said his leadership was determined to restore peace and security to all troubled areas

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has charged global leaders to seek to enthrone peace in the world through the practice of true democracy and people-oriented leadership in their respective countries.

Jonathan also made a case for good governance, which he described as the trigger for political stability, progress and inclusive development, adding that world leaders should commit to building on the common ground of promoting a democratic culture anchored on justice and solidarity among all peoples.

The former President stated this yesterday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, at the International Leadership Conference, jointly organised by the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP) and the Asian Vision Institute (AVI).

Speaking on the need for true democracy, Jonathan noted that when citizens are allowed to freely exercise their electoral mandate, they would be voting for lasting peace and sustainable development and standing up against repression, dictatorship and abuse of the rights of citizens.

The former President who spoke a day before the Cambodian general election scheduled for today (Sunday), said further: “We are all happy to be here today and we will be glad to witness the good people of this great country exercise this democratic right on Sunday, to elect the leaders of their choice for the next governance cycle in Cambodia.

“I urge world leaders to truly imbibe and embrace these principles of true democracy by not just overseeing routine elections but conducting elections that are free, fair, inclusive, transparent and credible towards

placing governance at the service of the people and establishing a culture of global peace and harmony.

“Frankly speaking, talking about elections, it is important to note that election value chain through voting in the field, processing and collating of results to announcement of the outcomes, and in some countries, the judicial procedures where the processes go through litigations, must be built on a solid foundation of justice for democracy to function effectively.

“The International Summit Council for Peace, ISCP-Africa, which I chair, will continue to advocate for a democratic culture rooted in free, fair elections, rule of law and good governance,” Jonathan explained.

He further charged world leaders and nations to foster mutually beneficial cooperation and interdependence in the interest

of global wellbeing and harmony.

He said: “The world will be better for it when we commit to building on the common ground, we all share as one human family and promote greater solidarity among all peoples.

“On this note, let me remind all of us that before COVID-19 pandemic, some nations had been under the impression that they could survive solely on their own. However, the COVID-19 experience has made it very clear that the whole world must work together for the peace and security of humanity. Of course, up to this time, many nations are still struggling to recover from the harmful effect and deadly impact of the pandemic. The experience has indeed demonstrated the need for inter-dependence, mutual prosperity and shared values as enunciated by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF),” Jonathan added.

Petrol Price Hike Placed Enormous Burden on Nigerians, CAN Tells FG The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) yesterday said the hike in the price of petrol occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy has placed enormous burden on Nigerians.

The Christian body, therefore, asked the federal government to quickly alleviate the hardship faced by already burdened masses.

CAN, in a statement by its President, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, said though the removal of fuel subsidy had become inevitable if the Nigerian economy is to experience sustainable growth, it must be done in a way that Nigerians won’t be subjected to untold hardship.

“Against the backdrop of the recent unprecedented hikes in fuel prices and alarming inflation, the national leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria wishes to express its deepest concerns over the hardships faced by Nigerians, and calls for immediate steps to prevailing mitigate the situation.

“While Nigerians were trying to adjust to the initial increase in the fuel price to N540 and its consequential effect on the cost of transportation, food, goods and services, and the general cost of living, another hike alluded to market forces took the price to N617,” he said.

“This has placed enormous

burden on the already struggling masses, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor and drastically eroding the purchasing power of ordinary citizens, and making it extremely difficult for them to afford the basic necessities of life. The situation is just unbearable for millions of Nigerians who were already suffering poverty.”

The Christian body urged the President Bola Tinubu government to prioritise measures to “alleviate rather than exacerbate the existing poverty level and hardships of Nigerians”.

CAN advised the government to focus on diversifying the economy, reducing dependency

on volatile commodities, and promoting investments in sectors.

The fuel subsidy palliatives being considered by government should go beyond cash transfers to consider introducing mass transport across the states to reduce the cost of transportation.

The multiplier effect of this will be profound, the body stated.

“Government should take measures to reduce the price of fuel. Such measures should include removal of unnecessary levies and taxes on imported petroleum products, the stabilization of the foreign exchange market and putting back our local refineries to functional and effective use.”

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JULY 23, 2023 • T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R

NEWS

SECURITY TOPS AGENDA… L-R: Director, Edo State Command of the Department of State Services, Clara Olika; Deputy Governor, Hon. Philip Shaibu; Governor Godwin Obaseki; State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Adamu Dankwara; and the State Commandant, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Mr. Dan Samuel Okon, after the monthly security council meeting at the Government House, in Benin City…yesterday

Four Govs, Wike Attend Appeal Court President’s Son’s Memorial Service Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

No fewer than four governors yesterday attended the memorial service organised by the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, for her son, Parker Shepnaan Dongban who passed on last year.

Some of the governors who attended the event held at Demshin in Plateau State still have cases at the election petitions courts where the Appeal Court President would

have a major role to play.

However, there was no evidence that the Appeal Court president invited the governors to the event.

According to analysts, the governors might have attended the event in a typical Nigerian gesture, and perhaps, to curry favour.

Speaking at the service held at St. Peters Clever Church, Demshin in Plateau State, the Governor of Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, who said he was speaking on behalf of the

Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), sympathised with Justice Dongban-Mensem, saying the governors identified with the family at the memorial service.

He said though the loss was painful, the governors recognised the impact made to humanity by the late Parker Shepnaan Dongban within the short period of his sojourn on earth, adding that his goodwill would be greatly missed.

He said: “Even though we remember our son today, we acknowledge that he lived an

impactful life.”

Also speaking, the Governor of Plateau State, Mr. Caleb Mutfwang, who sympathised with the bereaved family, prayed to God to continue to comfort them.

He noted that no one can feel what the family has gone through since the untimely demise of the Parker.

He said: “There isn't much to say on an occasion like this other than to say, may the good Lord continue to comfort you and the family because there

$418m Paris Club Refund: Court Restrains Consultants from Transacting with Promissory Notes Alex Enumah in Abuja with agency report A Federal High Court in Abuja has restrained the Senator representing Delta North Senatorial Election, Ned Nwoko, from transacting with promissory notes issues with respect to the Paris Club refund.

Nwoko is one of the beneficiaries of the payment of $418million to consultants - a contentious issue between the three tiers of government.

While he claims he is owed $68,658,192.83, Ted Isighohi Edwards, another consultant, is claiming $159,000,000.

Other consultants include Riok Nigeria Limited with $142,028,941.95, Prince Orji Orizu claiming $1,219,440.45, Olaitan Bello with $215,195.36 and Panic Alert Security Systems Limited with $47.821,920.

The payment is said to be for professional services in the Paris Club refund to the state governments.

The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) had in November 2022, said it resolved to sustain legal action against the disbursement of the $418 million Paris Club refund and promissory notes issued to consultants by the federal government and the Debt Management Office (DMO).

The forum said; ‘It was resolute in exploring all legal channels available to it in ensuring that resources belonging to states are not unjustly or illegally paid to a few in the

guise of consultancies”.

In May, the NGF said the federal government has granted its request to stop further deductions from states’ accounts to meet their Paris Club debt obligations.

Consequently, the federal government filed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/896/2023 seeking to stop the consultants from using the promissory notes.

According to TheCable, in a ruling last Thursday, Inyang Ekwo, the presiding judge, granted an ex parte order restraining the defendants from transacting with 61 promissory notes attached to the application.

“An order is hereby made restraining the defendants whether acting by themselves, their officers, staff, employees, shareholders, servants, assigns, privies, representatives, subsidiaries, agents howsoever called or described from discounting, selling, transferring, redeeming, enforcing, assigning, pledging, securitizing or entering into any transaction howsoever described with the promissory notes issued to the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th defendants, pending the hearing and determination of the plaintiffs/ applicants’ motion on notice for interlocutory injunction,” the order reads.

Ekwo also ruled that the defendants be served with all processes in the case at least 24 hours after the court order.

He adjourned the matter to July 28 for hearing the motion

on notice.

Aside from the consultants named earlier, others joined in the suit are FSDH Merchant Bank Limited and Gregory Nangor Lar. The plaintiffs are the federal

government, the AttorneyGeneral of the Federation; the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Accountant-General of the Federation.

is nothing we can do and the only thing is to pray for you.

“Even though one year has passed and we know you have enjoyed the comfort of the Lord, may you continue to enjoy the comfort of the Lord all the way.

We will continue to pray that God will teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

Also at the memorial service were Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia; his Ogun State counterpart, Dapo Abiodun; former Governor of Plateau State, Senator Jonah Jang, and former Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Nyesom Wike.

In his message, the Bishop of Shendam Catholic Diocese, Most Rev. Philip Dung admonished the congregation and also prayed for the repose of the soul of Parker.

He asked God to continue to comfort the family.

He appealed to the Nigerian leaders not to abandon the people, particularly those in

rural communities who voted them into power but to come up with programmes and actions that would cushion the effects of the present hardships being experienced in the country.

Bishop Dung drew the attention of governments at various levels to the lack of social amenities such as drinking water, roads, schools, and hospitals in most communities and called for urgent steps to be taken to give the people a sense of hope and belonging.

He applauded the President of the Court of Appeal for her investments in education which, he said, has enabled the less-privileged children to have access to schooling.

As part of the event, a Multipurpose Hall built at Ngoottuguut in memory of Parker was commissioned by the Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh alongside Mutfwang, and other dignitaries.

Tinubu’s Appointments Tear South-west APC Apart Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The South-west All Progressives Congress (APC) Support Groups have expressed dismay over the current situation whereby most appointments made by President Bola Tinubu are being filled with those they described as ‘Lagos boys’.

In a statement issued yesterday, which was jointly signed by the Coordinator of the APC groups, Dele Fulani, and the Secretary, Lanre Asiwaju, the groups said they were constrained to note that this trend, if not checked, might make the South-west the first boiling point of Tinubu-led administration.

The groups in a letter addressed to President Tinubu, noted that a situation whereby politicians from Lagos State are seen to be the ones taking all the benefits that accrue to the entire South-west was totally unacceptable to other states in the geopolitical zone, saying Lagos is not the only state in South-west.

The groups stressed that a cursory look at the

appointments made so far under Tinubu’s administration showed that majority of the people around him are all Lagos politicians.

The support groups said while they might not all be indigenes of Lagos, they are politicians based in Lagos, who have played all their politics in Lagos, lived in Lagos, and as a matter of fact, made Lagos their immediate constituency.

They stated: "We have observed, with utmost dismay, the ongoing unpleasant development at the presidency whereby most appointments are being filled with ‘Lagos boys’.

"We the South-west APC Support groups are constrained to say that this trend, if not checked, might make the Southwest the first boiling point of the Tinubu administration.

"Looking at the appointments of 20 aides that were recently made by Mr. President, we can categorically pinpoint 13 of them who are Lagos-based politicians. Also, the arrival of former Lagos Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode into the

fray as one of the appointment hopefuls is another fact in this direction."

The support groups pointed out that during Tinubu's first trip to France as President, the entourage that accompanied him on that journey were predominantly those from Lagos State, despite the fact that most of them are without official portfolio or capacity.

They added: "This is uncalled for; this administration should not be made an all-Lagos affair as it will completely go against the campaign promises of national inclusion. Truly, this trend does not project Mr. President as a nationalist and a pan-Nigerian leader."

The support emphasised that the president recently constituted a committee that would constitute boards of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), ironically the Chief of Staff, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, was made the chairman while the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume was made the Secretary.

The groups added that this was wrong, going by hierarchy and order of protocol, adding that Akume’s position supersedes that of Chief of Staff, stressing that Akume and not Gbajabiamila should be made the Chairman.

They said: "We advocate that for posterity and adherence to the established thematic of bureaucracy in governance, Your Excellency should reverse the appointment and make the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) the chairman of the committee and a representative of the party (APC) as the secretary.

"Appointing the Chief of Staff as chairman of that committee is to further take care of ‘Lagos Boys’; if care is not taken, we will end up having a ‘Lagos Boys’dominated administration at the expense of others, which will not be a break away from the norm in the last administration, where people from a particular state were given more preference at the detriment of others who were far more deserving."

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T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R • JULY 23, 2023

NEWS

THEIR ROYAL HIGHNESSES… L-R: Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Adejuyigbe; Speaker, Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeoye Aribasoye; Chairman, state Council of Traditional Rulers/Onisan of Isan Ekiti, Oba Gabriel Adejuwon; Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, Mrs. Monisade Afuye; Governor Biodun Oyebanji; and Oloye of Oye-Ekiti, Oba Oluwole Ademolaju, during the inauguration of the state Traditional Rulers’ Chamber in Ado-Ekiti…weekend

NIPR, 93 Partners Unveil Report, Recommend 100 Solutions to Nigeria’s Challenges Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), along with 93 partners, including the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), ARISE NEWS Channel, among others, has unveiled the ‘Citizens Summit Report’ with about 100 recommendations to solve Nigeria’s intractable problems.

Speaking at the event in Abuja, the President of the institute, Mukhtar Sirajo, noted that the project was borne out of the need to provide a platform and the opportunity for Nigerians to peacefully ventilate their concerns and contribute to the dialogue on nation building.

He stated that the situational analysis in the course of the work: ‘Rebooting Nigeria 2.0’, had revealed, among other issues,

that all was not well with the state of affairs in the land, worsened by the loss of hope among the youth.

He added that the trust gap between the people and state institutions was widening fast while social tension mounted across the land and violent aspirations and agitations threatened the very foundation of Nigeria’s existence.

With this, he stated that it became apparent that there was an urgent need for a new approach to consensus building among citizens and between citizens and the leadership.

He noted that it was against this background and in furtherance of its mandate that the leadership of the Institute felt that it could no longer watch the situation deteriorate further.

The journey of the summit started in 2021 with zonal dialogue series held across the six geo-

political zones of the country to offer opportunity for expanded participation by Nigerians in the different parts of the country, while the diaspora was designated as zone seven, he said.

Sirajo expressed the hope that as the new administration in the country settles down to the business of governance, it will find the report useful, especially in policy formulation in the areas that the summit deliberated upon.

For instance, he said that citizens eagerly look forward to reaping the fruits of the removal of petrol subsidy policy in no distant future, urging the government to quicken the process of putting in place the needed measures, to cushion the impact of the new policy.

“The issue of insecurity remains critical to the growth, development and survival of our nation. We pray that the new service chiefs will

surpass expectations in delivering effective and dynamic security to the nation.

“We are delighted to note that the president has begun the process of consensus building and reconciliation at a certain level.

We commend the recognition and understanding of the federal government that this is a major area of priority and appreciate its efforts so far in that important direction,” he added.

While speaking on the highlights of the publication, a member of NIPR Council and Executive Director, Institute of Strategic and Development Communication, Prof Emmanuel Dandaura, lamented that the series of national confabs constituted by and populated

by Nigerian political elites had produced little results before now.

He argued that the tensions in the Nigerian polity today are

Court Restrains ICT Firm from Accessing N7bn in 25 Banks over Alleged Debt Wale Igbintade The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has granted Union Bank Plc an interim mareva injunction restraining Swift Networks Limited from accessing its monies amounting to N7,037,410,548.23 in 25 banks, pending the determination of an alleged debt recovery suit.

Justice Daniel Osiagor made the order on July 19, 2023 after the counsel for the plaintiff/ applicant (Union Bank), Mr. Temilolu Adamolekun, moved the application to protect the res in suit FHC/L/CS/1366/2023.

Swift Networks is the defendant while the banks are the 2nd to 25th respondents.

Besides Union Bank, the other banks include: Citibank Nigeria Limited, First City Monument Bank Plc, Globus Bank Limited, Jaiz Bank Limited, Lotus Bank Limited, Parallex, Polaris Bank Limited, Providus Bank Limited, Stanbic IBTC Bank Nigeria Limited, Standard Chartered Bank Limited, Suntrust Bank Nigeria Limited, Titan Trust Bank and Unity Bank Plc, among other old and new generation banks.

Specifically, Justice Osiagor, after

reading the affidavit in support, the exhibits attached and the written address, ordered as follows: “That an interim order of mareva injunction is granted restraining the defendant (Swift Networks), its agents, privies and/or assigns or otherwise howsoever from dealing with any of the monies standing to its credit in all of its accounts, records or howsoever held with the 2nd to 25th Respondents and also its monies standing to its credit in custody of the plaintiff up to the tune of N7,037,410,548.23 or its equivalent in any foreign currency.

“That an interim order of mareva injunction is granted restraining the 2nd to 25th respondents and their agents or anyone whatsoever from releasing to the defendant or any of its affiliate, any monies, funds or any other instrument belonging to the defendant, to the tune of N7,037,410,548.23 or its equivalent in any foreign currency that may be or found in the custody or possession of the 2nd to 25th respondents.”

The court also granted an interim injunction restraining Swift Networks by itself or through

anyone from tampering with or dealing in any manner with any of its assets/properties in whatsoever form within the jurisdiction of the court, “particularly but not limited to all the assets/properties within the premises of the defendants at 31 Saka Tinubu Street, Victoria Island, Lagos State.”

The court further directed the 2nd to 25th respondents to “disclose on oath whatever sum of money that may be in their custody belonging to the defendant for further direction of this honourable court.”

Justice Osiagor adjourned till September 27 for hearing of the motion on notice.

“In the course of the bank/ customer relationship, the plaintiff agreed to grant various credit facilities to the defendant for several purposes.

“The defendant failed to meet its repayment obligation(s) to the plaintiff, however, by its letter of 9th November, 2017, it requested that its debt be restructured by the plaintiff/applicant.

“The plaintiff granted the defendant’s application for a restructure and further availed it with other credit facilities. Hence

the offer letter of December 29, 2017.

“Furthermore, the defendant failed to perform its repayment obligation arising from the offer letter of December 29, 2017.”

The plaintiff/applicants averred that owing to the defendant’s failure in meeting up with its repayment obligation, the plaintiff further restructured the defendant’s indebtedness to it by its offer letter of 28th September 28, 2020.

It added that: “Under the offer letter of 28 September, 2020, the plaintiff availed the defendant with a term loan facility to the tune of N7, 674,292,000.00.

“It is also the clear agreement of parties that the source of repayment shall be from the cash flow from the defendant’s business operation and other cash flow sources available to the defendant.

“To the plaintiffs’ bewilderment, the facilities matured without the expected receivables as the defendant failed to meet its repayment obligation to the plaintiff under the offer letter of September 28, 2020 which was duly accepted by the defendant.”

Justice Osiagor adjourned the matter till September 27 for hearing of the notion on notice.

confirmations that Nigeria 1.0 has become cluttered and is due for an urgent upgrade.

“As usual, when a system becomes cluttered, efficiency is adversely impacted. The system becomes slow and unable to deliver the expected results,” he said.

Also speaking, the Chairman of the occasion and Group Managing Director of Daar Communications, Tony Akiotu, lamented the eroding cultural and moral values in the country, stressing that the publication was timely.

“The report is an apt legacy

that would help in resetting and winning back Nigeria as a nation that works for every citizen, where diversity is celebrated and dialogue is appreciated,” he stated.

In his remarks, the President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Chris Isiguzo, pledged the support of the media to the ‘Reboot Nigeria’ project.

The Chairman, National Planning Committee for the Citizen’s Summit, Dr. Ike Neliaku, in his comments, argued that for the country to succeed, there must be collaboration among all stakeholders.

Nigeria Records 836 Diphtheria Cases, 80 Deaths Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja A total of 836 cases have been confirmed and 80 deaths from diphtheria between May and June 2023.

According to the diphtheria situation report released yesterday by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the confirmed cases were recorded across 33 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in seven states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Within the period under review, NCDC stated that a total of 2,455 suspected cases were reported from 24 states. It added that 71.5 per cent of the confirmed cases occurred among children aged two – 14 years.

Despite diphtheria being a vaccine-preventable disease, NCDC noted that only 181 (21.7 per cent) out of 836 confirmed cases were fully vaccinated with a “diphtheria toxin-containing vaccine.”

According to the situation report, Kano State accounted for 819 confirmed cases out of the total 836 cases.

Lagos State came second on the chart with eight cases, followed

by Yobe and Katsina states with three and two cases, respectively.

The FCT, Osun, Kaduna and Cross River states recorded a single case each.

Kano, Yobe, Katsina, Lagos, the FCT, Sokoto, and Zamfara states also accounted for 98.0 per cent of suspected cases.

The NCDC explained that diphtheria is a serious bacterial infection caused by the

Corynebacterium species that affects the nose, throat and sometimes, the skin of an individual.

It noted that people mostly at risk of contracting diphtheria are children and adults who have not received any or a single dose of the pentavalent vaccine, people who live in a crowded environment, in areas with poor sanitation and healthcare workers who are exposed to suspected or confirmed cases of diphtheria.

On transmission, NCDC added that the disease spreads easily between people through direct contact with infected people, droplets from coughing or sneezing and contact with contaminated clothing and objects.

The symptoms of diphtheria include fever, runny nose, sore throat, cough, red eyes (conjunctivitis) and neck swelling.

In severe cases, NCDC said, a thick grey or white patch appears on the tonsils and/or at the back of the throat, causing difficulty in breathing.

To prevent the disease, the NCDC urged parents to ensure that their children are fully vaccinated against diphtheria with three doses of the pentavalent vaccine as recommended in the childhood immunisation schedule.

It added that healthcare workers should be vigilant and look out for symptoms of diphtheria, and individuals with signs and symptoms suggestive of diphtheria should isolate themselves and notify their local government area’s state disease surveillance officer.

SUNDAY JULY 23, 2023 • T H I S D AY

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JULY 23,, 2023 • T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R

SOFT FINANCE

INVESTMENT | ECONOMICS | FINANCE | MONEY | E-COMMERCE

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AYO AROWOLO ayo.arowolo@thisdaylive.com 08086447494 (sms only)

Samuel Ibiyemi: We Lost Him; But He Left Three Powerful Lessons On Saturday, July 1st late in the evening, Friday Atufe, one of the country’s outstanding capital market correspondents placed a distress call to me and told me that Samuel Ibiyemi, the publisher of News Direct was in a critical condition in a university teaching hospital. Without wasting time, we had both decided that we should mobilise members of the WhatsApp group of former staff of the defunct Financial Standard for action but not until we after collecting his account number. I was patiently waiting for feedback from Atufe. On the following Tuesday, while scanning my WhatsApp messages, I stumbled on the sad news on the FS alumni WhatsApp platform: Ibiyemi was gone! We lost him to the cold hand of death. Unbelievable. Shocking. Startling.

I was too shocked to make any comments on the platform. The late journalist was someone I had tracked his progress in journalism practice with continuous joy in my heart every time I was briefed about his exploits. After calming down a bit on the news, I decided to do some reflections and good enough I came back with some comforting notes in my diary: The late journalist left some powerful lessons for us to ponder on. I will share just three as a form of tribute.

BEFORE YOU ARE THIRSTY

LESSON 1: PASSION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN QUALIFICATIONS I met the late journalist in a very interesting way. In 1999, I had just moved from THISDAY Newspaper to join other investors to set up Financial Standard, where I was the pioneer CEO and Managing Editor. Part of the decisions of the FS investors was to create a unique content style that would make the newspaper accessible to even ordinary readers without any serious knowledge of finance or economics.

Just before I resumed at FS, I won a Reuters Award which made it possible for me to join other journalists from about 13 countries in the Reuters office in London where we were trained on the nitty-gritty of business and financial reporting. One aspect of the training that fascinated me was the fact that you do not have to have graduated in any discipline in finance to be a good financial journalist. After the training at Reuters, which lasted for four weeks, I got the chairman of FS then Chief Mrs Eniola Fadayomi who was also in London to join me on a courtesy visit to the Financial Times office, which I had arranged. We wanted to learn a few things we could introduce when the paper eventually started. Michael Holman, the Africa Editor of the paper hosted us, he took us round the critical units of the paper.

Before we left, Holman autographed and gave us a book on financial reporting which he said they used as the main manual for training their newly recruited journalists.

Back in Nigeria around July 1999, we decided we would not start the newspaper without conducting extensive training for our journalists.

So, for three weeks, before the paper started, we locked ourselves in the space that we had set aside as the newsroom and received a variety of training with facilitators which included Matthew Kayees, the Nigerian editor of FT then, Tunde Ipimosho, former editor of Daily Times, Francis Ojo, co-owner of Galaxy Television and director of FS. Simon Kolawole (publisher of The Cable) who was Deputy Editor helped us to recruit a facilitator, a top analyst at First City Monument Bank, who taught us how to analyse the health of companies without looking at their published financial information.

As it turned out, more than 50% of our reporters were from disciplines far away from finance. We continued to observe this deliberately in our recruitments. In 2001 or thereabout, when we needed to recruit more journalists, we invited five reporters who made it through our initial screening process. Samuel Ibiyemi was one of them. The other two were Fredrick Mordi (now a PhD holder manning the PR department of Cadbury) and Edem Vinda who was at one time the Media Manager of Nigerian Breweries. All had neither a background in finance nor training in journalism. As a matter of fact, Ibiyemi was a recruit in the army who just felt he wanted to veer into journalism as a career. He was assigned to cover the energy beat.

As part of our orientation programmes, which I personally supervised, I invited the newly-recruited reporters and a few of the ones on the ground to share a tip on how to build expertise and contacts in the field. It was a simple strategy. I asked all of them to buy an exercise book each and to start recording at

Ibiyemi

the end of every day significant developments on their bits, doing a bit of analysis and also recording all their contacts with their details and figuring out a way of maintaining those relationships.

I did not follow them up. But the following day, Ibiyemi reported back to my office with a long hardcover notebook with the entries he had made that day and wanted to confirm if he got the style right and I confirmed. He left my office and we never discussed it. Several years later, Ibiyemi set up News Direct, which has been a successful newspaper. To my surprise, about five years ago or thereabout, Ibiyemi invited me to give a motivational talk to his staff at an event, which was held in the hotel somewhere in Sango, Otta, Ogun State. That was when I got to know he owned the newspaper. Just before I started my talk, Ibiyemi pulled out a worn-out notebook and asked me if I remembered the notebook. I could not. He reminded me it was the first note he brought to my office back in 2001 and he had used up to 17 of such. I was taken aback. The importance of that encounter came alive yesterday when I asked some of his colleagues on the FS platform to share their notes on our late colleague with me. This is what Iboro Otongora, one of our wordsmiths at FS, sent to me: “Samuel Ibiyemi was a library of information, a walking encyclopedia in the petroleum industry.

He had a hardcover higher education notebook where he meticulously recorded every metric, data, information and perspective on the sector.

If we needed information on the industry and it couldn’t be sourced in Ibiyemi’s notebook, it probably couldn’t be found anywhere else.

What Ibiyemi lacked in eloquence as a journalist, he more than made up for it in industry. His drive was uncommon. His energy was almost beyond imagination”. I think there is nothing more to add regarding the dividends of passion and diligence.

N60.0m

N55.0m

LESSON 2: DIG YOUR WELL

The title of this particular lesson is not original to me. It was the title of a book considered to be the very best on the power of networking authored by Harvey Mackay described as one of the most outstanding networkers in the world. The lesson here is that it is not when you need friends that you build friendships. A smart networker would figure out what he wants to achieve and deliberately builds an emotional bank of contacts.

This would mean spending money and time with strategic contacts you consider necessary for your endeavour. Two years after my first visit to his office, Ibiyemi invited me again to give a talk. After the talk, he threw a question at me: “Sir, you did not even ask me how I got the money to set up the newspaper and build the hotel?”. “Loans and investors’ money”, I suggested. His reply was another revelation.

He told me that the entire money came from about two contacts in the petroleum industry he had cultivated following my pep talk with him and his colleagues in my office back in 2001. I have learnt very many powerful lessons on the power of networks but I would just share this particular note from Mackay on the value of strategic networks: “Talent alone will not save you in today’s economy. The traditional advice – more training and education - will not save you. The government will not save you. No matter how self-reliant, dedicated, loyal, competent, well-educated, and well-trained you are, you need more than you to save yourself. You need a network. You need your network. A network will help you deal with some of life’s minor annoyances as well as your most challenging problems. Your network can provide role models, advise you, comfort you, provide you with financial assistance, intellectual and social resources, entertainment, and a ride to work in the morning.

Without it, you’ll have a hard time finding a client, making a sale, seeking a job, and hiring the right employee. To say nothing of the personal stuff, like locating a competent doctor, buying a house, deciding on a nursery school or your kids”.

Amazing. At that short meeting after my talk, Ibiyemi gave me what I could describe as a masterclass on the value of networking. He said his success could be traced almost 100% to the value of building and nurturing strategic networks.

LESSON 3: LIVE READY; THE OWNER OF LIFE CAN SNATCH IT AT A MOMENT’S NOTICE.

A few of his colleagues on the FS platform also shared this with me: “Dr Ibiyemi was a focused goal-getting, highly intelligent, self–driven and hardworking journalist and entrepreneur. These qualities set him apart and made him a success as a foremost journalist and mediaprenuer. He was accessible all through and was willing to help his friends. He was dependable. His death created a huge gap. He will sorely be missed”, Taofik Salako, late Ibiyemi’s colleague at FS and Deputy Group Business Editor of The Nations Newspaper.

Another member of FS alumni, Boris Azuka, had this to say about him: ”Late Ibiyemi was a kindhearted follow. I remember when he wanted to start up his newspaper business, he consulted me to help design the masthead and produce the paper which I did. We kickstarted the work in my house at Agege back then.

Whenever he came to inspect the work, he always brought with him 25 litres of fuel for me. That was love and commitment being displayed on his part.”

More than the accolades about the late journalist, my main concern was whether he had installed structures and systems that would make his legacy outlast him. I put a call through to his son, Matthew Ibiyemi, a trained lawyer, who is now the editor of News Direct. What he said brought comfort to my heart: “By the grace of God, everything he has laboured to build will stand. He has built structures and systems that allow his business to run with or without him.”

I last met Ibiyemi physically in August last year in Agbor during the funeral ceremonies of the late mother of my boss, Prince Nduka Obaigbena. Ibiyemi was at the head of the high-power delegation of the executives of the Newspaper Proprietor Association of Nigeria of which Prince Obaigbena was the president.

I saw the caring side of Ibiyemi then. We had challenges with accommodation as the few hotels in Agbor had been snapped up by other guests. We booked hotels both in Asaba and in Agbor but they could still not match the streams of guests that had invaded Agbor for the burial. Ibiyemi and Feyi Smith did not bulge until we accommodated all the members of the delegation. This included people like Chief Segun Osoba and Mr Ray Ekpu. We promised to catch up in Lagos after the burial but that did not happen as he has gone to the other side.

This is my way of saying, on behalf of your colleagues at former FS. , BYE. Sleep well in the bosom of the Lord.

Samuel Ibiyemi was a library of information, a walking encyclopedia in the petroleum industry. He had a hardcover higher education notebook where he meticulously recorded every metric, data, information and perspective on the sector.

If we needed information on the industry and it couldn’t be sourced in Ibiyemi’s notebook, it probably couldn’t be found anywhere else. What Ibiyemi lacked in eloquence as a journalist, he more than made up for it in industry

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

BUSINESS

Editor: Festus Akanbi 08038588469 Email:festus.akanbi@thisdaylive.com

)XHO 3ULFH +LNH 5LVLQJ ,QÁDWLRQ 7RS $JHQGD DV 03& %HJLQV QG 0HHWLQJ 7RPRUURZ The harsh economic climate exacerbated by the recent policies of government including fuel subsidy removal and the foreign exchange market reform will dominate deliberations at the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting starting tomorrow, writes )HVWXV $NDQEL

A

s members of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) gather for the 292nd edition of their meeting in Abuja tomorrow, analysts in their preview said issues that would be listed for discussion include the spiralling LQÁDWLRQ ZKLFK LV ZRUVHQHG E\ ODVW ZHHN·V increase in the pump prices of petrol, the instability in the foreign exchange market, and the way forward out of the current logjam.

Analysts said that the current level of hardship which is obviously induced by WKH FXUUHQW LQÁDWLRQDU\ SUHVVXUHV DQG WKH hike in the price of fuel is putting pressure on the MPC to come up with an interest rate regime that will ease the tension in the economy at its meeting which ends on Tuesday. +LJK &RVW RI /LYLQJ Nigerians were still bemoaning the fate of the nation’s economy with the latest rate RI LQÁDWLRQ DV UHOHDVHG E\ WKH 1DWLRQDO Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last Tuesday when the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited announced an increase in the pump price of petrol for its outlets, prompting other fuel marketers to also adjust theirs. The pump price of petrol was raised from N537/litre to N617/ OLWUH DW VRPH ÀOOLQJ VWDWLRQV RSHUDWHG E\ the NNPCL in Abuja. Independent oil PDUNHWHUV FRQÀUPHG WKH LQFUHDVH LQ WKH cost of the commodity, as they stated that any shift in price by NNPCL stations was an indication of a rise in the pump price of petrol. This is because NNPCL is still the major importer of petrol into Nigeria currently, though other marketers are gradually importing the commodity. /LNH ZLOGÀUH WKH GHYHORSPHQW VSUHDG its reverberations all over the country as transport fares and the general cost of goods and services hit the rooftop immediately. It was a tale of woes for Nigerians who bore their minds on various radio and television programmes monitored last week amid warnings from analysts that producers of goods and services will soon begin to experience customers’ apathy.

Analysts, who stressed the need for XUJHQW DFWLRQV WR FXVKLRQ WKH HͿHFWV RI the pains, warned that productivity will EH DͿHFWHG EHFDXVH LW ZLOO EH XQUHDVRQDEOH to expect workers to put in their best in a situation where their salary cannot take care of their responsibilities.

And in its reaction to the cry of anguish, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has warned that it may be forced to withdraw from the dialogue with the federal government over the cushioning of the hardship brought on Nigerians by the withdrawal of petrol subsidy by President Bola Tinubu. The Union president, Joe Ajaero, in a statement, accused the government of callousness, saying its palliative measures to address the repercussions of the subsidy removal lack transparency.

Some food stuffs year-on-year basis when compared to the 18.60% reported in June 2022. This indicates the sixth straight month in 2023 RI WKH FRQWLQXHG EXLOGXS RI LQÁDWLRQDU\ momentum in Nigeria, while the current rate of 22.79% indicates the highest since March 2004.

Since the withdrawal of subsidy on petrol DQG WKH ÁRDWLQJ RI WKH QDLUD DJDLQVW WKH dollar, marketers had continued to explain that the cost of PMS could rise to as high as N700/litre. Today, Nigerians are in the throes of unprecedented hardship with the soaring cost of living. $FURVV 1LJHULDQ VWDWHV WKH LQÁDWLRQ rate was highest in Lagos (25.75%), Ondo (25.40%), and Kogi (25.23%), while the likes of Borno (20.44%), Zamfara (20.93%), and Ekiti (21.06%) recorded the slowest rise LQ KHDGOLQH LQÁDWLRQ RQ D \HDU RQ \HDU basis. And then, on a month-on-month basis, Ogun (3.21%), Plateau (3.05%), and Jigawa (3.00%) reported the fastest increases but were slow in Zamfara (1.40%), Delta (1.42%), and Rivers (1.54%).

6HULRXV 5HSHUFXVVLRQV RQ %XVLQHVVHV According to the analysis of Cowry Asset Management Company, businesses will face higher costs, which could lead to lower SURÀWV DQG MRE ORVVHV ZKLOH LW EHFRPHV riskier for investors to invest in Nigeria.

“Overall, the 2023 outlook for inflation stays elevated and uncertain at this time, and our prognosis has it that factors such as the large budget deficit of the government, the proposed or planned hike in electricity tariffs, planned increase 5LVLQJ ,QÁDWLRQ In its latest report, the NBS revealed in flour prices by flour millers, continued WKDW WKH KHDGOLQH LQÁDWLRQ UDWH URVH E\ naira depreciation, among many other 0.38 percentage points to 22.79% in June factors, could further put upward pressure 2023, relative to 22.41% in May 2023, RQ LQÁDWLRQ µ LW VDLG LQ LWV SUHYLHZ RI WKH and 4.19 percentage points higher on a MPC meeting.

03& 0HHWLQJ It, however, said the MPC at its meeting is likely to raise the interest UDWH WR FRQWDLQ LQÁDWLRQ ZDUQLQJ however that this could hurt businesses and consumers as against the expectations of the markets in line with the recent policy reforms by the new administration for interest rates moderation.

And as observed by analysts from Financial Derivatives Limited, the prevailing high cost of goods is forcing consumers to look for alternatives.

FDC, in a report, said that producers and consumers are adopting various means to muddle through KLJK LQÁDWLRQDU\ SUHVVXUHV ,W SRLQWHG out that for example, manufacturers are reducing the quantity and the value of their products to avoid increasing prices considering the level of competition within the industry. It also noted that consumers are also switching to cheaper substitutes and alternatives to protect themselves from higher prices as disposable income falls, adding that as consumers turn to cheaper products, there is a high risk of the influx of adulterated products into the market. )RUHLJQ ([FKDQJH &KDOOHQJHV The FDC report noted that despite the changes in the foreign exchange market structure, forex supply remains insufficient. On both the IEFX window and the parallel market, the exchange rate is now trading above N800/$. It pointed out that the depreciation of the exchange rate

raises the risk of further price increases in the coming months as imported commodities become more costly. $QDO\VWV IHDU WKDW WKH JRYHUQPHQW·V HͿRUW might be constrained by the paucity of dollars with a source claiming that the NNPCL has not been able to pay in dollars in two years due to oil theft and swaps.

This came amidst the speculation that the CBN is converting dollars revenues and giving the three tiers naira, using the prevailing exchange rate.

An economic analyst listed the exchange rate and the marginal increase in the price of crude oil in the international market as factors responsible for the rise in the cost of petrol. She stressed the fact that whereas the CBN has no control over the latter, it has control over the former by intervening in the FX market, beating her chest that if market players are aware that CBN is ready to step in for a few months with about half a billion dollars to $1bn monthly, demand pressure will reduce.

According to her, “We make dollar inflows from oil royalties, PPT and NLNG dividends. They may not be as much as those that come from crude oil sales, but it is something the CBN can lean on as an interim measure. Ideally, an IMF-backed facility would have been better. But in its absence, CBN can use the dollars it LV JHWWLQJ IURP RWKHU VRXUFHV µ Another market watcher, however, noted that the federal government is trying to raise dollars with little success, “We just paid off Eurobond and have never defaulted. It will take some six months to reach stability if all policies align! With no CBN Governor and no ÀQDQFH PLQLVWHU LQ SODFH LW ZLOO WDNH ORQJHU WR EXLOG FRQÀGHQFH µ KH VDLG

14

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

BUSINESS LAW

Honeywell Group

Ecobank

New Twist in Ecobank, Honeywell Debt Saga A new twist has emanated from the ongoing legal battle over the interpretation of the judgement of the Supreme Court, which resolved the dispute between Honeywell Flour Mills Plc and two of its subsidiaries with Ecobank Plc over a non-performing loan granted by the bank, writes Wale Igbintade

F

or more than eight years, HoneyZHOO DQG LWV VLVWHU ÀUPV $QFKRUage Leisures Limited and Siloam Global Limited, have been locked in a N5.5 billion debt dispute with Ecobank Plc. While Honeywell, Anchorage and Siloam claimed WR KDYH SDLG 1 ELOOLRQ DV ÀQDO SD\PHQW IRU WKH GHEW (FREDQN LQVLVWHG WKH ÀUPV ZHUH VWLOO indebted to it.

Keen observers of the issues had thought that the issue had been laid to rest, having journeyed through the hierarchy of courts up to the Supreme Court. They are of the view that following the principle of the unchangeability of Supreme Court’s decision, parties would abide by the pronouncement of the apex court. But the contrary is the case, as parties involved in the matter have GLͿHUHQW LQWHUSUHWDWLRQV DQG XQGHUVWDQGLQJ RI the judgment.

While the counsel to Ecobank Plc, Mr. Kunle Ogunba (SAN), argued that the binding decision of the Supreme Court, found that as of January 17, 2014, the sum of N3,1116,731,061.07 remains to be paid, counsel to Otudeko and Honeywell Group, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), is of the view that at no time did the court award the amount or any judgment sum (as debt owed) at all in favour of Ecobank.

6SHFLÀFDOO\ IROORZLQJ WKH DFTXLVLWLRQ RI D PDMRULW\ HTXLW\ VWDNH LQ )%1 +ROGLQJV E\ WKH Managing Director of Honeywell Group Limited, Dr. Obafemi Otudeko, Ecobank through its lawyer, Kunle Ogunba (SAN) in a letter addressed to FBN Holdings Plc, called on the bank to stay action DQG QRW DFFRUG DQ\ ULJKWV WR WKH DFTXLUHG VKDUHV It alleged that the share purchase was a ploy by Otudeko to frustrate a Supreme Court judgment in the bank’s favour.

The letter stated that the court had in its judgment delivered on January 27, 2023, in Appeal No 6& &9 D΀UPHG WKH LQGHEWHGQHVV RI several companies related to Otudeko and ordered the companies to pay their indebtedness to the bank. It stated that the total indebtedness was calculated at N13.51 billion as of January 31, 2023.

Ecobank further alleged that Barbican Capital, ZKLFK DFTXLUHG SHU FHQW RU ELOOLRQ VKDUHV LQ FBN Holdings, was “hurriedly incorporated after WKH MXGJPHQW RI WKH 6XSUHPH &RXUW VSHFLÀFDOO\ on the 9th day of March 2023, as part of active steps by Otudeko to divert his personal funds and assets, and those of the debtor companies away from paying the judgment sum.”

The bank alleged that Otudeko, who has a EHQHÀFLDO LQWHUHVW LQ WKH FRPSDQLHV SHUVRQDOO\ JXDUDQWHHG WKH ORDQV LQ TXHVWLRQ

´&RQVHTXHQW XSRQ WKH IRUHJRLQJ FU\VWDOLVHG facts, it is beyond doubt that the actions being taken by Dr. Oba Otudeko are targeted at diverting his assets and that of the Honeywell Group of companies through the said Barbican Capital Limited, in order to frustrate the enforcement of the judgment of the Supreme Court against him and the Honeywell companies, towards recovering his/their undisputed indebtedness to our client’’, the bank alleged.

But, in a swift response, Wole Olanipekun & Co, asked FBN Holdings to disregard the petition

by Ecobank’s lawyers, demanding a rejection of 4.7 billion shares purchased by the entrepreneur. ,Q D OHWWHU WKH ODZ ÀUP GLVPLVVHG WKH FODLPV

by Ecobank that there was a Supreme Court judgment backing its stance that Otudeko was owing it N13.5 billion. According to the letter, no order of the court had “awarded same or any judgment sum (as debt owed) at all in favour of Ecobank as a liability from our clients or any of the Honeywell companies.”

The letter read in part, “The sum of N13.51bn WKLUWHHQ ELOOLRQ ÀYH KXQGUHG DQG VHYHQ PLOOLRQ ÀIW\ WZR WKRXVDQG IRXU KXQGUHG DQG VHYHQWHHQ naira, ninety-nine kobo) stated in Ecobank’s letter is/was not contained in the Supreme Court decision or any extant court decision in Nigeria or elsewhere.”

To further compound the dispute, Nigerians were shocked last Tuesday when Justice Muhammad Lima ordered Ecobank Plc to pay Honeywell Flour Mills Plc a whopping N72 billion over illegal ex-parte order obtained by the bank against the group’s assets. Some are wondering if the High Court can determine a case already settled by the Supreme Court.

7KH FRXUW KHOG WKDW WKH SODLQWLͿ +RQH\ZHOO Flour Mills) was denied the use of funds in his account based on the ex parte order granted in favour of the defendant.

'LVVDWLVÀHG (FREDQN LQ LWV 1RWLFH RI $SSHDO ÀOHG E\ LWV ODZ\HU 2JXQED XUJHG WKH FRXUW WR VWD\ execution of the judgment pending the hearing DQG ÀQDO GHWHUPLQDWLRQ RI WKH DSSHDO ORGJHG against the said judgment pending at the Court of Appeal, Lagos Judicial Division.

The appellant is also asking for “an order restraining the respondent (Honeywell Flour Mills Plc) whether by itself, its servant(s), agent(s), privies, assigns or any person(s) howsoever called or described, acting under the actual, implied RU FOHDU DXWKRULW\ RI WKH SODLQWLͿ UHVSRQGHQW from taking advantage of the judgment or any enforceable/executable orders of this court delivered on 18th July, 2023 in Suit No: FHC/L/ &6 SHQGLQJ WKH KHDULQJ DQG ÀQDO

determination of the appeal lodged against the judgment.”

Ecobank is also seeking for “an order of the court UHVWUDLQLQJ WKH 'HSXW\ 6KHULͿ RI WKH )HGHUDO +LJK &RXUW WKH EDLOLͿ RI WKH FRXUW EHORZ DQG WKRVH RI the Federal and State High Courts, the Nigerian Police Force or any other law enforcement agency from assisting the respondent herein from enforcing or taking advantage of the Judgment or any enforceable/executable orders of the court delivered on 185h July 2023 pending the hearing and determination of the appeal and for such further or other orders as the court may deem ÀW WR PDNH LQ WKH FLUFXPVWDQFH µ The appellant in its Notice of Appeal raised fundamental issues of law, stating that if the judgment of this lower court is enforced against it, the decision of the Court of Appeal will be rendered nugatory, and same will annihilate the existence of the applicant and cause panic in the economy.

The appellant stated that the lower court judge erred in law when he assumed jurisdiction to determine the respondents claim at the lower FRXUW DQG FRQVHTXHQWO\ GLVPLVVHG WKH DSSHOODQW·V QRWLFH RI SUHOLPLQDU\ REMHFWLRQ ÀOHG RQ 2FWREHU 16, 2018 on the sole ground that the respondent’s cause of action for damages borders on banker customer relationship which both the Federal High Court and State High Court share concurrent jurisdiction to entertain.

“The learned trial judge erred in law when he assumed jurisdiction to determine the responGHQWV FODLP DW WKH ORZHU FRXUW DQG FRQVHTXHQWO\ dismissed the appellant’s notice of preliminary REMHFWLRQ ÀOHG RQ WK 0DUFK RQ WKH JURXQG that the respondent’s cause of action is not related to the judgment of the Supreme Court in SC CV/210 2021.

“The learned trial judge erred when he delivered its judgment outside the 90 days prescribed by the provisions of 294 (1) of the Constitution of the )HGHUDO 5HSXEOLF RI 1LJHULD DQG FRQVHTXHQWO\ occasioned a miscarriage of justice against the DSSHOODQW &RQVHTXHQWO\ LW SUD\HG WKH FRXUW WR set aside the judgment delivered on the 18th day of July 2023.” $OVR 2JXQED KDV GUDJJHG WKH ODZ ÀUP RI Wole Olanipekun & Co. before the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) and the Body of Benchers. He urged the NJC and the Body of Benchers to probe the ODZ ÀUP·V UROH LQ WKH PDWWHU RI ´6KDUHV EHORQJLQJ to Honeywell Group Limited, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, Anchorage Limited, Siloam Global Services Limited and Dr. Oba Otudeko in FBN Holdings Plc or in any other entity”.

Ogunba accused Wole Olanipekun & Co of among others, “unprofessionalism/abuse of

WKH ÀQDO MXGJPHQW RI WKH 6XSUHPH &RXUWµ DQG “Persistent and constant abuse of process of court”.

He stated: “We have just been served copy of a FRUUHVSRQGHQFH RI WKH WK LQVWDQW IURP WKH ÀUP of Wole Olanipekun & Co. in response to ours of the 12th instant as regards the above subject and we are now convinced beyond all previous GRXEWV WKDW WKH KLJKO\ HVWHHPHG ODZ ÀUP RI :ROH Olanipekun & Co. will palpably stop at nothing WR GHVSROLDWH WKH ÀQDO MXGJPHQW RI WKH 6XSUHPH Court in a dispute that raged for the better part of eight years as would be shown anon particularly in the light of the “fresh action” in suit no. FHC/L/ &6 LW ÀOHG DW WKH )HGHUDO +LJK &RXUW in Lagos to palpably re-litigate the same subject matter. ´&OHDUO\ WKH UHVSRQVH RI WKH ÀUP RI :ROH 2ODnipekun & Co. has departed from its previous position that the Supreme Court could not have, and, indeed, did not grant an award claim in IDYRXU RI WKH EDQN DQG KDV XQLODWHUDOO\ FRGLÀHG a phantom unanimity of position that entity and personality who undoubtedly guaranteed the facilities are not parties before the court and that D FHUWDLQ ÀJXUH ZDV QHYHU PHQWLRQHG ZKHQ WKH Supreme Court held that the “Debtor must pay all the debts that have accrued under the loan contract.

“Indeed, if that position is true for all intents DQG SXUSRVHV WKH TXHVWLRQ LV ZK\ WKH QHFHVVLW\ for a “fresh action” on behalf of the judgment debtors necessitating a counter-claim on our part?”

He argued that a careful analysis of the claim as presented in the “fresh action” shows “vividly that the new action at the lower court is a frontal attack on the Supreme Court judgment because while the Supreme Court has previously held (at page 39 of its judgment) that: ‘The respondent being the owner of the money dues as debts from the appellants can decide to waive its right to recover all the debts due to it from each appellant. But it cannot be compelled to waive a contractual right. ´+RZHYHU E\ WKH IUHVK DFWLRQ ÀOHG WKH DSSHOODQWV DV SODLQWLͿ QRZ VHHN DQ RUGHU WKDW WKH owner (the bank) can be so compelled contrary to the binding decision of the Supreme Court, the highest Court in the land which found as a matter of fact that as of the 17th day of January, 2014 the sum of N3,1116,731,061.07 remains outstanding ZKLFK LV PRUH WKDQ WKH 1 ELOOLRQ WKH SODLQWLͿ admitted as due and owing.”

No doubt the outcome of the dispute would go a long way in addressing the negative trend of non-performing loans in the banking sector.

This is because a high level of non-performing ORDQV ZRXOG UHGXFH WKH ÀQDQFLDO SHUIRUPDQFH of commercial banks in the country.

SUNDAY JULY 23, 2023 • T H I S D AY

15

16

T H I S D AY SUNDAY JULY 23, 2023

ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGE OF INSECURITY

ATTA BARKINDO argues the need to strengthen the electoral process

CONDUCT OF POLITICAL PARTIES

6LQFH 1LJHULD·V UHWXUQ WR GHPRFUDF\ in 1999, there has been a steady increase in political participation and engagement by both state and nonstate actors, including the electorate.

While Nigeria’s democracy continues to grow, stakeholders in the political and governance space recognise the need for constant assessment.

One important measure of Nigeria’s democratic progress lies in the behavior and activities of political parties. Political parties play a crucial role in democratic governance, and WKHLU DFWLRQV VLJQLÀFDQWO\ LPSDFW WKH success of any election.

In 1999, Nigeria had three political parties, which grew to 30 in 2003 and 50 in 2007. By 2011, there were 63 registered political parties, and in 2015, the number increased even further.

The 2019 general elections witnessed the participation of 91 political parties, ZLWK ÀHOGLQJ FDQGLGDWHV IRU WKH presidential seat.

However, following a review of political party performance after the 2019 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deregistered 74 political parties, reducing the number to 18. This move, advocated for by &LYLO 6RFLHW\ 2UJDQL]DWLRQV &62V aimed to streamline the political landscape and provide Nigerians with a clearer choice among candidates based on their party manifestos.

While INEC’s constitutional mission is to ensure free, fair, and credible elections, its authority is limited when it comes to regulating the behavior of political parties, their candidates, and spokespersons before, during, and after elections. It is widely acknowledged that Nigeria’s general elections are marred by verbal and physical attacks, contributing to a tense and divisive political atmosphere.

In past elections, politicians have resorted to casting aspersions and engaging in unsavory rhetoric targeting their opponents. For example, the political campaigns that preceded the 2015 general elections were dominated by religious, ethnic and hate slurs that many analysts predicted the disintegration of 1LJHULD 6XFK XQHWKLFDO DFWLRQV further exacerbate existing ethnic and religious divides, undermining the democratic process. Reports from

the Kukah Centre, a policy research institute that serves as the secretariat for the National Peace Committee supported by the European Union WKURXJK WKH (XURSHDQ 8QLRQ 6XSSRUW WR Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU6'*1 LQGLFDWH ZLGHVSUHDG HOHFWRUDO misconduct by politicians and their parties during the 2023 general elections.

To promote peaceful electoral conduct, the National Peace Committee, with support from the EU, facilitated two peace accords signed by the presidential candidates and political parties. The ÀUVW DFFRUG VLJQHG LQ 6HSWHPEHU 2022, committed parties to peaceful conduct during rallies and campaigns, emphasizing issue-based discussions over personal attacks. The second accord, signed on February 22, 2023, focused on accepting the election results and seeking legal recourse in case of grievances.

According to the Kukah Centre’s ÀQGLQJV SROLWLFDO SDUWLHV GHPRQVWUDWHG D VLJQLÀFDQW IDLOXUH WR XSKROG WKH ÀUVW SHDFH DFFRUG ZLWK D QRQ compliance rate. Parties failed to maintain decorum in public conduct and communication, including interviews in print and electronic media. However, the second peace accord fared better, ZLWK DSSUR[LPDWHO\ FRPSOLDQFH LQ accepting election results and seeking legal redress.

For instance, following the presidential election, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and other major parties rejected the results.

However, in adherence to the peace accord, they pursued legal recourse instead of inciting their supporters.

Moving forward, stakeholders in politics and governance recognize the need for greater efforts to promote peaceful conduct among political players, particularly political parties, their candidates, and spokespersons.

Politicians should receive training on constructive criticism of opponents and effectively marketing their agendas without crossing ethical boundaries.

Furthermore, as INEC continues to leverage technology for transparent and credible elections, there is a need to enhance the capacity of both permanent and ad hoc staff.

6WUHQJWKHQLQJ WKH HOHFWRUDO SURFHVV and ensuring the delivery of results that Nigerians and the international community can trust should be a priority.

Fr. Barkindo writes from Abuja

Government’s peace agency should drive the non-kinetic strategy, argues OLALEKAN A. BABATUNDE It is fascinating to hear that the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has resolved to adopt non-kinetic approach (non-lethal force or soft approach) in addition to kinetic, to address the perennial insecurity in Nigeria. While responding to newsmen in Kano last week, WKH 9LFH 3UHVLGHQW .DVKLP 6KHWWLPD H[SODLQHG that military solution could not end insecurity and insurgency in the country, especially in the QRUWK $FFRUGLQJ WR 6KHWWLPD ´8QOHVV ZH ZDQW to engage in an endless war of attrition, there cannot be a military solution to the crises in the North-west.”

In another forum, he disclosed that the government would soon unveil an initiative “Pulaku” solution to address insurgency and poverty. This is another official confirmation of the inadequacy in military force (kinetic) that has been adopted especially since 1999 to fight terrorism, banditry, “unknown gunmen” phenomenon, and other perpetrations of violence.

This is not the first time the Nigerian government is renewing its resolve to adopt non-kinetics. For example, Lt. General Tukur Buratai (rtd) unveiled a plan he called “nonkinetic approach” in northeast in 2018. Also WKH IRUPHU 1DWLRQDO 6HFXULW\ $GYLVHU WR WKH President, Major General Babagana Monguno (rtd) disclosed in the same Kano in February 2022 of the government’s intention to use soft approach to eradicate violent extremism.

The approach was encapsulated in the Policy Framework and National Action Plan for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE), which was developed in 2017.

But given the nature and scope of the peace and security challenges, the global framework focuses only on violent extremism and therefore short of the deeper principles, tools and strategies desirable to effectively mitigate the broad range of intractable conflicts bedevilling the country.

Likewise, the causative drivers of violent extremism are becoming more challenging and complex.

Also, the past informs us of government’s stance on counter-insurgency, which has had implications on how non-kinetic has been driven in the country. Huge money and resources have been pumped into kinetic initiatives since 1999, but the security problems did not only persist, but also increased in scope and changed in dynamics. For instance, almost every week, we hear of certain numbers of militants killed or repented, and arms recovered, but killings, destructions and displacements from communal crises and armed attacks are rapidly escalating and transforming.

The harsh reality is that with the launches of Operation this, and Operation that campaigns, cessation of hostilities remain elusive as ever.

The inter-communal crises, armed attacks and the so-called unknown gunmen that began in 2000 are still ravaging. Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, Katsina, and the southeast states are currently reeling from the menace.

But while there is still more to be done to win the trust of people and address the underlying causes and drivers of violent conflict in Nigeria, one cannot discredit the role the military has played in the counter-insurgency and combating violent perpetrators. The armed forces have been engaging in non-kinetic to improve the civil-military relationships. They dialogue with warring communities, build infrastructure and provide amenities such as medical supplies and water to win the FRQÀGHQFH RI EHOOLJHUHQW SDUWLHV 1HYHUWKHOHVV the civilians do see them as military men.

But more importantly, we must remember that the militarization of the Nigerian society has indeed contributed to the insecurity we DUH FRQIURQWLQJ 7KH G\QDPLFV RI FRQÁLFW LQ 1LJHULD DPSOLÀHG ZLWK WKH LQFXUVLRQ of military in power in 1966. The country witnessed serious mistrust among the ethnic nationalities; injustice in the federating units, resource control, political appointments; and abuse of rights especially incarceration and extra-judicial killings of activists during the prolonged military dictatorship.

Unfortunately, the inability of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration to release the report of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (Oputa Panel) he set up in June 1999, and address the anomalies, and to heal the wounds of the past, reconcile the disaffected and rebuild relationships fuelled the ugly situations.

Obasanjo had observed that the long \HDUV RI WKH PLOLWDU\ UXOH KDG ´VWLÁHG WKH opposition and affected the psychic of the people.” Almost every ethnic group had some grievances or the other. That SURYRNHG GULYHUV RI YLROHQW FRQÁLFW DQG reprisals, which became entrenched in the systems. Injustice, corruption, illiteracy, poverty and exclusion provided recruits for the ethnic militias, and violent extremist groups. A group of three to four boys, bold enough to obtain arms may block any road in the country and foment violence. Instead of peace, the democracy began to generate FRQÁLFW DQG YLROHQFH 6R DGGUHVVLQJ WKLV legacy of injustice and other drivers of violence through non-kinetic means is a welcome one.

6R LW LV ZLWKLQ WKLV UHQHZHG VWUDWHJ\ WKDW I strongly advise the government to look inward and take opportunity of its peace DJHQF\ WKH ,QVWLWXWH IRU 3HDFH DQG &RQÁLFW Resolution (IPCR), established by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 as his administration transitioned into democratic governance. As a civil institution and the nonkinetic tool of the government, the institute is well poised to drive the proposed nonkinetic initiatives. The IPCR’s Establishment Act of 2007 mandated it to identify the root causes of violent conflict in Nigeria through research and provide possible solutions through evidence-informed policy options, and engage in peacebuilding, advocacy and education strategies to mitigate the socalled intractable conflicts. The Guardian of 6HSWHPEHU GHVFULEHV WKH DJHQF\ DV “Nigeria’s foremost and indigenous civilian peace and conflict resolution institute.” At inception until 2007, the agency was under the Presidency (Vice President Office), and has engaged with national and international stakeholders to help mitigate the insecurity problems. ,I ZKDW 93 6KHWWLPD VDLG WKDW ´7KH SUHVLGHQW is determined to redefine the meaning and concept of modern governance…” to address the root causes of the recurring banditry and insurgency, then his government should take advantage of its potential agency and make it more visible in the discharge of its IXQFWLRQV 7KH ÀUVW VWHS VKRXOG EH WR UHWXUQ the agency back to The Presidency where it will be more capacitated and provided with the much-expected non-kinetic needs to deliver on its mandate.

Babatunde, a part-time Professor at the Zhejiang Normal University China, writes via austinebabatunde@yahoo.com

41

T H I S D AY SUNDAY JULY 16, 2023

EDITORIAL

Editor, Editorial Page PETER ISHAKA Email peter.ishaka@thisdaylive.com

THE EXPLOITATION OF NIGERIAN FLYERS Foreign airlines’ charges on Nigerian routes are excessive

T

would not happen if Nigerian carriers also operated he increasing exploitation of Nigerian ÁLJKWV WR WKHVH GHVWLQDWLRQV international travellers who are charged Nigeria has the record of being the highest outrageous fares by foreign airlines indigenous travellers inAfrica. That makes our country should not be allowed to continue. While lucrative for these foreign airlines. Unfortunately, it is not a new trend, the situation has studies have shown that the federal government become worse in the last three years. is not supporting Nigerian airlines to operate Today, Nigerians pay almost three times the fares international routes. In a recent meeting of aviation being charged in Ghana, Benin Republic and other eggheads, a domestic operator indicted government African countries. Travel agents and aviation insiders for not following through to ensure Nigerian carriers readily attribute the excessive fares to the fact that are given equal stake with their foreign counterparts Nigeria has not been able to provide foreign airlines while drawing Bilateral Air Service Agreements the forex needed for them to repatriate their trapped (BASA) with countries whose airlines operate into revenues, which is put at nearly $1 billion. Another our country. While other countries give full support reason often peddled is Naira devaluation and the to their airlines, using their diplomats, Nigerian FRQYHUJHQFH RI WKH SDUDOOHO DQG RIÀFLDO H[FKDQJH JRYHUQPHQW RIÀFLDOV GR RWKHUZLVH 7KH FRQVHTXHQFH rates. is that Nigerian airlines But these reasons are shabbily treated by cannot explain why Civil Aviation Authorities fares from Nigeria are While Nigeria should do everything possible to pay the foreign and foreign desks in the exceptional, a trend countries they want to observable even before airlines their trapped funds, we must halt all discriminatory REWDLQ DSSURYDO IRU ÁLJKW the foreign airlines’ practices against our country in the aviation sector service. trapped funds. In any Whoever President Bola case, trapped funds are Tinubu appoints to man the aviation ministry must not peculiar to Nigeria. Other African countries with work to change this sordid narrative that many believe similar challenge include Algeria, Angola, Benin, S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R DURVH GXH WR WKH FRPSURPLVH RI RXU RIÀFLDOV 7KH Burundi, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, EDITOR DAVIDSON IRIEKPEN federal government must have it as a condition that Equatorial Guinea, Malawi, Mozambique, Sudan, DEPUTY EDITORS FESTUS AKANBI, EJIOFOR ALIKE DQ\ FRXQWU\ WKDW KDV DLUOLQH WKDW Á\ LQWR 1LJHULD PXVW MANAGING DIRECTOR ENIOLA BELLO Gabon, Cameroon, Chad, Congo and Zimbabwe. Yet, DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR ISRAEL IWEGBU allow a Nigeria carrier that has met given conditions travellers from these countries are not subjected to the CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD OLUSEGUN ADENIYI to also operate into that country. The principle of kind of scandalous airfares that Nigerian passengers EDITOR NATION’S CAPITAL IYOBOSA UWUGIAREN reciprocity should be the new watchword. Nigerian are made to pay.

THE OMBUDSMAN KAYODE KOMOLAFE airlines that operate international destinations are The major factor for this state of affair is the known to slash fares and such competition will force lack of competition on the routes foreign airlines the country’s airline to also bring down its fares. operate from Nigeria. For example, Delta Air T H I S DAY N E W S PA P E R S L I M I T E D Currently, it is only Ethiopian Airlines and Royal Lines and United Airlines are the only airlines that EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/CHAIRMAN NDUKA OBAIGBENA Air Maroc that sell tickets in Naira; other foreign RSHUDWH GLUHFW ÁLJKWV IURP 1LJHULD WR WKH 8QLWHG GROUP EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS ENIOLA BELLO, KAYODE KOMOLAFE, ISRAEL IWEGBU, EMMANUEL EFENI airlines sell in dollars. Even this cannot be allowed States. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways DIVISIONAL DIRECTORS SHAKA MOMODU, PETER IWEGBU, to continue. While Nigeria should do everything RSHUDWH WKH RQO\ GLUHFW ÁLJKWV IURP 1LJHULD WR WKH ANTHONY OGEDENGBE possible to pay the foreign airlines their trapped United Kingdom. Air France is the only airline that DEPUTY DIVISIONAL DIRECTOR OJOGUN VICTOR DANBOYI funds, we must halt all discriminatory practices RSHUDWHV GLUHFW ÁLJKWV IURP 1LJHULD WR )UDQFH ZKLOH SNR. ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR ERIC OJEH against our country in the aviation sector. The onus /XIWKDQVD RSHUDWHV WKH RQO\ GLUHFW ÁLJKWV IURP ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR PATRICK EIMIUHI lies on the federal government to cut down the Nigeria to Germany. And KLM is the sole airline ABIMBOLA TAIWO, UCHENNA DIBIAGWU, NDUKA MOSERI CONTROLLERS excesses of foreign airlines who are already used to WKDW ÁLHV GLUHFWO\ IURP 1LJHULD WR 1HWKHUODQGV ,W DIRECTOR, PRINTING PRODUCTION CHUKS ONWUDINJO ripping off our travellers. Sadly, they do so with the is the same with Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, TO SEND EMAIL: first name.surname@thisdaylive.com complicity of those who ordinarily should work in Egypt Air, and others. By creating monopolies for the interest of our people.

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Letters to the Editor

Letters in response to specific publications in THISDAY should be brief(150-200 words) and straight to the point. Interested readers may send such letters along with their contact details to opinion@thisdaylive.com. We also welcome comments and opinions on topical local, national and international issues provided they are well-written and should also not be longer than (950- 1000 words). They should be sent to opinion@thisdaylive. com along with the email address and phone numbers of the writer

LETTERS

THE THINK-HOME DRIVE OF GOVERNOR SOLUDO

The time-revered adage says it all: There is no place like home. A man without a home cannot earn the respect of any community.

The republican Igbo spirit makes the people to sojourn far and wide in search of opportunities. Even so, the homestead must never be abandoned.

The drive of Anambra State Governor, Prof.

Charles Chukwuma Soludo (CFR) is to ensure that Anambra businessmen and women doing great business all over Nigeria and indeed the entire world should start thinking home by investing heavily in the homeland.

Governor Soludo is intent on spreading The Homeland Gospel of the Think-Home project which he is taking far and wide through Town-hall meetings in the cities such as Lagos and Abuja.

It is of course in the best interest of Anambra DQG LQGHHG 6RXWKHDVW LQYHVWRUV WR KDYH D ÀUP foothold within the homeland. A personality who does not develop his place of origin can hardly ever earn the respect of the owners of the land he is sojourning in. There is always

the hardly hidden charge, to wit, “if your homeland is good, why are you living in our land?”

It is incumbent on the renowned Anambra captains of industry to grow the home state by establishing factories and ensuring that a measure of their taxes are paid to the state irrespective of where they reside or work.

Governor Soludo has therefore enjoined NdiAnambra residing outside the state to join forces with him in the proactive responsibility “to leave Anambra State better than we met it.”

According to Governor Soludo, “The homeland consciousness must be inculcated in the perceptual mind of every OnyeAnambra on the need to change Anambra State from a departure lounge to a vibrant destination lounge. Your host will never respect you if you don’t have a livable and prosperous homeland.”

Mr. Governor has given sound assurance that his government is determined to resurrect Onitsha, the popular market town

on the bank of the River Niger, by returning it to its former glory as the biggest commercial city in the Southeast and beyond. It is in the drive to make Anambra an investmentfriendly state that the administration has drastically reduced the menace of killings and kidnapping to the barest minimum through the security architecture put in place by the government in alliance with the Army, Navy, Police, the state vigilante group and other paramilitary agencies.

For Ndi-Anambra to embrace the ThinkHome project holistically, Governor Soludo has embarked on the pivotal duty of restoring law and order in the state as opposed to the impunity that held sway before he came into office.

Additionally, in the bid to boost the power supply in the state, the Anambra State government has signed an MOU with the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company for 24hour supply of electricity in the state. Soludo has stated that anyone interested in collaborating with his government to set up an Independent

Power Plant in the state is welcome on board.

The time has come for Ndi-Anambra and the Igbo people at large to stop seeing themselves as victims of persecution because they have an option. The Jews to whom the Igbo people are compared were victims of the dastardly Holocaust unleashed on them

by Adolf Hitler of Germany. But since the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, the teeming Jewish Diaspora has always rallied to develop a homeland they can be proud of.

Ndi-Anambra, and indeed all Ndigbo all over Nigeria and in the Diaspora, have a bounden duty to come together to adopt Governor Soludo’s Think-Home philosophy by committing their resources to developing the homeland like the Jews of Israel - a Homeland that is more liveable and prosperous than their land of sojourn.

Sir Paul Nwosu, Commissioner for Information, Anambra State

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WEEKLY PULL-OUT

23.7.2023

AKIIN SHUGA

Sweet Symphony of His Success In the heart of Akinloye Tofowomo, widely known as Akiin Shuga, lies a fervent commitment to professionalism and excellence that has propelled the Shuga Band to the forefront of Nigeria’s music industry, attracting corporate giants and high-net-worth individuals to their sweet melodies. With over two decades of showmanship, Akiin Shuga’s passion for music fused with a business-minded approach has transformed the Shuga Band into an entertainment company that transcends borders, writes Vanessa Obioha ASSISTANT EDITOR OLUFUNKE OLAODE/victoria.olaode@thisdaylive.com.

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ JULY 23, 2023

43

COVER

Shuga Band is the Profit of the Power of Music

Akiin Shuga and the Shuga Band

L

ong after most offices had emptied on a recent Thursday evening, one office remained abuzz with activity. Within the confines of the Shuga Band headquarters, Akinloye Tofowomo, affectionately known as Akiin Shuga, alongside his dedicated crew, toiled away. Their unwavering commitment to professionalism and excellence propelled them to surpass closing time with an upcoming gig on the horizon.

“We would probably close around 8 pm,” Akiin Shuga said vibrantly.

Days like those are common in the Shuga’s establishment. His knack for excellence has, over the years, earned him and his band an enviable reputation as Nigeria’s premier band, attracting both corporate giants and high-net-worth individuals to its sweet melodies like bees attracted to a honeypot.

Right from inception, Akiin Shuga treated his musical ensemble as more than just a group of performers.

With an organogram adorning his office walls, he has transformed the band into a well-structured business entity, Shuga Entertainment Nigeria Limited. Having witnessed the shortcomings prevalent in many contemporary bands, Akiin Shuga recognized the importance of treating the band as a business, embracing digital opportunities, and adhering to global best practices. Implementing contractual agreements with clients, initially met with resistance, has now become an integral part of the band’s professional ethos.

In its 25 years of existence, the band’s remarkable success lies in its commitment to staying abreast of trends and continuous improvement.

“It is important to understand that what you have is not enough. What you are able to add to it is what propels you to the future.

And the future you talked about yesterday is today; the future is here.”

Exceptional customer service, embracing digital opportunities, sound quality, cultural sensitivity, positive referrals, transparent communication, respecting clients’ privacy and relentless improvement constitute the pillars of their success. The band consistently invests in training and equipment upgrades,

ensuring that their performances exude excellence in every note.

Their professionalism and exceptional performances have earned them the trust and loyalty of clients, taking them to captivating performances across the globe, from the shores of Sri Lanka to the backyards of Nigeria’s high-profile clientele.

At the heart of the Shuga Band’s success lies their keen attention to detail and cultural sensitivity. No two performances of the band are the same, as each event and client possesses unique components and cultural nuances. A typical example is the grandiose funeral event of Princess Margaret Obaigbena, mother of THISDAY Newspapers publisher Nduka Obaigbena. Over the course of three nights, the band crafted distinct sets, adapting their music to match the ambience and preferences of each day.

“We pay attention to detail because the devil is the detail,” Akiin Shuga explained.

“We knew the first day that dignitaries would be in attendance, so we know the kind of music that will work for that audience. The next day was the burial, and people would be coming after church, so we tailored our music to match that ambience. And then the third day was brunch, after church service on Sunday before people departed for the airport.

We are deliberate in our delivery; it is not accidental.”

Citing another example, Akiin Shuga demonstrated how they integrate culture in their performances.

“From our research, we know that the ndi Igbo from Anambra is different from the ndi Igbo of Imo and Delta. They have unique things that hit home. So we integrate some of the nuances of their culture into what we do.”

Given that their audiences are diverse, the band listens to tons of music daily. A dedicated team is assigned to listen to the top trending songs on global and local charts. The band would then modify these songs in such a way that does not underrate the artist but rather accentuate their artistic vision.

On average, the band rehearses twice a week. Each rehearsal can last for four to five hours. In a year, the band performs at least 60 gigs.

Akiin Shuga, a son of a renowned judge, the late Honorable Justice S.A. Tofowomo has a winsome personality that was noticeable throughout our conversation. It was in the way he switched to colloquial phrases to drive home a point or the number of times he let out bubbly laughter when describing things. This endearing personality masked the challenges life threw at his path from an early age. He had polio at the age of five, but that did not stop him from pursuing his music career.

“My father was a very principled man and wasn’t easily swayed by successes.

He believed that there had to be something solid. He didn’t understand why the son of a judge would be a singer or have a band.”

Against his father’s will to pursue a career in law, Akiin Shuga began his music band career as far back as the late 90s when he left the celebrity hangout Pintos. He teamed up with guitarist Laja Gbadegesin, forming a duo. They performed at ‘Dees’, a renowned establishment owned by Olumide Akinmokun, without charge, impressing the audience and making Sundays at the venue a music hotspot. The band later grew to a three-piece ensemble.

While Laja left to join the enigmatic musician Lagbaja, the band flourished and gained recognition as Nigeria’s premier live band. Today, the band boasts 14 members.

Despite the little or no encouragement he got, Akiin Shuga never wavered in his dreams.

“Things may not have gone the way I wanted, but I knew that it was not about faith but trusting God. I knew that He was not just going to leave me. I didn’t know what He had in plan for me, but I knew at the end of the day, He was going to come for me. How he was going to do it, I don’t know. What he was going to do, I don’t know. I knew my race was different, and I had to just stay on track.”

Although his father did not witness his outstanding success, Akiin Shuga has a sense of fulfillment seeing his mother’s reaction to his achievements. He mimicked her surprise each time she read about his success.

“Eh, Akiin Shuga, see that boy of yesterday,” he laughed. “She has seen how I have evolved. I am a husband and a father.

I made something out of the path that I chose.”

So far, Akiin Shuga has performed for three sitting presidents. The first time was for the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

“The first presidential event we performed at, we didn’t know. We actually went to an event in Abuja with the former Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Festus Odimegwu. He was fond of us and usually took us everywhere,” he recounted excitedly.

“So he took us to Abuja and told us that he wanted to take us somewhere.

And bingo! It was Aso Rock. This was during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.”

At that event, Odimegwu introduced the band as a ‘gift’ to the president.

“We did our performance and got a handshake from the president. We were happy. We started doing presidential things, levels don change,” he said jokingly.

Subsequently, he was invited to perform at the opening ceremony of the Obasanjo’s Presidential Library, where the former president recognised his efforts.

Nowadays, many bands are toeing the Shuga’s way.

“It’s good that we are leaving such a legacy,” he remarked.

Reflecting on those past years, Akiin Shuga said he never envisioned that his band would become as big as it is today. He attributed the success to his wife and team.

“Honestly, I didn’t see it evolving. We knew that we could only get better. We kept on making it better. Adapting our sound and style to keep up with the evolving trends and our versatility in music. The intention was to succeed.”

As he marks the 25th anniversary of his band, Akiin Shuga is encapsulating his experience in three distinct parts: reflection, celebration and the future. Reflection looks at the journey of music from the past to now and the failures and lessons learnt so far. The celebration part is recognising and celebrating their hard work “It is also to express gratitude through music and reinforce our positive behaviours.

Music is powerful in all spheres. What we are is the profit of the power of music.”

For the future, Akiin Shuga is setting new goals as well as embracing opportunities that will aid the band’s growth.

“The future allows us to dream big. Who knows, we may win a Grammy.”

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾JULY 23, 2023

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HighLife

with KAYODE ALFRED 08116759807, E-mail: kayflex2@yahoo.com

...Amazing lifestyles of Nigeria’s rich and famous

How Adamu was Paid Back with His Own Coin

Kayode-Laguda

Politics often becomes a ruthless arena where ethical considerations are easily sidelined. Therefore, the recent removal of Abdullahi Adamu from his position as Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is not an uncommon occurrence. Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that Adamu’s removal was somewhat anticipated.

The APC is currently undergoing some internal restructuring.

Adamu, as the Chairman, has become the first party member to be unceremoniously ousted. While critics view his forced retirement as a sign of defeat, others approach the situation with empathy, recognising that he is an elderly statesman deserving of respect.

However, Adamu’s removal from the chairmanship position has also brought relief to many. These individuals vividly recall how Adamu assumed the role and wielded the powers entrusted to him.

Adamu was appointed as Chairman in an attempt to mitigate Adamu

All Eyes on Fuad Kayode-Laguda Time for Kano Governor, Abba Yusuf, to Fuad Kayode-Laguda is among the rising political figures from Nigeria’s younger generation, and his breakthrough to national prominence is highly anticipated.

All eyes are on him, filled with hope and excitement.

The departure of Femi Gbajabiamila, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and current Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, has left a vacant honourable position. Many political analysts believe that KayodeLaguda is the likely successor, representing Surulere 1 Federal Constituency in Lagos.

With the departure of influential leaders like Gbajabiamila, the opportunity arises for promising individuals like KayodeLaguda to step up and lead.

His acceptance of this challenge and commitment to political service have earned him respect and admiration from many quarters.

Kayode-Laguda is a familiar name. He served diligently in the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) for 13 years, earning remarkable merits as a tax administrator. His exceptional career trajectory caught the attention of Babatunde Fowler, who later became a prominent figure in the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). Serving as Fowler’s Personal Assistant in LIRS, Kayode-Laguda maintained a spotless record.

His notable achievements position Kayode-Laguda as the potential winner of the byelection for the Surulere 1 Federal Constituency seat on August 19, 2023. If successful, it will affirm the people’s trust in him and foreshadow his significant contributions in the years ahead.

As Kayode-Laguda gains momentum and attention on the national stage, the weight of expectations rests upon his shoulders. The emerging political figure from the younger generation is perceived as a beacon of hope and potential change for Nigeria’s political landscape.

ethnic tensions within the party. Entrusted with the task of selecting a presidential candidate for the upcoming 2023 elections, Adamu proceeded to endorse a northern candidate, Ahmad Lawan, seemingly oblivious to the explosive implications of such a choice.

The aftermath of Adamu’s announcement of Lawan as the chosen candidate is now old news: President Muhammadu Buhari distanced himself from any responsibility, asserting that he did not endorse anyone, leaving Adamu to face the consequences alone. It was the first clear indication that Adamu, although an elder statesman, had offended many powerful figures.

Considering all these factors, it is not entirely surprising that Adamu has been cast aside along with the old guard. In fact, if the current powers decide to escalate matters, Adamu may gradually lose all political relevance in the coming years, rendering him unfit to receive the respect due to an esteemed elder of the North.

And so, this marks the end of the story of a man named Adamu, who once chaired Nigeria’s foremost political party and played a role in bringing President Bola Tinubu to power.

Settle Down for Real Governance Governance reflects the leader’s personality. Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, now settles as a leader, having completed the trials he seemed to set up for himself. His governance style is becoming evident, as he navigates the challenges and responsibilities of the position.

Kano State indigenes are finally getting some relief, as Governor Yusuf takes a break from his attempts to remove the vestiges of his predecessor, Abdullahi Ganduje’s administration. The citizens are hopeful that this break is final, and they continue to pray for Yusuf’s success as the leader they elected him to be.

Ganduje’s adversarial association with his predecessor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, added to the complexity of the situation.

Yusuf’s relationship as the son-in-law of Kwankwaso contributed to the former’s emergence as the number one citizen of Kano. However, despite their past affiliations, Yusuf seemed determined to unseat Ganduje and erase his influence.

Yusuf’s actions were evident as he

overthrew the former Governor despite belonging to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He further went after Ganduje’s allies, depriving them of power and relevance. Demolishing structures associated with Ganduje across Kano added to the tensions between the two factions.

However, recent reports indicate that Governor Yusuf is now focused on governance. The past feuds seem to be fading as he prioritises the people’s welfare. All things related to Ganduje are now in the background, with the emphasis squarely on good governance.

Yusuf’s future as a leader appears promising, as he demonstrates diligence and passion in his duties. His actions and decisions will likely earn him the support and praise of his constituents. As he moves forward with his governance, his leadership style and commitment to the people’s wellbeing will shape the trajectory of Kano State’s development. It will also bring him enough acclaim to truly eclipse his predecessors.

Yusuf

Sad Moments as Billionaire Businessman, Dahiru Mangal, Loses Wife

Mangal

The human heart is an incredible machine capable of enduring immense pain. Given the number of close relatives Dahiru Mangal has lost in the last two years, one can only wonder how his heart remains intact. Recently, the founder of Air Max suffered the loss of his wife, Aishatu, the most cherished person in his life.

Condolence messages from individuals across Nigeria poured in, offering solace and comfort to Mangal during this difficult time.

Aishatu passed away on Saturday, July 15, 2023, after a brief illness. Her untimely departure from the Mangal family was a deeply painful moment, observed in accordance with Islamic customs.

On Sunday, July 16, a funeral prayer was held at Mangal’s residence in Kofar Guga, Katsina State, attended by Mangal, his children, and grandchildren. Following the prayers, the deceased was laid to rest.

During these mournful times,

many esteemed individuals came to offer their condolences and support to Mangal. Notable figures included the Deputy Governor of Katsina State, Honourable Faruq Lawal Jobe; former Jigawa Governor, Abubakar Badaru; former Governors of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal and Attahiru Bafarawa; Zamfara State Governor, Ahmed Sani Yarima; former Kebbi State Governor, Alhaji Atiku Bagudu; and former Katsina State Governor, Alhaji Sa’idu Barda, as well as a former Prime Minister of Niger Republic.

With the presence of these dignitaries, the atmosphere of mourning at the Mangal household eased slightly, allowing the Air Max founder to find solace amidst the sorrow. Despite these displays of strength, it is evident that these are indeed challenging times for Mangal, and he may face other hardships not known to the public. In such times of grief, the support and compassion from those around him become invaluable.

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾JULY 23, 2023

HIGHLIFE

All Set for Archbishop Idahosa’s 80th Birthday

Idahosa

This is an era where young people have the opportunity to shine, and this sentiment is especially evident in the realm of politics.

Two prominent figures, Adebo Ogundoyin and Adewale Egbedun, stand out as two of the youngest Speakers in Nigeria, drawing the attention and hope of the nation.

Recognising the weight of expectations placed on the new government, Nigerians understand that no single individual can fix everything. Instead, the responsibility of governance lies with those around the leader, particularly those with fresh ideas and energy.

This is where Ogundoyin and Egbedun come into play.

Ogundoyin currently serves as the Speaker of the Ninth Oyo State House of Assembly. As the representative of Ibarapa East Constituency and a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ogundoyin has displayed remarkable potential. At just 36 years of age, he has surpassed the expectations of many since his first entry into the House of Assembly in 2018.

Presently, Ogundoyin is a pillar of strength in Oyo, gradually amassing the political influence needed to effect meaningful change in the present and future. Loved and respected by many, the 36-year-old serves as an inspiration to young people throughout Oyo, and the public holds high expectations for

The name Idahosa is synonymous with the powerful prophetic influence that swept across Nigeria decades ago.

Archbishop Benson Idahosa, the wielder of this influence, may no longer be with us, but his legacy lives on. His wife, Margaret Idahosa, whom many recognise as the current bearer of the Idahosa grace, remains a strong and influential figure, growing in stature with each passing year.

As the time for the celebration of Margaret Idahosa’s 80th birthday on July 29, 2023 approaches, people from all over gather to honour her. The bells are ringing, capturing the attention of those who may be unaware that Mama Idahosa continues to carry the mantle of the Idahosa ministry.

Mama Idahosa has long surpassed the title of “Ministry Mama” often associated with the wives of prominent men of God. Her personal achievements have only served to illuminate her character and grace. It is now widely acknowledged that she was chosen by the late archbishop as his lifelong

partner.

At 80, Mama Idahosa is an impactful preacher and author. Her contributions over the years have ensured the enduring strength of her husband’s ministry, the Church of God Mission International. In recognition of this, the entire ministry is preparing to host a grand celebration in honour of her upcoming birthday.

Indeed, Mama Idahosa deserves every bit of celebration. Upholding the banner of the ministry without her late husband, who passed away 25 years ago, she can be regarded as a woman ahead of her time, dependable and blessed. Given another chance, she would likely choose to marry the late Archbishop once more, with the hope of having him by her side until the end of her days.

Indeed, as she approaches her 80th birthday, her influence and achievements as a preacher and author have strengthened the Church of God Mission International. Her remarkable dedication and impact have earned her the respect and admiration of many, and she continues to shine as a beacon of grace and strength.

A Tale of the Two Youngest Speakers … Why Amanuensis are Expecting More from Them

: L-R: Hon. Egbedun, Gov. Adeleke and Hon. Ogundoyin

his future accomplishments.

Egbedun is equally impressive as Ogundoyin.

At 38, he represents the Odo-Otin Constituency and serves as the Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly. An energetic and gentlemanly individual, Egbedun’s goodwill towards the people of Osun is evident in his actions and decisions.

Having earned the trust of the people, Egbedun’s heart undoubtedly beats for the wellbeing of his constituents. Despite his affiliation with the PDP, he is not expected to show

favouritism solely to party members. Like Ogundoyin, Egbedun is anticipated to kindle hope and progress for all the people of Osun.

With Ogundoyin and Egbedun leading the way, other young individuals are inspired to step forward and achieve greatness. As such, much is expected from these two dynamic and promising Speakers. Their leadership holds the potential to pave the path for a brighter future and empower the younger generation to make their mark on the nation.

Another New Year of Grace for Prodigiously-talented Designer, Vodi

Vodi

With intelligence and a visionary outlook, Seyi Vodi has risen through the ranks and emerged as the crème de la crème, a trajectory that shows no signs of extinguishing anytime soon. As he enters a new age, it is likely that new graces will accompany him on his journey.

Mastery of a trade brings a profound sense of accomplishment, and for Vodi, that trade is fashion and styling. His remarkable achievements have earned him the title of grandmaster, reaching the zenith of the Nigerian fashion industry and gaining international recognition since his debut.

Vodi possesses an extraordinary sense of alliances, effortlessly navigating the political atmosphere and becoming the stylist for President Bola Tinubu, further elevating his reputation. This recognition has played a significant role in the growing prominence

of his Seyi Vodi Store in Abuja, now a hotspot for Nigeria’s elite.However, his brilliance extends beyond the realms of fashion and politics. His ability to foster connections has led him to befriend notable figures such as K1 De Ultimate, Davido, Kizz Daniel, Timi Dakolo, and Ubi Franklin. His amiable personality has also endeared him to Nollywood stars, making him their favourite designer and companion.

Vodi’s genius is always coupled with diligence, allowing him to captivate people from all walks of life, regardless of their superior economic conditions.

This dedication is precisely why his birthday celebration promises to be grander than ever before. For Vodi, surpassing limits and reaching new heights with each endeavour is a way of life.

Edun

The Task Ahead for Wale Edun Speculations about who will end up as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria are still ongoing. Because of the still-ongoing drama with former Governor Godwin Emefiele and the Department of State Services (DSS), no one is absolutely sure about who President Bola Tinubu will appoint to head the apex banking institution. But the name of Olawale Edun is being mentioned with increasing frequency, so he might just be the one.

For anyone that knows President Tinubu, the holder of any prominent position has to be a master at what that position requires and also has to possess a loyal spirit. Using his most recent appointments as the basis for decision-making, Edun appears to fit the bill for the CBN governorship position.

Just last month, Edun was named the Special Adviser to the President on Monetary Policy. Such a position is enviable because of its close relations with the obligations of CBN. Adding that to the apparent goodwill that President Tinubu has towards Edun, it would not be surprising if the latter is anointed to continue where Emefiele stopped.

At present, the CBN governorship seat is only half occupied. Since Emefiele was taken into custody, Folashodun Shonubi was selected as the interim governor of the institution. Shonubi is no stranger to the mechanics of the position seeing as he served under Emefiele as the latter’s Deputy. Even so, relatively few corporate and political analysts are confident that Shonubi will be retained as the new CBN governor.

Thus, the dice returns to Edun who is also a capable individual with a blazing trail of corporate management to his name. Should he emerge as the choice of the president, the CBN position would be another bright decoration on his robe of stellar achievements.

How Visible Construction is Doing the Best Job at National Assembly Visible Construction, under the adept management of Olalekan Adebiyi, is playing a pivotal role in Nigeria’s march towards progress.

Their unwavering dedication to renovating and enhancing the esteemedNationalAssemblyComplex in Abuja has garnered commendation, particularly given thepastcriticismsurroundingthefacility’sleakyroof.

In the competitive world of construction, Visible Construction has emerged as a prominent player, solidifying its position as a leading firm in the industry.

Demonstrating their mettle by efficiently tackling challenges like intermittent rainfall and resolutely adhering to their commitments, they are diligently working to restore the iconic

complex to its former glory.

Adebiyi’s exemplary leadership and the unwavering commitment of the workforce of Visible Construction have been instrumental in advancing the NASS Complex project successfully. Their dedication to delivering top-notch workmanship reflects their professionalism and sets them apart as a reliable and responsible construction agency.

The successful completion of this high-profile renovation project not only enhances Visible Construction’s reputation but also opens up new avenues of opportunity for the company and its associates within the construction industry.

Their exemplary performance in restoring the

National Assembly Complex positions them as a trusted partner for future projects and solidifies their standing as a key contributor to Nigeria’s infrastructure development.

Under the visionary leadership of President Tinubu, and with companies like Visible Construction at the forefront of transformational initiatives, Nigeria is experiencing a wave of progress and improvement. As they tirelessly strive to restore the National Assembly Complex, they are making a lasting impact on the country’s infrastructure and contributing to its overall growth.

Adebiyi

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾JULY 23, 2023

LOUD WHISPERS

with JOSEPH EDGAR (09095325791)

President Tinubu: It’s No Longer Emilokan See, this thing is not about limping to Olumo Rock and shouting, “emilokan.” Running Nigeria which has been adjudged a basket case by the federation of Akwa Ibom Witches is not a bag of beans. It cannot be a reward for a 30-year career in political brinkmanship.

Running Nigeria is not mobilising people to stand in the line and vote for a jaundiced candidate. It can never be ingenuity in political strategy and ability to win elections no matter what.

There must be a certain understanding of the structures that make up the economy, a powerful political will to take the right decisions at all times, decisions that will impact the greater good and a clear strategy of building consensus and carrying almost all critical stakeholders along.

It can never be by bullying, using legitimate force to cow people, weakening of institutions and carrying out half-baked policies with disastrous consequences and an inability to look back and change course where the resultant effect is not the expected.

President Tinubu has rallied himself into power on the back of his emilokan cry. He had sold a bogey to us: that he was more than prepared and was the best candidate and whether we like it or not, we must choose him. He chose himself and he is our president and until the courts make their declarations, we are stuck with him.

Today, the two major economic drivers have developed galloping epilepsy. Fuel and forex have gone mad, carrying with it inflation which has crossed the 22% mark. Job losses, skyrocketing cost of living, food inflation and economic stagflation are our lot and we are still shouting emilokan.

What I am even hearing is that currently, it is only the

REGINA DANIELS IN THE ASSOCIATION OF SENATORS’ WIVES’ FORUM? You know her oga used to know how to use the police to drag critics. So let me state it very clearly that this write-up is not about the very beautiful Nollywood vixen that is today a distinguished wife of a senator, but about a post she made on Instagram which announced her appointment as Social Secretary of Senators’ Wives’ Forum of the 10th Assembly as convened by their “mother” the very beautiful and distinguished wife of our Senate President, the highly respected Akwa Ibom man and uncommon politician, Senator Godswill Akpabio As I saw the report, tears welled in my eyes.

Another jamboree of overfed and almost bored women who just happened to share bedrooms with a group of Nigerians that we have allowed to call themselves senators.

That picture brought to mind the pictures of “tapping” of crude oil that they showed us. You know how pipes are attached to the main crude oil flow pipes and from there, our collective wealth is sucked out. Na so this

Regina Daniels

NNPCL that is importing and all others are taking from them on the back of one contract that was signed long ago, and that by the time the contract expires in September, it will be all out bedlam.

My people, let me advise Mr. Tinubu. He needs to urgently do the following – defend the naira, phase out the subsidy removal, bring back some form of subsidy to hold down the price of fuel, at least, for another six months, keep the naira at this rate by shoring up the supply side. Move troops to the creeks in a bid to shore up production. I hear we are doing only 900,000 barrels as against two million. The war is now in the creeks- the Army, Navy, DSS everybody should enter that place so that we shore up the supply side.

Beg diaspora to throw in some more funds, give incentives from this. Let’s double the diaspora remittances, reduce taxes on domestic economy but shore up taxes on luxury goods, tourism, irrelevant travel and the rest. Reduce duties on medical equipment and other essentials.

Much more importantly, reduce the cost of governance. Reduce the 40 aides to five, cancel the reported N70 billion “furniture allowance,” reduce cost of running the National Assembly and this our unique democracy and declare a state of economic emergency – austerity measures. Cut international travel by the president and outrightly ban all public officials from overseas travel except funded by themselves.

If you cannot do this and more, then be man enough to say, “I have come, I have fulfilled my ambition and Nigerians deserve better, let me retire to a nice life of agbado-eating and put my leg up.”

contraption will be to the budget of the Senate and by extension our commonwealth.

They say they want to work for the “growth of the country” - whatever that means among other things. Me, I just tire because this one just reminds me of the jamborees, our military despots’ wives used to do that time – better life for this and that and we all later saw whose better life they were wearing all that ankara for.

It is not only senators’ wives o, all sort of leeching associations – wives of Lagos State public officials, wives of traders under Iya Oloja, husbands of presidential aides. My people, e be like say this Tinubu is just looking at this thing as one giant political campaign ground where everybody is wearing aso oke and dancing to Kwam 1. We are in serious trouble, I tell you.

BABAJIDE SANWO-OLU, LAGOS IS FALLING Bro, how you dey na? I just say I should talk to you very gently. I have been sending text messages but you have not been replying. I know it will not be easy for you as the whole world would be craving for your attention. I

Sanwo-Olu

Tinubu

just said, I should put that one out there before they say, “Duke you have access, why go public.”

Egbon, Lagos is falling o. Is it because of the court cases challenging your election that has made you slow down? If that is it, forget about it. You will emerge victorious. You won the elections fair and square. How you won na another episode for the series but for now, you won.

Bro, abeg let’s start working again. Lagos is falling apart. Have you gone to Festac, Amuwo up to the Badagry stretch? E be like a war zone. E be like where Russian and Ukrainian soldiers dey fight.

Someone reached out to me during the week, “Duke help me shout. I live in Festac and nothing is happening. The roads are despicable, waste all over the place, infrastructural decay and desolation.” I say bro, wetin be your name and he gave me a moniker -motiwa, motilo. I laughed, but he had made his point.

Another person opined that the elections must have taken its toll on state finance

Oyebanji

and that the state will have to reflate before any meaningful development stride can be undertaken. Na wa.

Your Excellency, if you have seen that movie – London is Falling - na so Lagos is falling. The whole state is looking like one big garbage dump. You have to sit up o and show us your power. We have seen this power before and we know you have power. Oya unleash am o, we dey wait. Na wa.

GOV. ABIODUN OYEBANJI, KINDLY STEER CLEAR Bro, please kindly steer clear of this matter.

Asking us to give Asiwaju some time and to be patient is a very “rude” statement under the circumstances. We like you, in fact I personally like your demeanour, your approach to governance and very importantly your common touch which has made you very popular in your state.

But putting mouth in this matter? Please sir, just leave it. Do not let us drag you or make you drop from our very popular list. Petrol at over N600 and still climbing? Inflation at 22%? Dollar at N800? Do you realise that Naira fell by N100 in one week?

You think it’s a popularity game? These are people’s lives we are toying with all because one man has screamed it is his turn. Do you know that millet is now N60,000 per bag and that the poor in the North can no longer afford it?

Do you know that people are dying needlessly and are eating grass?

My brother, please I beg you. Leave this thing. I personally like you that is why I am not being harsh. Do you know the implications of this on health, security, jobs? Do you know that I lost someone who could not afford ICU treatment for his wife because by the time he raised the N600,000 bill they gave him four weeks earlier, the bill had hit N1.5m?

If you cannot boldly look your master in the face and say that this is the worst first 90 days of any government in Nigeria economically, then just relax. Go to Ikogosi Warm Springs and relax. You know the point where hot and cold water meet, just roll up your trousers and sit there. Put one leg in hot and one leg in cold and pray for Nigeria. Thank you, baba, no vex, there is anger in the land.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

IMAGES

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joyous moment filled with drumming, trumpeting,encomiumshoweringforOlu-Ekunand paramountrulerofIle-Iluji,OndoState,Oba(Dr) Julius Olawale Olufaderin Adetimehin as he celebrated his 70th birthday with the other royal fathers, sons,daughters,friendsandhisformerstudentsatIbadan Poly, at Civic Centre in the Ile-Iluji town… recently

PHOTOS: ABAYOMI AKINYELE

L-R: Oba (Dr) Julius Olawale Olufaderin Adetimshin and Olori (Dr) Adetokunbo Olubunmi

L-R: Oba (Dr) Julius Olawale Olufaderin Adetimehin and Olori (Dr) Adetokunbo Olubunmi

L-R: Alapinsa of Ipinsa, Oba (Dr) Omoniyi Olufunmilayo;_ Agbolu of Agbolu, Ife, Oba Adekunle Adewale (representing The Ooni of Ife); and Osemawe of Ondo Kingdom, Oba Victor L-R: Senator Nicholas Tofowomo, representing Ondo South;_ Professor Akin Akinyosoye; and Chief Abiodun Akinselure Adesimbo Kiladejo

L-R: Prof. Bola Akinterinwa; Chief Sola Akinfemiwa; and Mr. Oladunjoye Oyewumi

L-R: Evang. (Mrs) Dupe Ogunsusi; Venerable Yemi Adewakun,;Mrs Moji Adewakun; and Bishop of Ile-Ileluji Anglican Diocese, Bishop Rt Revd Abel Ajibodu

L-R: Olori Kehinde Adewaire; Oba Orimadegun of Eyingunland, Oba Benson Adewaire; Olusama of Usama, Oba David Iliyomade Adewore; and Olori Rachael Adewore

L-R: Mr. Ademola Akinbola; and Chief Henry Akinsuroju

L-R: Mr. Dotun Adekanbi, his wife, Alaba; and High Chief Adewale Akinfolarin

L-R: High Chief Olufemi Akinsulure; High Chief Akinfemiwa Kehinde; and Lisa of Ile-Iluji, High Chief Johnson Akinyele Fagbemiye

L-R: Dr Akinsefunmi Akintunji and Mrs Clara Akintunji

L-R: Lobun Victoria Akinwayowa; Chief Olubumi Ajeromoke; and Chief (Mrs) Wura Adepoju

L-R: Chief Orunto Akinlolu Akintoye and Mrs Clara Akintoye

L-R: Prof. Oluyemisi Akinyemiju; Dr Afolabi Adewakun; and and Engr. Kehinde Akinrowo

L-R: Mrs Oseyemi Omoniyi; Mrs Tolaigbe Ayeye; and Iya Loja General, Chief (Mrs) Mofesola Adegbemigun; and Mrs Beatrice L-R: Occasion’s chairman, Dr. Akinsefunmi Akintunji and chief launcher, Mr. Dunjaye Oyewunmi Abidoye

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

INTERNATIONAL

Tinubuplomatic Approach to ECOWAS’ Politico-Militari Lull: The Challenge of Coup after Coup

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ne politico-militarylullwithwhichtheEconomic Community ofWest African States (ECOWAS) is currently faced is how to resolve the problem of unconstitutional change of government in Africa.UnconstitutionalchangeofGovernment asacriticalissueinAfricadatesbacktothe1990s and has now acquired a recidivist character.

Several efforts have been made by African leaders, but to no avail, to prevent the saga. It is against this background that the statement made by Nigeria’s new leader, President Bola AhmedTinubu (PBAT), in Guinea Bissau on Sunday, 9th July, 2023 should be explained and understood. He said we could no longer sit down idly to watch coups being made one after the other.

True, the literature on unconstitutional changes of government in Africa is quite rich. For instance, the discussion paper number 70, entitled“Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa: What Implications for Democratic Consolidation?”presented by J. Shola Omotola to the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet in Uppsala in 2011, is noteworthy because of the holistic character of the issues he raised. In this regard, Research Professor Cyril Obi, formerly of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and later a Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, noted in his foreword to the published paper the military coups in Mauritania and Guinea in 2008, Madagascar in 2009 and in Niger Republic in 2010. In the eyes of Obi, the coups were ‘unwholesome trend in the face of sub-regional and pan-African norms proclaiming zero-tolerance for unconstitutional change in government (which) poses a major challenge to the democratic project in Africa’ In other words, unconstitutional change of government is quite familiar an issue in political governance. It is a problematic.

Shola Omotola has said: ‘the various forms of unconstitutional change of government constitute grave dangers to the stability and consolidation of democracy in Africa… When sanctions are imposed on an unconstitutional government by the international community and donors, ordinary people feel the pain and suffer much more than the power elites. In these circumstances, both strategic and non-strategic elements of national security are compromised, especially human security. These consequences generate conditions that are inimical to the stability and consolidation of democracy.’How can the Tinubuplomatic approach solve the problem of unconstitutional change of government which has defied the serious efforts of the past leaders?

AU and ECOWAS’ Politico-Militari Lull The global world of the 1970s and 1980s was not as complicated as the global world of today. There was no globalisation in the 1970s and 1980s per se.Today, it is a world of globalisation driven

by ICT that has the potential of being used to recolonize Africa by new means. It is in this new complex world that PBAT is preparing to enter and engage Nigeria. And without any jot of braggadocio, unconstitutional changes of government in Africa have not only been of major pre-occupation, but have been particularly very saddening,especiallywhenviewedfromtheperspectivethatformer colonialmastersattimesaidandabetcoupmakinginAfrica.Africans accept to be used as instruments of instability and insecurity.

In 1991, the Heads of State and Government of the ECOWAS met in Authority and decided in its Declaration A/DCL.1/7/91 on Political Principles of the ECOWAS to promote democracy inWest Africa‘on the basis of political pluralism and respect for fundamental human rights as embodied in universally recognised international instruments of human rights and in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.’

The Declaration specifically states that the AU is‘guided by the principles enshrined in the various instruments adopted by the OAU and the AU to systematically and consistently address the unconstitutional changes of government, in particular Decisions AHG/Dec.141 (XXXV) and AHG/Dec.142 (XXXV), adopted by the 35th Ordinary Session of the OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, held in Lomé, Togo, from 10 to 12 July 2000’which is generally referred to as the Lomé Declaration.

with

Bola A. Akinterinwa Telephone : 0807-688-2846

e-mail: bolyttag@yahoo.com

Tinubu Similarly, Article 3(g) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, done in Togo on 11th July 2000, provides for the promotion of ‘democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance. The Article requires the ‘respect for democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law and good governance’ and specially condemned and rejected any‘unconstitutional changes of governments.’Explaineddifferently,notonlydidtheECOWAS frown at dictatorship in 1991, and determining to promote democracy and protect human rights, the African Union (AU) further strengthened the ECOWAS determination by accepting the non-acceptance of unconstitutional change of government in whatever circumstance in Africa beyond declarative condemnation.

The Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of States and Government, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has not only inaugurated a Reflection Forum, but has declared a zero tolerance for the overthrow of constitutionally-elected governments. He condemned the manipulation of constitutions by incumbents and all other forms of unconstitutional changes of government. He argued that a stable period of constitutional government and proper management of the economy can lead to inclusive prosperity for Africa (vide AU’s Declaration on Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa).

It is therefore not surprising that the OAU unequivocally condemned and rejected in 1997 any unconstitutional change of government in Harare after a coup d’état in Sierra

For over two decades, the OAU and the AU fought unconstitutional changes of government tooth and nail but to no avail. Even if there is good governance, can’t an individual’s political greediness prompt a coup d’état? Coup-making is not always about saving a nation-state. Good governance does not prevent the use of religious beliefs to plan coups. Religious beliefs can be dynamics of coup-making.

Boko Haramism in Nigeria has little to do with good governance. The Boko Haramists simply do not want Nigeria as it is now. They want an Islamic State. ECOWAS leaders do not even appear to have asked what informed Muammar Gaddafi’s observation that there would not be peace in Nigeria until Nigeria is divided into Muslim North and Christian South. If Nigeria, at the domestic level, does not know or have peace and security as a regional giant, in which way can boko haramists and their Al Qaeda allies be contained in West Africa? PBAT told the 5thMYCM (Fifth Mid-Year Coordination Meeting) of the AU about the ECOWAS plan to strengthen the ECOWAS Standby Force to deter coups and combat terrorism in the sub-region. How much can the Force do? France, EU allies and the US have been fighting terror for more than a decade but to no avail in the Sahel. Really, PBAT should be an internationalist, a regionalist or a sub-regionalist but should stop speaking simultaneously as a sub-regionalist and internationalist when he is an ECOWAS chairperson. He said, ‘in Nigeria we are back,’ but back to do what?

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VIE INTERNATIONALE

Leone. In the eyes of the OAU, ‘coups are sad and unacceptable development in our continent, coming at a time when our people have committed themselves to respect of the rule of law based on people’s will expressed through the ballot and not by bullet.’In fact, the OAU Decision AHG/Dec.141 (XXXV), mentioned above unanimously rejected any change in constitution in order to sustain powerincumbencyasanunacceptableandanachronisticact,which is in contradiction of the commitment to promote democratic principles and conditions.

It should also be noted that at this 35th Ordinary Session of the OAU,‘a definition of what constitutes an unconstitutional change was given: military coups d’état against democratically-elected governments;replacementofdemocratically-electedGovernments by armed dissidents group and rebel movements; refusal by an incumbent government to relinquish power to the winning party after free, fair and regular elections. In fact, as further provided, whenever there is a case of unconstitutional change of government, the OAU Chairman and the OAU Secretary-General‘should immediately and publicly condemn such a change and urge for the speedy return to constitutional order.’ The OAU should also ‘convey a clear and unequivocal warning to the perpetrators of the unconstitutional change that, under no circumstances, will their illegal action be tolerated or recognised by the OAU. And true enough, both the ECOWAS, in particular, and the AU, in general, have been complying with the foregoing prescriptions whenever there are fresh cases of coups.TheWest African region has played host to coups in Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mali in the past 24 months.The ECOWAS mediation intervention in Mali is interesting in terms of its futility. The definition of an unconstitutional change of government is mainly considered from useofmilitaryforceandpeaceful,butfraudulentmanipulationofthe Constitution to prolong the stay in power of an incumbent leader.

Whereas, as clearly shown in the cases of Mali and Burkina Faso, it is not any dissident group or military guys that initiated the coups.

The people or a larger population of the country wanted a change of government.When a coup is popularly supported, the question of who the ECOWAS or the AU is seeking to protect must be asked.

Neither the ECOWAS nor the AU has any policy attitude towards people’s coup.This is why it has always been difficult for the regional and continental organisations to nip in the bud coup-making in Africa.Inrecenttimes,electedgovernmentsarebetterknownforvery poor governance, heightened political and economic corruption to the extent that the civilian law-abiding people have to embark on weeks of protest to compel a change of government. This was specifically the situation in Mali.

It can be argued that the people should wait for the time of election to remove any unwanted president or ruling party. But the dilemma is that African elections are never seen to be credible.They are generally fraught with deliberate rigging, violence, declaration of results where election never took place. Without gainsaying, elections in Africa are, at best, elections of magouilles. This is why space is always created for coup-making and this is also why the Reflection Forum became a desideratum.

In other words, the AU Department of Political Affairs, led by H.E. Bankole Adeoye, the AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, held the‘Reflection Forum on Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa from 15 to 17 March 2022 in Accra, Ghana. The Forum requires the AU Member States to comprehensively address unconstitutional changes of Government in Africa, to synergise their interventions and called for the establishment of a multi-stakeholders mechanism on democratic governance, to facilitate the consolidation of constitutionalism in Africa and to establish different categories of sanctions that they may be gradually applied in accordance with the gravity of the violation or threat to the Constitutional Order, without compromising the well-being of ordinary, and especially vulnerable citizens.

Tinubuplomatic Approach and Implications PBAT’s acceptance speech as ECOWAS Chairman is more of happiness to commit than an acceptance to recall history and learn from it. Nigeria’s chairmanship of the ECOWAS has shown collective wish for Nigeria to lead the regional organisation, not necessarily because of any Nigerian special skills that other countries do not have, but primarily because of the need to secure Nigeria’s commitment as a big brother or big financial spender, so to say, to provide more financial resources for ECOWAS development projects.

Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida was especially encouraged to serve as ECOWAS chairman for many consecutive years in the past, whereas the chairmanship of the organisation was, and still is, for one year and on a rotational basis. It should be recalled that General Muhammadu Buhari ousted Alhaji Shehu Shagari from power in December 1983. General Buhari was the ChairmanoftheECOWASasatAugust1985whenGeneralBabangida also ousted Buhari from power.This was how President Babangida remained the ECOWAS chairperson until 1989.

Without doubt, Article 5(4) of the 1975 ECOWAS Treaty says ‘the Authority shall meet at least once a year. It shall determine its own procedure, including that for convening its meetings for the conduct of business threat and at all times, and for annual rotation of the Office of Chairman among the Members of the Authority.’

Read full article online - www.thisdaylive.com

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JUNE 24 2012

ARTS & REVIEW A

PUBLICATION

23. 7. 2023

Through the Furnace of Adversity…

In a just-concluded solo exhibition at the National Museum in Onikan, Lagos, Bolaji Ogunwo highlights the gains of the pandemic lockdown period. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke reports

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ales of distress simmer beneath these paintings’ colourful, pixilated images. And even despite the artist’s skillful efforts at coating them with a veneer of painterly flourish, their lurking storylines still erupt in the viewer’s consciousness, dredging up recollections of their stark dreadfulness.

Shouldn’t this be one good reason why Bolaji Ogunwo’s just-completed solo exhibition, Terra Firma, deserves special mention among the many recent exhibitions in Lagos’ dynamic art scene?

Held at the National Museum in Onikan, Lagos, from Sunday, July 16 to Saturday, July 22, this University of Lagos lecturer’s sixth solo outing featured 20 oil and acrylic paintings, which are visual narratives of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown of recent memory. True, the pandemic lockdown period may have exposed some human potential for resilience.

It still remains, to many discerning ones, the modern-day equivalent of the biblical handwriting on the wall for an erring humanity and, maybe, a dress rehearsal before the final blows of the Divine Judgement begin to descend inexorably.

Against this backdrop, Ogunwo’s emphasis on the gains of the lockdown period begins to make sense to the viewer, who, while standing on the solid ground—or the terra firma—of his unique experiences, is able to sift them from the many sad tales of misery. Hence, not even the artist’s allusion to that event as “a big tragedy” diminishes the fact that more capacity to cope with adversity was gained.

Talking about these gains, the artist readily cites his attendance at virtual meetings in three geographically dispersed locations in one day from the comfort of his home as a case in point. Is it surprising, therefore, that this optimism reverberates in the titles of such oil on canvas paintings as “Solid Ground” 2022, “In Christ Alone” 2023, “Songs of Freedom” 2023, “Beatitude” 2022, and the triptych “Momemtum” 2023, as well as the acrylic on canvas offerings as “New Ground” 2024, “Higher Ground” 2023, and “Joy in the Morning” 2023, among others?

Besides, if certain qualities about these paintings seem to strike a familiar chord in the viewer ’s mind, it would probably be because they are extensions of Ogunwo’s prior explorations of similar techniques.

It is as though the 2020 Delta State University, Abraka doctorate degree holder seems to have found his painterly niche—perhaps a comfort zone—somewhere between abstrac-

Dr. Ogunwo

The More We Look...

tion and Impressionism.

Evoking the illusion of movement, the ensemble of colourful compo-

The More We See

nent units of the paintings inevitably resolve into some sort of visual coherence,

thus stimulating the viewer ’s conjecture-prone fantasies. Take the oil on canvas painting “The More We Look” or its acrylic on canvas kindred “The More We See”, whose titles already seem to urge the viewer to look beyond the obvious, for instance. The subtlety of the contrast between the brighter and the more sombre-hued colours in them leaves the impression that figures, whose faces loom from the haze of colours, are engaged in a conversation with unseen interlocutors.

Actually, a combination of the titles of both paintings casts the multiple award-winning artist in the mould of a die-hard optimist. For rather than echoing the time-worn aphorism “the more you look, the less you see”, he offers the more upbeat option “the more we look, the more we see.” The artist, obviously, would prefer to summarise his experiences at the time in happier terms than lament the depressing state of the world now.

The suffusion of brilliant colours in the exhibition’s offerings organically stretches their message beyond the viewer ’s expectations. Already, by way of caution, Ogunwo in his artist statement enjoins his audience not to consider the “formal descriptors” as a “technical guardrail” or “aesthetic lens” through which they can evaluate the body of work. This leaves, at the viewers’ command, a wide range of possibilities to mull over. “Rather, they are terms that variously capture my preoccupation with the recent past, and the tainted imagery I am trying to espouse through the everyday relatable subjects,” he explains. “These subjects underscore my response to the recent realities and convey a canon of meanings beyond what they may be ordinarily associated with.”

Thus, the offerings of the exhibition, even when the artist affirms that they are all about the COVID-19 lockdown narrative, do not entirely renounce ties with current realities.

Indeed, while they may not have expressed themselves as jeremiads, their titles stamp them as suited for these distressing times. After all, the spectre of these woes, which he associates with that period, such as job losses and the deaths of loved ones, still haunts the today’s world.

Somehow, Ogunwo has managed to direct his audience’s gaze beyond the scourge of the pandemic and the terrors of insecurity to their inherent lessons. His statement— “We went through the furnace of the pandemic, but we gain more capacity when we go through the furnace of adversity”—effectively extinguished all reasons to dwell on the negatives.

EDITOR OKECHUKWU UWAEZUOKE/ okechukwu.uwaezuoke@thisdaylive.com

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23,2023

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ENGAGEMENTS

with ChidiAmuta e-mail:chidi.amuta@gmail.com

A Life in a Day at 70

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omorrow, I shall be 70. I call it the 70th checkpoint. A friend calls it climbing to the 7th floor even though I do not know how many floors there are. It would be at exactly9am. Itwasatthathouron that rainy July day at Aba General Hospital that the dam broke. The dam of water and blood burst open and this mayhem of a life made land fall.

My grandmother, eternal narrator of memory, did not recall that there were any comets seen in the sky on that day to announce this birth. There was neither an earthquake nor a hurricane to make this birth anything special. It was just an ordinary rainy day in its season. Ever since then, it has been raining a combination of laughter, tears and surprises nearly every day in the last seven decades.

People expected my father to blow a trumpet to announce a child he and his wife almost did not have. But he refused to borrow anyone’s trumpet to herald their joy, insisting that children whose births are heralded by trumpet flourishes end up badly. As I reflect on my birthday tomorrow, I am sure there are friends and well- wishers who wouldwantmetoblowatrumpetaboutthebumpy trajectory that my life has been. My response is simple: You do not blow a non- existent trumpet!

All things considered, turning seventy in this place is a miracle that could baffle the greatest miracle merchant. Seventy years of surviving deadlychildhooddiseases,overcrowdedghettoes ortheevileyesof villagewitchesasavillageboy…

Seventy years of dodging the bullets of war, the ambushes of armed robbers… Seventy years of studying sometimes on empty stomach, under leaky roofs and with candle light… Seventy years of hunger and skipping meals. It has been seventy years of traversing this dangerous land on rickety wagons on dangerous pot holed roads. Or flying in creaky contraptions in the air.

Seventy years, each day literally begun with a surfeit of bad news… an epidemic of preventable afflictions…A preventable flood here, terrorists bombings there, a few kidnappings here and there… You live life with tragedy as an entitlement and ill fortune as an endowment of providence….When good fortune comes, it is cause for festivity.

A lot of the people I have encountered on this journey mostly think I grew up with a silver spoon!

But they’ll be shocked by the truth. There was no spoon let alone a wooden, clay or wrought iron one.YouateyourEbawithbarehands!Laterinlife, when the eba became a bowl of rice, you went in search of a spoon, not caring what it is made off.

So, do not set out looking for a silver or golden spoon only to get back and find there is no food to eat! If there is no food, it will not matter what the spoon in your hand is made of. Only people who take the next meal for granted can afford the luxury of debating what the spoon is made of.

Growing up in a rural setting with occasional holiday peeps into the urban neon light at Aba meantsettinghighgoals.Thesupremegoalwasto escapefromtheviciousogreofwantandpoverty.

The principal goal of my life has been to run very fast away from the ogre of a humble background.

It is a race you run without looking back. What is chasing after you is deadly and unrelenting.

There is no time to look back, You fear that if you look back, the ogre will catch you and trap you back into hell or use the razor blade of poverty to shred you! You have to run like mad. At 70, I am still running that race.

My late father told me some truths that have guidedmyjourneysofar:Accordingtohim,theson ofapoormanwithpoorschoolexaminationresults will end up in the dungeon of life because ‘’poor plus poor is equal to “poorest’’ QED! He taught me other inconvenient truths as well. Breaking the barrier of a humble background literally means breaking concrete walls with your head. A humble background means that you do not just reach your destination, you must ‘arrive’ with a splash to be noticed. Make some noise so that people notice your presence! When you get to a city or a country, befriend Caesar. When you get to an office or business premises, do not exchange words with the security guard or the janitor. That is beating a dead horse! The bunch of keys the janitor is carrying around lead to someone else’s treasure rooms. Ask instead to see the owner of the business. Ask to see the Managing Director, the Minister, etc. Be a Nigerian: bold, audacious and daring. At the church premises, ask to see

Amuta the General Overseer. If they won’t let you in, go back and establish your own church. Give yourself the title of General Overseer! When next they call a meeting of religious leaders, you will be sitting in the front row to the amazement of the small people who never gave you access!

For me, every new day is a blessing but also a looming battle in a war whose end is not in sight.

I wake up at 5.30 am every day. Meditations and stretches follow. Then a mental map through the oncoming day. It is a mini battle plan. Never leave homewithoutacompassorbattleplan.Otherwise you will get lost in the jungle. Do the mandatory wake up cup of black coffee preferably with a few nuts- almonds, cashews, peanuts. Do not clog up the system with heavy food so early when you have earned nothing today.

I do an early morning ride with my 14 year old son to school at 6.30 am. It is just to wish him ‘a nice day’ at drop-off at the school. It is a ritual that is both a prayer, a wish and a rejection of my own ordeals with school. As he disappears into the school entrance, I recall the bush paths that I took every day to the village school. I never liked school but studied hard to earn my freedom from the confinement of dormitories, classrooms and campuses! .

Thereafter, from about 8 am, it is exercise time.

I do an average of one hour of physical exercise in my private gym at home five days in a week. It is usually a mixed regime: 20-30 minutes mid to fast walk on the treadmill, another 20 minutes on the bike. I get to do pull downs on a lathe, a bit of weights with 5-7.5 kg dumb bells. Some days, I do 50 push -ups or struggle with the abdominal machine.

WhileIaminthegym,nophonecallsorchats.The phone is for workout music delivered through my earpods.Nodistractionsorinterventions.Absolute privacy. I end every exercise session with a dance.

I dance to the music of Davido, Burna Boy, Rema, Flavour, good old Stephen Osadebe, Rex Lawson, Oriental Brothers. My taste in music traverses generation,geography,climeandperiod.Whatever the music, just dance and be possessed with the spirit of the creativity of song and rhythm. Out of the rhythm of the universe, reality was born.

Those who dance are in tune with the first law of the universe. Ever wondered why, without being taught, babies begin to swing their heads to the tunes of great music?

As a habitual newsman, news is my endless daily diet. Even when I am working out in the gym, I am glued to the news. I catch up and stay with the news across the globe on all major platforms and significant networks. News is the life blood of my industry. Life is incomplete without the punctuation of tragedy. An earthquake here,

a street protest there, the compulsory school shooting somewhere in America everyday, the mad man in North Korea with the nasty habit of firing silly missiles into empty seas and spaces to blackmail America into listening to his bluster.

America’s threats keep him in power as the heroic defender of his hermit kingdom.

From Nigeria, bandits sack a school and terrorists cart all the innocent school girls into slavery.

The soldiers and policemen arrive a few hours too late with bags of excuses on why they cannot find rag tag terrorists on slow moving lorries or on donkeys with a hundred innocent girls as captives.

StillfromNigeria,somebigmanisreportedtohave pocketedabilliondollarsfromthecommonwealth!

It is all in the day’s news.

The morning bath after workout is a daily baptism of mild fire in a steam cubicle. Thereafter, breakfast ensues. It is a mixed grill of yet more coffee, wheat bread toast and fruits, enough to keep the engine running for the rest of the day.

Morning rituals over, I go to the office to earn a keep. All manner of people stop by to say hello.

Mostofthemcomewithaproposalintheirpocket.

They know a business that can make you richer if you collaborate with them. But the business can only work if it is driven by your own money, not theirs! They never leave without narrating their ordeal with the landlord, the hospital or the greedyschoolproprietorwhowantstodeny‘junior’ an education because of a paltry school fees in arrears since last year. There is always a dying grandmother in hospital in the village in urgent need of money to pay the hospital, or another burial to fund!

Thanks to the Covid-19 emergency, I now work mostly from home. The home office is my study. It is my best place in the house. There, I have the company of innumerable books. Books everywhere. The best books are those by great authors who have died. A multitude and cocktail of my favorite authors both dead and alive: Kofi Awoonor, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Kazuo Ishiguro, Dennis Brutus, Ayi Kwei Armah, William Shakespeare, Sophocles, John O’Donohue, Chimamanda Adichie, Mahmoud Darwish, Mourid Barghouti etc , etc Books upon books on every shelf are among the things in life that keep me happy. My favourite subjects are: political theory and philosophy, poetry, biography, intelligence and espionage, serious fiction… I buy books online literally everyday either in hard copy for physical delivery from Amazon or local book sellers or I buy books to read electronically on Kindle. I read an average of two books a week.

Ihavejustreadabrilliantnewnovelbyanunusual young Nigerian writer, Stephen Buoro. It is called

TheFiveSorrowfulMysteriesofAndyAfrica(“Life inAfricaisalongprayer...”).Iwasreadingthatsideby sidewithanon-fictionalwork–TheTragicMind-by thegreatwarjournalist,RobertD.Kaplan(“Without order, civilization is impossible…”).

Television is a constant after work. Even if you do not want to watch it, it is there watching you in its overwhelming presence in your living room and in every room and sitting space the house.

It is a constant surveillance. The television is an ever present spy from George Orwell’s 1984.

“Big Brother is watching you” seems to be the constant unspoken refrain of the ubiquity of the television age.

Digital television is another matter. You subscribeto100 pluscable channelsand watch mostly only 3. We are all subsidizing the global racket of multi channel digital television business! They sell and bill you for 300-400 channels even though they know we all have only two eyes and only an average of one television viewing hour per day.

In a world that is now a market place, everybody is selling everybody else some dodgy package, ripping off everybody else. The capitalist dogs of war are on the loose everywhere. Eat thy neighbor seems to be the universal dictum! Just sign here or click there and your money is gone to the wind of the global information blizzard.

For me, the must -watch channels for relaxation are few. Cartoon Network and Animal Planet or National Geographic Wild are favourites. I like AnimalPlanetbecausetheanimalsdonotpretend like us humans. If they are hungry and find a prey, they jump at it, devour it and move on! If they want to have sex, they go after a vulnerable female and get it over with!

I like the cartoon channels because the charactersarecarriersofpossibility.OnCartoonNetwork, give me : “The Amazing World of Gunball” where everybody has an enlarged colourful head full of tricks. Rigby in “Regular Show” tells us that the distance between dreams and possibility is just one quick dash away. Kids dwell in the world of the imagination; that is why they are hooked to cartoons. Their parents are too busy chasing after the same things that kept me on my toes for the better part of seventy years. We used to call it the ‘rat race’ but the rat is now a digital mouse attached to your computer keyboard. Just click and your money comes or goes. Rat poisons and cats have exterminated most rats. So, there are hardly any rats left to chase after these days. So people chase after nothing in particular.

At other times, television is Comedy Central, celebrating the perpetual laughableness of life.

With comedy, you are constantly and permanent walkingonbananapeels.Youareconstantlylaughing at our foibles as humans. It pays to take a step back and distance yourself from life. Laugh at the thingsothersconsiderseriousandimportant.Most of all, look in the mirror and laugh at yourself as partofthe comic pageant oflife. Laugh atthe bank managerandhisobsessionwiththefiguresofother people’s money. Laugh at the lies of politicians.

Laugh at the cleric and his gown as he pretends he can show you salvation.

Laugh at the new transgender generation as adultmalescellotapetheirmanhoodtotheirbodies in a hard effort to feign womanhood. ‘Oga, your son is now a girl!, screams your curious neighbour! ‘Madam, your daughter is about to take a wife!’, another neighbor laughs aloud. In the end, everything is comedy. Everything is nothing and nothing is nothing! A crisis of language is looming.

Soon,fatherandmother,manandwoman,husband and wife will be erased from human memory in a neuter world.

In my lonely moments everyday, it is time to reflect on the past and project into the future. The past is the home of memory, of things forgotten and forever remembered. It is time to connect the past to the present and tremble at the future.

Time to think of those who were here and are now gone. My parents, the eternal presences even in their absence.

The dinner table is the gathering point of the day’s harvest. It is more of bonding time for the family than about food. Dinner is the daily sacrament of love and family unity. Each day’s dinner is more of a communion of saints bound by blood who narrowly missed canonization. It is the hour to commune and break bread in your bond with those sent to you from above to make life livable.

At the dinner table, the burdens of the day are off –loaded in conversation. A trouble shared is a burden made lighter.

Read full article online - www.thisdaylive.com

51

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

CICERO

Editor: Ejiofor Alike SMS: 08066066268 email:ejiofor.alike@thisdaylive.com

IN THE ARENA

Anxiety as Nigerians Await Court Verdict As Nigerians continue to monitor proceedings at the Presidential Election Petitions Court where the petitions challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, Alex Enumah ponders whether they will witness a repetition of historical patterns or an unprecedented display of courage from the judiciary

T

he moment many Nigerians have dreaded has arrived - a potential constitutional crisis over the 2023 presidential election. The last time Nigeria went through a similar path was in 1979, when then President Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) faced a similar scenario. At that time, Shagari scored 25 per cent in 12 of the 19 states in the federation.

With the 1979 Constitution requiring him to score at least 25 per cent in two-thirds of the states, a crisis ensued over what should be considered as two-thirds of 19 states: 12 or 13? The presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo had challenged the declaration of Shagari as the winner of the election. His main argument was that the president did not score 25 per cent in 12 of the 19 states of the federation. But the Supreme Court in its judgment, concluded that it would be “12 two-thirds”- meaning 25 per cent in 12 states and 25 per cent of two-thirds of a 13th state.

The same scenario is currently playing out following the petitions filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party and its candidate, Mr. Peter Obi. Among other reasons, they have asked the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC)) in Abuja to determine if the winner of that election met the ‘two-third’ requirement.

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had on March 1, returned Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku and Obi reportedly scored 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes, respectively.

To be declared the winner of Nigeria’s presidential election, a candidate must also score 25 per cent of votes cast in two-thirds of the 36 states and the FCT. Two-thirds of the 36 states are 24.

While Obi resoundingly won the FCT by securing 58.85 per cent, Tinubu secured only about 18.99 per cent and Atiku scored 15.5 per cent. This made the petitioners ask the PEPC to either declare them the winner of the election or nullify it and order a rerun.

Section 134 (2) says: “A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being more than two candidates for the election: (a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election; and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least twothirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. “(3) In a default of a candidate duly elected in accordance with subsection (2) of this section there shall be a second election in accordance with subsection (4) of this section at which the only candidates shall be (a) the candidate who scored the highest number of votes at any election held

Justice Dongban-Mensem

in accordance with the said subsection (2) of this section; and (b) one among the remaining candidates who have a majority of votes in the highest number of states, so however that where there is more than one candidate with the majority of votes in the highest number of states, the candidate among them with the highest total of votes cast at the election shall be the second candidate for the election.”

INEC had in its defence, argued that Tinubu did not have to score 25 per cent votes cast in the FCT before being declared president. The electoral umpire further argued that by scoring 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in 29 states, Tinubu “has satisfied the requirement of the constitution to be declared winner of the presidential election, thus rendering the requirement of having 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in Federal Capital Territory unnecessary.”

It stressed that Nigeria’s Constitution confers the

status of a state on the FCT (Abuja) “and ought to be recognised as one of the states of the federation.”

The FCT “beyond being the capital of Nigeria has no special status over and above the other 36 states of the federation to require a candidate in the presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election,” the electoral umpire explained.

Inferring the intentions of the framers of the Nigerian Constitution, INEC said a presidential candidate is expected to have “a national geographical spread and broad acceptability from the Nigerian electorate and not meant to bestow a veto power on the FCT or its electorate over the election of a candidate at a presidential election who has otherwise scored one-quarter of the votes cast in twothirds of the 36 states except in the FCT.” It is against the background that Tinubu asked the PEPC that removing him from office on account of his failure to score 25 per cent in the FCT could lead to a collapse in Nigerian law and order. While acknowledging not receiving up to 25 per cent of the votes cast in Nigeria’s capital, he said that this was insufficient to overturn his victory as proclaimed by INEC. As part of his arguments in two sets of final written addresses obtained by journalists, the president asked the court to disregard the claims by Atiku, Obi and their parties. He noted that acceding to the request of the petitioners could “lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”

Tinubu, through his lead counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), stressed that the two petitions seeking the nullification of his victory are not only novel but not familiar with the country’s electoral laws. He argued that the courts have always been careful about giving extreme interpretations of the Constitution that could spark chaos. He added that he would still have won the election even if he didn’t score anything in Abuja and one other state.

“Our courts have always adopted the purposeful approach to the interpretation of our constitution, as exemplified in a host of decisions. In concluding our arguments on this issue, we urge the court to hold that in any election where the electorate exercise their plebiscite, there is neither a ‘royal’ ballot nor a ‘royal’ voter; and that residents of the FCT do not have any special voting right over residents of any other state of the federation, in a manner similar to the concepts of preferential shareholding in company law,” he concluded.

Compared to previous election disputes since the enthronement of democracy in 1999, many Nigerians believe that the current petitions are the most strenuously argued allegations of constitutional breach in an election.

Many have implored the court to display unprecedented courage that would end the “go to court” threat to complainants.

P O L I T I CA L N OT E S

INEC Needs to Act Fast on Suspended REC

Uzodimma

Yakubu

If the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)isreallydeterminedtoprosecutethesuspended AdamawaStateResidentElectoralCommissioner(REC), Hudu Yunusa Ari, then the refusal of the Federal High Court in Abuja to extend its interim order issued on July 10, 2023, stopping it, the Inspector General of Police (IG), and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) from prosecuting him should be a perfect opportunity to arraign him in court.

INEC was seeking the prosecution of the suspended RECfordeclaringSenatorAishatuDahiru,alsoknownas Binani,thegovernorshipcandidateoftheAllProgressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the Adamawa State governorship election on April 15, 2023 while vote counting was still ongoing.

But the court ordered the electoral body to maintain the status quo pending the determination of the suit to stop the prosecution.

The court also requested the defendants to appear before it on July 18 to show cause as to why they should not be permanently restrained from prosecuting the suspended Adamawa State REC Duringlastweek’sproceedings,INEC’scounsel,Rotimi Jacobs(SAN),informedthecourtthattheapplicanthadnot servedthedefendantswiththecourt’sJuly10order.Jacobs, who also contested the competence and jurisdiction of thecourttoentertainthematterinacounteraffidavitto the motion, stated that the lifespan of the interim order expired on July 18.

However, counsel for Binani, Michael Aondoaka

(SAN), argued that the interim order had not expired as the defendants had not shown cause as directed by the court.HeemphasisedthatINEC’scounselcouldnotclaim nottohavebeenservedwiththecourt’sprocessesashe had participated in the matter.

Thetrialjudge,JusticeDonatusOkorowo,adjournedthe case till Monday, July 24 for a hearing on the originating summonsservedonthedefendantsincourtlastTuesday.

The court refused to extend the interim order halting theprosecutionofthesuspendedAdamawaStateREC. Many saw the order by the court to stopYunusa-Ari’s prosecution as a carefully designed plot to shield him fromstandingtrialforthecrimehebrazenlycommitted.

They want the suspended REC to be dealt with to serve as a deterrent to others.

52

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

BRIEFINGNOTES Adamu’s Expected Fall The removal of Senator Abdullahi Adamu as National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress became imminent after the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the February 25 presidential poll in view of the roles he played to frustrate the presidential ambition of the former Lagos State governor. Ejiofor Alike writes that the so-called audit report that nailed Adamu is the usual smokescreen created by the Nigerian ruling class to get perceived enemies out of office as no corruption case will be successfully pursued to secure his conviction by the court

T

he recent resignation of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, did not come as a surprise to many analysts, given the circumstances under which he emerged and the roles he admittedly played to frustrate the presidential ambition of President Bola Tinubu.

Adamu’s emergence as the National Chairman of the ruling party at its March 26, 2022 national convention was part of a wider plot by some forces in former President Muhammadu Buhari-led Presidency and the ruling party to stop Tinubu from emerging as the presidential candidate of the party in the 2023 general election.

The same anti-Tinubu forces had in June 2020, under controversial circumstances, sacked the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party and imposed a legally questionable national caretaker committee led

by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State as chairman.

Oshiomhole’s major sin was his alleged closeness to Tinubu.

All the intrigues by the Buni-led committee to frustrate Tinubu’s ambition failed.

These included elongating its tenure, delaying the party’s national convention and considering drafting former President Goodluck Jonathan into the APC’s presidential race.

Buni was later forced to schedule a national convention, especially as the legality of his committee became doubtful following a judgment of the Supreme Court.

Ahead of the March 26 convention, Tinubu, as a political strategist, was believed to have supported all the leading chairmanship aspirants of the party. It was believed that the former Governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, would have emerged as the chairman of the party in the March 26 convention due to his closeness to Buhari.

Al-Makura was the only governor on the platform of Buhari’s defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

But when the anti-Tinubu forces perceived his alleged hands in Al-Makura’s ambition, they quickly settled for Adamu, who left PDP only in 2014.

Before he was suddenly drafted into the chairmanship race, Adamu was busy with his assignment as chairman of APC reconciliation committee when other chairmanship aspirants were embarking on nationwide consultations.

Adamu, a known non-political associate of Tinubu, was anointed to stop his presidential ambition.

Tinubu’s allies believed that some of the nine guidelines imposed on the APC presidential aspirants in the form of code of conduct, including

Adamu the signing of voluntary withdrawal form were among Adamu’s strategies to impose a consensus presidential candidate.

Adamu was also believed to have embarked on repeated extension of the deadline for the sale of APC presidential forms and the shifting of the screening of presidential candidates to buy time while the search for a consensus presidential candidate that would stop Tinubu continued.

When Tinubu made what many considered as disparaging remarks against then President Buhari and Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun in Abeokuta, Ogun State few days to the party’s presidential primary, Adamu was quick to threaten him with a sanction, saying that he should blame himself if his insults on Buhari cost him his presidential ambition.

When all the plots to frustrate Tinubu failed, Adamu hurriedly announced the then Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan as the consensus presidential candidate of the party, claiming that the party reached the decision in consultation with President Buhari.

However, the backlash that greeted the announcement forced the Presidency to disown

Adamu.

Seven members of the NWC of the party also denied Adamu’s claim, insisting that Lawan was his personal choice and not the party’s consensus candidate.

Lawan’s fate was finally sealed when 11 northern governors elected on the platform of the party insisted on power shift to the South.

It was not surprising that after Tinubu had won the APC presidential primary, there was cold war between his loyalists and Adamu.

The cold war got to a peak in September 2022, forcing Tinubu to deny nursing grudges against Adamu.

He argued that his alleged cold war with Adamu was a rumour manufactured to suit a particular purpose.

Tinubu said: “To the rumour manufacturers, I read in some papers about a disagreement between myself and the chairman and that was a very big lie. They didn’t know that we have come a long way. The big masquerade dance not in the cage but in the market square.

“And that is what Adamu use to be, full of wisdom, we were governors together, before

God put us together on this project again. He is going to deliver as the chairman of the party for me to become the president of Nigeria. And I am very confident of that,” he reportedly told journalists at the APC national secretariat.

Tinubu’s claim did not however, douse tension between his loyalists and Adamu’s camp.

When Tinubu emerged victorious in the February 25 presidential election, many believed that Adamu’s exit was a matter of few months.

The crisis of confidence deepened when APC leadership and Tinubu anointed Senator Godswill Akpabio and Tajudeen Abbas as their consensus candidates for the positions of Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively.

The former governor of Zamfara State, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, who challenged Akpabio was believed to be Adamu’s candidate.

When Abbas and other lawmakers-elect visited Vice President Kashim Shettima before their inauguration, the vice president had addressed Abbas as “by God’s grace, our Speaker-in-waiting.”

Shettima had also referred to his anointed deputy, Benjamin Kalu, as “our Deputy Speakerin-waiting.”

But when Abbas and his team visited Adamu, he reportedly warned Abbas’ supporters to stop addressing the Kaduna lawmaker as the incoming Speaker.

Adamu’s statement had angered the National Vice Chairman of the APC for North-west, Dr. Salihu Lukman, who alleged that the leadership of the APC was subtly working against Tinubu on the zoning arrangement adopted by the party.

Though Akpabio and Abbas successfully emerged as the presiding officers of the National Assembly, Adamu’s recent claim that the party’s NWC had no hand in the emergence of the principal officers announced by the two presiding officers re-ignited the crisis of confidence in the party.

Tinubu was believed to be behind the announcement of the principal officers who are made up of his loyalists.

As the controversy was still raging, Adamu admitted on ARISE TV that he actually supported Lawan in the run-up to the party’s presidential primaries.

As the party chairman, he was supposed to be neutral. But having worked for an aspirant who lost, it was not surprising that he was forced to resign.

The claim by the party that the audit report indicted him is the usual ploy the Nigerian political class uses to remove perceived enemies from office.

In the end, no corruption case will be successfully pursued to secure his conviction in the court.

NOTES FOR FILE

Ariwoola in the Eye of the Storm

Ariwoola

This is not the best of times for the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola. This is not unconnected with the questionable integrity of the judiciary under his watch, and the petitions filed by the aggrieved political parties and their presidential candidates who took part in the February 25 election.

Last week, the Supreme Court responded to the allegations that he met with President Bola Tinubu to influence the decision of the Presidential Election Petition Court.

The apex court denied that there was no such meeting, saying there was no iota of truth in the rumour.

But the dust was yet to settle when

Justice Ariwoola provoked the ire of Nigerians while declaring open the 2023 Nigerian Bar Association- Section on Legal Practice (NBA-SLP) conference, where he reportedly urged jurists and legal professionals not to sit by and watch the country degenerate.

The CJN urged them to wake up to their role of charting a course for national development.

He urged lawyers to embrace honesty, transparency and integrity, saying they must distinguish themselves and not be afraid to fight for a just society.

But this did not sit well with a cross-section of Nigerians who

felt that he talked about integrity, honesty and transparency when the judiciary under his watch still condoned the excesses of the political class.

They recalled that it was under his watch that people who never contested primary elections won the main general election.

They cited cases of the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio and his predecessor, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, who were alleged not to have contested senatorial primary elections but returned to the Senate.

It is hoped that Justice Ariwoola knows that what Nigerians want is justice and equal treatment to all.

53

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER JULY 23, 2023

CICERO/ISSUE

Meet the Five Judges Handling Presidential Election Petitions As Nigerians await the judgments in the petitions filed to challenge the February 25 presidential election, Wale Igbintade profiles the five jurists of the Presidential Election Petition Court, who will have the opportunity to engrave their names in gold

A

fter the legal fireworks that lasted for about three months in the court, the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja penultimate week reserved judgments on the various petitions filed to challenge the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.

Although the decision of the court is not final, as a displeased party can still appeal to the Supreme Court, many feel that the decision of the jurists would definitely set the tone of the final decision of the Supreme Court, either in concurrence or disagreement.

For now, while Nigerians are waiting with bathed breath to see what the panelists would come up, only a profile that would reveal their trajectories would suffice.

an earlier judgment of the court.

He is ranked 12th on the seniority list of the Court of Appeal.

Justice Stephen Adah Justice Stephen Adah who is the presiding Justice of the Asaba Division of the Court of Appeal, was born on June 13, 1957. He hails from Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State.

Adah obtained his LL.B degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in 1981. He attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, for his BL in 1982.

He was appointed a judge of the Federal High Court on November 12, 1998, and later elevated to the Court of Appeal on November 5, 2012. He served as a member of the three-man panel Adah that granted Obi and Atiku’s motions to serve Tinubu their petitions by substituted means.

Adah has delivered verdicts on several cases and one of his landmark decisions was in the appeal filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2020 against a trial court’s decision which partially upheld the no-case submission filed by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s cousin, Robert Azibaola.

He led the panel that affirmed Ifeanyi Ubah as a Senator after his sack over alleged certificate forgery. He also led the panel that affirmed Valentine Ozigbo as the PDP governorship candidate for the Anambra State Governorship election. He is ranked 22nd on the seniority list of the Court of Appeal.

Adah served as a member of the three-man panel that granted Obi and Atiku’s motions to serve Tinubu their petitions by substituted means.

He is ranked 22nd on the Seniority list of the Court of Appeal.

Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani Justice Haruna Tsammani was born on November 23, 1959. He hails from Tafawa Balewa LGA of Bauchi State.

The judge obtained his LL.B degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1982. He attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos for his BL in 1983, and started as a High Court judge in Bauchi State on September 17, 1998. He was later elevated to the Court of Appeal on July 16, 2010.

Justice Tsammani has presided over various election and financial matters as a judge. He also presided over the VAT case between the Rivers State Government and the federal government.

As the longestTsammani serving Justice of the Court of Appeal on the five-man panel, Justice Tsammani has spent half of his 24 years as a judge on the Court of Appeal bench. Though this is his first time participating in the panel of a presidential election petition court, a Justice Mistura Bolaji-Yusuf rarity that only a handful of judges in a generation Justice Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf is the only female are opportune to be involved in, Justice Tsammani member of the five-man panel of the court. She was is well-familiar with intra-and inter-party disputes born on August 7, 1959, and hails from Oyo West in Nigeria. He has been adjudicating on an election LGA of Oyo State. petition or political case.

The judge obtained her LL.B degree from the Justice Tsammani prepared the lead judgment Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in 1983. She that dismissed Abiola Ajimobi’s petition challenging attended the Nigerian the judgment of the 2019 Election Petition Tribunal Law School the following year for her BL which had on November 19, the same year, upheld certificate.

PDP’s Kola Balogun as the winner of the senatorial She was appointed election for Oyo South held on February that year for a Judge of the High lacking in merit, holding that a person who was not Court of Oyo State on part of a political party has no right to challenge the January 30, 1997, and outcome of its primary election. later elevated to the On July 4, 2020, he delivered one of the judgments Court of Appeal on of the Court of Appeal in Abuja that affirmed the March 24, 2014. second term election of Governor Yahaya Bello of Though not much Kogi State. He also gave the lead judgment of the has really been heard court that handed back the control of APC in Kano about her in the State to the outgoing governor, Abdullahi Gaduje, in media, as a judge of February last year. the High Court of Oyo, In October 2021, he led the three-member panel of Justice Bolaji-Yusuf the court that dismissed the suit by the suspended issued an order that National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Bolaji-Yusuf invalidated the steps (PDP), Uche Secondus, to allow the party to hold a taken by the then hitch-free national convention. acting Chief Judge of Oyo, Justice Afolabi Adeniran, He also led the panel of the court that gave the which led to the illegal removal of the then governor, October 2022 judgment suspending the release of Rashidi Ladoja. the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Although the Acting Chief Judge withdrew the case Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, from custody after the charges against the secessionist were dismissed in from her, her ruling was the first major blow to the

entire impeachment process which the Supreme Court would also later nullify. The Supreme Court declared the process null and void and reinstated Ladoja in its judgment delivered on November 11, 2006.

She also delivered the lead judgment of the three-man panel of the Benin Division of the Court of Appeal that affirmed the first-term election of Governor Godwin Obaseki in June 2017. She was on the panel that affirmed that candidates of the Obaseki-faction were the authentic candidates to participate in the 2023 elections.

Justice Boloukuoromo Ugo At 57, Justice Boloukuoromo Ugo is the youngest among the judges on the panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court. He hails from Kolokuma/ Opokua Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

Justice Ugo obtained his LL.B degree from the University of Calabar in 1989, before proceeding to the Nigerian Law School in Lagos the following year, for his BL certificate. He was appointed a Judge of the High Court of Bayelsa State on March 21, 2006, and later elevated to the Court of Appeal on March 24, 2014.

Though judge, who Ugo is currently serving at the Kano Division of the Court of Appeal, is hardly visible in the media, many see his participation in the court panel as a pivotal turn in his career, placing him on a national, if not global stage where the public can gain insights into the workings of his judicial mind for the first time.

He is ranked 44th on the seniority list of the Court of Appeal.

Justice Abba Mohammed Justice Abba Mohammed hails from Kano State. He was born on February 19, 1961. He obtained his LL.B degree from the Institute of Administration, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1984, before proceeding to the Nigerian Law School in Lagos the following year, for his BL Certificate in 1985.

Justice Mohammed was appointed a judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in 2010.

After serving for about 10 years, he was promoted to the Court of Appeal on June 28, 2021. He was the Chairman of the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Tribunal in 2019.

The PDP governorship candidate in the 2019 general election, Hon. David Ombugadu had sued INEC and Governor Abdullahi Sule of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

But Justice Mohammed dismissed the petition for lacking in merit, holding that the petitioner’s allegation of overvoting and electoral violence could not be substantiated.

Analysts see his participation in the Presidential Election Petition Court as a defining milestone in his profile.

He currently ranks 71st of the 76 judges Mohammed on the roll call of the Court of Appeal.

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾JULY 23, 2023

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NEWS

News Editor: Gboyega Akinsanmi E-mail: gboyega.akinsanmi@thisdaylive.com,08152359253

MEETING FOR DEVELOPMENT… L-R: Founder, Wowbii Interactive, Sir Gbolahan Olayomi; President General, Unity Schools Old Students Association, Mr. Michael Magaji; Chief of Defence Staff, Major General Christopher Musa; Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major General Emmanuel Undiandeye; and Brigadier General Jonathan Aun, at the National Education Summit organised by the Unity Schools Old Students’ Association in Abuja…recently

Fear Grips Plateau Residents over Suspected Cases of Anthrax Seriki Adinoyi in Jos There was panic in some parts of Plateau State yesterday over the reported cases of Anthrax, a serious infectious disease caused by gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria.

While the Government of Plateau State acknowledged two suspected cases that had been taken to the laboratory, it called on the people to report any strange illness to the authorities for speedy action.

This was contained in a

statement the Director of Press Affairs, Office of the Governor, Gyang Bere issued on behalf of the state government yesterday, saying reports being circulated on the social media “are far from the truth.”

In its statement, the state government said: “For the avoidance of doubt, there is no such incident in any part of Mangu Local Government Area.

The statement, thus, said the government advised the general public, particularly members of the said communities “to

Peterside to Speak at Int’l Bunker Conference Former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside would speak at the International Bunker Industry Association (IBIA) Africa Bunker and Shipping Conference, scheduled for 5 – 7 September 2023.

In a statement yesterday, the much-anticipated conference will be hosted in Accra, Ghana, a significant maritime hub in West Africa.

The statement noted that the International Bunker Conference “is a prominent forum for players in the global bunker industry.”

disregard the misleading reports.”

The statement assured Plateau people that a team of epidemiologists has been sent to the affected communities on the instruction of Governor Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang to ascertain the truth of the story to prevent loss of lives.

It, however, said: “There are two suspected cases of anthrax in two communities in the state. The samples have been

their meat, or hides.”

He said the state government has since directed the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health and the Veterinary Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture to address the issues with every sense of urgency, as members of the public are advised to observe safety measures to avoid contracting the disease.

The measures include avoiding contact with infected livestock and animal skins as

much as possible; shun eating meat that has not been properly cooked, and quickly call the attention of the authorities when there is suspicion of a sick animal or persons.”

The statement, therefore, admonished people from the communities “to go about their normal activities and report any strange signs or any unusual activities for swift intervention by the relevant authorities.”

NANS to FG: Suspend Tuition Hike in Tertiary Institutions, Threatens Protest

Uche Nnaike

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has condemned the planned increment of school fees by tertiary institutions in the country, and demanded the suspension of the increase in fees.

In a statement signed by the National Public Relations Officer, Giwa Temitope and released yesterday, NANS declared

According to the statement, about 500 industry experts and stakeholders from around the world are expected to attend this year’s conference.

It added that the organisers, IBIA, “is the voice of the global bunker industry and represents all stakeholders across the industry value chain.”

At the conference, the statement said Dakuku, a leading voice in Emameh Gabriel in Abuja the African maritime sector, would be sharing thoughts and ideas The factional National Chairman with industry experts, regulators, of Labour Party, Lamidi Apapa investors, operators, and policy yesterday kicked against an offer makers. of an olive branch by the Julius Abure National Working Committee (NWC) of the party Rather than accepting the peace offer, Apapa insisted that he remained the authentic National

that the government’s action is “insensitive” and “embarrassing”.

The association also stressed that the government has what it takes to fund education and make it accessible, noting that the introduction of the students’ loan scheme was a sham and a bait to make Nigerians accept fee increments.

The association stated that there is no justification for an increase in school fees across

tertiary institutions and Unity Schools, adding that those who have implemented the policy should reverse it immediately.

“We must state categorically that there is no justification for increment in school fees across our tertiary institutions and even Unity schools. Our demand is clear and simple; the attempt to increase school fees must be suspended.

And, those that have floated it must reverse it with immediate

effect,” NANS explained.

NANS also called on Nigerian students to prepare for an all-round protest until the federal government reverses the policy, similar to the one during the prolonged ASUU strike.

“We call on Nigerian students to brace up and be prepared for an all-round protest as was done during the prolonged ASUU strike until the federal government reverses this policy.

LP Faction Shuns Peace Committee Set up by Abure’s NWC

Revival Assembly Begins Azusa Camp Meeting July 24 Revival Assembly has said its 21st Azusa Camp Meeting, starting from Monday, July 24 to Sunday, July 30 at the church auditorium, 1-7, Revival Close, off Cocoa Rd, off Akilo Rd, Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos.

This was revealed in a statement

by Head, Communications, Revival Assembly, Emeke Ikade.

The statement said the Convener of the assembly, Apostle General Anselm Madubuko would lead an army of preachers and gospel artistes billed to feature at the Azusa camp meeting.

The statement listed preachers to include Pastor Emmy Madubuko, Apostle Arome Osayi, Reverend Gideon Odoma, Mrs. Olajumokr Adenowo,

taken to National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom for thorough assessment and further investigation.

“While waiting for the outcome, the ggovernment would like to make it clear that there was no mass death of 1,000 cows in the mentioned areas as reported in the story.

“It is instructive to note that the risk of contracting human cases of anthrax increases with exposure to infected animals,

Chairman of the Labour Party, declaring all actions carried out by any committee set up by Abure null and void.

This was revealed in a response to the Labour Party Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution Committee (LP-PSCRC) constituted by Abure in December 2022 The Abure faction had constituted the peace committee with a

view to resolving lingering issues affecting the unity of the party.

The committee had invited some members of the LP-NWC loyal to Apapa to appear before it for talks and to further address existing grievances in the party.

In its July 18 letter, the committee said the meeting would provide both factions with the opportunity “to resourcefully interact and find

lasting solutions to the lingering crisis currently rocking the party.”

Among those invited for the meeting scheduled to hold today Sunday July 23, 10:00 a.m. at NICON Luxury Hotel, Abuja are: Prince Favour Reuben, Comrade Eragbe Anslem, Chief Oko Eze, Hon. Murphy Imaseun, Comrade Arabambi Anatomy, Mr. Akinghade Oyelekun and Mr. Mike Auta.

UN Urges Action to Tackle Food Insecurity in Nigeria Michael Olugbode in Abuja

Madubuko Evangelist Ikechukwu Peter Nnajiofor.

The gospel song ministers, according to the statement, Mercy Chinwo-Blessed, Sunmisola Agbebi, Kaestring, Nene Olajide, and Ighosa Obaro.

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale, has called on the federal government to intensify action to address the pervasive issue of food insecurity in Nigeria.

Schmale, who emphasised the importance of revitalising the country’s food systems, commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent declaration of food security as a national emergency.

Schmale described Tinubu’s action as a positive step towards combating rising food prices and shortages.

In a statement ahead of the Africa Social Impact Summit, organised by the Sterling One Foundation in collaboration with the UN in Nigeria, Schmale urged all stakeholders to unite and formulate a comprehensive rescue plan for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The summit would present an opportunity for federal and state governments, the private

sector, development partners, and other critical stakeholders to generate innovative solutions and new hope, particularly for the most vulnerable citizens.

“We hope the recent declaration on food security brings meaningful investment into Agriculture to tackle the current challenges,” stated Schmale. He further asserted that Nigeria has the capacity to feed itself and should focus on sustainable agricultural production instead of relying solely on international food aid.

With the recent removal of fuel subsidies leading to an increase in the cost of goods and services, Schmale highlighted the readiness of the United Nations to support the Nigerian government in designing impactful palliative measures. Additionally, the UN aims to work with the government to establish enduring strategies that promote sustainable agricultural production, thereby cushioning the impacts of the economic changes.

JULY 23, 2023 • T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R

55

B AC K PAG E C O N T I N UAT I O N ‘THIS NEW GOVERNMENT WILL FAVOUR ME’ I have heard some Nigerians argue that if our refineries were working, we should be buying petrol at N150/litre. That is quite some argument.

That was similar to my position 15 years ago.

Someone said the N500 billion meant to be distributed to the poorest Nigerians should be spent on building refineries to make petrol cheap. However, this idea raises questions. If crude oil, an internationally traded commodity, is $80 per barrel, at what price would we sell it to local refineries for Nigerians to buy petrol at N150/litre? I don’t know the economics of it but let us say, out of hand, that it would be $15/barrel. That is a whopping discount of $65 per barrel. Well, that is still subsidy and lost income.

While I am enjoying the brickbats between pro- and anti-Tinubu forces on social media, the counterfactual of the situation is: would Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (PDP) or Peter Obi (Labour Party) have retained petrol price at N185/ litre and maintained multiple exchange rates?

Were either to win the election petition and be inaugurated as president, should we expect petrol to return to N185/litre and “official” FX rate back at N420/$? I am yet to hear from Atiku on this, but Obi has said, concerning petrol subsidy, that he would have put some palliatives in place prior to the removal. This sounds fine.

That means he agrees with these difficult policies but prefers a different approach.

Politics apart, the truth is that NIGERIA IS BROKE. There was a time we could afford the subsidy bill. When oil exports were bringing around

$5 billion monthly into the federation account, we could afford to burn $200 million on subsidy every month, even if experts often argue that it is a waste and that the money could be better spent. But, at least, we had the war chest. We used to robustly “defend” the naira by meeting all FX demands and keeping the rates around N165/$. What many Nigerians don’t understand is that as at today, we don’t have that kind of money again. We earn virtually nothing from oil exports. We even mortgaged future production as so to sell petrol for N185.

When some Nigerians argue that the country is rich and can afford to pay for this and that, they are probably unaware that we are spending almost all our revenue on servicing debts. If we are paying salaries and contractors regularly today, it is because we are taking loans upon loans. How can you be spending 95 percent of your salary on paying debts and then borrow to buy food and pay your maiguard and still claim to be rich?

Something has to give if you want to continue to be a living thing. In this same country in the 1980s, we queued to buy essential commodities, such as milk and rice, because there was no forex to import in abundance. We were heading towards that quagmire again.

Delayed adjustments can be very painful.

Whereunto shall I liken Nigeria’s case? It is like unto a man whom the doctor has assessed and advised to watch his cholesterol. The doctor recommends dietary and lifestyle changes to keep it under control, but the man ignores it since he cannot see or feel any problem. His cholesterol

goes higher and higher. The doctor then prescribes daily cholesterol-lowering medication. The man only uses it when he likes. Years later, he starts having excruciating chest pains owing to repeated heart attacks. He now needs a painful, very costly but life-saving surgery on the coronary artery to mitigate his coronary heart disease after ignoring doctor’s advice.

Or shall I liken the Nigerian economy unto a man diagnosed with borderline hypertension and advised to make necessary adjustments? The man says he cannot eat meals that are not rich in salt and he cannot imagine himself snubbing a chilled bottle of beer. He eventually gets diagnosed with hypertension and is advised by his doctor to take his anti-hypertensive medication daily but he chooses to do as his spirit directs, sometimes skipping weeks. The kidneys, which have been bearing the brunt of high blood pressure for years, then pack up. He now requires dialysis every other day or a kidney transplant to stay alive. Both are very expensive, disheartening and painful processes.

Having said all of this, though, I believe Tinubu could have implemented and communicated his economic reforms better. As Obi said, the way and manner the subsidy was removed was akin to extracting a tooth without anaesthesia. While I agree that subsidy removal will always come with pains no matter the timing and the strategy, a lot of prior groundwork should have been done to lessen the pains. At the heart of economic activities in Nigeria are fuel prices and exchange rates. I may be wrong, but I sense that Tinubu

did not have a timetable. It is good that he is now trying to cushion the effects but it looks to me like an afterthought. He clearly put the cart before the horse.

Although “this new government will favour me” has become a joke because of the harsher economic times brought upon us by these reforms, I am ready to bear the pains insomuch as I am assured that I would not suffer in vain. I am ready to sacrifice in the hope that my leaders will sacrifice too. That is why I am proposing here today that we should channel our pains into positive energy in order to engage in constructive civic engagement with our leaders at all levels — not just Abuja, as is our wont. All tiers of government will share from the benefits of these twin policies.

The adjustment pains must motivate us to have a change of attitude towards the campaign for public accountability.

Where do I fit in? Where do you fit in? For a start, we need to be rigorously dissecting the budgets at federal, state and local levels. What is the justification for every budgetary item? How is the revenue being spent? Was the road in the budget built? Was the health centre revamped?

Were the teachers recruited? Why are we building an airport when people are drinking from the stream and dying of cholera? As a journalist, I hereby re-commit myself to asking the hard questions. More Nigerians must come on board.

If the pains of these reforms do not push us into demanding good governance, then we will, of all nations, be most miserable — and our latter end will be worse than the former.

And Four Other Things…

SUBSIDY SACRIFICE I was happy to hear that the three tiers of government have agreed to save N1 trillion from the record N1.9 trillion that accrued to the federation account in June 2023.

We need to stop “eating with ten fingers”.

And to avoid the benefits of the economic reforms going into frivolous and wasteful expenses, an infrastructure support fund (ISF) will be set up with specific mandate to intervene in transportation, agriculture, health, basic education, power and water resources. Otherwise, everything could go into overheads and building palaces for our governors (as usual). Nigerians now have to closely monitor implementation to make sure this will not be a mass scam. Accountability.

TRIBUNAL TROUBLES All eyes are now on the presidential tribunal to deliver judgment on the petitions filed by the PDP and the Labour Party challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu (APC) as the winner of the 2023 presidential poll. From an unproven allegation that the chief justice disguised on a wheelchair to meet with Tinubu in London to fictitious reports that a member of the panel had resigned because he was put under “political pressure”, this must count as the most dramatic petition in this democratic dispensation. My astonishment is the way parties before the tribunal are making highly sub judicial statements in the media.

I honestly have never seen anything like this before. Amazing.

OIL AND JAZZ Did you read that a private security outfit intercepted a vessel with crude oil stolen from Ondo state a couple of weeks ago? The outfit, reportedly owned by a former Niger Delta militant, said it burnt the 800,000-litre vessel and its contents to sound a “note of warning” to other oil thieves. NNPC said the vessel had been operating “undetected” for 12 years. I have some questions. One, why destroy 800,000 litres rather than reclaim the contents? Two, how can a vessel operate for 12 years (NNPC was so exact) without detection? Above all, where was the navy in all this? There is something they are not telling us, and it is more saddening that Nigerians are not asking these questions. Vigilance.

AND FINALLY… After the Igbo/Yoruba online war over the Mmesoma Ejimeke/UMTE result forgery saga — during which many Nigerians gleefully displayed their barely disguised ethnic chauvinism — I noticed some calm last week.

It may well be the peace of the graveyard but at least we had some breathing space. Long may it last! But don’t bet on it: all it takes to start another ethnic baiting and cyber combat is for a Yoruba or Igbo driver to beat the red light. We would then start hearing “bigot” and “no man’s land” again, complete with Civil War tales and counter-tales. I do not expect this bitter war to end this year or next, but we need to enjoy this peace — or is it armistice — while it lasts. Amusing.

live in a low-trust environment. The media, civil society groups and other accountability actors should also beam their searchlights on this important register.

Like all databases, the NSR surely will have rooms for improvement, including the need for regular reviews and updates. It is possible that there are deviations between the NSR process in principle and in practice. If they exist, such deviations should be addressed or eliminated. There are also those who believe that the CBT approach, though cheap and easy to undertake, is subjective and open to

capture and may not be as rigorous as means testing. This is a methodological issue on which a proper debate can be had.

But these are not grounds for the governors to dismiss the NSR out of hand or throw it under the bus, except they have actually looked into the registers put together by their own officials and found them to be populated with ghost names. That a process possibly needs improvement does not mean that it is lacking in credibility and integrity.

We should learn not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

DISTRUST, POLITICS AND THE NATIONAL SOCIAL REGISTER As stated earlier, all the states and FCT have their social registers, compiled by state officials with guidance on methodology and process provided by NASSCO. It is a decentralised process that accords with giving agency to the constituent units that Soludo spoke about. The idea of someone in Abuja calling someone in Anambra to send any list is not an accurate reflection of how the state registers are compiled before being folded into the NSR. The starting point for identifying the poor and the vulnerable in each state is the Nigeria Living Standards Survey (NLSS) conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The NLSS contains comprehensive socio-economic and demographic data and is used by the state teams to identify the areas with high incidence of poverty in each state. This is the geographic approach for targeting used for the social register.

The second layer, and the core of the process, is the Community-Based Targeting (CBT) where the task of identifying the poor and the vulnerable households in the different communities is devolved to the community members. This participatory process is led by a CBT team, usually made of a community development officer, a National Orientation Agency (NOA) officer, an agricultural extension officer, a women/social development officer and two enumerators.

The CBT teams are divided into two groups: targeting officers and enumerators.

The targeting officers handle the interface with the communities while the enumerators collect the required data on the households.

The teams follow a four-step process: pre-sensitisation visits, sensitisation and mobilisation, community engagement and actual enumeration.

The last stage is Proxy Means Testing (PMT) where data gathered by the enumerators is used to create a proxy of incomes and needs of the households and to rank them into deciles of the poorest and the most vulnerable in each community. All these are done at the state level before being transferred to the NSR. It is clear that some thought actually went into designing the process and the methodology of putting the register together.

Tinubu As at the last count, the NSR covers 748 of the 774 LGAs in the country, 174, 406 communities, 15.67 million households, and 62.69 million individuals in the country. The 15.67 million households covered so far represent the poorest of the poor, not all of the poor in the country. NASSCO and its state counterparts will need to stop winking in the dark. They need to showcase their work and show their workings. Within the limits allowed by privacy and data protection laws, they need to make those in the database life and flesh and visible, precisely because we

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Atiku to APC “The plot of the APC is simple: intimidate the judiciary, threaten judges with arrest so that they will bow to their will. This is a playbook from 2019 when they removed the CJN and then replaced him with Tanko Muhammad ” – Presidential candidate of the PDP Atiku Abubakar, raising the alarm over plots by APC to compromise the judiciary.

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‘This New Government Will Favour Me’

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n some way, I pride myself as someone in touch with the trends and slangs on social media. But I was caught napping when I was discussing Brighton & Hove Albion FC in the Premier League (I once schooled in Falmer, Brighton) with a friend. I told her that “we will be playing in the UEFA Champions League in 2024 by God’s grace”. My friend, a staunch Obidient, replied: “This reminds me of a running joke on Twitter.” What is it? “So, when Tinubu was inaugurated, this person came online and wrote: ‘This new government will favour me and my family in Jesus’ name.’ Now, whenever anything (negative) happens, people go to that tweet and quote it.” I laughed. I don’t know how I missed that.

When President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy in his inauguration speech and the pump price skyrocketed from around N200/litre to over N500/litre, people joked: “This new government will favour me and my family in Jesus’ name.” When the exchange rates went haywire with the attempted bridging of the official and parallel markets, people teased again: “This new government will favour me and my family in Jesus’ name.” And so it goes for hikes in transport fares, food prices and cost of foreign education. When petrol prices went up again last week, an Obidient wrote on her WhatsApp status: “This new government will favour me and my family.” Hilarious!

Times are tough and could even get tougher.

For me, what the impact of the subsidy removal has proved once more is that cheap energy had

Tinubu been keeping the cost of living somewhat stable in Nigeria for long. Experts often argue that fuel price hikes only have a one-off effect on inflation, but the leaps in five weeks are so adverse that millions of Nigerians are in severe pains. All our lives — at least from the time we hit oil boom in

the 1970s — we had been used to cheap petrol.

We had been mostly protected from prices of crude oil — the raw material for petrol, diesel and other fuels — so much that it was always a major event when a policy tampered with the pump prices of products.

In most other countries, including many oil-rich nations, citizens are used to waking up one day to discover that pump prices have changed. By the following week, prices can change again. As crude prices rise, pump prices rise. As crude prices drop, pump prices drop. This is because crude prices determine product prices. Additionally, their governments charge VAT and fuel duty on every litre. It is no news to them when pump prices rise or drop. It is something they are used to. But this is an entirely new experience for us in Nigeria. We usually argued and fought over whether or not pump prices should be adjusted.

Political considerations often carried the day. Public peace is precious.

I have been carefully observing reactions to the rising cost of living. Supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) have come down heavily on the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Even some APC supporters are now expressing regrets for supporting President Bola Tinubu. Sarcastic memes are all over social media. Some analysts who had always prescribed the removal of subsidy and the liberalisation of the FX market are having second thoughts because things appear to be spinning out of control — beyond projections. It seems they expected immediate positive impact, such

as FX inflow and, consequently, lower rates. They are now fidgety.

I was not surprised that petrol prices went up again. When crude prices hit $80/barrel, worsened by a falling naira, I started panicking. I knew it would reflect on pump prices in a matter of weeks. Actually, high crude prices are not good for the global economy. Only some oil-producing countries and oil companies love high crude prices.

My prayer has always been that crude should sell for around $60 in the interest of world peace.

As things stand now, anytime crude prices go up, fuel prices will follow sooner than later. If the price of yam goes up, the price or quantity of pounded yam will react. With subsidy gone, Nigerians have lost their age-old protection against high crude prices.

Does it mean that if crude prices hit $120/ barrel, we will have to buy petrol at N1,200/ litre? That is why some governments intervene. If Nigeria’s oil export is good enough and we earn billions of dollars from the $120/barrel windfall, government can choose to step in. The notion that government should never interfere is an extreme economic ideology. In the UK, for instance, a litre of petrol is £1.45 (about N1,447). This includes a fuel duty of 53p (about N529) and 20 percent VAT (we don’t charge these taxes in Nigeria).

What the UK government did recently because of high crude prices was to cut fuel duty to contain the pump prices. The fuel duty cuts will end in March 2024.

Continued on page 55

WAZIRIADIO POSTSCRIPT

Distrust, Politics and the National Social Register

P

rofessor Chukwuma Soludo delivered the most stinging rebuke till date of Nigeria’s National Social Register (NSR) while briefing the press, on Thursday, about some of the issues discussed during the meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC). Soludo, the current Governor of Anambra State, used weighty and dismissive words like “there is a big question mark on the integrity of the so-called national social register” and “we don’t have a credible register.”

These heavy words acquired more weight and credibility coming from Soludo, a sitting state governor, a former Chief Economic Adviser to the President, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and a professor of Economics. He should have all the facts at his disposal and he should know what he was talking about. Besides, Soludo said this was an issue on which there was ‘near-unanimity of opinions’ among the governors who attended the NEC meeting.

The governors, too, should know what they were talking about. But maybe not. Or maybe there are subtexts that need to be decoded.

For context, the NSR is the database of Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) in

Nigeria. It was designed to provide a reliable source of information that can be used to directly channel cash and other supports to the poor and the vulnerable in communities across the country for social protection and poverty alleviation. It is domiciled in the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), established in 2016 to manage the social register and national safety nets projects. The register was put together in collaboration with the states and with the financial support of donors.

What has brought the social register into sharp focus is the plan by President Bola Tinubu to use the $800 million World Bank loan to provide relief to the poorest households from the pains inflicted by the removal of petrol subsidy. The president’s proposal, which has been put on hold, was to give N8, 000 per month to 12 million poor and vulnerable households over six months.

While some Nigerians are opposed to this plan for different reasons, some others are genuinely curious about how the poor would be identified and how to ensure that the cash transfers will go to the intended beneficiaries and not somewhere else. This is a legitimate concern, given recent experience with the distribution of COVID-19 palliatives. We are a low-trust society, and our politicians and

bureaucrats have been working overtime to deepen trust-deficit in the country.

Also, most Nigerians did not know about the existence of a reliable database of poor people in Nigeria and how it was put together.

And some of the few who are aware of such a register have their doubts. If government payrolls can have ghost workers, it is difficult to blame Nigerians who are sceptical, or cynical even. The onus is on the government and its relevant agencies to, at all times, ensure effective communication and adequate transparency and accountability.

In a way, Soludo spoke to the concerns of this group of Nigerians who have valid questions about the credibility and integrity of the social register. But he just didn’t express concerns or seek clarifications. He spoke with authority and in categorical terms. He more or less confirmed those fears and concerns, taking them beyond the realm of doubts to the arena of indisputable facts. This is problematic.

The way Soludo framed the issue, an impression has been created that Nigeria’s social register is a phantom one, cooked with dubious intent, totally devoid of rigour, and most importantly, assembled with no inputs from the states other than someone in Abuja casually calling some random persons in the

states and asking them to send whatever lists they could lay their hands on or conjure.

Such an impression is not only incorrect, it is gravely unfair to the process that led to the NSR and the stakeholders that put it together.

The simple fact is that the NSR is an aggregation of the social registers produced by the ministries of budget and planning of the 36 states of the Federation and the process followed is not as flippant as Soludo appears to be making it.

It is safe and charitable to assume that the governors who have a ‘near-unanimity of opinions’ on the lack of a credible social register were not properly briefed. This is understandable as governors have many things fighting for their attention. Also, some of the governors are new and might have not bothered to look into what was done under their predecessors. It is also possible that some of them, like Soludo, would prefer a different methodology to arrive at a more robust register. But there is also a possibility that the governors, or at least some of them, see the register plainly from the frame of allocative politics and patronage.

Continued on page 55

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